Y2J: 10/05/11

We at The Night Beat are a little more somber today. Last Night I was about to check one of my email accounts when I noticed a news story announcing the death of Steve Jobs. Now without revealing too much let me say that while I am younger than Steve Jobs, I am not that much younger than him to not be affected. He Was 56. That's too young for anyone to die.

Back just before the turn of the millennium (that's 1999 for most people), everybody with a Windows based computer was fretting about this thing called Y2K. Seems that Bill Gates never anticipated past the year 1999, so the computer clock would roll back to 0000. They issued fixes an nothing happened anyway, so we will never know what might have happened. Anyway, back at Cupertino, Jobs announced that the clocks in Macintosh Computers were set all the way, I think, until some ridiculous time in the future like 2245 or something.

I say that because, to the Apple Faithful, yesterday will be a day we remember always, sort of like people remember where they were when they heard JFK was shot. Our hearts are a little saddened, but we know that Apple is in good hands. From all appearances, handpicked CEO Tim Cook will always be asking that important question: WWSD (What Would Steve Do?). I would say things are going to stay on an even and maybe still upward course.

Apple has been a big part of this bloggers life. Back when I was in college I started out on computers on a DEC/VAX mainframe. Using Basic line commands you typed forever and when you issued the print command, it printed.....One Paragraph. Then during my junior year things changed and we got a new computer room. Actually it was two rooms. In one room there were some large PC Computers running DOS. All I needed to know was that it revolved around the same line commands that the mainframe used. In the other room were these tiny things with one hard floppy slot and maybe a 6 inch screen. They were Macintosh SE's. Anybody who was an early convert to Macintosh remembers constantly swapping floppies between software and saving, and doing it happily, because, even though that took time, the revolutionary concept of WYSIWYG computing and GUI's made computing intuitive. And I credit the Mac and Jobs for, while not exactly paying for my college education, at least giving me a good amount of walking around money, because, Using Macwrite, I set myself up typing other students term papers. If I had to use DOS or the old mainframe, I think I would still be typing that first term paper.

I said all that to say this. Steve Jobs will be missed by many, and my ancient iBook seemed to take little longer than usual last night to reboot (perhaps it was mourning?). I have realized that the iBook (coming to the end of its useful life) would need to be replaced, and because of no other reason than money, I had briefly considered purchasing a windows machine. I have repented. You get what you pay for, and I would rather have a computer that "Just Works".

One final note. To the "Church" of J***A**** called Westboro Baptist Church. You gave up on Jesus a long time ago. If Steve Jobs went to hell, I have a feeling a lot of you will find out personally one of these days. If you were truly convinced that Apple and Jobs were evil, you should have used an Android Phone. I now apologize both to my readers and those of the Donkey Community. You are wonderful beasts of burden and I should not have compared you to the WBC.

I shall return soon with more music posts. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.