environment posts

Big Iron: Running Hot and Cold

by Rafe Brox Jun 18th 2009 @ 2:00PM

In offices with "Black Tie Formal" as a dress code and, shall we say, a rather lax approach towards fire hazards and drinking on the job, Mr. Poindexter could be modeling the server room of the future.

Ahh, the data center's heart and brain, the server room. Dim, cavernous, off-limits to most of our coworkers, and bathed in the soothing dual ambiences of CPU fans and high-powered air-conditioning, they're the perfect place to take a moment to cool off after a tough call or a sprint across a plague-wracked parking lot. All those boxen, miles of Cat6 just the way we want it, chilled to a component-friendly sixty-something degrees.

Well, so much for that particular workplace fantasy. We've spoken previously about the positive aspects of greener, more energy-efficient computing, but now they've gone too far. Folks have finally noticed that facilities cooling is one of the biggest costs for server rooms and data centers, and the thermostat is being kicked up to save money. Way up.

Continue reading Big Iron: Running Hot and Cold

Filed under: Hardware

EA: Play Mass Effect, save the real Earth ... for real

by Samuel Axon May 16th 2008 @ 5:00PM

EA sent out a press release claiming that there's more to Mass Effect than just a couple dozen hours of fun. The press release suggests that if you play Mass Effect, you're saving the environment. Crazy, right? Here's the logic:

It's all about what the discipline of economics calls "opportunity cost." When you spend $60 on a new, DRMed copy of Mass Effect, that's 60 bucks you're not spending on something else like, oh, say ... gasoline -- or the movies, and using gasoline to get there. "Why not stay home, save the environment, and play Mass Effect?" asks EA. Is that logic loose? You decide.

EA also suggested that Mass Effect for 60 bucks is the ultimate value. For $60 at the movies, you only get 12 hours of entertainment, EA says, but Mass Effect provides four times that. Having played Mass Effect, we say that's a stretch unless you play through the game twice. But it wouldn't be marketing without a little embellishment, would it?

Filed under: Biz, Action, RPG