Note to Steve ... Godspeed

I never met you Steve, I wish I had and the other people still working in the circles, squares, triangles and all those chaotic - contrail - lines you moved in - and still move in - now from a step afar.

Thanks for the Macbook I use every day. Since 2008 it's been a real pleasure.

A seminal movie moment for me is that scene - the match-cut - in 2001.

You know, the one with the app - ape - early hominid - learns to kill and throws a bone to the sky and it is transformed into a spacecraft.

http://www.imaginefx.com/02287754333349729529/retro-spacecraft.html

Tell me Steve: if I throw an iPhone 4S skyward, or one yet to appear - an i7 maybe - could you and your new friends change it into a starship?

Not just for me: for everyone.


Where have you been already? I'd be off to M31 looking back every so often. What a trip that must be. Perhaps you've already seen that double Milky Way yet to appear in the night sky?

I encountered Apple at the Which Computer Show so many decades ago and in Byte, a 3D star map program for the Mac. Not being able to afford a PC never mind a Mac someone let me run the program at the Show. I still have that disc somewhere (I hope). It was a marvel that little program. Now, of course there are astro apps galore.

I really know nothing of you Steve, and yet your work, ethos, drive, and contribution is plain to see. I have not pre-ordered your biography [but if family and friends are reading this... ]. Your passing has made me reflect though.

Your commencement address to the students at Stanford on the news media made me realize I am doing what I love to do: both full-time and part-time. How to reconcile the two!

Thinking about your passing (this way) you've definitely tapped my shoulder as you've passed by.

You prompted me not to think about how much things have changed in my field - community mental health nursing and information tech since I started working; but to wonder, to project myself into the future (as we always should - as you did with the knowledge...) and ask: How much will things have changed from now. What is questionable, wrong, archaic about our current attitudes and practices?

More than anything Steve - Mr Jobs - thanks for that. You will be greatly missed.