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There was one day in Spring 2003 when the power cut out for a split second. On my buddy list, I saw everyone in the dorms get signed off. My roommate's computer rebooted, the TV shut off, the clock on the microwave reset. And yet, my computer was just fine. I figured it was because of my kickass Belkin surge protector.

Subsequently, I got a UPS for when I finished school and moved back out. When that lovely blackout hit, my comp was just fine.

I've grown fond of Belkin products. But after this article, there's just no fucking way I'm ever buying anything from them again. So can someone recommend a company that makes good UPSes and surge protectors for a reasonable price? Thanks...

All will be fine until, of course, you find out you really like iTunes.

And your MP3 player won't skip, either. Because it will be cushioned by about $380 in cash.

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I didn't know that George Lucas was inspired by Penny Arcade...

Apple. Orange. Meet the Fruit Fucker 2000!

...about Penny Arcade.

SunSaw, are you wearing a Federation uniform?

It's Cool, I Know Him.

Ok, so it's about Yahoo Maps instead of MapQuest, but I still think it applies.

The provided URL works fine, if you take out the space, or just click here.

Ya, they deleted it all...

Not that anyone REALLY needs to be discouraged from the N-gage, it seems to be doing just fine on its own, but for the 5 dorks who said "yeah, I just might buy this thing" at least 4 of the have been dissuaded by Papa Sony's mention of making something, someday, that might be portable. Even if its "portable" like the original Macintosh (luggable, actually).

My advice to you: Avoid the original GBA at all costs. The SP is much more comfortable to hold (for me, anyway), has a 10 to 15 hour rechargeable battery and (most importantly) a lit screen. The original GBA does not have a lit screen, and while it looks fine in sunlight, if you're indoors or on a cloudy day it's a complete bitch to see, even if you're sitting directly beneath a lamp. (Penny Arcade isn't joking in this particular comic) Our family owns both an original GBA and the SP... The original GBA is basically regulated to second-player status in multiplayer games, whereas the SP is used most of the time, mainly because you can't see the original. Go easy on your kid's eyes, get the SP.

No, it wasn't like that. This guy was huge .

Penny-Arcade already gave a thought to it. :)

Sounds like trouble for users of Micro$oft's Windows Update. Or for the *NIX users of apt-get and similar utilities. Of course, coming up with prior art should be no problem and the rich Micro$oft will fight this for you.

Ah, a post that points out the obvious and succumbs to petty gimmicks while doing so. Why is this interesting and insightful?

Sounds like trouble for users of Micro$oft's Windows Update. Or for the *NIX users of apt-get and similar utilities. Of course, coming up with prior art should be no problem and the rich Micro$oft will fight this for you.

Ah, a post that points out the obvious and succumbs to petty gimmicks while doing so. Why is this interesting and insightful?

After a movie like this, I know the only reason they signed over the rights to him is because nobody else would be stupid enough to buy them. But this is a recipe for ultimate crapness: Terrible director working on a movie based on a hack-n-slash RPG that while fun, was shallower than the wading pool at an old age home. Nothing good will come of this.

First this happens, and then this happens. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to have lost any gadgetry along with the pants.

First this happens, and then this happens. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to have lost any gadgetry along with the pants.

We feared the XBox because the industry never supported 3 consoles before.

Actually, we feared the Xbox because our bone structure never supported the weight of its controller before.

Serious, last time I started watching TV? Firefly. Loved it. They cut it before it had a chance.

Before that? Enterprise.. 4 Episodes, I was hoping. Hopes were dashed.

Before that? Earth: Final Conflict, Loved it. First Season. They changed the team behind it and trashed the quality so bad the fan sites turned into hate sites.

Before that? Babylon 5. Love it. JMS spoiled me. The only time I can recall that I wasn't disappointed by a show, they didn't cancel it with all the ends loose and they didn't change it to be a Voyager clone.

Before that? MTV.. Liked it, When it played Music.

The common theme here is that every show/channel I liked they took away or completely changed. They dropped Firefly so fast that I had only seen 2 episodes before they killed it. HINT: Once you've lost the viewer they won't sample all your new shows on premier night, give it some time to attract viewers *or* advertise it brutally and in places we'll see the ads.. Like Penny Arcade.

It will look a little something like this.

Jesus Christ. Did you have to type 'M$' twice in one post?!? That's so lame. Putting that into a post causes people to ignore the point you're trying to make. Stick to the subject and shy away from User Friendly punchlines and I'll listen.

RELATED SUBJECT

Let me get this straight... They are releasing inferior hardware because they "don't want to take a loss" on each piece sold. They are also gluing it shut, so you can't make any modifications on the hardware they aren't losing money selling to you.

Distribution of games is apparently going at 60% of sale price. Unlike a real publisher, that 60% doesn't buy you any advertising, hype, or free press copies. At the end of this, the Developer and original Publisher split $20, and Indrema walks away with $30. By comparison, Nintendo's cut is estimated at between 3 and 5 dollars on games on their system. Of course, if you want a front page listing that will cost you as well.

Now, the consumer purchases a $300 PC for... $300. This gives the consumer the ability to purchase full PC games at full PC game prices, without added PC hassles such as word processing or Adobe Photoshop. On top of this, the consumer must pay $10 every month just for the priveledge of using this thing that they bought, or else it goes limp and worthless. Anyone think Divx is getting a soulmate?

So this company gets $3 per sale to advertise a game, $30 per sale in commission, at 6 per year they make $20 per sale in connectivity. They make $53 for every $50 game sold... Minus connectivity charges of course. In exchange for this, the publisher accepts a smaller cut but doesn't have to print manuals. The player gets games nearly on demand, but pays on average $70 per game, pays for duplicate ho-hum hardware that isn't theirs, and doesn't get hard copies of anything.

Why will we buy it? Obviously because us suckers will buy anything.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... Online distribution of games is the wave of the future. Sadly, all waves of the future will be crassly exploited by snake oil salesmen. I see no reason to believe differently here.

I'd like to believe that they are really gamers and they really want to break into the highly competitive console market. I'd also like to believe that they are intelligently positioning themselves to be a niche player, and that their costs will scale perfectly with their userbase. Sadly, neither of these seems likely. Perhaps they should just find a way to hook up the N-Gage up to a TV screen and sell that. I hear they are going cheap these days.

They also have impressions of someone who was at the presentation. Pretty interesting stuff.

I think this comic , also from Penny Arcade, sums up the Phantom more neatly even than that press release.

When a game feels more like a job than a game, it's time to quit.

Dude must've had a microphone in my apartment in college. My roomates and I would always ditch games when they "started to feel like work." Work is the antithesis of gaming, if the game drags and there's no reward, you've paid X amount of money to waste time. I can waste time for free, I have Slashdot, Fark, The Onion, & PA!

Nokia has been marketing the N-Gage as a gaming machine and not as a smartphone. Even if it is a good phone, it's not a good gaming device, and so people shy away from it.

My primary concern about the N-Gage's capacity as a handheld game machine is that the battery life is so short you probably wouldn't want to leave it on while you drive and play at stoplights.

Mmm, pie...

Even Penny Arcade.

The ones who survived off advertisements online? No? Me neither.

Gee, I guess you've never heard of Penny-Arcade. Just a few weeks ago they started REFUSING money from their viewers, since they are getting by with online advertising.

well, I guess there are anomalies to every rule.

but my chest hurts from my inability to stop laughing at the sheer incompitence of corporate America/Finland when it comes to making a 'cool' product. I think penny arcade got it perfectly right here.

The P.A. guys sure called this one...

I'll leave it to Gabe and Tycho to talk about Max Payne 2.

Even thought the environments seem really nice in DooM3, I have to disagree with the good art direction claim in regards to the monsters. Some of them are really bad. Come on, spiders with upside down heads? Demons with rocket launchers mounted on their backs? Gabe says it better than me on Penny-Arcade.

The first review I saw of MP2 was at Penny Arcade the day after it came out. I tend to agree with Gabe, this should have been an expansion pack and we shouldn't have had to wait three years for it.

Yesterday's Penny Arcade weighs in with its own review. :)

Here you go.

Too right it is. After all, mere generators won't protect him from those goddamn Martian Rays.

"In Final Fantasy TA, for example, if you want to get certain special items, you need to frequently link up with another GBA (and another copy of FFTA). No biggie if you don't, of course, but you're still missing out on cool stuff."

Solution: Don't buy it. Nobody is holding a gun to your head, making you buy and play FFTA.

"Why couldn't they have added these extra features onto the original GBA cartridge?"

Because the whole poing of using the eReader is to be able to allow the programmers to add new features to the game that they haven't thought of yet. And since I haven't heard of Nintendo developing time-travel technology...

"The more and more I think about it, the harder it is to justify paying $30USD for a 10-year old game."

Again, you can simply not buy it.

You're starting to sound familiar...

An audiophile-quality device? Perhaps. But I submit the great wisdom of Penny Arcade.

I think Penny Arcade put my feelings best...

Penny-Arcade said this "same shit" (see the part of the news about the adverts) back at E3.

Penny-Arcade said this "same shit" (see the part of the news about the adverts) back at E3.

It's kind of like this...

Like This?

I used to think User Friendly was pretty good, but then either it's quality deteriorated, or i found other, better comics to put it in perspective.

Here's a list of (some of) the comics that in my opinion are better than User Friendly. As usual, your opinion may differ and your mileage may vary.

Adventurers! the best of the CRPG comics.
Dragon Tails comic about strange geeky dragons and a squirrel or two. (Has jokes that cover all kinds of geekery, not just the tech variety) The Wings of ChangeFantasy comic about a dragon, a girl with wings, and a group of pixie children
The Devil's Panties "Real Life" type comic about a female protagonist and a couple of her friends. Frequently touches on goth and comic geekdom, and there's a side comic about LARPs.
Sparkling Generation Valkyrie YuukiA manga style take-off on the "pretty-girl" anime genre. Has some Ranma-esque gender-bending themes if that disturbs you.
Freefall Science fiction comic, primarily focused on an kleptomaniac alien scavenger, a friendly but somewhat dim robot, and a genetically engineered anthropomorphic female wolf.
Ozy and Millie One of those comics with a world (mostly) like ours but filled with anthropomorphic animals. Frequently philisophical or political.
Something Positive "Real life" type comic with a very twisted and sometimes sick sense of humor.
Venus Envy A comic about highschool aged MtF transgendered person dealing with all the issues you'd expect such a person to be dealing with. Obviously lots of gender-bending issues.
8-bit Theater tied for second best CRPG comic.
RPG World the other tied for second best CRPG comic.
Anti-here for Hire by the author of Adventurers! Same style mostly, but with a comic-book superhero theme.
Megatokyo some people love the comic, some people can't stand it. The art is certainly pretty though in either case.
Penny Arcade people talk about it enough on Slashdot (including several mentions in this thread) that i'm not going to even bother describing it.

Okay, I'm tired of making descriptions, so some other good comics that didn't make it into the top tier (but still better than User Friendly IMHO) if you feel like looking around, PvP, Ctrl-Alt-Del, Saturnalia. The Life of Riley, No Need for Bushido

And last (just because everyone here has probably heard of it already) Sluggy, which has had its unfunny moments, but unlike User Friendly has managed to pull out of those slumps and return to its former heights every time (so far)

There's also a large set of comics that i only check every couple of weeks because they don't updated more than once a week, but are still worth taking the time to check. However i'm going to just stick to my daily list at the moment.

Don't forget they also make crappy portable game systems.

Critical Strike