Why is XBOX doing so well?

The new XBOX is selling like hot cake: one million on the first day.

I rarely ever play video games these days... not because I don't like them just not have time now. I never liked the XBOX... I have seen a previous reincarnation. It seems big and bulky... especially its joystick. I prefer the PS. I also love the Wii's fun controllers. Well yes, Kinect is cool... it makes you move.

So I am never a XBOX player... why is it selling so well? What's the game that get people buy this? Gee I don't even know what games are popular now... Is it still the call-of-duty violent military games and evil themed grand-theft stuff that still rule? I don't even know.

Why is the Surface selling so poorly and XBox doing so well? If Microsoft can apply the winning formula in XBOX into the Surface perhaps it will win... How about making the Surface able to play XBOX games? An XBOX is basically a PC with some very advanced graphics card is it? Combine them and you got a winning machine. (But can you streamline that joystick please)

Unbelievable bashing tactic by Microsoft

Check this out: here. Now you can shop for Scroogled Microsoft t-shirts and mugs bashing Google. This isn't even a high quality shopping site. Why is "Add to Cart" a different font? Why can't zoom into the design?

This is cheap dirty tactic to bash your competitors.

Look, do you have a better phone than Google?
Look, do your Surface (1,2,combined) sell better than Chromebooks?

Instead of bashing competitor can you build better working products? I am sure you won't sell that many Google bashing T-shirts.

2-in-1 machines

In the old days there are laptops and desktops... based on where the computers are sitting: Sit on desk? desktop. Sit on lap? laptop. Actually I haven't seen that many people actually put laptops on their laps.

The tablet (mainly the iPad) has been wildly successful and it is amazing that computers can be that thin. Yes excellent to just tap and slide on it... until you need to get work done you need a keyboard. People are very creative in doing this... some are wireless bluetooth. Prefer tablet and keyboard in one piece? There are (strong) magnetic attraction like the Microsoft Surface and there are other twist-and-turn and even swing like approaches forming the 2-in-1 devices.

Oh, these are known as "Ultrabooks" now. See here

These are all pretty but non-Apple products. I am sure these all work well but they probably won't sell well.

Now come none of these twist-and-turn yoga models catch on? Have you actually seen people using one? (I have not)

That's because that's bells-and-whistle that people don't need. A regular open-it-up laptop do JUST FINE. I don't want/need to twist-and-turn.

The real problem is: they run Windows 8.

These excellent products are all competing against each other in the shrinking PC market where these are stuck with the horrible Metro interface.

To save the PC business... PC Makers should probably give people an option to get Windows 8, or a Linux distribution already installed...

Did Microsoft compare themselves with Coke Classic? Coke Classic completely whack the ill-fated Coke II formula. To follow the success of Coke Classic, I think Microsoft should completely dump the Metro for a better desktop than Windows 7. Keep the faster boot time. Keep the anti-virus pre-installed. Bring back the not-as-boring title bar, Bring back an improved Chess Titan! Add Soduku!

Human Calculator: Shakuntala Devi

I live under a rock. I have not heard of Shakuntala Devi until Google honors here in its doodle:

Go ahead, read about her. For example in wiki.

Wow, she can calculate the cube root of 188,132,517 faster than a computer and can do other amazing feats. I don't even have a clue how to calculate a cube root without a calculator. (Yes but I DO know how to calculate square root by hand... and I have yet to write a little proof of that method of that doubling-and-pull-down method).

How can she do this so fast? Is there some secret methods to follow (like those mental math little books). Or she is just incredibly fast?

Is it because she can tap more % of her brain more than others so she can do things faster?

Ok folks, what is mathematics? Is able to calculate multiplication, square root, cube root lightning fast... considered mathematics? Can she earn a phD for being super fast? (If so, that $1 calculator in dollar store is fairly close to getting phD?)

My take is this: if a little machine can do, it is not sophisticated mathematics. It is just manual labor.

If you have systematic ways to solve some real-world problems, find some interesting relationships between things... I would call that mathematics.

Disclaimer: I am no mathematician, I am not even a good student. But I won't send kids to do mental math or abacus class.

Before you laugh at Healthcare.gov

No I have not tried to sign up for Obamacare and see it crash. I just heard about this thing is not working and it is the subject of (inter)national humiliation. Not enough testing? Millions money already been spent? Is that project manager going to be grilled like Hilary on foreign matters to a bunch of people who don't probably know how to write some lines of code.

Oh and there is going to be "Tech surge" where top people will jump in to help?

Some even say the best way to fix it is to start from scratch.

Ok, putting more people at a broken project is probably not going to help... The smart people being put on there would have no idea how things are supposed to work immediately... Yes, perhaps it may be best to tear it down and rebuild. But can someone say just what is broken with it... it is hardware/software not able to handle volume or just incomplete stuff pushed out? I've seen some news reporting about some crash with an error message of "cgi". See here.

I am sorry, CGI?? That's like 1990s! Come on. Thia project is definitely given to the wrong people. /* Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is the first method of handling processing way back in the infant age of the web... it needed to create a new process to handle every request and that is not able going to able large volumes. */ Every software developer should know that CGI is so passe.

If the United States can put people on the moon, have the best military in the world, I'm like "yes we can!" in producing something that works reasonably well. This is classic case of poorly managed bureaucratic project failure.

But before you laugh at it, are you absolutely sure that the projects you work on will work smoothly without issues? There are unknowns... code dumped to you... assumptions you were given that is wrong. You are supposed to know how to use certain products but actually no one told you how to do certain things. There are rare problems that work fine perfectly on your machine/browser but not in other people's machine. Issues can go on and on. Too many people (even smart ones) on a project can actually hurt it as communications get harder... I'll say like just a handful (like 10) great people team can do this... given a good architecture to start with and all requirements clearly established. and it shouldn't cost millions of dollars. Some people charge too much! Make them pay you back.