Tölvukrakkar

Apple Computer recently held a meeting to discuss changes to its corporate policy after the company sent an upsetting legalese reply to a third-grade girl who had hand-written a letter to chief executive Steve Jobs with her thoughts on improving the iPod.

When 9-year-old Shea O'Gorman and her third-grade class began learning about writing business and formal letters, she thought who better to write to than the chief executive of the company that makes her iPod nano.

In her letter to Mr. Jobs, little Shea offered her ideas on how the company could improve on its iPod digital music players, such as adding song lyrics so listeners can sing along to their tunes.

After waiting nearly three months, Shea finally received a reply from Apple's Cupertino, Calif.-based headquarters, and the entire family gathered around to read it.

To the dismay of Shea and her family, the letter wasn't from Mr. Jobs. It was from Mark Aaker, Senior Council of the company's Law Department, telling the third-grader that Apple doesnt accept unsolicited ideas, so she should not send them her suggestions and if she wants to know why, she could read their legal policy posted on the Internet.

"She was very upset, and kinda threw the letter up in the air and ran in her room and slammed her door," the girl's mother told CBS 5 News.

Mér fannst fyrirsögnin bara svo brilljant: ,,Apple calls meeting after making little girl cry."

Málið er hinsvegar að ef Jobs hefði fengið bréfið hennar og skrifað tilbaka og þakkað fyrir ábendingarnar og bla bla bla, verið rosa almennilegur við grey krílið, síðan hefði fyrirhuguð endurhönnun á nano-spilaranum borið einhvern keim af því sem stelpan stakk uppá, þá hefði hún verið fyrst til að stökkva uppá nef sér og kæra Apple. Allt gott og blessað að vera næs við krakkana, en þessar reglur eru ekki settar útí loftið.

Andskotann er 9 ára stelpa annars að gera með iPod? Er ég orðinn gamaldags?

Annars var ég að tékka á ,,Berkeley on iTunes," þarsem maður getur fundið heilu kúrsana til að hlaða í æpoddinn. Sjá hér skemmtilegt kvót úr fyrsta tímanum í ,,Existentialism in Literature and Film":

The book Mind Children ... it's so platonic! It says that what you really are is a program. And if you could get your program, and make it explicit, then you could put it on a computer and make back-up copies. So if bad things happen to your program you'd always have it, and you'd be.. eternal. And isn't that wonderful? And I was on some panel with Moravec and I said ,,yeah but you get rid of.. of love and food and sex and aesthetic experiences and all these sort of things that come from having this perishable body," and he said ,,yeah but that's all bad stuff anyway, it interferes with your programming!"

Warren Ellis setti fram svipaða hugmynd í Transmet, sællar minningar, og hefur e.t.v. stolið henni frá þessum Moravec, enda kom þessi Mind Children út árið 1990.. en hann leysti kynlífs-vandamálið með því að gefa þessum tölvuheilum nanóský til að fljóta um í. Enda varla annað hægt í Borginni þarsem kynlíf er núna og alltaf og allstaðar.

-b.