Wednesday, May 12, 2010

We all heard about the 99 year old lady, Victoria Campbell, who started using an iPad as her first computer ever. To me that was one of the greatest Technology news in the last few months. A nearly 100 year old woman starts using a computer for the first time. Isn’t that amazing? It feels my heart with joy to see that technology has penetrated the human society so deeply that its fruits are no longer only for the engineers and technologists, but it belongs to everyone, regardless of the Age - Sex - Color or Creed. By the way, who or what is a technologist? That is a question for me as well. I have concluded they came up with this term for the people that have no formal training in ‘technology’ but they know a ‘little’ about it and needed to justify their dabbling in the trade with a title. The term ‘Technological Wannabe’ might define the meaning of a so called ‘Technologist’ in a clearer manner.

Cory Doctorow, a self appointed champion of open systems (probably a ‘technologist’, hint hint) who is a nouveau Apple hater went all the way across the continent to Lake Oswego, Ore., to verbally abuse the 99 year old iPad user for being part of the problem of closed and DRM-ridden systems. Knowing that MS Campbell never used a computer and consequently have no idea about open or closed system, how could this maniac accuse and abuse her? Is Cory Dumb – Dumber or Dumbest?

Cory Doctorow, the ‘technologist’, goes on to say:

“Apparently Ms. Campbell is happy inside Apple’s walled garden,” Doctorow said after being ejected from the Mary’s Woods Retirement Community for haranguing the nonagenarian for a full 45 minutes on the moral imperative of open systems, digital rights and steampunk subculture.

Can you believe this? Has this person gone completely off the deep end? How can you abuse an elderly, 99 years of age, for a full 45 minutes for something that she has no idea of? I’d say that charges should be brought up against Doctorow and he should spend a few months in the slammer playing the little ‘lady’ to one of the king pins in the joint, so he may learn his place and keep the respect of his elders, regardless of what type of computer system they use; Open or Closed. Is Cory Dumb – Dumber or Dumbest?

In another part of his diatribe, Cory Doctorow points out that:

“I hope she’s happy in the infantile world of apps only approved by Apple’s jack-booted thugs,” the author of Little Brother said. “I hope she’s happy being forced into being a content consumer instead of a content creator. And when I say ‘I hope she’s happy’ I’m being sarcastic because people like Campbell really are the worst people in the world. And that includes pedophiles.”

Can you believe this? If you take this quote and give it to MS Campbell, she, probably, would be hard pressed to make heads or tails out of it! What does this maniac expect from MS Campbell? To become a ‘Content Creator’ at her age, with no background in the field and hardly able to see the screen of an iPad? Comparing a 99 year old lady living in a retirement home to pedophiles and then concluding she is worse than them? This is outrageous! Doctorow should be sued on behalf of MS Campbell for slander and defamation of character, and not just him, but also that rag-tag site that he writes for. Is Cory Dumb – Dumber or Dumbest?

I guess the dumbest thing that he could come up with was in this part of his diatribe:

“I explained to her how easy it is to compile and install Debian on a steampunk casemod of a tablet built by a Japanese company I know of that’s run entirely bybloody nurse cosplayers. You have to reset some jumpers and the sound card isn’t compatible yet, but you can run GIMP on it. Try that on an iPad.

After reading this can you still declare Doctorow sane? A 99 year old woman who has never used a computer in her life ordering a ‘Steampunk Casemod’ pad from an unnamed Japanese company - modifying ‘Jumper Settings” on the device - installing DEBIAN Linux Distro on it and after all that sound card won’t work? How stupid can he get? A lot of ‘Technologist” like him can’t do that – let alone MS Campbell. Is Cory Dumb – Dumber or Dumbest?

You might conclude that Doctorow could be THE Dumbest ‘technologist’ that you ever heard of. But I have a sinking feeling that the stunt had a darker and more disgusting reason behind it. Doctorow might have performed this stunt purely for getting attention and get his name back in the tech news and hope for glory days to come. Getting publicity, even bad one which I’m told to be better than none, at the expense of 99 year old woman using a computer for the first time? In response, I say: Shame – Shame on you Mr. Doctorow…

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