Is an UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) necessary?

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

First, I tend to view UPS like anti-virus, they are \”best practices\” or simply good computer hygiene, that help to prevent costly failures.

Second, It depends on your situation. There are those who will disagree, but I believe that in most of what we call the \”first world\”, the power grid is reliable enough that a UPS doesn\’t provide much additional protection beyond what a good surge protector will give you. A rare power failure isn\’t going to damage most things.  But a UPS does more than just protect your hardware, in fact it is there to also protect your data, and software.

So it really comes down to you: what are your work habits, and how much is your time worth?

If you figure a good, cheap UPS is around $100 then, over the life of that (say, 3 years), given the power reliability of where ever you live, what\’s at risk? Do you work for hours before saving, or save every 2 minutes? Does your power go out rarely, or a few times a month? How much do you worry about losing components to a power surge or brownouts?

How much is your peace of mind worth?

Continue reading →

A Quick comparison between AT&T and Verizon iPhone costs

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

Considering a Verizon iPhone?  Take a look at the differences….

iPhone4AT&TVerizon
TypeGSM(Worldwide)CDMA(U.S only)
Wi-Fi HotspotxYes(Max 5 devices)
SpeedFast+Faster+
ColorsBlackBlack
Contract Penalty$325$350
Price (iPhone 4 16 GB)$199.99$199.99
Price (iPhone 4 32 GB)$299.99$299.99
Contract Term2 years2 years
Data PlanAT&TVerizon
200 MB$15x
2 GB$25x
4 GB$45x
unlimitedx$29.99
Text PlanAT&TVerizon
500 messagesx$10
1000 messages$10x
unlimited$20$20
Voice PlanAT&TVerizon
450 minutes$39.99$39.99
900 minutes$59.99$59.99
unlimited$69.99

$69.9
9Price
AT&T Minimum Data-Text-Voice Plan cost you $64.99 per month (200 MB data, 1000 messages, and talk time of 450 minutes)
Verizon’s Minimum Data-Text-Voice Plan cost you $74.98 per month(unlimited data, 500 messages, and talk time of 450 minutes)
Data Plans
If you are watching videos or streaming music constantly then go with Verizon’s unlimited plan else AT&T 2GB per month data plan at cost $25 is the best choice.

Half a Million Space Battles! Congrats!

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

According to Cliffski, the author of Gratuitous Space Battles, the GSB server has served over half a million battles for network games…  (Over 501,934 battles at the time of posting)
See here:

Here’s a chirpy statistic. At the time of writing, the total number of online ‘challenge’ games of Gratuitous Space Battles that have been played is…

501,934

Or in other words…

HALF A MILLION GAMES OF GRATUITOUS SPACE BATTLES.

That’s just online challenges, meaning player A trying to beat player B’s fleet, whether it’s on Mac or PC, direct or through steam. It’s all handled by my server. The number of offline, single player games against the pre-shipping AI fleets is likely to be a lot higher. That’s pretty scary. Also, lets not dismiss over 40,000 uploaded player challenges (actually many more, older unplayed ones get deleted) and over 100,000 campaign battles already.

I actually own two copies, and it\’s a great game…  If you haven\’t taken a look, then you should…
And his work-in-progress \”Game 4\”, his aptly code named new game, has the potential to be nice follow up…  Whatever the game ends up being, if we listen to his blog… |-)

Battle Angel Alita (Live Action) update

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

It’s been awhile since we’ve heard anything about James Cameron’s Battle Angel, but thankfully in a recent interview with Collider he was asked about the status of the live action project.

“I’m obviously going to be pretty busy for the next five years [with Avatar 2 and 3]. And so I had to consider, do I hand this project off to another director? And then I thought, ‘No, I love it too much.’”

“It’s such a rich world. What I’m going to do is take the spine story and use elements from the first four books. So, the Motorball from books three and four, and parts of the story of one and two will all be in the movie.”

So it looks like we can expect to see Battle Angel in about 2016 or 2017.   Other things we can expect to see  by the time the movie releases are flying cars, personal space craft, colonies on the moon, and the return of Pauly Shore.
Battle Angel takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where an amnesiac cyborg  is found in a dumpster by a doctor and rebuilt.  Upon getting her strength back she recalls the knowledge of a long lost fighting technique, and decides to become a bounty hunter.

A Hatred of Flash?

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

Hatred (or hate) is a deep and emotional extreme dislike, directed against a certain object or class of objects. The objects of such hatred can vary widely, from inanimate objects or animals, to oneself or other people, entire groups of people, people in general, existence, or the whole world. Though not necessarily, hatred is often associated with feelings of anger and disposition towards hostility against the objects of hatred. – Wikipedia

Does Apple hate flash? Or should we say, does Steve Jobs hate flash?

Many companies, including Adobe, Netgear, Hewlett-Packard (HP), etc, have a vested interest in the iOS not being the top dog in the market. One major distinguishing factor between those companies product is that they will run Flash applications, and the iOS devices won\’t… So, obviously they are more than willing to make their products seem to be more \”open\” and user centric devices by claiming that Flash is a necessary feature…

But are they correct? Who do we believe? Continue reading →