Celebrity Mac chick sighting

I'm told his is Jennifer Aniston of "Friends," which remains one of my favorite television shows ever made. Much love to Macenstein for this fine bit of investigative paparazzoing.

Kids: OLPC sucks, wah!

Some hack at the Wall Street Journal bought an OLPC machine for his kids and guess what? The kids hated it and rejected it. Money quote: "The screen tended to jump around, games stalled while loading, video clips stuttered so much they were unwatchable." Yeah. Other than that, it's friggin great. Just ask David Pogue of the Times, who gave it a rave review. That screen! The mesh networking! Wow! Back in the real world, the kids dumped the OLPC machine and switched back to a 5-year-old Windows machine, which, um, did everything they wanted it to do. Great work, OLPC people. All of us in the industry are humbled by your innovations. We could learn so much from you. The Nobel is on its way.

News flash: Linux developer has sex, doesn't have to pay.

The freetard community is in a tizzy over this one. I suppose it was going to happen sooner or later as Linux became more mainstream. See the full story here. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is already cutting and pasting this story into something that will appear under his own byline.

Yes, we got pwned. This means nothing.

Much love to the thousands of Apple faithful who've flooded my inbox with messages about this "Pwn to Own" contest where the Mac was the first machine to fall, with the Vista box next and the Linux box apparently surviving unscathed. Okay. Fair enough. We got pwned. First of all the contest was totally rigged and unfair for all sorts of reasons which I won't even bother to go into here. The fact is that Macs are by far the safest, most bulletproof machines on the planet, and that's been proven over and over again.

Anyway I urge you to check out this story and see what kind of computers the winning hackers use, and where they're planning to spend their money. Money quote: "I like Macs. I use Macs for everything." And what will he do with his $10,000 prize money? He'll buy more Macs. "I think Apple will get a large chunk of that money."

Nuff said, right?

Hillary selling snacks to raise money for campaign

Not really. Actually this photo shows Hillary hanging out with the filthy hacks on her campaign jet and telling them how she's this really super-duper fan of the Rolling Stones. Apparently she was there at Altamont, working security with the Angels. At least that's how she remembers it.

Nice work, RIM

I must say this new Blackberry 9000 is one good-looking machine. But where have I seen it before? Oh yeah. Here. Funny but I figured the ex-Apple team at Palm would be the first out of the gate with an iPhone clone. Guess things are taking a little longer than they'd hoped. Or maybe Jon Rubinstein has been too busy poaching our talent. Suck on it, Ruby. Suck it hard.

By the way, I'm sorry about going AWOL

Peppermint high-colonic gone awry. I'll spare you the details. But it was a rough weekend, trust me.

Big news: Our brand is the best one on the planet

But you knew that already. See this story about a survey showing our brand is the "most inspiring" and "the one readers cannot live without." Borg's brand, meanwhile, was voted "the brand most readers wanted to argue with, and the one they most wanted to revamp." I'm not making that up. You suck, Microsoft. You eat my friggin shorts. But who would have imagined, back in the day, when Woz and I were making these things by hand in my garage, that we'd find ourselves here today? Well, actually, I imagined that. Seriously. I did.

Google's new business: helping spies

I suppose it had to happen eventually. See this story about Google not being evil by selling stuff to the CIA. What's next? Helping these guys sell crack to inner-city kids? Assassinating leftie politicians in Central America? Right on, Google. Keep that idealism burning bright. You are heroes to us all. And not at all hypocritical or full of shit. Not at all.

Dan Bricklin writing new spreadsheet for OLPC machine. Mitch Kapor already plotting to steal it.

Poor Bricklin. When exactly did his lose his mind? Can anyone pinpoint the exact date? Anyway, he's threatening to make a spreadsheet for the OLPC machine. No idea why. But anyway, VisiCalc lives, dude! As for the Mitchell Kapor part of the joke, well, if you were around back in those days, you'll get it.

David Blaine is a friend of mine and I don't think he deserves this kind of stuff

Look, it's easy to mock people like David Blaine who push the envelope. I know because I've faced this kind of stuff all my life too. FWIW, I met David a couple years ago and we've stayed in touch. He's an incredibly deep person. Way different than what you see on TV. Much love, D.B.

I've been approached about the Motorola job, and I'm flattered, but no thanks.

Actually I wasn't even flattered. I just said that to be polite. Somehow Alley Insider got wind of the talks and wrote it up. Bastards!

Why do Mac fangirls all look like this?

Yeah, yeah. There's iJustine. But let's be honest. You walk around the floor at Macworld and the few women who even show up mostly look and sound like this She-Woz. Sigh. It's always been this way. And it really pisses me off. I mean come on people. I mean even the Linux freetards are outgunning us. And that's just sad.

Borg: People really, really want us to fuck up their coffee tables, and we're committed to making that happen

See this Fortune article where Borgtards say consumers are just clamoring for that Surface coffee table and Microsoft is working night and day to bring out a product within the next three years. Headline says that means 2011 but the dudes at Fortune forgot to use Microsoft math. See, in Microsoft math, "three years from now" is 2018. That's for the fucked-up beta version. RTM happens in 2020, still with loads of bugs. SP1 for Surface ships in 2025 and by then Microsoft is owned by Google so the table comes pre-loaded with Google's useless productivity apps that nobody wants and tiny little text ads all around the edges. Or something. Photo above shows Ballmer deciding which tiny company to put out business. See, to obliterate the company I just touch the map, like this, and -- oh wait. That's Redmond. Er ...

Austrian hassle over iPhone

I don't read Austrian so can someone please translate this article and tell me what the frig is going on over there? I'm told there is some hassle because the emperor of Austria is using a hacked iPhone. Can someone please explain? Also can you tell me if the dude in the photo is the emperor or is he the one who is complaining about the emperor? And why is he wearing the Dr. Evil jacket? Can't these people just throw some shrimp on the barbie and all get along? I'm so confused, honestly.

Sad fanboy creams jeans while unboxing MacBook Pro

Movies like this make me wish I did something else for a living. Honestly, I had to go sit in my meditation room and cry for a while after watching this. Pathetic. Much love to Samreth in engineering for sharing this with me.

Book initiative update: I've put "Foucault's Pendulum" on hold

So as many of you know I received quite a bit of abuse recently after I said that the Amazon Kindle was a dumb product because nobody reads anymore. People started calling me an anti-intellectual. Which is crazy because I am a total intellectual. I mean I live in Palo Alto. Okay? Talk about the life of the mind. Anyway, I resolved to start reading a lot of big important books. Started with Foucault's Pendulum and got really frustrated by the very bad typeface. Nonetheless I pushed on. But, well, how do I put it? The book kind of sucks. No, let me correct that. The book is shit. It's unreadable. For a while I thought it was just me. But then I realized of course it's not me. I mean does that even make sense? Clearly the problem is the book. And I'm not just talking about the typeface. It's also the words themselves and the way they are arranged into sentences. And the story doesn't make any sense at all. At least not if you put it down for a few days and then come back to it because you can't remember who's who and you have to start all over. Oy vey. I give up.

Anyway. I've put the reading thing on hold for a while. Very busy finishing the v2 iPhone. But as soon as that's done I'm going to try something else. Maybe "War and Peace." Or "Crime and Punishment." More as this develops.

Use a Mac, be happy

No surprise to the Apple faithful but a new study shows business users who use OS X are significantly happier with their systems than users of XP or Vista. Please note: This was a survey of business dweebs. Not groovy home users and "I'm a Mac" type guys. Money quote from the dude who did the research: "Apple continues to set the standard for corporate customer satisfaction." Namaste, business losers. I honor the place where your drab, meaningless cubicle lives become one with my sleek, sophisticated inventions. Peace.

Bowing to international pressure, I have agreed to open talks with the Dalai Lama

Okay so I read the comments on my Dalai Lama post yesterday. You freaks get all sentimental over this stuff don't you? I mean it's okay to make fun of the pope, or Jerry Falwell, or Richard Stallman -- but man oh man don't you dare make a joke about the Dalai Lama. Anyway we were facing a situation internally here at Apple, where roughly 80% of employees are devout Buddhists. The freaks in marketing were circulating a petition calling for a work stoppage and a hunger-strike-slash-sit-in at the Infinite Loop campus. Design guys were threatening to join, and they were trying to get the engineers on board but couldn't find them because they were all out eating crabs and drinking beer and playing "target practice" on the new soap cakes with the Microsoft logos in the urinals at BJ's.

Anyway, we had a situation. Katie and Phil came in and said I had to act. So Katie wrote an open letter to the staff and put my name on it and we calmed things down. And now I'm going to talk to the Big D. and see what I can do to help him out. But like I told Katie, if the guy makes even a peep about us building iPods in sweatshops in China, I am going to hang up. I swear I'll do it. I mean I'm glad to help out and try to intervene with the Chinese authorities, and it's true I have some pull with those guys. But business is business. We need those sweatshops. Now I have to go meditate and do some non-thinking to prepare myself for the call. Peace out.

Benioff to succeed Ellison at Oracle?

That's what ZDNet's Tom Foremski thinks is going to happen. See here. I ran this by Larry last night and he says it's actually pretty possible, if not downright likely. He says Benioff is practically begging him to buy Salesforce.com. "He's done everything but come over here with his legs shaved, wearing high heels and a miniskirt," Larry says.

Naturally Larry is loving this. Meanwhile Chuck Phillips and Safra Catz are freaking the hell out. Larry is loving that, too. Nothing better than being able to pit people against each other and screw over people who've been immensely, foolishly loyal to you. I know this sounds twisted, but when you get to the point where you can buy any kind of pleasure you want, you need to look for more creative, twisted ways to get off. Betrayal always works. It's like that first sharp taste of cocaine hitting the inside of your nostril, then working its way down the back of your throat. Pure pleasure. Nothing like it. Not that I've ever used cocaine. But I've read about it.

Anyway. Go Larry. You evil genius you.

Tom Cruise makes dirty phone calls to Hillary at 3 a.m.

Warning: This is absolutely NSFW. Lots of dirty words. But it's funny. Enjoy.

Another Google defector to Facebook

This time it's the guy who ran their social networking stuff. Ouch. See here. Anyone want to recite Eric Schmidt's Serenity Prayer?

Big belly linked to dementia

I'm not making this up. It's from a new study. See here. Suddenly the GNU Manifesto makes sense to me.

Larry screws local schools out of millions of dollars. Go Larry!

See this story about Larry's latest triumphant victory over the forces of evil. Back story: Larry claimed the town of Woodside was charging him too much property tax on his 23-acre Zen palace estate. So he hired a bad-ass lawyer to make up some crazy theory about his assessment being too high, and he won. His theory? Yes, the estate cost $200 million to build, but its true worth is far less than that because nobody in their right mind wants to live in a reproduction of a 16th-century Japanese emperor's estate. So in fact the place has "limited appeal." Ahem.

Anyway the judge fell for this and now the town of Woodside will slash Larry's taxes by 60% from $1.9 million to $750,000. They'll also send him a refund for $3 million for the past few years when he was overcharged. Of course the town of Woodside is crying poor and saying how this is going to take money away from the schools. My feeling? Boo friggin hoo.

Look, I know what you're thinking. Why does a guy with so much money go to so much trouble to fight over a friggin tax bill that he could pay with spare change he found in his swim trunks? (If he wore swim trunks, which Larry does not. But I digress.)

Folks, it's not the money. It's the principle. Just because Larry is the fourth-richest guy in America, and the fourteenth-richest guy in the world, with a net worth of $26 billion, it doesn't mean he shouldn't fight tooth and nail to pay as little property tax as possible. I know this is difficult for ordinary frigtards to understand. But if you were a billionaire, like me and Larry, you would totally understand. Because the thing about being obscenely rich is that everyone around you is constantly taking advantage of you and trying to chisel you at every turn. The gardeners, the maids, the Bentley mechanic, the jet mechanic, the house manager -- they're constantly skinning you, and you get pretty damn sick of it. I swear it drives you nuts. It's probably the worst thing about being really rich.

So maybe the town of Woodside has to cancel yoga classes for the middle school, or serve sushi one day a week instead of five. Or fire a few teachers. Tough noogies, people. You'll survive. And now Larry can afford that new fighter jet he's been lusting after. Namaste, Larry. I honor the place where your beautiful inner self becomes not-one with the needs of local schoolchildren. You go, girl.

Obama girl strikes again

There's just a couple things about this girl that really strike me.

Motorola to split into two companies: One that sucks, another that sucks even more

See here. One will do handsets, the other will build wireless networks and enterprise business. I'll let you decide which one is the suckier one.

The Dalai Lama is bugging the shit out of me lately

Honestly, this guy kills me. See, we used to be really close friends, I mean like super tight, and he was totally stoked when we wanted to use him in our ads. Then ten years ago he got all pissed off because we pulled his image from ads we were running in Asia because we didn't want to piss off the Chinese. So then he stopped talking to me. He wouldn't meet with me or meditate with me or even take my calls and all his little helpers with their fucked up names like Tseten Samdup and Undep Tlitec and Tashihunpo Chokorghyei were going around talking smack about me.

Oh, but now it's different. See, now suddenly he's in some big pile of trouble and he's acting like none of that stuff ever happened and we're the best of friends -- and he's calling me twenty times a day saying, Oh, Steve Jobs, please come help me, I need your advice, tell me what to do, the Chinese are cracking down on Tibet and they're blaming me and I don't know anything about public relations and I need your help! Please, Steve, call me! I'm serious!

I don't even know how he got my iPhone number but now I've got to change it. Again. Honestly, this is worse than when Woz starts drunk-dialing me in the middle of the night, wanting to talk about product ideas. Or when Heidi Roizen drunk-dials me and begs me to do her. With the Dalai Lama it's worse because he gets so worked up. I mean he cries and stuff. It's really horrible. I save the voice mails and play them for people. Katie says I shouldn't do that. Phil Schiller, on the other hand, gets the humor.

And now he's on to this new thing where he's bombarding the switchboard and trying to get through to me that way and even pretending to be someone else, like Stan Shih of Acer. Then one time he claimed he was Larry Ellison. The receptionist was like, Dude, you don't even sound at all like Larry Ellison, are you serious? Anyway even if he does get through the switchboard Ja'Red has standing orders not to take his calls and to just keep saying I'm not available, I'm in a meeting, I'm traveling, I'm getting a high colonic, whatever.

Thing is, I really do feel bad about this shit that's going down in Tibet. But I don't see how I can help the dude out. Honestly. And he did blow me off for all those years and you know what? I do not forget shit like that.

One thing I'll say for him, though. He's a persistent little fucker. Really crafty. Very manipulative. Totally knows how to spot your weaknesses and emotional vulnerabilities, and then he preys on them.

Dalai Lama, I know you read this blog, so let me tell you this straight out: Stop calling me. I mean it.

Hillary in Bosnia: Action footage

Pretty funny stuff from Barely Political, part of Next New Networks. Much love, Internet TV dudes.

Brian Lam, you are sofa king cool

I have to admit I friggin hate Wired magazine for being so stupid and pretentious and phony, but in the latest edition -- the one with the "Apple is evil" cover; don't get me started -- there's this fantastic story about my main man, Brian Lam, who is perhaps the greatest journalist of his generation, and his wicked cool blog, Gizmodo. (That's Lam in the chair in the photo above, hanging out in his apartment, which doubles as Gizmodo headquarters.) You can read the article here.

Why do I love this guy? Because when Wired starts poking around and suggesting he and his reporters might be a bit, well, puerile, for doing things like blasting out displays at CES and calling Walt Mossberg "Grandpa" and losing Microsoft's advertising afer writing about "a bicycle outfitted with a dildo where the seat should be," you know how they respond? Guilty as charged, your honor.

These guys give new meaning to the term "filthy hacks." In fact they are dirty, nasty, irresponsible, mean, wise-ass little pricks -- "disruptive juvenile delinquents masquerading as reporters" in the words of one CES exhibitor -- and they rejoice in their bad-assery. Or as Wired puts it, "Gizmodo revels in cheap jokes and hedonism. Its writers regularly proclaim their love of alcohol, marijuana, and Jessica Alba."

You know what that does? That makes them dangerous. And dangerous people are more fun to watch. Think of Evel Knievel versus Dick Cavett.

Consider this description of Gizmodo's CES coverage: They put together an NSFW montage of their adventures at an adjoining adult video convention, complete with a paid "butt rub" and vibrating fake breasts. And they ran a snarky list of reasons why CES — a "vile clusterfuck of nerds, sluts, and suits" — foretold the end of civilization.

I love it. They make me all nostalgic for my own days as a dirty little scumbag hanging out with this psycho and doing bad things. You know what? I miss those days.

In a truly class move, Brian Lam's chief rival, Ryan Block of Engadget, wouldn't comment for the Wired piece, and told his writers not to comment either. Great job, Engadget. Try not to move around too much either, and then the sticks you keep up your asses won't hurt as much. Sniff sniff.

Borg threatens to make software for iPhone. I'll nuke their campus before I let this happen.

See this article from InformationWeek which references some Fortune article where some MicroTard says they're planning to do software for iPhone and adds, "The key question is, what is the value that we need to bring?"

Borg people, let me help you out on this. If you want to "bring value," then shut down your awful company and go do something else with your lives. Like, right now. Okay? That would be quite possibly the single greatest act of philanthropy in the history of mankind. I've recommended it to the Beastmaster for years now. He listens politely and then changes the subject.

Namaste, Jim Clark. She loves you for your mind. And your sense of humor. Keep telling yourself that.

Larry just sent me this hilarious article about elderly Jim Clark and his luscious 27-year-old swimsuit model girlfriend, who says: "I never thought I was going to date an older man when I first met him. To me, it was different to hang out with someone with something to say [shurely 'so much money' ed.] that was so interesting [rich?] and important and who was truly, incredibly intelligent [loaded?]. He's handsome [rich?] and has so much charisma [money?] - and he's so funny [rich?]."

Jim, for what it's worth, Larry and I wish you the best. Don't even think about wiping that stupid grin off your face. Who cares if she's ten years younger than your daughter? More power to you, you disgusting old perv.

Clive Crook, please put your head back into your ass

Okay, to be honest, I don't even know who he is, or if he's even a real guy or just a fake guy like Bing. But this stupid article in The Atlantic put me over the edge. He doesn't like the new dock in Leopard. He doesn't like the MacBook Air. So he writes a big huge column whining about it. What is it about Apple users that they have to go on and on about every little thing, good or bad, as if the whole world cares what they think about some product or feature?

Anyhoo. Here's my response. As for the new dock, well, you don't like it. Fair enough. You're entitled to your opinion. I, on the other hand, do like it. And as you may have noticed, I'm the one who runs Apple. My advice to you, Clive, would be just keep turning it off like you've been doing. Or if that's really such a super duper life-threatening hassle for you, just go back to Tiger. Problem solved.

On the MacBook Air, I respect your right to not appreciate this fine machine. My adivce? Just don't buy it. Bokay? It's not for everyone. We never said it was. Lots of people happen to love it. Including Karl Rove, who says it is "really cool." So there, Clive Crook. We square? Good. Now stick your head back up into your ass and get back to work. Frigtard.

Karl Rove raves about his iPhone. Ugh.

See here. The architect of evil says he loves Apple products. Regarding iPhone: I mean it is just shocking how much better, how much more productive I am. I no longer carry around a giant address book, if I don't have my calendar close at hand, I can quickly check it out of my-- I don't have to carry, I used to carry several notecards, now it's just as easy to scribble on my little notepad, I can take photographs and forward them on immediately, it's just remarkable.

Well I am just so glad that we have made Karl Rove productive. How wonderful is that? Now I must go meditate before I get physically ill. Much love to Matthias for the tip.

Doppelganger #2

Much love to dear reader Rich, who writes, "One is an insignificant minuscule little creature that no one pays attention to. The other is the star of the #1 movie in America." Namaste, Rich.

Doppelganger

Dear reader Jesse asks, "Has anyone noticed the striking resemblance between Sabretooth, the insane brain-damaged mutant supervillain with amazing healing powers and a penchant for crazy schemes and scams, and Richard Branson? Could they perhaps be related?"

Hacking for Jesus

Wow. Much love to dear reader John who informs me that the author of this book telling people how to make illegal applications for iPhone is also a crazy-ass born-again Christian. Why am I not surprised? Dude's name is John Zdziarski and that's his photo. Money quote: "The Bible teaches that it's God who gives us the ability to earn wealth, and I believe God wants more wealthy Christians out there to bankroll some of these ministries."

Groan.

John Mayer thinks he's so friggin cool

Check out this blog post where he describes what it's like to report a software problem to Apple. Oh, John, you're just so special. Seriously.

Latino midget Hillary

Words fail me. But enjoy it. Much love to Bob for the tip. And to freaky ass Gawker for publishing it first.

Holy crap, we're doing even better than I thought

Apparently our Mac sales were up 60% in February, and that's in terms of units. In dollars, we were up 66%. I've been so distracted by the Democratic primary and by this bad business in Tibet (more on that soon) that I hadn't even noticed. Wow. Truly we are en fuego.

Dear John Lilly of Mozilla: You are a craven, hypocritical vagina, and I hope you get crabs.

So it's like this. We're now using Software Update to force-feed Safari onto Windows machines alongside iTunes. Legal? Absolutely. Sneaky? Not really. But John Lilly, the dude who runs Mozilla (see smarmy photo above), has got a pile of sand in his man-crack and is blasting us big-time, saying our attack strategy "borders on malware distribution practices." Um, right. Safari is malware. Uh-huh. And the iPod is an assault rifle.

Goddammit! I friggin hate the way freetards always turn into little namby-pamby goody-two-shoes pussies whenever they face the least little bit of competition. Look. If you want the truth, check out John Paczkowski of AllThingsD, who dares to speak truth to power and dish the dirt about Mozilla's craven attempt to smear us as bad guys when really they're just scared of a little competition.

As Paczkowski points out, the real story here is that the Mozilla Foundation dresses itself up as a nonprofit but then runs a for-profit Mozilla Corp. that makes a frigload of money by sticking a Google search box in its browser. And now they're freaking out because now we're going to take some of their market share away. Capeesh? Follow the money, as Sartre once said. Another dude who's figured this out is Larry Dignan of ZDnet. See his piece here.

Of course John Lilly, the smarmy Mozilla boy, has responded by hassling these brave, truth-telling hacks and insisting that money has nothing to do with it and Mozilla isn't about making money it's about changing the world and planting flowers and getting Jerry's kids up out of those wheelchairs. Yeah. Right. You know what it means when someone says it's not about the money? It's about the money.

For a reality check, see this post on Valleywag about Mitchell Baker, the former head of Mozilla, making $500,000 a year for overseeing an army of freetard drones. Or see the original piece from the New York Times where Ms. Baker acknowledges the $500,000 but says it's peanuts. And, um, Mozilla isn't about the money. Really. See, cause they're different. They're all altruistic and shit. Finally, check out this very altruistic $80,000 BMW M5 with a MOZILLA license plate which may or may not be driven by Mitchell Baker or some other top Mozilla executive, according to Valleywag. I'm sure whoever drives this car will tell you that here in Silicon Valley an M5 isn't even that cool a car, and it's no big deal, because we're the good guys and we don't care about money and blah blah blah. Hoo boy. This stuff makes me madder than George Michael with an empty bag of crystal meth, as Ed Anger would say.

Much love, Alley Insider

Yeah. Thanks a lot for this post by Dan Frommer promoting this post by John Gruber promoting this book telling frigtards how to write apps for iPhone without our permission. Great. Just what we need. More idiots trying to work around our restrictions and write frigtarded apps for unlocked iPhones. With other frigtards writing books to help them. Thanks, Tim O'Reilly. Much love, Gruber and Frommer. Someday when you create a product that restores a sense of childlike wonder to the lives of millions of people, I'll make sure to come over and take a pee on it. Just to return the favor. Peace out.