Work
Had to manage several engineers, bosses expectations, several techs, and a field tech from a company whose products we buy at work today. Very draining, on top of only 4 hours of sleep last night. Went well considering all the myriad things that could have gone wrong.

Music
Ever have one of those nights where you throw in some music around 10pm and listen to it all night because it's just too good to turn off? That was my night last night. I was too excited to go to bed until 3am, and would have stayed up until dawn if I didn't have to work.

ATTENTION TI DAVE INFIDEL
My local megaliquormart sells Spaten. I'll pick up a sixer next time I'm there. I'll probably buy some Radeberger as well. Mmmmm, beer taste test.

Roomie M
Is getting my old PC. He decided he couldn't afford a laptop. So I gave him my old PC which I was going to dump anyway. All he had to buy was a monitor.

MacMini
Or is it MiniMac? I can't remember. I'm just never going to shut up about this thing. Today I'm going to tell you why the MacMini is not going to change the computing landscape, although I wish it could. Yesterday TheoEsc had a prediction in his diary:

No PC will come match the noise * price * volume score until 2007 or later.

TheoEsc is right in his noting of the appeal of small sized computers and low noise output. Indeed there are PC products that are already on the fringe of the MacMini in these categories. I think we'll see PCs at 0.9 by the end of the first quarter in '06. I think it depends on how well the macmini sells. The technology is already developed to compete with it. Some examples follow.

First, my ITX box is at 0.4 of the MacMini in the above equation. Same price (factoring in only what the macmini includes), 2.5x volume, and fanless (at 1GHz). It's also more feature rich, with digital audio out, CF reader, and a PCMCIA slot. It is strictly a hobbyist box, however. It takes a fair amount of computer knowledge to put together.

Then there is nano-itx, which is currently vaporware, although in theory coming out this quarter. The form factor is on par with the macmini, although its feature set is not as impressive. Coupled with the nanode case from hoojum, it looks better than the macmini (completely subjective of course).

Next is a dinky computer that is meant to serve the market in the developing word, the AMD PIC.

Somewhat larger but still much smaller than the old ATX box are these offerings from Shuttle and ASUS.

Some people have pointed out that there are no x86 chips that run particularly cool compared to the blazing infernos found in modern P4s and Athlons that will be needed to run small fanless computers. The C3s from Via now have fanless versions up to 1Ghz. AMD recently introduced its "Geode" line of low power processors, with the NX 1750 apparently able to run fanless at 1.4 GHz (although at 14 watts the heatsink is probably getting up there in size, nothing like the thermaltake fan on your P4, however).

None of these items are more impressive than the macmini, but with the Geode processor, the base is there for creating a real competitor. If the macmini takes off, there will be PC equivalents almost instantly.

However, I see little reason to think this will happen. I don't think these tiny computers will take much market share in the home PC market. The desktop market is slowly shrinking into gamers and power users only, who have no use from this "computer appliance." Everyone else, well, they're going to get laptops, if they don't already have one, for several reasons.

1. They're cheap. The iBook is $1000. Given that, why should I even buy a mac mini? The ibook already has the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and wireless card built in. As such the macmini is priced as a near term solution only.
2. Who is ever at home to use a desktop computer, or has zero reason to not bring a computer with them anywhere, ever? Maybe your parents? That's about it.
3. Ubiquitous wireless internet access. Still a few years off, but pretty soon you'll be able get on the web pretty much anywhere in urban areas for cheap, if not free.

Computing is getting very close to a true mobile experience. Why own a corded computer? Laptops are cool, extremely powerful devices. Minimacs are a neat idea.

I hope they sell like hot cakes anyway. Consumers would benefit greatly from erosion in wintel market share. I do think the mac mini is aimed solely at a small segment of curious PC users. If Apple really wanted to take market share from wintel with this device, they would have priced it much cheaper as a loss leader. Some people argue that Apple is looking to become a consumer electronics company. That may be. If they are looking to steal market share, I think they will do it with cheap and efficient future generations of the iBook. Notebooks are the future, not desktops, regardless of their size.