by Warren McLaren, Bundanoon, Australia, 5/10/2011

Still from documentary 'Memory and Imagination'

Following on from Mike's Vale for Steve Jobs. I'd like to tender, as my tribute, this quote and video, in which a young Steve, ever the visionary, remarks:

... the computer is the most remarkable tool that we've ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.

Full quote and video below.

"I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. Humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list....That didn't look so good, but then someone at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle and a man on a bicycle blew the condor away. That's what a computer is to me: the computer is the most remarkable tool that we've ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.

From an interview Steve Jobs gave for the documentary 'Memory and Imagination'

[ Kind of reminds me of that another forward thinking, creative genuis, HG Wells, who observed: "When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race." ]

If the man who continually rewrote the rules on how humans interact with information and technology believed the best analogy for his vision was the bicycle, then maybe there is indeed hope for us yet.

Condolences to Steve's Jobs family and friends.