New Macs: Apple Tells Customers What They Want

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mbp.jpgSo the latest and greatest Macs are fresh out of the oven, and I am impressed AND amused.  The new laptops added the “Centrino 2” processors that have been gracing Win/Linux lappies for the past several months, but that’s not the real story.

The Good:

  • A new process allows Apple to create cases out of solid blocks of aluminum.  This means a light weight and very sturdy design.  MacBooks lost a half pound!  (tho Pros are actually heavier somehow)
  • A glass track pad – no buttons (well physical buttons at least) and multi-gesture support (think iPhone).
  • Real graphics power.  MacBooks get nvidia 9400M a huge leap from crappy “integrated” graphics. Pros get a switchable 9400M / 9600M.  (Having the 9600M in my notebook I can tell you it will play any game at full settings and it can almost play Crysis at Medium)
  • The Air got a processor and storage boost making it slightly easier to justify it’s price

The Bad:

  • Steve Jobs called blu-ray a “bag of pain” (in his ass apparently) and therefore no one really needs to watch HD DVDs on their hip new rig since they can buy HD content off of itunes.  (yeah they went there)
  • Apple also said “HDMI is limited in resolution… for typical computer use, display port is the connector of the future.”  Too bad we all live in the present where everything has an HDMI connector. (nevermind only apple product use Display port)  But don’t worry you can still use DVI with an adapter… (what happened to the Apple minimalism in design here?)
  • Apple wants to you save electricity but computing in the dark… Apple is now only offering glossy screens (they claim there a matted glossy) and not matte.  Glossy screens give better colors for all your Photoshopin’ time, but also give a lot of glare in anything but ideal conditions.  Aside: Yes my lappie has a gloss screen and yes I’m sitting in the dark right now and yes i will only buy matte from here on out.

All in all it seems like the real winner is the MacBook.  It got lighter and better at the same price.  Now the main thing you add with the Pros is size and weight.  I mean sure 9400M graphics is more limited gaming wise than the 9600M but – lets be honest – it can still play any game currently available on the Mac.  And by the time today’s PC games are ported over to the Mac, it will be time for a new laptop anyway.

Government “Helps” Dow Find The Bottom

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In an attempt to solve a problem created by government interference with the free market, the government has promised $700 Billion of additional “help” (minus a considerable amount of pork to get this “absolutely necessary” measure passed).   The market’s reaction? Sell, Sell, Sell! Apparently the greedy wall street bastards have less confidence in the government powers and promises then -well- the government’s own view.

The DJIA is not a perfect measure of the market but it’s an easy reference point.  Here are the closing of the Dow for the last few weeks:

Date Dow Change Notes
Mon, Sep 15, 08 10,917 The week before
Tue, Sep 16, 08 11,059 142
Wed, Sep 17, 08 10,609 -450
Thu, Sep 18, 08 11,019 410
Fri, Sep 19, 08 11,388 369
Mon, Sep 22, 08 11,015 -373
Tue, Sep 23, 08 10,854 -161
Wed, Sep 24, 08 10,825 -29 President Bush proposes $700B bailout
Thu, Sep 25, 08 11,022 197
Fri, Sep 26, 08 11,143 121 Democrats claim they have an agreement
Mon, Sep 29, 08 10,365 -778 House Republicans rejects first bill
Tue, Sep 30, 08 10,850 485
Wed, Oct 1, 08 10,831 -19 Senate passes revised bail out
Thu, Oct 2, 08 10,482 -349
Fri, Oct 3, 08 10,325 -157 House passes revised bail out; Bush signs
Mon, Oct 6, 08 9,955 -370
Tue, Oct 7, 08 9,447 -508
Wed, Oct 8, 08 9,258 -189
Thu, Oct 9, 08 8,579 -679
Fri, Oct 10, 08 8,451 -128

Note that in the week and a half before this “crisis” was declared such, the Dow dropped 92 points.  In the week and a half that the government displayed its competence at promising help without mentioning how we got here, the Dow dropped another 500 points.  And in the sole week since the ill-conceived  solution became law the Dow has plummeted another 1874 points.

How many billions will it cost tax payers to bail us out of this bail out?

UPDATE: Another week and the Dow has “recovered” to 8852.  Only another 2000 point gain is now needed to get us back where we started…

Republicans & Class Warfare

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A thought provoking Op-Ed by David Brooks:

Modern conservatism began as a movement of dissident intellectuals. Richard Weaver wrote a book called, “Ideas Have Consequences.” Russell Kirk placed Edmund Burke in an American context. William F. Buckley famously said he’d rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. But he didn’t believe those were the only two options. His entire life was a celebration of urbane values, sophistication and the rigorous and constant application of intellect.

Driven by a need to engage elite opinion, conservatives tried to build an intellectual counterestablishment with think tanks and magazines. They disdained the ideas of the liberal professoriate, but they did not disdain the idea of a cultivated mind…

But over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. Democrats kept nominating coastal pointy-heads like Michael Dukakis so Republicans attacked coastal pointy-heads…

I think Brooks is quite mistaken to use “republicans” and “conservatives” interchangeably. While is commentary on the GOP is pretty spot on, conservatives by and large have been left behind by both parties – at least on the national level.

SNL Bailout Sketch

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SNL had a funny and truthful sketch. satirizing the bailout mess. If your Tivo missed it youc an watch it below. Apparently it hit too close to home because it’s been yanked from the NBC web site… funny how that never seems to happen when the Republicans are at the brunt of the joke. A few quick facts before the sketch:

  • The couple Herbert and Marion Sandler is actually true to life. They created a sub-prime mortgage company that they sold to Wachovia for $24.2 billion
  • Our readers should already be aware that Bush (and to a lesser extent McCain) warned about Freddy & Fannie only to be defeated by the Democrats led by Barnie Frank
  • I’m sure Soros is making bank on this crisis (tho not all $700B), but lets not forget Warren Buffet who grabbed a $5B piece of the pie at a guaranteed 10% return forever at a time when most stock holders are feeling ill. Which is great (i love capitalism as much as anyone), but  remember that the next time he gets preachy on “fairness” and “equality” amongst the classes.

I also found it funny that SNL sooo often makes fun of Bush’s intelligence that they had to have another (Democratic) character confirm that he was right so you didn’t miss the joke. Now enjoy the 8 minute show:

The feed from YouTube keeps getting put up and yanked so here’s another source:

The Credit Crunch: Is It Your Fault?

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Victor Davis Hanson had an interesting piece last week that I came across today.  He throws the blame for the sub prime mortgage disaster -well part of it at least- right at your feet.  If you agree with him, a chance to redeem yourself is waiting a short month away.

When the mortgage bubble burst, Americans were “shocked” at how many Wall Street buccaneers had been gambling in a vast pyramid scheme with someone else’s money. Paper fortunes were made buying and selling questionable sub-prime mortgages on the silly assumption that such gargantuan inside profiting would always expand — even as the number of homebuyers able to buy overpriced properties was shrinking.

Now after the recent crash in sub-prime mortgages and the stock of several investment firms, a trillion dollars in “assets” could be nearly worthless…

All that remains of this Ponzi scheme is the election-year blame game. Republicans charge that important financial firewalls were dismantled by the Clinton administration while insider liberal senators got shady campaign donations in exchange for aiding Wall Street. Democrats counter that the laissez-faire capitalism espoused by Republicans for two decades encouraged financial piracy while tax policy favored the rich speculator over the middle-class wage earner.

But no one dares to ask what really drove the wheeler-dealer portfolio managers. Who re-elected these shady politicians of both parties? Who fostered the cash-in culture in which both Wall Street profit mongering and Washington lobbying are nourished and thrive? We citizens did — red-state conservatives and blue-state liberals, Republicans and Democrats, alike. We may be victims of Wall Street greed — but not quite innocent victims.