Monday, June 27, 2005

Household Ecosystem

A great many things have been happening recently, some good, some bad, nothing I really feel like writing about -- at least at the moment.

---

Anyways, I hope I took steps to remove the local wildlife residing in my basement for the past several weeks. I don't really use my basement much, except for the washer & dryer, so to say it gets neglected by the vacuum is probably a slight understatement.

When I moved in a couple of years ago, a small table I had broke apart... it's one of those really simple tables with two flat sections connected by four posts. Pretty basic. The leftover pieces of which get moved around every couple of months as I clean or reorganize the downstairs. Apparently, the last move resulted in an ideal environment for silverfish. When I went to clean the most recent time, there were probably about 20-30 silverfish, some alive, most dead. What killed them? Presumably spiders, as a few of the victims were balled up in silk suspended from the table surface, which was leaning against the wall.

What is eating the spiders you ask? House centipedes. These things are scary looking. Not too many insects get to me, but these things make my skin crawl. First of all, they are FAST. Secondly, and probably most notable, if you happen to "squish" one... the detached legs continue to twitch for a minute or two.

All of these guys disappear in the winter months, so obviously they have not signed a year-round lease. If I could just figure out where they come from...

---
In the interest in writing anything, the preceding post was not checked for grammatical, typographical, existential, geometric, or emotional errors. I also just read the Wiki I linked above, and apparently house centipedes eat silverfish also. Great.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Apple "Switch"ing to Intel

For those not at all into computers who might be reading this, I'd probably skip this entry... geekspeak ahead. This is also going to be a fairly long post. (To make up for all the short ones.) :)

---

Apple has announced that they are switching from IBM-manufactured PowerPC processors to Intel x86 chips beginning with systems manufactured during the middle of next year. For those not familiar with the significance here, this is tantamount to George W. Bush announcing he's going to donate all of his salary to the ACLU. This is a big deal for the Apple faithful.

Ars Technica has a great article up detailing exactly why this hits Apple's hardcore user base especially hard. Apple has always claimed technical superiority to the Pentium crowd. It is arguable whether this has ever been true, but they have successfully created a religious core user group who have been following the dogma lockstep. "I'll believe it when I see it" and "it will never happen" were common quotes on the Apple forums the day preceding the announcement. The next day, their second most-hated enemy in the world is now their new best buddy.

All of the media pundits are speculating as to what Apple's intentions are and who their real target is: Dell's computers, or Microsoft's Windows OS. Robert Cringely (famous for the "Triumph of the Nerds" documentary on PBS) has his take that Microsoft is the target, and gives good insight into why IBM pissed off Apple so much. Motley Fool's idea is that Apple intends to go after Dell.

While I agree largely with Cringely, and his idea of what will happen doesn't conflict with my view, I don't think that Steve Jobs is as much of a visionary as most give him credit for. I don't think he has a target in mind.

I would hypothesize that IBM has, for at least the past 3 years, been a less than satisfactory partner for Apple, due to their persistent lag of performance and clock speed, despite their marketing department's assurances to the contrary. This in itself would justify creating x86 builds of OS X for the past 5 years. (See the Ars article for more on that, it wasn't that hard.) The final straw, causing Apple to finally bail on IBM and the PowerPC, was Big Blue's inability or unwillingness to create a G5 processor that they could put into a PowerBook and not light the user's lap on fire, along with Steve Jobs not being able to keep his promise of a 3 GHz G5 Power Mac in 2004.

For IBM's part, they have limited incentive to spend time and money on a platform that only holds 3% market share, and is virtually non-existent in the business world at large. It makes much more sense for them to concentrate on the next-gen gaming console market with Microsoft and Sony. (XBox 360 and PS3 respectively.)

Apple has said repeatedly they have no intention to allow OS X to run on non-Apple hardware, and historically, they have sued the sh*t out of anyone who has tried to make an Apple clone. Which, unless Jobs leaves as CEO (as Cringely suggests is probable,) this strategy is unlikely to change.

The conclusion I draw from all of this, is that this is nothing more than a "simple" switch of architecture, to a platform believed to be more viable for the future growth of their computer business. The catalyst for all of this may well be the iPod, which gives them the revenue to ride out such a significant change.

Apple has been the BMW or Mercedes-Benz of the personal computer industry for the past few years, commanding a price premium for the perception of quality and eliteness... they're just switching engines.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Milwaukee Pictures



"Best of" Pictures from the Time Warner 225 in Milwaukee are up at the link above (and here) for anyone who is interested. A good time was had by all, the downtown Hilton was conveniently close to the RiverSplash festival which was going on. We also ate a great dinner at a locally-famous German restaraunt called Mader's.

I'm going to have to do a writeup on the Apple switching to Intel thing -- hopefully tomorrow.

NOTE: I seem to be having problems getting my image linking to work... hence the alternate link.

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Off to Milwaukee

Race #2 for me this season is this weekend... at the Milwaukee Mile. Coinciding with the race is RiverSplash, basically a 3-day drinking and music exercise downtown. Lots'o'fun. I also used Priceline for the first time and got a killer deal on the downtown Hilton, so I don't have to worry about driving much. Pictures of the race up when I get back.

I also just joined NetFlix and watched my first movie - High Fidelity. I read the book a few weeks ago, and I have to say this is one of the best book adaptations I have ever seen... even considering they changed the location from London to Chicago.