It’s an hour into Thursday which makes it about 6 hours after Steve Jobs was reported passed. There’s not really much reason for me to be writing about it because not only am I just a student on the other side of the country but I never even encountered Steve past buying his company’s products and sometimes tearing up a bit at the charisma and the way he could grasp the room in his keynotes.

A few friends and I were talking about smoking cigars on the roof of the Industrial Design factory at RISD earlier tonight and amended the occasion as a memorial to Steve when the news broke. The sentiment was unanimous when the first kid walked into the Design Principles studio area and casually said “Steve Jobs died.”

Everybody started busting open their laptops and scrolling on Facebook/Tumblr/Twitter/whatever as soon as they heard. I think the internet got kicked in the balls this evening. Hacker news wouldn’t load when visiting it was the first thing I tried doing. Elevators and hallways around RISD have printouts of his face taped up.

I finished my assignment pretty brain-dead and apathetic during which time I just wanted to come back to my room and drink a beer, which I am currently doing.

The blogosphere is probably exploding right now. I don’t want to check. The HN post that caught had something between a thousand and two upvotes last time I looked. I kind of loved that man and I never met him. I know a lot of other people feel the same way. He was past celebrity and will be regarded by history as highly as Einstein and Edison.

I emailed Steve once, because I read a forum where people were sharing his characteristic one-word responses. I asked what his relationship was like with Paul Rand. Never got a response.

I expect ID section to be rather miserable tomorrow.

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