InksEnd

The Roman philospher Seneca is often quoted as saying, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Rajesh at Life Beyond Code writes about ways to distinguish yourself and the continous spiral syndrome.

Can you remember those days when you worked hard, gave it your best shot and got tired at the end of the day with all the activity that was happening. The sad part was that except your age nothing much had changed after a few years.

He reminds me that it’s not enough to show up every day and do the job well even if you work long hours and meet with success in the eyes of your employer. Regardless of how frequently your company tells you “people are our greatest asset” and touts their development programs and career opportunities, it’s ultimately up to each of us to keep our eye on the tasks at hand (short term career survival) AND our own future (medium and long term career survival).

Ok, so it draws a little power even when turned off. Big deal. At least it’s efficient, right? The team at DXGaming put consoles to the power test to determine how much juice they suck out of the wall and your wallet while turned off, sitting idle and playing games.

The results – You guessed it, the Xbox 360 draws the most power of any current console devouring 17.52 kWh (annual) while turned off, 145W while sitting idle, and 165W after playing 5 minutes of Burnout Revenge.

• Cheapest to run for a year – the venerable Playstation 1 at $0.90
• Most expensive to run for a year – Xbox 360 at $19.88

The good news is that while it’s the hungriest electron attractor in the bunch, it’s also the most efficient in terms of CPU cycles/Watt. No measurements exist for the upcoming PS3 and Wii, but DXGaming estimates they’ll book-end the 360. Until then all I can say is, “Put me on the budget plan with the power company. While you’re at it, turn the ‘fridge down a notch. That last Jolt was too warm.”

In the never-ending saga of Xbox 360 hardware maintenance agreements, I recently received three refund checks for the one extra maintenance agreement they accidentally charged to my credit card. The backstory can be found here, but I’ll just say “wanted ONE, got TWO due to their double entry” and it’s been almost half a year since I spotted the problem.

I called the team at Xbox support to inform them:

• I have received three checks
• I will cash one and shred the other two
• I still want the first contract I purchased

..and I was told:

• Hey, you might get full coverage until 2010, we don’t really know. [shh] don’t say anything
• That department’s kind of weird to work with (you think!?)
• Call back in a month to find out if you still have a service contract (great, this will never end!)

I have such high hopes for Microsoft’s in this business, but occasionally you see a sign they still have work to do handling hardware. Sometimes that sign haunts you like the paperboy in Better off Dead. Wait, I think in this case I’m the paperboy and Microsoft is John Cusack. At least in this case, “I got my two dollars.”