So we can't say for sure exactly what changes the Naked Mole Rat has made to his daily pharmaceutical intake over the course of this past month (less cough syrup, more benzene?), but whatever he's doing differently, it's working for him. Not only has he posted four updates in sixteen days (a frequency 40% better than even when his previous incarnation tapped the keys for the long-lamented dead tree edition of MacWEEK), but this latest account even serves up the juice on the down and dirty world of intraoffice Apple politics. High frequency and high drama? It's like Christmas in July! (Only in March.)

Scholars of Jobsian History are only too familiar with the way in which Apple's once and present king instigated what amounted to an Apple civil war. On the one side was the Apple II team, developing and supporting the company's flagship architecture that had paid the bills for the past seven years; on the other stood the Macintosh team, a band of Jobs-styled pirates that flew the Jolly Roger and looked to take Apple into its next era of greatness. (See the flawless historical document Pirates of Silicon Valley for more on this bitter schism.) Now, even if you're only up on your recent Apple history, you may notice that if you take another look at the above description and replace the words "Apple II" with "Mac OS 9" and "Macintosh" with "Mac OS X" (and the number seven with seventeen), you've got a pretty accurate portrayal of the tension over at One Infinite Loop. We don't know what it is about Steve that inspires class war wherever he goes, but such is life.

Yes, ever since Steve got Gil Amelio bounced out on his butt, seized control of the company he cofounded, and placed his trusted NeXT comrades in positions of power, we've heard the occasional story of NeXT-vs.-"Classic" Apple friction burning away in Cupertino. While it never seemed to get as out of hand as the Apple II-vs.-Macintosh rivalry lo these many years ago, there was reportedly a definite bipartisan split that may have been to Apple's detriment. But according to the Rat, this latest round of us-versus-them may be winding to a close, now that Mac OS X has shipped and stands poised to become the Macintosh operating system. With the completion of the 10.0 version, the Rat reports that the 9 and X teams are finally being united into One Big Happy, with Steven Glass (formerly "Mac OS 9's top dog") taking overall responsibility for operating system quality assurance and engineering, and Bertrand Serlet (who was reportedly instrumental in debloatifying our new OS) heading up Mac OS X research.

Is the end of this latest Hatfield-McCoy feud a sign of an older, wiser Steve? Or is it just a temporary respite until the epic Desktop-vs.-Portables war heats up this summer? Only time will tell...