PG&E will shut off power for nearly 800,000 customers starting Wednesday

[classicdrogn]

Wait, who hates John Ringo? As long as he's got a co-author to keep the gratuitous body counts down, his stuff is mostly fine. I'm not always convinced the societies he writes about would work like he thinks, but that's sci-fi all over.

Anyway, having built in USB power jacks along with standard power outlets is nice in theory - those little always-in-the-wall power bricks really do represent a surprising amount of drain over the long term - but while losing a volt or so between the breaker box and the wall to the wiring or the number of things currently plugged in isn't much to nominally 120v systems (which often run as low as 110v if you actually stick a meter on it in practise) it's enough to make you cell phone only read half charged due to being proportionately much greater for a 5v system and battery power curves. Having the 120v AC to 5v DC conversion happen at each outlet just removes the ability to unplug the power bricks you aren't currently using, so that's actively counterproductive.