It happened in the "Seinfeld reunion" episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The iMac seems to be from the previous generation, not the 16:9 model. Jerry's classic Mac was only replaced once before, during the last season, with an Apple Macintosh 20th Anniversary.

It wasn't the only wink to the Cupertino company during that episode, but it certainly was the most significant sign of time change.

I wonder if Jerry's iMac actually runs Windows (and that sound you heard was the scream of the million Apple fanboys reading these lines). I know. I'm a cruel man. [Macenstein and Edible Apple]

Here is the full quote in context from the program Warren Buffett and Bill Gates: Keeping America Great.

"Well, he's done a fantastic job," Gates said. "Apple is in a bit of a different business where they make hardware and software together. But when Steve was coming back to Apple, which was actually through an acquisition of NeXT that he ran, Apple was in very tough shape. In fact, most likely it wasn't going to survive."

He continued: "And he brought in a team, he brought in inspiration about great products and design that's made Apple back into being an incredible force in doing good things. And it's great to have competitors like that. We write software for Apple, Microsoft does. They compete with Apple. But he, of all the leaders in the industry that I've worked with, he showed more inspiration and he saved the company."

Awww...how touching. [AppleInsider]

$35,000 was the final bid in a charity auction that will take the winner and a small group of friends around the Gates' Lake Washington property, with the house pater familias as the exclusive tour guide. Last year, the winning bit was only $8600.

If I had tons of money to spare, I'd probably bid next year. I'm curious to see his house. Can I play Natal with him? Who is his favorite painter? Can I browse through his record collection? And his personal, dearest bookshelf? Do his sofas have plastic covers? Can I open the fridge and make a sandwich? Oh well, since that is not going to happen, I'll just watch the 3D video like everyone else.

[Techflash]

Watch it, share it, do what you like. And if you just want the short and sweet, here again are our five featured bits (shot and edited by Mike Short):

Steve Ballmer Exclusive Interview Series:
Part 1: Ballmer Talks Natal, Says Blu-ray Add-On for Xbox Coming
Part 2: Ballmer on the Smartphone Race: "It Doesn't Matter What the Critics Say"
Part 3: Ballmer on Zune: Sometimes You Get It Right The Third Time?
Part 4: Ballmer on Those Crazy Ballmer YouTube Videos
Part 5: Ballmer Optimistic About Win 7, But Says Vista Is "Very Popular"

As you can see in the video, he's not going to stop being himself, just because Bill Gates is officially out of the picture and the public finally sees Ballmer as the big man up top.

I'm me. And sometimes I'm very ebullient, sometimes I'm less. I think the most important thing is that I need to convey my belief, my optimism, also my views of how we need to improve, to our folks. And I try to do the best job I can and I do it my own way.

Does that mean more YouTube excitement? If it does, you'll surely see it here.

Stay tuned for more exciting Ballmer moments (and facial expressions), and then the full uncut interview video on Friday.

Steve Ballmer Exclusive Interview Series:
Part 1: Ballmer Talks Natal, Says Blu-ray Add-On for Xbox Coming
Part 2: Ballmer on the Smartphone Race: "It Doesn't Matter What the Critics Say"
Part 3: Ballmer on Zune: Sometimes You Get It Right The Third Time?

And in the rare case you hadn't seen the video I'm referring to:

The gum would be used to test, painlessly, for malaria in children while the chocolate would serve as a way of getting some of the disease-feeding fat out of a patient's body. There's already some promise in these methods and the Gates contribution should certainly keep research going. [Telegraph]

Don't worry! He's still the richest man on the planet, but he's less richer than everybody else than last year. Other losers on this year's Forbes 400 include Paul Allen, who lost $4.5 billion, Michael Dell, who lost $2.8 billion, and Steve Ballmer, who lost $1.7 billion.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos, unlike all the other tech mavens on the list who lost money, actually made $100 million this year, bringing his value up to $8.8 billion. Good for him! I'm sure that made a fucking difference. [Forbes via Fortune]

It happened back on August 6, 1997. The video is pretty amazing to watch when we've got more recent and triumphant Apple keynotes to compare it to. When was the last time the crowd seemed ready to jump on stage and beat Steve up? [9 to 5 Mac via CrunchGear]

You may remember, Bill Gates was a loyal tablet user for years (and he still uses one). He was such a fan, in fact, that back in 2001 Gates told CNN, "The tablet takes cutting-edge PC technology and makes it available whenever you want it...It's a PC that is virtually without limits — and within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America."

Obviously, Gates was wrong—at least about the timeline. It's seven years later and tablets are all but dead while netbooks and touchscreen smartphones thrive. Keep in mind that multitouch wasn't around yet, though the idea of smudging up your computer's screen probably didn't make much sense given that a stylus was the ideal means for navigation.

Microsoft has since dialed back their enthusiasm on the tablet form factor, but you can see its spirit live on in products like the Surface and Windows 7's multitouch support.

To me, the question is not so much whether or not tablets are capable of succeeding in the marketplace but how they've captured the imaginations of Bill Gates, Apple fanboys and Star Trek alike yet still managed to elude mainstream popularity. [CNN and Image]

I wonder if he's thought about a Kindle? I know I wish I had time to read real books. I'm glad he found time to write about his 1979 memories for Giz though, back when all you could read were like, things made out of paper, or poo scribbled on a wall, like the Marquis de Sade. [Yahoo via Neowin]

I read those 1979 stories all last week, and it put me in a nostalgic mood, so wanted to offer my own memory to add to the collection.

In 1979, Microsoft had 13 employees, most of whom appear in that famous picture that provides indisputable proof that your average computer geek from the late 1970s was not exactly on the cutting edge of fashion. We started the year by moving from Albuquerque back to Bellevue, just across the lake from Seattle. By the end of the year we'd doubled in size to 28 employees. Even though we were doing pretty well, I was still kind of terrified by the rapid pace of hiring and worried that the bottom could fall out at any time.

What made me feel a little more confident was that 1979 was the year we began to sense that BASIC was right on the verge of becoming the standard language for microcomputers. We knew this could be the catalyst that would unlock the potential of the PC to democratize computing and create the right conditions for an explosion in programs and applications that would lead to really rapid growth of the PC market.

By the middle of 1979, BASIC was running on more than 200,000 Z-80 and 8080 machines and we were just releasing a new version for the 8086 16-bit microprocessor. As the numbers grew, we were starting to think beyond programming languages, too, and about the possibility of creating applications that would have real mass appeal to consumers. That led to the creation of the Consumer Products Division in 1979. One of our first consumer products was called Microsoft Adventure, which was a home version of the first mainframe adventure game. It didn't have all the bells and whistles of, say, Halo, but it was pretty interesting for its time.

Back in the 1970s, there was a publication called the International Computer Programs Directory that handed out what was known as the ICP Million Dollar Award for applications that had more than $1 million in annual sales. In the late 1970s the list included more than 100 different products, but they were all for mainframes. In April, the 8080 version of BASIC became the first software product built to run on microprocessors to win an ICP Million Dollar Award. That was a pretty good sign that a significant shift was underway.

Today, I would be surprised if the number of million-dollar applications isn't in the millions itself, and they range from apps and games created by a single developer working at home that you can download to your cell phone to massive solutions built by huge development teams that run the operations of huge corporations.

More important, of course, is the fact that more than a billion people around the world use computers and digital technology as an integral part of their day-to-day lives. That's something that really started to take shape in 1979.

Thanks for the memories, Bill—please keep us posted on that new beer keg of yours!

Microsoft Adventure shot found on YOIS

Steve Jobs

Now: Just returning to daily work at Apple after a prolonged health scare, he's still one of the most powerful—and recognizable—names in the industry.

Then: This was the year Steve started work on the Lisa, but also the year he became kind of a square. This happened in stages: he bought his first house; began his lifelong Mercedes habit; trimmed his hippie mop; bought some suits; and became a father—at least as far as the courts were concerned—to his daughter, Lisa Nicole. Sellout. [Source]

Bill Gates

Now: Having stepped back from a day-to-day role at Microsoft, Bill now dedicates most of his time to his giant philanthropic foundation. For many, he's still the voice of Microsoft—a perception he seems to appreciate.

Then: Still in his mid 20s, Bill Gates the businessman was busy rebranding his company from Micro-Soft to Microsoft, and moving operations from Albuquerque to the state of Washington, where they would stay from there on out. Bill Gates the nerd, on the other hand, was solving the so-called "Pancake Problem," publishing a paper on it—his only academic work. Apparently, n being the number of pancakes in a stack, (5n + 5)/3 flips will always be enough to sort them into a desired order. Why? I have no idea, but it's probably got something to do with me not being a genius billionaire. [Science News]

Steve Wozniak

Now: Sometimes he's Segging, sometime's he's dancing, sometimes he's even Giz-ing. In any case since distancing himself from Apple, he's been doing whatever the hell he wants.

Then: He had begun work on the Lisa, which would later be passed to other engineers. But outside of work, he was diversifying his portfolio. Before he was a voluntary spokesperson for Dean Kamen's Segway, he was a paid spokesperson for Datsun, featuring in a TV commercial for the 1979 280zx in which he drops such memorable elocutions as "I prefer the Z!" and "IT. IS. AWESOME." It is, Steve. It is.

Steve Ballmer

Now: At Microsoft, he's the dude. He basically runs the show, filling Billy G's old shoes, as it were. In any case, he's at his peak.

Then: Fresh out of college, Steve hadn't even joined Microsoft yet. It wasn't until 1980 that he even pitched the company, who later gave him a job, then a few more jobs, then THE job. A distinguished student at Harvard, he had lofty dreams, which led him to LA, where he tried to make it in Hollywood. (Behind the scenes, of course.) His bid for fame, or at least, profit made from others' fame, didn't pan out, so he went back to school at Stanford. In an alternate universe, Ari Gold's character in Entourage is based on Steve. [Seattle Times]

Michael Dell

Now: Michael Dell helms the second largest PC manufacturer in the world, and is currently trying to navigate a difficult economy and a precipitous drop in some of his core businesses.

Then: Baby Dell has was just getting a taste of his two lifelong passions: computing and cash. He got his first machine, an Apple II of all things, in 1979 at the age of 14, and promptly tore it apart. Soon after, he tried his hand at entrepreneurship, hawking newspaper subscriptions to newlyweds, whose information he scrounged from public records. This quickly made him a thousandaire. [Source]

Sir Howard Stringer

Now: Currently serving as the Emperor of all things Sony, Stringer is hoping to overhaul the company's lumbering, inefficient structure into something a little more streamlined, a little more manageable, and a lot more profitable.

Then: Our Howard, not yet a Sir, was killing network news. In 1979 he was working for CBS, and in 1980 presided over wide staff cuts at the network, mainly in the news department. Apparently, this gutted the network, dragging it down in the ratings races to this day. Not an auspicious start as far as restructurings go, but Sony's a totally different animal, I guess. Right? [NYT]

Bill Hewlett and David Packard

Now: Passed away, so R.I.P.. But, when they were less dead, they founded what would become the largest PC manufacturer in the world, and drove innovation in personal computing, printing and computer science for years.

Then: As loads of exciting innovations were swirling around them, courtesy of people who were more or less children, Bill and David were in the twilight of their respective careers. David had returned to HP after a stint in Richard Nixon's Defense Department, where he became an expert in weapons procurement. Half-employed by HP and still advising the government from time to time, he could be seen wandering the halls of the company, doing odd jobs and making new employees kind of sad. By this time, Bill Hewlett had stepped down as CEO, though he and David still featured in some seriously rad company literature from time to time. [HP, Ralph Sanders, Image from BusinessWeek]

The Google Guys

Now: Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page run the internet, to put it bluntly. Google's got the most popular search engine, a wide range of successful web services, and a lion's share of the online advertising market. They might have even made the OS on your phone.

Then: This is where Silicon Valley exec age disparities start to get funny. In 1979, Eric Schmidt was on his way to becoming a respectable adult, heading into a PhD program at Berkeley. Meanwhile, Sergey was emigrating from the Soviet Union. With his parents, of course, since he was only six. While Schmidt was churning out a dissertation over in Oakland, Sergey and Larry were building block castles at Montessori schools. Tech-savvy PhD candidates take note: Those kids at the Waldorf Academy down the street? They might be your bosses someday. I mean, don't worry, you'll be filthy rich. But still. [NNDB, The JC]

Dean Kamen

Now: Though he hasn't birthed truly high profile invention since the Segway, Kamen is still doing some really cool stuff, be it designing water purification systems, bionic arms for vets, or rock-climbing wheelchairs. Or hanging out on his own private island.

Then: In 1979, Dean was running from the tax man! Sort of. Having failed to graduate from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Dean had jumped headfirst into a new project called the "Auto-Syringe," which would later be known as the first insulin pump. After his project gained traction, he moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire for tax reasons, and promptly got rich. [Wired]

Gizmodo '79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born.

Along with ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold, Gates has applied for five patents that call for a fleet of specially equipped vessels to be deployed in a hurricane's path—vessels that are capable of reducing the surface temperature of the ocean by mixing in colder water from greater depths. This would reduce the heat-driven condensation that fuels hurricanes.

Of course, significantly altering the surface temperature of a large body of water is going to require many, many ships...a reality that is not lost on Gates. In the patent filings, there are a few proposals on how an endeavor like this one could be financed—including selling insurance policies in areas that are prone to major storms. While I seriously doubt the plausibility of such a scheme, if anyone can pull it off it would be Bill Gates. Besides, even if this doesn't work out he always has his important work with high tech kegs to fall back on. [Patent via Tech Flash via Slashdot via PopSci]

Gates is one of many names on the patent from Searete LLC, the company you may recognize behind another recent Gates-signed work, an electromagnetic engine.

Apparently the new invention is not quite a keg or thermos, but a system that "may include more segments principally defining at least one storage region; and one or more regions of substantially thermally sealed connections between at least one of the one or more surface regions of the one or more segments wherein the one or more regions of substantially thermally sealed connections and the one or more segments form an integrally thermally sealed storage region."

In its simplest terms, that sounds a lot like a thermos wrapped in many layers of specialty insulation complete with sensors and displays—the ultimate beer home. And indeed, the patent app describes a container that could hold everything from a "liquid or beverage" such as "beer or distilled spirits" to artificial plasma and hot mix asphalt.

Nice attempt to hide international beer trade under philanthropic construction and medical uses, Señor Gates. But we're on to you. [Patent via TechFlash]

For more of the backstory, you should read the WSJ's piece, "Raising Bill," which details what it was like to raise the world's richest man when he was just a cocky, argumentative twelve-year-old who fought with his mother all the time. Or more simply, a prick. Bill tells Charlie Rose that the psychologist did help him change, though: "I was a little bit nicer." [Charlie Rose]

The future software mogul was a headstrong 12-year-old and was having a particularly nasty argument with his mother at the dinner table. Fed up, his father threw a glass of cold water in the boy's face.

"Thanks for the shower," the young Mr. Gates snapped.

Oh no you didn't! Now, where's that spitfire in the I'm a PC ads? Who doubts that a cold glass of H2O in "I'm a Mac's" face wouldn't sell a few more laptops to paid actors at conveniently well-lit Best Buys? Not me, that's for sure, not me.

But back on point, this Bill Gates Sr. fella has led a pretty substantial, and quiet, life thus far. The 6-ft. 6-in. 83-year-old philanthropist helped found the Gates Foundation, which he oversees today side-by-side with his son. His quiet demeanor meant he often played peacemaker between Bill Gates Jr. and his mother, whose heated arguments ultimately led to that glass of water to the face (it was one of Sr.'s rare outbursts).

Senior was also there to court Steve Ballmer, and later to serve as legal counsel for Microsoft (his law firm later became MS's biggest client).

His aforementioned role in philanthropy, however, is what impresses me most. The Gates Foundation, now a worldwide behemoth focused on global issues (remember those TED mosquitoes?), had humble beginnings:

In the early days, Mr. Gates Sr., who soon remarried, would scribble a few notes on the most-promising requests for donations. He would then put them in a cardboard wine box that he periodically sent to his son's house. The box would come back with Bill Jr.'s responses. Mr. Gates Sr. would then reply to all the grant seekers, sometimes including a $1 million check with little more than a single-page letter of congratulations.

Mac, PC, Linux, Speak-n-Spell or otherwise, you can't find fault in that. [WSJ]

Fresh out of high school, Gates, along with Paul Allen and another accomplice by the name of Paul Gilbert, developed the Traf-o-Data (pictured here), which was used in conjunction with the black hoses laid down in streets to count the number of cars in an area. According to Gates, the whole thing was working fine, prompting him to invite some city officials to come and check it out.

When they showed up for the meeting, the Traf-o-Data was Traf-o-Dead. So what did Gates do? He went running to his MOTHER, enlisting her to convince the nice men his ingenious contraption worked.

After displaying his inability to grow a pair, Gates apparently got the device to work, though he only sold one...ever. But I guess that's better than the 0 units of the Nothing I was selling when I was 17. [Epicenter]