44 Replies to “Hey Buddy, Wanna Buy a Computer”

  1. The people in those states voted for the morons who instituted those regulatory regimes, so I must admit that I don’t have much sympathy.  (Although I would note that there are probably transshippers/freight forwarders who can be used to get around said regulations — there are always workarounds . . . )

    1. Thing is I don’t think they did vote for them. I think the vote was fixed.

    2. Try buying shower heads or plumbing fixtures in CA … I had to buy my last shower head from someone on eBay who didn’t give a shit. Amazon refuses to ship to CA. Same thing with a wall mount Lav. faucet that puts out 2.5 gpm … but only 2.4 gpm is allowed. I found a supplier back East who sold it to me, saying he didn’t give a shit about CA rules and regs.

      Oh … and every single one of the CA-compliant fixtures that I had to buy? Yes, I drilled out the flow restrictors on every single one of em. My shower is like a monsoon rain falling on Kauai. Yes … FUCK YOU California Water Resources Board … FUCK YOU.

      1. Should have checked with Kramer and Nueman as they were buying them from the back of a guy’s truck.

      2. Bravo! Just like low flow toilets. No thanks, I prefer to flush the turd once. I don’t need to try three times and have a good look while at it. If I wanted to, I can always turn on the news.

          1. Seems to be a habit all along the West Coast, Vancouver included. I don’t believe it is legal in Ottawa due to possible confusion with elected representatives.

        2. I’ve yet to meet a contractor or a realtor who has anything good to say about low-flow toilets.

          My father put a low-flow unit in place of the one that was originally in the house I inherited. Unfortunately, a critical seal had worn over the years so now the drain valve at the bottom of the tank doesn’t close properly.

          I thought I could get a replacement. Ha! The toilet was a Rona house brand and–wait for it!–that model was discontinued a long time ago, so new parts are no longer available. Generic seals are a bit too tight, so I can’t use them.

          The result is that the tank slowly drains and, then, the fill valve opens up as the water reaches a critical level. I could, of course, replace the entire toilet, but why spend several hundred dollars because I can’t get a $5 seal?

          The wonders of modern technology, eh?

          1. I know you are not a technophobe, but maybe try cleaning both sealing surfaces with IPA, coat one (top?) surface with WD-40, apply a thin coat of silicone sealant to the other, let the surfaces touch and check the next day. May be a ten cent fix, with bonus satisfaction of bucking the system.

          2. Thanks for the tip, but the valve is really a cockamamie design. It consists of a vertical plunger and a rather ridiculous linkage. It’s one of those things that one is better off chucking out than trying to fix. It’s made out of cheap brittle plastic which looks as if it’ll break easily.

            My solution now is to remove the top of the tank each time I flush and push down on the plunger to get it to seal. It works. I’m not going to fix that.

            Since the house needs a lot of interior work, I’ll leave it as is until I sell it as the toilet will likely be replaced anyway. I’ll point out the problem to whoever buys the place and let them worry about it.

    3. Yeah Garth, but it’s pretty sad you need to find “workarounds”. As to them voting for it, well look what we have in Ottawa, I sure as shit didn’t vote for them.

      1. Workarounds are a fact of life under communist regimes. We may as well get used to them and establish support networks. See cars in Cuba…

  2. Well, Vermont people are just going to drive to New Hampshire and buy it tax free anyway. They already do that for all other major appliances. There is another lesson to be learned in that story but most readers of this site already know that.

    No idea what the Hawaii folks are gonna do. But you get what you vote for.

  3. Washington State produces electricity primarily via Hydro. They produce so much as a result its very cheap. But using this cheap abundant renewable power is apparently a bad thing.

    What’s important is leftist voters feel good about themselves.

    1. Pile on the irony across the river in Oregon. At Boardman, Oregon, there are two server farms. One is probably not much more than a really well hit 3-wood from the Columbia River. The server farms are pretty substantial buildings, surrounded by diesel generators running 24/7/365. Even more irony. In the summer of 2017, while the dams on the lower Columbia were dumping millions of KW/h worth of water down their spillways, the nearby windmills were happily spinning, supplying about as much power as was being wasted in the spillways.

    2. Believe me. Both the governor and the rest of the libs and doing all they can to kill off the dams too.
      Yet the want no power from gas or coal, only green?

      God help us.

  4. California has managed to reframe the issue as a demand problem rather than supply shortfall.
    Bad computers!

  5. I’m from Alberta – when have the actions of government ever represented the will of the people? I’ve always assumed that any alignment between the two was pure coincidence.

  6. Get used to it folks. Every left wing gov’t of every province/state/country will either try or start to pull this kind of cr*p on their citizens in the name of all kinds of causes in the future. UN Agenda 21, its starting!

  8. so the base model, which uses a graphics card from at least 2 generations ago, is banned in those states because they use too much power?

    I’m wondering if they have banned kettles that use more than 400 watts yet

      1. Pretty slow kettle imo. Candle powered no doubt
        Most are at least 1500 watts or more no.?

  9. You want to play fallout 4 yr gonna have to unplug yr neighbors Tesla after dark!

  10. Not like these things run on coal. What’s next: hair dryers, vacuums or 4 slice toasters?

  11. If I read the fine print, I would not even be surprised if it said;

    “… this product cannot be shipped UNLESS you are a non-white or an LGTBQ “

  12. What’s the electrical draw from air conditioners? Double Standards, anyone?

  14. This story does give one some sense of what pains large successful businesses have when dealing with govt.

  15. Jail Cell.
    “What’ya in for kid?”
    “Gaming. ”
    “Cards, slots, after hours social club?”
    ” No, video games. I was eating a cold pizza at 3 or 4 in the morning when I heard the Blackhawk roaring in them right over my moms house. God it was shaking the whole house. Then guys stomping on the roof and the MRAP crashed through the porch….guys guns stun grenades gas dogs….zip tied me..my moms screaming….”

  16. Am I missing something? Link below is to Dell Alienware site. There is a lower tier option that does not have the idiot state power consumption ban (IS-PCB). All 4 have the option of either 550 watt (probably a bit light) or 1000 watt (probably a bit excessive) power supplies. WTF? Are we looking at some sort of LEED certification bull5hit???

    https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/gaming-and-games/alienware-aurora-r12-gaming-desktop/spd/alienware-aurora-r12-desktop?gacd=9614064-1014-5761040-266794588-0&dgc=st&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt_XAsqCE8gIVqopaBR0BNgfFEAAYASAAEgLyPPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&nclid=AGfmpL2JDW6xi00YGu1SYAd1Dpt-82ZpnVsrjZ1hTcJtu6XIc30tmxMFKNrWXUfW#configurations_section

    1. It’s hard to say. But from a bit of digging, it is not the operational power consumption that is the problem, it is the sleep power consumption. They have a multi-tier system based upon memory size, and for their memory these exceed it.

      1. FFS

        What’s the difference?? Like a micro-amp? (rhet.)
        They waste more energy creating and distributing the standard than these slightly larger units would use in a century of sleep state.

        Pillocks

        *Thanks Philip!*

  17. But EV’s are desired eh…???
    And Air Conditioners will likely get a pass – For the Vaccinated only of course.

  18. Just buy all the parts and put it together yourself. That’s what I did when I was still 8nterested in gaming.

    It’s actually not that complicated.

  19. Poking into this a bit further, it is not just sleep mode power consumption, but also annual total energy consumed.
    There is a table about half-way down…
    https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dell-alienware-cannot-ship-to-certain-us-states
    Roughly 100+ kilowatt hours/ year max. For reference, a 100 watt light bulb for 2000 hours = 200 kwh.
    These machines are being marketed to gamers, but if you were doing artificial intelligence or computer graphics for movies or computational chemistry, you would choose a similar machine – a speedy processor, as much fast memory as you can afford and most important, a hugely powerful graphics card where all those fancy algorithms run. All of which takes electricity.

    tl;dr: California and other US states are limiting how much work you can do on your computer.
    I wonder if these regulations will affect the server farms at Google and Amazon, he asked innocently.

    1. Been a while since I visited Tom’s Hardware; an excellent site.
      …. and look, a full Energy Star set of parameters. What niggling bullshit.
      My son just finished a build; tried everything and waited forever for a half decent graphics card.
      Thing is liquid cooled, 9 fans, tempered glass with RGB galore. I think he chose an 800W supply.
      My ceiling fan chews up more electricity.
      Now I’m wondering if there’s a tax credit associated with compliant computers, as there is with refrigerators, dishwashers, HW heaters, etc. Hmmmmm….

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation