On Friday, July 30, 2021, 10:38:22 PM PDT, Shawn K. Quinn wrote: On 7/30/21 23:59, jim bell wrote [quoting a Republican Daily article]:

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Americans know California is fond of banning all types of pleasure and progress. So it may come as no surprise that the state has adopted new regulations that have ended up effectively banning a new top-of-the-line

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gaming PC from Dell. The reason? The new technology uses too much energy. That’s right, a highly advanced PC cannot be sold in California – the state with the fifth largest economy in the world and that is home to the heart of the tech industry – because it uses a lot of power."

I'm confused by this article. If it's just energy consumption related to actual computing power and these computers are no less energy efficient factoring in the higher computing power, I have a huge problem with it.

I very much doubt that California has made an intelligent distinction, here.  My understanding  is that over the years, measures like 'watts per gigaflop' for computer equipment has very much improved.  If anything, the total power consumption of computers hasn't increased (much) since 1990, but they get a lot more compute done for those watts.  

However if it's really about energy efficiency, as in these computers could be built with the same amount of computing power and use less energy to do the same work without sacrificing performance, then that's a problem Dell needs to fix. I think that's highly unlikely in this case.  With a given level of IC technology, you're probably going to get a very similar rating in 'power/gate-hertz'.  The main way to improve that figure is to build ICs using tinier components, and they are already down to 10 nanometers (and well below that).  

I'm hesitant to make any kind of decision based on a blatantly right wing story, that actually has "Republican" as part of the publication title no less (!). I'd like to see a more balanced story from, say, Wired." As I just pointed out to Prof, this was merely the first article I encountered.  I figure that everybody has his own 'spin' to put on this story.  And finding such a different article is as simple as 'california ban computer'.   I could add, with my legal knowledge, that I believe it would violate the US Constitution's guarantee of free interstate commerce for a state to obstruct transporting products across state lines for this kind of reason.  The Founding Fathers didn't want the various states to act like independent countries, and erect trade barriers between themselves.   If anything, it's a rarity that Congress granted California the power to erect lower pollution-control standards in about 1972 than applied to the rest of America.  I understood California needed it, at that time:  I visited LA in 1969 (for the moon landing) and yes, I saw the smog.  But I don't think they justified maintaining such heightened standards for the next 5 decades.               Jim Bell

On Saturday, July 31, 2021, 11:20:06 AM PDT, Punk-BatSoup-Stasi 2.0 wrote: On Sat, 31 Jul 2021 17:57:17 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

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I could add, with my legal knowledge, that I believe it would violate the US Constitution's

 >   yep, infinte idiocy, always. Are you saying that states SHOULD have the power to block the importation of items that are generally accepted in other states?   Does that make you a Statist? One possibility is that you, like many others today, are simply deciding to be 'against' things that people you dislike happen to be 'for'. And vice versa.   I believe that's called "tribalism":  You are expected to adopt the practices and traditions of 'your tribe', and oppose those of people NOT of 'your tribe'.  Regardless of the actual merits.   This was illustrated well nearly 18 months ago:  As you may recall, about 2/10/2020 I posted an item about the longstanding anti-malaria drug, chloroquine.  (Not quite the same as hydroxychloroquine, but closely related.)  For a about a month, chloroquine was entirely non-controversial.  THEN Trump made a comment about it.   At that point, the TDS-sufferers had to oppose chloroquine with a passion. Sat, Feb 8, 2020 at 9:18 PM[chloroquine is an old-line drug typically used against malaria] [partial quote follows] https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/science/020620/could-an-old-malaria-drug-h... ASBMB Today Science Could an old malaria drug help fight the new coronavirus? Could an old malaria drug help fight the new coronavirus? By John Arnst February 06, 2020 Chloroquine might be getting new life as an antiviral treatment for the novel coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China in late 2019 and has infected some 25,000 people in more than 25 countries. For decades, the drug was a front-line treatment and prophylactic for malaria....."[end of quote] Similarly, a few months after that, Zenaan Harkness mention Ivermectin.   I responded with: jim bell To:zen@freedbms.netMon, Aug 17, 2020 at 10:26 PM The difference is...Trump hasn't yet mentioned "Ivermectin".   But once Trump does mention "Ivermectin" the rules of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) require that every liberal, Democrat, Socialist, Communist, and Progressive instantly decide that Ivermectin is a completely ineffective, yet horribly dangerous poison. EXCEPT...if Trump says Ivermectin is a terrible and dangerous drug.   THEN TDS sufferers will just love it. On Mon, Aug 17, 2020 at 8:50 PM, Zenaan Harkness wrote: [end of quote] He was forwarding a message by Gil May.   This kind of 'tribalism' is foolish and dangerous.               Jim Bell  

On Saturday, July 31, 2021, 01:17:21 PM PDT, Punk-BatSoup-Stasi 2.0 wrote: On Sat, 31 Jul 2021 19:50:51 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

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  On Saturday, July 31, 2021, 11:20:06 AM PDT, Punk-BatSoup-Stasi 2.0 wrote:       On Sat, 31 Jul 2021 17:57:17 +0000 (UTC) jim bell wrote:

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I could add, with my legal knowledge, that I believe it would violate the US Constitution's

 >   yep, infinte idiocy, always.

Are you saying that states SHOULD have the power to block the importation of items that are generally accepted in other states?   Does that make you a Statist?

    I'm saying that your comments on the US constitution, as if the US constitution wasn't anything but a laughable moral abortion, are idiotic.

 >   I'm saying that YOUR comments on the so called US constituion make YOU a statist. No, I didn't say I LIKE it.  Nor did I say I APPROVE it.  Rather, I am expressing my understanding of what people who work with the US Constitution do say about this question.  I realize that you will find this distinction difficult to understand.   In any case, I definitely DON'T approve of the state of California banning high-power computers, or bacon.  I have different (and additional) reasons beyond the constitutional issues I have mentioned.  I don't believe that the government of California should even exist, to name just one example.  But, that doesn't prevent me from citing reasons, under the US Constitution, that it is doing the wrong thing.    >   And here is a sample, for fun :  >   "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States"

    Slavery is 'LEGAL' in the US. And indeed widely practiced as 'prison labor'.

Well, I didn't say I approved that, either.  

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One possibility is that you, like many others today, are simply deciding to be 'against' things that people you dislike happen to be 'for'. And vice versa.   I believe that's called "tribalism":  You are expected to adopt the practices and traditions of 'your tribe', and oppose those of people NOT of 'your tribe'.  Regardless of the actual merits.  

 >   As a libertarian I'm against the US, the worst fascist cesspool on the planet and biggest threat to freedom on the planet, since the time it was 'founded' as a SLAVE SOCIETY with the 'constitution' you are drooling over. Then, you ought to stop misunderstanding my statements.  I can criticize people even on the basis of their own 'rules' which they claim to follow.        

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This was illustrated well nearly 18 months ago:  As you may recall, about 2/10/2020 I posted an item about the longstanding anti-malaria drug, chloroquine.  (Not quite the same as hydroxychloroquine, but closely related.)  For a about a month, chloroquine was entirely non-controversial.  THEN Trump made a comment about it.   At that point, the TDS-sufferers had to oppose chloroquine with a passion.

 >   are you saying you are a trumpofascist? I am continuing to show that there is a 'political' aspect to the big dispute.      >   And did I ever mention that the 'covod pandemic' is a US military PSYOP? Your chloroqinone won't cure it. It has definitely been co-opted by nations.      

Each generation of compute has always used less power or size or cost to do the same work. On net, it's all better. With SW increasing capabilities, and SW bloat, more compute is often needed, so outcome is often no real change in either direction. Govt simply doesn't want you to own any distributed compute power, nor any cryptocurrency power, etc. It wants you all as "eyeballs", and as "as a service" central service subscribing slaves, etc. Personal CPUs doing p2p video comms and apps and currency people all discovering and growing in shared freedom across the world are a threat to Govt. So it concocts some bullshit cover FUD story like "energy" or "virus" risk to now put all your privately owned computer systems on perpetual lockdown, just like you let Corona FUD do to you. If Govt really wanted to save energy, it would simply order itself to quit, leave and close all the Govt buildings worldwide, cut the power, the maintenance, all the cars, etc. Huge energy savings ;) And it's all entirely voluntary no force, they just choose to abandon it all to save the planet. And since planet saving is all the rage these days, they'd immediately hit stardom status for doing so.