The Apple mothership is coming

Apple products often look like they are from the future, and Steve Jobs is going to take that same design approach to the design of Apple's new campus in Cupertino.



The massive new building (roughly as large as the pentagon, although only consisting of a single ring) would house up to 13,000 employees in a four story structure featuring curved glass windows around the entire building. Existing surface parking would be moved underground allowing for an increase the amount of green space on the 150 acre plot of land from 20% to 80%. Thats one way to think different.

If approved by the City of Cupertino (and it looks like it will be) they would break ground next year with completion scheduled for 2015.

Lions and iPhones and iCloud, oh my!

In case you missed it the Steve Jobs led keynote at Apple's annual World Wide Developer Conference was Monday and demoed the latest version of Mac OS X and iOS PLUS introduced us to Apple's latest cloud computing effort, creatively titled iCloud. Read on for my first impressions of Lion. I'll follow up with some hands on impressions of iOS 5 and iCloud tommorow!

Mac OS X Lion
The big theme for Lion is incorporating key improvements from iOS. Expanded multi-touch gestures (avialable via laptop touchpads, the Magic Touchpad peripheral and the Magic Mouse). Some gestures have been available in Snow Leopard but this will create a more common vocabulary between the desktop and mobile platforms, easing the transition for new users.

Tired of having to re-open documents and re-arrange your windows everytime you open or close an app? Worry no more in Lion! Apps will restore themselves iOS style when you close and open them, even across restarts.

Getting new Applications will be easier too, thanks to the Mac App Store, which allows iOS style download purchasing. You can actually try that now in Snow Leopard. In fact Lion will be available only as an upgrade via the Mac App Store from Snow Leopard. No more installing from disc, for better or worse.

Once you've downloaded apps you can launch them in the traditional way, locating them in the file system and double click the icon. Or you can launch them via the new Launchpad, an iOS style list of installed Applications, including iOS style folders to group them, across multiple swipe-able pages visible on the desktop at a key press (or gesture?).

So with all these iOS style features, are we seeing the slippery slope towards a completely iOS style desktop OS? No more multi-tasking, multi-window applications? No more mouse and keyboard, just touch? Some are suggesting that but I disagree. Creative professionals are one of Apple's big markets and the way they work is at odds with such a limited feature set. Steve Jobs himself has referred to the desktop OS as the truck, a specialized tool for the heavy lifting. No, while OS X and iOS may cross-pollinate, they will stay distinct.

Superconference shuffle - Let the domino's fall

In my last post I outlined the reasons I think the current state of college football is only temporary, but when that change comes what will it look like? Will Notre Dame finally join a conference? Will Boise State ever get some BCS respect? Will the WAC survive? Here's my take on how I think things are likely to shake out.

- Texas A&M, fed up with playing second fiddle to Texas steps out from under the Longhorns shadow and leaves the Big 12 for the SEC. This gives the SEC a much desired foothold in football rich Texas.

- With the Big 12 losing another key member and jealous of the money flowing to the Pac-12 teams out west, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Texas take up the Pac-12's offer to join them and create the Pac-16 super conference.

- Not happy with Baylor being left out of a BCS AQ conference, the Texas legislature, Texas A&M, Baylor and the SEC strike a deal to include the Bears along with the Aggies in the SEC, further pushing its presence in Texas and continuing a natural rivalry for the Aggies in their new conference.

- At 14 teams the SEC faces the prospect of splitting an existing rivalry across division boundaries adds an additional two teams. They could pick up Florida State and Miami, or Clemson and Georgia Tech, but there is little benefit in adding teams in their existing footprint and its likely they'd face opposition from the existing schools in those regions. Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina enjoy a recruiting advantage over their in state competition due to the perceived strength of the SEC. Instead the SEC poaches Virginia and Virginia Tech from the ACC.

- With the Pac-12 and SEC moving up to 16 teams apiece, the Big Ten takes the opportunity to reach out to its two preferred Big East expansion choices, Rutgers and Pitt. Both are strong academically and Give the conference a strong presence on the coast. Rutgers gives inroads into the New York City media market as well. Syracuse is another option but its upstate location is not as big an advantage.

- The ACC seeking to bolster its dwindling ranks makes a play for the remaining Big East schools, with two exceptions, TCU and USF. With a strong presence already in Florida they don't need USF and TCU falls well outside the geographic footprint.

- Meanwhile the Big Ten makes its play for Notre Dame, who is faced with the choice of keeping its non-football sports with a diminished Big East consisting of the non-1-A football schools or joining the premiere 1-A academic conference. Although they prize their independence, the writings on the wall and the Irish finally accede to the Big Ten's overtures. This puts the Big Ten up to 15 schools. In order to fill out its ranks and provide a good rival for the Irish, the Big Ten picks its 16th school from the ACC and invites Boston College, increasing its presence on the east coast.

Essentially at this point we've seen the consolidation of 6 major conferences into 4 super conferences, the Pac-16, SEC, and Big Ten at 16 teams and the ACC at 14. It's possible the ACC could look for two more members to move up to 16, Army and Navy being the most likely choices, but I think 14 works for them.

So now that the big boys have finished what happens to the rest? In particular those schools left out (Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Missouri)?

- The four remaining Big 12 schools, along with BYU, TCU, and the top schools from the Mountain West (Boise State, Colorado State, AIr Force, UNLV, Nevada, Fresno State, SDSU, and Hawaii) merge to form a new BCS AQ conference.

- The remaining MWC schools, New Mexico State and Wyoming, migrate to the WAC.

- USF joins Conference USA

- The Sun Belt and MAC remain unchanged.

BCS AQ Conferences

PAC 16	BIG TEN	SEC	ACC	MOUNTAIN WEST
Arizona	BC	Alabama	Cincy	Air Force
ASU	Illinois	Arkansas	Clemson	Boise State
Cal	Indiana	Auburn	Duke	BYU
Colorado	Iowa	Baylor	FSU	CSU
Oklahoma	Michigan	Florida	Georgia Tech	Fresno State
Ok State	Michigan State	Georgia	Louisville	Hawaii
Oregon	Minnesota	Kentucky	Maryland	Iowa State
Oregon St.	Notre Dame	LSU	Miami	K State
Stanford	Nebraska	Miss State	NC State	Kansas
Texas	Northwestern	Mississippi	Syracuse	Missouri
Texas Tech	Ohio State	South Carolina	UConn	Nevada
UCLA	Penn State	Tennessee	UNC	SDSU
USC	Pitt	Texas AM	W Virginia	TCU
Utah	Purdue	Va Tech	Wake Forest	UNLV
Washington	Rutgers	Vanderbilt
WSU	Wisconsin	Virginia

Non-AQ Conferences

C-USA	MAC	SUN BELT	WAC	INDY
ECU	Akron	Ark State	Idaho	Army
Houston	Ball State	FAU	L Tech	Navy
Marshall	BGSU	FIU	New Mexico
Memphis	Buffalo	MTSU	New Mex St.
Rice	C Mich	North Texas	SJSU
SMU	E Mich	S Alabama	Texas State
So Miss	Kent State	Troy	UT-SA
Tulane	Miami (OH)	UL Lafyette	Utah State
Tulsa	NIU	UL Monroe	W Kentucky
UAB	Ohio		Wyoming
UCF	Toledo
USF	W Mich
UTEP

So thats one way things might shake out, but I'm no Nostradamus. I think the SEC/Pac-16 predictions are the strongest, and beyond that it starts to get hazy. Think I'm wrong somewhere? Think you've got a better idea who goes where? Will there only be four super conferences and four Big-12 schools will get left out? Will Notre Dame stick it out as an independent? Will Texas join BYU and ND on its own? Well if you feel like playing football God you can reserve a copy of NCAA Football 12 which recently announced its adding a feature that will allow you to reform conferences from anywhere from 4 to 16 members, change BCS Bowl AQ status and more. Of course you can also make some predictions in the comments section too.

Superconference shuffle - Setting the Stage

The summer of 2010 was an exciting one for fans of college football. We very nearly saw the complete collapse of one of the 6 BCS Auto-Qualifier conference and the creation of at least one 16 team super conference. For a good roundup of the moves and intrigue check out this wikipedia article. For now it looks like everything will settle in for 2012 as follows (although the WAC may still add a few members, likely 1-AA teams, and there are rumors the Big East would move up to 10 team inviting Villanova to move up to 1-A in football). Teams which changed conferences are in bold below.

BCS AQ Conferences

Pac 12	Big 12	Big Ten	SEC	ACC	Big East
Arizona	Baylor	Illinois	Alabama	BC	Cincinatti
ASU	Iowa State	Indiana	Arkansas	Clemson	Lousiville
Cal	K State	Iowa	Auburn	Duke	Pitt
Colorado	Kansas	Michigan	Florida	FSU	Rutgers
Oregon	Missourri	Michigan State	Georgia	Georgia Tech	Syracuse
Oregon State	OK State	Minnesotta	Kentucky	Maryland	TCU
Stanford	Oklahoma	Nebraska	LSU	Miami	Uconn
UCLA	Texas	Northwestern	Mississippi	NC State	USF
USC	Texas AM	Ohio State	Miss State	UNC	W Virginia
Utah	Texas Tech	Penn State	South Carolina	Virginia
Washington		Purdue	Tennessee	Virginia Tech
WSU		Wisconsin	Vanderbilt	Wake Forest

Non-AQ Conferences

MWC	WAC	C-USA	Sun Belt	MAC	Independent
Air Force	Idaho	ECU	Ark State	Akron	Army
Boise State	L Tech	Houston	FAU	Ball State	BYU
Colorado St.	New Mexico	Marshall	FIU	BGSU	Navy
Fresno State	San Jose State	Memphis	MTSU	Buffalo	Notre Dame
Hawaii	Texas State	Rice	North Texas	C Mich
Nevada	UT-San Antonio	SMU	S Alabama	E Mich
New Mex State	Utah State	So Miss	Troy	Kent State
SDSU		Tulane	UL Lafyette	Miami (OH)
UNLV		Tulsa	UL Monroe	NIU
Wyoming		UAB	W Kentucky	Ohio
		UCF		Toledo
		UTEP		W Mich

Ok, got all that? Good, but don't be too excited because it may not last long. A number of factors still exist that could cause conference re-alignment to come up again before we reach a good stable state. Three conferences in particular would seem to be on shaky ground.

First and most obvious is the WAC. After its attempt to poach teams from the Mountain West backfired, the WAC is looking more like the WEAK. Already they are bolstering their football ranks with a team who is just starting a football program (UT-San Antonio) and a 1-AA program (Texas State). It's likely any new teams that join would similarly be stepping up from the lower sub-division. To put it bluntly the WAC is a few more defections away from being a de-facto 1-AA conference. It's no secret that Louisiana Tech is interested in joining Conference USA and would probably jump given the chance. Meanwhile Utah State is a potential expansion target for the Mountain West. The WAC is struggling to keep its head above water, and this analysis by Zach Bloxham over at The Upset Blog highlights how low attendance is for those schools.

Second we have the Big East. Although a powerhouse in basketball (where its already a super conference with 17 members) its football slate is weak. Many feel its inclusion as a BCS AQ conference is unwarranted and a holdover from past football glory of departed members. They Big East reached out in desperation to TCU to bolster its ranks despite the Horned Frogs not being geographic fit. It wouldn't be the first time the Big East has had to deal with the consequences of conference re-allignment either. In the 2004-2005 cycle three of the strongest Big East teams left for the ACC and the Big East had to add in new teams then, teams which so far haven't lived up to the level set by departing members. During the past summer a number of teams were rumored as possible candidates for future expansion by the Big Ten (Rutgers, Pitt, Syracuse) and the ACC could come calling again if other conferences move up to 16.

Finally we come to the Big 12. This is a conference thats on shaky ground. A last minute deal struck that gives particular favor to the Texas Longhorns does nothing to solve the friction that cause schools like Colorado and Nebraska to seek greener pastures. Texas A&M was rumored to have interest in the SEC, a move that would allow it to differentiate itself from Texas and step out of the shadow of its bitter rival. With the money that the Pac-12 schools will be seeing from their recently re-negotiated media deal (divided equally among all members) you have to imagine a few of the schools that were approached to join the Pac-10 and form the Pac-16 have to be questioning their decision. It might not take much to crack the thin ties binding this conference together and the four northern schools, who were willing to concede money to other members for their remaining in the Big 12, who were likely to be left out of any major expansion scenarios might not be so lucky next time around.

So there we have it, an unstable equilibrium ready to crack and cause a cascade that will reshape major college football like never before. Next time we'll take a look at a few ways such changes would likely shake out.

The blog was created by man and it has a plan

If you read my blog in the past you'll know that my posting went from infrequent to non-existent. As you may have guessed thats a very bad way to run a blog, people tend to stop reading when you stop posting. My goal for this blog is to post on a more regular basis. I'll add something at least once a day during the week, sometimes a long post with my thoughts on various topics (sports, technology, and politics being the most likely subjects) other times it will be a link to something I find interesting, a blog post, news story, or fun youtube video. Hopefully I'll post often enough to keep people interested about enough things that they'll be interested in. I'm also hoping that people will start posting comments and get good debate going (remember to keep it civil!). So if you are returning welcome back, if you are new hope you enjoy my new efforts!

Coming soon to a blog near you...

So the blog looks pretty empty right now. Just this one post? Don't worry! More is coming soon! I'm cleaning things up a bit in anticipation of restarting the blog, so stay tuned!