But let's pause for a moment. It's good advice for people when things get heated, and now, it may prove good advice for energy efficient networking. Sean Michael Kerner at InternetNews writes about efforts to use Ethernet's "pause cycle" to save on electricity.

As part of a student white paper challenge sponsored by the Ethernet Alliance, University of South Florida student Francisco Blanquicet came up with the concept of using the pause cycle in Ethernet to turn data flow on and off, thereby saving power.

"Originally, pause flow control was set up to prevent switches from swamping end nodes," Booth said. "If you have a server or a desktop and it can't handle the amount of data coming into it, Ethernet can pause the flow. When that standard was written people started using it, but then found it didn't work with certain types of traffic very effectively."

Booth described the pause flow control approach for reducing power as an interesting use of an existing technology. Since pause flow control is already part of the Ethernet standard, it can be readily implemented by vendors.

Using what's already there... how practical.