So here I am at Starbucks doing some quick work.  This is, obviously, not something you'd do with an iPad.  You never see people with tablets at Starbucks.  It's either they're messing with their phone while waiting or they have, more commonly, various MacBooks. 

What is making MS Surface so great for me is that while I can use it as a tablet, though not as good as my iPad, it is much more practical to lug around than my 11 inch MacBook Air.  Is makes a much better light computing device for me than my MacBook Air.

Part of the appeal is the keyboard. It is flat on the surface of the table. I don't know how many millimeters thick it is but it's trivial. It makes it a much nicer device for typing, something the traditional Notebook can't yet touch. It's a design choice. The guts of a Surface is in the screen (the tablet). In a typical laptop/notebook, the guts are shared in the same place as the keyboard which always makes it slightly thicker.

Before I got the Surface, I was thinking that the Surface Pro would be a better solution. Now, I'm not so sure.  In fact, I suspect the Surface RT is a better solution for the role I've put it in - light computing.  It's not like I'd be doing development work on one of my Ultrabooks.

Again, the biggest flaw in Surface RT remains the software. It's unrefined and SkyDrive remains woefully under integrated.  However, these are things that are likely to be addressed.  They've already released an update that made it significantly peppier overall.

After having such a negative first reaction to the Surface (the OS really doesn't give a good first impression) I've concluded that this is a pretty amazing device. It's gotten to the point where I don't know if I'll be getting another MacBook Air (the MacBook Pro remains my primary laptop device, taking over the role my ThinkPads had held since the early 90s).

The Genius at Oatmeal does it again. Here is a tiny snippet:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things

Read the whole thing.

And now a message to the hateful, degenerate scum of the Internet:

Dear soul sucking trolls,

If you’ve publicly posted that you won’t buy stuff from my company because you don’t like me then I say to you: Thank you. The last thing I want are horrible stupid people benefiting from my work.  I realize that things I post, email, tweet, facebook, etc. can occasionally be taken out of context and be spun to fit whatever agenda the person in the media needs it to fit that day to get their page views. But nothing forces you to buy the crap they’re posting.  If you hate someone you don’t even know, you should probably seek counseling.

Making stuff and putting yourself out there can be very rewarding.  I know hateful trolls out there froth at the mouth whenever there’s some individual trying to express themselves. I understand your problem. You’re weak. You’re cowardly. And rather than trying to improve yourselves or having the courage to take a chance and try putting yourself out there you lash out at those who do. You’re pathetic.

In the end, you’re irrelevant. Once the people who create content realize that you don’t matter, you lose whatever power you might have had. Your predictions of their demise, your hateful tweets, your promises to not support whatever it is they make ultimately amount to nothing because most people aren’t horrible, pathetic creatures like you are. Good people outnumber you 1000 to 1.

My advice to you is this: Quit hating people. Look at yourself. Do some soul searching. Become a better person.  Don’t shit on stuff you don’t like but try to make things better. Don’t spend your energy trying to bring down someone you don’t even know who has done nothing to you. Make your own stuff. Share it with others. And if you can’t, then shut the hell up.

For everyone else, read this: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things

The point being, don't take out your personal baggage on other individuals. 

Update:

And for those linking in and being offended by my message to trolls:  I have no means to keep stupid hateful trolls from being customers. I can only hope that they self-select themselves for removal. It makes life easier for us all.  I realize most trolls don't see themselves as such. So let me give you a hint: If you you are emotionally invested in harming some individual you don't even know, that should be a hint. If you're putting your time and energy to try to harm someone you've never met, has done nothing to you you might want to talk to someone.

If what I write rankles you, don't read it.  Find something else to do.  If you disagree but can control your angst, feel free to participate. Talk about it here. Join the discussion. But if I don't like Windows 8 and you do, then don't assume that I'm some Mac fanatic and thus an avatar of all things you imagine Mac fanatics are (which are probably in themselves false). If I have a different political view on some issue than you do, that doesn't mean that I subscribe to every political view you disagree (or hate). 

Remember, I'm just one guy with strong opinions on tons of stuff. I have no power over you. Until I'm made emperor of the planet (which, I think you can agree, is inevitable and my castle shall be constructed with the skulls of my real and imagined -- mostly imagined -- foes) use this opportunity to hang out, debate and talk about whatever.

Update 2:

I saw a thread that thinks this topic was inspired by one particular trolling event -- from September at that.  Get over yourselves.  Any time you put yourself out there, there will be hateful nasty people.  If you've visited her from some nest of hateful, nasty people don't assume this post is about whatever your particular grievance of the day. 

Microsoft Surface RT is not a great tablet.  I wouldn't generally use it instead of my iPad...in general.  But it has obliterated my use for the MacBook Air which was a constant companion of mine.

What makes Surface so compelling comes down to 3 basic design decisions that have far reaching consequences:

1. The removable keyboard works extremely well. Especially the upgraded one.

2. It supports a mouse and mouse cursor allowing for precision control.

3. It integrates much better into the Windows ecosystem than anything the Apple ecosystem can offer.

Right now, the biggest drawback, which I've harped on considerably, is that the software, at release, was not ready for prime time.  It's still woefully under polished.  I remained shocked at how poor the integration with SkyDrive is.  They want me to use this as a cloud device but SkyDrive isn't accessible from their own apps (music, video, etc.).

But once SkyDrive is integrated, it'll make iCloud look primitive.  I want to love iCloud but it's so limited and there's no apparent road map that indicates that iCloud is going to become flexible enough to use in ways Apple hasn't thought of for you.

In the meantime, HomeGroups and general network connectivity means that you can easily integrate all your "stuff" in your home or office as being accessible from Surface.  That means my XBOX, my Windows PCs (videos, music -- including my iTunes music), my Wireless printers, even my televisions are seen by it.

The biggest obstacle remains the generally poor quality of the software (the lack of being able to organize things -- creating play lists with their music app is a huge pain, the dearth of software options -- no Facebook app? No MS provided twitter app? No Amazon app?, the general usability limitations of Metro -- I can't sort my search findings by size, date, etc.).  If they can fix these things, and quickly, Surface and Windows RT could be a killer app. 

I'm really coming to enjoy it.  I just fear that the first impressions will be negative due to the rather weak state they launched it in.

Very soon we plan to release the very first Map Pack for Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.  In addition to a new hand crafted map for every map size along with new stamps to spice up random map generation, it also includes the full Anthys map. A gigantic map that contains the entire known world of Elemental (at least, as of ~150 AC).

I'm a desperately lonely guy. I need constant attention.

My big contribution to v1.01 was setting myself up with a performance profiler and going to town on FE.  

So, is anyone noticing a big performance boost with v1.01 over 1.0?

As an indie developer, we are typically competing against much larger companies. And normally, larger companies are just a lot…well, dumber. So we usually can beat them head to head because they can’t move as nimbly as we can or because our decision makers are better than their decision makers.

But Valve…they’re something else.  Valve has the resources of a large company but the raw intelligence of a very smart indie.  It’s an unbeatable combination. 

Yesterday I mentioned that there's no Metro version of the Windows essentials utilities. This remains a baffling issue as a Live Movie Maker and a Live Writer would be very nice to haven.

I will say that the Metro version of Skype is nice.  Which brings me to today's observation:  Microsoft has got to come up with a distinct classification for WinRT apps because it's impossible to do a decent search on the terms Modern and UI.  As in, what is the best Modern UI Facebook client.

The nice thing about the term Metro is that it's distinct.  Like iOS or Android, it lends itself to being easily searchable and instantly recognizeable as being different from a normal Windows app.  Modern UI won't cut it.  We need a term or else we'll end up stuck with something like WinRT which in itself is problematic.  I think Microsoft should have just bit the bullet and paid whatever they had to pay to keep referring to these apps as Metro apps. 

Surface isn't competing against my iPad for use right now.  Instead, it is competing for use with my MacBook Air.  It's ironic that Surface shines the most as a notebook rather than as a tablet.  I can, and have, used it as a tablet but I find it most useful in using the upgraded keyboard with it.  Frankly, if it didn't have so many rough edges (not the hardware, but the software) I'd be tempted to recommend it over any ultra portable out there. It's that good.

The MS Surface hardware is its saving grace. It's pretty good.

The screen is definitely sub-Retina but it's "Good enough". What makes it killer is the kickstand and keyboard combo that lets me write this little entry while laying down on the couch.  Try that with any laptop and notebook and it's much much harder.  The MS hardware team deserves kudos.

The problems with Surface comes from the Windows team.  Metro, frankly, sucks.  For example, if you drag from left to right, you can move to the next app. But drag right to left and you bring up the charms bar.  Dumb.   It should bring up the previous app and then had drag top to bottom bring up charms and keep the app specific stuff on screen or with a visual hint somewhere.  It's very annoying.

The other weakness is the available apps.  There's no Live Writer. No Live Movie Maker. You get the idea.  Why would Microsoft not provide native versions of their own Windows essentials? Where's Windows Essentials RT?

No Facebook app is also kind of a let down and the Windows store is terrible to use. No sort by popularity. And while they do have a global Top Free, there's no inclusion of non free.  I have a job. I don't mind paying a couple bucks for some applet. Let me find them.  Why would app developers target a platform that is so blatantly against commercial software?

But I keep being drawn back by the amazing hardware. The Surface hardware is nothing short of revolutionary.  It's just too bad that it's saddled by poorly thought out software decisions.

With v1.01 now out, Kael has given me liberty to indulge myself with the AI for v1.1.

So you might as well quit playing now. It's over. The AI won't even need you humans anymore. You're just...frankly, a distraction.  You guys move way too slowly. Your strategies are non optimal and you just disrupt things.  Halo 4 is out. Go play that.  FE 1.1 will be best if you guys just acknowledge that your meat based brains were insufficient.

That is all.

You can see the full results here:

http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president#exit-polls

Here is what I found interesting:

Obama won the youth vote 60% to 37%.

Romney won the retired vote 56% to 44%.

Obama won the high school graduates (and dominates those who didn’t finish high school) and also won decisively amongst those who pursued postgraduate degrees.

Romney won the college graduate vote.

Here is the kicker:

If your household income was less than $50k, you overwhelmingly voted for Obama.  If your household income was greater than $50k, you likely voted for Romney. Make of that what you will. Santa Claus politics?