• Report claims 16.4% of all Xbox 360 consoles will fail

    I’m not a big gamer, but I’m also not a big fan of Microsoft (which I think is akin to being a Yankees fan, or rooting for the wolf in fairy tales… “Hasta la vista RED… Muah ha haa!”) However, even I was a bit surprised by this article from Macworld:

    A new report from independent warranty provider SquareTrade has found that the failure rate of an Xbox 360 is not as high as critics would have you believe, but it is still much higher than the official number from Microsoft.

    The number, 16.4 percent, is much higher than the one cited by former Xbox front man Peter Moore (3 percent), and is about half the number reported by many retailers (approximately 33 percent).

    The article goes on to claim that the industry norm (average?) is around three percent. The article wasn’t clear on the time it took to fail, but considering the Xbox 360 hasn’t been on the market all that long, between one and two failures in ten seems like an incredibly high number.

    In any case, I’m still happy with my Wii.

  • How long can you go without a drink?

    It may not be a good time to move to the southwest.

    Lake Mead Could Be Within a Few Years of Going Dry, Study Finds – New York Times:

    Lake Mead, the vast reservoir for the Colorado River water that sustains the fast-growing cities of Phoenix and Las Vegas, could lose water faster than previously thought and run dry within 13 years, according to a new study by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography….

    Other recent research has shown that the watershed feeding the Colorado River has historically had a tendency to be far drier than it has been in the past century. The new study projects that changes foreseen in a warming world could well help tip the region back into its dry norm.

  • Not news, just me

    You don’t need to come here to find out how Obama did in the Potomac Primaries today, you’ve probably heard it elsewhere by now. However, since I shared my worry with you all yesterday I felt like I needed to share some of my (tentative) relief.

    I wasn’t so surprised Obama won, but I suspect I’m not alone in my surprise of how he won. I don’t remember hearing that he was quite so far ahead in Virginia or Maryland, and I thought I’d heard a week or two ago that Clinton had been polling ahead in both places. I was scanning the news this evening for results and an excerpt from a McClatchy article caught my eye.

    Obama also did well in places where Clinton was expected to be competitive.

    In the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., which accounted for about one-third of the statewide Democratic vote, Obama beat Clinton by better than 3 to 2, and he rolled up similar margins in the Richmond area, as well as in eastern and southeastern Virginia.

    Clinton’s only big majority came among white women, who make up about 35 percent of the state’s Democratic vote. They preferred her 58 percent to 42 percent. White men tilted to Obama by 55 percent to 43 percent.

    I’m hoping he can pull the same trick in Wisconsin (where Clinton appears to have a slight lead) next week, and more importantly, Texas and Ohio on March 3rd. I’ll rest a lot easier if he can sew up the nomination with assigned delegates. Then there’s the so-called “Edwards Primary,” where only one vote counts. I don’t think party rules allow Edwards to give his delegates away, but I think the endorsement is still somewhat important.

    Anyhoo, it looks like I’ve got two reasons to be happy about this evening. The new headache script did it’s job, and it looks like the people of the Potomac region have too.