I have never really used PCs. Except in an internet café in Thailand or India or some other place. So what I am going to say about them comes from a place of ignorance. They suck. They don’t work. They are ugly. They make computing feel like something that only accountants do. No disrespect to the fine men of the ledger, but that sucks, because computers are rad.

The Mac is different. I learnt how to use a computer on a Mac. And it was awesome. A G3 iMac in blue. Badass. The ad said: Sorry, no beige. And it was true, there was no beige. Not on the outside and not on the inside. It felt special to use.

So it bums me out to hear that Steve Jobs is leaving Apple. Him, and his bros, like Mr Wozniak make things people like. They made computers cool. They advanced the cause of mankind tenfold, by taking a fuddy-duddy industry and bringing it to the kids.

Yup, they have become a symbol of mindless consumerism, and I don’t like the way they keep bringing out new models and shit, but each one is a piece of human craft we can be proud of. The stuff we can show aliens and say: that’s our homeys who done that.

Apple is the closest we have come to a Kubrick movie in our pocket.

In a hundred years the iPhone will be in a design museum. You know the HTC Desire or Hard-on, or whatever it is called, won’t be. Sorry, BlackBerry Pearl people, but that goes for you too.

Mr Jobs, you have led the boat on that. Steered us to a good place. You made me like computers. You kinda got me a job. (I did construction before that — night shift running cables under floors. Shit job that.)

I don’t know if you are sick still, but I hope you get to rest easy, and enjoy the Californian sun. It’s a job well done.

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  • David Smith is a world famous artist and a British Olympic hammer thrower. He is a curler for Scotland and Manitoba. A pro wrestler fondly known as the British Bulldog. A Canadian economist and a Mormon missionary they call the Sweet Singer of Israel. He is a British historian and a bishop. David Smith is the biographer of HG Wells, a professor of physics, a composer and a music teacher at Yale. He played rugby for Samoa, England and New Zealand. He created the Melissa worm, a deadly computer virus. He is the Guardian's man in Africa, he starred in a reality TV show and shot his way to silver in the 600m military rifle prone position at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp. But this isn't that David Smith. This is the blog of the other David Smith. David J Smith. The one from Durban by the Sea. The one who lives in Amsterdam. Yes, him. The David Smith who likes to write about himself in the third person. To learn about all the other David Smiths: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Smith To contact this David Smith: [email protected]

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David J Smith

David Smith is a world famous artist and a British Olympic hammer thrower. He is a curler for Scotland and Manitoba. A pro wrestler fondly known as the British Bulldog. A Canadian economist and a Mormon...

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