Gawker's Ryan Tate e-mailed Steve Jobs to ask him a simple, direct, incredibly inane question: if Bob Dylan were 20 today, how would he feel about Apple's iPad "revolution"? "Revolutions are about freedom," wrote Tate.

Jobs, to his immense credit, got into it:

Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin', and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is.

Of course, Ryan Tate works for the same fine news-gathering operation that allegedly tried to use the iPhone prototype theft to blackmail Apple into giving them more access, so it shouldn't surprise you to hear the e-mail thread goes on, and gets more heated.