Tom's Hardware may have shed some light on why Apple made the switch

Many pundits have been confused by Apple's sudden switch to Intel processors, claiming that AMD makes more sense as Apple's new chip supplier from a technology perspective, or that Apple and Intel must be merging in an attempt to dethrone Microsoft (alright, Cringely's the only one saying that). Indeed, looking at Intel's current desktop processor technology, there does not seem to be a compelling technological reason for Apple to move their entire Macintosh product line to Intel chips. But maybe we need to look beyond their "desktop processors" to see what Steve Jobs & Co. were thinking. As this (rather surprising) article on Tom's Hardware Guide reveals, one of Intel's current chips that is based on a pre-Pentium 4 design not only outperforms both Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 FX chips in most applications, but it does so using much less power than either of these heat-sweating behemoths. When you think about this in light of Apple's stated reasons for switching to Intel (Steve Jobs had some vague numbers about "performance per watt"), it begins to look like Apple may have been eyeing Pentium M (Dothan) technology for the new Intel-based Macs. And Intel seems to be heading that way too. The Tom's article concludes with, "Intel's upcoming accelerated 65 nm dual-core processor, [is] code named 'Conroe.' Care to guess upon which architecture this design will be based?" I predict that we'll see Pentium M-based Mac Minis, iBooks, and Powerbooks first, followed by Conroe-based desktops and servers. I'll be very surprised if any Mac ever contains a Pentium 4 (other than Jobs' demo machine and the dev kit Apple is selling to its developers). I, for one, welcome our new mobile processor overlords. UPDATE: Tom's agrees, more or less.

Arctic drilling budget passes House and Senate

Late last night, both the House and Senate passed a budget with Arctic drilling language in it. The budget does not itself authorize drilling in the Arctic, but it directs lawmakers to come up with $2.4 billion in energy revenues. The pro-drilling crowd can use that to authorize Arctic drilling in the final budget. The good news is, the fight's not over. More to come...

Budget Will Trample the Arctic, Unless We Trample It

This Thursday, April 28, we'll probably see votes in the Senate and the House on the federal budget - a budget that currently contains a provision that would allow drilling in the Arctic Refuge.

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It's not just the Arctic Refuge at stake in this budget battle. If drilling in the Arctic Refuge is allowed, pristine, untrammeled lands like Arches National Park and offshore areas like Florida's coast could all be at risk. House Majority leader Tom Delay said it best when he said about Arctic drilling that "It's about precedent." One of President Bush's major supporters, Houston energy industry investment banker Matthew R. Simmons, said, "If you can't do ANWR, you'll never be able to drill in the promising areas."

We are tantalizingly close to stopping this budget and stopping the oil industry's plans to turn America's pristine public lands into spider webs of oil rigs, roads, and pollution. Just four votes are needed in the House of Representatives and just two votes in the Senate.

Deconstructing Stupidity

James Boyle, a law professor at Duke, has written a very nice little article on why intellectual property law and policy as we know it is so stupid. He moves past the easy "corporate capture of the decision making process" explanation toward trying to understand the real reasons behind the unprofitable, public-domain damaging decisions we keep making regarding IP law. He rightly refers to these decisions as "stupid" because they are motivated by a lack of understanding and a systematic omission of evidence upon which to base any understanding. I've quoted this guy a lot in my own writings on intellectual property, especially as it relates to information and media. One of the few people who actually understands intellectual property law's raison d'être.