Thursday, May 28, 2009

News - Thursday, May 28, 2009

This A-hole was by far the most infuriating part of the original Punch-Out for me as a kid, even if he was only on soda pop and not vodka in the NES version.

- At this point, I'm thinking of robbing someone to secure fundage to buy the new Punch-Out! It has been getting good reviews from even the traditional newspaper sources, and the game itself looks slick. Click here to see it in action.

- I've always been a PC loyalist, possibly because they are all that I know. When I was growing up and much more into computers, back in the days of multiplayer gaming on Heat.net and Quake: Team Fortress tournaments, I always viewed Macs as, well, not an option. Most good commercial games didn't get released for them, and if they did, they often came many months after.

Of course, all of that changed with the rise of the iEverything of Apple products, which probably partly explains why Dell's profit has plummeted 34 percent, beyond the bad economy. The odd thing that has surprised me about the rise of Apple has been that all of its products are basically hype. An Apple doesn't get viruses because it is a weaker machine, just like a Toyota Corolla is probably going to breakdown less than a luxury auto. (A PC isn't really a Ferrari, and while I would like to compare it to a Lexus or Audi or Benz, I have no idea how reliable any of those are, making the analogy hard.) An iPod doesn't really offer many functional advantages over the majority of MP3 players, and likewise with the iPhone vs. most other cell phones. I agree with Maddox's take on it.

... Yet despite all of that, I just bought an iPod about a month ago. In my defense, I am a consumer whore, and it was only $30 on eBay. Still, in hindsight, I wish I had just gotten an MP3 player instead.

- Piggybacking on the previous paragraphs a bit, this guy sounds like a friggin' loon, but the idea intrigues me. Too bad that the project seems to be dead, since the last blog post there was in October 2007.

4 comments:

  1. I hate macs and all the hype over Apple products. PC for the win!
    I do own an ipod though. But that's the only thing I'll ever buy from Apple. Probably.

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  2. Danielle: I might eventually have to buy a Mac, because the one aspect it is legitimately superior to a PC in - editing - is something I'm tangentially interested in. However, I get the feeling that this gap will narrow as more PC programmers get interested in it, and also as PC hardware gets even more standardized. We've gone from the horrors of Soundblaster to the ease of USB in 20 years, after all.

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  3. I would say Apples, if you are going to make a car comparison, are Volvos. Completely unsexy (from the perspective of a serious computer user), but incredibly reliable. If you just want to get from Point A to Point B, go for it. I don't know if there is an equivilant to the cult around Apple in terms of cars (maybe Corvettes? Not a great car, but people go wild for them anyway...)

    PCs are Fords. You can get a sexy Mustang or a Shelby, or you can get a more practical Taurus or an Escort. But the damn things break down all the time. Unfortunately, so do just about every other kind of car, so I don't know why people obsess about it.

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  4. @Bob: The Volvo comparison is a good one. Anything that is worth having tends to break down from time to time. Like women! Hi-oh!

    ... Wait, no!

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