Topically: I did exactly this.

I bought a Prius when there were still tax incentives to do so.

I slapped solar panels on my house when there were 50% 'rebates' covering the cost of panels + installation. I produce SREC's every year.
I live in NJ. This was while we had a Democractic governor. Since fat-arse got into power he's removed the rebate, and told people : We'll up the SREC cap so you can recoup your capital outlay by sale of those. Fine - so now people can get an ROI on their panel investment on their SREC's. He then denied upping the *volume* of those SREC's - which resulted in a glut of SCREC's on the market, and the price has plummeted.

They used to sell for $200. That went as high as $600 and is now around $100.

You cannot buy Solar Panels and get a return on your money anymore. You're looking at around 30 years before you break even.
Of course, I made out like a bandit - I got rebate AND higher priced SCREC's - at least for the period that they were worth anything....

I happen to like that I produce my own electricity though - I just wish I had a half-decent grid to push it onto.

My personal experience..

The point, though, is less about the (obsolete) hardware and more about the opportunity to own a 'piece of gaming history'.

You can look back at it, in your golden years and tell your grandchildren "I played on that server" and they can look back at you blankly and ask 'Wow.. did they use *actual* servers in those days? Weren't there any clouds?"

It's nostalgic and ephemeral, and not at all about the fact that it's basically some BL20p (or similar) which you could pull out of a dumpster behind most data centers these days..

It's done this for a while now - at least if you're in the US. The Brit and Oz commercials don't conform to the 'merikan sorts and I hear it's only about 20% effective. It doesn't help that the developers who work on the commercial stripping are all in the US... :(

But yes - You just set your recording up, click the little button saying 'flag commercials' and another little button somewhere in a playback screen that says 'Skip commercials' and Bob's your uncle...

>They shut off the air to conserve power and reduce petrol consumption.

Bollocks.

I've been driving a Prius for 4 years (2007 and 2009) models. And neither do this.

You can sit in the car park with the AC on and drain your batteries. They actually don't last a heapload of time - perhaps a couple of hours at most. Which is why the 2010 model comes with a solar wotsit on the roof to charge the battery. So you can sit in the car park with the AC on and (as long as it's sunny) not drain your batteries.

>BTW, most any home in the USA built in the last few decades has been heavily insulated and tightly sealed.

Whatever. Most houses in the UK are built of BRICK.

The 'standard' of American houses - made of wood, frankly appalls me. I thought we had learnt from the three little piggies that Straw > wood > brick.

S.