New Apple Macintosh Hardware Announced at MacWorld Expo

The long-awaited (since may of '05 anyway) first Macs based on Intel hardware were announced at the MacWorld expo today. Steve Jobs announced the following among other things from Apple.

From http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/:
"You've dreamed about it long enough. Now it has a name: MacBook Pro. Powered by a dual-core Intel engine. Up to four times the speed of the PowerBook G4. Eight times the graphics bandwidth. With built-in iSight for instant video conferencing on the move. And Front Row with Apple Remote to dazzle everyone in the room. Wait no more. MacBook Pro starts at just $1999.
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This is the first Mac notebook built upon the revolutionary new Intel Core Duo- which is actually two processors (up to 1.83GHz) engineered onto a single chip. It provides 2MB of Smart Cache, L2 cache that can be shared between both cores as needed. It delivers higher performance in 2D and 3D graphics, video editing, and music encoding. And the new engine is only part of the story. MacBook Pro has a frontside bus and memory that, at 667MHz, runs faster than any previous Mac notebook. It's the first Mac notebook with PCI Express, a Serial ATA hard drive and the ATI Mobility Radeon X1600."

Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbook

I would LOVE one of these things. But I have an 11 month old 12" G4 iBook. And I don't use it as often as I should. No way to justify a new one. I'll let them work out the kinks in the new hardware for a while anyway (insert sour grapes here).

It sounds like there is no Firewire 800 port on this new laptop. Wonder what the story is with that? I'm sure there will be a good bit of tooth-gnashing over this. I suspect the Intel motherboard options would have made it more costly than Apple could justify. Either way, the operating system, OS X is what makes all the difference in the world in my opinion.

The Bureaucrat in Your Shower - Mises Institute

This is a good column. It shows the level of interference we now have in our lives from bureaucrats. I doubt that the founding fathers had this level of federal government control in mind when the drafted the Constitution.

The Bureaucrat in Your Shower - Mises Institute: "The Department of Energy may soon be paying a visit to a certain shower-head manufacturer in Arizona. The company is Zoe Industries Manufacturing. It runs Showerbuddy.com, a popular site that sells amazing equipment for bathrooms.

Consumers love the company but one man doesn't. He is Al Deitemann, head of conservation for the Seattle Water Board. Al ordered some products and sent them to BR Laboratories in Hungtington, California, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. And sure enough, Bureaucrat Al gained enough data to report Zoe to the feds, accusing Zoe of 'blatant violations of environmental protection laws.' Now the heat is on."

The Sick Used to Die - Mises Institute

Quote of the month!! ;-)

"Alas, it seems that ignorance continues to be a renewable resource ..."


The Sick Used to Die - Mises Institute: "As more and more Chinese attain standards of living and wealth that approach what has been known as middle-class in the developed world, they are discovering a 'luxury' not previously known to them: chronic disabling illness.

I remember when such matters first came to my awareness at the tender age of twelve, on a family visit to Canada. I remarked to my father, a man who understood and cherished free markets and freedom itself, on how healthy all the Canadians looked. Handicapped parking places hadn't yet been invented, but it looked as though they wouldn't have been needed in Canada anyway.
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Alas, it seems that ignorance continues to be a renewable resource..."

Today's Quotes

Some quotes from great QB and congressman from Oklahoma today, J.C. Watts. We're all worse off for not having him as a leader.

"My father taught that the only helping hand you're ever going to be able to rely on is the one at the end of your sleeve."
-- J. C. Watts, Jr.
(1957- ) US Congressman from Oklahoma (R), former quarterback in the Canadian Football League


"The government taxes you when you bring home a paycheck. It taxes you when you make a phone call. It taxes you when you turn on a light. It taxes you when you sell a stock. It taxes you when you fill your car with gas. It taxes you when you ride a plane. It taxes you when you get married. Then it taxes you when you die. This is taxual insanity and it must end."
-- J. C. Watts, Jr.
(1957- ) US Congressman from Oklahoma (R), former quarterback in the Canadian Football League