Issue: People: Think Lateral

A little while ago that computer company named after a fruit hired a guy to find vulnerabilities in their software, then fired the guy for demonstrating vulnerabilities in their software. 

Another time a guy that writes about software wrote about the fruit companies software and got all of his stuff taken by computer cops because he mentioned that someone might be able to make the fruit companies product do more than it was designed to do.

The guy that planted the fruit company is dead, and a lot of people have a lot of stuff to say about him even though he is too dead to hear it. They say he was a duechbag that made a gazillion dollars by ripping off everybody else ideas, repainting them, and selling them with a bow on top. 

They also say he was crazy, as in count the steps to the door crazy, send the fish back over and over until the waitress takes the right path around the other tables crazy, and "Don't say a word to me, answer me when I'm talking to you," crazy.

I never met the guy, but I use some of his products. And I don't really care if a dead guy was crazy or not crazy. I knew a lot of dead down to earth gentlemen of good nature that didn't leave a soundtrack to a long ass buss ride, small enough to not attract attention yet large enough to hold every song I ever liked.

But that paranoia didn't seem to die with him and that sucks. They say he was always accusing someone of ripping him off like they said he ripped everybody else off, and subscribed to the idea of getting at them before they got the chance to screw him over.

The say he hated flash, now flash is dead, they say he preemptive hated people talking about or messing with his designs, and those people are being followed or fired. Around the end they say he thought the playground he helped build was getting too dangerous for its own good, and now people are building fences. Sounds like he loved his fruit company so much he decided to hang around as a ghost.

I think he had his time and did well with it. But sometimes when you are chasing horizons you forget that each step is supposed to help the next guy get there, if only because you are probably never going to see that horizon up close, and what to do with that horizon is a problem for one of those poor souls behind you.

Maybe the planter guy got so tripped up looking at his own feet he forgot he was in front. Either way I'm glad he tried, and left behind real life things that make everyone else's steps a bit more comfortable.