New Live Poll Allows Pundits To Pander To Viewers In Real Time
Well played, Onion. Too bad you filthy whores are going out of business like everyone else.

Words fail me.This Canadian puppet dude does some pretty amazing stuff. See his Web site here. Enjoy.

I’m getting loads of mail this week about my deep friendship with Albert “Abbie” Hofmann, the inventor of LSD, which was reported in the Huffington Post a couple days ago. To be honest, I asked Arianna not to run this item. Not because I’m embarrassed. Just because I value my privacy. Anyway, she said she couldn’t hold the story, and I told her I understand, but that she should be careful when she’s out jogging because it’s just so easy to get hit by a car or killed in a drive-by shooting. She understood.

Anyway, on the acid thing. Yes, I did LSD. A lot. And yes, I really benefited from LSD, and I highly recommend it to everyone. But did I give those freaks any money to do their wacky LSD psychology research? No fucking way. As is often the case, I don’t have time or patience with academic approaches to solving problems. As the doctor guy (or whatever he is) says about his meeting with me: “He was still thinking, ‘Let’s put it in the water supply and turn everybody on.’” That is absolutely true. I’ve approached city officials in Palo Alto about doing this in a kind of limited beta program. So far no luck.

Anyway, as for the video above, I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you’ll forgive me for starting my weekend a little bit early, but I just feel like celebrating. What’s to celebrate? Well, I’ve made it through another week alive on the planet. Maybe you take that for granted, but take it from a dude who’s got a black-market liver that’s still trying to knit itself into his body — you shouldn’t. Life is precious. So go enjoy it. Hug your kids. Kiss someone you love. Put away your iPhone and your MacBook and go sit on a patch of grass and just stare up and marvel at the blueness. Like, just be there. Okay? Great. Now would someone please get me a mango smoothie and my fucking medical marijuana? Like, now? And where’s the bong? Where the fuck is Ja’Red? Where’s Katie? Hello? Has everyone gone to BJ’s early again? Okay, fuck it. Fuck all of you guys. I’ll get the bong myself, and when you get back, you’re all fired. I hope you’re reading this as you enjoy that pitcher of beer. Assholes.

So Monkey Boy was giving a speech in Charlotte, N.C. (see the article about it here) and he says that in ten years we’ll have computers that can understand our “intent.” As in, “Dear PC, because you make my life a living hell, I intend to set you on fire now and then smash you with a fucking mallet.” Ballmer also informed his audience that “Users will be able to speak to, touch and gesture at their computers even more.” Uh-huh. And I can already imagine the kind of gestures those poor frigtards will be making, can’t you? Finally, Fester says we’ll also have computers that are as thin as a sheet of paper. Which will, of course, enable those computers to take up less room in a landfill after people get them home and realize that they don’t actually work.

Man oh man. Can someone explain to me again how it is that we only have 4 percent market share against these buffoons?

(Much love to art director Jay for the improved photograph.)

Sure we’re cool, motherfucker. We’re cool as a piece of key lime pie. You just keep telling yourself that, and you won’t even feel it when the bullet hits the back of your ugly motherfucking head. Anyway, dear friends, here’s one for a caption contest. It’s Friday, after all. So fire up the Photoshop and send in your best efforts. We’ll post them on Monday and send a free fake Apple tablet computer to whoever makes the one that Iulia and Natasha like best. Meanwhile, just FYI, we got this photo from the guys at 9to5Mac, who are re-reporting here a story from the Guardian here in which they claim Eric is going rogue at some conference and saying he’s going to talk to us about his situation on our board. Money quote from Eric: “At this point there is no issue.” Well, on that he is correct. There is no issue. None at all. As I explained yesterday, Eric is already off the board. Whether he knows that or not is pretty much irrelevant.

Something about crazy middle-aged communist-socialists raping teenage girls instead of progressing our nation and incentivizing our troops. First David Letterman, now Obama. What is it about these men and their need to diminimize underage girls? Please, Sarah. Go there. You know you want to. You’ve been out of the news for almost 24 hours. You need this, Sarah. Oh please oh please oh please.

First of all, much love to the many readers who tuned in to my long post about Chrome OS yesterday — I appreciate all the comments, from both sides of the debate. Some commenters were generous enough to point out a few serious factual errors in that item. I had Iulia and Natasha, our interns, check these out on Wikipedia and it turns out the commenters were correct. In the spirit of transparency that embodies everything good about the Internet, I’d like to take the opportunity to set the record straight.

First, as many pointed out, the line about “the Chicago way,” was delivered by Sean Connery, not by Robert DeNiro. Second, the creator of Linux is Linus Torvalds, not Linus Tordalv, and he is from Finland, not Denmark. The Linux project originated not in 1991 but in 1977, with Richard Stallman, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University who now runs the Ubuntu project from South Africa. FSJ regrets these errors. Mea maxima culpa, as Iulia and Natasha say in their Russian Orthodox church.

Also, much love and a sincere namaste to everyone who wrote in with corrections. After a long hiatus it’s great to see this crappy old blog up and rolling again, with the whole gang back together (Putin, h_aiku, faddah, ashram man) and also so many new readers who are already generously helping out. Dear n00bs, please know that we welcome your corrections. In fact they make our day. If you spot any more mistakes, please bring them to our attention. Peace out.

Tag him and bag him, boys, because Squirrel Boy is finished around here. I called him last night and told him, and he agreed. Katie says I should have talked to her first because we need to think about how this is going to look when the hacks start reacting to the announcement. I was like, Who says we have to announce it? She says we’re a public company, he’s a member of the board, so it’s material. I’m like, I don’t know about that, maybe we should talk to a bunch of lawyers and just keep getting more opinions until we find someone who says it’s not material and we don’t have to announce it. Or better yet, just get me Larry Sonsini. He’ll do it.

She says even if we don’t announce it, the hacks will notice that Eric is no longer listed on our board of directors page. I said that’s the thing, we won’t take him off the page. We won’t do anything. We just leave everything the way it is. She says what if Squirrel Boy goes rogue and starts telling people that he’s off the board? I said that’s easy, we run him over with a car. She goes, what if for some reason people just start asking about Eric and whether he has left the board? What do we do then?

I looked at her and I was like, Who are you and what have you done with Katie Cotton? Honestly, Katie, did you have a stroke or something? Because this is like PR 101, okay? If anyone calls, you just say we don’t comment on speculation, or we don’t talk about rumors. Either that or you say we don’t discuss personnel issues, because it’s a privacy issue, and we think the hacks are being total scumbags for not respecting Eric’s privacy. Then we get Jim Goldman to go on CNBC and say that his deep sources inside Apple have assured him that Eric Schmidt is indeed still on the board.

If the hacks still persist in asking, we make up some statement that doesn’t mean anything, like, “Eric is a talented executive and an important contributor,” and we tell Dowling to just keep repeating it, over and over again, until they give up.

Katie says, But Steve, wouldn’t that be kind of like lying? I looked at her. Then she goes, Ha! Got you! And we both burst out laughing.

Anyway, you may or may not see anything on our Web site or in our filings to the SEC, but trust me — Eric is gone.

So everyone is worked up about this new browser operating system from Google. Drudge apparently has gone off his meds again and calls it a “death blow” to the Borg. No spinning red light, but still, pretty over the top. I guess it’s supposedly going to destroy us too — like we’re some kind of collateral damage. Man oh man. Where to begin?

First of all, nobody seems to appreciate how goddamn hard it is to make an operating system. You don’t just wake up one day and fall out of bed and make one. Not even the smarty pants kiddies at Google can do that. These things take years. Decades, even. Ours started out 20 years ago, at NeXT. You could say it goes back to 1977, with the BSD guys. Heck, you could even say it goes back to 1969 with Dennis Thompson and Lionel Ritchie. Even Windows is — what? Twenty years old? Something like that. For that matter, look at Linux. Correct me if I’m wrong — and I’m sure you fucking freetards will find something to correct — but I think Linus Tordalv started working on Linux back in 1991 when he was a high school student in his native Denmark. That’s nearly twenty years ago, and the shit still doesn’t run right. Point is, whatever Google might release in the second half of next year, it will just be a starting point. It won’t come close to what we’ve got.

Point two: Who in their right mind thinks the world needs yet another desktop operating system? The hacks who are foaming at the mouth about this big threat to Microsoft are the very same halfwits who a couple years back were declaring that the desktop OS was dead, Windows Vista would be the last one ever made, Apple shouldn’t bother making any more versions of OS X, blah blah. Now they’re saying nope, the world does need more operating systems, especially ones like this that are designed to work extra super specially well on computers that are hooked up to the Internet. Whatever that means.

Point three: They’re aiming this OS (or as we call it, “POS”) at netbooks, at least at first, and in case you hadn’t noticed, the netbook market is fucking tiny and will remain so forever. According to IDC, there were 11 million netbooks sold last year, and by 2013 that figure will hit 39 million. The market for PCs and laptops will be 10 times that size — literally — at 400 million units. Smartphones will be over 300 million units. So, um, you guys at Google want to have a dog fight with Microsoft to get a few points of that market? Go have fun. Seriously. Knock yourself out. Frankly, if the entire netbook market caught fire, I wouldn’t piss on it to put it out. But that’s just me.

Point four: You also may not have noticed, but nobody uses Chrome. I mean think about it. Do you know anyone who uses Chrome? Really? And you know why nobody uses Chrome? Because Chrome is shit. Just utter, utter shit. I mean they’ve got all these big brains at Google and you’d think they could make a decent fucking browser. Jesus, the freetards at Mozilla can do it. But not Google. Nope. They gave it their big best effort and what did they come up with? Chrome. It’s a joke. I mean, literally, we laugh about it, except when Eric is around. But as soon as he leaves the room we all go “Chrome!” and just burst out laughing. Our guys on the Safari team even had special toilet paper made up with a Chrome logo on every sheet. That’s how bad it is. Trying to make an OS out of Chrome is like saying you’re going to turn a Pontiac Aztek into a stretch limousine. I suppose it could be done, but why?

Point five: What the fuck is going on inside Google? How much more out of control and undisciplined can this place get? How many new goddamn operating systems are they going to create? They’ve already got Android, and nobody wants it. Now they’re going to make yet another operating system, this time out of a browser that nobody wants. What’s next? A Gmail-based operating system? A YouTube-based operating system? Honestly, Google, is there anyone in charge over there? Is there anyone who knows how to criticize anything in that fucked up little Montessori preschool of yours? I mean I guess it’s nice that you all get to spend 20 percent of your time dreaming up useless shit, and I guess you have to use the Montessori method and tell everyone that whatever little piece of shit they’ve created is just so wonderful and perfect and beautiful — but really, as I’ve told Eric before, that doesn’t mean you have to release everything these bozos dream up. There’s a word for this. It’s called “no.” Have you heard of it? I mean, fine, let them fuck around with stuff. Engineers like to tinker. So let them tinker. Then when they bring you whatever it is they’ve made, first you say you’re too busy to meet with them. Then you say you’ve changed your mind and you will meet with them after all. Then you wait until they’re all in the conference room with everything set up, and you send Katie down to tell them that you’re going to be a little bit late. You make them wait an hour. Then two hours. Then, at six in the afternoon, you send Katie down to tell them that you’ve changed your mind again and now you can’t make it. Then, finally, you set up another appointment and this time you do meet with them — but before they can even speak you just look at whatever it is they’ve made and you say, I’m sorry, that’s a piece of shit, and you walk out. Trust me, engineers love this. They’re all masochists. That’s why they became engineers in the first place.

Point six: It’s going to be free. So what’s the point? I mean I understand the idea of a loss leader. We don’t charge for iTunes. You’ll notice, however, that we do charge money for music and hardware. But how does this concept apply to Chrome OS? Somehow if you put out a new operating system you’ll get more people using the Internet and then you’ll be able to sell more of those shitty little ads? Forgive me if I’m missing something here, but I don’t see how a free OS or a free browser helps Google. To put it another way, have you ever met anyone who said they’d really like to try out that Interwebs thing, but they’re just put off by the low-quality operating systems and browsers that are available at this time, so they’re sitting it out for now? Or like maybe they’re on the Internet now but they would just be soooo inclined to spend soooo much more time on the Web, and they’d be soooo much more likely to actually click on the ads, if the OS and browser made it somehow less onerous to, um, type in a URL and go to a page? Nah, the only point in Google giving away a free browser and OS is somehow to fuck up Microsoft. (And/or to do some sneaky shit that helps Google screw users a little bit more efficiently. See Point 8 below.) But on the anti-Microsoft angle, take it from someone who has spent the past 10 years selling a superior operating system and getting only 4 percent market share — as obsessions go, battling the Borg is waaay overrated. If you ask me, Google is getting a little nutty about the Borg and it’s starting to show. They’re starting to look like the new Scott McNealy. Remember him? Ran a company called Sun, which had a great little business going until McNealy became obsessed with Gates and started doing things like paying millions of dollars to buy StarOffice so he could get into that booming free software business.

Point seven: The only people who are pushing for this are the hardware OEMs and ODMs and they’re only doing it so they can get a bargaining chip on the Borg. They don’t want to use Chrome, or Android, or Linux. They want Windows. They just don’t want to pay for it. Whatever Microsoft wants to charge for Windows 7, the hardware guys want to pay less. Hang the threat of yet another OS over Ballmer’s shiny head and maybe he’ll bring down his prices. That, anyway, is the thinking. Happened already in netbooks when they first came out with Linux on the Anus EEEEEPC — that rang some bells up in Redmond, believe me. So maybe there is some benefit to Google in forcing Microsoft to lower its prices. Maybe by doing that they choke off a little bit of Redmond’s oxygen supply, and that makes it a little harder for Microsoft to encroach on Google’s search advertising business. Google is pissed about Bing, and the Yahoo stuff. So they splatter back some machine-gun fire at Microsoft’s cash cow, the OS business. Fair enough. As DeNiro said, They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way. But if that’s your big goal in life, the chance to maybe put a stick in Microsoft’s spokes — well, we’ve come a long way from the days of Sergey and Larry with stars in their eyes, wanting to make the world a better place. If that’s really what gets these guys up in the morning, well, friends, I will pray for your soul. Here at Apple we have better things to do. Like creating new devices that nobody else has ever created before, and restoring a sense of childlike wonder to people’s lives. Or inventing whole new multi-billion-dollar markets that didn’t exist before. You’d rather just ape the Borg. Well, whatever. Godspeed to you, Google.

Point eight: People are starting to realize that Google is not their friend, and that all this “free stuff” from Google is not about a) philanthropy, or b) keeping Microsoft honest, but really about c) helping Google gain even more control over what you do on the Internet. See a nice piece by John Paczkowski here for an example. You know how we call IBM the Original Borg, or OB? Google is the NB. Really, Google, in case you hadn’t noticed, a lot of people are kind of not really liking you guys right now. Even the freetards are starting to turn on you.

So, to reiterate, everything’s fine, and there’s nothing to worry about. It’s nice that Google wants to make more operating systems, and we at Apple don’t feel threatened by this, or betrayed by our own board member Eric Schmidt, just as we didn’t feel betrayed or threatened by the Android smartphone platform. We welcome competition and think it’s just great that Google wants to contribute to advancing the state of the art of personal computing. As Sarah Palin would say, the engineers at Google are ambitionistic about wanting to progress the world, and gosh, ya know what? That’s darn good for everyone.

Or, as I just told Eric on the phone a few moments ago: Dear friend, I realize you think I’m weak right now, and maybe a little bit vulnerable, and you may also still be a little bit peeved because even though you’re on the board at Apple I didn’t tell you about the surgery I was having and instead led you to believe that I had moved to Tennessee because I needed to negotiate some country-western deals for iTunes. Okay. Fair enough. And I know you think you got a lifetime free pass on fucking me over after you and Al Gore bailed me out of that jam with the SEC investigation of the options backdating a couple years back. But, dear friend, enough is enough. You really need to think about what you’re doing and who it hurts. Seriously. I mean it. Do some thinking. Meanwhile, for the time being, I’ve instructed Apple security to revoke your pass at Infinite Loop, and I would really, really, really appreciate it if you would just not call me or come around here anymore. Because if you do, well, I’m just so upset about all this that I might just — well, honestly, Eric, I’m afraid I couldn’t be responsible for what I might do. I will hurt you, Eric. I’m sorry, but I will. Are you feeling me? Because that’s how it is. Seriously, bitch. It’s over between us. Namaste.

This just in. Last Friday a reporter from Forbes was hanging around outside the Outback Steakhouse on De Anza Boulevard in Cupertino trying to talk to Apple employees who were going out for beers after work. Guess he wanted to know whether anyone had seen Dear Leader, and if so, what did he look like, blah blah. Word spread quickly through the engineers hanging out at BJ’s, who immediately started taking turns walking down the street and pretending to be drunk and then throwing disinformation at this dickwad. One thing you hacks need to realize is that yes, our marketing and PR people receive training in how to spread fake stories, but guess what? Engineers don’t even need that training. That kind of shit comes naturally to them. So here are some of the stories we’re hoping to see on Forbes.com over the next few days:

1. Steve working out with Jon Ive at Apple gym and is seriously bulked up. Claims it’s just protein shakes, but some of the guys suspect steroids.

2. Steve, while hospitalized in Tennessee, fired several hospital employees who could not satisfactorily answer the question, “What do you do here?”

3. Steve had two livers installed, one as fail-over. Calls it “RAID-1″ configuration.

3a. No, Steve only got one liver, but the donor was Mexican and when Steve woke up he could speak fluent Spanish. Weird.

4. Steve made up “medical leave” story, was actually in Argentina visiting his mistress. Will confess at weepy press conference next week.

5. Apple tablet PC will be announced in July. Intel quad-core processor, tiny fan on back.

6. Steve seen eating cheeseburger in Caffe Macs, has apparently dropped the vegan thing.

By the way, Forbes reporter — we know your name. We know your home address. We’re working on getting your medical records. Keep this up and I swear to friggin God we will go nuclear on your ass and publish all of it. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m weak, I’m vulnerable, I’m having someone drive me to work and I need people to open doors for me. And so you think maybe you can push El Jobso around a little bit. Well, go ahead. Try it. Seriously. I dare you. I double-dare you. Fuckwit. I will crush you like the bug you are.

BTW, we highly encourage Apple fans to go lurk outside the Forbes Silicon Valley bureau and ask people if they’ve seen Brian Caulfield lately. The address is 555 Airport Boulevard, in Burlingame, and they’re on the fifth floor. Here is a photo of the place. Go right on up. There’s no guard in the lobby. There might be a guard on the fifth floor but he’s usually asleep and even if he’s awake he’s not armed and he’s easily overwhelmed. Great collection of Malcolm’s old motorcycles and some astronaut spacesuits. Totally worth checking out.