Miranda Devine, Steve Jobs, and too many flies covered with dead horse ...

(Above: my first computer. And yes, a friend once demonstrated on it a variant of Custer's Revenge, an Atari 2600 game released in 1982 and ported over to the Mac. He did it by sticking his floppy in the slot. At once in a blinding flash, I realised that computers would bring about the decline and fall of western civilisation).

The great thing about stocking a pond with carp is that there's no need to drape a thin veneer of civilised politeness over the chipboard of conversation offered by the carpers.

Take poor Bernard Keane's outburst in Crikey, The sisterhood? Jesus. How about common decency? as a response to Janet Albrechtsen being the Bill Heffernan bitch from barren hell.

Sure he called The Australian a smear machine, and Albrechtsen a reactionary lightweight, and a scribbler of tripe, and being part of a systematic assault by an outfit wanting to be a local version of Fox News.

It's all fair and true in its own way, as any reading of Let's be honest about Julia's free gender leg-up would prove, since that piece is neither honest nor insightful about free leg ups, but rather is a simple-minded vicious hatchet job.

That said, gee it's so much simpler, shorter and as much to the point simply to call Albrechtsen a fuckwit.

There's no point in trying to have a fair, Marquess of Queensberry fight according to John Douglas's Victorian rules when all that the likes of Albrechtsen knows is ground and pound (and yes I understand that reveals far too much about my partner for decency or comfort).

There's no point at all in appealing to Jesus, and even less talking about common decency.

Sometimes it's proper and fitting to recognise that carp are incredibly bony, and taste best when well smoked.

That's when the Tamworth comes out in me, and I think it's just as easy to say, in a broad accent, ah, ya must be fucking joking, ya fucked bit of smoked carp, with yur relentless carping.

But of course obscenities were and are common in rustic discourse, and now the likes of Jon Stewart lets loose the occasional bleeped expletive, but we know what the bleep means, as he mimes like a footballer in close up.

True, it lacks wit and nuance, and possibly it'd be punchier to just say 'why don't ya shove a fly with a dead horse in ya cakehole'.

True, it's not a subtle discourse, but seeing as how some French philosophers are inclined to a little wife killing (Althusser) I regard it as quite civilised.

Speaking of smoked carp in need of a pie with sauce in the cakehole, that's about as tasty a throw I've managed in recent times to an article by Miranda the Devine, who turns up in today's Herald to remind us that sometimes when we've eaten a bit of off fish - as happens when you're a long way from the sea - the best remedy is a purgative, or perhaps take something to induce a little cathartic retching.

Now you're nicely primed to read Spoilt brats get iRate at Apple, a bizarre exercise in stupidity that proves yet again Miranda the Devine knows bugger all about anything but is surely these days incapable of worshipping at the shrine of Susan Greenfield. Remember the glory days of We're losing our minds over technology, or the punchline to Nanny state helps to drown us in our own stupidity?

Perhaps the mass decline of common sense is the inevitable result of what Susan Greenfield, a British neuroscientist, says is the altered brain architecture of a couple of generations of people reared on technology rather than real-life experience.

If common sense is the accumulation of millions of real world experiences and the amalgamated sensory input from our environment, then no wonder people habituated to a two-dimensional virtual world without physical consequences seem increasingly to be so clueless.

Come on down Miranda the Devine, we need an exemplar. Show us clueless is as clueless scribbles. What are you scribbling at the moment?

Even though iPhone and iPad devotees revel in the functionality and design of the devices, at the same time we take them utterly for granted, as a natural extension of ourselves.

Of course I'm going to email on the bus. Of course I'm going to watch trashy TV shows on my iPad at the gym. Of course I'm going to read the newspaper or a book on my iPad in bed.

These things that were unthinkable 10, five, even one year ago, we now simply expect.

What we need is an app for gratitude, not cynicism, for just taking a moment to appreciate the magnificent achievements of the human mind, which are captured in that slim, sleek device our ancestors scarcely could have dreamed possible.

Which of course at the same time produces the utter ruination of humanity ...

Yep, give me an app for gratitude for the complete collapse of people trapped in a 2D, or is that a 3D world ...

The rest of the Devine's scribble is a treasure, a reminder that when she takes her eye off politics and society to brood about technology, she really doesn't have a clue.

Remember her anguish at George street? By George, this blight has to stop for Sydney's sake?

Some blame Lord Mayor Clover Moore who has presided over much deterioration in her six years in office, and a dysfunctional State Government that has bled developers dry while putting up the ''closed for business'' sign to hobble economic growth.

Others blame Westfield boss Frank Lowy for building vast shopping complexes that destroy the vibrant high street businesses that give a community its mojo. Still others decry our alcohol culture and licensing laws that allow all-night venues and encourage public drunkenness.

''George Street is a bloody disgrace,'' wrote Robert in response to my column last week about the filthy state of Sydney's main street. ''It used to be enjoyable walking around this beautiful city, which I grew up in, on a warm summer's night, but not anymore, unless you're prepared to risk being bashed or robbed or worse.''

Hah. That was then. Now it's Manhattan, a place for trendy vivacious parties:

You just had to stroll down the Manhattan end of George Street on Thursday night to see what a cultural phenomenon Apple has become. Thousands of Gen Ys, Gen Xs and a few hardy baby boomers queued for up to 22 hours in the cold and wet for the midnight launch of the new iPhone4, some bringing chairs, tents and portable generators with their iPhones and Macbooks and iPads to while away the time.

The wait itself was part of the fun; with all those captive customers, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone competed with a free party, free concert, free booze and free apple-inspired food served by the cast of MasterChef. Clearly the public loves Apple's wares but, increasingly, the critics are on the snarl.

Yep, gadgets, and chicks, and money for nothing, and the booze runs free, and the living is easy.

But those naughty critics are tearing at the heart of Apple. Boffins authenticate Apple 'Antennagate'.

It is of course quite wrong and improper and grouchy to expect a product to work in a decent way, not that I'm bitter for having briefly owned a Cube. After all, the old Mac 512 still fires up (and there's a nice pictorial history of Mac computers here).

At some point the Devine seems to have swallowed the Apple kool aid, as she gives a potted history of recent Apple troubles, along with a hero worshipping retrospective fit out of Steve Jobs. Bizarrely she even seems titillated by his hippie ways:

Part of Apple's success came from popular antipathy to Microsoft because it was so successful, and because, as Jobs once said, its computers were ugly and Bill Gates had no taste.

Jobs, on the other hand, was as cool as a computer geek could be. He had been to India! Lived on an ashram! Dropped acid! Became a Buddhist! Dated Joan Baez! Loved Bob Dylan! And he had taste, with his white curved iMac a beautiful addition to any stylemeister's decor.

Hey dude I can grok that. That Cube was so cool, and so useless. And the Apple ads are soooh funny.

Naturally the Devine is distraught that the vultures and the jackals are intent on taking Steve down. How else to explain this kind of phrasing?

It seems Jobs is finding himself hoist on his own petard. Too successful in a capitalist sense, at a time and to a new generation for whom success is suspect ...

Jobs offered customers a free rubber cover to fix the problem, but his refusal to apologise at a defiant press conference last week only further enraged the pygmy critics savouring their first taste of Apple blood.

Pygmy critics? First taste of Apple blood? Would that be the same taste I experienced when the shoddy mother board they'd wheeled out for certain lines of G5's blew up, and they determinedly replaced the entire computer at a cost surely greater than if they'd given me a new one? (If you're a geek you might already know about the Power Mac G5's 17% first year failure rate, as outlined here).

But I keed, I keed, I've been using Macs for a long time, and they come and they go in terms of quality control, and right now Apple is in the middle of one of its glorious fuck ups, and we can leave Miranda the Devine to wallow in her free rubber cover fix, way better than condoms for safe telephony, and instead cut to the chase.

The reason the Devine deep down is on side with the company that represents everything she hates? It's because they've taken up the cause of censorship:

'If Dylan was 20 today how would he feel about your company? Would he think iPad had the faintest thing to do with revolution? Revolutions are about freedom,'' Tate wrote. Jobs replied: ''Yes, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom.''

Uh huh. Now we're getting warmer. Take it away Miranda:

The ''freedom from porn'' comment opened a new line of attack on Jobs as some sort of born-again social conservative. But he is right. Too much freedom can be a tyranny of its own and Apple's quality control is central to its success. Jobs is standing his ground against the tide of negativity, but the counterculture guy has come to symbolise capitalist America.

Phew, that's a load to bear. Apple's quality control?

The Wired website has slammed Jobs as ''nothing more than a greedy capitalist''. He is routinely mocked for calling his devices ''magical'' or ''revolutionary'', even though they are.

There are lots of reasons why Jobs is under siege, but the most potent is the spoiled brat phenomenon of humanity.

The more we humans have, the more we want, the more dissatisfied and ungrateful we are.

Um actually, it's if I drop 4k on a computer, I expect the thing to work, not to blow up. Just as it'd be nice if workers employed to build devices didn't tend to jump out the window.

But of course there's a nice circularity in the Devine's argument. You see the reason there are spoiled brats is because of computer screens and screen culture, and so a lack of gratitude is just what you'd expect.

It's all this talk of magical, revolutionary devices that's got me really going. Has the Devine jumped the shark, is she now a devotee of screen culture, and does this explain the appalling lack of lucidity in her columns? What is this blather about the joy of the iPhone and the iPad being natural extensions of ourselves?

Yoohoo, Susan Greenfield, where are you?

Never mind. It is of course entirely possible to have porn, and pirated movies and music on your iPad (just ask my partner).

The point about Jobs' stance is that it's a handy selling point in the United States, but iTunes isn't really about locking you into a certain kind of morality, it's much more about making sure that you visit the iTunes store. And that's not about freedom, that's about controlling consumer purchasing habits.

If stepping outside the system gets too hard, then why not stay inside and go shopping?

Jobs had to fall in to line with mp3s, and didn't fail in the epic way that Gates failed with wmv, but his more petty tyrannies - such as his Flash war - show he's just another dude out to control turf (but hey, if you're a Mac user, and irritated by mp4, remember Handbrake and a half dozen other apps will fix what ails you).

It's like any kind of hardware, Mac or PC. You can do a sheep routine, or use it the way you want and as it suits. Which is why I can cheerfully say that I've owned Macs for years, and not once purchased anything from iTunes ...

I know, I know, that makes me eccentric, but certainly not as confused and tortured as Miranda the Devine.

Perhaps she should take some time out to read the story in her very own rag, Adult industry sees pocket porn market in iPhone 4:

It's a maxim of technology: Invent the newest gadget and the porn industry will find a way to cash in.

So when Apple launched the iPhone 4 and its FaceTime videoconference feature, it didn't take long for adult-entertainment companies to develop video-sex chat services and start hiring workers through Craigslist.

With more than three million of the phones already sold, the adult industry stands to make big money on this new way to reach out and touch someone - even if it puts Apple, which has always taken pains to keep its iPhone apps squeaky clean, in an awkward spot.

In at least five US cities, Craigslist ads seek models specifically for video sex chat on FaceTime. Many of the ads even offer to throw in a free iPhone 4 for the new employees.

Oh no, the deviant perverts are already out in force ruining Steve and Miranda's shared dream.

Not that we're users of FaceTime or a fan of Chatroulettee. We expect certain standards on the pond ... but at the same time, we don't expect people to control content. Not when information just wants to be free ...

But just as Apple can't control who iPhone users call, the company will have a hard time dictating how FaceTime is used. Internet experts say customers will understand that Apple cannot control what goes on in private video chats.

"Apple can't be seen as responsible any more than makers of routers or hardware are responsible for the content you are looking at," said Jonathan Zittrain, a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Which leads me to wonder if Miranda the Devine has the first clue about technology, since it's obvious on a weekly basis that she doesn't have the first clue about freedom, technology, screen culture, Gen X or Gen Y.

Hang on, hang on, now you think I'm going to slag off Gen Y, that pack of spoiled brats determined to do down Steve Jobs and his noble dream with their bitching about the iPhone because it has a significant flaw. The sort of idle riff raff who might get upset just because a seam in their clothes comes apart the first day they wear their brand now outfit.

No way Jose, Miranda the Devine reminds us that these screeching brats are actually potent warriors in tune with the force, as explained in Spirit of Anzac lives on in Gen Y:

The popularity of the dawn service is a sign of a resurgent respect that stems from Generation Y, and a determination not to repeat the mistakes of the Vietnam era, when veterans were dishonoured and abused as "baby killers".

Gen Y has grown up in a post-Berlin Wall world, and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and Bali bombings define their time. Their generation are the soldiers on the battlefields of Afghanistan tempered through adversity.

They know what a real ''moral challenge'' is.

Yep, talk about moral challenges for our time. It's working out how to get an iPhone to work, then work out ways to waste time rotting brains by spending way too much time on the iPad watching crappy movies and surfing and listening to crappy music.

Oh I keed, I keed, it reminds me, I must get back to the iPad and rot my brain a little further.

It couldn't rot my brain as badly as reading the contradictory, confused mush peddled by the Devine.

Can someone shove a fly covered in dead horse in her cake hole?

Oh that's a tad unseemly and impolite. Never mind, it's a genial Saturday, and whenever I read Miranda the Devine, for some inexplicable reason, I'm reminded of Hilaire Belloc's poem Tarantella. So here it is:

Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark veranda)?
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
Who hadn't got a penny,
And who weren't paying any,
And the hammer at the doors and the din?
And the hip! hop! hap!
Of the clap
Of the hands to the swirl and the twirl
Of the girl gone chancing,
Glancing,
Dancing,
Backing and advancing,
Snapping of the clapper to the spin
Out and in--
And the ting, tong, tang of the guitar!
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?

Never more;
Miranda,
Never more.
Only the high peaks hoar;
And Aragon a torrent at the door.
No sound
In the walls of the halls where falls
The tread
Of the feet of the dead to the ground,
No sound:
But the boom
Of the far waterfall like doom.

Of course it doesn't have anything to do with Miranda the Devine, and it doesn't mean anything in relation to Miranda the Devine. But it sounds nice, and surely that's more than enough on a pond dedicated to those who take pleasure in the sound of their confused, incoherent voice ...

And now since the Devine has embroiled us in the Mac v PC feud, why not relax with your iPad and view The 10 funniest Mac vs. PC YouTube videos. This site offers no guarantee that they are actually funny.

And if you really want to waste your life, you can watch all the Apple v PC ads, self-referentially, on your iPad. That's right, there's over sixty of the damned things, all aggregated and with YouTube links here.

Oh the humanity, oh the horror ...