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Microsoft One Step From World's Greenest Company
An anonymous reader writes "According to this article, Microsoft is only a few lines of code away from becoming the greenest company on Earth."
From the article:
"Redmond should issue a software upgrade to every computer running Microsoft Windows worldwide to adjust each machine's energy-saving settings for maximum efficiency."
The author figures that the upgrade would affect 100 million computers and that the power cost savings could hit $7 billion per year. CO2 emissions would be cut by 45 million tons. But what about the impact on computing?
Without a doubt Microsoft has had a jaded past.
Yet Gates was once a man who did not believe in charity, and now he is Time's Man of the Year for his charity. Warren Buffet gave most of his wealth up to the Gates foundation.
Microsoft is embracing open-source, working on filters to save in OpenDocumentFormat, etc.
Microsoft was without a doubt, evil. I believe that Microsoft is becoming considerably less evil, perhaps in an attempt to copy-cat Google's success.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Please disable "screen saver" feature altogether. DPMS sleep modes work much, much better for "screen saving" (and screen saver of course do not save energy at all). Flying shits and "nice" landscapes may be kinda fun for a first time but that time ended about 20 years ago. Oh, same applies to all unices and macs of course. I have colleagues who have screensavers running on there PCs/laptops for _days_ (as on weekends) and monitors never go to sleep. Sigh.
Prior to the anti trust cases gates/microsoft gave next to nothing to charity, He goes from dirt rich doing nothing usefull with his wealth to Time's Man of the Year.
I would love to think its all from his heart, but I think its tainted money, backdoor bribes to make people happy. There actions are to save there own ass, they are not embracing open-source they are giving in to pressure in hopes it will prevent "Antitrust suit 2"
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Of course wasn't it Microsoft that implemented all of the power down features because it took so long to boot Windows in the first place that people didn't want to wait so long for the computer to power on? Wasn't it also the bloated Windows code and feature creep that made it necessary for ever faster cpu, ram, video and storage requirements, which all equate to more energy consumption? Isn't also true that Microsoft Vista is going to tax these resources even more? So, isn't it a bit hypocritical to talk about how "green" Microsoft would be by forcing computers to power down?
Maybe a better solution would be an OS designed to run on lower powered devices from the start instead of trying to make the high horse powered PC of today more efficient. As an analogy, although there have been improvements with technology, an eight cylinder automobile is not going to ever be as fuel efficient as a four cylinder one. Nor will a four cylinder be as efficient, say as a fuel-cell powered one. Likewise, as long as the system requirements to just run Windows (not even applications on Windows) keeps increasing, the PC will continue to consume greater and greater amounts of power.
We all know, even if we don't want to admit it, that personal productivity for the business masses, anyway, has ceased to improved, at least significantly, from the latest releases of Windows. Why? Because of those 600 million computers quoted in the article, most are used for things like word processing, simple spreadsheets and surfing the web and to do email. Stuff that computers capable of running Windows 2000 and Office 2000 (if not earlier versions) still do quite well. Sure new versions make it easier to get pictures of our cameras and to create music, etc. But the vast majority of people aren't seriously doing that work and those that are, use specialized tools, anyway.
Now, many will argue, and I would agree, that hardware is cheap, relatively, anyway. However, the point of the article was not about cheap hardware, but about saving energy. And the point of the matter is that as long as we keep adding fluff and flash to the OS, forcing bigger and faster computers, which translates into greater power consumption, they will never be "green." Even if they do power down when not in use, they will still use far more energy than is needed to actually perform the task while they are on.
If Microsoft wants to truly be known as a "green" company, then they should design the next version of Windows so that it runs on less hardware than what is currently required, so we don't have keep to filling up the landfills with technically good computers that become obsolete, just to stay compatible every time Microsoft releases the latest version of Windows.
[emphasis mine]
This definition is more useful than the legal definition of restitution, because it directly addresses the problem of restoring one's moral character through the act of restitution.
The key phrase is "exact reparation as far as possible".
Suppose party A is a member of group B. Can you perform restituion for an injury to A by doing somethign for party B? Only if a a more direct restitution to party A is impossible.
Perfectly exact restitution is never possible. For example, if I break into your house, steal money, then later regret the act and return the money to you, I have not compensated you for the loss of feeling secure in your house; nor can I return to you the portion of your lifetime you spent dealing with the break in. However, returning the money with an apology and accepting the consequences is probably the most exact reparation that is practically possible.
The impossibility of perfect restitution is an important point, because it means we must judge the adequacy of an act of restitution in the context of other acts of restitution that are open to us. If I steal money by breaking into your house, it is not adequate to write an anonymous check to the town you live in, because it is within my power to return the money to you directly. However, if I stole money from your purse, and had no way of identifying my victim, that might be the best possible act of restitution open to me.
In this case, greening Windows might be a morally good thing, but it would not constitute an adquate act of restitution, because while it is impossible to identify the set of persons harmed with perfect precision, it is certainly possible to do better than "everybody in the world." Furthermore, judged as an act of restitution, it is wanting because it is paid by others in the form of slight reduction of system performance, not by Microsoft. Again from the Catholic Encylopedia:
This means an act of restitution which leaves the offender in possession of ill gotten gains is null.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
In my experience (building and selling PCs), most users are not forced to upgrade hardware because of microsoft. Most are forced to upgrade because of their own ignorance. Their old computer becomes so clogged and bloated with spyware and other crapware, that it is slow and useless. My most recent example is a 1.6ghz system, with windows XP. It was barely usable. When asked to fix it, I said that the entire system needed to be "rebuilt".....and returned to like new condition. The price I quote for this job is $150, assuming the user will handle installing their printers, setup, etc.... This user, and all others, then just go buy a new computer because they don't want to stick $150 into "this old slow thing". I then buy their old slow thing from them for $50, turn around and sell it for $250. BTW, XP runs fine on a 500mhz system, it is the 3rd party software that is the problem, not MS.
Summary: The old computer is still being used, Microsoft didn't cause the problem, the upgrade cycle is more complex that originally obvious. Even at my employer, hardware is on something like a 6 year cycle, sometimes more. Even after that, most of the machine is recycled when the recyclers will take them.
Actually this article touches a good subject. Imagine how much energy we could safe if computers worked a bit less. People running computation stuff as screensavers *might* be cool but it sure costs the planet a lot! We "geeky" types have never really thought much about this... our computers stay on a lot uplaoding, downloading, rendering, screensaving or just doing nothing but they waste shitloads of energy. Nobody would actually leave his telly on while off to work.. but somehow we think that it is ok to leave uour PC on while we are gone "because it is doing stuff". The question is... does it *really* need to do stuff?
You guys must live in amazingly temperate zones, or perhaps really hot ones, where every watt of power used in your house has to be pulled back out by a cooling unit. I have an 8 drive tower and a server. Presuming that the drives get exercized regularly, I'm pulling about 75 watts, on average and with inefficiencies, maybe (maybe) 150w at the 120v outlet. So here I am at about $7 a month. Except, of course, that the unit operates in my basement, which I generally have to add heat to in order to make livable. So for about 1/3 of the year, it's actually close to zero net watts, as it reduces my heating bill. Now, in the fall/winter, I'll call it 50%, since I usually need heat at night (I'm in the mountains). Summertime, there may be a (very) small penalty for A/C, but again - this is space without solar gain, so it does not generally drive the cooling cycles.
A perfectly efficient conversion might save me ($3.75/mo x 3 mo (x1.25 for A/C)) Summer + ($3.75/2 x 5 mo day - $3.75/2 x 5mo night(x0.3 for heat pump efficiency) Fall/Spring + (-$3.75 x 4 mo(*0.5 for heat pump efficiency)) Winter = $19.69 per year. Now, that sounds great, but I'll need two power supplies to do that since I have two boxes, and they have to be at perfect efficiency. If I use a 15% tvm and a five year payback period, I'll have (an extra) $34.50 to spend on a 100% efficient supply over a 50% efficient one - and that's just to break even vs investing that cash. And I'm really being kind here, becuase my basement does not have enough ductwork for the heat pump (used to be old oil hydronic), so I have to supplement with electric resistance, which would make the scenerio above an infinite payback.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
A PR exercise is all. Personally I don't want anyone remotely working MY COMPUTER. Real energy efficiency should be done in the hardware. Eliminate the harddrive and the backlight. Put a transparent surface behind the screen and use natural light to illuminate it. Use a form of lcd that don't use power when not being written to. Use a combination of solar cells and batteries to extend usage. Power usage is a function of the system clock. The lower clock speed the less power is used. Design a processer and chip set that can function with a variable rate clock. When not in use the clock cycles down to a few tens of hertz therefore using less power. A wakeup unit kicks it back into full speed when a key is pressed.
davecb5620@gmail.com
As one of the "little people" I am deeply offended by this attitude. I believe I know what's best for me, and if it means not using hibernate mode, then it is my choice.
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
I think it's time for a new online forum. Slashdot it really starting to suck. I've always been a Linux advocate and it's where my roots are, but I've never stopped opening my eyes to other technologies and vendors - commercial or open source. It just seems that every time I read anything with regards to MS, good or bad, you guys just sit here and bash them. I have no real problem with the company. They've helped a lot of people. Let's face it; they wouldn't be in business if they didn't. The fact that they have an opportunity to save some energy for the world by changing their software is great. I really wish people in this forum would quit looking over their damn shoulder and just get on with whatever they're purpose is in life.
/rant.
Furthermore, I think the entire article is a troll now that I read the whole thing. Why doesn't someone inform Linux to save energy as well? Not just _one_ distro, as mentioned by someone earlier, but all distros. Should MS be the only responsible party in the world of computer technology?
I hate to complain, but it would just be nice to be able to go read some good 'nerd news' that actually had substance. Even if it pertains to MS! A thread is a terrible thing to waste.
Stop this stupid willy-waving "my box stays up longer than yours" game.
When you're not using it, turn the ****ing thing off.
(With an exemption for Americans, of course, because they don't believe in global warming, so they're allowed to do whatever they like.)
A while back I bought a laser printer. It had a suspiciously good bang for the buck considering that it could do double sided printing. The box said "Optimized for Windows" on it. No problem, a printer is a printer is a printer. Plug it in, fire text at it, and the text winds up on the paper. Fire a few special character sequences at it, and graphics come out. So what if it has drivers that make that process especially efficient in Windows. Anyways, I brought it home, set it up, tried to get my Linux box to print to it, and failed. I tried redirecting text to /dev/lp0 without success. I rebooted the machine into DOS and tried printing from there. No dice. Yet the printer's status pages would come out no problem. A few hours of Googling educated me on a new class of abominations - "winprinters". Mindless zombie hunks of metal and plastic that cannot perform their designated function unless Microsoft Windows is pulling their strings and laughing maniacally. Sorry, no drivers for Macs, or Linux. Windows only.
I brought this abomination back to the store. They were going to refuse to take it back, because I had unsealed the toner cartridge. I pointed out that the box said "Optimized for Windows", not "Exclusively for Windows", or "Must be slaved to a Windows machine, because it isn't really a printer". Fortunately, there was a nice Samsung printer with Tux emblazoned on the side (along with the Apple and Microsoft logos) that was the same price, and the sales guy let me swap. Otherwise I would have been stuck with a $1200 paperweight.
Microsoft may not be a monopoly in the strictest sense of the word, but they are a monsterous company that wields enough power that other companies are willing to lie to, and cheat, their own customers just so they can put the magic word "Windows" on their box.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I agree that originally, this was tainted money, in the ways Microsoft originally made it, but I don't think the Gates foundation is a front for more manipulation. I think this really is from his heart, maybe with an occasional nudge from Melinda.
2 9/k.CC2B/Home.htm
If Bill Gates was just milking his donations for maximum publicity or leverage, would he have picked the causes he has? He could focus totally on those medical causes that matter most to the industrialized world, for example. He could avoid all the more politically controversial causes out there. When it comes to willingness to let the chips fall where they may, I'd say the Gates Foundation compares favorably to two of the biggest alternatives, the MacArthur and Ford Foundations:
http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.8552
http://www.fordfound.org/
(Info on both the Ford Foundation's Sexuality and Religion divisions, and the MacArthur Foundation's Copyright law related work is accessable through these links. The latter may be of special interest to many Slashdotters. Both programs are examples of a foundation not shying away from doing what it thinks is right for fear of alienating business partners, funding sources or sections of the general public.)
Mr. Gates could increase giving to Europe, where Microsoft has had the most trouble, and he could focus on causes that are likely to be dear to the very politicians that have pushed hardest for fines. He doesn't appear to be doing this.
Bill Gates could also just about ignore Africa, or at least give a much smaller percentage of totals there, and still reap the same sort of publicity. Instead of his saying that computers aren't what's needed first in developing nations, he could encourage someone else to pay for more hardware everywhere, just so he could 'give' away lots of software and count that in press releases as donations worth the full retail value, even though it would actually cost him very little. His whole computer initiative goes exactly the other way. The Gates foundation only pushes computerization in areas developed enough to have libraries and similar locations, and actively avoids treating computerization as a solution where basic infrastructure such as reliable food sources, roads or water filtration are more pressing needs. They also avoid pushing computerization where political stability is suspect or obviously lacking. They don't support 'computer in every classroom' or 'every student's home' type programs, and they do pay for both machines and networking, including some pretty long haul wiring runs.
Who is John Cabal?
Besides the impact on the environment, think of the impact this could have on spam. Given that the bulk of spam comes from infected Windows desktop machines that probably don't have to be on when nobody is using the keyboard and mouse, a scheme that automatically shuts down (or suspends) these machines after a couple of minutes of no user activity could severely reduce spam.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.