IBM Nanotech has developed a people shrinker

Friends, that's not a hobbit or an elf standing with IBM CEO Sam Palmisano. That's IBM visionary futurist Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger. And what he's been working on is absolutely the most amazing invention I've ever seen in my entire life, even bigger than the Segway.

Let me explain. Some of our engineers have been working with the guys at IBM's nanotech facility in Albany, N.Y. on ways to make iPods smaller. For months now the dudes from IBM Research have been dropping hints about some super duper huge project they're doing for DARPA. Project X, they call it. Well, last week they finally flew us all in and took off the wraps. This was all under NDA but to to hell with it. This is just so huge that I have to tell the world about it.

Basically, they've found a way to shrink people by up to 50% and then restore them. Shown above are Sam and Irving right after Irving underwent a 30% reduction.



Photo at right shows full-size Irving before he put on the Nehru jacket and got into the machine. IBMers say you don't have to wear the jacket but the procedure works better if you do. It's all done with microwaves, same as in your microwave oven only operating at a much higher frequency. Or is it much lower? I can't remember. I wasn't really paying attention during the lecture. I was just sitting there with my mouth hanging open watching Irving shrink. (Also I was kind of baked because I smoked some weed on the ride out to the lab from the Albany airport. Usually it's the only way I can get through a visit to IBM.)

Sam says this is going to be huge. Like it could add billions to IBM's top line over the next 10 years. First adopters will be the military and NASA. But IBM wants to commercialize the technology. Imagine cramming twice as many people onto a plane without having to build a bigger plane. Al Gore is creaming his relaxed-fit jeans talking about how this could help airlines use less fuel and solve the global warming issue. Another potential market: sports teams. Parks like Fenway in Boston that are space constrained now can double their capacity.



Unfortunately, "TinyBlue" (yes that's what they're calling it) is still producing some side effects, like darkened skin and the "bleaching" effect on hair and eyebrows, but Sam says the effect wears off in a week or two and they hope to get that down to twenty-four hours or less before the machine comes out of beta. They're also having some issues with bringing people back to their original size. In some cases the machine has overshot the target. Check out what happened to IBM's chief financial officer. (Photo at right.) Sam says this too should be worked out soon.

"Steve," he says, "this is our killer app. This is gonna be huge." Says Irving: "You know, I didn't think anything could ever have a more profound effect on the world than Linux. But then Second Life came along. And I thought, well, that's it. Nothing could top this, right? But you know what? TinyBlue is even more profound."

Now look, I've done my share of mocking IBM in the past. But this time I think they're right. This is one of the most important transformational technologies of the coming century. People are going to redesign cities around this. It's that big. Gore and the Democrats are already talking about creating subsidies to companies that use it. Gore believes some hardcore green types will just shrink and stay shrunk, to save the planet. They'll be able to fit eight people into a Prius. Gore wants to give them tax breaks.

Much love, IBM. You're generally a bunch of frigtards, but the scientists in your research division are today's equivalent of Arno Penzias and the guys in the old Bell Labs. There's a Nobel in this, for sure.

At last someone has found a way to make that idiot Scoble shut the fuck up

Man the air feels cleaner already since that fat frigtard Robert Scoble went on his blog strike. Check it out here. Big Bob, king of the naked conversation, says he's outraged because some bloggers said really ugly things about a friend of his named Kathy Sierra. So, in protest, he has stopped blogging. Great idea! Why didn't someone think of this sooner? It's like when Bill O'Reilly told his audience to boycott Vermont. The whole state celebrated.

Yes, it's gross for people to say nasty things about this Sierra person. But I gotta tell you, after the last few years of listening to Scoble and Shel Israel and Steve Rubel and the rest of these pinheads wax on about the wondrous impact of the blogosphere and the glories of "citizen journalism," it kind of feels good to see them stymied. I mean these guys really take themselves seriously, don't they? Bunch of smug, sanctimonious dopes who lectured all of us about the "marketplace of ideas" and how the blogosphere was this self-regulating ecosystem or some such horseshit. Now they're lobbying for a "Blogger Code of Conduct." I'm not making this up. See here.

Guys, I'm sorry, but you're idiots. "Naked Conversations"? Stupid. "Cluetrain"? Even worse. What you need is a cluestick and you should be beating yourselves with it.

You know what? It's kind of fun to see you stuttering and stammering and bloviating now that you've been knocked back on your fat asses. Now you know how all those other people feel -- you know, the ones who've been getting savaged by bloggers, the ones who complained about it, the ones you and your pals at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have delighted in mocking. And now you want a "code of conduct." Boo friggin hoo. Dummies.

It's like we said before when we sued those a-hole bloggers who were leaking our product info. You guys want to have it both ways. On the one hand you want to be free to write whatever you want, obeying no rules of courtesy or common sense and not even bothering to find out if stuff is true; but when someone calls you on it you all go running for "shield laws" and pretending you're real journalists. I'm sorry to break this to you. You're not.

Thanks, Robert, for shutting the fuck up for a few days. But here's a suggestion. Make your strike permanent. The world would be a much better place.

Dvorak: Still crazy after all these years

I swear John Dvorak just writes stupid things in order to provoke people and get traffic. How else to explain this article where he argues that "Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone"? Dvorak, you have never, ever been right on anything. Have you? How do you keep getting people to pay you to write for them? Honestly.

Dell: Death by a thousand cuts

See this BusinessWeak story pointing out how Dell is letting its financial mess leak out in dribs and drabs rather than just falling on the sword. As you know, Michael and I have some history. Nevertheless, is it pleasurable for me to watch him suffer like this? Do you really think I'm enjoying this? Okay, fair enough. I friggin love it. Burn in hell, Delltards. Frankly I think you should all be put in jail just for making such crappy machines.

You know you're hot when...

You announce a new feature to an existing product, like our "Complete My Album" feature on iTunes, and the Wall Street Journal actually writes an entire article about it. See here. But the way you know you're really, really hot is that the Journal also teases the story on the top strap of the B1 cover section and in the "What's News" box on A1, as if this is some huge big business announcement. Stop the presses! Apple adds new feature to iTunes!

See, the Journal may like to bust my stones on this options business, but they also know what sells papers. Put the word "Apple" anywhere on the page and people are gonna stop at the newsstand. Hey Journal? Why not just write Apple Apple Apple at the top of every page? Or change your name to the Apple Street Journal? Since you're already making so much money off our trademark.

You know what? We're hot, people. White hot. Zzzzzzz. Ouch! I just touched myself and burned my finger.

People say I'm obnoxious and self-centered, but frankly I just don't see it

Folks, WTF with all these thin-skinned wussies who are reading the blog all of a sudden and complaining because they get offended? What the frig do you think this blog is about? Jesus. They don't like the Bike Helmet Girl and think it's like porn. Ya know what? I like porn. And if you really want to be offended, scroll way down to the bottom of this page and use the search engine to find "Big Mama Gummy Bear." Or just read through all of the Yelptard posts, and then don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out. Okay? Have a nice day, you sensitive wilting flowers. Folks, the whole idea here is to give you an unvarnished look at my inner soul -- to stand naked before my acolytes and let you know exactly what goes on inside the brilliant mind of Steve Jobs. You know what? It ain't all pretty. But this is what genius looks like. This is how big ideas are born, with loads of blood and afterbirth and slimy stuff gushing from my man-cooze. (That's right. I have one.) If you can't handle the ride, that's your problem. My other pet peeve is the people who keep saying the blog is too "commercial." Um, right. This is a real slick operation. Very professional. Whew.

Finally the anti-Greenpeace backlash begins

God I have been waiting and waiting for this one. Finally someone has figured out what these shakedown artists at Greenpeace are all about, and dared to admit that they're wrong about us. See here. Goddamn but Jerry York was right; we should never have put Al Gore on our board. Just makes us a target for loonies.

Much love, Businessweek. You are brave to publish this. Arik Hesseldahl, we are tearing up our old dossier on you and starting a new one, with fewer bad items. I mean it. Look for it soon. In the spirit of "radical transparency" I think we should share it. Mwah.

Mark Hurd of HP, you'll be hearing from my lawyers on this

Not cool, Mark. Stealing my image and using it to sell your crappo machines? Man and I thought spying on your employees was as low as you would go.

More captions

These just in from a guy who calls himself Fake Jon Ive. Love it.

Bike Helmet Girl writes in-- she has a gig coming up

Dudes, I'm still sort of madly in love with Tiffany, aka Bike Helmet Girl, the girl with the golden glutes (center dancer in photo above), and though my feelings are unrequited I'm still going to promote her upcoming dance show -- she's asked me to attend, and invites any FSJ readers too. I will definitely be there. I'll be wearing a disguise, but will introduce myself to anyone who wears some kind of FSJ badge or T-shirt. (Also, FWIW, the robot on the right side of the photo is being played by Scott McNealy.) For info & tickets click here.

Just to refresh everyone's memory, and to clue in some of the newbies, BHG is one of the original Yelptards (look it up under labels). To see some of the original hot pix of Bike Helmet Girl dancing in her underwear at a Yelptard party, see this and this on the flickr page of Mitchell "Maximum Mitch" Aidelbaum, ace photographer. Yeah. Now you see why I'm in love with her.

UPDATE: No idea why this first went up with comments not allowed. I think one of the interns here at FSJ Central is still coming up to speed. Or was coming up to speed. He's gone now. Peace out.

Vogelstein responds

This from the mailbag:

"Steve, I’ve spent all this time trying to get an interview with you so I can become one of your concubines – I even bought my first mac last year - and THIS is how you respond. Are you worried about the iphone flopping? Are you still mad about not being able to tear down that old mansion? Are you stressing because I have hair and you don’t? WHAT!!!!! I’m a big boy, so I’m happy to take your abuse, especially because you spelled my name right AND everyone knows you’re a prick. But, don’t you think you laid it on a little thick for someone that is such a fan?"

Sorry dude. I don't write the PR prep reports. But I'll take it up with our flacks. I agree, they're a-holes.

Zander meltdown continues

Talk about radical transparency. Here he is in Mission Dolores Park in San Francisco yesterday. He was up in the city doing customer visits and on the way to the airport stopped for a burrito in the Mission. Some kid working at the burrito joint asked him when the iPhone is coming out. That did it. Next thing you know Fast Eddie is streaking up to the park, screaming, "iPhone, iPhone, iPhone! Sweet mother of Jesus!" Police were called but Ed's handlers smoothed things over.

Dude, get help. I'm serious.

Our secret dossier revealed

So bigshot Wired reporter Fred Vogelstein landed what he thinks is a huge coup. While reporting a story on Microsoft, he received by accident a copy of Microsoft's PR prep notes on him -- some PR flack made a mistake and sent it to him. Fred runs the whole thing here with a kind of breathless Woodstein and Bernward glee. I guess it doesn't occur to him that in the description of how he handled his interviews he comes across as a total moron and a rude prick to boot. Best line in the Microsoft memo: "It takes him a bit to get his thoughts across, so try to be patient." Ha! Classic.

Anyway, we've dealt with Fred too, but he's usually been very kind to us, as in this story where he said Apple controls the living room. But in the spirit of "radical transparency" our PR people thought it would be a good idea for us to share some of Apple's dossier on Fred. The following notes come from the prep memo I received from our PR folks before Fred's last visit, a couple of years ago, when he was still at Fortune.

TO: SJ
FR: Steve Dowling
RE: Vogelstein visit

* It's STINE, not STEEN. Get it right! He's sensitive.

* Fred is physically unattractive and kind of a schlump. Try not to stare at him or make him uncomfortable. Do not make fun of his clothes or his haircut. NB: You will be tempted!

* Fred, like many reporters, suffers from "The Curse of the Schwartz," meaning he's not very bright but thinks he's super super bright. Pretend you're interested in his opinions.

* Fred's SAT scores: 450 verbal, 420 math. Just FYI.

* Fred lost his virginity at age 27, on a vacation in Thailand, and has taken LSD once. He has never brought a woman to orgasm.

* Fred drives a 1998 Toyota Celica and doesn't realize it's a "chick car."

* Fred, while traveling, runs up very large bills for hotel room on-demand porn. He tends to buy the all-you-can-eat 24-hour packages rather than ordering a single film.

* Fred has been at Fortune for a couple of years. We expect he'll suck up to SJ big-time in order to curry favor with Kirkpatrick and Schlender, both former concubines to SJ.

* We predict Fred soon will leave Fortune and end up someplace less prestigious, perhaps Business 2.0 or Wired, where he will do pretentious faux-HBR articles about radical new "trends" in business that aren't actually happening.

* Fred tends to "blow with the wind." He'll sing the praises of a company one day, then turn around and savage them the next. We predict in the future some blog like Valleywag will take him to task for this. Just remember, if he's been nice to you in the past, that doesn't mean he'll be nice to you now.

* Fred's mind works at a "majestic" (read: glacial) pace. He rambles. He says, "ah..." and "um..." a lot. For an idea of what to expect, zip into the future and view this video clip which Microsoft will post on its web site in early 2007. You will probably need Internet Explorer to view this, however.

I know what you're wondering

Is Apple paying this MadTV guy to make fun of us as some kind of weird new Web 2.0 type pseudo-grassroots advertising campaign? Um, no. This dude just hates us or something. Frankly I don't even get it.

Everybody's a critic

This just in from a reader. Some British paper has declared me one of the world's worst dressed men or something. Ha! What do they know. I don't follow fashion. I don't set fashion. I am beyond fashion. I am an enlightened being. I exist on a different plane. Does anyone go rip on the Buddha boy in Nepal because he's been wearing the same towel for years? No, he gets written up in GQ as a fashion plate. Well, same for me. Friggin Brits just can't recognize an enlightened being when they see one.

Another good cartoon

I like this, but maybe I wasn't clear about something. The idea is to take the mickey out of Bill, not me. Okay?

Fischergate: A new slap in the face

Great. Now since I've had the cojones (as they say in Italian) to speak up about this exploitation of Jenna Fischer by Conde Nast, people have decided to start taunting me. This one came in from a Microsoft address. Nice, right? Like they're not busy enough keeping Vista all screwed up.

I love this one

Came in via email. Nice work, friend. Namaste.

Caption contest

Join me for a walk down memory lane. I honestly can't wait to see what you all manage to do with this one.

Mitchell Kapor finds his missing thumb: "Hey it was up my ass the whole time!" he says.

Jesus, man, I ran into Mitchell Kapor in an organic grocery store and he was fresh from his sweat yoga class, carrying his mat and smelling like ass and going on about how great his Chandler application is going to be. I was like, Dude, if I have to hear about this friggin Chandler thing one more time I'm gonna get a gun and start shooting people. Mitch, you're a nice guy, and I know you like to hang out with techies and act like some big visionary, but look, just admit it, you don't know how to write software, okay? And you're great at starting projects but you never finish anything. You got lucky in the Eighties with Lotus but only because a) you stole the idea from Visicalc; and b) other people wrote the code for you; and c) because there was no competition. Once Microsoft developed Excel, 1-2-3 was toast. But now you're out here acting like some kind of friggin tech industry guru. Gawd.

How long have you been working on Chandler? Five years? And what's the status today? You're in version .6, for Christ's sake. I just checked the OSAF website and read the FAQ on Chandler. I'm sorry but this description is one of the most inadvertently hilarious things I've ever read on a website:

"Chandler is a next-generation Personal Information Manager (PIM), integrating calendar, email, contact management, task management, notes, and instant messaging functions. So far, in Chandler 0.6, we have the calendar functions experimentally usable but none of the others to the same level yet."

Dude, it's a friggin email client with some calendaring and contact management. Why the hell can you bozos not make this work? This is becoming the biggest running joke in the industry. What makes it worse is that this isn't a five-year-old project. It's 20 years old. Mitchell has been dicking around trying to make a "PIM" since 1986. In those days he called it "Agenda." He couldn't finish that one, either.

Check out the OSAF's Chandler FAQs which I don't think are meant to be as nut-bustingly funny as they are. Like:

When will OSAF ship Chandler? (Ship? Who said anything about shipping?)

Who are Chandler's main competitors? (Um, great question. None so far.)

What platforms does Chandler run on? (For now, an overhead projector.)

For another good belly laugh, read this post from Mitchell's weblog back in October 2002 -- that's not a typo -- where Mitchell assures the world that Chandler is not "an Outlook killer." Whew. Huge sigh of relief up in Redmond on that one, I'm sure.

Mitchell's 2002 blog post was a response to this CNET story which began with the question: "Can a fledgling nonprofit organization with half a dozen employees challenge the largest software company in the world?"

Guess we've got our answer.

Ballmer calls, all excited

He says, "Dude, I'm up here doing the Monkey Dance in my office! It's hilarious! Haven't you heard? Linux is dead. Hoo boy. The dopes totally fell for it. We made this deal with Novell, and sure enough Smellman and his Free Software followers all went apeshit and made this new license to try and mess up Novell's Linux business. But the beauty is this license is so frigtarded that it's also going to destroy Red Hat's business too. Basically it's going to make it impossible for anyone to use Linux. Because half of Linux will be on one license and half will be this other one and the new one is so nasty that nobody commercial can use it. Man oh man. Everyone said we'd be the ones to kill Linux but guess what, it's Stinky Dick and his B.O. Brigade doing the dirty work for us. So who's left? You guys and your three percent market share? Whoa, we're shaking. Dude, we keep you around just so we can claim we have some competition. But no hard feelings right? Dude, come up here and have some cake! We're totally going to party all week. Vista sucks, but it rules! Yay!"

AT&T: 1 million inquiries about iPhone

You know what? I'm pretty sure Ed Zander should be worried. See here. We are so going to kick Motorola's ass it's not even funny.

More Zander appearances

He's a judge. A politician. A monk. Ed, you've got more identities than Zelig. And you're scaring me. Get some help.

Fast Eddie goes bonkers

This just in from one of our competitive analysis spies who was at some Wall Street conference where Motorola was presenting. The investor dudes started grilling the shit out of Zander about how the iPhone was gonna kick Motorola's ass and why doesn't Motorola have an answer for the iPhone and is it true the board is trying to force him out. Finally Zander just lost it on this one young assistant analyst from Goldman and started saying, "Jesus H. Christ, the iPhone! The iPhone! Is that all anyone wants to talk about? The fucking iPhone? I guess all the rest of us should just stop making phones because Apple's coming out with the iPhone! Right? Should we just all fold our tents and go home? Well what the fuck do you want me to do? You want me to stick these fuggin phones on my head like a pair of clown ears? Is that what you want? I'll kick your fucking ass, punk! How old are you anyway? Huh? Twenty-five? Twenty-six? I've got meat in my colon that's older than you! You know I grew up in Brooklyn, don't you? And not some fancy pants loft in Park Slope, right? I'm tawkin da real Brooklyn." Just a complete and total meltdown. Ed, seriously, you need help. Maybe consider going back to being a monk. You were doing so well with the anger when you were in the monastery.

Fischergate: The outrage continues

Readers, I am stunned but also heartened to find out that you share my outrage over the way Wired magazine is exploiting Jenna Fischer to sell copies. My mailbox has been inundated with messages of support. Now folks, let's turn this outrage into action. One reader tells me is going to go to every newsstand in his area and buy up all the copies of Wired to keep them out of the public's reach. I think it's a great idea. I went out this morning in Palo Alto and bought a hundred and fifty copies. Please write to Wired and tell them about our boycott. Someone get a petition going. Are there any Linux lusers out there? You guys love your friggin petitions after all, and you're so good at them. Meanwhile I'll keep fanning the flames here. I promise you, I will not relent. I will not let this drop. I'm going to keep running this photo until Wired caves to the pressure, admits its mistake and promises never to do this again.

I'm sorry but putting hot naked women on the cover is not serious journalism. It's a cheap ploy to sell copies. This exploitation makes me sick.

Then again you gotta admit, friggin Jenna Fischer is hot, no? When Maxim or one of the other lad mags gets her, I am all over that. Or Playboy. Please God let her do Playboy. Damn you Wired for not having the courage to show beaver!

That said, I find it absolutely disgusting that a serious highbrow intellectual magazine like Wired would resort to this kind of thing just to get attention on the newsstand. Thank goodness for blogs like this one which are picking up the hard work of doing real journalism now that the MSM has slunk into the gutter.

This options thing actually has nothing to do with me

So I was talking to Jerry York about all this legal stuff. He says there's nothing he can do to pull strings in Washington. The orders on this one go all the way to the top. He says that first of all the Bushies are pissed cause I've been such a vocal supporter of Democrats. But also, the real target, according to Jerry, isn't me -- it's Al Gore. Basically the Bushies want to tar him with this, and I'm just caught in the crossfire. The Repubes figure they can neutralize Al and keep him from running. They don't need to bring charges -- yet. But when they do, it's not just the management team that's gonna get hit, it's the board too.

Jerry's like, Kid I told you from the start we shouldn't put that retard on the board, with all this global warming bullshit and his big fat dumb drawl and all his political enemies. Do you realize how much Bush hates this guy? And you go and put him on your board. Smart, kid. Friggin brilliant. You knew last summer that he was nuts. Hell, he called and told you himself that he's wacky. Damn, kid.

So here's how the feds operate

They know they have no real case against me. It's been months, and they've brought no charges. Right? They've looked at this thing a zillion ways to Sunday. They've gone up my ass with a scope. And they've got nada. Zilch. Bupkis. So what do they do? They resort to leaking smears, like this piece of crap in the Chronicle. Who do you think all the "anonymous sources" and "people close to the matter" are? It's the frigtards in the U.S. Attorney's office. And the bozos at the Chron think they're getting some huge Woodward and Bernstein scoop. It apparently never occurs to them that if these dudes actually had a case they wouldn't be leaking halfwitted stories to the papers.

It's straight out of the Eliot Spitzer playbook. Look what that asshole did to Hank Greenberg of AIG. Tried to force him into some awful settlement and threatened to smear him in the press unless he caved.

Well, Hank didn't cave. And neither will the Jobsmeister. You should see the "settlement" they're trying to get me to take. It's a joke. And it's not just money. They're talking about community service too. I'm like, Dudes, I've already done my community service. I've given the world OS X, the iMac and the iPod. And the iPhone is right around the corner. Community service? You should be giving me a Nobel prize.

Wired magazine, you are so friggin deep

So Steve Dowling, one of our PR guys, just brought me my stack of pre-read magazines with stickies attached to the articles I should check out, and there's a note here about the April edition of Wired which features the following amazing letter to the editor, titled, "To Be or Not to Be":

"You missed the biggest unanswered question: Why is there anything at all? Or to put it another way, Why isn't there nothing -- no matter, no energy, no universe, no space, no dimensions, no branes -- no anything? We will have little fundamental understanding of our universe until we can begin to answer this question with anything other than superstition."

Steve says this letter just blew him away with its profundity and I have to agree with him. This is deep stuff. Steve says we should be advertising more with Wired and doing more with this publication since our auras are so aligned. As Steve puts it, "Here's a magazine that's basically about gadgets, but dressed up with all sorts of pseudo-intellectual stuff about man's search for meaning. Isn't that just like us? Perfect fit."

He also points out that Wired put the hot chick from "The Office" on the cover, naked, but then penned this embarrassing quasi-apology about how this wasn't an attempt to use T&A to sell copies, no, not at all. It was a metaphor for their story about how companies need to be "naked" and "transparent" to the world. Geddit? Riiiight. I can't wait till some idiot at Wired comes up with a theory about how "great customer service is like a great blowjob." That'll be a cover worth saving, with a headline like "WANT TO WIN IN BUSINESS? BE A WHORE!" above a photo of Jenna Jameson deep-throating a banana. And hey, why not a sidebar article called, "10 things your customer service department can learn from Fantasia Minge, top girl at the Chicken Ranch in Las Vegas."

Still, though, Steve is right that we'd love to get at that Maxim-meets-faux-Einstein demographic. Our iPhone is not just a phone, it's a profound philosophical statement, a discovery on par with relativity and the search for the elusive Higgs boson. But frankly I'm kind of pissed that we only made the #2 spot on "The Wired 40" list. After Google, of course. Ugh. Wired, redo the list and put us in first place and we'll see about advertising with you.

Another shitty Windows laptop foisted upon an unsuspecting public

Nice to know that even if you put Windows in a smaller container, it still blows just as much as on a full-size machine. That at least is the conclusion of this story about the new FrigStart, er, I mean FlipStart from Paul Allen. Dude, why the hell are you using Windows in this thing? Honestly. I mean, Microsoft is stuck with this hairball because they need to stay backward compatible. At least I think that's their excuse. What the hell is yours?

PS when I saw the headline on this story -- "Review: The Little Laptop That Can't" -- I thought it must be a piece about the One Laptop Per Child fiasco. But of course not. Nobody in the press will come out and admit what a failed piece of shit that machine is. You wait and see. They'll forgive all its flaws, no matter how glaring. Because nobody wants to say anything bad about a bunch of wooly academics who seem to have such noble goals. (Even though, when you peel that onion you bit you'll find that the real goal has nothing to do with helping little kids and everything to do with Nicholas Negroponte being an incredible egomaniac. Mark my words, nobody will dare say that either.)

It's true, we all hate Hillary

Well the Journal finally got around to reporting today (see here) what I told everyone on my blog last summer. Out here in the Valley we friggin hate Hillary Clinton. Check out my piece called The Clintstones if you want to get the real skinny on the down-and-dirty meeting we all had with Hill and Bill last summer. It wasn't pretty, trust me.

Okay, here's something good

Check out this show on the Comedy Central website. It's called "Tiny Hands" and it is massively frigged up but very funny. Guy who does it is or was a writer for Conan O'Brien (yeah, another big bad "old media" type, boohoo). Comedy Central is now broadcasting this and a few other shorts on TV at two in the morning, in a show called "Web Shows." The episode where Mr. Tiny Hands applies for a nanny job is pretty brilliant.

You must be joking

Did anyone else bother to look through the Internet videos that others recommended on the comment string? I gotta tell you, it's disappointing, innit? I mean there's a billion friggin people using the Internet and this is the best the entire planet can produce? Are you friggin kidding me? From the entire planet, turned loose with computers, cameras, and free bandwidth, this is it? Fair enough, some of the animation is pretty good. Ninjai the Little Ninja is compelling. But the live action stuff falls way short. None of this stuff could be shown on real TV.

Think about the early days of cable. What was the "killer app"? What was the thing that made people sign up and pay for cable TV after years of getting broadcast TV for free? HBO and Cinemax. Movie channels. Cable was just a wider pipe -- a way for people to get at killer content that otherwise sat untapped in archives. Same for the Internet but it's even wider and it allows for non-linear programming.

Stupid quote of the week

So I went back and read that long anonymous comment from the dude who was pissed about my Web 2.0 "fireflies" piece. And yeah, okay, I've been trying to strike a conciliatory tone lately. But you know what? I have to say that when I read that comment of his again there's one line in that piece that strikes me as the stupidest thing I've heard in ages. To wit:

"The Internet ... is a party."

Oh really? Dude, come on. That's just shit-for-brains dumb. That's dumber than that politician guy who called the Internet a series of tubes. But at the same time what I love about this quote is that it truly encapsulate everything that's dumb and awful and smug and fatuous about this whole Web 2.0 craze. It's exactly the kind of thing that some Yelptard would think up and say in a pitch meeting when they go for their next round of funding. (Which, unfortunately, they will get.) From there it will spread and Om Malik and Michael Arrington will turn it into a "trope" or a "meme" and then Wired (print edition) will do a cover story on it and pretty soon it will be on a T-shirt.

Yeah. The Internet is party. Dude, that's friggin deep. Like, profound, man.

Squirrel Boy begs to differ

So Eric calls me up all pissed off and tells me I'm suffering from a massive case of recto-cranial inversion on this Internet content thing. He says he's the king of the Internet and that I'm a dope for calling all these new Internet-only shows "the Special Olympics version of real TV." He says go back and look at the early days of cable, and the stuff that was running then. Same phenomenon happening now on the Internet, he says. Eric also says I'm a chump and a whore for trying to play nice with the Hollywood guys instead of doing battle with them the way Google is doing. And just like the anonymous poster, Eric says the real power of the Internet lies in its ability to give regular folks the tools for doing their own TV, and that this is where the really amazing stuff is going to come from. Which is why he bought YouTube.

Well, I don't know. I've never been wrong before but there's always a first time. So I told him that in the spirit of audience participation I would turn this over to my blog readers. Tell me: Is there anything on the Internet that's as good as TV or even better? What's the best stuff out there? What are the hidden gems? I must admit, I'm so busy up in the JobsPod trying to design beautiful devices that restore a sense of childlike wonder to people's lives that I don't have time to keep up with all these Internet TV shows.

Note: We're only talking about video here. Send along links and we'll post the good ones. Much love.

Good letter from an anonymous reader

In response to my piece about Web 2.0 "fireflies" --

This passes for insight among the previously employed in big media set?

Yawn. It's self-delusional, bordering on masturbatory. How Silicon Valley.

The "Internet" (proper noun) is not a pipe or series of tubes or anything remotely akin to an inanimate object. The "Internet" (second SERIOUS proper noun) is a party. It only happens because of those in attendance.

This is why a YouTube or a MySpace even exists. To ENTERTAIN those at the party. And they are easily replaced when they stop filling that role.

Having had a taste of creating its own "content", the Herd Formerly Known As The Audience isn't going back to the Inert Couch anytime soon. Nor is it sitting around listening to the same boorish speeches about how what it creates is crap by those who were previously paid a lot to "professionally" create...crap.

So, no. NBC will not return to its vaunted position as one of the three SOLE gatekeepers to the realm of entertainment. EVER. Script writers and other "professional" arbiters of what the Herd "should" be passively watching and adoring will have a place, but it will not be THE place, anymore.

Both will soldier on, as sources among many other sources, and if they proffer or produce something that is entertaining, maybe some will stop by and be entertained. But it will never return to the way it used to be. Just ask the record companies.

NBC and News Corp., sitting in a tree

"Fireflies before the storm" was the phrase Lou Gerstner famously used to describe all those crazy first-generation Internet companies selling dog food and delivering groceries. His point was that dotcoms would flame out but the real power of the Internet lay in what it would do for big, established businesses. And he was right. The Internet is a pipe. That's all. Its existence doesn't mean that suddenly people want to have pet food delivered to their door.

I've been thinking about this ever since seeing this story about NBC and News Corp. trying to build a YouTube killer. Because it seems to me that in this Web 2.0 craze we're seeing a replay of the dotcom craze but this time it's all about media companies. For some reason people think that because there's an Internet there should also be all sorts of new media companies and new TV shows designed just to run over the Internet. eg, Michael Eisner's new Internet sitcom, and the "Ask a Ninja" guy and Lonelygirl and Wall Strip and Tiki Bar TV and Amanda Congdon and all these other quasi-celebrities. But perhaps you've noticed the one trait that almost all this new Internet-only content shares: It sucks. These people are on the Internet because they're not good enough to be on TV. Not even on cable. These are fireflies.

The Internet is a transport mechanism. Simple as that. Its real power involves its ability to let you choose from millions of pieces of content in a non-linear format, the idea that you can see whatever programs you want to watch, however and whenever you want to watch them. The real power of the Internet is going to be when the big media companies, with all their great content, figure out how to aggregate that content into huge archives in the cloud and put some kind of interface in front of the archive that lets you search and choose content; and when they find a way to make you pay for it. That's when things are going to get amazing. That's how the Internet will change the media business -- not by creating new content that looks like a Special Olympics version of real TV, but by finding new ways for you to consume the shows you already like. It's a new distribution deal. That's all.

What we're doing today with things like Apple TV or TiVo is just applying Band-Aids to patch up a frigtarded system (linear TV programming) that made sense in the 1950s when bandwidth was limited. Our Apple TV only sidesteps the problem. It still forces you to download to your computer, then beam through a router to our TV box and then up into your TV. So great. Now you've got more pipes coming into your TV but this new pipe is kind of unreliable (wifi routers) and slow and clumsy.

The real fix is gonna happen when someone figures out the back end, aggregating good content (ie Seinfeld and I Love Lucy rather than Ask a Ninja) and then finds a way to get that straight into your TV without all these clumsy connections and multiple hops. But it's a battle. The linear model, as stupid as it is, still clings to life. Inertia is a powerful thing. But ultimately we'll win. Give us ten years. And yeah, this is why Apple is presenting itself to the Hollywood studios as a friend and ally, not a competitor. It's also why we didn't buy YouTube.

ZANDR is a GONR

Put it this way. When the Journal does a story like this one, saying how the board is taking a bigger role in day-to-day, it doesn't happen by accident. Okay? The board teed up this story and planted it in the Journal. Who do you think the anonymous sources "close to the matter" are? This is the board's way of telling the institutional shareholders: Don't worry, we're pushing this idiot out of here as fast as we can.

Poor old Ed. Or, um, "Fast Eddie," as he likes to be called. Guy always chafed under McNealy at Sun, always bitched about how he wanted to be the top gun. But it's a classic case of the Peter Principle at work. I mean, Ed's a nice enough guy -- well, okay, strike that; Ed's a total friggin dick -- but anyway, he'd be great, or at least competent, running a sales division. Or a Greek restaurant. Or a chain of cut-price consumer electronics retail stores. But trying to run a $40 billion company? Waaay over his head. Glug glug. That sound you hear? That's Ed's career going down the drain.

And another

This from our good pal and longtime reader, John M. in England. (I think it's England. John?) Much love.

Wacky Mac hip-hop video

At least I think it's hip-hop. One of you younger kids is gonna have to bring me up to speed on this. Apparently this video has been around for a while so if you've seen it already, forgive an old man who doesn't keep up with the latest music. One question though: Is this "Setty Smooth" guy a real singer or is he a parody act like Weird Al Yankovic? I honestly can't tell.

Another Google beauty

Sent in by a reader named Ken. Much love, brother.

Apologies

After many complaints, I've taken down the John Edwards item. All joking aside, let me try to explain. I think it's heinous that Edwards is putting his political aspirations ahead of his wife. That was meant to be the point of the joke. Sorry for causing offense.

UPDATE: My pals/imitators at the Hillary blog say they loved the Edwards item and so they've "borrowed" it from me. (They were going to link to it but then I took it down.) So fine. They're gonna make the stand for free speech. You can go see it here.

Weekend weather forecast for Cambridge, MA

On Saturday, extreme bad smells will pervade the area, with air quality levels possibly dipping into the "dangerous" region. Children and small pets should stay indoors. See here.

Yet another one

This came in via comment strings. Much love, amigo, as they say in Danish.

Contest: Help Anna Wintour come up with a new name for "blog"

Check it out here. Freaky old Anna Wintour, aka Skeletor, wants her writers to do some blogging but she doesn't want to call it blogging. I think maybe "blog" sounds too fat. Let's try to help her out. Candidate words should have six letter or less, and look like they haven't eaten, ever. Seriously. Can you believe this heinous ugly skank actually runs the world's most important fashion magazine? WTF? It's like having Bill Gates run the world's biggest software company. Oh wait.

We're still looking for sponsors

Just wanted to clear up a misconception that some people seem to have -- our arrangement with Wired, while incredibly prestigious and exciting, is not exclusive. And we still need more sponsors to get this baby off the ground and develop some new features that we've been thinking about to take this blog to the next level.

For you big tech corporations (you know who you are) we offer the chance to associate your stodgy, boring brand with a hip, edgy, scandalous web site that draws millions of viewers each month. Well, not millions. But thousands. And these are very smart cool people -- like you, for example -- and like Lawrence Lessig, who apparently is an avid reader and who is the type of guy that I'm sure has lots of discretionary income which he would love to spend on your ridiculous non-Apple products.

Let's say you're HP, or Lenovo, or Dell, and you want to put a message in front of loads of avid Apple fans, and maybe even make it funny, and maybe even make it on video. Hmmm. Or let's say you're Cisco, and everyone thinks of you as the boring router guys, but you want to change that image and seem hip and consumer-friendly and remind people that you, too, have an iPhone. Hmmm. Geddit?

Anyhoo. In the whole Web 2.0 spirit of user generated profits, er, content, I'm just going to ask: Help a fake billionaire out, people.

Hit the email button and we can brainstorm ideas. Namaste.

Your whore,

FSJ

And even more!

This one comes from our longtime pal, A. Musing. Namaste.

I love my readers, #2

Much love, deleon. Fart jokes are always welcome. (As you may know, extreme flatulence is a side effect of the macrobiotic vegetarian lifestyle. I think it's a small price to pay, though people who work with me don't necessarily agree. And Al Gore says I'm contributing to global warming. Oops.)

I love my readers

Click on the photo to see it larger. Much love, anonymous.

That Mossberg article

Since several people asked, here is a link.

Oh. My. God.

To quote from Conrad: "The horror! The horror!" (FYI, his "Leaves of Grass" was like my favorite book freshman year in college.) But back to the painting. I've seen some awful things in my day but this is just terrifying. Much love to the brilliant geniuses at Cult of Mac who posted an item about how this painting sold for $410 on Ebay. And yes, I know what you're wondering -- yes, the buyer was working as a front for me. No way was I going to let this thing out into the world. Children might see it, for God's sake. Plus, it looks really cool in my home office, tucked in among all the other photos and paintings of me, and the big huge mirrors that let me watch myself while I'm working.

Caption contest

I forgot to post this yesterday. Have at it. Three-way dialog is a tough challenge. Extra points if you can put your quotes in voice balloons.

Why we love Walt Mossberg

Check out his review of Apple TV in this morning's Wall Street Journal. As Walt points out, our product:

* won't work with older TVs;
* can't record cable or satellite TV;
* can't play DVDs;
* can't stream video or audio directly from the Internet;
* won't let you buy media directly from iTunes;
* won't play music in Microsoft's formats, even from a Windows PC;
* won't let you change volume using the Apple remote;
* won't let you plug in an extra hard drive for more capacity.

This last bit is kind of a pain since as Walt points out, a 40GB drive "is too small to hold many TV shows or movies." Furthermore, Walt points out that Microsoft's Xbox 360, unlike our machine, can directly purchase and download media from the Internet; can play Windows formatted content; can play DVDs; and, oh yea, also happens to play games. But, as Walt points out, you get only a 20GB drive and the price is $399, which Walt "not a math major" Mossberg calculates to be 50% more than the $299 price for Apple TV.

So, should you buy Apple TV? Absolutely, says Walt. He gives it four thumbs up, raves about its simplicity and elegance, and tells you not to worry about the features we don't have, because even though Apple won't discuss these issues, Walt is sure that many of these features will become available in the future.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Oh wait. Um...

Much love, Goatberg. Baaa. Baaa.

Once you start making corrections ...

Jeez. I never should have fixed that thing for Larry Lessig. Now everybody is crawling out of the woodwork demanding corrections. This morning I get up and I've got email from friggin Ballmer:

"Dear fakesteve, [sic]
Love the blog but you've made some serious factual mistakes lately. For example when you said I was "backpedaling" on Vista. [Ed. note see here.] We are not at all backpedaling. If anything we are gaining share. I hope you will correct this wrong impression. Also please apologize and stop calling us MicroTards or we will stop making Office for the Mac.
Your pal,
The Other Steve."

Okay, so we destroyed a couple of analysts

This guy at ZDNet is all upset because we attacked a couple of analysts and destroyed their reputations. See here. Boo friggin hoo. These guys came gunning for us with some bogus video about exploiting our machines. All we did was fight back. Well, I'll let you be the judge.

Worth a peek

My good pal Mr. Vox himself put me on to this. It's long but if you wait till the very end there's a twist. Worth waiting for it.

Much love, Wired News

So the bright minds at Wired (read: Leander Kahney) have published this brilliant piece explaining why Macs are so hot right now. For one thing, companies are buying them to save money. So much for the old myth about Macs costing more than PCs. And for the myth that Macs aren't right for "corporate" customers. CIOs are buying these things at home and then going to work and going, Why the frig do we have these lousy Windows machines?

Leander also praises us for doing what customers want and offering fewer features and more simplicity. He also manages to skewer that fat old gasbag Rob Glaser of RealNetworks (maker of RealShittySoftware) who in 2003 declared that by now Apple would have only 3% market share in music players because people don't like "closed" systems. Um, no, Rob. What people don't like is chaos and confusion and too many moving parts that don't really work together. People buy "closed" systems all the time. My Mercedes is a closed system -- can't use Toyota or BMW parts in it. (Please, no letters about how I can put any brand of tire I want on it; you get the point.) Same for my super-expensive top-of-the-line oven, and refrigerator and TV. Would it be nice if I could go out and get all sorts of third-party crap from Rob Glaser to customize my refrigerator? Sure. Especially when after installing this stuff my refrigerator's icemaker stopped working. Yup. That's the kind of "freedom" people don't want. Which is why the MicroTards now are copying our "closed" system with one of their own. Namaste, Leander. I bow to your genius. I honor the place where you and I are one.

One MacBook Per Child

I don't know who made this website but it is pure genius. Much love, people.

Correction

Bono himself writes in and says:
"Dear fake steve,
Long time reader, first time caller. I'm a big fan of your blog but you've made a mistake when you claim I've been celebrating Paddy's Day. It's true I'm Irish, but St. Patrick as you may know is a Catholic saint. And I'm a Protestant. My heavy drinking at the weekend had nothing to do with dear St. Patrick the snake-driver.
Your pal,
Bono."

ViaGoogle? GoogleCom?

So Squirrel Boy is all pissed about this Viacom lawsuit, saying he can't figure out what it's about and why they're so mad at Google. Finally I'm like, Dude, do you not get it? They want you to buy them. He's like, Oh really, then why are they suing me? I'm like, Dude, this is how they do things in Hollywood. Man oh man. Do you need a translator or something? In movie land, suing someone is like sending flowers. It's like saying, Hey, remember me? That girl you knew in high school? The one with the great rack and all that incredibly valuable content that would fit so well with your massive, all-powerful global Internet ad-selling machine? Sumner Redstone is hiking up his skirt and saying, Squirrel Boy, honey, I don't know crap about this darn Internet thing, and you don't know crap about making movies and TV shows, so let's hop into the sack and make some squirrel babies together. Hell, I'll even let you be the guy most of the time.

So Eric's like, Steve, what do you think? Should we do it? I'm like, Hey, why not? It worked out pretty well for AOL and Time Warner.

So much hostility

Friends,
I've been taken aback lately by all the hostility in the comment strings. I just want to make something very clear. I am totally against violence and war. Same goes for everyone at Apple. We're all very much opposed to this criminal war in the Middle East. And we may be starting up our Apple World Peace Summit again. Bono says he's in. He's still sobering up from St. Paddy's Day.

NBC buys a blog critic

See here. This blogger was bugging the crap out of NBC and bashing all of NBC's shows. So NBC bought the blog. Nice idea, right? Um, Apple? Google? Are you reading this? No wonder I'm getting all these calls from private equity guys lately. MB, get back in touch and let's flip this burger.

Wall Street turns on Google

The goons on the Street are finally starting to figure out what Ballmer has been saying for a while -- Google is milking its search franchise and can't make a go of anything else. One trick pony? Maybe. Then again, what a friggin pony. We should all have one trick like that. See here.

FWIW, IMHO, this is another case of Wall Street having short-term-itis and not being able to see what Google is really ultimately trying to do -- become the world's first global computer utility. That battle is ten years out but Google is putting itself in position to dominate the next version of computing. Call it the "cloud," or whatever you want. But all Wall Street can see is that Writely isn't making money.

Meanwhile there's yet more speculation about a Google phone. Inside info here: I happen to know that the Google phone rumors are true. At least, in the sense that, yes, there is a phone. Now as for getting carriers to accept it? Well, see, Google has this teeny-tiny image problem for kind of, um, well, not playing so nice with other companies and not respecting other people's intellectual property and kind of, um, being a little Microsoftian about trying to screw people with whom it makes "partnerships." Just something to think about.

Watch me make an options scandal disappear!

Disney's official report is out. The verdict: I'm innocent. No harm, no foul. Were options backdated? Yes. Was I the largest shareholder? Yes. Was I running the company? Yes. Am I to blame? No. Does this make sense? Absolutely. See here.

Heat wave in Phoenix! Yes!

Al Gore is jizzing all over himself these days. Winter temps in Phoenix are setting record highs. And Al has been losing weight which some say is a sign he's gonna run in 2008. A source confirms the weight loss and says, "Hillary can read into that she wants." The Gore aide, I happen to know, was Mr. Bono Vox himself, aka our future Secretary of State. Tell you what, a Gore-Jobs ticket is gonna be tough to beat, even for Hillary and Oback Barama. Here at Apple we've already got our manufacturing facilities ramping up to fill those orders from the Department of Education. One MacBook Per Child. Yay!

Correction

Professor Lawrence Lessig writes from Berlin to correct my post from earlier today:

"Hey, fake steve,
so your post is funny, but really wrong. I have never -- ever --
received a dime from Google. The Center the WSJ wrote about has been
around since I came to Stanford (2000). It is funded by Stanford. I
get no funding from the Center; my salary doesn't depend at all on
what money the Center gets. The Center has been critical of Google (w/
r/t privacy, e.g.) and supportive (w/r/t fair use). The fact that
Google gave money to Stanford to support the work of the Stanford
matters as much to my work as the fact that (spectrum mogul) Berkman
gave money to Harvard to endow the chair I had at Harvard. You may or
may not believe that, but the statement, Lessig "is on the payroll of
Google" is just flatly false."

Fake Steve regrets the error. We've amended the original item.

Ahmadinejad "not impressed" by Zune

"You know, the song sharing feature is nice. But the interface is kind of hinky, and frankly the reliability just isn't there. For my money, if you need a consumer electronics device for a mission critical task, like detonating IEDs in Iraq, you still can't do better than the iPod. Allah be praised."

That was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at MacWorld Persia last week. Much love, Mahmoud. Four thousand Nanos are on their way as we speak. Oh, and we managed to track down a box of those wacky aluminum cylinders you wanted. Thanks for bringing peace and stability to your strife-torn region. Namaste.

Larry Lessig goes to bat for Google

So as the Wall Street Journal explained recently (see here) Google helped fund the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. And Larry Lessig may or may not have something to do with that center or something because he's the founder and director but otherwise he does not have much connection to it. And obviously there are no strings attached. But let's guess that maybe Google finds it useful to fund academics who are trying to rewrite laws and social policy in such a way that would help Google further its efforts to line its pockets by raping copyright holders and selling ads against their content without sharing any of the loot.

So what happens now that Viacom has sued Google-owned YouTube for $1 billion, claiming YouTube violates its copyrights? You guessed it. Here in this morning's New York Times is the eminent Professor Lessig with an Op-Ed piece attacking Viacom for abusing the court system. See here.

Oddly enough there's no mention in the Times that Google helps fund Lessig's center at Stanford. Byron Calame, are you reading this? Shouldn't your Op-Ed writers disclose potential conflicts of interest? Something like this: "Lawrence Lessig is the founder and director of a law center that receives funding from Google, the defendant in this case."

Here's the thing about the freetards. In their view, since they're on the side of the angels, there's no need to disclose potential conflicts of interest. Because how dare you suggest they're motivated by something as unseemly as -- gasp -- money?

PLEASE NOTE: THE FOLLOWING TWO PARAGRAPHS ARE FICTION. NOTHING IN THE NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS IS TRUE. THESE PARAGRAPHS ARE INTENDED AS SATIRE. OR PARODY. OR SOMETHING. THE CONVERSATION DESCRIBED DID NOT ACTUALLY HAPPEN, EVEN THOUGH IT MIGHT BE FUNNY TO IMAGINE THAT IT DID.

Um, right. Eric Schmidt called me last night to tell me to be on the lookout for the piece. He says Google's PR guys wrote the essay and then they had to pay Lessig a hundred grand to put his name on it. Lessig claimed it was "consulting fees." Schmidt is still laughing his ass off about that one. "Well at least old Larry knows where his bread gets buttered," Schmidt says. "He's even going to come in and testify in the trial, if we ever get to trial. Says he'll be an expert witness. Million bucks, flat fee. To the law center. Which he has nothing to do with. And doesn't influence his scholarship. Of course."

Then Eric starts doing this thing where he's whistling to Lessig, as if he's a dog, and going, "Here, Lessig! Here boy! Now go get my slippers, Lessig! That's it! Good doggie, Lessig! Sit! Gimme a paw! Write me an amicus brief! Good doggie!" Then he cracks himself up again and goes, "Oh, you know, Steve, it's fucking great to be rich, isn't it?"

UPDATE: THIS POST HAS BEEN AMENDED FROM ITS ORIGINAL VERSION IN RESPONSE TO A COMPLAINT BY PROFESSOR LESSIG, WHO IS A RENOWNED SCHOLAR AND A VERY GOOD SPORT.

Slow day on Rancho El Jobso

So I thought I'd pass along this photo which a kind reader sent to me recently. That's our dear friend My Little Pony in the bottom right, with his old company Lighthouse Design, which oddly enough has a connection to me since they were a NeXT developer. Six degrees of Jobs, we call it in the Valley. As my source points out, Jonathan seemed to have a fondness for ladies eyewear back in the 90s. If anyone has an idea for a caption, please send it along. Namaste. I greet the place where you and I are one.

Dell and Apple

I love stories like this where the headline asks a preposterous question but does it as if maybe the answer could be "yes" but then the story just goes ahead and tells you, nope, it's just as you thought, the answer is "of course not." Like stories where they go, "Could mold in your refrigerator be the cure for your flu?" or, if you're watching Fox, "Could a no-torture policy in Iraq hurt the stock market and destroy the value of your portfolio?"

In this case the question is, "Could a Dell/Apple Partnership Work?" Slow day on the news desk and they had to come up with something, I guess.

BizWeak: Vista "slow and dangerous"

I love it. See here. Dude says that new Microsoft safety software is such a pain in the ass that you'll be tempted to turn it off. "The version of UAC in Mac OS X works much better, rarely popping up except during a software installation or upgrade," he writes. Jeez and ours has been around for how long? Like several years? And all the MicroTards had to do was copy what we've done? Hmmm.

Pattie Dunn goes free, yay!

I must say, folks out here are pretty psyched about the outcome of this crazy HP spying scandal. Oh I'm sure all those simpering wimps in the media will write a few more hand-wringing pieces about how violated they felt. Then they'll go back to their usual job of digging up trash and gossip on people. By the way have you noticed nobody's heard much from that big mouth Tom Perkins lately? Turns out the AG is considering bringing charges against him. They want to charge him with first-degree asshole-ism. There, I said it.

Dragon Lady backs down

Check it out here. That crazy Bulgarian freedom fighter Meglena Kuneva now says she was only kidding when she went out talking smack about iTunes recently. Can't believe how fast she buckled. Just shows you what a bag of hundred dollar bills can do in Eastern Europe. Much love, Meg.

No such luck with the Norwegians, however. They're still on the warpath. Goddamn Eskimos.

Can't we just "lose" evidence, like Intel does?

I'm sure you have seen all the stories, like this one, about Intel losing some key emails related to its antitrust lawsuit with AMD. So I emailed my team and I'm like, Dudes, can't we do this too? Seems like a really smart strategy. Sure they can bitch and moan all they want but if there's no evidence there's no evidence, right?

Naturally the lawyers jumped all over me saying of course you can't do this. Then they pointed out that I'd only made things worse by putting this suggestion itself in an email, which now also cannot be destroyed and will have to be produced and handed over to investigators. I'm like, Seriously? Can't we just wipe it out? Look, like this. I just wiped it out. Okay? Who's to know?

Well I guess this is why they don't let me run the legal department around here. All I can say is, as much as you freetards think Microsoft is the pure incarnation of Satan himself, you have no idea -- Intel makes those punks up in Redmond look like choir boys.

Freetards at MIT destroying perfectly good iPods

If you've ever wondered why nothing useful has ever come out of Nicholas Negroponte's MIT Media Lab, see this video. Twenty years of letting wannabes and posers play at being computer geeks, all subsidized by U.S. tax dollars. Now their big project is installing some crapware on iPods that breaks the DRM code -- or, as one freetard puts it, "reconfigures the power relationship between you and your technology." Wow. Maybe you didn't realize you had a power relationship with your iPod. You just thought it was for playing music on the way to work. Who knew? Well, thanks, there, you Foucault-reading, latte-gulping graduate student, for saving the world from the tyranny of Apple. Let's go get ice cream cones at Toscanini's and you can tell us about Jeremy Bentham and the panopticon, and how the iPod is training us to imprison ourselves. But then shouldn't you be getting back to your schoolwork? Hilarious.

Best part of the video comes near the end. The little fruitcake leader of the group is describing this "event" where they invited people to bring in their iPods and get the freedom software installed. He's like, "Yeah it was a great success except for one disappointment which was that two people actually went out and bought new iPods for this event, which wasn't really the idea, we wanted to liberate people's iPods, not create an incentive for people to buy more iPods. So in the future we'll need to be a little more clear on that."

D'oh! Friggin freetarded MIT graduate students! How the hell did you morons ever get into MIT in the first place? Oh that's right. It's the Media Lab. Not the real MIT. By the way, kids -- when you put that crapware on your iPod you void your warranty. Just letting you know.

Welcome to the jungle, Squirrel Boy

Poor Eric Schmidt. He's really bumming out now that he's finding out how rough these Hollywood gangsters like to play. And it's not just the Viacom lawsuit. See this story where he whines about the way these bandits do business: “I have learned that, as part of being a player in the media industry, the way one negotiates is, everything is leaked and you’re sued to death." Dude, I told you that two years ago.

Bottom line is this. The movie mobsters saw what Google did to the newspaper guys. Lure them online with some fear-mongering about how they can't afford to be late to the party, then sell ads against their content and wipe them out. Oh, and tell everyone, "Don't be evil." The movie guys really love the "Don't be evil" slogan. Every time they meet with Eric they bring it up and then burst out laughing. Schmidt sits there fuming. Page and Brin aren't even allowed to go to these sit-downs anymore because the movie guys started setting up little playrooms for them stocked with Legos and other toys over in the corner, with little kiddie chairs and a tiny table.

Taking a break

Out of the loop for a couple of days, I'm afraid. Meetings with lawyers all day tomorrow, followed Tuesday by a day of spiritual cleansing, meditation and a high colonic. Back by Wednesday with a full heart and an empty gastrointestinal tract. Peace out.

O, Bulgaria, defender of freedom

Meet Meglena Kuneva. Looks like a real barrel of laughs, right? She's some kind of minister at the EU and now she too is joining the freetard chorus about iTunes and iPods. Jesus. See here. Ms. Sourpuss says it's not right that iTunes songs only play on an iPod. She's very, very upset about this. Well, folks, isn't this just your typical European nanny state mentality? Why should a government feel the need to get involved in this? Meg, if your subjects don't like the way iTunes and iPods are set up, they don't have to buy them. They have absolute freedom of choice here. The market can vote with its dollars. I realize this is probably a novel concept for someone from, um, Bulgaria. No, seriously. I really do want to get some lessons in morality from a politician whose native country sided with the Nazis in the second World War, then fell in with the Soviets for a few decades. Yep. Please, Meglena Kuneva. Please teach me right from wrong, O heroic defender of human rights. You're all about freedom, aren't you? Thank you, thank you, for saving the world from the curse of DRM on iTunes.

I'm flattered -- but also scared?

A reader sent in a comment alerting us to her FSJ fan site. See here. It's a blog called "Fake Steve Job's [sic} Fake Fan." Not sure how to feel about this. One the one hand, the photo of his "lady" looks pretty hot. And her posts about us having some kind of "9 and 1/2 Weeks" sexy time together, well, I haven't been this turned on since Bike Helmet Girl dick-teased me. Long as it doesn't morph into "Fatal Attraction."

Al Gore says don't watch this movie

Seriously, Gore is freaking out, first because the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows average temperatures well below normal in the US so far this year. Al says they're doctoring the numbers so they can mess up his presidential bid. Worse, now there's this movie called "The Great Global Warming Swindle" coming out on British TV which basically has a bunch of scientists saying Gore is spreading hysteria, hype, junk science and intolerance. Gore's response? "Intolerant? How dare they say that? We are going to make sure this thing can't be shown on American TV, I'll tell you that much." He and George Soros are already raising money to hire picketers to protest outside whichever U.S. network dares to buy the rights. Whew boy. This is hardball baby. Well, you can judge for yourself. See the Brit movie at http://gorelied.notlong.com.

Apple: Best retailer in America

Better sales per square foot than Tiffany, Saks and Best Buy -- combined. That's according to Fortune, citing a report from Sanford Bernstein. See here. I like the way they tweaked Businessweek for lecturing to us back in 2001 about why our retail stores wouldn't work. Smooth move, Businessweek. You morons. And though I did try to throw some credit to other people in the article, trust me, the stores were all my idea. And I designed every bit of the space. If you saw what the frigtards first came up with, you'd hurl. I even had to go in and choose the kind of stainless steel we're using. And all of our wood -- not only the hand-lacquered Danish maple that you can see in the store space but even the boards that are behind the dry wall, the two-by-fours and plywood -- comes from specially grown trees, and I personally select each board by hand, rejecting on average 19 out of every 20 pieces. You know what? The quality shows. It's that attention to detail that makes us, well, I'll just say it: better than other people.

Squirrel Boy talking to cell phone execs

Have you heard this one? Schmidt and his entourage including Andy Rubin are making the rounds talking to cell phone companies about their new Google phone. See one version of the story here. Includes a photo of their supposed phone which frankly looks like ass compared to the iPhone. Like I told Eric: Bring it on. Let's rumble.

Palm hires an ex-Apple guy

To try to fight back against the iPhone. See here. Oooh, we're all shaking over here at Apple. What will we do? When Palm rolls out its lame-ass iPhone clone in 2009? Man oh man.

Microsoft refusing to accept returns on defective Zunes

Despite a promise that they would. Shameful. This is not the way to treat customers.

Not sure what to make of this

Guy goes into a Cingular store, buys a new Blackberry. Gets home, looks at the receipt, and it contains something about a $150 discount on an iPhone. See here. Someone's head is gonna roll on this.

Cisco dude is quoting FSJ. Thanks!

Check this out. John Earnhardt, a big shot at Cisco, is bitching on his blog about Cisco being left off the PC World list of the 50 most important people on the web. Money quote:

Fake Steve Jobs blogs sub-head says, "Dude, I invented the frigging iPod. Have you heard of it?" I think the sub-head of this blog should be "We invented the friggin network router. Have you heard of it?"

Much love, John Earnhardt. Glad to learn you're a reader. FWIW, I agree with you completely, and I even think Cisco should have been at the top of the list. No kidding. No hard feelings on the iPhone. Namaste.

That worked out well

That analyst from Jupiter Research who joined Microsoft a few weeks ago has already quit. His job was to help work with Microsoft enthusiasts. As I predicted, he apparently found out there isn't any such thing as a Microsoft enthusiast. Oh, you can tell yourself those people in the audience are smiling. But deep down in your heart you know the difference between a smile and a cringe.

Today is International Women's Day

And as a person of Middle Eastern descent I am so glad to see on Yahoo that Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan is taking a lead role in showing the world how women should be treated. See here where the queen asks, "What are you doing to empower women in your community?" On that note it's also a good opportunity to look at the enormous progress that's being made across the entire Arab world when it comes to the treatment of women. For example, consider what happens to a teenage girl who refuses to marry her father's elderly business partner. In the old days she'd get some serious punishment. Now she only gets this.

Other signs of progress:

1. Rape victims no longer abandoned by families and set on fire. Just abandoned by families.

2. Genital mutilation now confined to outer labia.

3. Age of consent raised from six to eight. (Seven with permission of parents.)

4. Full head scarves optional on "casual Friday."

5. Women allowed to drive, as long as a man is behind the wheel, steering and using the pedals.

6. Forced sex remains a punishable offense, but women involved face shorter sentences.

7. Beatings for talking back to husband now restricted to arms and legs. And torso. And head.

8. Women who speak to men to whom they are not related are no longer shot, only jailed. (Except in cases where they are jailed and then shot.)

Jaysus the freetards are going after Bono too

So Bono just emailed me to tell me the Defective by Design people have a petition bugging him too and demanding that he join their lame-ass crusade. See here. He says he thought at first it was The Edge playing a joke on him. Then he found out it was real. His response: "Oh man, I'm just so psyched to discover a way to use technology to give away my life's work for free. Amazing! Fook you, arseholes."

Separated at birth?

Someone just sent these photos in with a note.

Dear FSJ,
Is Dwight Schrute, goofball loser and tyrannical office bully of the Dunder-Mifflin paper company, perhaps related to Peter Brown, goofball loser and tyrannical bully of the Free Software Foundation? I think we should be told.

Namaste,

Gareth Keenan

Mat Honan's style guide

Well I was wondering about this Cult of Mac dude, Mat Honan, who's been busting my balls for wearing the same outfit all the time. Figured I'd do a little Googling on old Mat with one T. Wow, you won't believe what I found. Seems Mat's got a signature look of his own.

See 1 here and 2 here and 3 here and 4 here and 5 here and 6 here and 7 here and 8 here and 9 here and 10 here and 11 here.

Dude, you went to Asia for a month and you brought one friggin shirt! What is up with that? You should put that shirt in a museum or something.

Then here and here you went a little crazy and wore a slightly different shade of red. And here you've got a non-red T-shirt but the same blue baseball cap. Mixing it up and getting wild!

Much love, Cult of Mac dudes! You know I loves ya. But don't be crackin on my sartorial statements.

Talk about "Defective by Design"

Look at these losers. I'm sorry but do you really think these freetards should be calling anyone else "defective"? These are grown people, fully sentient adults, who dress up in costumes and picket about a music player. Can you imagine how embarrassed their kids must be? Man and that Peter Brown looks like a barrel of laughs doesn't he? Must be a blast at parties. God almighty. Freetards, I've told you this before but I'll say it again: You need to find a more deserving outlet for your anger. I mean, there's a war going on. Have you heard about it? And the planet is melting, supposedly. And you're roused to anger because you can't play iTunes songs on a Zune. Oh boy.

The FSF is corrupt and must be stopped

So look. I didn't pick this fight. But God knows I'm not going to back down. These guys want to make pictures of me in a jester's hat? Fine. They want to act all morally superior? Whoa there. Not so fast, freetards. Fact is, the FSF is an organization so corrupt that they make Greenpeace and the United Nations look like saints. Here's some facts, which I would like to publish under the heading, "J'accuse!" which for those of you who don't know is Russian for "You suck."

1. Transparency. The FSF claims to be all about openness, yet it will not disclose the source of its funding or how it spends that money. We demand a complete list of donors and the amounts given by each, and a complete open accounting of the FSF's spending. Write to info@fsf.org and demand: SHOW US THE MONEY!

2. Secrecy. Why does the FSF website (www.fsf.org) not publish email addresses for its directors? Why do they hide behind generic addresses like "info@fsf.org"? Write to this address and tell them: GIVE US YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES SO WE CAN HARASS YOU!

3. Hoarding software. For more than 10 years the FSF and its demented leader Richard M. Stallman have been forcing programmers to sign over their copyrights if they want to contribute to GNU projects. This coercion is evil. It's the same as European settlers taking land from Native Americans. Write to Richard Stallman (rms@gnu.org) and tell him to FREE THE CODE!

4. Selective enforcement. Sure, the FSF is going after Apple. Guess why? We don't give them money. You know who does give them money? IBM. Yep. Heard any complaints from FSF about IBM suing Amazon and others over software patents? Hmmm. Wonder why. Write to FSF and demand that they STOP IBM'S RUTHLESS ABUSE OF THE PATENT SYSTEM!

5. Few years ago IBM helped create a consortium called OSDL. That group gave $4 million to the FSF's lawyer, Eben Moglen, so he could create the Software Freedom Law Center. That group fights software patents. Yet, oddly enough, just like FSF, the SFLC hasn't made a peep about IBM's patent-related lawsuits. Strange eh? Especially since one lawsuit targets a company called PSI, which is trying to make a low-cost mainframe clone; IBM is attempting to use its monopoly control over the mainframe market to kill a new competitor. Write to Eben Moglen (moglen@gnu.org) and demand that he END THE HYPOCRISY and FILE AMICUS BRIEFS ON BEHALF OF IBM'S VICTIMS!

6. The FSF's legal researcher and Chief Propaganda Minister, Pamela Jones, claims to be an expert on legal issues yet she's been on the run for a month, ducking a subpoena. That's, um, kind of not totally kosher, legalistically speaking. Why is she hiding? It's been suggested that Jones has taken money from companies she covers on her "Groklaw" blog, including one company that's involved in a lawsuit (cough IBM cough). Apparently she doesn't want to give a deposition and deny this under oath. Write to Pamela Jones (pj@groklaw.net) and demand that she COME OUT OF HIDING AND COMPLY WITH THE LAW!

Otherwise, um, we're going to send all of you people jester's hats. I mean it. Don't push me. We'll do it. I'm totally serious. I'm not even kidding. That's right. Jester's hats.

An Open Letter to the Free Software Foundation

This letter is going out to the Free Software Foundation today. Please show your support by signing the comment string.

Dear Free Software Foundation:

A friggin jester's hat? That's it? That's the best you can do? If I don't cave in to your demands, you're going to mail me a jester's hat? Tell you what. Send me five. I'll take a dump in each one and mail them back to you by overnight mail, still steaming.

Look, Manson Family, here's the problem. You've got no leverage. You don't actually buy anything in the first place, so you can't threaten a boycott. And if you really think shaming me is gonna work, well, I guess you haven't read any of the unauthorized biographies about the old Jobsmeister.

One thing I do know about you, after looking at your leadership page. As far as I can tell it's a bunch of losers from MIT plus a couple of nutso lawyers like Larry Lessig -- in other words, people who have never created a piece of commercial software or written a hit song in their lives. So, um, no wonder you want everyone else to give you their stuff free.

Let's face it. You're losers. And thieves. You can't make anything decent on your own, so instead you demand that those of us who do have talent should give you our work for free. All this hoo-ha about "freedom" and protecting people's rights? Come on. Tell Eben Moglen and Larry Lessig to sit down and create an album as good as "Abbey Road" and give it away free. Then we can talk. Or this: All of you guys start working for zero money. Send me your IRS forms showing a complete year of zero income, and maybe you'll have some street cred.

Now here's my demand. I don't want to wait until April 1 for the hat. I want five hats, and I want them now. Today. I'm asking all my readers to pressure you to do this by sending email to your executive director, Peter T. Brown (info@fsf.org), under the subject line, SEND STEVE HIS FIVE HATS NOW!

Unless you comply, my readers will take art work from your FSF websites to exercise their free speech and create parodies (under the Fair Use doctrine which you cherish so greatly) such as the following: Richard Stallman with a Charlie Manson swastika on his forehead; Richard Stallman's head on the body of Hitler and/or Stalin; Peter Brown in a French maid's costume. You get the idea.

You want war, assholes? I'll give you war. You think you're bad-ass? Have you ever dealt with the Apple faithful? Just wait till you feel the full force of their wrath and fury. They're like Bruce friggin Lee on crack. Times a zillion.

And don't even think about trying to take legal action, cause I'll have the Electronic Frontier Foundation up your asses so fast and so hard they'll shoot out through the top of your little pointy heads. Also, if you're thinking of sending one of your ninjas to visit me, let me warn you: I'm a 10th-degree T'ai Chi master, and I will rip his friggin lungs out.

Send me those hats, frigtards. You know the address. I'm in the phone book. 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino CA.

Namaste.

The Free Software Foundation wants my head in a jester's cap

Well the loonies at the Free Software Foundation who launched their "Defective by Design" anti-DRM campaign are demanding that I drop DRM from iTunes by April 1, and if I don't, they're gonna ... wait for it ... send me a jester's hat! Noooooo! And they've written an open letter and started a petition, of course, because these freaks just friggin love creating open letters and petitions. What the frig they do with their lives when they're not writing open letters and signing petitions is beyond me. Anyhoo, see here. As with the iTunes on Linux petition, I'm encouraging all of my readers to sign this thing and crank up the pressure on me, goddammit! Olga Fukyercelf, are you listening? Dick Hertz? Mike Hunt? Let's roll, people. And there's a comment section too so you can say something nice about FSJ. Now be careful. For one thing, these freaks are demanding an email address, and they're also probably tracking IP addresses. (Because in case you hadn't noticed, Comrade Stallman and his Freedom Brigade learned most of their "freedom" tactics from Comrade Stalin.) Also, they'll probably start blocking links from this blog once the names start rollling in. So you're better off typing the URL into a fresh browser screen. Here it is: http://defectivebydesign.com/actions/open_letter/steve_jobs.

Oh, I am so busted

Okay so some guy at my kid's soccer match snapped this photo of me using a prototype iPhone in public. Then my dear friends at the Cult of Mac blog republish the photo and break my stones for wearing the same clothes everywhere I go. Thanks, Mat Honan. One of these weeks let me follow you and Leander around with a camera and make fun of what you're wearing, okay? And what is up your first name? Aren't you missing a T there? And by the way, to address your concerns, the JobsWear outfit needs to be worn a certain number of days per year or else I lose the patent and trademark. Satisfied?

Worst of all is the Unofficial Apple Weblog which tries to suggest I was breaking the law by using a phone that hasn't been approved by the FCC yet. Sheesh. Folks, I've been living outside the law since the Seventies, when Woz and I were making blue boxes for hacking the phone system. That rebellious, anti-establishment ethos is what Apple is all about. It's who we are. I'm not afraid of the FCC. Now the SEC and the U.S. Attorney's office, well, maybe. But let's not get sidetracked.

But I would like to point something out. How'd you like it if every time you went to your kid's soccer match you had weirdos stalking you and taking photos of you for their flickr pages? I'm telling you, the life of El Jobso is not always as insanely great as you might imagine. It's like I'm living in the Truman Show. Or America's Most Wanted or something.

Oh, one more thing. You're wondering how well the phone works. Well, it's amazing. The sound quality is like nothing you've ever heard. A few glitches with the screen but we're killing one Chinese engineer a day until our supplier works them out. Peace.

Sir, put down the burger and step away slowly...

Now the kooks at PETA want a piece of Al Gore too. See here. Basically they're saying Al's a hypocrite because he still eats meat, despite the fact that "animals raised for food generate more greenhouse gases than all cars and trucks combined." They also say that "switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Prius." Well, I'm glad to know that I've been doing my part to help the planet since the 1970s. Question: Do you think Al will change his Bambi-eating ways? I doubt it. I've seen the way he tears into a steak. Nope, old Al will just carry on, flying around the world in private jets, tooling around in armored SUVs, using ten times more electricity at his non-solar-powered house than the average American, eating animals and telling the rest of us that we need to change. Second question: How long till the frigtards at Greenpeace find a way to take a chunk out of Al too? They're usually hot on the heels of anything that will get them some publicity.

Good news, global warming fans

If you want to use a computer and also do something great for the environment, you can buy a friggin Dell. Seriously. Go. We don't want you.

Caption contest

Okay, I borrowed this from the Maddox page. I'm sure he won't mind. Have fun.

Big news: I found my biological father

Much love to the reader who sent this in. I always knew I had the seeds of greatness inside me. The power to rule over a fractious army of insane jihadists. Now at last I know why. Namaste.

What happens to engineers who leak to the press

Meet my dear friend Cam Pardo. He's the dude who works in our MacBook division and who leaked the info about the sub-notebook to AppleInsider. Our ex-Mossad security guys had some fun with him before we fired him. Much love, traitor.

Again, please don't be offended

Gentle readers, I hope this news will not upset you, but AppleInsider is reporting here that we are developing a new teeny tiny sub-notebook. Offensive part is they claim this is a ploy to help us win back share in the Japanese market. You know, where the people have teeny tiny hands. I know, I know. It's offensive. Worse yet, the rumor about the sub-notebook isn't even true. It's one of the fake projects we made up in order to find leakers. Shame on you, AppleInsider. This wasn't funny. I am removing you from my feed reader.

Good piece in the Onion

Please don't be offended. But the Onion is making fun of me again. See here.

Lesson: Don't joke about global warming

Man oh man. Talk about angry feedback. That bit about Gore and his frigtarded crusade to save the planet really hit a nerve. Check out the comment strings. Dudes are canceling their subscriptions, removing my blog from their feed readers. All because they didn't like a joke. Wow. This reminds me of the controversy over gay longhairs from last September when a bunch of people got offended and left.

I still cannot figure out how a blog devoted to all things Macintosh could attract so many sanctimonious, holier-than-thou types. We're Mac people, right? We think different. Don't we? And what is it about this climate change stuff that drives people so around the bend? I mean, okay, I can see getting all pissed off and religious about convincing the world that Macs are better than Windows PCs. That's something worth devoting your every breath to. But climate change?

My theory is that the pissed off notes are from trolls, guys like T.J. Rodgers and John Doerr who don't want anyone messing with their green tech solar panel poorly named companies. In which case, as-salamu alaykum, my brothers. If there's money to be made, then keep that hype machine rolling. And, as several readers pointed out, Al Gore did win an Oscar. How much more proof do we need that global warming is real? Although, as the photo above shows, there is now some suspicion that Al Gore is actually the cause of global warming.

God I am so bummed I can't go to TED this year

But my people forgot to send in the paperwork and now it's sold out and that's that. Which sucks because I really wanted to hear Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (photo) talk about the World Bank and sing those heart-breakingly beautiful Portuguese moma songs about her native Cape Verde. Plus they've got Kareem Abdul-Jabbar talking about particle physics, a cartoonist from the New Yorker talking about the human genome project, Tracy Chapman and Henry Louis Gates Jr. on architecture and industrial design, respectively. All that plus Paul Simon explaining his global warming research. You can see the whole lineup of non-famous famous people here. And yes, I know people say TED stands for "totally empty-headed dipshits." I guess if you're not out here in the Valley it's hard to understand how important TED is, and how seriously we take ourselves. As this year's totally unpretentious TED slogan says: "Icons. Geniuses. Mavericks." God I should be there! It's so driving me nuts!

Come on, Gizmodo, give me a break

I love the folks at Gizmodo but I think they're stretching a bit on this story where they say that some beauty queen doesn't like the touch screen keyboard on the LG Prada phone, ergo the iPhone is doomed. Jizzers, you've got a great blog but you know not whereof you speak. Our multi-touch screen is nothing like the screen on the LG Prada phone. But thanks much for the pix of that Spanish woman. Wow.

BTW, Gizmodo apparently has named this woman their official beauty queen at large or something. Seems this old blog could use a beauty queen of our own. Ladies, send in your photos. Proposals of marriage also entertained.

Al Gore has an answer for everything

So I was talking to Al Gore about some Apple-related business and I asked him what he thought about this new documentary called "The Great Global Warming Swindle" that's coming out saying that all this global warming stuff is just hype and bullshit. Gore says it's all funded by oil companies. So I said but what about this French climate scientist who used to agree with you but now says the data doesn't support your theories? This French dude says that all the studies that have been commissioned have failed to prove conclusively that global warming is caused by man. Gore says, "Look, you know, you can look at ice cores, you can do the carbon dating and what have you, and you can have data that goes this way or the other way, but in the end do we really care what the data says? I think saving our planet is a little bit more important than just going out and gathering more and more data."

So I tell him how I just read something about Toronto having the coldest winter in its history, and New York hitting record cold temps too, and China getting hit with its biggest snowstorm in a century. But Al explained to me that these things, too, are caused by global warming. "That's why global warming is so dangerous and scary," he says. "Not only can global warming make the world warmer, but it can also make the world colder. It's a double whammy. This is why I'm saying we have to do something about this right now." I'm like, "Dude, that doesn't make any sense." He goes, "I know, Steve, it's kind of complicated, and unless you've spent the last 20 years studying this stuff, well, it's kind of hard to get your mind around it. You didn't take a lot of science in college, did you? Oh, that's right. Sorry."

Awkward

Just ran into Fred Anderson in downtown Palo Alto. I was leaving a Pilates class and walked around a corner and boom -- practically bumped into him. He asked me why I haven't been responding to his emails, and why we're not paying the legal bills that his law firm has been sending us. I said something like, "Um, yeah, sure, I'm sure we are, and, um, mwah mwah mwah blah blah." He's like, "Excuse me?" I tried to slide past him but he blocked my way. So I went, "Hey, isn't that Roger McNamee and Bono?" When he turned to look I ran away. I know, I know. I feel like crap. But look, someone's gotta take the rap and it ain't gonna be me. And it's not like he's gonna be in some Super-Max. It'll be one of those country club places with the mafia guys and their personal chefs. And no more than 18 to 24 months is what my guys are telling me.

Wow, turns out I'm almost as important as the Google guys

That at least is what PC World magazine says here. On their list of the 50 Most Important People on the Web, I'm in second place after Schmidt-Brin-Page of Google. Much love to the reader who alerted me to this list. And to answer your question about how it feels to be ranked behind these morons, well, all I can say is look at the photos of those guys and then look at the photo of me, and then tell me which of us you'd most like to be. Yeah. I'm pretty happy where I am.

A great riff on our 1984 ad

I love this ad parody. Not sure who created it. Much love to the reader who sent me the link. Namaste.

Mr. Bill, you are so lame

Let me tell you something. When you see something like this where some Windows lover is going on about how Macs are only for unemployed beatniks and Starbucks workers? Microsoft paid for it. Not sure who this guy is or how much they paid him. Probably gave him one of those free Acer laptops. And yeah, I know you Microtards wish that our zealous Mac users would "shut the frig up." I'd feel the same way if the entire world was finally realizing that what I'm selling is crap, and that there are in fact better alternatives out there; and if, like Microsoft, every day I was losing another tiny bit of my market share.

Dead Man Walking

Word out of Sun's recent analyst meeting is that the Wall Street SOBs were grilling the crap out of My Little Pony over all this open-source madness which we reported on here back in December. Apparently the Wall Street types like Sacconagi and Conigliaro can't quite figure out how it benefits Sun to be giving all its stuff away free. Gee, ya think? They kept pushing MLP for some metrics for measuring how well any of his schemes are working. "I can't give you those numbers," Ponytail Boy kept responding. Meanwhile his big pal Mike Lehman sat on stage with his hands on his lap, saying nothing and letting MLP twist in the wind.

Okay, we'll start the betting today. How long till My Little Pony gets put out to pasture?

Eat my ass, Fortune magazine

So the same frigtarded reporter -- oh, I'm sorry, "senior editor at large" -- who thought he was such a big smart-ass back in 2001 when he made up some lies about how much I was being paid, now finds it in his tiny heart to offer a mealy-mouthed half-apology here. Money quote: "Smart-aleck journalists aren't always smart." No guff, Geoff Colvin. Apology accepted. And as for calling me "one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs," well, takes one to know one. Moron.

I was born in California, but I love the USA

Especially since the government decided to ban Vista. Let's hope this starts a trend.

Shut the frig up, Squirrel Boy

Jesus. Guy can't stop shooting off his mouth. Here he is more or less admitting that Google and Apple are working on a tablet PC together. Guess you can't blame him. He's so desperate to have Google manage to do something besides search that actually succeeds. But still. Loose lips sink ships, dumb-ass.

Nice art work, Gizmodo

This is a bit old but I love the picture of me.

A young fan makes a documentary about me

A young reader sent me a link to this video. He says he's a 10th grader and made this documentary about yours truly for a national history day project. Made it in iMovie. Namaste, young artist.

Ask Fake Steve

Well I've tried to answer some of the thousands of questions that rolled in from readers. Send more for next week.

Q. the public must know
do you wear boxers or briefs
to hold such big balls?
--Mr. H. Aiku
A: I go commando. Always. Otherwise I get chafing.

Q. Fake Steve, oh power of politics as well as technology: what precautions are being made to ensure Al Gore won't be standing this election? He can't be allowed to screw it all up again.
--John Muir
A: No precautions needed. They're just going to let him start talking. Should do the trick.

Q. Dear FakeSteve: What were you like as a teenager?
--Love, FSJ Fanclub President
A. Lonely, stringy-haired, convinced of my genius. And I never bathed.

Q. Dear Fake Steve. We all know what kind of jeans and shoes you use, but how do you smell? Any preferred aftershave we should know about?
--cubeXpert
A. How I smell depends on what I'm eating. When I'm 100% fruitarian I smell like flowers and don't even need to bathe. When I'm eating beans, broccoli or cabbage, keep your distance.

Q. I tried to buy 'iCon' via iTunes audiobooks. couldn't find it. any reasons i may not be aware of..?
--cheers, dim
A. You deserve your name. You're no longer allowed in our stores.

Q. Dear Sir, I have heard that Apple inc. will be a bigger comapny than Microsoft by 2012 because of all the fabulous products you are doing. So, my questions are: 1. Will this make you wealthier than Bill Gates? and 2. Are you considering running for President of the USA in 2012?
--Tomasi
A. 1, Yes. 2, No, I'm running in 2008.

Q. When will you finally evolve into your fourth celestial embodiment, great One?
--Church of Apple
A. This has already occurred. Guess you missed it.

Q. What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow? and what is your favorite movie?
A.J. Cardon
A. All questions about swallowing should go to Michael S. Malone. My favorite movie is Nemo.

Q. OK, so I met this really interesting woman online but she bailed when I drunk dialed her to ask her "when are we going to have babies". (I thought it would be a bonding thing, but it was not.) I think I found her sister using the same dating site (I can't be sure, but it is a strong possibility) and I want to make a play for her. How would you, FSJ, handle this delicate situation?
--Anonymous.
A. Rohypnol comes highly recommended.

Q. Fake Steve, if you could vaporize one member of Apple's board without fear of retribution from pesky stockholders or members of law enforcement, who would it be and why?
--Garrett Albright
A. The dude from J. Crew. I can't remember his name. Sleeps through all the meetings.

Q. Mr. Steve, you show that you don't like the Google guys (Squirrel Boy) yet you use their Blogger? Also how the heck did you hook up with Hillary Clinton Blog. She was really rude man.
--Toki-chan
A. Toki, part of the deal when Squirrel Boy came on our board was that I had to keep using Blogger. As for the Hillary blog, I think it's the best thing on the Web.

Q. What does the real Steve Jobs think of this blogspot? Does he know about it?
--Anonymous
A. I'm told he's a huge fan of the Bono items.

Q. FSteve: If you could trade places with someone for a day, who would it be?
--Anonymous.
A. I'd like to be Fred Anderson, so I could see what it feels like to bone myself in the butt.

Q. Will you adopt me?
A. Depends.

Q. What does an 80-year-old lady's crotch smell like?
A. See answer above.

Bono plays editor

So Bono calls me and he's all proud of himself because he's going to guest-edit an edition of Vanity Fair. (See here.) He's like, "Yeah, first I was gonna try and edit an edition of Forbes, seeing that I own the fookin place and all, but you know what? I tried to read some of their stories and I fookin fell asleep! No shite, Steve. I mean I really tried. No matter what, I'd fall asleep. Coffee, electrodes, toothpicks to hold up my eyelids -- fookin asleep in like five minutes. Fookin articles about taxes, and all these fookin columns about what you should do with yer money or where to invest and half the shite I've never even heard of. Like what the fook is a muni, do you have any fookin idea? I told dose guys you need more fookin celebrities or sumfin. Spark it up a bit. Guy tells me, Oh, no, we actually go out of our way to make it less exciting. Our average reader is like seventy-eight years old and we don't want to scare them. So then I thought maybe I'd guest-edit an edition of the online version but all they want to do is slideshows on like ten celebrities with the best tits and world's fastest cars. I'm like, okay, but how about one day we just do nothing but really depressing stories about Africa? Yeah. Didn't go over too well. Luckily the nice folks at Vanity Fair were happy to go along with any crackpot idea I threw at them. Like, I told Graydon Carter, mate, if I'm gonna do this edition then you're gonna have to do something about that fookin hair. He's like, What do you mean? I'm like, You're kidding right? But he wasn't. No lie. He thinks it's cool. Man oh man."

I told Bono, Look, I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you really want to get the Nobel Prize you can't be so transparently ambitious about it. Okay? You have to be more subtle. He told me to fook off. I also pointed out to him that if he's going to edit a magazine he's going to have to actually read stuff. Like, whole articles. He's like, "Fook off, ya eejit, I know that, I've already hired someone to do that. So there."

Pat Russo, I hope you get crabs

You know I hate Microsoft but honestly I'm kind of rooting for them in this lawsuit against Alcatel-Lucent over the MP3 thing. And I'm glad that they've apparently won a round in the case. No, not because these telecom a-holes will come after us next. I'd be glad to ditch MP3. What upsets me is seeing what's happened to Bell Labs. This was one of the greatest science labs ever created. They developed the transistor, the laser and Unix. Friggin Arno Penzias did the work on the Big Bang for Christ's sake. But after the split they got sucked into Lucent. Then Pat Russo and the other frigtarded phone system lifers who got put in charge at Lucent ran the place into the rocks. Honestly you have never met a bigger bunch of buffoons than the clowns who run Lucent. After years of pissing away a seemingly unbeatable lead, in a last-gasp desperation move they hook up with Alcatel. Two boat anchors trying to teach each other to swim. Now they're digging through their patent portfolio looking for stuff they can wring a few bucks out of. Here's the thing. There are only two kinds of companies: ones that are growing and ones that are dying. Alcatel-Lucent used to be dying companies. Then they died and now they are a zombie company. Already dead but still somehow walking the earth, and trying to feed on the blood of the living. Unable to create products of their own, they instead try to suck the life out of companies that do make products. Ugly stuff. Pat Russo, I hope you get crabs.

Bill Maher's lawyers write in

Via email they send a formal letter in PDF format responding to my recent post about him stealing my material. They're saying that not only did Mr. Mosquito Penis not steal my joke, that in fact I stole it from him, and they're demanding I pay damages to him. They want $10,000 in "royalties" on the joke, plus $10,000 for using his photo without permission, plus $50,000 for defamation, and a full apology and retraction. Man, these Hollywood blood suckers are just mindblowing. Look, lawyers, back off okay? I know it sucks working for that donut humper Bill Maher. I feel for you. I do. I'll send you all free fake Zunes to show I care. And as for the damages, you can find my answer here.

Show this to your Windows friends

Some guy has compiled a list of 22 things he's learned about life after switching from Windows to Mac and wants to tell you how ecstatically happy you'll be if you switch too. See here. They're pretty good, I think. My favorite is #8: You'll be continually amazed at the fit and finish. We put a huge amount of work into that. So it makes me really psyched to hear someone mention it. Much love, switcher dude.

Market share gains

Check this out. New study says we've got 6.38% market share. That's up 2 points in the past six months. Watch out, Gateway! And take that, SEC and US Attorney's office! Better yet, says here that 9,000 people a day switch from Windows to Mac. Nice.

Shame about Dell

Wow. Sales down by a billion, earnings down 30%. Now they're using the T word -- turnaround -- and saying it could take years. Ouch. Well, give Dell the gold medal. They started a price war and won the race to the bottom. Looked great until everyone else arrived there too. Now what? Hire engineers and try to invent stuff? Look for other markets to commoditize? Like what? Could they move into the auto parts business or something? Open a chain of pizza restaurants? Maybe just shut it down and give the money to the shareholders.

This isn't funny

They are going to send Stephen Hawking on a zero-gravity flight. See here. Jesus. What won't they do to this poor bastard? No doubt this is the bright idea of that nurse-slash-second-wife who's been leaving him out in the rain and messing with him for years. I know they've filed for divorce but mark my words, I bet that slapper is behind this. Poor dude just wants to sit in his living room and drink a nice cup of tea and say dirty words with his voice computer when cute girls go by. Instead this bitch is gonna shoot him up into space. Great idea, lady. What's next? Bungee jumping? A trip to Six Flags?

Smart story

On the BusinessWeek.com site about what we should do with our $12 billion cash stash. See here. Writer says we should start a venture fund and use it to get software companies to write programs for our platform. You know what? I just sent this around to my guys to consider. Much love, BusinessWeek.

Bill Maher is stealing my material

No shit. I happened to tune in to some channel last night and saw the big Hugh Hefner wannabe doing his monologue and right in the middle of it he pops off a joke about Britney Spears shaving her head: "At least now the drapes match the carpet," he says. Hmmm. Seems I've seen that someplace else recently. Like here. Look, writers for Bill Maher. I know you're desperate for material, and I'm flattered that you're reading my blog. But if you're gonna steal my stuff, at least throw me a bone, okay? Help a brother out. Or maybe it's just a case of great minds thinking alike and we both thought of the exact same joke. Fair enough. Nonetheless I had that joke patented and ran with it first. Apple lawyers will be checking in soon and let's do this like gentlemen, without going to court. Okay? Mwah. Love ya.

Ask Fake Steve

Prez of the FSJ Fan Club writes in to say that we should start a recurring item called "Ask Fake Steve." Well, okay. I've always been a big fan of Dan Savage. So send in your questions about any topic and I'll try to tackle a few. You can use email or comment strings, whichever you prefer. Namaste.