3.7kW might seem insane, but if you look closely many of these are only 350-500 "air watts" - the rest is expended pushing air through HEPA filters.

There are better ways of handling things - external machines (house vac systems) which vent outside don't need to be nearly as high powered, nor do systems which vent the exhaust back down to the suction head - and as a nice side effect they don't spray nanoparticles into the air which invariably end up being inhaled.

Recirculating air in vacuum cleaners might seem logical, but EU and US patents for it (concept and implementation) was only issued in the last 15 years - and the early USA patents are not aimed at improving efficiency of cleaning or reducing power consumption.

http://www.g0cwt.co.uk/arc/ is worth a look

"Consumers want number(s) to base their decisions upon"

They do in the EU - "air watts"

http://www.g0cwt.co.uk/arc/new...

Patents issued in 2009 - manufacturer interest, nearly zero.

Partly it's down to amps - the heating effect of current is the same no matter what the supply voltage might be, but if you're pushing 120V, you need ~twice the current for the same power as you do with 230V (and at 120V the wiring losses are more cirtical than at 230V as a percentage of total available power.)

The choices are to keep the current rating the same, or fit fatter wiring - which costs more.

The other part is that american wiring standards - to be blunt - are dangerously lax, with attendant higher risk of wiring fires (electrocution risk doesn't come into it - it only takes 150mA to kill someone. Fuses are to protect against fires). As such, insurance companies are more paranoid and mandate separate circuits for high power devices.

Hard drives are unreliable.

Tapes hold more and are longer lived. I'm surprised FB is bothering with BR.

"A quick on-line search show a spindle of fifty 50GB Blu-Ray discs (2.5 TB) retails for about $100."

You're overpaying. I can buy them for less than 50c each.

DVDs are down under 10c apiece if you look around.

Both are good quality items, not nasty unreliable crap.

It was possible back in the early days of valve sets to pick up the IF of a TV set.

Transistorisation (and tighter emission standards) pretty much nobbled that.

In any case the emitted levels and frequencies were so low that it was possible to show that tvs were in use in a neighbourhood, but impossible to pinpoint any particular dwelling unless it was set well away from anything else - which made ose fo them utterly impractical.

TV detector vans never existed - a good hint is that they were _never_ used as evidence in any prosecution - _ever_. (And this is despite detection systems and triangulation being used regularly in cases of illegal radio transmissions, cordless phones and interference cases.)

The BBC (and most other countries with tv licensing) work on the simple basis that everyone has a TV set, so those addresses without a license are liars. The method of detection consists of unlicensed civilians (employed by a debt collection agency) knocking on doors and trying to illegally force entry, as well as tresspassing to peer in windows. - several so called "inspectors" have been sucessfully prosecuted for such activities.

The website in question did not offer episodes - and banned links to downloads of such files.

This was _strictly_ a fan discussion site.

Repeating to emphasise the point: The fansite did _not_ carry episodes or links to downloads of them.

This shutdown is going to bounce horribly in the face of the BBC - and it's studiously avoiding any mention of the issue on its news site. Surprise surprise.

What you're missing with the BT/PlusNet setup is that PlusNet _IS_ BT (BT Yorkshire)

"Mostly interchangable" is an understatement. they use exactly the same underlaying systems - the only difference is the name at the tope of the bill and the number for the call centre.

FWIW: Plusnet was bought up by BT several years ago in order to gain the billing system. A couple of years later BT relaunched plusnet as an "Independent" ISP and go out of the way to avoid any mention that it's part of the BT conglomerate - unlike the effort they go to to to put BT branding on their lineside company (which is supposed to be entirely separated form the rest of the company, but demonstrably is not)

Ask any farmer what the bull does when he's "servicing" the cows.

"Next, script kiddies causing couple fender-benders "

Bumping up congestion would be more constructive in a lot of cases. Taking back the streets for pedestrians, etc, etc.

The historic response to gender imbalances has been polygamy.

It was considered normal in several cultures for a woman to have several husbands and it still occurs in several communities today.

We are so indoctrinated by western religion that monogamy is the One True Way that we lose sight of other ways of doing things.

"Yes, and what better time to propose it. Just out of WWII"

Uh..... it was formally proposed as far back as 1911 - for exactly those reasons - it was realised that if the army ever needed to be mobilised, it would be bogged down.

Eisenhower might have signed the act in the 1950s but he'd been wanting the system since he was on the army expedition of 1919 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

"What if you are in the left lane because you know you will be turning left up ahead?"

If you're approaching the turn point, ok.

If you're 3 miles from the turn (which I routinely encounter), then you need to go back to drivers' ed.

"People will for the most part drive what seems like a safe speed for them"

This applies everywhere in the world. Posted speed limits are supposed to be based on the 85th or 95th percentile or have sound safety reasons.

Roadside furniture like pedestrian barriers, armco barriers, no stopping restrictions, etc etc all bolster driver confidence and cause traffic speedups - this can result in misguided attempts to cope with peak traffic congestion in urban areas by putting in changes which "ease traffic flow" turning the area into a dangerous speedway outside of those hours.