[SGVLUG] help save the world, pwr off game consoles

[Christopher Smith]

On Fri, 2008-11-21 at 16:23 -0800, Christopher Smith wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-11-21 at 08:41 -0800, Dan Kegel wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 1:22 PM, matti <mathew_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > "If left on continuously, the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 will consume the same amount of energy as two new refrigerators over the course of a year."
> > >
> > > remember 2 power off electronics when you can
> > >
> > > http://green.yahoo.com/blog/the_conscious_consumer/21/stop-wasting-money-video-games-and-energy-efficiency.html
> > 
> > Better: pass a bill requiring all consumer electronics
> > to consume less than one milliwatt if left idle
> > for more than half an hour...
> 
> When I leave my Playstation 3 on, it can be set to auto-power down or to
> run Folding at Home (which the Playstation 3's Cell processor is
> extraordinarily good at). It is not immediately clear to me which of
> those choices is really the better one.

BTW, as was pointed out on NPR this morning (they were talking about
this study), the real problem is that most consoles don't provide a way
to recover where you were in a game when they power down, so people are
far more likely to leave them running than other electronic devices.
Apparently console and game makers are now working on giving them
"hibernate"-like capabilities just like PC's.

--Chris