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User: mabhatter654

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  1. Re:Stupid Idea! More Power Standardization Instead on Westinghouse Commits to Green Plug's Universal A.C. Adapter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    if we make them standard, hotels and other places will already have one available! Sure, we might need wall-warts available for just one plug, but it would be the exception.. and everybody would have one!

    It's not about the "plugs" it's about the wasted power of plugged in things that aren't being used. The trouble with Wall-warts is they are stupid and drizzle power the entire time they are plugged in, even without a device attached. What do we do? we buy and extra to take on the road, so we don't have to crawl under our desks and unplug them... so we have 5 wall-warts running with no devices all day!! That's what this product is trying to eliminate because it will shut as much power circuitry as possible when the device is not used.

  2. Re:I have one of these on Westinghouse Commits to Green Plug's Universal A.C. Adapter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    the point of this is that it will monitor the ports and turn off the power to the whole device at the wall. That will make your devices be "really" off when they're done working. Wall-warts waste a large amount of power like 5-10% of your electric bill on the grid because the transformer inside is still active even if there's nothing attached.

  3. Re:Great Idea. on Westinghouse Commits to Green Plug's Universal A.C. Adapter · · Score: 1

    many small devices all use USB right now, that's an easy start. I think 12V with a selector for routers, modems, etc is another easy pick.. we already have switchable multiplugs at all the stores because finding "just the right one" 3 years later is a bitch. If the devices came with the connector cable, then you could buy the standard wall-wart for 5$ or the full unit for 100$, seems easy to solve.

  4. Re:Not for Apple? on Westinghouse Commits to Green Plug's Universal A.C. Adapter · · Score: 5, Informative

    because they don't have a default answer in a generic USB driver. It's one of the little digs they take so that each manufacture has to write a WHQL driver so their device will "properly" talk. This is instead of simply providing the industry standard, or most common, answer to the request when made.

    They pulled the same crap with the power management specs on laptops, so OEMS could "optimize" their performance, instead of simply implementing the default optimizations from the chip manufacture directly. The reason is that it keeps devices tied to Windows drivers and keeps OEMS in the Microsoft upgrade treadmill.

  5. Re:This is going nowhere. on Westinghouse Commits to Green Plug's Universal A.C. Adapter · · Score: 1

    My wife has a moto phone and I'd agree. The plug is USB but there's something "extra" in there so a generic USB doesn't work...and the charger won't charge another generic USB device.

  6. Re:This is going nowhere. on Westinghouse Commits to Green Plug's Universal A.C. Adapter · · Score: 1

    I thought it was Taiwan.. where they change cell phones every season and got tired of the electronic waste piling up.

    But anyway, it's a great idea. Most iPods will charge off USB now, they just require the Apple plug. My Wife's TomTom charges off USB. I have Bluetooth headsets and speakers that charge off USB. For a large number of devices adding some USB3 ports to this green unit would make sense.

    The only real problem with USB 2.0 is that it only allows .5 Amp thru. Many things like the Moto phones need 1 full Amp to operate the device and charge. Some things will run OK, others like my really cheap ASRock motherboard will shut down the USB ports for overdrawing.

    I'd say that 14.4 V (series of 1.2V cells) is the other big one to standardize. Almost all laptops pull in 14.4 volts as well as many rechargable hand tools and toy cars use 14.4V or 7.2V so that could open up a lot of options too.

  7. Re:About time... on SCOTUS Grants Guantanamo Prisoners Habeas Corpus · · Score: 1

    no, it just took 6 years of stalling and loopholes for the Supreme Court to get to have their say. If the law allowed, they'd have ruled on this 5 years ago. But the court is only allowed to legally "react"... if the cases "go away" before they get to the court they can't rule on the matter.

  8. Re:Foresight, perhaps on Porn Found On L.A. Obscenity Case Judge's Website · · Score: 1

    on topic, is GoatSe.cx obscene? when it was first started it probably was, but now it's a type of art/political statement as it is the butt of jokes and a "benchmark" of offensiveness... pulling it back from the brink of indecency.

  9. Re:Don't forget the corollary. on Using Distributed Computing To Thwart Ransomware · · Score: 1

    Apple makes it easy to back up Windows. Plug in a drive for time machine and let it backup the virtual image files. Easy as pie.

  10. Re:I've got a better idea on Using Distributed Computing To Thwart Ransomware · · Score: 1

    Apple thought of this! but then OSX doesn't get viruses, so Time Machine is a useless feature.

    That said TM does a great job of backup, files, settings, network, the whole thing... already used it after I had to take mine in for repair.

  11. Re:Result: civil war on 35 Articles of Impeachment Introduced Against Bush · · Score: 1

    Both Regan and Bush 1 broke the law in Iran-Contra. That was specifically written to not allow transactions that would put guns and money in EXACTLY the kind of people that caused 9-11 and they knowingly broke the law.. because it was written to STOP what they were doing. They had Ollie North take the fall for the Gipper, buy the time it was made known we were "picking" on an old man.

    The real problem is Republican Presidents breaking the law. They were ecstatic to have Clinton screw up so they could spend years hunting court documents for accounting errors... Like other posters said, the Republicans made such a joke of the process that everybody is afraid of "abusing" the power with Bush Co. when this is exactly the time for it.

  12. Re:Is this catchy? GTFOMSL on 35 Articles of Impeachment Introduced Against Bush · · Score: 1

    it was a sexual harassment trial from when he was governor of Arkansas diddling the help. The big deal was that it was allowed to be pursued during his term at all. Then we've lowered the standard that Bush doesn't have to answer for WAR and trillions of dollars because he has "privilege".

  13. Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. on 35 Articles of Impeachment Introduced Against Bush · · Score: 2, Informative

    it's the only way not to be squelched. If he just submitted it to the register it would be sure to be buried in 1000 pages of republican comments nobody would read. By reading it aloud it's "minutes" and must be given space in the register as official discussion. He may be ignored now, but his complaint is legally registered for historians to come.

  14. Re:What's going on..... on The Truth About Last Year's Xbox 360 Recall · · Score: 1

    emphasis would be that ATI partnered on the design they didn't sell the chips, just helped. Last Xbox, Nvidia provided the finished chips just like any other video card for a PC. This round Microsoft cut out Nvidia and only paid ATI for "help", then cut a deal with TSMC themselves for production costs.

    Microsoft left a trail of bad mojo with Nvidia over pricing of chips when Microsoft intended to lose money and kept beating them up... then they didn't cut Nvidia in on the new (profitable) one. I'm sure ATI took that with a grain of salt that they would get cut out of the credit just as soon as possible. Hence Microsoft engineers didn't stick around to listen to thermal requirements which ATI is usually better at.

    I'd expect guys at Garter to be privy to such deals as it's the kind of thing the Street LOVES when you can brag about cutting out profit for your partners when a product is successful. It's more of a "oops" than a show stopping problem... other than that design error (most of the problems were because of the thermal design) the product is a wild success and microsoft "owes" no partners credit for the win. Note they don't put the IBM Power technology on the OUTSIDE of the box either. Nintendo got beat up by both companies for not giving credit for Wii versus Gamecube (that had both stickers) but both companies rolled over for the M$.

  15. Re:Genius on New Opt-Out Clause Makes CAN-SPAM Worse · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is why established industries LOVE regulations! Once you have procedures in place to "follow" the regulation. Then the regulation becomes barrier to entry, or even a legal minefield, to those coming after.
    In this case unsolicited bulk email would be illegal if you didn't follow all these rules up front. But for the guys that already got the grace period to follow the law it's been twisted just enough to be meaningless!!!

    Power, telco, FCC, FAA, FDA, etc all those rule making agencies are run like this. It's just funny to see something so simple twisted so quickly. This is the same reason nobody wants internet neutrality put into law. Then any exceptions to blocking become "rules" that they "have" to block other content/providers... The telcos are already writing the rules the way they want with lots of backwards worded loopholes.

  16. Re:Interesting... on US Supreme Court Limits Patent Claims · · Score: 2, Insightful

    the only reason the SCOTUS seems "biased" is that they can only REACT to cases brought all the way to trial by the executive (meaning a law has to be passed). That means the Legislature can write bad laws all day.. if they're never tested in court cases the court can never see them. In the same way, the Executive can pull the same crap.. like with the enemy combatant fiasco, where the DOJ kept shuffling charges and situations to keep the Court from having a case to rule on.

    hence when the court gets a crack at something it's usually all or nothing. They only get to use the big hammer of throwing out laws based on breaking the Constitution, they don't typically rule on the "facts" of cases. From the other two branches perspective they can spin the court as allowing "lawbreakers" to flourish because they are the only court that judges LAW not citizens.

  17. Re:Hmmm on T-Mobile Sues Starbucks Over Free Wi-Fi Deal · · Score: 1

    yep, that's it.

  18. Re:Free wifi for customers? Sure. Do it like this. on T-Mobile Sues Starbucks Over Free Wi-Fi Deal · · Score: 1

    I agree that it's too hard to GET wi-fi at most of the places that offer it. McDonald's Wayport is the only chain I've seen that lets you pay for just 2 hours, but you still have to sign on the website and put in a credit card for $3 which would turn many people off. The store managers and workers know NOTHING about how it works and can't just take the $3 at the register.

  19. Re:Hmmm on T-Mobile Sues Starbucks Over Free Wi-Fi Deal · · Score: 1

    Exactly, Starbucks has promised a pay structure for customers to T-Mobile, it's a contract they willingly agreed to. By offering "free" wi-fi they are taking away the paying customers they promised T-Mobile... Sure TMO is getting paid for total bandwidth somehow, but the CONTRACT says they get paid per customer and TMO wants it to stick. In some ways AT&T is contract-jumping on TMO, encouraging Starbucks not to fulfill their obligations and courts really don't like that between businesses.

    This type if thing is common when management doesn't really understand the corporation's agreements with their suppliers in search of a "good deal". Companies like Microsoft in the 1990's really encouraged companies to break contracts as a matter of business and if enough customers jump their contracts at once, the original company won't be in business long enough to sue!

  20. Re:once more... on VIA and NVIDIA Working Together For PC Design · · Score: 1

    as opposed to Intel's corporate agenda that tanks gaming because "businesses" don't "need" it. Both AMD and Nvidia/VIA will put more balanced machines out there. I personally can't get over the Apple/Intel Macbook fiasco... that a $1200 Macbook (with the fastest dual core processors out there) play games like WoW like crap... an old iBook will play better than Macbooks! But it's "cheaper" for Intel to hose it's partners with the integrated graphic and eventually the game industry will change how they make games so they can run on 4 year old intel crapware.

    If you have a good graphics chip, you only need 1.5 GHz or so to run the average PC game if you have a modern true DX9 card in the box. AI can be trimmed down, models can be made with less polys, physics can be simplified, but things like T&L just can't be done quickly by a general purpose CPU ... or you have to throw a whole 2GHZ CPU core to do what a 3 year-old graphic card does... what a waste of resources.

  21. Re:Nothing new here on Data Retention Proven to Change Citizen Behavior · · Score: 1

    sadly, the "think of the children" crowd would gladly applaud for this.

  22. Re:Copyright infringement on Covert BT Phorm Trial Report Leaked · · Score: 1

    better yet, what happens when they swap ads in for illegal material? Since they have read the page (to give targeted ads) and replaced the data (they acted on the illegal info) would they not become distributors of said illegal material and lose CC status in a big way? Making them criminally liable for every torrent search, and every (insert bad illegal thing) "think of the children" crime that their users commit.

  23. Re:Mod Parent Up! on Covert BT Phorm Trial Report Leaked · · Score: 1

    I doubt these were paid advertisements. BT (like TV and radio) probably floats a few charities in the ad rotation as a public service. Then they get to claim a portion of the ad space (that would have been unused) as a "donation" cost. So nobody was hurt at all here.

  24. Re:Ouch on Covert BT Phorm Trial Report Leaked · · Score: 2, Interesting

    the EU has already rule against Google for selling ads that do just that in generic Google Ads blocks on sites. I'd say they're already breaking the law.

  25. Re:You probably don't want to hear this, but ... on Jack Thompson Walks Out On Hearing · · Score: 1

    filing lawsuits that are legally wrong is not free speech, it's breaking the rules as a lawyer he's expected to know. What he's doing is exactly like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Those are the type of filings he's making.. and wasting everybody's time and money... it's not just HIS free speech when other people have to spend money to defend against legal attacks.