There's no doubt about it: fate has a sick sense of humor. By now you've all heard about the untimely demise of Jef "Two F's Would Be Redundant" Raskin, who was widely credited as the "Father of the Macintosh" for having launched and named Apple's late-'70s project to create a simple and affordable word-processing appliance for the masses. Of course, what eventually shipped as the Macintosh was a marked departure from Raskin's vision, what with the whole "affordable" priority having been back-burnered until... well, until a couple of months ago and the advent of the Mac mini, really. And the first Mac may have been far simpler and more appliance-like than other personal computers of the time, but it was a lot more complex (and versatile) than Raskin's original mouseless word-processor concept. In fact, Raskin left in a huff about two years before the first Mac ever shipped-- but there's no doubt that he planted the seed that eventually grew into the platform we know and love, and he certainly deserves credit for being the Mac's "biological father," even if (and maybe because) he did spend a lot of time criticizing what the Mac has become.

Indeed, in recent years we've always looked on Raskin's incessant grumpy criticism of Mac OS X's human interface as a comforting constant in the Mac universe, and while a lot of his rants were of the "it's all wrong!" variety, we like to think that at least some of his points were valid and led to human interface refinements and greater ease of use. So it came as a shock when faithful viewer Marc Kirmoyan broke the sad news: the Father of the Macintosh died over the weekend, and according to WIRED's Cult of Mac, at the not-so-ripe, not-so-old age of just 61.

So where does the cruel-- and sick-- hand of fate come in? Well, in part there's the whole deal with Raskin having finally just secured $2 million in funding for his "Archy" alternative interface project (previously known as "The Humane Environment" and intended to be as much of a revolution over the GUI as the GUI was over the command line interface), which he'll never get to spend. We assume that Raskin's collaborators will make good use of the cash and maybe Archy will still emerge one day, but Jef will never get to see his dream realized, which is one of those classic cosmic bummers.

Mostly, though, you can tell that fate has its greasy fingerprints all over Raskin's untimely demise because of the cause of death: pancreatic cancer. Unless you're exceptionally skilled in the suppression of unpleasant memories, you remember all too well that Steve Jobs had his own brush with pancreatic cancer last year. You probably also recall that he was sure to inform the troops ASAP that his particular brand of the disease was a very rare and treatable form, because he didn't want anyone getting the wrong idea; most pancreatic cancer, after all, is notoriously quick and fatal.

So, uh, take a wild guess which kind Jef Raskin got, considering that he was diagnosed "in late December 2004 or early January" and didn't make it to March. We can only hope that fate hasn't decided that this is to be the general ailment of choice among early Apple pioneers, and we strongly caution Steve Wozniak to keep at least one eye on his pancreas at all times. (Not literally, of course, as that would be anatomically difficult. And a little gross.)

What can we say? Being inappropriate is our coping mechanism. In all seriousness, our thoughts are with Jef's friends and family following their sudden loss, and we hope that others can continue the Archy project and bring his plans to fruition. Even if he'd never had anything to do with Apple or the Mac, anyone who quits a job by sailing away in a hot air balloon deserves a solemn moment of silence... followed by a boisterous moment of wild abandon. We're sure that Jef, looking down from his balloon, will approve.

Look, we all know that some things never change: birds gotta fly, bees gotta buzz, and major record labels gotta act like the spawn of Satan they are. That's just the way of the world. So how is it that we're still somehow surprised that the majors are still trying to raise song prices at the online downloadable music stores? After all, we noted all the way back in April that the labels were trying to charge more for downloadable albums than for their CD counterparts-- despite the lossiness and near-nonexistent cost of production of the download version-- and also planned to boost per-song prices as high as $2.49. So this isn't exactly new territory we're navigating, here; boundless stupidity, limitless greed, and a total lack of respect for the customers are all par for the course when the major labels are concerned.

Maybe we're not so much deep-down incredulous that anyone could really sink to such depths as to try to jack up prices on something that's essentially all profit in the first place, but rather that they could really stay down there in the slime for ten or eleven months without coming up for air. That's purely a gut reaction, of course, since our rational selves are fully aware that record execs breathe slime, and if they ever took a gillful of clean, fresh air, they'd burst into flames. (Fire: the Biblical Cleanser™!) So it's actually no surprise at all that faithful viewer JoeHD40 informs us that, according to the Financial Times, the labels are still trying to put the squeeze on the iTunes Music Store and others to raise their prices.

Understandably, the labels' continued attempt to gouge iTMS customers even more than they already do "has angered Steve Jobs," who must be irked that, after handing the labels what amounts to a giant pile of free money on a plate, he's basically being whined at because said pile isn't quite big enough and doesn't come with a side of fries and a pickle: "Music industry executives said introductory wholesale prices for digital tracks had been set low to stimulate demand, but Apple's success had prompted concern that they may now be too low." So let's see if we've got this straight, here: when download sales increase (to be a whopping 2 percent of total music sales, incidentally), it's because prices must be set too low. But when CD sales decline, is it because prices are set too high? Nope-- it's because of Internet piracy! Well, obviously.

The good news, of course, is that since the iTMS is by far the market leader in a growth industry that represents hundreds of millions of dollars of free money for the labels, Steve presumably has more than a little clout, so if he's not pleased with the push for higher wholesale prices, you can bet he has a thing or two to say about it. And he's managed to stave off higher prices so far (for the most part, anyway-- you may notice a specific iTMS album or two priced a bit higher every once in a while, but it's pretty darn rare), so he's clearly been holding the barbarians at the gate. But the gate can't hold forever, and even Steve's inestimable Reality Distortion Field is of limited use against beings of true evil. (Witness the market share of Windows.) What's worse, if God smites the labels with a biblical plague of boy bands again, we're the ones who have to suffer. Is there no stopping these diabolical thugs?

Ah, "special edition" iPods; if you think that black 'n' red U2 dealie with the band's signatures lasered into the back is the only specially-etched 'Pod in existence, you just haven't been paying attention. If you think way, way back to December of 2002, you may dredge up a dim memory of Apple having offered four other celebrity signature editions, each bearing the autograph or logo of Madonna, Beck, No Doubt, or skater Tony Hawk. Just like the U2 model, each of those original signature editions cost $49 more than the same iPod sans etching. So yes, Apple's been pushing the "pretend a celebrity personally signed this thing with a futuristic laser pen" strategy for a while, now. And why not? Apparently it works.

Now, what could possibly be more interesting than a celebrity signature gracing the back of one's iPod? You got it: corporate logos! Back when Apple was enjoying its first fling with the phenomenon of autograph replication as iPod sales incentive, we mentioned the possibility that the company might sell special co-branded 'Pods bearing the logos of the world's favorite companies as yet another way to get people to shell out an extra 49 clams. Well, we weren't actually serious, but evidently someone took us seriously anyway-- and we're not just talking about those "Apple iPods from HP," which we just realized that, in some sense, we miraculously predicted over a year before the now-deposed Carly Fiorina waved a prototype bluePod over her head at the press. Oh, and don't forget that those 1,700 free iPod minis being given away during the current Pepsi iTunes promo allegedly have Pepsi logos on the back.

Okay, granted, both of those companies obviously have a special arrangement with Apple, but it seems to us that Apple has some sort of hush-hush program by which corporations can arrange to buy a slew of iPods branded with a custom logo engraving, because HP and Pepsi aren't the only companies with their logos emblazoned on the back of these things. In particular, we're thinking of TiVo, who doles out free TiVo-etched iPods to people who rack up enough referral points by pimping the service to everyone they know. (By the way, our referral address is feedback@appleturns.com. You know, just in case you were wondering.) Katie actually received one of those puppies last week, and it was quite clearly factory-sealed-- no aftermarket etching. So unless you want to take this as evidence that the Apple-TiVo buyout rumors are true after all, apparently any company can get its logo on an iPod if it just knows whom to ask. AtAT logo iPods, anyone?

Now, maybe some of the following examples are aftermarket mods-- we don't know. But faithful viewer Todd noticed in December that Neon Genesis Evangelion iPods are available in Japan-- and while we're on the subject, just last week faithful viewer Thomas Ferraro noted that pink iPod minis with the Hello Kitty logo etched into the back are available for preorder, along with a lovely pink case (complete with bow) and some kinda weird eyeless pink bear that would make a killer dock, but which is apparently just a really creepy stand. Meanwhile, back in the States, MacRumors cites Rebelscum.com when reporting that Skittles (yes, Skittles) is set to kick off a "Hunt for Grievous" online game in a month as part of some Star Wars Episode III tie-in-- and one of the prizes will be "Star Wars-themed iPods." We can hardly wait to see what those look like.

See? Custom etching everywhere! And given the iPod's explosive popularity, it's only a matter of time before the majority of corporations have co-branded 'Pods on hand as promotional giveaways. All we can say is, we sure hope we don't depart this world without first laying hands on a Purina Cat Chow edition.