Vista SP1 has been released!

Let's see if all those people who were waiting for SP1 before trying Vista were only talking out their butt. I mean, I already made the prediction, which was verified with the screenshot of Slashdot I posted... My guess is that people aren't going to use Vista because they don't want to explain their opinion that Vista isn't worth it when they haven't even tried it, yet. (You know, that line they feed to everyone that doesn't like Linux?)

I'm eager to watch the irony unfold!

It is March 12 today... The 4th day of Super Smash Bros. Brawl's release. (And the 2nd day of Stargate SG-1: Ark of Truth's release.) I bought it the day of release. Went to church at 9:30 to 11:00am, then went to town, ran into Meijer, picked up the game, and got back home at 12:00. Had lunch, and then settled down for an all-day marathon. Best game ever. I don't think I've had a console on for so long. (With the exception of the Halo games, maybe.) Right now, I'm looking at the record screen and it says it's been on for 33 hours and 6 minutes, and that we've actually been playing for 16 hours and 32 minutes. Most of the power on time has been me spectating online matches and betting on the outcomes. (So incredibly awesome... And coins aren't at all hard to come by, so it's not like you're losing hard work or anything.)

But what post of mine could truly be considered a post of mine if I didn't bring up the idiocies of humanity? I don't read Digg anymore, but I have subscribed to the Games section RSS reed in my Google Reader, so I can keep up with the more important stuff. But, actually, since I've subscribed to Kotaku, as well, I get the majority of my gaming news from them, and Digg is always several lagging days behind. Unless, of course, there happens to be an intolerable "problem" with something... And what better article to promote than a "problem" with Nintendo? You'd think that since Digg obsesses with Apple and Linux and other "unappreciated" companies, they'd be cutting Nintendo some slack... But it seems that most of Digg is too busy trying to make their Playstation 3 look like a good purchase now that they've forgotten that Nintendo is and always will be the top dog. Anyway!

It seems people are having trouble getting online to play matches with SSBB. May I take a moment to utter a single word here? "Duh?" That's all. This is Nintendo's biggest title... The Smash Bros. line of games have always been hugely anticipated, and the last release (Super Smash Bros. Melee for Gamecube) has been continuously played since its own release so many years ago. This is the Halo of Nintendo... With free online services. Free. Online. Multplayer. It doesn't cost you anything, either... Oh, and it's completely free. Did I mention you don't have to pay anything for the ability to play online? Yeah. Remember when Xbox Live went offline due to the sheer amount of people trying to get online during Christmas break? That was largely attributed to fact that a lot of people were out of school and trying out their brand new Halo 3 game for real this time. The outcry was astonishing and people demanded refunds for a month (which, I might add, is a whopping 4 bucks)... You know! The typical whining that goes on when people are inconvenienced. Xbox Live, a service that you pay for and caters to millions upon millions of players went down... Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, a service that you do NOT pay for, goes down when a blockbuster game is released... People are shocked? People are surprised? There haven't been any sales numbers released for this thing, yet, but I'm going to guess that it's very, very high.

I'm just saying... Can you name a blockbuster (I know that's a term for movies, but I don't care) game title that sports online play that HASN'T experienced some server strain when it comes out? Face it, clueless gamers. Servers are built to sustain massive loads, yes, but there is absolutely no way to know if they CAN sustain massive loads until you release the game. Chances are high that you'll find some coding error that makes the game lag a tiny bit here, and then another error that causes another bit of inefficiency... Things show up after release that you simply can't plan for because your beta player base was nowhere near as high, and you have problems. World of Warcraft had problems with its initial release. After a couple years, they release the expansion pack and a whole new influx of players flooded the servers and they had problems again. Halo 3 effectively leveled the Xbox Live system, and now SSBB is randomly disconnecting people and experiencing some lag here and there... This is unexpected?

I've had SSBB all week and in all this time, I've been disconnected a grand total of 1 time. Once. It has happened so little (just once) that I attribute it to a wireless hiccup, since I'm inexperienced with setting wireless up to work with a router. It hasn't happened to me more than once, though I have experienced lag at times, but... Uhm. What online services doesn't lag out sometimes? Even Google/YouTube lags out every now and then, for crying out loud, and their entire income is based on those sites being UP. My advice to you whiners is to give Nintendo some time to work some issues out and maybe release patches (if they have to). It'll take time... It ALWAYS takes time to sort this stuff out, and it ALWAYS works out in the end. Kind of like when people were whining about there being no games for the Wii when it came out... Consoles ALWAYS have a small selection of games until publishers see that it's a platform to make money off of. Point is: This always happens. Wait it out, like you always have to, because there are always unforeseen oddities in any online service the day it goes live.

So maybe I analyzed this far too much. I guess that's what comes when you're in the business of analyzing heavy duty politics all the time... When you take the same approach to something as insignificant as gaming, you start getting a major over reaction. Oh, and while I'm thinking of it (because I was going to discuss this earlier in the post, but I couldn't figure a place to fit it in), here's a little screenshot of my Google Reader trends page:

12,717 items over the last 30 days... And, as you can see by the chart, I still have 8 days before I have a true 30-day analysis. I'm always looking for more feeds to subscribe to, also. Political feeds, if you please. If you find one that you think I'd enjoy reading (or one you think I should read) then let me know! Ahh... Politics. The ultimate exercise in managing level-headedness and anger, too. Still not quite Peter Heck-caliber yet, though. (I would have said Rush Limbaugh-caliber, but I really don't like how he responds to callers. I mean, they're definitely funny when someone makes a stupid comment and he makes fun of them, but Peter Heck seems to treat every caller seriously, even if they're ignorant views, and he answers them in a way that they could actually walk away with something learned.) He gets some funky callers sometimes and he knows exactly how to answer them to make them think really hard about what they just said. Me? I need time to think and research before I formulate a response.

Anyway... I need to do History and English Composition now... Maybe after I watch a couple Brawls, though.

Conversation on Digg:

Sega does what Nintendon't.

What, fail in the home console market?

Actually, they both did that. Nintendo just managed to bounce back.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Nintendo never failed! Why do people keep insisting that they did? Failure insinuates a complete break down of the product line. Failure defines Sega's line of consoles... Failure defines RadioShack's line of computer systems... Failure defines something that does so poorly that the company in question decides to stop producing and supporting the product in question. Nintendo did NOT FAIL in the home console market for the simple reason that they never stopped making consoles during any generation of consoles in history. They began with the NES and never missed a production cycle. Not only that, but they always made a profit on their consoles, whether or not it was the best selling system! The least selling console never automatically means the failed console. A failure would insinuate that the product line sold poorly and made no profit. The Gamecube may have come in last on sales, but Nintendo never lost a cent with it, and that completely destroys the idea that Nintendo ever failed at the console market. They may have been behind, but they were never a failure.

Sega failed... Nintendo did not.

I think I found a site I like! Saw an article about how Microsoft messed with the Vista kernel for the Service Pack (nothing major, it turns out), and then I saw this awesome little article: It's a Windows world: Deal with it.

Heeheehee... So true.

Wait, I lied... The title is misleading. I apologize.

People are getting upset because Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 is going to be ACID2 compatible, but only if you add a special <meta> tag to the sites that want IE to be running in that mode. Why? I fail to see why this is such a big deal, from the perspective of a web site designer.

Face it. IE6 was screwed up. But it was still the most popular browser until Firefox showed up on the scene. There are going to be countless sites that are built to cater to IE6's shortcomings and funky non-standards. That's just a fact. Standards compliant sites are a minority. Face it... Not many people but uber-geek techies (with nothing to lose if people don't visit their sites) are going to design outside IE's problems and force their readers to download another browser besides that which came by default with the most popular operating system in the world.

But people are still complaining about IE8. Why? I think it's because it should render sites properly without the addition of a tag, correct? I can understand that... A tiny, tiny bit. But you would rather Microsoft, who has a huge market share, whether you want to believe it or not, decide to fix their browser and then subsequently BREAK all the websites that were designed for IE6? How is that going to be a good thing?

"Hello, this is Microsoft. We finally fixed IE in version 8, but you're going to pay for our mistakes now, because your sites are going to be broken, and you're going to have to rush to make sure it all works again because we screwed up."

Yeah... That's going to be a good approach. (The Apple approach, haha: "We changed this, now deal with it, because we know best.") This is Microsoft we're talking about. Do you honestly think that's the best course of action for them? They have a huge responsibility to their existing users, and they have always bent over backwards to provide backwards compatibility for things. Just look at Windows... It's getting fatter and fatter because people still want to run the thing on ancient hardware. Of course, people complain about Windows being bloated... But then people also complain about Windows Vista having such steep system requirements when Microsoft decides to drop some old hardware in favor of the latest stuff. (And yet, Apple doesn't seem to garner this sort of reaction.)

Approach A: Microsoft builds Internet Explorer 8 to be 100% standards compliant all the time, without use of meta tags. Sites built to cater to the funkiness of the browser instantly stop working. Public outcry ensues because Microsoft doesn't give anyone time to fix the problem.

Approach B: Microsoft builds Internet Explorer 8 to be 100% standards compliant only with a special tag for sites that have been built to be standards compliant. Sites continue to work as they are at the moment, giving time for people to upgrade to the new standards mode. Public outcry ensues because Microsoft makes you add a tag to your site to run in the standards mode.

I am going to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt and say that this is a transitional phase between IE8 and IE9 and 10. Give people enough time to warm up to the new mode and give them enough time to fix their sites. Every browser has quirks. IE8 is a massive upgrade, from the sounds of things. There will, of course, be some quirks. Every application has them. When IE9 or 10 comes out, strip the compatibility feature and use that as the time limit for people to get their sites finished. There will naturally be a group of people who don't bother to upgrade until they have to, but that's what the time limit is for. Once you have a sample of how IE is going to work in standards mode, you can experiment without it being mission-critical that you have the site working flawlessly when IE8 rolls out.

But maybe that's just me and my being a fan of Microsoft shining through.

Nearly 100 Fixes Planned for Apple's Second Leopard Update
"Way to go, Apple! This is why I like them. They're always on top of getting things fixed."

Let's rewrite the headlines for the sake of argument:

Nearly 100 Fixes Planned for Microsoft's Second Vista Update
"My gosh, Microsoft... This is why I use Leopard! Everything just works, just like the commercials say."

Also, let's try this on for size:

You know you're a software company fanboy when:
1. You compare sizes of the patch release archive files...

Warning... This is a major anti-Apple post. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Okay, I made a point of not paying attention to the recent Apple developments, because, frankly, those Mac conventions give me a stomach ache, but, of course, since Digg is so biased for Apple, I get to read things even in articles that aren't supposed to pertain to Apple... So after I'd heard some things, I decided to see if such things were true, and, lo! They were! Now, I want to point and laugh at them:

1. This new MacBook Air thing? No optical drive. Sure, you can buy an external one (for extra), but there's not one built in anymore. Am I the only one who sees this as "reason not to buy #1"? I use my optical drive every single day! (Games, movies, etc!) I don't know about you, but I don't have the expenses to buy 3 million terabytes of hard drive space to store images of everything I own. (I guess if you can afford an Apple device, you could afford 3 million terabytes of storage, hoho.) I have literally hundreds of CDs and DVDs of stuff that I've burned and purchased and use quite frequently. Even DVD movies! This MacBook isn't going to be able to play movies without plugging in an external drive? What... the... heck... Oh, I see. You can wirelessly access another drive from a computer with some special Apple software installed! (Yes, as if I want the brilliant programming engineering that brought me iTunes to be messing directly with my hardware? I don't even have wireless because, frankly, it's immensely slow and I constantly copy very large files from computer to computer and I've considering upgrading to gigabit Ethernet, just because I don't like waiting half an hour to copy stuff!) So whenever you want to watch a movie on your latest Apple gizmo, just be sure your wireless is in range, and just be sure that the movie is in your desktop's drive before you get all settled in for 2 hours.

2. On the subject of wireless, that's the only thing you can use with a MacBook Air to access a network! Why? Because they completely got rid of the built in Ethernet port! Uhm... Actually, I think this is "reason not to buy #1". Whenever I go to someone's house, I usually have the option of picking between wireless or wired connectivity, and I always, always, always pick wired. Why? Because wireless is slow, usually not properly configured, and we sit there yelling the password letters to each other several times because something went wrong and we have to do it all over again. I always take a spare Ethernet cable with me because I can just plug and chug, so to speak. Securely, I might add. (It also lacks a Firewire port...) You can, however, buy ANOTHER device that converts a USB port to Ethernet. Yes... Let's pay Apple more money to get something that everyone else still adds to their laptop.

3. Zero user-replaceable parts. That means you have to send it in to an Apple store to replace anything and everything that breaks. Monitor, keyboard, battery... hard drive... RAM... everything. Why? Because it's sealed up tight, exactly like an iPod and everything's fused together even if you got the thing open. Oh, but don't worry. You can have the battery replaced for a very low price of $129

Actually, you don't have to worry about any of these things, because the MacBook Air is environmentally friendly! Mercury free, circuit boards without nasty chemicals that can damage the poor Earth. Yes, Sir, this is the laptop for all you global warming advocates! (By the way, it's going to be 9 degrees this weekend. That's awfully cold, you know.)

And let's not forget that Apple claimed this was the thinnest notebook in the world! Even though, uhm... They lied, and it's not: Thinnest Notebook Crown Belongs to Sharp But, hey. Let's just completely overlook the fact that Steve Jobs lies, because this is Apple! And Apple made something cool again! Even though there are thinner laptops out there. Poor Apple. There goes another selling point.

Can you imagine what would happen if Microsoft made anything like this? Can you imagine the uproar that would occur if you had to send in your laptop to Microsoft simply to replace a battery? To have it's RAM upgraded? To add a larger hard drive? Can you imagine the uproar if Microsoft was forcing you to buy adapters for things that should be built in anyway?

And don't take my word for it, here are all the references. Everyone likes to tell me how awesome Wikipedia is, and everyone enjoys asking me where I got all my information, so here you go! A single link to appease both parties! Now that I have references AND Wikipedia, I must be right. There'll be someone who comes along and will feel it's their duty to tell me that if I don't like Apple, I don't have to buy from them, and that such a thing is the wonder of the modern market! That I can choose what I want to buy! Yes, well, let me save you the trouble and say: You're completely right, and I'm not going to buy one of these Airs. Ever.