Fake Steve Jobs Says 'Leave the Real One Alone' 166
Stoobalou writes "Dan Lyons, who has been lampooning Apple's Steve Jobs for many years, has posted his last item as Fake Steve Jobs and signed off. Lyons, who has been impersonating the messianic Apple supremo in the notorious tech blog since 2006 and even managed to maintain his anonymity for quite some time, despite being a well-known tech hack, has parked his vitriolic pen for the last time." Most people expect FSJ to return if RSJ does.
seems familiar (Score:5, Funny)
*applies extra eyeliner, sobbing*
We might stop making fun of him (Score:4, Interesting)
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Then you're not the target. Most of the world isn't geeks, so in 1999 when he showcased built-in WiFi in laptops, the audience gasped since they weren't as bleeding-edge as you.
Re:We might stop making fun of him (Score:4, Informative)
In 1999, when he and Phil Schiller announced the iBook with built-in WiFi, the term WiFi hadn't even been invented yet, it was called AirPort by Apple, and 802.11b by everyone else, and Apple products were the first to have it built-in. Apple worked with Lucent in the development of 802.11b.
(disregard if you were being ironic)
Re:We might stop making fun of him (Score:5, Interesting)
In his defense, at least he didn't get all sweaty while clapping on stage for 20 minutes chanting nothing but "Developers".
Steve Jobs looks pretty good when you compare him to other industry CEOs.
Re:We might stop making fun of him (Score:4, Insightful)
Ballmer is a pretty poor example. To his credit, he probably comes across as one of the few people in the tech arena who would be tolerable over a beer, but a less-than-stellar showman who at his best is a parody of himself. He inspires pity more than loathing.
Now when will we get Fake Larry Ellison? That guy is just a comedy goldmine. The often attributed, arrogance of Jobs, greedy, self-serving, with a sense of self-denial and a twinge of bat-shit insane.
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Ballmer is a pretty poor example. To his credit, he probably comes across as one of the few people in the tech arena who would be tolerable over a beer, but a less-than-stellar showman who at his best is a parody of himself. He inspires pity more than loathing.
Now when will we get Fake Larry Ellison? That guy is just a comedy goldmine. The often attributed, arrogance of Jobs, greedy, self-serving, with a sense of self-denial and a twinge of bat-shit insane.
Bat-shit insane doesn't come in twinge; ultrasonic shriek perhaps.
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I like to imagine that he walks around his Japanese mansion dressed as a Batman villain, muttering the true, secret name of his estate; the one that only he can know, the special name, while reading and re-reading The Catcher in the Rye. Every other name is for the fakers, the phonies.
You mean like this Fake Larry? (Score:3)
http://fakelarryellison.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
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Fake Steve Jobs did a few entries as Fake Larry Ellison. I think they're a pretty accurate impression of Larry.
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Or compare him to OPK.
Steve Jobs: "Android isn't best for the customer."
OPK: "Android is like peeing in your pants."
Re:We might stop making fun of him (Score:4, Insightful)
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And why was there no press conference to announce he had sold $1.4 billion in Apple shares in the 3 days before his announcement.
That's interesting if true. I suppose he figures he can't be thrown in jail if he's dead.
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citation needed
Sales by C-level execs are normally registered with the SEC 30 - 60 days before the sale takes place.
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Not if its already in is pre filed trading plan. Even those are not necessarily written with clarity in mind. But they do let you report after the trade just like everybody else.
Trades by insiders are here?
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=AAPL+Insider+Transactions [yahoo.com]
And yes, they are all routinely cashing in shares, as are all insiders from all companies. Its part of their compensation, and you can't buy a Yacht or a Liver transplant with shares.
That being said, Jobs does not appear on that list.
Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Here are the insider trades for the last year or so. [yahoo.com]
I don't see Jobs there.
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And why was there no press conference to announce he had sold $1.4 billion in Apple shares in the 3 days before his announcement.
Look, Ma. No mention of the Great Satan at all. [yahoo.com] There was no announcement because it DIDN'T HAPPEN.
How important we make ourselves seem (Score:2, Insightful)
While his blogging may have been mostly harmless it doesn't give him a free pass to crap on others for doing the same thing.
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"I didn't know dying and dead were the same thing?"
Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.
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About time really.... (Score:3, Informative)
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I can't imagine how it lasted more than a week without RSJ's quiet approval. Either it somehow suited Apple's master plan, or just amused RSJ.
If it didn't pass muster, about 4 hours into it the mag would have gotten a call. "Hi. This is Su Emharder from Apple Legal. We're Apple. We don't do fakes. Neither do you. You have twelve minutes to post a retraction on your site."
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Parody is protected. There is nothing RSJ could do about it.
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That's now how I envision Apple's legal dept. at all. For me, both Apple and Sony have a few ED-209s calling people on the phone. "You are in violation of our intellectual property. Please cease and desist. You have fifteen seconds to comply. I am authorized to use legal procedures."
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There's plenty of people!
Feature!
"Choose your own flavor of getting sued!
You are in violation of Apple rights. Please choose the form of delivery.
ED-209
MCP - back in dev, not seen in Tron 2.0
Christopher Walken
Jack Nicholson"
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A one point RSJ said that FSJ was pretty funny.
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In other words, Steve Jobs is an evil mastermind and any time he does something non-evil, it's just an evil ploy to appear non-evil...
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Can Apple survive without Jobs again? (Score:5, Interesting)
Steve Jobs breathed life back into a dying Apple. It was his management that turned the company from a third-rate HW vendor into a juggernaut of ideas, concepts, products, and customer satisfaction. Sculley, Amelio, and the rest never could have done that.
But if Steve goes, whence Apple? I'm sure he has a large cadre of lieutenants who can make good decisions in his stead, but can they get along? Can they drive the teams and call BS on half-assed engineering like Jobs? Do they have his business acumen?
The problem of building a company around a single person means that person is the weakest link. When Steve decides to give up the mantle, will Apple be able to adjust to the absence and still succeed in the same ways?
I doubt it, and that's why I've shorted Apple stock. Frankly, I suggest you all do likewise.
Re:Can Apple survive without Jobs again? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes. [nytimes.com] Well, mostly.
Re:Can Apple survive without Jobs again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I think Cook and Schiller will keep the trains running, and Ives will be spokesman (he's got that watchable quality). Forstall will probably also have an increasing public profile, but in terms of products he'll probably remain with iOS stuff. Steve put so many good people in place around him, that Apple in the long run will be just fine no matter what. Obviously a succession plan in a company like Apple will have been in place for a long time, and with Steve Job's health problems in the past, he's definitely had more people in the spotlight with him recently, to get the public used to some of these guys.
Cooke (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a measurable fact that Apple's market cap grew under Tim Cooke more than under Steve Jobs. One can question if he kept the idea pipeline stocked or was just a steward of an existing process. But the former is fact and the latter is speculation.
It is likely that Steve has hired people who are great with ideas but not with the type-A self confidence he has. It's a common trait for uber egotists to drive other egotist out of their circle. I'm not saying that is a bad thing. I'm saying it is a common thing. It has been the dominant management style for most of human history.
Thus the trouble is not replacing steve jobs but imagining who in his inner circle is capable of stepping up to be him. THat person may in fact not be in his inner circle. But maybe they alos don't need to replace him with someone just like him. they need a new leader with a new style. THey just might not find it right away till steve is truly gone.
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yeah, i bet it was real hard to keep that train going for less than a year.......
come back when he's had to do it for 3 or 4 years and see where the company is.
I'm not saying he can't, but I am saying the time he was "the head" was so short as to not be statistically relevant.
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Sure, three or four years is more difficult than just one year, but he did well for the one year, so it's a bit absurd to conclude that he will fail over a longer term.
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This. I think about this a lot since my company is run similarly. The inner circle are smart, capable, but do not have the same spark. They can emulate the leader, think "what would the leader do?", but do not have the same X-factor that makes the leader successful.
Re:Can Apple survive without Jobs again? (Score:4, Insightful)
... I've shorted Apple stock. Frankly, I suggest you all do likewise.
Um, yeah. Some folks [cnn.com] might beg to differ [cnn.com].
I view this as a one-day-only 5% discount sale.
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Um, yeah. Some folks might beg to differ.
The same folks that were in denial about the housing bubble right up until it burst?
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...so later when its price falls, you can buy it back up and make a profit?
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... I've shorted Apple stock. Frankly, I suggest you all do likewise.
I view this as a one-day-only 5% discount sale.
Ancient wisdom: "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent". The price and daily change in AAPL may be utterly irrational, but it's still a courageous bet to trade it either way in quantity.
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The problem that I see in the future of Apple without Steve Jobs is that no matter how good his future replacement could be, people will always say that things are not the same, that Jobs times were better, and will be their fault for taking advantage of that cult of personality
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The problem that I see in the future of Apple without Steve Jobs is that no matter how good his future replacement could be, people will always say that things are not the same, that Jobs times were better, and will be their fault for taking advantage of that cult of personality
Yeah, like all the whining around here about how things were 'better in the old days". Borland / DEC / Compaq / IBM (well, maybe in the Selectric days). What's the tech equivalent for 'rose colored glasses'?
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Steve Jobs breathed life back into a dying Apple. It was his management that turned the company from a third-rate HW vendor into a juggernaut of ideas, concepts, products, and customer satisfaction. Sculley, Amelio, and the rest never could have done that.
But if Steve goes, whence Apple? I'm sure he has a large cadre of lieutenants who can make good decisions in his stead, but can they get along? Can they drive the teams and call BS on half-assed engineering like Jobs? Do they have his business acumen?
It is not so much the person of Steve Jobs, it is the direction the company is taking. When Sculley threw Steve Jobs out, the company then went _intentionally_ into a different direction than Steve Jobs wanted. That's why he had to go. We also may assume that the Steve Jobs who left back then was less experienced and less good at what he was doing than the Steve Jobs that returned many years later. Amelio on the other hand did an excellent job. He came to an Apple company that was in deep shit and figured o
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I doubt it, and that's why I've shorted Apple stock. Frankly, I suggest you all do likewise.
Has Steve Jobs died?
Has he even quit Apple?
Has the years of planning ahead Jobs has done for Apple expired yet?
Has Apple even done something un-Jobs like yet?
Has Apple even hinted about a poor choice in their future?
Has Apple posted anything but stellar results last time you checked?
Let's go deeper now...
Do you think the people in Apple have not learned anything last time Jobs quit?
Do you think Jobs has not selected people who understand his strategy?
Do you think Jobs single-handedly came up with the market
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If Apple didn't want to have their bottom-line affected by the vagaries of an irrational stock market, they shouldn't have gone public. Simple as that. Public companies know the risks they take - it isn't all IPOs and piles of investor cash; sometimes investors are going to take advantage of your weaknesses.
Apple's bottom line isn't affected by the stock market at all. The only time when the stock price affects the bottom line is when the company needs to borrow money, and a high share price makes that easier than a low share price. There have been many occasions in the past where Apple has made announcements that predictably made the share price go down. For a short time. Like saying "we just had a record quarter, but the next quarter will likely not be quite as good".
memories! like shorted stock inside your mind! (Score:3, Interesting)
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If you really think that the price is going to tank, you're much better off going with options. As much as I despise the way they distort the market, they
There is no limit to the risk when shorting (Score:2)
To be more detailed, there is literally no limit to how much you can lose by shorting.
When you simply buy a stock, the most you can lose is what you paid for it. If the company goes bankrupt, the stock price can't go below $0.00.
If you short a stock, you're borrowing shares to sell now, betting that the replacements you need to return later will be cheaper, and you get to keep the difference. But, if the price goes up, there's no limit. You still need
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To be more detailed, there is literally no limit to how much you can lose by shorting.
Not literally, just theoretically. Buyers literally have a finite supply of money, therefore there must be a limit somewhere, however vaguely defined that limit might be.
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—————
[1] Yeah, there's a limit to the double-precision variable holding the account's value, but let's not go there.
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The worst case scenario is a company like APPL which is vastly overpriced, but yet finds a way of growing to fit the market cap
I think I see the problem
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[T]hat's why I've shorted Apple stock. Frankly, I suggest you all do likewise.
How to get rich of Apple and other stocks:
Step 1. Give dubious investment advice on Slashdot.
Step 2. Take a market position counter to your own advice.
Step 3. ??
Step 4. Profit!!!
Re:Can Apple survive without Jobs again? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's true that Steve turned Apple around when he rejoined. But let's not forget that he was originally ousted from his own company because his impulsive decisions, empty showmanship, and abusive management style threatened to rip Apple apart right when it should have been concentrating on building a long-term strategy. Those other CEOs and executives who ran Apple during Jobs' exile wouldn't have produced the superstar corporation that Apple is today, but at least they knew how to keep the company afloat long enough for Jobs to mature on both a business and behavioral level. (Even if they didn't realize that's what they were doing.)
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He was kicked because the original Mac looked a bit too risky instead of just making Apple ][s forever. It's a textbook example of a board not having a clue what sort of company they were running.
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*Take existing technology, put it in a very pretty box, market the hell out of it. Repeat.
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I think way too many Slashdotters think that Steve's RDF extends beyond geekdom. My mom doesn't watch his keynotes or product announcements, and neither do most iphone users.
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But if Steve goes, whence Apple? I'm sure he has a large cadre of lieutenants who can make good decisions in his stead, but can they get along? Can they drive the teams and call BS on half-assed engineering like Jobs? Do they have his business acumen?
I dunno. Why not ask 2009 Apple how it did without Steve Jobs? Tim Cook has been doing a great job.
When Steve decides to give up the mantle, will Apple be able to adjust to the absence and still succeed in the same ways?
Why not? Apple won't be identical without Jobs, but he righted a wayward ship and has been piloting it for the past decade. Apple will do fine with another competent (even if not as capable as Jobs) pilot. What you're describing is that the only thing keeping the Apple ship on course is Jobs' constant hand on the wheel. I don't think there's any reason to think the ship is going to go astray with a different l
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perhaps a small point, but wasn't he fired by Apple's board for sucking the life out of Apple during his first shot at running the place? Expensive failures like the Apple III and Lisa, overspending on advertising for the Mac that didn't generate any sales, etc?
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Steve Jobs breathed life back into a dying Apple. It was his management that turned the company from a third-rate HW vendor into a juggernaut of ideas, concepts, products, and customer satisfaction. Sculley, Amelio, and the rest never could have done that.
But if Steve goes, whence Apple? I'm sure he has a large cadre of lieutenants who can make good decisions in his stead, but can they get along? Can they drive the teams and call BS on half-assed engineering like Jobs? Do they have his business acumen?
The problem of building a company around a single person means that person is the weakest link. When Steve decides to give up the mantle, will Apple be able to adjust to the absence and still succeed in the same ways?
I doubt it, and that's why I've shorted Apple stock. Frankly, I suggest you all do likewise.
I doubt that you've done ANYTHING with Apple stock. Personally Jobs has set up a good cadre of people who've already been running things since he took extended leave last year. I do think that he can't be replaced, but just as Microsoft will survive beyond Gates, Apple has a good shot to continue in a post-Jobs era.
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And, actually, I meant to specifically *include* the introduction of the iPhone in that time period, so my apologies for that, as that's the last Apple product that could be considered revolutionary (I still tend to think of it as evolutionary, as there were functional touch screen phones long before the iPhone, but I also realize most would disagree with my saying that). I really did mean to include the 2007 release of the iPhon
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Seems to me you're suffering, like a many of the sort of Slashdotians, with a case of technological myopia. Feature X was already available here, feature Y could be could there, etc. Look, I get that this seems like a reasonable way of arguing the point, but when it comes down to it, NO revolutions are completely sparkly and new. It's the way it all comes together that counts, and touch screen phones and tablets were unpopular (and generally rubbish, yes I played with some of those phones) before the the iP
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No kidding, without Jobs' brilliance, Apple might start shipping phones that lose signal if held wrong. They might ship products without cut and paste. They might ship an OS that sometimes shrinks the window when you press a green plus. They might even lose the ability to engineer a battery door in their battery operated products.
And they might start kicking in the front doors of journalists.
ORLY (Score:1)
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This a yawn-story (== ranked a little bit above a non-story)
That's what Firehose is for. Once the story escapes, you're supposed to disparage the editor and the submitter. Preferably with pithy grammar related comments.
Please Read The Manual.
When you buy AAPL you are buying the leadership (Score:2)
Jobs Not Long for this World (Score:2)
I am an Apple fanboy of 30+ years duration. I am saddened by this development and applaud Fake Steve Jobs for his tact and judgment in this case. The company itself, however, may well prosper under new leadership as Apple continues to morph into an IBM-style megacorporation focused on efficiency and customer service. The
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The company itself, however, may well prosper under new leadership as Apple continues to morph into an IBM-style megacorporation focused on efficiency and customer service.
You are aware that the company's secondary image — second only to Steve Jobs himself — revolves entirely around them not being an IBM-style megacorporation, right*? Given that, if you completely remove the image, the flashiness, and the "we're not a heartlessly efficient megacorporation, honest!" corporate persona that was the entire cornerstone of the Mac vs. PC ads (not to mention their current advertising), what you're left with is an overpriced hardware manufacturer with paranoid fears of c
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IBM customer service? Are you kidding me? I think you must have never dealt with IBM.
They won't even fart at you unless you have a $50 million support contract with them.
$50 million no bad thing (Score:1)
And by your own account, it's a huge profit center.
Yes, in the past five years, esp. since Lenova, there has been a big surge in customer complaints.
As I said, I've been an Apple booster for years and cut my teeth on the "Apple vs. IBM" wars. I've no reason to praise IBM except for the facts.
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I felt exactly the opposite. I was ready to dump apple stock till I heard about the shareholder meeting. I think that him not announcing record sales is exactly the time to step out. Apple is going to have a huge profits on the verizon deal. Comdex showed the ipad has another year to advance without any viable competition. In a year, if they play their cards right, the app store may make this thing an unbeatable device like the ipod was once itunes came along. In fact I think apple is going to make so
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Comdex showed the ipad has another year to advance without any viable competition.
COMDEX? Now you're just showing your age. :)
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I think he's sicker than sick. To bail before the shareholder's meeting --where he has performed both effectively and with great personal gusto--tells me that he is simply unable to do it.
That's one school of thought. The other is, to announce a leave on a non-workday (market closed) JUST before announcing another record quarterly profit was timed very well to ensure that any spike from the bad news will be cancelled out by the good news.
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applaud Fake Steve Jobs for his tact and judgment in this case
In this particular case, yes. Unfortunately, his second-to-last blog post compared pictures of Steve Ballmer and Jared Loughner.
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The real Jobs needs to get with the 'bitch Cheney' (Score:2, Funny)
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I'm not sure why or how the world still spends time listening to or having to listen to Dick Cheney, but he seems to have heart attack over and over. Whatever they have him on, put Steve on immediately.
Because pancreatic cancer and a heart attack are basically the same thing.
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I'm not sure why or how the world still spends time listening to or having to listen to Dick Cheney, but he seems to have heart attack over and over. Whatever they have him on, put Steve on immediately.
Because pancreatic cancer and a heart attack are basically the same thing.
Same symptom.
Sounds ominous (Score:2)
Not liking the tone surrounding him right now. Hoping for a full recovery.
Illegal? (Score:3)
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I think the First Amendment trumps whatever stupid law California passed. Parodies have a long history of being protected speech, and no reasonable person would mistake the Fake Steve Jobs blog as the real Steve Jobs, so it doesn't satisfy the precedent for libel.
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No.
There needs to be intent to defraud or mislead (of which there is no evidence here), and the law also phrases it as "credibly impersonate" (i.e. that it would fool a reasonable person), which should easily be dismissed in the case of FSJ due to the presence of the word "Fake" in his name.
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Also, is FSJ even in California?
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I seriously doubt that there would be any problem with FSJ. The only problem would be if he tried to pass himself off as RSJ.
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According to the juvenile activist slashdot exaggeration of the law, yes. Otherwise, no.
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How are you impersonating a celebrity when you're saying you're a fake right in your blog's title?