Speaking of unexplained phenomena, few forces known to humankind are as powerful or as little understood as the Reality Distortion Field emanating from Steve "Ground Zero" Jobs. Our greatest scientists have devoted their lives to studying this fascinating hypnotic energy, which has yet to be replicated in a lab at strengths even a thousandth as intense as the field measured directly in front of Steve's skull. What we know is limited, at best: RDF energy bends the human will like so much salt water taffy; it's most effective in close proximity to its source, but transmits to a lesser extent via recorded speech and the written word; it's been proven to sharpen knives and keep meat fresh, and it probably figured heavily in the construction of the pyramids; and most importantly, there's no immunity to the RDF's effects, and the only known organic source is Steve Jobs himself. Until now, that is.

See, most of you know all too well that while the AtAT staff was reasonably impressed with last week's Stevenote, we definitely weren't falling-down, lick-the-floor, somebody-get-us-our-heart-pills impressed. We are veterans of dozens of Stevenotes, and this, to us, was an entirely new experience. Moreover, we weren't even jaw-droppingly amazed at the look of the new iMac, which means that the dents in the floor where our chins usually hit every January are starting to feel a little lonely. That iMac-- great specs, great price for what you get, but we just weren't falling in love with it. What the heck, as many of you surely wondered, was wrong with us?

Well, the tests aren't back from the lab, yet, but as far as we can tell, we appear to have built up some sort of immunity to Steve's RDF energy. We know it's unheard of, but it's the only explanation that makes any sense. We've spent the last few days coming to grips with this life-changing development; sure, this puts us in a far better position to usurp Steve's power and wrest control of the planet after he's taken over, but is it really worth it if we're never again able to surrender all reason and critical thought when Steve takes the stage?

Today, however, we think we may have discovered some hope for our unfortunate condition. Faithful viewer Mike Dini forwarded us an interview with Jonathan Ive (Apple's lead design guru who shaped the new iMac, as well as pretty much every other piece of hardware to come out of Apple's labs for the past four years) by The Independent. In it, Ive describes every process and consideration that went into crafting the shape of his latest baby. We read how its design was based on that of a sunflower and how it was born from an inspirational walk through Steve's wife's vegetable patch; we read his explanation for why the base is a dome and the bottom is a screw-on flap; we read how he "could have released a flat design much earlier," but scrapped it after a year of development because it just wasn't perfect. And suddenly, there it was-- that familiar tugging at our brainstems.

Yes, folks; it's catching. Evidently Jon Ive is developing his own RDF, because after reading him wax eloquent about his latest creation, suddenly we're seeing the iMac in an entirely different light. We're almost, dare we say it, enthralled with that goofy little lamp-looking dealie. Why Ive's embryonic RDF didn't affect us when he appeared in the iMac promo video we couldn't begin to speculate, but it's clearly kicking in now, as far as we can tell. We still haven't seen a new iMac up close, but at this point we're pretty sure that when we do, we're going to love it. As for this whole "RDF immunity" thing, since we got whammied by Ive, we're fairly confident that it was just a phase. But we've left our brains to science just in case.