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Comment Re:You already can (Score 1) 266

I have a HDHomeRun located upstairs with no real way to get the network signal down to a proposed MythTV box next to the television. A friend suggested HomePlug for ethernet over the electrical wires. The HD HomeRun (dual tuner) states 100Mbps network connection for its specification. HomePlug is 85MBps I believe and should be sufficient. A single HD stream is roughly 19Mbps I believe so all should be good. Note: all theoretical at this stage but perhaps worth looking into for yourself.

Comment US Political System (Score 1) 374

The right-wing thinking seems to be that since businesses bring in money -- which is A Good Thing -- then anything a business does or wants must therefore be good. I'm not sure what a political system run by businesses (or at least unduly influenced by businesses) is called but we can summarise it with the acronym USA.

Comment Re:Interesting... (Score 1) 330

I agree that mandating a physical switch would have little effect on consumer habits. I've also measured most of my appliances and computers with my Kill-A-Watt and while many are close to zero or a watt or two some of the older stuff is around 10W. Energy efficiency is a large factor in my purchasing decisions -- bought a Wii instead of a PS3 or XBox, for instance -- and I tend to unplug (when not in use) devices I know have more than 1W power draw. Only a few essential things, like TiVo and refrigerators, are regularly left on. Now that we live in the US, I do miss the Australian power outlets with their built-in switches http://placelessness.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/powerpoint.jpg

Insulation is a huge factor. Our new house of ~2000 sq ft. with double-paned windows and floor, wall and ceiling insulation means a peak electricity usage in late southern California summer of around 20kW per day, 12kW per day last month (

Of course, if you really want to influence consumer behaviour have the price of the energy reflect its true cost, including clean-up and investment in new technologies. Fairly good chance the lazy people will make it off the couch when it has a large enough impact on their wallets.

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