Crave

Rooftop superhero

(Credit: Gutterglove)

Apparently, those who live in climates where it regularly freezes in the winter are at risk of death via icicle. It appears that larger icicles can break off of gutters and plunge into people's bodies, killing them coldly on contact.

A company called Gutterglove, which ironically is California-based, has a new add-on called the IceBreaker for its already advanced guttering systems. Using a self-regulated heated cable, the IceBreaker keeps water on the outside of the gutter just above freezing, meaning icicles don't form, fall off, and kill you and your loved ones as you build your snowman.

The cable fits Gutterglove's DIY install gutters, which already do things like collect rainwater for personal use; filter pine needles and seeds; and keep gutters clean so you don't have to. I wish we had this when I was 15.

All kidding aside, people actually do die every year from ice falling from man-made structures. It's not how I'd want to go, and it's not something I'd wish on anyone else, either. Were I a homeowner in a place frigid enough to warrant fears of chilly death from above, I'd definitely consider something like the Icebreaker gutter cables. But, living in Seattle, I only have to deal with mammoth quakes that will destroy my apartment building in my sleep.

Installing the IceBreaker system.

(Credit: Gutterglove)

No kid wants to be the one who blends into a crowd. That's why it's important to start young when setting your children up for a lifetime filled with the nostalgic irony that comes with being tragically hip. Of course, they may not like you when they grow older, but that's fashionable too, right?

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 148

Look at this f**king hipster

This Death Star cookie jar is fully operational

Cassette tape lamps light up your nostalgia

NES Controller Business Card shows you mean real geek business

Casio calculator watch. For realz. (Thanks, Sparkman!)

The iPhone’s best neo-retro game: Space Invaders Infinity Gene

Good Vibrations
The Vibrator Museum

A propos (of) nothing
Japanese auto-fogging glasses prevent eye strain

What the hell?
Microsmores (thanks, Sheala)

Kill Me
Wi-Fi scale notifies the internet of your lapsed diet

Who are you calling dead?

(Credit: GameSpot)

We're really having this discussion again? Should we just refresh this article every year to correct for the misguided interpretation of NPD's U.S. retail sales figures?

The "death of PC gaming" has become reliable column and blog fodder for tech journalists. Perhaps it stems from lingering bitterness over time wasted editing Warcraft batch files in DOS 6.0. Regardless, you shouldn't take the idea seriously.

To prove it, we won't even lean on that most tempting pillar of PC gaming, the 12 million-strong World of Warcraft monthly subscription-paying player base. Instead we'll point to a report by Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Kieron Gillen from Britain's Develop 09 conference, specifically from a presentation on digital distribution.

In a very special, and very serious, episode of The 404, we sit down to reflect on the many ways Michael Jackson changed the world. From his music to his dance and music videos, MJ's ubiquity is undeniable. Heroes come and go, but legends never die! Rest in peace, Mike!

We've never done this before, but Michael Jackson had such a positive effect on all of our lives that we felt the need to take a moment and show him our appreciation. Obviously, we're not the only ones numbed by his passing--news sites across the Internet couldn't keep up with the hordes of people desperately trying to hear the news. Like so many people, Wilson and I spent hours poring over Michael's fantastic career, but there's something so edifying in knowing that the entire world shares this loss.

The real testament to MJ's success is the love from his fans--his live shows drew tons of people, many of whom often fainted at the sight of their favorite musician onstage.

Michael was also famous for bringing his most adoring fans up onstage for a quick hug before getting aggressively taken off the stage kicking and screaming for another chance to hug their hero. Isn't it weird to think about how many people have enjoyed his music? We all have our stories, whether it's dancing to "Thriller" at a prom, or singing karaoke to "Never Can Say Goodbye." Check out this episode and help us pay tribute to the King of Pop.

(Credit: Photobucket)

First, there was the Red Ring of Death (RRoD) epidemic. It struck thousands of early Xbox 360s and led Microsoft to announce in 2007 that it would repair all afflicted consoles free of charge and offer an extended three-year warranty on those machines.

The latest XBox 360 bug? The "E74 error," which has become enough of problem that Microsoft has had to announce that it will repair all consoles affected by it--and extend its three-year warranty to cover any potential E74 problems.

Like the Red Ring of Death, it's not hard to figure out whether you have an E74 error. Instead of your console displaying three red lights, death comes swiftly in the form of an E74 on-screen error message that appears along with instructions to contact Xbox 360 support.

According to Gamezine.co.uk, the E74 error is "either related to the AV cable, or the more fatal occurrence of a burnt-out scaler chip or even the death of the console's GPU." (Apparently, the error isn't 100 percent fatal, and while there are some suggested fixes up on YouTube, they don't always work--or they work only temporarily).

Here is Microsoft's official statement:

While the majority of Xbox 360 owners continue to have a great experience with their console, we are aware that a very small percentage of our customers have reported receiving an error that displays "E74" on their screen.

After investigating the issue, we have determined that the E74 error message can indicate the general hardware failure that is associated with three-flashing-red-lights error on the console. As a result, we have decided to cover repairs related to the E74 error message under our three-year warranty program for certain general hardware failures that was announced in July 2007.

Microsoft also said it will refund anyone who paid to have an E74 error-afflicted console fixed. If you fall into this group, you should automatically receive a refund within the next 4 to 12 weeks. However, if you don't get your money back, you should go to the Xbox support page before November to get info on how to place a claim.

Gamemagazine notes that for now, the announcement covers only Xbox 360s in the United States. But it expects the warranty and refund to be rolled out around the world soon.

Comments? Anybody had their Xbox 360 offed by error E74? Is the console destined to be plagued by reliability problems, or is this just an isolated incident?

(Source: Gamezine.co.uk via Engadget)

For some time now I've only been a two-console owner, the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. I received a lot of flack from co-workers and friends for not having an Xbox 360 and was even referred to as a "Sony fanboy."

Then Valve released Left 4 Dead and a group of us from the office downloaded the demo and had a little PC LAN party. From that moment I knew I had to add that game to my library; however, it was only available for the PC and Xbox 360. I was never a big PC gamer. So that left me only one option: get my hands on an Xbox 360. As fate would have it, I got one for my birthday.

I purchased Left 4 Dead. And played the hell out it; most of my friends list is compiled of people I met during online play (only the ones who healed me, and didn't leave me behind).

After a week of play and finally surviving all the campaigns, I wanted more. For some time now we've heard about an update coming as early as March or April that would bring some new life to this living dead shooter. But Thursday, IGN did a hands-on with the developers of Left 4 Dead, learned a few tricks, and posted actual game play video. First is "Survival Mode," and it's just that: the game will throw hordes and hordes of zombies at you until you die. Before the unending assault begins, players will have time to collect health kits, weapons, gasoline tanks, and other items. There's no time limit for this; the timer doesn't start until someone hits the button. Once that's done, be ready for a furious zombie onslaught.

According to IGN, "there are all sorts of personal records you can accumulate. The most obvious one is trying to get a best time for each of the 16 Survival levels in the game. There are extra incentives as well. You can earn bronze, silver, and gold medals if you survive long enough. Though the medal times for each map will be tailored for each map, right now the basic idea is that you need to survive for at least 4 minutes to get bronze, 6 minutes to get silver, and 8 minutes to get gold. Of course, online leaderboards will also let you compare your times with those of our friends for bragging rights." (In our play session, the best we ever got was within a minute of earning silver.)

The other new addition is a Versus mode for both the Death Toll and the Dead Air campaign. This allows two teams to take turns playing the survivors or zombies, in an-all out "who's the best" competition. When Left 4 Dead originally shipped, only two of its campaigns were playable in Versus mode. The upcoming update will be free for the Xbox 360 and PC,and expanding the killing fess with the addition of Death Toll and Dead Air to versus mode.

Tim Geisenheimer joins the show today along with our favorite former intern, Mark Licea. We talk about Tim's new Kindle 2 and how Amazon decided to release a free iPhone app. That's $359 down the drain for Tim. Along the way, we discuss the Red Ring of Death for the Xbox 360 and a surprise guest appearance by Justin Yu himself, who reveals he's been suffering from multiple outbreaks of yet-to-be-classified STDs.

The Geisenblogger himself shares a little bit about his online persona in the form of his Tumblr, Wordpress blog, and Twitter. "Thriller" has got to be one of the best albums ever made, but Michael Jackson apparently has a stash of songs he won't release to the public until after his death. While we're not too excited about that after the failure of his "Invincible" album, we are excited that he is trying to make right with Sir Paul McCartney for supposedly bequeathing the Beatles collection to him after his death. Take this all with a grain of salt as this is coming from the Internet and The 404.

A woman in Florida gets more than she bargained for when she calls 911 three times to report that McDonald is not giving Chicken McNuggets to her. It sounds crazy until you realize that McDonald's tried to offer her a cheeseburger called the "McDouble" instead of a refund. Finally, if you're a Sprint customer, the company is offering $100 in the form of a Visa gift card if you refer a new Sprint customer. For those of you who managed to sneak in the SERO plan, here's a way to get three months of free service.

Silverman at the controls.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

Mastering engineers, like Alan Silverman of Arf! Mastering, make music sound better.

Of course, by the time the mastering engineer gets to hear the music, it's already been recorded, mixed, and fussed over by at least one recording engineer, record producer, and the band for weeks, months or even years.

The mastering engineer brings a fresh set of ears to the project and (hopefully) the necessary skill set to eke out the very best from the music. Silverman has mastered music by Norah Jones, Keith Richards, Dolly Parton, and Rufus Wainwright.

When I visited Silverman a few weeks ago, he was finishing work on Medeski, Martin, and Wood's upcoming CD, "Radiolarians 2." I'm a big fan of MM&W's free-form funk jazz, and these guys always make great-sounding recordings. It figures Silverman is involved with the upcoming CD.

I heard from friends that Silverman's newly updated playback system is not only super accurate, it sounds like an audiophile system. That sort of truth and beauty are a rare combination so I brought along some of my reference recordings and was thrilled by the sound. Silverman uses Revel Ultima Studio2 speakers and a McIntosh MC252 power amplifier.

Of course, in the real world just a handful of people are listening over a system like that. So for Silverman, "It's about how the music 'translates.'" A great mastering engineer knows how to make the music sound the best it can over all sorts of systems, played back in differing environments: headphones, car audio, plastic computer speakers, and high-end audio systems.

That's why Silverman hopes he will soon be doing multiple versions of a recording: a highly compressed mix for iPod or car, an uncompressed CD quality version for home listening, and a high-resolution one for audiophiles.

But now that so many bands are recording themselves mastering engineers play an even more crucial role in making the most of the music. When I asked if recordings ever come in that are so awful Silverman turns them away, he said "No, not at all, although in rare cases one of the best things you can do for client is advise them to do a remix. In general, though it's easier to make a poor recording sound better than improve a recording that's already really great. With those you worry if you're really making them better or just different. In those cases sometimes even the smallest tweaks add extra dimension and life to the music." Toby Wright, 3Doors Down's producer, uses Silverman and raved about his work: "So much better, it's silly."

Update (12:57 p.m.): The story now reflects Microsoft's response to a request for comment.

For Xbox 360 users, the so-called red ring of death is a worst-case scenario that can cause nightmares about total system failure and the inability to play any more Halo 3.

Since the introduction of the console, in late 2005, some users have suffered through a well-documented series of quality control problems and some have endured system failures on machine after machine after machine.

Microsoft has attempted to handle the problems--and last year extended the warranty for the machine, leading some to feel that, at the very least, they would be covered if they got the three red rings around their console's power button that indicate total hardware crash.

The 'red ring of death' is the last thing any Xbox 360 user wants to see, as it indicates massive system failure.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

All along, the problem has been blamed on the Xbox's original motherboard, a poorly designed piece of electronics that in many cases simply wasn't up to the rigors that users put the machine through. But there had been indications that help was on the way in the form of an all-new motherboard, at once smaller, more efficient, less likely to overheat and less expensive, known as "Jasper."

Now, according to Xbox expert Dean Takahashi at Venture Beat, Jasper-infused Xboxes are finally being spotted out there in the wilds of the marketplace. And presumably, fans of the platform are singing hosannas at the prospect that maybe, finally, some of their brethren might be able to boot up Gears of War without fear of doom.

Actually, Takahashi poses the question of whether Xbox fans will go for the new machines. But I'm not sure why anyone would rather not have an Xbox with the new motherboard instead of one that could blow up--not literally, of course--at any time.

To be sure, those whose original model Xboxes haven't crashed don't really have a choice, and I don't see hordes of owners of the console rushing out to buy a new one. But if you've been holding off on buying one, and find that you have a choice, what would hold you back?

According to a blog called Joeygadget, "The key things to look for when buying a new Xbox 360 with the Jasper chipset is a manufacturing date (MFR) as early as 2008-08-06, Lot 8031 and up, and Team CSON."

Another site, the Xbox 360 DVD Drive Database, reports there is no "substantial evidence that it's out yet."

For its part, Microsoft wouldn't say whether any Jasper Xboxes were on the market yet. "We are constantly updating internal components on our consoles," the company told CNET News, "and therefore will not comment on details of specific components or manufacturing processes."

Either way, it sounds like the era of the red ring of death, at least for new buyers, could well be drawing to a close.

And this is important since, with Microsoft's recent price reductions for the Xbox--the "Arcade" version of the console is now available for $199--it is likely that there will be large numbers of new buyers, especially this holiday season. Unless, that is, the economic situation holds buyers back.

My question is, will the Xboxes with the new motherboard have a smaller power supply than the ugly behemoth that came with the original machine?