Earlier, when we mentioned the likelihood of Steve Jobs chewing clean through the neck of the webgnome responsible for leaking the G5 specs, we suspect that a lot of you took that as a joke. You are correct; we were engaging in a literary device known as "hyperbole," or exaggeration for the sake of emphasis. In reality, we're quite certain that Steve did not, in fact, chew through the hapless lackey's neck; Steve, as we all know, is vegan, and therefore he probably just used a hatchet or something.

No, seriously, we think the guy's amazing and our admiration for him knows no bounds, but he's also one scary SOB, and frankly, if we ever saw him approaching us in a dark alley, we'd probably scream like a grandmother and run away in a manner best befitting Shaggy and Scooby Doo. Seeing as it's the weekend and the issue of whether or not we'll see a Power Mac G5 on Monday is probably no longer weighing very heavily on your minds (cough), we figure this is as good a time as any to pass along what faithful viewer Bill Brown pointed out to us a few days back: an excerpt from Code Name Ginger, Steve Kemper's book about the making of that Segway scooter thingy that's all the rage among rich people who don't like to walk.

You may recall that back before the Segway was unveiled, all the public knew about it was that it was something groundbreaking called "Ginger," and it was widely reported that Jobs was in on the secret and felt that it was significant enough to "architect cities around." What we didn't know (until now, that is) was just how hands-on Steve was when it came to the marketing of the Segway device. Assuming you're okay with the profanity issuing forth from Steve's mouth every six seconds, go read the excerpt for a crystal clear picture of just how scary the man can be-- and keep in mind, that was with people he liked.

Yes, Steve showed up late, refused to hold his questions until after the presentations, interrupted the presenters incessantly, loudly proclaimed that the then-Ginger's design "sucked," insisted that Ginger would fail without a design that "would make you [expletive deleted] your pants," and eventually left after insulting all of New Hampshire. Which is not to say that every single one of his points wasn't remarkably insightful and helpful, but if you take the personality described in Kemper's book and then throw him some web flunky who, with what were probably no more than twelve tragically ill-considered keystrokes, accidentally negated what may have been millions of dollars' worth of security to protect the secret of the Power Mac G5, well, said flunky is probably not going to survive the encounter with all his limbs intact. Anyone know where we can send our condolences?