They already do that some. Many of the EU firmware builds are kinder on letting you access/charge without excessive need for a driver. Not all, but some. Also, the US products is already reinventing the wheel in the first place specifically to block 3rd party products. Many connectors/chargers use the same standard, only with a different plug. *All* of the USB standard plugs that won't charge off a random USB plug with working +5V/GND are intentionally not doing so - you have to intentionally break it's capability to do so by verifying the charger.

I travel way less then I used to. I can do a lot of what I used to have to travel for from home. "The commute" is also a mysterious phenomena that the US, who will collectively bitch at having to walk thirty seconds to a minute more because there wasn't a closer parking space, somehow put up with putting up with being in the hour range. It may be that it's starting to dawn on people that you know what, 1/8-1/16th of my waking time isn't worth a 10-20% pay raise. People may be starting to weigh their options and realizing having a 30" TV instead of a 50" one may not be such a bad deal if it comes with a side order of actually having enough time to watch it.

So in other words just up until the water broke? That doesn't seem like a whole birth to me.. But good on them if it's useful I suppose.

It would probably make more sense for breaking up crowds/riots domestically (similar situations to where a water cannon, pepper spray, etc might be used). A tinfoil hat/bodysuit would indeed block it though (or any other metallic cover such as conductive fabric paint) so a prepared protester wouldn't have to work that terribly hard to counter it.

Admittedly, there is a possibility that some of the older demographic may decide that perhaps it would be kind of handy assuming it's really simple and pretty cheap. The ones used to paying for all media. But lets face it, the 20-30 crowd is debating about if *TV* is worth it. Paying for a newspaper seems like a quaint habit you saw your grandpa do once and you might go with if you need the local classifieds in hardcopy and the net version was missing or annoying.

One ghetto solution (which I've used) is to just wire it into a broken/old keyboard. The common ground often used on classic controllers (as opposed to the gridded polling on a keyboard) can get in the way but with a little creativity and a little "meh, so the rest of it doesn't work right" can get by that since there's usually only like 5-6 (or 10-12 with two) and you can usually map which keys represent them in the emu. Just follow the tracks, find sufficient keys that won't mess with each other (remember that things like "left and right at the same time" can't actually happen), solder in, tape down, solder to connector, done.

Well, perhaps the sun is part of the problem and plants would be better off getting just the light and not a bunch of the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. If true, that's good to know too.

Or, rather then checking yourself, remove all shielding and have someone without knowledge evaluate them returning their eval in writing naming only which aspen and what condition. If you want to do another round, replace shielding and wait. If you think it matters to the aspen who knows, I can't help. This would still be kind of weak, but at least eliminate one huge bias and can be done with only one wise-to-aspen accomplice.