Every time an employee complained about his salary or any sort of compensation, we would tell him to shut up and consider that whatever his salary were, it would be “perfect”: Lots of potential (when?!?!?!?!), a few “minor” bugs here and there, apparently nice, ensuring that the employee will have to actually multitask to get its full value, but practically short from a usability perspective, and certainly comparable to what other companies had… at least one year before!
And, as Walter Mossberg said in the previous hyperlink above, if it doesn’t work, the company will re-boot the employee as needed.
Well, before we begin, we would like to clearly state that this post has nothing to do with violating intellectual property about a relatively old yet popular hit by a singer called Emilia that happens to have by chance the same title.
By the way, lovely theme this song, played in one or two movies, we recall, as ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’, for instance.
Anyway, we have a different thing in mind for this post.
It happened to come to our minds lately the myth of Tantalus, the guy that was rich and popular enough in Ancient Greece to challenge the Gods for a place at their table, sharing with them their banquets. But the guy wnet too far, and stole nectar and ambrosia to prove his buddies he had been at the table of the Gods.
And the Gods found out.
And the Gods decided to punish the guy by sending him to Hades, that could be considered as a sort of Beta-release of modern Hell the way we understand it. The Gods, not feeling enough satisfied, went even further, and they placed him in a water pond beneath the most wonderful fruit tree in a way that when he wanted to calm his thirst off, water would withdraw from him, and when he wanted to reach for the low hanging fruit from the tree to fill his stomach, the tree branches would raise enough to remain always out of reach.
If Hades exists and the concept of Eternity may stretch beyond an iPad lifecycle, the Gods be may very well still laughing watching the guy helplessly stretching his arms towards the fruit.
Ironically enough, artists have represented the myth by using, precisely an apple. Not sure about it being a MacIntosh, but still a nice, fresh, and juicy apple.
We have recently been overwhelmed by the tons of news about HP launching its TouchPad in an attempt to challenge Apple’s iPad better than other tablets so far have.
And it looks that compared to ‘others”, HP has some chance. There are quite a number of good reviews. So we believe that all the biggies at HP might be really enjoying the limelight for sometime, from Apothekerr to Jon Rubinstein to Toad Bradley to Phil McKinney to Steven McArthur to Martin Homlish to Bill Wohl, and are kind of attempting to demand their place in the sun (well, not the SUn, for they would need some permission from Larry Ellison), their place at the table of tablets or, if you prefer, at the table of Jobs (er… sorry, the table of Gods).
yep… they want a piece of the cake that is being eaten by the guys in Cupertino…even if the crumbs are being eaten in Taiwan, aren’t they?, the same way that Tantalus wanted nectar and ambrosia.
And you know what… before they even demonstrate the slightest achievement, Jobs has punished them by showing them iPads and putting them at their fingertips and when they think they can reach them, they happen to be “out of reach”…
So it appears that while the folks at HP are celebrating these days having been late to iPad, Jobs (er… the Gods, of course) have already anticipated the punishment.
This post is dedicated to a good friend of ours that loves technology, loves being an early adopter, loves traveling, has an ipad, became a teacher, translated medical brochures years ago in the same company he is currently working at, loves singing ‘New York New York at Karaoke parties, has a daughter whose name is Bea and is married to Isabel.
