Honestly, I'm flattered. But at this point I'm really leaning against it.

Much love to dear reader Acid Gurl who created this image and is organizing a movement to recruit me to jump into the race as a third-party candidate. The team is proposing a Gore-Jobs ticket. I'm leaning toward a Jobs-Jobs ticket which would spare me the hassle of having to let Al Gore pretend to be in charge while I do all the work of telling him everything he has to say every time he appears in public. Fact is, I'm pretty sure I could fix things in Washington all by myself and without much effort. I could get us out of Iraq, make peace with the South Koreans, solve global warming and still run Apple and Disney. But do I really want to do all that work? The big hassle for me, frankly, is that I don't want to leave the Bay Area. If they'd move the White House to Palo Alto I'd maybe consider it. A.G.'s people are looking into it but at this point I'd say the chances are pretty slim.

This one really pisses me off

Look. I'm not kidding. This stuff has to stop. And stop now. I mean it. You guys can't keep using women's bodies to sell consumer electronics. It's wrong. Okay? This stuff just makes me sick. I know it's horrible to look at, and I know that posting this is going to cost me some readers because people will get so upset, just like they did over the Britney va-jay-jay item recently. But I've made this issue -- the exploitation of women -- my personal crusade and I'm not going to quit until this kind of thing stops happening. I mean it. Don't even test me on this. I urge everyone who is as outraged as I am to go here to the offending site where this was posted and let them know how angry you are. Peace out.

Typical Woz, hogging my spotlight

Maybe you've seen the item on Valleywag. (If not, go here.) Well for once they've actually got something right. Woz is coming to my event at Kepler's in Menlo Park tomorrow night. Jesus. I know he's got a lot of free time on his hands, but still. What won't the guy attend? Next thing you know he'll be doing kids' birthday parties and car dealership openings.

Larry says I should be pissed because it's yet another case of Woz trying to draft on my fame. Actually it's worse than that. Truth is Kathy Griffin wants to meet me. I've seen this coming for a while. It's happened before, more times than I care to admit. They use him to get to me. Know how we all wondered why she was dating him? Now the whole thing makes sense. Poor Woz, however, apparently has no idea.

Anyhoo. Kepler's tomorrow night. Fake Steve and Real Woz. And maybe Kathy G. Talk about a D list event. I can't wait.

Much love, Wall Street Journal

Check out this glowing review of my memoirs in this morning's Wall Street Journal. We'd requested that they put Goatberg on the job since he's been freshly hypnotized for his Leopard review. They insisted on using this other dude, Paul Boutin. No idea who he is and we were scared when they told us he works at Valleywag, since those guys are not exactly known for being kind. Or perceptive, for that matter.

Worse yet, Boutin wouldn't drive down to Cupertino so I had to do my meet-and-greet hypnosis treatment over the phone. But it appears to have worked. Sure he had a little quibble about the ending but if you cleverly excise those few sentences you can create a blurb that reads like this: "From between the plot lines of "Options" bubbles a raw, honest look at Silicon Valley culture: low-rent billionaires, pretentious new-money moguls and "frenemy" competitors who have no one to talk to but each other. [blah blah mwah mwah bad stuff skip over this don't look here] ... Fake Steve's ruthless inner monologues about those around him ring truer than most nonfiction profiles of tech's movers and shakers."

Nice job of skipping over the blah blah part, right? We call it editing. Anyway who cares about a little quibble? It's just there so the guy can save face and not appear to have a total man-crush on me. (Which he does.) Anyhoo. Namaste, Paul Boutin. When I count to three and snap my fingers you'll awake feeling totally refreshed and not remembering anything about any review in the Wall Street Journal. FWIW, I've already put in a good word for you with Rupert, who's trying to find a replacement for Goatberg. Frankly I think you'd be fantastic in that job. Call me.

Is this better?

Lots of mail rolling in saying that this item from yesterday's blog depicted a cheetah, not a leopard. Fair enough. Iulia and Natasha live in Krasnodar and there aren't exactly a lot of big cats in their environment. Okay? So go easy on them. And the cheetah picture still kind of rocks, you must admit. Anyway, we've done some research and Burt Hammer, our photo editor, assures us that this new photo (above) shows an actual leopard carrying a copy of Vista back to its cave. Or its tree. Or wherever it is that leopards live and do their eating of Microsoft products. And Burt should know since he took the photo himself on a safari. Okay?

We're not scared of the gPhone

Big story today (see here) about Google talking to Verizon and Sprint, making deals for them to carry Google-based phones. Let me tell you something. We're not worried in the least. For one thing, they're just in talks. What that means in the world of telecom is this: Nothing. Eric hasn't figured it out yet but wait till he sits through a bazillion mindless endless friggin meetings with these bozos. Yes, those carriers want something to counter the iPhone. So maybe they'll be willing to play ball. But not the way Google wants them to. They're already way too aware of how badly Google wants to kill them. They'll make a deal but it's going to be like one of those Hollywood marriages where some gay dude marries some starlet because it looks good in the tabloids but everyone knows that he really wants nothing to do with her.

Another drawback is that Eric is relying on hardware dopes to make the phones. He's not controlling the experience. I know I'm maybe a bit extreme on this but as I see it unless you control the entire product -- software, hardware, retail -- you can't deliver a truly extraordinary experience. In our case it's bad enough we have to deal with the frigtards at AT&T but at least they mostly stay out of our way.

Another problem Google faces is simply that no matter how cool this phone is, no matter how many great features it has, there's one key feature it will never have and that's an Apple logo on the outside. Don't misunderestimate this. It's a hugely powerful factor. We've done studies on this. You can't believe how many people buy our stuff just because it's from Apple. We've got the hottest brand in the world. A bunch of Asperger sufferers from Mountain View might be great at making search algorithms, and the bandits who run AdSense are great at squeezing pennies out of gullible suckers, but trust me, it's a different ballgame in consumer electronics and Google definitely does not have that in its DNA.

Look. We've seen one of these phones. Eric brought one over the other day. It's fine. Nice looking enough. Works. Makes calls. The apps run. But it's nothing overwhelming. You couldn't put it in a plexiglass case and make nerds drool looking at it.

The real reason we're not scared is that when Eric ran down the hall to the men's room (he's got this going problem that his doc says is a growing problem) we rifled through his briefcase and found out that the gPhone is scheduled to be released in 2008, but only in beta form, with a target date of 2011 for it to come out of beta. In other words, perpetual beta, just like everything else at Google. Who wants a phone that's in beta? You know how easy it will be to message against that?

We won't even have to do it. The Borg is going to take the lead on this one because they're the ones who are really threatened. You think Monkey Boy is going to let Squirrel Boy come into the mobile phone space with a new platform that rivals Windows Mobile? You think Microsoft isn't going to fight? Riiight. The FUD is going to be flying so fast and thick it's going to feel like the front row at a Gallagher show.

Another piece of food for thought. In all these years Google has spent millions, maybe billions, trying to create an Act II for the company, some way to go beyond search and advertising. They've done the classic Valley thing -- hire nerds, turn them loose to dream up wacky ideas, put some of those ideas out into the market, throw them against the wall and see what sticks. Only, um, in their case so far nothing sticks. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Sure the stock is at almost 700 bucks and the dopes on Wall Street are lapping it up but the truth is that out in the Valley people are starting to snicker. And if you look very closely at their quarterly results in the last couple of quarters you can see the cracks in the facade. Eric's slapping financial patching plaster over them as fast as he can but there's only so far you can go with that kind of stuff. Unless you're IBM in which case apparently you can do it forever and nobody ever catches on.

But I digress. As far as I can tell, the gPhone is just another desperate attempt on Google's part to dream up something besides search. And when the best you can do is copy something that others are already doing, and try to crack into an already overcrowded market, well, that's not very promising. That's not what I told Eric though. What I told him is that I think it's a great idea and I'm sure Google will be a big success and there's so much room in this smart phone market for all of us and aren't we all going to do some interesting amazing things in the next few years? Then when he left (after taking yet another pee) we all just laughed our asses off. Peace out, sucka.

Why Apple rules retail

Check out this story from Fast Company in which some filthy hack tells about spending the last two years working in menial retail jobs and tries to pass this off as some kind of George Plimpton "Paper Lion" participatory journalism project. "In what wound up as a two-year undercover project, I took a series of entry-level retail jobs ... I did it to better understand the world of commerce and the corporate cultures that drive it." Hey, whatever. If that's the story you need to invent so you can face your family at Thanksgiving, fair enough. Good news is that retail dude worked in an Apple store and went through our training program (yeah, we knew he was a plant) and he says we kick butt compared to stores like Gap and Starbucks. But you knew that. Much love to Hamish for the tip.

Yes, we put a hidden message in the stars

Look, can you blame us? We like to have fun. It's how we roll. Didn't take long for someone to connect the dots. See the original here.

Leopard hits 2 million mark

Watch out, Microsoft. We're on your back and working our way up.

Wow, some guy named Anil is unloading on me

See here. Anil Dash says we're being all smug and ugly because we make fun of Windows in one of our ads. Money quote: "Perhaps most disturbingly, it's not at all implausible that this little easter egg was, at least implicitly, approved by Steve Jobs himself. It's a whole 'nother post to explain why that level of meddling megalomania is kind of pathological for a multi-billion-dollar global corporation, but let's not digress too much. Suffice to say, the presence of this image means that there's permission to be this passive-aggressive and, well, lame at all levels of Apple's organization."

I'm not even sure where to go with this. I got so angry reading this vicious attack piece that I just started shaking. Ja'Red had to come in and bring me my bottled oxygen. People have no idea how sensitive I am. Negativity of all kinds just really upsets me. I know it's a free country and people like Anil can write or saw whatever they want. But I really need to keep this stuff out of my zone of focus. It hurts, people. It really hurts. Now will someone please bring me a mango smoothie and make sure there are no damn chunks in it? Thank you.

It's true, we trust our users

See this wonderful story with a great video praising us for not putting users through the hassles off activation codes the way Microsoft does. Money quote: "This is more than just “mac vs pc” guys and gals. This is about core beliefs. It’s about trust. Yes, that word again. Tired of it yet? How can you be? How often is it in this day and age you find someone who just trusts you automatically? Most of the time, individuals and companies alike generally distrust anyone and everyone until proven wrong. It’s nice for once to have the opposite be true."

I'd like to point something out here. We trust users. It's true. The reason we do this is because we want to start a chain reaction. We trust you, and then you trust sommeone else, and then they trust someone else. Pretty soon everyone is trusting the people around them. What happens then? No more war. Instead, peace. You see? And it all starts with a little piece of software. Like a butterfly's wings starting an earthquake, as the story goes in that old Chinese proverb.

We need to slow down our iPhone sales

I'm getting loads of mail from people about our recent decision to limit customers to two iPhones apiece and to force them to pay with credit cards. I'm sure you've seen all the stories, like this one, where the theory is that we're doing this so we can keep track of who buys phones and try to prevent hacking. Which is true. That's part of it. But the real reason is that iPhone sales are just way ahead of our projections. In fact according to our market researchers iPhone is the fastest selling consumer electronics product in world history. Nothing else has ever even come close.

You'd think that would be a great thing, and it is, sort of, but Jennie Falcone, my karmic repatterning therapist, says we're once again at risk of putting out too much new technology too fast. Especially with iPhone about to drop in England and France and, as some of you may have heard, also in Canada. Which ought to make this guy happy. But you have to be careful on these things. We need to keep iPhone special, and exclusive. We don't want to have another Motorola RAZR on our hands.

To those of you who wanted to buy five or ten iPhones as Christmas gifts, I'm sorry. But I'm sure you understand where we're coming from on this. Peace.

Valleywag are a bunch of prudes

Check out this blind item where they claim a certain Valley CEO was fired because he stumbled into work drunk and peed on the carpet in front of stunned onlookers. All I can say is the Valley has changed and not for the better. Back in the Seventies and Eighties this kind of stuff happened all the time and nobody thought twice about it. I guess it's just another result of this "Just Say No" generation. Damn you, Nancy Reagan. You created an entire generation of twenty-something careerist weenies who are scared of drugs, scared of sex, and all uptight about a little public urination. And Scooter, look, we all know that this is not the reason you got booted. It was totally about your job performance. Okay? Peace out.

Borg-funded trade rag says Leopard beats Vista

Boom. See here. Money quote: "There's a completeness about Mac OS X that starkly contrasts with Vista's incompleteness." Naturally, however, since this is a Microsoft publication the guy manages to make excuses for Microsoft's shittiness. Like, Microsoft has to rely on partners; Microsoft got screwed by the antitrust stuff and became cautious; Microsoft has to focus on enterprise customers; Microsoft has to worry more about security. Blah blah. Apparently this guy even wrote an article saying why Vista is better than Leopard. I didn't read it, and I've instructed our Safari team to find a way to block that article so it can't be read on our browser. Not because we don't want people to have the information; it's just I don't like to have evil vibes seeping onto our machines.

One week to the FSJ-Kawasaki love fest

Just a reminder. One week from tonight I will be appearing onstage with Guy Kawasaki at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. We've shelved the original plans for a steel cage death match, and put the "dance off" on hold. Might still happen but we're not sure. Guy has some kind of knee problem that prevents him from dancing, or so he says. So it looks like just the two of us sitting and chatting -- kind of a pale imitation of the Jobso-v-Gates appearance at All Things D.

I'm hoping Guy will reminisce a bit about the predecessor to the iPhone that he and I first discussed and even prototyped back in the early 1980s. Honestly, I know it sounds incredible, but all this stuff we're making at Apple today? iPods, iTunes, iPhone? Video, music? Portable digital media devices? The destruction of the telecom industry and the television industry and the movie and music industries? We saw all of this coming more than 20 years ago. Guy was there and he'll vouch for that. Anyhoo, if you want to attend you need to RSVP with LinkedIn, which is hosting the event. More information here.

The future of humanity -- ruled by Apple

Well scientists have now confirmed something that I've long felt in my gut to be true -- the human race is slowly separating into distinct species. See here. Money quote: "The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures." Totally makes sense and in fact I think in our own lifetime we're already seeing this split happening with a ruling elite moving to Apple OS X and the underclass of dim-witted goblins using Windows machines. The physical differences are also beginning to emerge. See this specimen versus this one. Quod erat demonstrandum, as Camus once said.

Java developers finally realize the party's over

But I think they don't quite know which party they're talking about. See this screed where some Javatard says Apple has been spitting in his face because we didn't include Java 6 in Leopard. Or something. So he says he's selling his Mac. His headline is, "So long, Apple. The party's over." Well he's right about one thing. The party is over -- the Java party, that is. Glad to see the Javatards have finally figured that out. Word is they're co-sponsoring a support group with Lotus Notes developers. Fun bunch.

Another price hike for OLPC machine

See this story from Reuters. Most stunning thing is finally there's someone in the mainstream media who's calling bullshit on old Saint Nicholas. Money quote: "The laptops are scheduled to go into production next month at a factory in China, far behind their original schedule and in quantities that are a fraction of Negroponte's earlier projections." Much love to Tony for the link.

Woz has been out in the sun too long

See this story where he says he sides with the iPhone unlockers and hopes they'll keep up the good work of destroying my beautiful devices. Woz, stop it, okay? You're a bitter old dude and you're jealous of my success. Everyone knows it and it's just really really sad. Oh, and one more thing: Nice hat. Much love to John for the tip and to TUAW for the awesome photo.

World's fastest Vista laptop is a Mac

No, that's not a typo. See this story. I just sent a link to Michael Dell. Much love to Paul M. for the tip.

Jeff Zucker says I've destroyed the music business

Who knew? I thought it was Britney Spears. Or Eminem. Nope. Apparently it's me. See this item about some conference where Jeff Zucker of NBC says I've destroyed the music business and must be stopped before I do the same to TV and movies. See, I think "destroyed" is one of those corporatespeak words that needs to be translated. In this case I think what Jeff means is that I've taken a bad system and made it a little better, and perhaps freaked out the lazy, stupid old companies that ran this thing so shittily for all those decades before me. And no matter what Jeff might think he's doing with Hulu, he ain't gonna stop me doing the same to TV and movies. Wait and see.

No violence, but clearly an IP violation

Don't worry, we're not sending out any hit squads. Just lawyers. Much love to Victor for the tip.

Caution: More fake cartoon violence

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!Someone made this and sent me a link. Much love, Mariano. I think.

Comment of the day

This just in regarding the last post on our tech support rep Patrick Siooma in Austin:

Listen FSJ:

If you think that it is funny to post that someone in tech support got visited by a hit squad because he did a bad job, you ought to take a step back and think about what you are writing in your blog.

It is no joke, not at all, to write stuff like that. In fact, I'm thinking about writing your bosses at Forbes and suggesting that you should be fired for writing stuff like this.

It is precisely this kind of stuff that lowers the bar for the public to think that torture and other kinds of physical abuse is acceptable behavior as long as you are on the right team--the good guys instead of the bad guys. Of course, who is good and who is bad tends to be a subject of opinion.

To close, while I know that you were trying to write a funny, satirical post, you should know that you crossed the line. Get real. If you do it again, I'm going to make trouble for you at Forbes. Don't think that I won't do it. All I have to do is make a few phone calls.

Namaste.

Dial until your fingers bleed, Spanky.

My friggin MacBook crashed

So I got the Leopard update. Put it on my MacBook Pro and got the dead screen that everybody is talking about. So just to test things out I call into our tech support center in Austin just like a regular frigtard, and I give them a fake name. They put me on hold. Music. More music. Guy comes back. Asks me a series of increasingly stupid questions. Tells me it appears to be my fault. Asks me if I'm new to Mac and how long I've had my machine. Gets all attitudinous on me. Asks me if I know what kind of processor my machine has. Starts to explain about the Apple icon and the "About this Mac" thing. I explain that I can't read that since my friggin machine is now totally friggin dead. He tells me I should have written all that down before I started the upgrade, and since I didn't do that I've violated my Mac terms of service and Apple doesn't owe me any service. He says I should take my machine to a local Apple store and get in line and wait for support. He says phone support is pretty badly overworked because Leopard is crashing all over the place and they're getting swamped with pissed-off people but that it's not Apple's fault because in most cases the problem is that people have done something wrong with their Macs which made the Leopard upgrade not work right. He says the dopes in Cupertino should have seen this coming and put on more staff for this weekend. Then he starts in on how lately his job in Apple tech support is just a world of shit and first they had issues with iPhone and then with the new iMacs and some of the new iPods are a total mess and it's all because friggin Steve Jobs has started using cheapo components in order to save money.

I asked for his name. He told me it was Patrick. I said, Patrick what? He said Patrick Siooma. I thanked him and hung up.

Called Ja'Red and told him to get a tech support person over here to the Jobs Domicile immediamente, if not sooner. Even that guy couldn't get the Dear Leader's machine working correctly. So he left me with a new machine and said he'll get the old one sorted out. Frankly I'm not so crazy about this Leopard stuff. There's too much eye candy, too much going on. Plus I knew Tiger really well and I don't feel like learning something new. But like Phil Schiller says, you gotta keep rolling out new stuff. Doesn't matter what it is as long as it's new. Fair enough. He's got a point.

In case you're wondering, young Patrick in Austin had a visit from one of Moshe's guys last night. Let's just say he won't be coming to work on Monday. But we'll definitely send some really nice flowers to the funeral.

Radical transparency -- Facebook is spying on you

Well the Valley is up in arms after Valleywag reported that Facebots are snooping on users just to entertain themselves. Some of us are still trying to get our heads around the idea that Valleywag is pretending to be outraged at the idea of someone snooping into the private affairs of other people. I mean, hello? Valleywag? The guys who follow Eric Schmidt around on dates? Man oh man.

Frankly I don't see the problem with Faceberg spying on the dopes who use his system. Who cares? It's not like the kiddies at Facebook actually know you. Heck, we've been reading people's .Mac mail since day one. We've got a kind of primitive search algorithm that crawls around looking for sappy love letters or cheating spouses, stuff like that, and we keep them in an archive. Highlights go out on a daily newsfeed to people in the .Mac team. No harm, no foul, as far as I can tell. Besides that's nothing compared to what Google does. I mean you wouldn't believe what they're up to. And it's only going to get worse. Eric told me they've got a new thing that lets them watch people in their homes through a browser. Amazing. And they're not doing it to be prurient or anything. They're just trying to study user habits so they can improve their search algorithms.

Bottom line on cases of privacy invasion as I see it is you have to consider who's doing it and what their motivation is. When it comes to companies in the Valley, we're the good guys. We're trying to make the world a better place. We're the "don't be evil" guys. Okay? If we bend the rules it's only because we're trying to offer the very best service possible. We're doing it for your own good. Okay? Much love.

Resting up

Sorry I'm out of the loop. Mysteriously, only days after my visit to the Borg I was struck down by a terrible illness. My doctor ordered up some blood work which revealed the presence of small amounts of a powerful toxin in my system. I was very careful and never ate or drank anything while I was on the Borg campus, knowing their reputation as skillful poisoners. Not sure how they got the stuff into me. But they did. Doctor assures me I'll be back on my feet soon but for now I'm on bed rest. Sorry. I'll be back blogging soon, I promise.

Scoble denies, then confirms, then does a little dance ...

Scoble got all angry about our post yesterday saying that Podtech was not long for this world. But now he's posted a sort of kind of quasi type confirmation that all is not well in Podland. Naturally he did this on Twitter. Ahem. See his post here. Quote: "Truth is PodTech *is* restructuring its business and refocusing its resources."

Restructuring its business and refocusing its resources.

Riiiight. That's a friggin beatiful eg of clammy corporate doublespeak isn't it? Shocking to hear this kind of murky language coming from Mr. Naked Conversations. Or maybe not. According to Katie this is the new new thing -- radical opacity. Combined with radical transparency to achieve synergies and effect empowering change across multiple disparate constituencies-- (Enough, we get it, Ed.) Someone at Wired is doing an article on it already.

TWITTER UPDATE: This just in from Scoble's Twitter feed. PodTech receiving an investment from unnamed large industry player at a $20 billion valuation. Bubble be damned!

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble denying on Twitter the rumors of investment at $20 billion valuation.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble now in his car, talking on iPhone about $20 billion rumor.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble now off iPhone, thinking about $20 billion valuation.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble believing it may actually be true.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble stopped at red light.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble making right on red.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble thinking about coffee.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble in Starbucks.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble tells barista PodTech now worth $20 billion. Offers to pay for coffee with a share of Podtech stock. Barista declines.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble on phone to Google, asking for Sergey.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble on hold.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble on hold.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble on hold.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble realizes line is dead.

TWITTER UPDATE: Scoble redialing. Willing to settle for $15 billion.

(Again, stop, we get it. Ed.)

You can't make this stuff up

Says here in Computerworld that the OLPC folks are working on a cow-powered laptop. They're going to put the cows on treadmills or Stairmasters or something and make them produce electricity. As you can see in the photo at right, the lazy ass cows are definitely not digging this idea. Money quote: "We plan to drive a dynamo (taken from an old Fiat) through a system of belts and pulleys using cows/cattle," wrote OLPC's Arjun Sarwal. ... The goal is to develop a low-cost energy source that can be used in Indian villages. Working in a village close to Mumbai, Sarwal said the group considered using solar energy but sunlight near Mumbai was not "consistently strong." There was not enough wind or running water nearby to use these as sources of power, and the cost of running a gas-powered motor was too high. "But the village had an abundance of cattle that were being used in the fields. So we decided to design something around that."

Is this a hoax? Some prank pulled by one of these idiotic fake blogs? If not, will PETA step in to protest? Will Negroponte get into trouble for turning cows into slave laborers for his mad science project? And please, no jokes about the whole OLPC project being run on bullshit. Too easy. Bokay? Much love to Kevin for the tip. Namaste.

Duuuude, fifteen billion. Fifteen BILLION, duuuuude.

Man oh man. Huge party outside Facebook last night. The kids are rocking like it's 1999. Check out the photo of Faceberg himself doing a kegstand while Pete Simeoni, his VP of legal affairs, lends a helping hand. Facebots in background were chanting "Fifteen Billion, Fifteen Billion." Later they hoisted Faceberg on their shoulders and carried him around the parking lot. Then stripped him naked and hosed him down with Cristal and doing white-boy frat-boy rapper version of 50 Cent's "I Get Money." Hilarious!

To the right is a photo of Jorge Chingado, VP of zombie bite application business development, at just after ten o'clock last night. Much love to dear reader Matt Minge for sending in the pix. If anyone else has shots from the Facebook kegger, send them along.

More smack on Google

First the Facebook dudes rounded up more money. Now there's news of more brain drain at Google. Check out this particularly nasty piece from Seeking Alpha which aims to cut Google a new one and for the most part succeeds. Money quote: "Why do Google’s best and brightest leave? Because the “Do No Evil” mantra is hypocritical. The company’s HR spin on letting employees spend 10-20% time on personal projects is a hollow one because the company will always remain focused on “little text ads” - much the same way that MSFT kept focusing on software and did not really do much online, and pays for it today."

Oh snap! Faceberg raises another $500 million

Word up. Hot on the heels of the big investment by the Borg only a few hours ago, Facebook has now landed another $500 million from two hedge funds in New York. At the same $15 billion valuation. It is on, people. No word on which hedgetards are involved but again let me say: Faceberg, you are some kind of wonderful. I mean it. Wow. Much love.

Yes, I said Christmas. But I didn't say which year, did I?

Huge surprise. That fantastic hundred-dollar laptop is going to slip again, as they've found yet more bugs. Ahem. Hard to imagine, right? I mean who would think they'd run into all these problems with a brand-new hardware design and a brand-new operating enviroment? Notice that in this story they've got Mary Lou Jepsen taking the fall, and Professor Negroponte is nowhere to be found. Must be busy preparing the big keynote address that he's giving at this year's CES show on January 9 in Las Vegas. No guff. They've actually invited this guy to give a keynote address at a consumer electronics show. Word is the one-hour address is going to be 97 minutes long, and won't be ready until mid February. Oh, and some of the slides won't work right. But it'll be amazing. Earth-shattering. A breakthrough in keynote speeches! Tears to the eyes. The kids! Just think of the kids! David Pogue has already written his rave review.

PodTech: RIP

Well, they've had a good run but apparently the Casa de Scoble is heading for the big sleep. Or is it the dirt nap? I can never remember. No announcement yet but we hear it's imminent. Word is that Scoble was planning to bail in January anyway but now he won't have to. Hard to believe PodTech is going under, because they seemed to have such a solid business model. Find people who don't have much of anything significant or entertaining to say; film them doing this; then sell advertising against the content. What's not to love? Everybody in the Valley is just really bumming out. Except that of course everyone is also really heartened by this because it really confirms that the Web 2.0 model is viable and is really going to be huge. It's the whole creative destruction thing. Podtech flames out, but not before showing what's possible with this new medium. And of course having such a high-profile failure on your resume just makes you incredibly valuable in the Valley. Much love, Podtech. Peace.

UPDATE: Dear Reader Carlos the Jackal informs us that Scoble predicted his own problems in a post last October. No word lately on the troubles inside. So much for naked conversations, and companies telling their customers and audience everything about their business. Gee, and it seemed like such a good idea.

Borg to Facebook:

Man oh man. I'm sure you've seen the news but just in case see this story by Brad Stone aka the world's greatest investigative journalist. Microsoft will pay $240 million for a 1.6% share, valuing Facebook at $15 billion. I talked to Beastmaster about this yesterday and I think I understand where he's going with this. Basically he's not looking at it from an investment perspective. He doesn't care what valuation this places on Facebook. He's looking at what it's worth to own the ad traffic on Facebook over the next few years, both inside and outside the United States. Also, Beastmaster told me that he really didn't care what he had to spend; from now on the mantra at the Borg is they are not going to lose out on any deals because of money. Main reason Beastmaster loves Facebook is because they've created a walled garden where Google can't play. Anything that screws up Google is music to Beastmaster's ears.

Basically, little Faceberg made himself valuable by putting himself in the middle of the crossfire between two giants that hate each other. Nice move, Faceberg. I must admit it. You're no Jobso, but you're damn close. Namaste. And go Sox. (Photo: Locutus Deborg, Redmond magazine.)

Zen Master Tito

Now, let me be clear in response to some reader comments to my “Go Sox” utterance:

I do not watch sports. People watch sports for me—-mostly to scan the stands for unattractive iPhone users who need to be taken care of.

My people tell me that this “Tito” Francona of the Boston Red Sox is a Zen Master of the first order. I know, I know, he doesn’t look particularly enlightened, but…I am informed that, unlike his predecessors, Tito kept his—apparently bald—head straight during a set of reversals that would have sunk previous incarnations of his team.

There is supposedly some large hitter named Papi, who has hurt his knee. (Have these people never heard of yoga?) He has not performed as well as in the past. And there are various senior citizens on the staff as well as some minors that Tito stuck by. Through thick and thin.

Now, this is not a practice I normally condone. As you know by now, I would have cast such people out long ago. But to each his managerial own.

And they are winners.

I am told some important contests are coming up and so I repeat: “Go Sox.”

This is not the way we want to advertise iPhone

Look, the vids with the one-year-olds were fine. Cute, even. The one with the dog flipping through photos was cool too. But now you guys are crossing a line. This video shows a 91-year-old woman trying to use an iPhone. Not exactly the dreamboat demographic we're hoping to target these days, right? I mean, think, people. The elderly are fine and all but they don't exactly have a lot of disposable income to throw around on overpriced consumer electronics, do they? And even if they did, it doesn't exactly do our brand a lot of good to have these extras from Awakenings hobbling around the mall in their Depends scratching at their iPhones. Come on, people. Think. My goodness. Do you want to scare people off? It's bad enough that oldsters and fatties are now using iPods.

Katie is on this and Moshe too. Instructions have gone out to all retail shrines to refuse service to anyone over age sixty. Of course, for legal reasons, we can't just turn them away. So we've developed a more subtle methdology and have sent out training videos and podcasts to all clerks. Basic play is one we call the "BRB," in which the clerk listens to the geezer patiently, and nods in agreement, then says, "Let me check out back. I'll be right back." Then they disappear and don't return. If geezer persists and goes to another clerk, we repeat the BRB treatment. If they start complaining or getting loud, we call security and have them arrested for harshing our mellow. Perfect.

Weapon of choice for Sun Microsystems security team

I don't want to ruin it for you. See here. Much love to dear reader Nicholas for alerting us to this.

FSJ and Guy Kawasaki: It's a dance off!

See here. The good folks at LinkedIn are hosting an event called "Confessions of Fake Steve Jobs" at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View on Tuesday, Nov. 6 at 6 p.m. It's free but you have to RSVP. Open to everyone, not just Linked In employees. Apple employees particularly welcome but wear disguises. We're pretty sure Katie and Moshe will be monitoring the crowd. Not sure exactly what I'm going to confess. Maybe something about those slashed tires on John Sculley's Mercedes. Guess you'll have to come and find out.

More Borg-funded Apple hate

See this site called ihatemyipod.com. Much love to dear reader Janek for alerting us to this and to Groklaw for doing the heavy duty investigative work required to turn up the Borg connection. Fair enough, nowhere does the site say that it is funded by the Borg. In fact, curiously enough, there's absolutely no evidence of this at all. But as Groklaw points out, that's how you know there is a connection to the Borg. I mean isn't that just classic Microsoft behavior? And doesn't anyone else think that it's maybe just a bit too friggin weird to have an absolute vacuum around this site, and a total absence of any evidence, not even a shred or an inkling of a clue? Someone very, very clever has gone to great lengths to wipe this operation clean of fingerprints. Experience shows us that this is usually the dead giveaway to a Borg-funded operation. Much love to PJ and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols for exposing the conspiracy.

My message of hope for the Borg

Well now I'm on the lecture circuit as a motivational speaker ever since my big appearance at Yahoo. And yes, I did in fact recently tell the Beastmaster that I would rather make love to a bag of broken glass than speak at his company. But what the heck. I broke down and did it. Earlier today I was on the Borg campus to cheer up the troops. Naturally old Hillary got wind of my appearance and swooped in ahead of me. Nice move, trying to upstage the Jobsmeister. But it didn't work. Her speech was half empty. Mine, meanwhile, was overflowing. Throngs lined the roads, throwing palm branches and rose petals. Jim Allchin did the introduction and once again declared his undying man-love for me. Apple faithful, I know you are wondering what on earth the Jobsmeister could say in such a situation. The following is an excerpt from my remarks:

Dear Microtards,
Thank you for inviting me to speak here. Let's skip the small talk and get straight to the business. I'm here to deliver some medicine that you're not going to want to take. But you need to hear it. So here goes. I'm cool, and you are not. I'm smart, and you are dumb. I have good taste, and you do not. I am good, and you are evil. I restore a sense of childlike wonder to people's lives; you give them Zunes and Vista.

So, as Tolstoy once asked, what is to be done? How can you do better? You've come here today hoping that some of my greatness might rub off on you. Or that I might share the secret to Apple's fantastic success. You hope that by hearing my voice, or by breathing the same air as me, you might somehow ingest some of the magic that has made Apple the greatest and most innovative company in the world. Yes, you scoff at the Apple faithful who camp out for a week to get our products. But let's be honest. You'd give your left nut for that kind of customer excitement.

How to get it? That is your challenge. My advice to you is to listen to your heart. Follow your passion. Believe in who you are and what you can do. Be original. Dance as if no one is watching. Sing as if no one is listening. Love as if you have never been hurt. Live every day as if it were your last. Don't be afraid. Be unafraid. Be bold. Be crazy. Be different. Burn your neckties. Give your suits to a homeless shelter. Wear black T-shirts. No matter what anyone working for you does, tell them it's not good enough. Tell them it's shit. Tell them they're shit. Threaten to fire them. Annoy your superiors. Irritate your colleagues. Insist on perfection, and then, when you get it, insist on making it more perfect. Got it? Good. Start today.

The best part was seeing the Beastmaster down back, taking notes. Guy gobbled it up. Hilarious.

Speaking of Google ...

They've got problems. You didn't hear this from me, okay? But it's true. Squirrel Boy is freaking out. I'm going to have a more complete report on this in the near future but for now just know that they're losing talent bigtime and their already dysfunctional management style is actually getting worse. Larry wants to run the company. Eric can't stand working for teenagers. Sergey does nothing but play Legos and buy jumbo jets and bail his Uncle Fetya out of jams. Shona Brown, who runs HR, has changed her status and now is "working part-time" and as everyone knows, in the Valley there's no such thing. Anyhoo. Eric says it's actually a plus because Shona is largely responsible for Google's massively frigged up hiring policies. The hiring is out of control and now has started hurting earnings. But how to get this mess under control? Meawnwhile the CFO has already announced plans to go. Others at the top will be fleeing soon. And here comes Facebook which scares the crap out of Google because they're roping off a huge chunk of the Internet and keeping it to themselves; and word is the Borg is definitely going to get into bed with Faceberg and won't be deterred based on ridiculously high prices. Money is no object is the word from the Beastmaster.

I've got Iulia and Natasha working on a Google project for the blog. We're going to put up a chart in the style of an Al Qaeda "most wanted" list and check people off as they flee. Should be fun. More as this develops.

It's official -- we're bigger than IBM

Yup. Stock's at $185 and our market cap has hit $160 billion, meaning we're now worth more than IBM as Fortune points out. Of course Fortune can't resist asking, "Who's the Big Brother now?" Fair enough. But I like to think of us as a kinder, gentler Big Brother. Unlike IBM, which used its monopoly and market power to abuse customers, we at Apple are using our monopoly and market power to make the world a better place. It's just simpler when everyone can focus their attention on one vendor. As long as that vendor is not doing evil. Like us. And Google. Okay. Now fasten your seatbelts, friends, because we are going to have one hell of a wild holiday season. Peace out.

Caught on film: Our service rep doing his job correctly

Check out this video clip where some bastard came into a store with a phone that wasn't activated (ie probably hacked) and wanted us to fix it for him. He got denied. But he thinks he's all cool because he made a video of himself behaving like a dick. See a story about it here.

We're sharing the love, and the money

Nice piece from CIO magazine about how we're going to make all these third-party app guys super rich by letting them sell apps through iTunes. See here. Developers, along with the SDK we'll be issuing a photo of me that you can hang over your workspace as a reminder. Okay? Five minutes of prayer and meditation three times a day is the recommended routine. Much love to Lida for the link.

Again: You're welcome

Well our stock is at $174. Market cap at $150 billion, closing in on IBM. Mac sales booming. iPhone a smash hit. Apple faithful, I know what you're thinking, and please, you're embarrassing me. My office is already piled high with flowers that started arriving this afternoon and never stopped. Enough! Dear Leader appreciates your love and affection. Now will somebody please go explain to the U.S. Attorney and the SEC that no Apple shareholders have been harmed during my reign? Thank you.

Stallman commands army of ninjas

At first glance I thought this was Borg operatives turned loose on RMS. Then I thought maybe it was some of our own guys. Moshe's new policy is to just carry out hits and not tell me about them so that I'll have plausible deniability. In fact these ninjas are working for Stallman, trained in his ninja camps in Indonesia. They're traveling with him now as personal bodyguards. In this case Smellman was at Yale to rail against DRM. See here. He gave a speech barefoot. Picked his toenails and ate the clippings. I can't even imagine what it must have been like in the first few rows. Best part is that now they're referring to this kook as a "political activist." Riiight. No word on whether he played his flute, but I'm betting he did. Much love to dear reader D.D. for the tip. (Photo: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, GNU World Order magazine.)

Much love, Newsweek and New York Post

Man oh man. Iulia and Natasha, our interns in Krasnodar, are staying busy keeping track of the reviews for Options and they just passed along two more that even Katie admits are pretty good. See this review from Newsweek with the money quote: "In the establishment-skewering tradition of Voltaire, Cervantes, Jonathan Swift and Laurence Sterne we now have a voice for our own digital age." Then check out this beauty in the Bible of all things literary -- no, not the New York Review of Books, but the New York Post, aka the only paper that really matters. Money quote: "Try as I might, I couldn't put it down." Rock on, Newsweek and New York Post. Much love. Namaste. Peace out.

News flash: Hillary hates cats

Much love to old Mike for tipping us to this article about Hillary abandoning Socks the cat as soon as the Clintstones were out of the White House. So the whole thing about loving Socks was just a big act. Poor little kitty was just there to make Hillary resemble a human being. I'm starting to think Al Gore's story about Mr. Bojangles might not be so far-fetched after all. I called him up after I read this article and the original one in the Atlantic. Says Al: "Steve, honestly, you don't know the half of it. The woman is very, very scary. She's got to be stopped." I told Al that I totally agreed, and that's why I want him to run. All he'd say is, "Steve, I mean, you know, it's like, well ... honestly, man, you really have no idea, do you? Look, I dealt with those people for eight years. I'm not going to do it again. I'm sorry. I gotta go."

This week's party in Los Angeles

Just a reminder. I'll be in Los Angeles this week and there's a reading in Santa Monica on Wednesday Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. followed by a party at a nearby watering hole. The event is being hosted at a corporate site so you need to RSVP in order to be admitted. Just drop a line to dear reader Todd, who has organized the event. His email: FSJinLA@gmail.com. There's no real agenda. Maybe some hatha yoga and wheatgrass smoothies followed by some meditation or primal scream therapy. We'll play it by ear.

Naturally all of this depends on whether I survive my visit to the Borg tomorrow. Frank Shaw of Waggener Edstrom has assured my safety. But for all I know it's a trap. More info as this develops.

UPDATE: Todd says the after-party will be at 8:30 p.m. at a place called Yankee Doodles. First night of the World Series. Go Sox.

Ballmer redux

Check out the work done by dear reader Rick, whose company is called Standard Imagination.

Fake Steve at Micrsosoft? Oh man I am going to rip his friggin head off!

Look at poor Ballmer after someone reminded him that I'd be hitting the Borg campus tomorrow. He can't wait to get his hands on me. Little does he know I'll be traveling with a security phalanx. Sorry, Monkey Boy. I know you're dying to strap Jobso to an Aeron chair and smash it against a wall, but it ain't gonna happen. And please, no more phony baloney threats about your big patent portfolio, okay? Talk to the hand on that one. Anyway, I come in peace. I'm even bringing you a fake iPod Touch to restore a little sense of childlike wonder to your life. So let's just keep things civil.

(Actually the photo first appeared with this story in Wired.)

Meanwhile, Borg inhabitants, a small reminder: I'm on your campus tomorrow, speaking in Building 33 (Conference Center), St. Helens Room, Redmond, Wash., at 2 p.m. Attendance is mandatory. (Crazed photo: James Duncan Davidson, Soldier of Fortune.)

Goatberg struts his stuff

Every once in a while old Walt dazzles us with a piece thst shows once again why he is the king of all tech journos. And today he's done it again, saying what all of us know to be true -- the U.S. mobile phone system sucks, and there's no way consumers will continue to put up with it. It's absolutely stupid that carriers control what phones can run on their networks and what features and software those phones can have. Like all senseless systems, this will change. In ten years, and maybe much sooner, we will look back on horror at the system we live with today. Just as we look back on the old system where Ma Bell could charge ridiculous prices for long-distance and international calls. And don't worry, Apple faithful. Google is pushing for a change. So are we. It will happen. Meanwhile, much love to Walt for helping push our agenda. Thanks also to dear reader Steve for the tip.

I've faith-healed another guy

Well, sort of. Much love to all the readers who sent in links to this story about a dude who missed PhoneStock because he was in a coma so our retail miracle workers created a replay for him now that he's back on his feet. Peace be with you, Coma Man. Enjoy your new sense of childlike wonder. Much love.

What I do in my spare time

I mean what the hell. I'm just sitting here looking at myself in the mirror anyway. And it's a great way to keep up my drawing chops. Enjoy. Much love to Brinke.

PhoneFingers -- is this a friggin joke? I hope so

Much love to Engadget for finding this. Namaste. I honor the place where your content and mine become one.

Rumor out of Redmond

Spotted in Remond recently: the CEO of a leading PC maker who was there to grab Monkey Boy by the lapels and shake some sense into him. They're furious about Vista. Sure, publicly they're saying Vista is fine. Privately they're going apeshit. They were expecting an OS that would spark all sorts of new demand. Instead they've got a nightmare on their hands. They've got customers demanding downgrades. They've got machines that take forever to boot up. Meanwhile our Macs boot up in seconds. These guys are telling Redmond to make Vista work more like OS X. Yeah. As if.

This particular hardware CEO has had the wonderful experience of trying to show off his company's latest coolest laptop and having it churn ... and churn ... and churn ... and then freeze ... and then need to be shut down and rebooted ... and churn ... and churn ... while his audience sat there forcing a smile and trying to be polite and noticing little tiny trickles of steam rising out of CEO's collar. Startup took five minutes from the time he produced the laptop from his briefcase. Felt like five hours.

This company is investing millions into new laptop designs and has made some amazingly cool products, from a hardware perspective. (They're still not Mac level, but for the PC market, they're doing some pretty amazing stuff.) But all their magic gets overshadowed by the horror show that is Vista. This particular CEO forced the Borg to send engineers to sit down with his engineers and make a list of all the things that are fucked up about Vista. They came up with 180 key pain points. One hundred and eighty! Then the Borgtards went back to Mordor and were supposed to set about fixing them. You can guess how much actually happened then.

Finally in frustration the CEO himself flew to Redmond and attempted to beat Monkey Boy about the head and neck with one of this company's non-working laptops. Security was called. Beastmaster brought in, along with Ozzie and Mundie. Promises made. Assurances given. Blah blah mwah mwah.

How do I know this story? Well, ask yourself whether in all this confusion some of the hardware guys might be reaching out to us hoping to license OS X. Let's just say conversations have occurred. But we're not budging. We only bring them in because we get off hearing their sob stories. We tape them and then watch the best parts later. It's way too much fun watching these guys twist in the wind. Like I told this CEO, You guys all went around crowing about how it made so much sense to surf on top of all that great innovation being done at Microsoft, and how Apple could never, ever keep up, not in a zillion years. Well, you made your bed, pal. Now lie in it.

iPhone is unlocked in France. Mon dieu!

You've probably seen stories like this one about how French law requires us to sell iPhone as an unlocked device. Okay. Fair enough. Maybe you think then that we're le screwed, as they say in French? Certainly the French think that, including Telecom Minister Jacques-Henri Baisertard (photo). And maybe you think that you'll be able to buy iPhones in France and resell them in other French-speaking places, like Ottawa. Well, think again. We've got tricks up our sleeve. That's all I'm going to say. You know what? I hate the French. I really do. Always have. Almost as much as I hate Scandinavians. And the media. They're number one. But the French are right up there, believe me. Sneaky pricks.

More Mac-bashing flame bait

Well it's a tried-and-true recipe for the filthy hacks in the computer trades. Bash Apple and pray for traffic. This lame effort by some dude at Computerworld doesn't even bother to be original. Slow day in the newsroom I guess and the guy's got a quota to fill, I suppose. Plus all the online publications are now measuring their hacks on traffic and in some cases even paying the poor bastards based on the pageviews they generate. Result? The whole online news business has become a race to the bottom.

Money quote from this Dvorak Wannabee: "I hate everything Apple -- starting with rock star wanna-be Steve Jobs in his black turtleneck and jeans on his big, lavish stage, telling the world every three weeks or so how Apple's newest overpriced gizmo will change the world. Snake oil, anyone? Snarky, sleazy sliminess, anyone?"

Much love the guy who sent this in. He's a fellow hack at CW who is disgusted by this kind of hate and wants to expose it. Keep fighting the good fight, pal.

Toronto party got a little out of control

Man oh man. Great crowd in Toronto last night and I apologize for the few ugly incidents that marred the evening for everyone. Big mistake was hiring the Hell's Angels to do security. I told Phil Schiller that was going to be a mistake and that he should reconsider but he wouldn't listen. Anyway, all in all it was a success, and there were very few arrests on a per capita basis. Much love to all who attended. Free fake iPod Nanos to everyone who remembered to register at the door. Much love, seriously. Namaste. Peace out.

Peace on earth, good will toward me

New survey shows most Americans want a computer for Christmas. Guess who's going to have a sweet new operating system dropping on Oct. 26, generating a whole fresh new round of rave reviews from the likes of Goatberg and Smurfy Pogue? Those tools are already using test copies, and Katie has just about finished writing their reviews for them. Meanwhile don't forget our newly refreshed line of iPods, including iPod Touch which will probably be the holiday gift this year, and the new video Nano which at $149 makes a perfect stocking stuffer.

Our slogan? "The best just got better. Happy friggin Holidays. Love, Apple."

Goatberg spotted in Iraq, heavily armed

Not sure what to make of this. Walt is supposed to be home gazing at his beta copy of Leopard, receiving hypnotic instructions through his brain implant and saying things like, "Stacks are good. Spaces makes a lot of sense. This is a huge leap forward. The finest desktop operating environment we've ever seen. It's the one to beat. Highly recommended." Katie has dispatched some of Moshe's team to track him down.

Totally unauthorized

This is a poster that went up on the campus of the University of Massachusetts. Good old Zoo Mass apparently has a lot of music thieves. Who knew? Best thing though is if you check out the flickr page where this is posted you'll see some pretty funny strident comments from typical amateur lawyer types arguing over copyright law and fair use. God I love when simpletons argue about legal issues and get all vexed and pedantic. Endless entertainment.

Kids, BTW, FWIW, we don't give a shit what the law says and neither should you. You stole our idea. If we want to fuck you up, we will fuck you up. Plain and simple. If we want to make your life a living hell, we can and we will. If we tell you to take down the posters and paint your asses red and jump around like baboons and send us a videotape of yourselves doing it, you'll do it. Got it? Good. Now don't you have a paper due? Get back to work. And stop stealing music. Much love to Matt for the tip.

Doug Morris of Universal, you are indeed a "very special guy"

Hilarious story in BusinessWeek about Universal Music trying to lead a battle to unseat Apple in the music business. See here. Their CEO, Doug Morris, is shopping around an idea called Total Music where they'll get cell phone carriers to pay them $5 per month per subscriber and all the subs will get unlimited "free" music. Best quote from Doug is one where he supposedly told a room full of fellow music industry frigtards that Apple had pulled a fast one on them. "We got rolled like a bunch of puppies." Nice to see it only took Doug seven years to figure that out. But at long last reality is dawning on him and the other dopes in the music business. Yup, we picked your pockets. We schmoozed you and flattered you and told you all sorts of nice things and meanwhile we robbed you blind. But look at it this way. The only reason we could get away with it was because you guys spent all those years paying lip service to digital music and sitting around with your thumbs up your asses. Oooh, piracy! Oooh, the Internet! We don't want any part of that!

And now what are you going to do? You really think you can hire the tech talent to make all this stuff work? You have the engineers? The Web designers? These sites don't build themselves you know. But it's more than just hiring engineers. Building Web sites, understanding technology -- the problem is that this stuff is just not in your DNA. Doug Morris doesn't even do his own email. He's got an admin who prints it out for him and types out his responses.

As I told BusinessWeek: "Doug's a very special guy. He's the last of the great music executives who came up through A&R. He's old school. I like him a lot."

Inside joke: At Apple when we say someone is "special" we mean as in "special education." As in, "rides the short bus." When we say "old school" we mean "likely has Alzheimer's." When we say "I like him a lot," it means we can't wait to rip out his heart and eat it in front of him.

Peace, Doug Morris, you wacky old record label dope. I like you a lot. Truly. And I wish you the best with this Total Music thing. (Photo: Burt Hammer, Tiger Beat.)

Brits bashing iPhone and it hasn't even shipped yet

Or I guess really they're blasting us, not iPhone itself. They're pissed about our policy toward hackers and unlockers. See here. Money quote: "It seems grotesque that such a beautiful breakthrough product has inspired such resentment, even deliberate destruction."

My response, which is completely off-the-cuff and unscripted: Despite attempts by the media to slow our momentum and mislead the public, Apple remains confident that consumers in Europe will be as excited by iPhone's revolutionary capabilities as consumers in the United States have been.

More iPhone backlash

This time from MSNBC. Which just happens to be owned by ... wait for it ... the Borg. Yeah. Shocking, right? Much love to Lee for alerting us to this new attack job. Luckily we knew this would be coming. You can't have the kind of huge hype like we had for the iPhone and then not have the pendulum come swinging back and hit you in the nuts. Headline is "iRegret" (see here) and I have to say this: Is anyone else as sick as I am of having every filthy hack who writes about Apple products think that it's really clever to use iThis or iThat in the headline? Get over it, people.

Anyhoo the MSNBC guy says he is going to go back to his Palm Treo (groan) because he likes having a real keyboard (oh please) and a battery he can remove. Here are some highlights from the Borg-owned bash outlet:

So here we are, three months later, and this remarkably inventive device that’s so lacking as an actual phone but so promising as the be-all/end-all gadget is no better than at launch, and even less hopeful because of Apple’s action against iPhone customizations that enable it to do more than just what Apple says it can and should do. ...

For the rest of us who believe the first half of the word smartphone is why we want to use one, the iPhone is just too dumb to be taken seriously. Smarten up, Apple, and open up the iPhone. Seriously.

UPDATE: This article apparently was written before we announced our SDK. So to be fair to the hater and to us, that point is something we've addressed.

Nevertheless, you know what, Borg-funded Apple hater? My head hurts, so talk to my ass.

Guilty as charged, Your Honor

It's true. We fired a bunch of retail employees who cashed in $100 rebate coupons for iPhones that we'd given them free. I regret some of the techniques that we had to use to extract confessions. But anyway what's done is done. Their big defense was that they were only doing something that Jobso himself would have done back when he was a lowly clerk type person. And that's true. They also pointed out that I, in fact, used several of these coupons myself. And so did Phil Schiller and Jon Ive and a few other management types. Also true. But we're management. We can do stuff like that. Clerktards cannot. It's right there in the employment contract that retail people sign when they join the company. We have a signed copy for every employee, along with their blood sample, retina scans, home phone logs, dating history, medical records and data from the chip we've implanted in their necks.

To all those of you who stole from the company, I just want to say this. It hurts. It really hurts. It hurts me personally. After all I've done for you, for you to turn around and steal from me? I'm speechless. I'm wounded. We give you really great benefits -- not health benefits, but I mean the benefit of being able to hang out all day in an Apple emporium, which lets face it is way nicer than your apartment, and to even get paid for this. And now you spit in my face. Guess what? You're iFired, you iAssholes.

Some dude in B school wants to "shadow" me

I think this must be the scariest blog in the world. Or the saddest. Much love to Rob for sending in the link. See here. Some kid from London Business School wants to "shadow" me as part of some B school assignment. He really believes that if he just keeps writing this blog and leaning on any connections he can find that eventually I'll be shamed into letting him follow me around so he can learn how I operate. Groan. First of all, kid, I have no shame. Second, you've already made the biggest mistake you ever could have made. No, not attempting to correspond with the Great and Powerful Jobs without official permission, though that indeed is a very grave offense. No, your biggest mistake is simply this: You're in fucking business school.

Good God, man. Could there be anything less creative, less imaginative, less valuable than going to business school? Is there any surer way to become an absolute conformist frigtard than to spend two years being coddled and pampered and fed worthless pablum by failed businesspeople? The mind reels. And don't think you're all super cool and extra special just because you're in a "programme" instead of a program. My theory is that education in general only serves to clog your creativity and shut down your brain. I imagine the brain is like this giant honeycomb, with all these open cells, but every class you take just fills some of those holes and seals them shut. Getting an MBA is like going back and double-sealing those doors with cement.

Business school dude, listen up. Forget shadowing me. You'll never be like me, because I'm one of a kind. I came out and they broke the mold. But if you want to learn how I operate, do the following. Quit business school. Go work at some shitty electronics company and learn how to source components. Travel to India and seek enlightenment. Grow your hair down to your ass. Take LSD. Smoke pot. Live on a commune. Sell your van and start a company. Put yourself in danger. Create a situation where if you fail you'll be unable to pay your rent and you'll be out on the street. Struggle to make payroll. Get screwed by suppliers. Learn to screw them back. Bounce checks. Run out of money. Go hungry. Be scared.

Ready? Good. Start today.

True rumor

Rumor: Fake Steve to appear on stage with legendary Apple marketing guru Guy Kawasaki in a Valley appearance in the not-to-distant future. Details forthcoming next week. Format yet to be decided. Kawasaki wants cage match in the Moscone Center (see above) with UFC rules and no tap-outs. Fake Steve counter-offers with Segway jousting armed with chainsaws. Or maybe we'll just sit on chairs and have a pleasant chat. Negotiations ongoing. More as this develops. (Photo: Burt Hammer, Macworld.)

Much love, Entertainment Weekly

I honor the place where your rave review for my book and my future royalty checks become one. Money quote: "Just as Tom Wolfe skewered Wall Street in the '80s, Fake Steve Jobs lights a mini-Bonfire in Silicon Valley with Options."

Oh snap. Now will someone please bring me a bottle of Smartwater and a friggin chai latte, at exactly 165 degrees? Jesus! And where's my colorist? Do I have to do everything myself? Honestly, people. Obtain a clue.

This place is leaking like a friggin sieve

Gone are the days when we had better security than NASA, I guess. First, BusinessWeek gets the SDK a day before we announce it, and cites multiple sources. Now some a-hole has leaked this memo which I sent around yesterday. Good grief! Moshe is all over this and I swear we will have the perps in thumb screws by the end of the week. Peace. Namaste.

From: Steve Jobs
Date: October 16, 2007 9:30:42 AM PDT
To: Apple
Subject: Thanksgiving Week
Reply-To: response@apple.com

Team,

We have accomplished a lot so far this year - the launch of the iPhone, the all-new iMacs, a beautiful line of new iPods, incredible new software applications, and Leopard coming at the end of this month! Everyone has worked hard and we deserve a break. So we've decided to shutdown (with pay) on November 19, 20, and 21 so everyone can have the entire Thanksgiving week off.

Well, not quite everyone... A few groups will need to be active during the November shutdown, so these employees will take three other days off, to be scheduled with their managers. And since Thanksgiving isn't a worldwide holiday, our international organizations will schedule their three-day shutdowns for a time during the quarter when it makes the most sense for them. The shutdown will apply to all full-time employees worldwide.

Please enjoy this well-deserved break. Rest up, and enjoy your families and friends.

Steve.

Woz update: It gets worse

God almighty. First she had him dressed like a gangster and going to casinos. Now she's got him doing drag with her freako friends in Vegas. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And I must admit he looks good without his beard and with that eye makeup on. I just worry about where this is all headed. Woz, call me. Better yet, come see me. We'll go away for a weekend and just talk. I'll send the Jobs Jet. Seriously. I'm saying this as your friend. Not really. But I'm saying it. Much love to John for sending this in. (Photo: Jolene Sugarbaker, Maxim.)

We did not "back down" on music pricing

One thing I've always hated about the media is the way they put a negative slant on everything. For example, we reduce the price of unprotected music in order to reach a wider audience, and, frankly, simply to do something nice and great for our customers, and how does the New York Times play it? They say Apple backed down and caved in because Amazon was charging less for unprotected songs than we were. As if everything we do is some kind of reaction to Amazon. Totally wrong. Our decision had nothing to do with Amazon or anyone else. We're just trying to do what's best for customers. It's all we ever try to do. But I guess that's not sexy enough for the Times. Why let the facts get in the way of a good story, right?

Asshat of the Week award

This week's "Assy" goes to computer industry legend Dave Winer for complaining about his iPhone ringer being broken or not working and then finding out that, um, all he had to do was flip a friggin switch. See here. I mean come on. We've got dogs using iPhone. We've got one-year-olds using it. And yet David Winer, one of the biggest living legends of technology, can't follow the instructions on his little pamphlet? BTW, FWIW, according to his website David invented RSS, XML, blogs, Internet video, VOIP, HTML, podcasting, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Perl and Linux. He also co-invented Netscape Navigator before Marc Andreessen got involved and was one of the original co-founders of America Online. He's a recipient of the Turing Award, and in his spare time he writes Groklaw with Eric Raymond. And he has a master's degree. In computer science. But he can't operate an iPhone. And his first thought was that this must be our fault. Siooma, Whiny.

Some more info on the SDK

So here's the thing. I'm getting some email from people taunting me about this SDK issue and saying that I promised the SDK itself would ship this week and instead we just had an announcement of an SDK coming in February. Okay. Here's how things stand. We could ship the SDK today. It's all ready to go. And the original plan was to do exactly that. But then a few days ago the engineering nerds finally did their presentation to me so I could look over the whole SDK before I announced it. And I'm sorry. The thing looks like shit. The nerds were like, "Yeah, but Jobso, who cares, it's just going to developers, the code all works fine and those guys don't care if it looks pretty."

My response: You want to know who cares? I care. Because someone has to. I'm not shipping an SDK with little tiny margins and lousy colors and no sense of balance on the page. I'm just not. So go back and do it again.

They're furious, of course. Especially because I sent some of Jon Ive's guys down there to oversee the rewrite and make sure everything looks perfect. And I'm getting involved too with weekly code reviews. Not that I can read code, because I can't. But I know how code should look on a screen. Which frankly I think is way more important. Don't tell that to the nerds though. They really think they're in charge, and there's no upside in it for me to tell them otherwise. Peace out and hang in there until February.

Bubble? Really? Where'd you get that idea?

Well as long as I'm taking victory laps (very modest, humble, self-effacing victory laps, mind you) let me point out the following. Now even our old pal and world's greatest investigative reporter Brad Stone of the New York Times wakes up and weighs in on the fact that there's a tech bubble. Money quote from his story on Page One of today's Times: "Internet companies with funny names, little revenue and few customers are commanding high prices. And investors, having seemingly forgotten the pain of the first dot-com bust, are displaying symptoms of the disorder known as irrational exuberance." Money quote two: "Internet start-ups are drawing investment based on their ability to build an audience, not bring in revenue — the very alchemy that many say led to the inflation and bursting of the dot-com bubble."

Companies mentioned: Facebook, Google, Right Media, Skype, YouTube, Twitter, Jaiku, Geni.com, Ning.

Great to see Brad staying ahead of the competition. Why, he's only eight days behind the Wall Street Journal, which on Oct. 9 ran its own story about Bubble 2.0 and included the hilarious quotes from Marc Andreessen saying there is no bubble, and there can't be a bubble until everyone stops saying there is a bubble. In the world of the New York Times business section any story that appears within a month after it first appears in the Wall Street Journal is considered a scoop. Prize is you get an audience with Floyd Norris at the restaurant of his choice, where he'll talk for two hours straight and splatter his wisdom all over you; and you get to go a whole day without Gretchen Morgenstern screaming at you on the phone and telling you how much you suck.

Now I know what you're wondering. Haven't you read about Bubble 2.0 somewhere else? Could it be that all these newspapers are just getting their story ideas from a certain fake CEO blogger who has been reporting on Bubble 2.0 in stories like this one and this one and this one and this one and ... well you get the idea.

Keep stealing my ideas, you filthy hacks. We'll hit you up for patent royalties down the road.

I don't want to say I told you so but ...

I did. Kind of. You may recall that a few weeks ago, on Oct. 2, I told you that we'd be releasing an SDK this week. Well, okay, we're not releasing the actual SDK this week -- but we're making it official today that we'll be shipping an SDK in February. Now far be it from me to diss on the brilliant prognosticators at Ars Technica, but you'll recall they did go out of their way to dismiss my report back when I made it.

From Ars Technica, Oct. 3: "There are currently no plans to offer a `true' iPhone SDK that would allow developers to create native apps, a source at Apple has told Ars."

From me, today: "Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users."

Siooma, Ars Technica. And to everyone else? You're welcome. And I accept your apology.

Dear Greenpeace: I'm still waiting for my apology

Under pressure from Apple lovers (and truth lovers) the greentards at Greenpeace who put out their big report condemning iPhone now admit that, um, well, in fact iPhone actually complies with European regulations. So what the fuck was all that noise about then? As the good folks at The Register ask: "Why get stroppy when Apple has not exceeded the limits it has set itself or those imposed upon it by Europe's RoHS regulations? What about all the other phone makers out there? We'd guess it's because Apple is an easy target, and Greenpeace knows iPhone related commentary gains press coverage. Perhaps that's why it's chosen to lay into the Apple handset rather than others."

Well I'm sitting here waiting for my perfectly safe iPhone to ring so that I can hear some smelly European grovel and apologize to me. But I'm not holding my breath.

Brain scan confirms: Vista blows

Microsoft has applied for a patent for some mind-reading technology. See here. They're going to use this technology to design user interfaces. They say they need to do this because simply listening to people doesn't work. Reason? "Human beings are often poor reporters of their own actions," the company says.

In other words, "People keep telling us that Vista sucks. So we're going to start probing their brains until they tell us what we want to hear."

It's classic Borg, isn't it? Naturally it's much more sensible to create some wacky complicated system to trace brain activity and then translate that into user interface ideas. (See photo of system in action above.)

Beastmaster, listen up. The whole world is telling you that the new Office apps are too complex and scarier than Rosie O'Donnell in bicycle shorts. The whole world -- inlcuding your PC maker business partners -- is telling you that Vista sucks. You don't need to scan your users' brains. You need to scan your developers' brains. And rewire them to be less frigtarded.

See a typically sharp piece on all this nonsense by Nick Carr here.

(Photo: Frank Shaw, DSM-IV.)

Nov. 1 after-party in Menlo Park

So I'm doing a reading at Kepler's bookstore in Menlo Park on Nov. 1. (See the list on the right sidebar. Address is 1010 El Camino Real in Menlo Park.) Afterward there's a party at the British Bankers Club. Friends of the blog from super cool technology company Coghead (here) have rented a room at the BBC pub so we can all hang out after the Kepler's event. The folks at Coghead just ask that you send an email if you're planning to attend so they can keep track of how many people to expect. Please write to this email:

fakestevefriends@coghead.com.

Much love. Namaste.

Right on, Seeking Alpha

Finally! Someone finally has figured out why it's not a disadvantage for iPhone not to run on 3G networks. See here. Money quote: "Companies that use limited bandwidth in smarter ways to deliver a better user experience -- like Apple -- are going to have a leg up on their competitors." Amen, brother.

Today's AOL layoffs: Complete list here

Only kidding. We have no idea who's getting cut but apparently it's a lot of you. And look. Listen to me on this, you soon-to-be-ex-AOLers. Don't bother moving to California, because we don't want you here. Okay? Seriously. Don't pull some modern day version of the Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl and all pack up your Volvo wagons and head for the Valley. Real estate is nuts enough here already. And the fact that you've been working at AOL just makes people giggle. They'll say things like, "AOL? Are they still in business?" Or: "So your last job was at AOL. So what have you been doing since 1998?" Or something like that. All joking aside, it really is sad to see thousands of AOL folk getting the axe. It really makes me sad. Really. Okay, not really. I've hated you bastards since I tried to cancel my membership and you wouldn't let me cancel until you kept me on the phone for an hour, making me answer questions. Silicon Alley Insider has the full scoop here. (Photo: Burt Hammer, National Geographic.)

Good grief. Now she's dressing him. And they're going out as a matched set.

Just look at poor Woz in his black-on-black outfit looking like Regis Philbin hosting Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Look at his eyes. Guy looks real comfortable, doesn't he? My goodness. The poor dude is terrified. He looks like the creature in Young Frankenstein when Gene Wilder brings him out on stage. You know what? Woz should be terrified. For one thing, she's taking him to a casino. She probably thinks he's like Rainman and he can count cards at blackjack. The story on this (see here) reveals that Griffin dumped her husband last year after he allegedly stole $70,000 from her. In other words, this is a lady for whom the loss of $70,000 is a firing offense. A lady who, when someone takes $70,000 from her, actually notices it. And misses it. And gets mad. Who wants to be a millionaire? I think we know the answer to that one.

Microsoft trying to patent the iPhone

No kidding. Wired has the story here. Big news for Microsoft. We're trying to patent evil. Which will put them right out of business.

Faceberg tops me in "most important Valley people" poll

Outrageous. See here. This was absolutely not authorized. We did not grant any permission for these frigtards to use my name or likeness in any list. Katie is on the job, with back-up from legal if she needs it. Much love to Ted for alerting us to this.

Woz's new charity idea: Free mustache rides

No kidding. He got invited to do this global warming fund-raising event. It's one of those charity auction things where celebrities donate something and muggles bid for it. Like, lunch with Leo DiCaprio, or socks worn by Al Gore or whatever. So they write Woz a letter asking him what he'll donate. He sends back the form: "Free mustache rides."

The sad thing is he really thinks this is clever. He says he got the idea from an old T-shirt he found while he was cleaning his house. My bet is that Kathy Griffin put him up to it. One big flaw that I pointed out is that if the rides are free then he's not going to make any money to give to charity. He says no, the free rides will actually cost whatever people are willing to bid, with a lowest-available price of a hundred bucks. "It's like Linux," he says. "It's free as in freedom, not free as in beer."

Whatever. I pointed out to Woz that now even Perez Hilton is making fun of him. Woz said he saw that and he thought it was great. He says Kathy Griffin's publicist sent the photo to Perez Hilton with a payment of one thousand dollars. And they're shopping around an idea for a reality show. Poor Woz. He really believes he's this huge celebrity. Even though he couldn't get anyone to pay $100,000 to buy his El Camino and have lunch with him. Now he's dating a TV star and he doesn't realize that she's doing this as a form of performance art. Honestly, my heart aches for the guy. (Photo: Burt Hammer, Redbook.)

Another greentard lawsuit. Great.

See here. Just what we need. Based on this bogus Greenpeace report, we're now being sued by some tree-hugger group because supposedly our iPhone headsets contain something called "phthalates." Which, come on, is totally a made-up word. Phthalates? What language is that from? Even the newspaper had to put the word in quote marks, which is their way of saying, "We're not really sure this is a real thing." Greenpeace, as I live and breathe, by Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Warvan, I shall see your offices and ships destroyed. I shall see you crushed and driven before me. I shall hear the cries and lamentations of your women.

Friday Nov. 2 FSJ book reading in the Castro

Apple faithful in the Bay Area -- I'll be pimping it hard in the Castro on Nov. 2 at the Books Inc. on Market Street. Starts at 7 p.m. See a link about the reading here.

Dear reader Eric wants to organize a pub crawl or party after the reading. Some others have expressed interest in organizing a party too. (Blake, this means you.) We need to get an idea how many people might attend. Please post comments here if you'd like to hang out. We're also looking for suggestions on where we should go. One suggestion is a Mexican restaurant and tequila bar in the Outer Richmond. (Photo: Owen Thomas, Valleywag.)

Greenpeace anti-Apple propaganda video

Check out this disgusting, misleading video from the greentards. We know they're funded by Microsoft, Nokia, Dell and God knows who else. Remember that when you watch this. Take it with a grain of salt. And yes, in case you're wondering, we are going to sue these guys for trade defamation.

Siooma, Greenpeace

Now they're after iPhone. See here. Money quote: "Steve Jobs has missed the call on making the iPhone his first step towards greening Apple's products," said Zeina Alhajj, Greenpeace International toxics campaigner. "It seems that Apple is far from leading the way for a green electronics industry as competitors, like Nokia, already sell mobile phones free of PVC."

Like, um, yeah. If you buy an iPhone and smash it apart with a hammer and eat the pieces, you're gonna get sick. We were going to have a big warning label somewhere inside said, "Harmful if swallowed. Do not ingest." But then we realized that nobody in their right mind was going to try to smash and cook and eat an iPhone. We forgot, however, that this doesn't rule out the greentards.

Larry's in Los Angeles, "working from home" today

He called this morning, says he knows he should get back to the Valley to deal with this BEA situation, but he figures Chuck Phillips has things under control and if things really get rough they'll send Safra Catz over to stomp on Alfred Chuang's nuts until he gives in. It's a technique she's perfected on Oracle sales VPs. So far nobody has ever lasted more than 30 seconds. Meanwhile Larry has the following report from Los Angeles:

"Bill is out of fucking control. Short and simple. We ended up going to Vegas yesterday -- his idea -- and now we're back here in Malibu and I don't think the guy has slept since I got here. You know he's an old friend and I love him. Heck I gave the guy more money than he even asked for, and he asks for a lot. But he's gone off the rails. Retirement has not been good for him. I was sort of afraid of this. I mean if a guy's banging interns under his desk when he's the president, what do you think is gonna happen when he's got no job at all? But it's worse than I thought. Sure, he's hitting models left and right, high-class girls from LA and New York. Fair enough. But it's not just that. He's hitting anything that moves. Waitresses at TGI Friday's, girls behind the counter at McDonald's. If you're female and can fog a mirror and weigh less than two hundred and fifty pounds, he's on you. He went after the staff down here in the house. Then there's the coke. And the weed. Don't get me started. He needs help, to be honest. God help Hillary if she makes it through the primary into the general election. I can't believe the Republifascists don't have a huge dossier on this guy already. They gotta be following him and watching him right? And who knows whether half these girls he's nailing aren't actually operatives? Or at least they'll want to sell their stories to the tabloids. You know what Bill says about all that? He says he doesn't care if it all comes out, and neither does Hillary. Says she'll just spin it to her advantage, play the aggrieved wife again, and Bill will do his contrition act with the big puppy dog eyes, and they'll make the Republicans look like a bunch of big scolding hypocritical phonies who think it's their business to snoop into other people's personal lives. Says they'll line up the Times Magazine to do a big story where they look all flawed and human and in need of redemption. Then spin a trashier version in People and US Weekly. Bill says it's brilliant but I'm not so sure. Anyway, I gotta go. We're all going to do peyote then lie on massage tables and have Japanese girls massage our feet. Back atcha later."

Our new iBook reader

Spent the weekend using the latest prototype of our iBook electronic reader which came in Friday in a batch from Shenzhen. It's an amazing device. Gorgeous. Slim, fast. About the size of the Sony Reader but with a color multi-touch screen, plus the ability to surf the Web on WiFi, get email, make phone calls, listen to music and watch movies. Imagine an iPhone or iPod Touch but with a screen that's 3.5 inches wide by 5 inches tall and wrapped in a buttery soft faux leather case. Just a killer device. And it's totally debugged and ready to go. We could be shipping them now. We could have been shipping them a month ago. But there are two issues.

First off, Jeanie Falzone, the woman who does my karmic repatterning, says we've been putting way too much technology into the market in too short a time. She says the world needs time to absorb new technology and if we overload that delicate balance we risk throwing the entire planet into some kind of flux state that could be really dangerous.

Second problem is iBook's buttery soft faux leather case. To be sure, it's buttery soft. We spent huge amounts of time working with material scientists in Japan and Germany and ended up having to create our own unique material which has the highest buttery softness of any faux leather material ever developed.

The problem is the color. I know the color I want. I can see it in my mind's eye. It's hard to describe. It's a light brown, but not quite tan. It's the exact color of the cover of a first edition of William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience" which I used to have in my library, a version of which is shown above. But the color I want is the color of that book when viewed outdoors late in the day in my backyard with the sun going down into the Santa Cruz mountains. Unfortunately I no longer have my copy of this book (left it in a limo, duh) so we can't work from the original. And the other copies still in existence are not the same shade.

I've gone through thousands of color swatches but the problem is that the color you see on a sample card isn't exactly the same when you apply it to our buttery soft faux leather case. Our guys just can't get it right and I keep having to send these units back with a note saying, "Try again." I know it's making them a little nuts, but hey, you know what? That's how we roll at Apple. Like I told them, Look, we spent six months working on the single button for iBook, getting the exact right sheen on the titanium, the exact right size, the perfect resistance and action so that when you press it you say, Yes, that's it, there's a perfect titanium button under my finger and I know this is a high-quality mass-market luxury product. Heck, we spent a year rearranging the chips on the circuit board until the layout felt holistic to me.

After all that work on every tiny piece of the system, you think we're going to ship the thing with a buttery soft faux leather case that isn't the right color? I mean the case is the first thing someone is going to see when they look at iBook. It has to be perfect. Trust me, it'll be worth it. And we've got the time, since Jeanie Falzone has put us on hold until at least January. We might as well take advantage of the opportunity to make this thing perfect. (Photo: Burt Hammer, Rare Books magazine.)

Sent from my iBook

Another dog in love with iPhone

Check out the sense of puppy-like wonder. Much love to Yahel for the link.

Dvorak: Still out of his mind

Look at this one, where he says, "There's great upside potential for Microsoft." He goes on to say that investors are missing a great bargain because Microsoft dominates so many markets and gee what would happen if the Borg ever got its act together? Naturally the money quote comes at the very end and it's a doozy: "The problem is that it is difficult to look objectively at the company when you are confronted with its products daily, and they often contribute to daily frustration. Everyone is taking it out on the stock."

Yeah. Funny how that works. You sit there all day tearing your hair out and screaming at your crashed or frozen Windows machine or trying to figure out how to get Word to stop putting shit into the document you're creating and wondering if you need to call an exorcist because maybe the machine is possessed by the devil -- and then, yeah, you're just not all that psyched about buying Microsoft stock. Weird.

I swear Dvorak just commits to too many columns and then has nothing to say and it's due in thirty minutes so he just bangs out crap like this. It's gotta be that.

Attention, readers in Noe Valley

If you live in Noe and you have kids, I dare you -- I just friggin dare you -- to dress a bunch of them up in this costume and knock on MLP's door. Free fake iPod Touch if you send me photos of the kids doing it, and a free fake iPhone if you get Jonathan in the photo. Oh please. Oh please. Meanwhile those of you who live in Atherton and Woodside and maybe work at Google will want to consider this one. Or, um, have your baby's Halloween costume consultant consider it. Live in Seattle? Lucky enough to be calling on the World's Second Richest Man? Naturally you'll be interested in this little number. With the words "Vista sucks" scrawled on Junior's chest, of course.

Much love to the divine dear reader Bob for sending these in.

Sun's Java phone revealed

Not really. Actually it's a freetard device called the tuxphone. See here. As David Berlind and Stephen J. Vaughan-Nichols point out, when you can harness the creativity of people from all around the world, when you can put all these eyeballs on a problem, you just make progress at such an incredible speed and you get really the most amazing design possible. Who on earth would buy an iPhone if they could get one of these for free, and hack it any way they wanted? Man, we are so screwed. There's no way the proprietary model can keep up. Much love to Karl for sending this in.

Toronto event is all set

This just in from Stephen in Toronto who has made the arrangements for the party this Thursday, Oct. 18, at the Madison Avenue Pub in Toronto:

"Reservations are confirmed for 7pm at the Madison on Thursday, 18
October. We're in the VIP room which is located on the second floor of
16 Madison Avenue, at the front of the building. If the door's locked,
enter at 14 Madison Avenue, climb the stairs to the second floor,
cross the "bridge" (just after the dart boards) to 16 Madison Avenue.
Turn right and walk to the front of the room.

This place is massive inside. If you can't find the VIP room, just ask
any of the staff and they'll bring you there."

Should be fun. See you there. Peace out.

NY Times asks: Can anything stop Google?

See here. Their answer seems to be: Not really. The stock has broken through $600 and is headed for $700. Stock is trading at 50x earnings. Even Fred Hickey, notorious curmudgeon, says he doesn't dare short it because the mania is too strong. So what could tip them over? Money quote: "The potential threats, according to industry analysts, fall into three broad categories: those from inside the company, those from rivals, and public policy challenges that could bring regulatory controls and tarnish Google’s reputation and brand."

One factor the Times leaves out: The looming exodus of a lot of very important people who are about to get unlocked, stock-wise. It's all Squirrel Boy talks about these days. And it will be the big story of 2008.

Doris Lessing on political correctness

New York Times op-ed page has a story worth reading today. See here. It's a reprinted essay by Doris Lessing from 1992. She's talking about political correctness in academia, the use of language to obfuscate, the technique of claiming morality superiority in order to create scapegoats and persecute people as "evil," the use of empty slogans and propaganda and groupthink to mislead people, all of which she says has its roots in Communism though the people engaging in it don't know that, or do know that and pretend not to. Lessing tells of people who have been "hounded by groups and cabals of witch hunters, using the most dirty and often cruel tactics. They claim their victims are racist or in some way reactionary." What does any of this have to do with tech? Well, read the following quote.

The trouble is that, with all popular movements, the lunatic fringe so quickly ceases to be a fringe; the tail begins to wag the dog. For every woman or man who is quietly and sensibly using the idea to examine our assumptions, there are 20 rabble-rousers whose real motive is desire for power over others, no less rabble-rousers because they see themselves as anti-racists or feminists or whatever.

Does that remind you of anyone?

Hello, my name is David Berlind and thanks to these glasses I can see into the future

Exactly three years ago today -- Oct. 13, 2004 -- ZDNet computer journalist David Berlind took a break from probing his own ass with his own head and published a truly insightful and prophetic article titled "Is Apple on the way out?" See it here.

Now look. David is one of the smartest journalists ever unleashed upon our industry. I know because he's told Katie and Steve Dowling this a bunch of times. I mean he's right up there with former NASA technologist Stephen J. Vaughan-Nichols of eWeek (shown here with his life partner) who chairs the highly esteemed Internet Press Guild (see scary member photos here) and likes to point out that he "has been using and writing about technology and business since the late '80s and thinks he may just have learned something about them along the way." (See his self-effacing bio here.)

According to Katie, David Berlind is a few notches above SJVN on the IQ pole, if only because of his Zennstromesque eyewear, which adds at least five points, maybe ten. Berlind's premise in 2004 was this: Look at how fast Linux has taken over the server market, and won't it do the same on the desktop? And won't Apple be the one that gets hurt the most? Ahem. Ahem. Look. We knew this was stupid when he wrote it. But we said nothing. We just let it slide, and I put it on my iCal for today so that I could check in and see where we'd find ourselves three years hence.

Some of the best quotes:

"The target for desktop Linux is simple: OS X. All desktop Linux must do is aspire to be what OS X is. If it can do that, it will not only upset the `Applecart,' it will also give desktop Windows a serious run as well."

"It's about what happens when desktop Linux reaches that point where it provides an experience that meets or beats the one that that sets the standard for *ix-based desktop operating systems: OS X. When it does -- and I don't doubt that it will -- Apple will be in a real pickle because of the hardware 'problem'. Users will have significantly more hardware options for running desktop Linux and the likelihood that they'll find something to meet their needs in terms of cost and form factor will be excellent. There will no doubt be companies that make systems that look every bit and run every bit like a PowerBook (or whatever Apple is selling at the time). They just won't be PowerBooks and will cost significantly less."

"To not have faith in Microsoft is one thing. To not have faith in the highly motivated open-source movement and all those behind it (Red Hat, SuSE, Sun, etc.) to bring desktop Linux up to speed is misguided. They're the underdog. Never underestimate the underdog."

Well, it's been three years. I'm not sure what to say. Maybe we should wait another hundred years and see if his prediction comes true. Meanwhile, how about this? Siooma, freetard. (Photo: A.S. Rash, LinuxWatch.)

Footnote: For what it's worth, by early this year, Linux held a commanding 12% share of the server market while Windows had 38% and was growing faster than Linux, despite being on a bigger base -- news which SJVN reported under the headline, "Linux server market share keeps growing." No guff. See his fair and balanced coverage here. Even if you look at more recent figures, you'll see that as of Q2 of this year Windows had gained 4 points of revenue share over the past year, while Linux had gained 1 point, and Linux server revenues were $1.8 billion versus $5.0 billion for Windows. (As SJVN might have headlined it: "Linux World Domination Continues.") Both Linux and Windows were growing at about 19% rate, though Windows was doing this off a larger base. Do some math and you can figure out that the total server market in Q2 was up about $800 million from a year ago while Linux server revenues were up about $300 million in the same time period. Windows grew $800 million. Make of that what you will, but let's just say that even when we extrapolate out from what Linux has done in the server market, we're not crapping our pants about the desktop.

I'm worried about Larry

He just called from his place in Malibu and he could barely speak. He's down there with Ron Burkle and Bill Clinton. He's on the phone going, "Unnnnnh, mmmmhhh, what's up, are you there ... unhhhh." At first I thought maybe he'd done poppers on top of Viagra again. He did that last year and the doctor on duty at his house had to start his heart for him. Then he spent a week in Cedars Sinai hooked up to monitors. I mean he was this close. Guy figures because he has a mini hospital in each of his houses and keeps it staffed 24-7 he can do whatever he wants.

So just now I go, Larry, what the hell are you doing down there? He didn't answer. Just more moaning. I can hear girls shrieking in the background, people talking. A voice that I'm pretty sure is Clinton saying, "When's that guy Pete getting back here with the blow?" I go, Larry, are you okay? He says, "Mmmmhhh, unnnnhhh, who's this?" I tell him it's me, Jobso. He says something I can't understand. It's like, "Howzugetdisnumma." He says it a few times and then I realize he's trying to say, "How'd you get this number?"

I go, Larry, it's me, Jobso. And you called me. Are you all right? Do you need help?

No answer. After a minute or so I realized he'd dropped the phone and just left it on the floor. I could hear Clinton whooping it up. More voices. Giggling. Then someone hung up.

I'm like this close to calling the cops. But I'm afraid Larry would kill me if I did that. More as this develops. (Photo: Peter Gash, High Times.)

iPod Touch -- so easy a dog can use it

First time through I thought it was Woz. Just kidding. I love this video because it shows just how easy this wonderful device is to use. And how eager even dogs are to experience a sense of childlike wonder. I thought it was cool when the 1-year-olds were using iPhone. Now we have this. What a world. Dogs buying iPods, babies using iPhone. Truly we have made a dent in the universe. BTW Phil Schiller is trying to figure out what kind of camera the dog used to take those photos. No idea at this point. Much love to dear reader Ryan for alerting us to this.

This NASCAR vaccination scandal

Maybe you've seen the stories. Like this one. A Congressman from Mississippi warned his staffers they should get shots before they attend a couple of NASCAR events. Maybe this subject is a little far afield for me -- I try to stay out of politics -- but I have to say I agree with this Congressman completely. I'd never say this in public but the fact is we would never let anyone from Apple attend a NASCAR event without a hazmat suit. Formula One, fair enough, that's a different situation. Different audience. More in line with the Apple image. NASCAR? One hundred percent Windows users.

Plus, just as a general rule we tend to stay away from the South in its entirety, as this map of our stores in the United States shows. To be honest, with the few stores we do have down there in the South we've never had great results. And we've had lots of trouble. Weird infections, strange epidemics of hepatitis A through Z (who even knew?), whooping cough, pleurisy, yellow fever, weird rashes, hives, ringworm. It's like a big Faulknerian fever swamp down there. Nobody from Cupertino will even go for a visit. When we do make people visit the stores in the South they call it "Deliverance week" and spend the whole plane ride making pig-squealing noises. Not quite as bad as "being sent to Mordor," which is what the engineers call their visits to Shenzhen, China. But you get the idea.

We're based in California. Our products are designed in California. Surfboards, blonde girls, beaches, blue skies. One of our big draws at Apple is that people want to live in the Bay Area. Why not? It's the most beautiful, holistic, spiritual, organic, self-righteous place on the entire planet. Plus the weather is sooooo amazing. If you lived here you wouldn't want to visit other places either.

UPDATE: A few people have written in to complain, and have mentioned Texas. Just FYI, we don't consider Texas part of the South.

Jerry Yang spotted leaving Facebook

Moshe just came in with the info. Our spy cams picked it up. Not sure but this may be Jerry's big bold move. Yahoo puts money into Facebook and blocks Microsoft. Frankly I thought Jerry's big move was just going to be an announcement that he needed another 100-day thinking period. Anyway, you go, Jerry Yang. Put that money into Facebook. Anything to jam a spoke in Beastmaster's wheels. And don't worry. Whatever ridiculous amount you pay, the saps in the open market will be paying more when the bankers finally take this thing public.

Much love, Al Gore

Many of you know this already, but for those who don't: We've dedicated our home page to Al today. My idea. But I wanted to run a photo of Al and me standing together. Katie said we were better doing Al by himself. Okay. Whatevs. Al wants to coast on our good karma and use our halo effect to advance his career, good enough. We'll play along. It's good for us too. Peace out.

Larry is stoked

Just ran into him at the San Jose Jet Center. He's heading down to LA for a weekend with Bill Clinton and Ron Burkle and he just had the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. I'm like, What're you guys planning? He's like, "Duuuuude, don't even ask, okay? You know how it is when you hang out with those guys. I'm packing a month's worth of Viagra for a two-day trip." He promised he'd tell me all about it when he got back. I told him I'm not sure I want to hear it. (Photo: Burt Hammer, Maxim.)

Google's rival bid for Skype

Just ran into Squirrel Boy and he's practically giddy over this Skype implosion at Ebay. Turns out Google was in the hunt for Skype too back when Ebay bought them. Eric claims he actually offered more than what Ebay ended up paying. But because of the way the deal was structured Skype went with Ebay. Kind of a shame since Google might have figured out how to make money on Skype. That at least is what Eric claims. Mostly he says he's just glad he dodged that bullet. Peace out. (Photo: Burt Hammer, World's Luckiest Men magazine.)

Al tells me to back off

Just called. He's like, Steve, I really appreciate your sentiments on this idea about me running for office, but honestly, you really need to drop that line of thinking. Or at least stop talking about it in public. Do you have any idea what Hillary has threatened to do to me if I try to run against her? It's not just idle talk, brother. These people play for keeps. I mean, have you read "Primary Colors"? Do you have any idea what we'd be dealing with? One example. Tipper called me this morning. Our cat is missing. Mr. Bojangles. Right. Then I get a call from Hillary to congratulate me on the prize and she says, "Oh, and how's the family? Kid doing fine? Say, do you still have that little black-and-white cat?" Then she does that weird laugh of hers. You think that's a coincidence? No way. It's a warning. It's their way of letting me know, Don't even think about it. So look, Steve, I'm begging you. Ixnay on the ampaign-cay, all right? It just ain't gonna happen. I'm sorry.

Dear Al: Now you must run

Dear Al:
Congratulations on our Nobel Peace Prize. I am so proud to have been right by your side these past years, working closely together with you. Now our hard work has been recognized. It is time for us to ask ourselves, What's next?

I know you are a modest, humble, self-effacing man. I know you do not seek glory for yourself. I know you were hurt, badly, the last time you ran. You swore to yourself that you would never do that again, that you would devote your life to monkish study and selfless pursuit of the cause that matters most to you -- saving our planet from destruction. You would retreat from the spotlight, where you had never been comfortable anyway. You would spend time with your wife and family. You would read books, and write books, and make films. You would, ironically, go back full circle to your days as a young man, when you told yourself you would change the world.

Well, you have changed the world. Profoundly. You have raised awareness of the most pressing issue of our time. You have put the entire world on red alert. You have opened our eyes to the invisible danger that lurks all around us. And you know what? Along the way you have become a better campaigner than you ever were back in the day when you were actually running for office. You're like Obi-Wan Kenobi -- struck down, you have become more powerful than we could ever have imagined.

Now it is time. You must run. Not because you want to run, but precisely because you don't want to run. That, Al, is your strongest point. You don't want it. You don't need it. You dare now to be yourself. No artificiality, no stiffness, no falseness. You are who you are. And we need you. We, your fellow Americans. We need you. Now more than ever. Our nation's soul, hurt by this foolish war, cries out to you. We've been wounded by an administration so obsessed with so-called "terrorists" that they don't notice the earth's temperature rising at an alarming rate -- nearly a tenth of a degree in just the last ten years. So blinded by fear of Iran that they don't see the snowcap receding on Mt. Kilimanjaro, and icebergs melting and breaking apart in Antarctica. For nearly eight years we have suffered under this madness. This must end.

Al, I say this as your friend, but also as an American: Run. Run, damn you. Dig us out of this hole we've fallen into. Larry and I and the rest of the Valley will give you all the money you need. Just run. Run. (Photo paid for by Norman Hsu, Democratic National Committee.)

This Britney business is not helping us sell iPhones

See here. Celebrity iPhone user Britney Spears has once again been snapped displaying her kootch. Go to the link, click on the photos and the little star is removed. I'm warning you though -- don't do this if you hope to ever have an appetite ever again in your entire friggin life. Goddamn that is one scary va-jay-jay.

Meanwhile this is just a nightmare for us too. I just called my PR and advertising team in here and screamed at them for ever having the crazy idea of putting an iPhone in this woman's hands. We had our pick of celebs who were willing to be photographed carrying iPhones in public and most of them didn't even want to be paid; they just wanted the damn phone. That's how good it is. And these were smart public intellectual type celebrities. I'm talking about Al Gore, Malcolm Gladwell, Barbra Streisand, George Clooney, Kanye West. Instead they went out and hit up idiots like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. And Britney Spears. Who overslept today and missed her child custody hearing. I am not making this up. Britney, we are sending someone to pick up your iPhone. And don't bother hiding or pretending you're not home. Because we'll brick the damn thing on you. I swear to God we will.

Here it is -- the M word

Back in August 1990 I spent a week in the desert in Utah doing mushrooms (or was it peyote) with this weird naked Indian dude and watching bullet cars run on the Bonneville Salt Flats and while I was there, during this period of intense spiritual work, I felt this huge ripple in the force around me and realized, long before it happened, that Microsoft was headed for trouble with antitrust regulators. The Office suite was not a big deal yet but you could see where things were headed since their stated aim was to tie the apps to each other and to the OS and to wipe out a swath of the software industry.

The point of this reminiscing? For a while now I've felt the same weird rippling energy in the air around me. I've been waiting for someone to drop the M word about Apple. Now here it is. To be sure, these lawsuits are absolutely without merit. We'll win them, no problem. The more signficant news is that the M bomb has been dropped. Things like this take on a power of their own. Once someone has dared to say it, it becomes easier for others to say it too. Pretty soon it becomes accepted as fact. So. Here we are then. Alea iacta est, as Napoleon said when he crossed the Rubicon.

Mr. Wizard, get me the hell out of here!

No, that is not Jonathan Schwartz praying to be teleported out of Sun and back to the freetard mothership. In fact it's Jonathan admiring one of his previous crazy ideas, the data center in a box. (They lured him in with the promise of getting his picture in the New York Times. Clever MLP managed to slip out before they could lock him in.) Anyway now he's on to something even wackier. Gizmodo reports here that Sun and Samsung are working on a Java-based iPhone clone.

What can I say? These guys want to fight us in the consumer space? Really? Sigh. Whatever. Bring it on, I guess. But honestly it's not even going to be fun crushing these guys. They're just so sad these days. I mean, is there anything MLP won't try? They had the boxed-up data center, which came with or without the CEO-inside option. They had the Niagara chip. They had Linux. They had open-but-not-really-open Solaris. They had open-but-not-really-open Java. Open-but-not-really-open Star Office. They had free software to get you to buy hardware. They had free hardware to get you to buy software. They had GPLv3 but then not GPLv3. They had a new core focus on storage. They had a new ticker symbol. Now a phone. With Samsung. The place is like some wacky science lab run amok. They make Google look disciplined and well-managed. And that's saying something. Do you ever get the sense that MLP just wishes someone would beam him up out of there? I know I do. My take is McNealy is just sitting back watching this kid scrambling around like a cat on an ice rink, and loving every minute of it.

Can you hear me now? I said I just ripped you off, you stupid Americans! Mwah ha ha ha ...

Check out this brief from the Wall Street Journal which quotes Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom spouting incredible inanities in full-blown corporate bullshitspeak that would make Eric Blair roll over in his grave. Zennstrom says Ebay “overshot in terms of monetization," which the Journal translates to mean, "eBay overpaid" and which FSJ translates to mean, "I robbed you big-time, frigtards." Then comes this doozy: “We had to chart the trajectory of growth and how fast that would run, (but) we found out that was a bit front-loaded.” Yeah. Front-loaded. See, they thought they'd be doing a zillion million free phone calls by now, but instead they're only doing a billion million free phone calls. Key thing when you're selling free stuff is you gotta have volume. And scale. So you can leverage synergies and distribute empowerment across multiple platforms freeing up resources and effectively achieving economies of scale ... (Stop now, Ed.) One last point. WTF with those glasses? Is he a spy or something? A fashion designer? A sales clerk at Barneys New York? Do the glasses come with a special teeny-tiny phone? If not they should. Peace out, Mugatu.

Nobel in Chemistry: also mine

Check out this story and take a close look at the photo to see the computer this guy uses. We're in negotiations over what percentage of the $1.5 million prize money I should get. Obviously we're pushing for 100% but of course this bastard is pushing back. Maybe he should just use a Dell from now on. Ingrate.

I don't read Dutch but ...

I'm told that this story describes a shop that is selling unlocked iPhones in the Netherlands. Can anyone translate? And can anyone explain these crazy outfits and the wooden shoes?

UPDATE: Thanks for the translations. Very helpful. We've got our lawyers on the job and should have these guys shut down quickly. Much love to all who helped. Peace out.

Ballmer in denial on Vista

I'm mean it's getting ridiculous. An analyst from Gartner gets up at a conference and lays him out and he just stands there talking about all the value that Vista delivers. Scary. (Photo: Frank Shaw, Redmond magazine.)

iPebble unboxing photos

It's a joke making fun of the poor folks who bought iPods and found rocks in their box instead of an iPod. Or maybe it's making fun of Apple marketing. I'm not sure. See here. Much love to James for sending in this link.

More flamebait

Apple faithful, I shouldn't even bring your attention to this despicable piece of flamebait on ExtremeTech. If you want to spare your eyes the trouble and not worry about killing brain cells by exposing yourself to toxic waste, let me just tell you that the headline is, "The Worst Thing about Macs," and what he's referring to is you. Money quote: "The thing I hate most about using a Mac are the Apple fans." Then he mentions about twenty times how he's going to get all this hate mail and people are going to call him names. Pretty obvious that's what he's hoping for. I mean could this guy be more transparent? Stuff like this just makes me sad. But it's the price we pay for our purity of spirit. I urge you, all of you, just to ignore this. Practice non-violence. Turn the other cheek. Focus on the beautiful things in this world. Stay positive. (Enough, we get it, Ed.) Peace out. (Photo: Burt Hammer, Dogs Versus Bears magazine.)

Nobel Prize for Physics is mine by proxy

See here. The committee gave the Nobel Prize for Physics to the iPod. Sort of. Actually to a couple of guys who worked on one of the underlying technologies in the iPod. But according to Katie that's just a way for the committee to give us -- well, me, actually -- a prize without having to look like they're doing a favor for a big company. We're planning a big celebration here with the two guys, Fert (real name, I'm not kidding) and Grunberg, who nominally received the award. Katie is already in talks with them. Apparently they're balking at the idea of giving me their gold medals, or trophies, or whatever you get when you win a Nobel, plus the money, which is about a million and a half bucks. Our feeling is that hey, yes, these men did some fine work. But the only reason anyone ever noticed that work was that we took their very abstract theoretical ideas and actually put them to use. Plus, not to be a dick or anything but we apparently have some patents on the stuff they're claiming as their own. We'd like to get this done without things turning ugly, but if we have to play hardball we will. Weird thing is the two guys are both doctors and they don't even live in the United States. Who knew?

Andrew Tobias suffers a problem with his iPhone

Check out his wonderful essay here where he goes on about how terrific our tech support team is. Seems he needed help with his God Phone after its God Screen went partially numb and he couldn't make any God Calls or read any God Email. Not our fault but even so he was able to come to an Apple store and in less than twenty four hours and after only two visits to our store and a really incredibly short 40-minute wait, one of our Geniuses took a look at the phone that Andrew had destroyed and without question just replaced it with a fully functioning refurbished unit.

Okay, not really. Andrew has the absolute temerity to call us "idiots" and says forty minutes is too long to wait to get a free phone. Wow. Talk about arrogance. Just look at him in that picture. Mr. "I went to Harvard and I'm the treasurer of the Democratic National Committee." Big pals with Al Gore, breezing into an Apple store and expecting to pull a Woz and cut the line and get special treatment. Sorry, Andrew. That's not how Apple works. We're a meritocracy. That's why I'm in charge. Much love to Kevin for alerting us to this latest unfair assault on our reputation. (Photo paid for by Norman Hsu, Democratic National Committee.)

Uncle Fester to Red Hat: We'll send you a bill

See here. Monkey Boy was speaking at some conference and claimed that anyone using Red Hat is going to have to pay the Borg because Red Hat's Linux infringes on Borg patents. For the life of me I don't know why Ballmer keeps going around making these fuzzy threats that he never backs up and won't ever back up because it would backfire completely and he knows it. So what's the point? Oh wait a minute. Thee point is this. (Photo courtesy of Acid Gurl.)

German bikini girl destroys an iPhone

I wept when I saw this. When I think of all the people around the world who are dying for iPhone, who crave that sense of childlike wonder -- including all those people in Germany -- and then to see this? It hurts, people. That's all I'm saying. To see your creation destroyed like this. Man oh man. Friggin Germans. I have to sign off now because I'm getting choked up again. Meanwhile if you want to write to them and complain, their website is here.

This is why we love our customers

Check out this story. A guy's Powerbook burst into flames under his bed and nearly killed him. Fire department was called, apartment ruined, guy had to move into a hotel for a while. He calls us up, we send him a MacBook Pro, and he goes away happy. Money quote: "The funny thing is, a Mac almost killed me, and I came out of the whole experience feeling more strongly about Apple as a company." Now that is loyalty. Yes, Apple faithful, you are truly a unique customer base. And we are sooooo glad to have you. Really. I mean it.

Much love, Czabe, if that really is your name

Check out this rave about our new Nano. Starts off sounding like just another bash of the iPhone and the iPod Touch, then turns, well, magical. I don't know who this Czabe dude is and frankly I suspect it's a made-up name. But anyway, much love to you, Mr. Unpronounceable.

Borg ad, redux

Much love to dear reader Calvin for applying the "truth in advertising" filter to this advertisement. Check out the three significant differences.

Toronto arrangements

Folks, this post exists only so we can use the comment thread to work out arrangements for some kind of dinner and/or party on Oct. 18 in Toronto. Okay? Let me know who's interested and where we should go. I have no idea where anything is in Toronto but will be staying in the Metropolitan Hotel on Chestnut Street. Anything reachable by taxi would be fine. Pub type place would be best, I think.

FYI, the book will not be out yet as of the 18th. So we will just have to hang out and do yoga, I guess. I will have some free fake $100 iPhone coupons, however.

UPDATE: We've settled on the Madison Avenue Pub. Hope that's okay for everyone. Dear reader Stephen is making arrangements for us there this weekend. Plan is to be there at 7 p.m. on Oct. 18. Bring yoga mats and Pilates equipment. I'll have an iPhone for ogling and making prank phone calls to John Sculley.

For info on the Madison Avenue Pub, see here.

UPDATE #2: Stephen is booking some space at the pub and asks that anyone who wants to attend please send him an email so he can get a handle on how many people will be there. He needs to give the pub guys an estimate.

His email: fsj@save-your-money.ca.

Okay? Thanks. See you all on Thursday.

Attention Microsoft employees: I am coming to your campus

That's right. I'm visiting the Borg campus and speaking there. No guff. The book publisher set this up. Apparently the Microtards just can't get enough of my abuse. I'm told that Beastmaster and Monkey Boy will both be attending because they want signed first editions.

The event is on Oct. 23 and I think you have to be a Microsoft employee to attend. Apple faithful, all I can tell you is that I will do my best to find out what the hell caused these people to create Vista. I'm posting this now so that there is some public record of the event, in case I go in and don't come out.

UPDATE: I'm trying to find out where the event is being held. Will post as soon as I know.

UPDATE: It's in Building 33, the Conference Center, in the St. Helens Room. Scheduled for 2 p.m.

FSJ book reading and party in Santa Monica, Oct. 24

Dear reader Todd, who lives in Los Angeles, is making arrangements to host an FSJ book event on October 24 at 7 p.m. in Santa Monica. This is not at a bookstore but at a private location -- his company's offices -- in downtown Santa Monica. Todd says anyone is welcome to attend but to get the address you need to send him an RSVP.

His email: FSJinLA@gmail.com. Not sure exactly what's on the agenda. Smoothies, yoga, meditation? Maybe. Or possibly some four-way blotter acid. We'll see. Please send Todd an email ASAP so he can get a handle on how many people to expect. Much love, peace out and namaste -- soon we shall honor the place where all of us become one.

The email again: FSJinLA@gmail.com.

UPDATE: This event will be at a company offices and will need to be pretty much a straight-up book event -- that is, maybe some reading or speaking, but no blotter acid. And there's security involved, etc., since the location, which I can't disclose, is a very famous but super hush-hush type organization. The book stuff will last about an hour and then we'll go to a pub nearby, location still TBD. Some of you may want to skip the bookish high-security stuff and just hit the pub around 8 p.m. We'll figure out which bar and post it beforehand. Peace.

Goddammit, I just know Al Gore is going to get the Nobel

See here. He's the odds-on favorite this year. Now look. I know I should be happy for him. But I have to be honest. It hurts. As many of you know I have this silly habit of sitting by the phone on the day the Nobel winners are announced. Now it looks pretty certain that this year I'm out and Al is the man. Sure, I'll smile and tell him how great this is. I'll probably even host a party for him. But deep down inside, it's killing me. The Oscar I could deal with. But man oh man. The Nobel? It's something I've wanted for years, and Al knows it. Well I hope it doesn't mess up our friendship. Do you have any idea how insufferable he'll be if he gets this? He's already the biggest windbag I've ever met. If I didn't need him to fend off the SEC he'd be out on his ass in a heartbeat. Jerry York says I should just STFU because if Al wins this then he's a shoo-in for president, and if Al Gore is president we can get away with anything. (Photo paid for by Norman Hsu, Democratic National Committee.)

Bubble 2.0: Journal makes it official

See their page one story here. Hilariously, Marc Andreessen is quoted saying he doesn't think there's a bubble despite the emergence of companies called Orgoo, Zipidee, ZocDoc and BillMonk, whose service lets people keep track of debts they owe one another. Oh, and there's one that lists a fifth-grader as a founder. Proclaims Andreessen: "My theory is that the next bubble will only come when everyone stops talking about bubbles all the time." Ay dios mio, as they say in Italian.

Mac share at Princeton is skyrocketing

See here. Forty percent of students and faculty at Princeton now use Macs, up from 10 percent in 2003-2004. Much love, Crimson. And congratulations on beating USC.

We call it iPod Russian roulette

See this story about frigtards who complain when they open their iPod box and find out it's filled with rocks. Or some fish. Look, we thought it would be a cool promotion type thing. No idea people would get all pissed off. Phi Schiller says anyone who got rocks will get a ten-dollar iTunes coupon, so no worries. Ars Technica also has a story on it here.

Microsoft: Because your business is huge and confusing, and so is our software

Yes, this is a real ad from the Borg. Not sure if it's a step up from the ones with the people wearing dinosaur heads. I guess it is. Much love to dear reader Brandon for sending this in. To the folks at Signal v. Noise who printed this first, I say: Namaste. I honor the place where your content and mine become one.

Analyze this

So you really must check out this article where a psychotherapist explains what all this griping about the locked-down iPhone is all about. Basically he says I'm the big Dad figure and you're all a bunch of whiny, spoiled children. Here are some highlights:

"Dad" turned out, for some, to be a family tyrant, dictating to his teenage children new limitations and expectations: "I know what's best for you, and right now is not a good time to open up the iPhone." What made matters worse for some in the Apple family was Steve Jobs getting into bed with a new stepmother: AT&T. Like many children from a blended marriage, we were not privy to what really attracted Dad to his new wife, our new "mother", but we were told it was for the best, and we'd learn to like her in time.



Certain unhappy adolescents believed they were entitled to do what they liked and ignore Dad's rules, and were dismayed that when he said he was going to ground them for their breaches, he really meant it! Hence, bricked iPhones with others in the family saying "well, you got what you had coming - don't say you weren't warned."


The secret unconscious desire for many hackers is for Dad to publicly recognise them, and to offer them jobs within Apple. When Dad doesn't do this, and indeed seems to thwart them, then Oedipal rivalry occurs, a love-hate relationship with Dad, and a desire to harm him. Thus the many writers who now say they won't buy an iPhone or who tell others that Apple is not the same company they knew it to once be ...


Never fear, however. The good doctor says everything will be all right and by January the whole family should be feeling much better when they see what Dad is up to. Until then, you can all just shut up or I will turn this car around right now and go straight home.

Why Facebook matters

To vampires anyway. Check out this spoof.

It does kind of piss me off that I'm only worth $5 billion

Weird, I know. But a lot of people have pointed this since I linked to the story about Michael Dell. He's got $15 billion and I only have $5 billion. Doesn't seem fair considering all that I've done for the world. I've brought this up with the Apple board and they always give me some version of the "you already have more money than you can spend in twenty lifetimes" routine. It's not the point and they know it. Oh well. Life isn't fair, as Jerry York likes to remind me.

Not much smack talk from Michael Dell these days

But Fortune takes an opportunity to remind the world that it was 10 years ago when Michael Dell uttered what has now become one of the most famously stupid things ever uttered in the history of computing when he said that if he were running Apple he would shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders. See the Fortune titty-twister here. Nice chart with the story shows our stock versus Dell's in the years since Michael made his big comment. One of the commenters touches on Dell's current dilemma which is simply that Dell prospered not by innovating on design but on manufacturing techniques. They just found ways to take a little friction out of the system faster than HP, IBM and other PC hardware makers could do and that gave them a temporary advantage. Now the world has gone flat and the rise of China Inc. means anyone can make a PC as cheaply as Dell. So what advantage is left to them? I can't think of one and I don't think Michael can either. I'm also not sure Michael really wants to be CEO again. I mean, he's back in there running the show again but it's not exactly a Jobsian return to glory. You get the feeling he got dragged back against his wishes and he'd much rather be out jet-skiing on that big lake in Austin. Whereas when I returned I had a clear and noble goal -- to get revenge on all the assholes who threw me out. Much different situation.

More haters

Well even the big guns are now coming after us. First some donkey from Fortune explains why the iPod is way more vulnerable than anyone realizes. Yeah right. Then some guy from BusinessWeek explains why he's not buying an iPhone, as if anyone cares. Boo friggin hoo, Arik Hesseldahl. How will we ever survive without your endorsement? Note to Katie: Both of these publications are now added to the blacklist, and banned from the Apple campus.

First spy photos from Jim Allchin's house

I've reported before on the not-so-secret man crush that former Windows boss Jim Allchin had on me and how he spent years coveting everything to do with Apple. But this is ridiculous. Someone got into his house and it turns out he's like Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, with shelves full of every Macintosh ever created. I mean, come on. At some point hero worship crosses over a line and just becomes downright creepy.

Okay, this isn't really Jim Allchin's house. It's some other weirdo. Much love to Gizmodo for the story.

Faceberg declares war on us

You've probably seen the rumors but if not check out this link to an item on CNET about how Facebook wants to launch a store to compete with iTunes. From what we can tell the rumors are 100% true. They've tried to recruit away some of our guys and they're offering ridiculous amounts of money plus the promise of a piece of that big huge Facebook IPO which is for sure going to happen any day now and create a whole new batch of boy wonder billionaires who will drive the price of Bay Area real estate even higher into the stratosphere. So far our guys aren't jumping at the bait, mostly because they're terrified of what I'd do to them, and rightly so. As CNET points out the move would make sense for Facebook, since "critics have said that the Mark Zuckerberg-founded company is going to need to find an innovative way to make money." Not sure that copying an Apple idea qualifies as an "innovative" way to make money but let's be honest. These guys need to find a way to make money, period. If that means doing a knockoff, so be it.

But has it started to occur to anyone that these kids really just have no idea what business they're in or what kind of company they're running? First they were a social networking site for college kids. Then they were going to be MySpace. Then they were a networking site for businesspeople, recruiting all these groups from GE, P&G, Citigroup, etc. Then they were going to be Google, making billions by selling ads. Then they were going to be Craigslist. Then they were going to be AOL, the new place for people to meet and hang out online. Then they were going to be Webkinz, a place where you can play online games and send virtual martinis. Then they were going to be a "platform" play like Microsoft and let others build an "ecosystem" around them. They were going to start a "movement" and lead a "revolution," which all sounds good except that they were a revolution without a cause and a movement without an ideology and what exactly was it they were supposed to be toppling and everyone kind of figured out that they were really just using the Che Guevara rhetoric as a way to keep people from asking them what the fuck they're actually making and/or selling. Then Faceberg was going to be me, and he even hired my presentation consultants and tried to develop a Jobsian persona with his black fleece jackets. Then they were going to be a TV network like YouTube, and then an online store, like Amazon. Then they were going to be a dessert topping, and then a floor wax. Now they're going to be iTunes.

This is what happens when you raise lots of VC from Valley sharks before you've figured out what you're doing. They all get seats on your board and they all start telling you what you should be and what you should do and every month it's something else and pretty soon you're going crazy. Because they'll all just keep trying anything and they really have no idea what works either and they're all just tossing darts into the darkness and hoping and praying that one of these things will hit something and your company will start to take off. Or maybe not. Maybe they're actually trying to make you fail. You don't want to think that but you start to wonder sometimes.

Then after a while if you don't start making money they start using you to buy up their other struggling investments and mop up their messes. Or they mop you up by merging you into one of their other losers. Then when things really start cratering they force you to resign and make you the goat for all the company's problems. Faceberg, you have 43 million users and 54 billion monthly page views, and you still can't make any money. Now you want to make war on El Jobso? We're shaking, kid. Shaking. (Photo: Burt Hammer, Tiger Beat.)

LA Times takes their shot at us

See here. Their headline is, "Is Apple losing some of its shine?" But when you read the story you realize the headline should have been, "Are so-called `Apple loyalists' just a bunch of whiny little bitches?" But I guess you can't say stuff like that in a family paper. Whatever. L.A. Times is now officially removed from the approved reading list, and we've banned all communication with them. My idea but Katie seconds the motion and put it in writing on email. So if and when this turns out to be illegal, I can blame it all on her and throw her under a bus. Peace out.

Zune wins an award from PC World!

Unfortunately the award is for the butt-ugliest product in tech history. Money quote: "It's a bad sign when someone comes up with a Web site built entirely around the joke that no one would steal an iPod if it were hidden in a Zune casing--and people actually want to buy that casing." Congratulations, Zunetards. And welcome to the social.

Apple faithful: We have removed Slate from the approved reading list

Please, if any of you are reading Slate, stop doing so immediately. Remove them from your bookmarks. Failure to comply could result in damage to your Apple products. I'm not saying how, but trust me, you don't want to mess with us. If you're wondering why, just check out this article where a Slate writer makes his big argument in favor of unlocking iPhones and calls people who engage in this criminal behavior "freedom fighters." We warned Slate not to print this article. They defied us. Fair enough. It's war. Next version of Safari will not allow you to bookmark Slate. For now, just remove the bookmark manually. Thank you. Peace out.

Happy birthday, Derek

Dear reader Derek, a longtime contributor to this blog and a hard-core Apple fanatic, sent in this photo of a cake his family made him in the shape of an iPhone. They even put his age in binary just so that non-geeks wouldn't know how old he is. Very glad to see that some folks are licensing our Apple iPhone cake recipe and design instructions and sticking to the specs rather than trying to "hack" their own cakes. Thanks, family of Derek. And happy seventy-second birthday, Derek.

iPhone queue already forming at Regent Street store

Amazing shots sent in here from dear readers Gary and Sharon who are among those who've started forming a line more than a month in advance of our Nov. 9 iPhone launch in London. We're all just sitting here stunned. And I'm pushing for a price hike. More as this develops.

Much love, NY Times

I know I was a little upset at you guys for outing me in August but I'm starting to warm up to you all again after seeing this smashing review of my book in the Style Section of today's paper. Better yet the Times decided to stack my review on top of Colbert's book instead of the other way around. I'm told one of the members of the writing team who wrote Colbert's book called in screaming about being made to play second fiddle to "some nobody." All I can say is this: Suck it, Colbert staffer. Suck it hard.

Dell support rep torments pain-in-the-ass customer

See here. This woman says Dell shipped her a defective machine and when she complained they sent her four more, all of them also defective. The "defect," which still plagues her fifth machine is that her computer "goes to a blue screen, which indicates a serious error that requires the PC to be restarted." Poor lady didn't realize, apparently, that in the world of Windows this is not a defect. It's normal operating procedure. Anyway, the poor tech support dude who had to put up with her crap finally got fed up and started sending her nasty emails with evil photographs. Nice work, outsourced tech support dude! Now the woman is suing and wants $50 million. We're trying to reach out to her with an iMac as part of our new philanthropical program.

Dvorak: Dysfunctional Microsoft culture drives away creative types

See here. And yeah I know what you're thinking because I'm thinking it too. Dvorak said that? Is this the same Dvorak? The guy ghostwrites Ballmer's blog? We're looking into it.

Seeking Alpha on Apple copycats

See here. It's a great piece on why the new Zunes won't hurt the iPod and Verizon's new LG Voyager won't hurt the iPhone. In fact, they'll help us. Thanks, Beastmaster. And thanks, LG and Verizon. Much love.

Microsoft's Apple envy

Great piece on it here. Much love to Carlos for the lnk.

Microsoft news service: "For some buyers, it's anything but an iPod."

Yes, there are "some buyers" like that. They're also known as "frigtards." Check out this ridiculous humjob for Microsoft dressed up as a news article and delivered in ... wait for it ... the news site that Microsoft owns. Sure, they claim it's about all sorts of non-iPod music players. But there's a photo of a Zune and let's face it, that's what they're trying to say. Please notice too that nobody put their byline on this POS. Yeah. It's like that. Much love to reader Steve for alerting us to this wonderful article.

You know you're in trouble when the Linux guys are laughing at you

Check out this article on My Little Pony in BusinessWeek, and scroll way down to the end to see what Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation says about Sun: "It's like back in high school, when I'd throw these big parties and I'd think I was so cool, only no one would come," says Jim Zemlin, director of the Linux Foundation, a consortium devoted to the growth of the rival software system. "I believe Jonathan is a very smart guy, but I think that's where they are."

Ouch. Jim Zemlin, you are a bad, bad man. (Photo: Dave Spart, Noe Valley Jogger & Wine Aficionado magazine.)

Nano burns hole in man's pants

You have to admit it's kind of hilarious. Okay. Not really. See here. Some dude working at an airport had a Nano in his pants pocket and it burst into flames. Three bits of good news here. One, he didn't get hurt. Two, he's getting a new Nano, totally free, and we're not even going to pro-rate it for all the wear and tear he put on the unit, which by the way probably caused the fire. Three, he got to be famous for a couple days. Highlight of his life, right? Plus we get loads of free publicity for being so nice to our customers. Yeah, we're coming out of this smelling like a rose.

People say we're getting arrogant. My response? Fuck off, stupid.

Seriously, Apple faithful, this new theme about how Apple is all arrogant and doesn't care about customers and is putting its own needs ahead of everyone else's is just really starting to spread, and I'm friggin sick of it. Check out this article for just one example. Or this one, which says "the only problem with Apple is that it has no gratitude. Or humility. Or generosity. Or manners." Or this one which says we're alienating our loyal customer base.

I'm just so sick of being told that I'm arrogant. I've been hearing this all my life. I'm not arrogant. I'm smarter than everyone else, and I have better taste. That's not arrogant. It's just true. Do you have any idea how maddening it is to be this smart and to create perfect products and then have frigtards tell me I'm arrogant because I won't let them mess with perfection? Did Leonardo da Vinci finish his big statue of David and then say, Hey, any frigtards who want to add an extra leg or a third eye right in the forehead or whatever, well, go ahead, have at it? No. He did not. He said, Get the fuck away from my statue, jackass. You can look at it. That's it. And oh yeah. Pay me.

Apple faithful, do me a favor. Keep an eye out for stories like this and send them in. This is a dangerous time for us. Clearly our enemies are pushing an agenda aimed at undermining our momentum. As those of you who know me will attest, I'm probably the least arrogant person on the planet. And to anyone who says otherwise, I say this: Fuck off, stupid. (Photo: Barry Lunger, Jobs-God Magazine.)

UPDATE: Much love to the commenter who alerted me to this gem of a bash job in Macworld of all places.

A call to arms from Leo LaPrat

See here. Leo compares iPhone to a computer that won't let you install any apps and forces you to sign up with an ISP for a two-year contract and won't let you choose any other ISP. He says iPhone users (we call them "the enlightened beings") are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Frankly this is just so wildly off base that I don't even know where to begin. The analogy is just completely ridiculous. Totally false. Lousy logic. I mean the reasons are just so obvious that I don't even think I can bring myself to waste time trying to explain it. As Katie says, it's clear that Leo had his little agenda all worked out before he even sat down to write his piece, I mean his bias is just so transparent, and so what would be the point of trying to discuss this with him rationally?

Trying to arrange some FSJ parties

I'm stepping out of character for a moment to let you know that I'll be doing some bookstore readings a few weeks from now and also visiting some cities for conferences and so forth. If anyone would like to arrange FSJ parties at that time I think it would be a great idea. I'd really like to meet people who read the blog. Here's my schedule:

Oct. 17-19: Toronto.

Oct. 23-25: Los Angeles.

Nov. 1-4: San Francisco Bay Area, doing bookstore readings (listed in sidebar at right.)

There are no bookstore appearances set up in Toronto and Los Angeles but maybe we can roll our own and just arrange a get-together and practice group yoga and deep breathing exercises. Or something. Namaste. Peace out.

Alcatel-Lucent board says it supports Pat Russo

Translation from French: "Start packing, lady." See a story on it here. Frankly I can't think of a CEO who more deserves to get thrown out of a train than Pat Russo. Especially if they toss most of her old Lucent management team with her. Talk about a bunch of scared, cautious, unimaginative lifers. Jesus! They destroyed Bell Labs. They screwed their pensioners to goose their earnings and save their own necks. They drove Lucent into the rocks.

A lot of these people still think they're working for pre-breakup AT&T, selling big junky overpriced switches to captive customers. You talk to these people and it's like the last 20 years haven't happened. What really slays me is this notion that yoking two of these dumb companies together could somehow make a difference. These companies made sense when every country had a bunch of phone carriers, all wildly overpricing for connecting phone calls, and when you had all these complicated connections and hand-offs to make when you made a call from one country to another. Today there's one big network. Companies like Google are hooking big giant turbo-chargers to it all over the globe. This is going to be the phone company. And the TV network. Don't these people see that? Instead of just merging two companies at a time they should yoke all of the old telecom equipment companies together. At least then they might sink faster. And we could all get on with inventing the future.

Finally, I know I once said that I hoped Pat Russo would get crabs for bringing a ridiculous lawsuit about MP3 patents. And for turning Lucent into a zombie company. Well, after some quiet reflection, I've come to the conclusion that I still feel the same way. Sorry. (Photo: Annie Liebovitz, Information Week.)

Microsoft opens up

Desperate Borg decides to let outside developers see its .Net code but not actually touch it or use it. See here. Naturally the freetards smell a trap. For the record, in case you're wondering, no, we will never ever let any of you see our proprietary code. It's for your own good, trust me.

Much love, University of Hartford

Check out the giant Apple logo that some students at the University of Hartford built out of rocks. Apparently it is visible from outer space. Story about it here on MacDailyNews. This thing has been zipping around the mail system at Apple all day. What better indication of how powerful our brand has become among young people? Much love to the college kids who put in the hard work and to Phil Schiller and his team who provided financial support and made sure the design conformed exactly to the specifications I created. Fantastic work. We'll do more of these in the future.

iPod considered as new global currency

Okay, that's not exactly true. But some banks in Austria are now using the iPod as a way to compare purchasing power in different countries around the globe and compare global currencies. See here. Much love, Austrian bankers.

Some pipe-smoking Brit blasts iPhone

See here. Some crazy columnist for The Guardian says that because we've locked down iPhone, the product "could mark the beginning of the end of the geek love affair with Apple." Just look at him in that picture, with his pipe dangled at a jaunty angle. Likes himself a little too much, don't you think? How much you want to bet this same guy is first in line begging for a free "review unit"? (Photo: Dave Spart, Whingeing Worker Weekly.)

I told Katie this would happen

This is exactly why I didn't want to do the $100 rebate over iPhone. I told Katie, if you show any sign of weakness, these assholes will jump all over you. Now, sure enough, the Mac Minitards are screaming for a free upgrade to Leopard. See their pathetic petition here. They say they bought their Minis recently and so they should get a free software update. Good grief. And why is it always the Mini owners? Cheap bastards who wouldn't spring for a real Mac in the first place. Now they want free software too. Folks, do you realize how much work it takes to make something like Leopard? Do you realize what an amazing deal this already is at $129? Get real. Do you have any idea how many people struggled and suffered and worked nights and weekends and endured countless humiliating tirades from me in order to create this incredible work of art? And you want a freebie cause you bought the cheapest machine in our product line? Please. It's an insult to our developers. Much love to John for alerting me to this travesty.

OLPC flack busted for pretending to be FSJ

Wow. Check this out. Wayan Vota, the guy who runs the OLPC News blog, yesterday posted an item agreeing with some of the critical things I've written about OLPC. See here. Then the comments came rolling in and one of them, the 10th from the stop, purports to be from "Fake Steve Jobs" and attacks Wayan in a lunatic screed. Just one problem. It wasn't from me. Another problem. Wayan searched the IP address for the fake FSJ and it's the same IP address as Racepoint Group, the PR agency that represents OLPC. (See his search results above, and see the original version on a flickr page here.) Wayan originally suspected the perp was George Snell from Racepoint. But then Kyle Austin of Racepoint, another OLPC spokesbot, fessed up.

Bottom line: A flack for OLPC is out commenting on blogs and pretending to be me. Which is, um, weird. Kyle Austin, I pray for your soul. Namaste. Much love. Peace out.

Yes, Virginia, there is a tech bubble

This is not as crazy as the "Facebook is worth $15 billion" claim, but it's in the same ballpark. Says here Nokia is paying eight billion (with a b) dollars for a map company. Can you smell the desperation wafting out of Nokia? Or is that herring? No matter. It's just another sign that we're driving these poor guys batty. I can just imagine them sitting around some big table wearing their Viking helmets and tucking into some reindeer steaks and saying, We must do something! Now! What can we buy?

God I love this job.

If Microsoft told the truth

Their ads for Vista would look like this. Much love to dear reader Jim for sending in this link. Amazing.

Asshat quote of the day

Much love to dear reader Laurie from San Francisco who sent in a link to this article from today's New York Times and highlights the following paragraph:

“The whole idea behind Zune is much broader than the devices themselves,” said J Allard, the Microsoft vice president who oversees design and development for consumer products like the Zune and the Xbox 360 game consoles. “The conditioned thought is around a portable device being the center point of the experience, when in fact it’s not. It really is about how do we start taking Zune beyond that device.” He said the social networking would appeal to Zune owners and people who had not bought the device.

Wow. Look at him up there, all non-conditioned and talking about taking customers beyond the device. Like where are you going to take them if you don't first have a device they really want? It's like saying it's great to buy a Yugo because the experience isn't really about being in the car, it's beyond that.

Beastmaster, you are in worse trouble than we thought, and I'm not sure you can squirt your way out of it. And yes, this makes me happy. Very, very happy. Welcome to the social, frigtard. Peace out.

(Photo: Frank Shaw, ZuneBeat.)

Gates just called

So he saw all the stories (like this one) about how I did this big motivational speech at Yahoo and I'm now the new Oprah and all you have to do is get close to me and you'll feel my brilliance rubbing off on you. So Gates is like, Hey, old friend, how about coming up here and giving a speech to the troops? Talk about whatever you like, for however long you like. Tell us how you guys made OS X, or the original iPod, or iTunes, or the iPhone. Whatever you like. We'd love to hear from you.

My answer? You can probably guess. Siooma, you evil bastard. I'd rather stick my dick into a bag of broken glass.

He's like, Well, that could be arranged. Then he hung up.

Speaking of the Yahoo thing, funny story about how it came to be. First time Jerry Yang called me he's like, Dude, we'll pay you a million bucks to come talk to our people for twenty minutes. I'm like, Jerry, you don't have to pay me a million bucks. He's like, We don't? I said, No, you have to pay me two million, and I only talk for fifteen minutes, not twenty. He says that's fine, that's fine, whatever, he just wants to get me in there.

Then, right at the last minute, like fifteen minutes before I'm supposed to go on stage, I have Katie call them and say, I'm sorry but Steve can't make it. He doesn't want to do this anymore. I'm sorry. I don't know why. No reason. He just doesn't want to do it. He's not coming.

That set them off into a friggin panic. Always does. It's one of my favorite tricks. The truth is I was sitting right outside their building in a limo. Jerry called me all freaking out and wanting to know what's the matter. I told him I needed more money. He sighed and said, Okay, whatever, how much do you want. Five million, I told him. And I can only do thirteen minutes, not fifteen.

He said fine, but let me just ask you something. You've already got like six billion dollars, why do you need to haggle over something like this? I said, Jerry, did you ever hear the story of the scorpion and the frog? Well, it's like that.

Then I went onstage and gave them a show that knocked them all off their friggin chairs. I mean I killed them. Tore them up. And I only did eleven minutes thirty seconds, just to make a point. On the way out I said to Jerry, You want to know why I demand so much money? Because I'm friggin worth it, baby.

The new Zunes (or "Shit Bricks" as we call them at Apple)

Well we didn't expect much because as everyone knows Microsoft never does anything decent until at least the third rev of any product. But man oh man. Talk about underwhelming. Where to begin? They've been in this business for years and this is still the best they can do? Where's the innovation? Where's the great leap forward? Where's the touch screen, or the telephony, or the mail client, or the ability to buy songs over WiFi? I mean it's nice they have colors besides brown. And I guess the new Zune social networking site will be popular with some tiny percentage of the already tiny number of people who own Zunes. Oh, and they've got FM radios. And the big one now holds an astonishing 80 gigabytes. Wow. Beastmaster, you're losing it, bro. And I say that as a friend. Not really. But I do say it. Much love, losers. iPod Touch is gonna rule this holiday season!

Just between us

According to an anonymous tipster, Bob Iger and I spent part of the day yesterday at Walt Disney Imagineering, the group that designs all those terrifying Disney resorts and cruise ships and theme parks. (I avoid them due to an allergic condition which causes me to break out in hives when exposed to, well, the kind of people who go to theme parks.) Anyhoo. I'm told that we approved a bunch of major new expansion projects for the parks including Disney's California Adventure (in Anaheim) and Hong Kong Disneyland, both of which have been sucking ass lately.

Frankly I have no recollection of being at Disney yesterday. I thought I was in the Valley working on the WiFi iPhone (aka WiFone) and writing my blog. Guess not.

Marketing Apple takes a shot at us too

See here. Guy who does a blog about Apple says we're shooting ourselves in the foot with the way we're handling iPhone and killing the third-party apps guys. Katie gave me a copy of this along with a zillion others saying more or less the same thing. Money quote from Marketing Apple: "This is classic Steve Jobs trying to control his invention. What's funny is that this isn't the Apple way - they thrive on getting other people to help them sell their stuff. But as I said in earlier posts, we're witnessing a transformation of Apple from a people-centric computer company to a product-centric consumer electronics company. I, for one, think Apple needs to wake up and see that its early adopters are working hard to make their products more marketable."

Everyone around here is rushing around freaking out saying we're heading into a disaster. Steve Dowling says we're like the guys in The Perfect Storm, heading out into the ocean in our tiny fishing boat, with no idea what's heading toward us.

I, however, remain safely ensconced in my Jobsian Zen bubble, still confident that we are one hundred percent not guilty, er, one hundred percent correct, and that iPhone has already become the world's top-selling mobile phone and that nothing can stop us now from completely taking over the world. Now I must return to the Tassajara room for another sixty-minute session of chanting, "I am right. I am right. I am right."

Meanwhile, will everyone please stop worrying? And will someone please cue up the Lothar and the Hand People album and bring me a friggin chai latte at exactly one hundred and sixty-five degrees? Do I have to do everything myself around here? Jesus.