blech:
posted on 2006/07/30 20:23
On Friday I ran across Aleks Krotoski's piece in the Guardian Gamesblog talking about standby devices, explicitly with reference to games consoles.
The ultimate source of her story, as with the hundreds of other repetitions and variations (including such noted Internet fact-checking sites as, er, digg) is the Times.
The Government is to outlaw standby switches on televisions and video and DVD players to cut the amount of electricity wasted in the home.
However, reading through that article, there's no source for that, no direct quotation, and no ministerial source.
This isn't very surprising, because when you read the actual statement to the House of Commons by Alistair Darling, Secretary of State at the DTI, he, er, doesn't say that. At all.
[The government] will work with industry and others to improve the efficiency of domestic appliances and to phase out inefficient goods, thus limiting the amount of standby energy wasted
Somewhat different, no? Nothing about bans, nothing about compulsion. In fact, if you were being harsh, you could call it... waffle.
The Digital TV Group quotes the energy review (which I'll admit I haven't yet downloaded and searched) as saying:
We will continue to press at international level for full implementation of the International Energy Agency's 1-Watt initiative to reduce stand-by power consumption
That's the IEA 1-watt plan, which looks laudable, but also one of those vast international bodies that takes years to do anything.
So, gamers, rejoice! Don't worry about your Wii and Xbox 360 not being able to download games while you sleep, because the UK Government isn't about to, like, omg, ban consoles, wtf. No, you're safe to continue paying stupidly high electricity bills because people can't design a standby mode for toffee, and nobody's about to force them to.
I see I'm not the only person trying to fight this fight.
We hate you all. Yes, especially you. Sod off and DIE