This isn’t an argument over tech specs or market share or the normal baloney we discuss ad nauseam every week. This is about the life’s work of a man who was passionate about what he did, and whose passion created tools that changed people’s lives and created an economy that fostered people’s livelihoods.

So there will be no links and no quotes. You don’t need to hear the ridiculous blathering of these people. You just need to know who they are so that the next time someone at work suggests using the “branding” firm of Siegel+Gale, or says you should read an article on Gawker, or rails about how important the free software movement is, you can feel free to push them into an open volcano.

To David Srere, the “branding expert” who no one ever heard of before he sent out a press release declaring this the “first day of the decline of Apple” and asking if journalists would be interested in interviewing him: No one gives a crap about your uninformed opinions. Here’s a little brain teaser for you, David: Of what value is the “branding” opinion of a man who’s so eager to pimp himself that he sees the death of Steve Jobs as an opportunity, without realizing what that says about how cheap his own “brand” is?

Don’t wrack your brain, David. The answer is “zero.”

To Hamilton Nolan, the punk at bottom-feeding “gossip” site Gawker, who claims to have never used an Apple product but feels no qualms about lecturing us on how ridiculous our mourning of Steve Jobs is: Maybe the people who make the products you use don’t mean anything to you because their products suck. Ever think of that? Or, another thought, maybe they don’t mean anything to you because you’re dead inside. Also worth considering.