
	I wonder how hard it would be (i.e. what it would add to the cost)
to design desktop machines with a power saver feature built in which would
reduce power consumption automatically if the machine is idle for more than
some amount of time.  This is pretty standard in portable machines, and the
same kinds of tricks could be played; spinning down disks, turning off
screens, reducing clock speed, etc.  The advantage of this over just turning
the thing off would be 1) you don't have to remember to do anything and 2)
the machine is still available over the network.

	The tricky part might be in defining what constitutes inactivity.
Certainly, you don't want to wake up from sleep mode just because somebody
pinged you, but you do want to wake up (at least the CPU) if somebody
logs in via a telnet connection.

	I wouldn't worry too much about wasting electricity in the winter
months; that energy is just getting turned into heat.  It may not be as
efficient a way to heat a building as the central heating plant, but it's
not too bad.  In the summer though, it's a disaster.  Not only are you
wasting that power, but you're probably also running the air conditioning to
get rid of the waste heat.