Bring back the Leisure Suit Larry age verification quiz? ;-)

When this crap came out, my driver tells me "we've analysed your usage and you'll save 70% by switching to InstantInk"

Well that's simple to check: looked at my previous "genuine HP ink" purchases - and my spend over 2 years is _comfortably_ lower than the new subscription.

It's not SUCH a big lie if the price to buy ink will rise steeply. Which it will... because they've stopped stocking better value cartridges(!) (907XL 903XL) Only the low-capacity 903 version remains on sale in Europe. I think their 70% claim will still be far from the truth and probably on shaky legal grounds (in my parts).

Anyway, I scrounged up a few XL from odd sellers still stocking it - enough for 2 years, then I'm switching printer. But I agree with other commenters that the choices are slim: Print + Scan + NO internet connection. Is that too much to ask from a printer?

This. However it need not cost the environment if you compute thoughtfully. I contribute to www.worldcommunitygrid.org and GPUGrid (doing actual work for humanity) in winter only. With 2 quiet PCs this combined ~700 W of "smart" heating (one directly under my desk) offsets the only other heat source in my office - a "dumb" electric heater.

Note these steps don't give you the full change, because it seems there's also a theme change that goes along with it.

At least, this came down the Beta channel and I found this preference (thanks!) didn't fully turn it off. I don't hate all of it - but somehow the bit with the very-subtle shades of grey with no border, which in places invert upon selection - grey > white & white > grey - bothers me. And that change stuck even after turning the pref off, so I guess that resides in the new theme.

Maybe some kind soul out there will create a new light theme that solves this.

(fyi: Anon posting on /. is disabled these days)

A charity I supported ran a project for villages without power, but with cows. Since cows tend to "output" at the same time they "input" - they just placed grills underneath where they fed the cows. The only extra task was to mix equal parts (IIRC) dirt + straw in with the dung and it would naturally ferment. This creates natural gas which can be captured and used or lighting + cooking in the evenings.

That time range was specifically discussing tests run at elevated temperatures (60'C) - so I didn't spot anything yet to counter the established "rules of thumb" that the strain on Lithium Ion batteries comes from (a) being held at highly over- or under- charged state and (b) temperature. (In fact it seems to support that.)

I'd say the degradation is more from running 8-thread C++ compilations on it most days. (So holding the CPU at its max 45W TDP for extended periods of time). I imagine iPhones would be sipping the juice by comparison. The degradation isn't bad, the "life monitor" widget says the battery is about 30% through it's life. It can still handle an 8-hour international trip on one charge (going easy on the compiling, mind - no C++ while travelling) - I'm just saying I'm starting to notice the life shortening, so I bumped those numbers to get more "unplugged time" in at home.

There could also be other factors at play: CPU-security patches, more viruses to scan for (I've noticed my scanner hitting Java code these days, which it never used to) OS & software update-bloat adding heavier loads on it over that 3 year period also. Dunno...

Interesting. Could you post time references? that's a 75 minute clip(!)

Skimming through, I spotted talk of currents like 2mA, I didn't mean THAT much of a trickle charge. It takes ~4 hours to go 20->80 on a PC's USB port instead of 1 hr or 30 min (or something) in those fast-charge modes, and certainly the fast charge modes are the ones that make it noticeably hot.

No cigar ;-) 1 decade out. If anything the music's all getting softer, at least around these parts. Let's run with "When the vocals are too autotuned, I'm too old"

My Dell XPS laptop provides bios options - you can tell it to switch off @ a level (say 80%) and not bother recharging until it drops (to e.g. 60%). Before travel switch it over to standard charge (so, not fast change) to keep it topped up during the journey when that extra capacity is actually needed. After > 3 years of daily unplugged use, I've now bumped these levels up by 5% as some battery degradation is just starting to take effect, but battery life is still very good. That degradation will accelerate, but it's still looking miles better than prior laptops at this age & level of use.

Then for other USB-charged devices, just find plugs or low-amperage adapters that don't provide fast charge ability. E.g. my phone can report either 'standard, rapid or (when using a Dell power brick directly) "turbo" charging modes. But instead I just plug it into my desktop PC & trickle charge it for half a day while I'm at the office. This way even if it goes up to 100% it's only going to be there briefly, as opposed to plugging it in overnight. I hope this phone will last 4+ years

Buy quality to begin with (say, look for things like gorilla glass so screens don't be painful to use with age) then save money too by not needing so many regular upgrades, and reduce electronic waste. In terms of battery, this might mean looking for models with larger capacity to help with ensuring it lasts a good lifetime (not only just charge time) via reduced frequency & depth of charging cycles.

Our social controls & norms all go out the window when there's no body language, eye contact, and (at least in places like comment sections) you'll probably never meet the other person again. Hardly a "social" medium. :-)

First read: how would selling bitcoin to attackers help compensate victims? :-)

ROFL Haven't laughed so hard in days! :-) Reminds me of crap like oh, internet-connected BBQs! turn it on remotely! What could possibly go wrong? Even as a geed the attraction for putting technology where it doesn't belong astounds me. Simple is best.

Yes we need to attack the problem in multiple ways. But the evidence is that carbon pricing / taxing (choose your name) can be very effective at improving efficiency and reducing waste - and it's something that can be implemented relatively quickly.

If you have 5 min, this video includes some good reporting of what happened when Australia brought in, and later repealed (for bonkers political reasons), a carbon pricing scheme. And it lists some of tangible changes that it (briefly) made:

https://youtu.be/6fV6eeckxTs?t=371

tl;dr - the kicker around 12m: the companies who were initially opposed it, then asked for it back.

> It is also implausible that nobody has noticed this massive worldwide catastrophe before this lone researcher stumbled onto the evidence of our life support systems "collapsing".

More than merely implausible, you can go and look up the previously found results. :-) Thankfully insect geeks do exist, and guess what...

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/germany-s-insects-are-disappearing ... they found similar declines. What makes this new data-point particularly informing is, aside from the scale, its location and how that was not an area previously expected to be hit so badly.

> So far AGW has warmed the earth by 1.3 C (2 F).

That's a world average, but that same level of warming can bring local extremes more like +/- 4 C

As the article states: “The number of hot spells, temperatures above 29C, have increased tremendously,”