> Second, the mention of "Microsoft's top engineers" makes the whole thing look very fishy to me.
Yup. In fact, the story poster is inaccurate when he says "As the story goes, neither Ballmer nor Microsoft's top engineers could fix the infested computer.". TFA actually says
He lumped the thing back to Microsoft's headquarters and turned it over to a team of top engineers, who spent several days on the machine, finding it infected with more than 100 pieces of malware, some of which were nearly impossible to eradicate.
I find it rather unbelievable that a team of engineerings equipped with kernel debuggers wouldn't be able to get rid of spyware. Or even rootkits.
If you don't have existing repositories, subversion might be a better choice than CVS. In fact, subversion's binary delta storage can make it trivial to store Word docs or any other binary file in a SCM system.
This has the added benefit of achieving the poster's goal of record-keeping with minimum disruption to everyone's way of working.
I think "how many errors, not whether an error exists" is just as true for applications and programs written in any language or using any technology. What's so insidious about spreadsheets is their integrity and the difficulty to maintain that.
I'm not sure how many other spreadsheet vendors are addressing this, but MS certainly is trying. You might find this whitepaper interesting reading in this regard. Scroll down to the bit where it says "How the 2007 Microsoft Office System Can Help Address Compliance Challenges", it's mostly about content management using Sharepoint 2007 and the server-side spreadsheets using the new Excel Services tool.
...And if you thought Sharepoint support for Excel was cool, wait till you see the server-side Excel Services that Microsoft's introducing with Excel 2007.
I believe the point the GP was making was Windows' backcompat is better than most other widely distributed OSes. Your indignant all-caps scatologies don't change that.
Also, most users understand that XPSP2's security push did hose some programs. They even provided a back compat layer (which you can activate by right clicking a shortcut and choosing to run the program in Windows 2000 or Windows 98 mode) for apps that couldn't be immediately fixed.
Finally, it all depends on the programs you run. I'd love to hear a little about the 'whole host' of programs that don't work with XPSP2, because there are a LOT of users using XPSP2 and I'd like to know how come there isn't screamin' in the market about how XPSP2 killed user's apps. Can you point to a list of widely available software that doesn't work?
I agree that wireless has reduced the level of capital investment necessary to provide voice comms to a large swathe of people. In fact, wireless needn't be GSM/CDMA only -- off the top of my head, India has deployed a Wireless Local Loop system (in addition to GSM/CDMA) that takes advantage of existing landline infrastructure but eliminates the last-mile problem. This effectively turns 'landline' telcos into wireless telcos.
However, the advantages of landlines (or, if you like the Matrix) _hardlines_ running into your home cannot be overstressed. Hardlines can be classic copper, cable or fiber. And they make a lot of sense in prosperous populated areas. Voice comms for Tanzania are a huge leap forward, but it's going to take a while for them to come up to the point where the average Tanzanian man on the street gets an 8Mbps pipe economically delivered to his home.
Wimax will probably reduce demand for broaband pipes to the home, but I'm betting most people will want a hardline if they can get one at a reasonable price.
Email will get replaced the same way that land lines are being replaced by cell phones.
In what world has land lines _replaced_ cell phones? Even ignoring the American market, where many vendors charge to receive calls on cellphones, cellphone airtime is expensive. The only people I can think of out of my head for whom cellphones are a complete landline replacement are students in dorm rooms.
In the real world, people are discovering that landlines can bring them high-speed broadband (which is a huge killer app for land lines). In some urban areas, your landline needn't even be copper, it can be cable- or fiber-based, in which case you can probably get other services (TV/VOIP) on top of your landline.
Please read up on solar water heating. This can be used to heat water for washing and also for even heating homes...
Heh. When I wrote 'heating water is an indirect application' I almost added 'unless the goal was to heat water in the first place' but didn't -- here's why. Solar-based water and home heating is a legitimate direct application in the first place, but it's a minuscule application: a few people may pay more to have a solar heating system installed, but ultimately the number of homes that don't mean that the effect this has on emissions at their energy company is *zero*.
It's a real pity that sustainable energy advocates totally miss out on the scale at which energy must be *predictably* generated to make a difference to emission levels.
It is still a challenge, of course, but then humankind has risen to other challenges, such as sending people to the moon. Solutions to these problems could result in valuable technologies which the company developing could sell worldwide as a pinch on traditional energy
Which is a nice way of saying that we don't have the tech now but we could use some R&D on this. I don't mind increasing R&D budgets (a smarter grid is a useful thing) but if I were in charge, I would have to see real cost/benefit figures before allowing this into the real world.
Ultimately the goal is not to replace centralised power production but simply to augment it allowing the centralised power production to be a little smaller and for the total system (taking into account all the production of the equipment and maintenance required and so on) to produce less emissions.
On this thread I've seen a lot of good intentions, ALL of which deliver a marginal or even questionable gain for HUGE amounts of capital investment. It's really no wonder that unable to find _economic_ justification to fund their pet energy projects, most sustainable energy types have to rely on subsidies from governments to get their pet plans on the road.
> It can be. It can be used to directly heat water prior to further heating by other means.
Jeez. So can many other kinds of energy, such as nuclear. Solar energy cannot be used directly because photovoltaics are inefficient and most of our machines aren't photosynthetic. Using solar to heat water is an indirect use of solar energy. In fact, heating water to produce steam to run steam turbines with is far less efficient than using it to power a electrolysis unit which'd yield Hydrogen. The only case where solar has a placebo effect w.r.t emissions is when homeowners use solar cells to heat their home water, thereby reducing their fuel bills.
> They have to retain the capacity to cope with peaks, i.e. retain a potential for supply, but the total supply delivered over time can be reduced.
How do they do that? Retaining capacity to cope with peaks while reducing supply means either a) living with downtime while the system adjusts to the higher load or b) responding relatively quickly to relatively small fluctuations in demand.
Given the time+economics in bringing a boiler online, I think most companies would simply choose to keep buring fuel at their base level.
PS. If you're going to talk about how electric companies should build a next-gen decentralized grid, keep in mind that in the world of virtual networks, we haven't made the leap from ipv4 to v6 yet. Ripping out a *real* network (the electric grid) with another one will takes orders of magnitude larger levels of capital investment.
Ouch, my paragraphs about Solar and Alcohol fuels were mulched by Slashcode. Here they are:
Solar: Since solar energy can't be directly used (photovoltaics have <10% efficiency) you could try using a solar array that decomposes water into hydrogen and oxygen. Problem: you'll need hundreds of square miles of area filled with solar cells just to satisfy ONE state's demand. *And* you'll have to fill those hundreds square miles with complicated mechanical contraptions that keep the cells focused on the sun, which will add dramatically to the set up cost. And let's not forget the environmental impact of cooling hundreds of square miles of land and potentially altering weather patterns.
Alcohol fuels: again, a problem of scale. Brazil produces about 4 billion gallons of ethanol fuel a year because of its unique crop characteristics. In the US, however, California alone consumes 14 billion gallons of gas a year. And any cost savings with ethanol are offset by the cost of disrupting farming/land-use patterns to produce trees/plants that can be used to produce ethanol _plus_ the cost of fitting/retrofitting engines to run on ethanol. While more promising than wind/solar (probably a reason why Gates is investing his own money in ethanol), it will probably not even reduce 20% of our total transport energy consumption of 0.634 terawatts (after a 30% reduction).
> There are many technologies out there that are expensive now because they can't mass produce anything due to insufficient demand.
I beg to differ-- the technologies that are expensive now will remain so because they have a fundamental problem - they can't scale to meet with the demand.
US Energy Consumption by Sector, 2003 Total: 3.29 terawatts (98.31 quadrillion BTUs) after a 30% reduction: 2.30 terawatts of which Residential: 21.56% Commercial: 17.75% Industrial: 33.12% Transport: 27.57%
(sourced from here.) Assume for a second we can get a 30% reduction across the board through increased efficiency (and that demand doesn't rise). Is there something other than burning fossil fuels that can help us?
Well yes-- nuclear fission. But let's assume that isn't an option because of liability and pollution issues.
In particular, will sustainable energy (solar/wind) help us?
Wind: The UK's current wind program gives it almost a gigawatt of power, or 1% of the UK total demand, when performing at peak capacity, i.e., when the wind is blowing well -- which means wind power will have to be backed up with non-wind sources. That's with lots and lots of wind farms, many of them in the sea, implying a huge capital investment. Note that 1 gigawatt is 0.04% of total US needs (assuming the 30% drop). And in the US you'll run into "not in my backyard" issues and lawsuits from bird-lovers. If you think you can justify this level of investment to fulfil 0.03% percent of demand, you should try starting your own energy company.
Solar: Since solar energy can't be directly used (photovoltaics have in ethanol), it will probably not even reduce 20% of our total transport energy consumption of 0.634 terawatts (after a 30% reduction).
Even distributed power generation (a.k.a 'returning power to the grid'), while popular in California, doesn't help reduce emissions much because the electricity companies cannot reduce supply (and therefore reduce emissions) because households cannot be contractually obligated to return power to the grid. Like all good placebos, however, it does reduce household energy bills and that (coupled with the idea that they're doing good for the planet) keeps people happy.
In the short term, nuclear fission is our best bet (which, incidentally, is what the French do). Over the pond, poor Tony Blair has been catching a lot of flak for suggesting the nuclear option to his countrymen, and I don't think it'd find many buyers here either. But it does remain the most Green alternative.
Longer term, if a space elevator ever materializes, I'd sure we'd see some interest in space-based solar arrays that transmit microwave energy back to the ground. But by then we might've solved nuclear fusion or direct mass/energy conversion or blown ourselves to bits, so who cares;-)
> That is not necessarily the case. For example, if houses were rather better insulated [..]
I am aware of that. For example, the UK has pretty good standards for home insulation (or so it seems to me whenever I visit). However, I believe you overstate the importance of home emissions (or home-demand-led emissions)... I can't look it up now, but what I remember is that figures show industry to be a much larger consumer of energy than home. And that's the reason the US is reluctant to slap mandatory regulations on industry-- it's afraid that it'll make American industries non-competitive.
> In some countries (e.g. many in Europe) the standard of living (as measured by GDP PPP per capita) has increased over the last decade whilst per capita emissions have fallen.
This hasn't quelled their demand for energy, though -- did you see my other post how France with 1/6 the size and 1/20th the population of India consumes as much energy as India does?
And think for a minute-- what happens when India's 1+ billion people and China's 1+ billion people demand a lifestyle like that of the West and increase energy consumption to France's levels? Good luck telling them to 'reduce their ecological footprint' -- people there have lived in deprivation long enough that they *will* want a more comfortable life, consequences be damned. (India's energy demand grew 200% in 25 years, and China's grew 130% in the same period -- and these two countries are nowhere near satisfying the energy demands of their population. Why do you think gas prices are at an all-time high?)
Other things being equal, sure. Given how dependent we are on fossil fuels to maintain our lifestyle, I'm not sure you could convince people to 'err on the side of caution'. Unless you could talk the first-world into reducing its energy expenditure? (see this post for some numbers).
> That sounds to me like a Katrina style disaster.
Katrina was a Cat5 over the Gulf of Mexico. It weakened and actually became a Cat4 and weakening when it hit NOL . The "water" problem due to Katrina was an engineering problem-- the levees broke in a city with significant bits underwater. Also, re hurricanes, the conservative scientific view (insofar I read realclimate right) is that Global Warming does not cause hurricanes but it does make any formed hurricanes more severe because hurricanes thrive on the warmer water global warming's causing.
There's also the bigger point that as human beings build ever-more-populous cities on more square miles of this earth, any natural disaster will impact more lives and cost more money than before. Imagine a Tunguska-style event in the tri-state area!
Anyway, I don't advocate waiting for the 'waters to rise' before doing something. And reducing atmospheric/biospheric pollution is a laudable goal even if global warming were not happening. Also, 'artificial energy regulations' was a poor choice of words on my part -- regulating energy providers is definitely necessary in the interests of public safety. I *am* against artificially created and regulated energy markets, though-- especially when it turns out that those energy markets are fun to sign but difficult to implement.
> With all that said, I'll add one more thing, climate is indeed a complex system so why are we pumping crap into the air making it even more so?
Because pumping less crap into the air would reduce our standard of living? For example, the US consumed ~100 quad BTUs of energy in 2003. By contrast, a rapidly developing country like India (1/3rd the size of the US but 3x the population) used only 12.8 quad BTUs in 2001. In the same year, a first-world country like France (1/6th the size of India and 1/20th the population) used almost the same amount, ~11 quad BTUs.
It takes a *lot* of energy to sustain the first-world way of life.
Of course, improved research could reduce pollutants like heavy metals and sulfur from getting into the atmosphere, but as long as we have to burn stuff to produce energy, we'll continue to pump CO2 into the air. What I guess we need is better energy storage technology (batteries currently are quite inefficient) and better, safer fission reactors (3rd gen pebble-bed?) or practical nuclear fusion!
It's interesting that you see me as a right-wing nutcase screaming vindication. All I'm pointing out is that:
- global warming is real - that humans are the sole or even the primary cause is disputable - there's a lot we don't know about climate science (and complex systems in general) and the more we know the more progress is made
If this makes me an 'idiot' then I'm proud to be one.
And oh, about Realclimate... I do read it, but as a non-expert I am not qualified to comment on their results. As a computer professional (who deals with non-linear systems and has to use simulations himself) however I do have *big* problems with overextrapolation: the sort of studies that give us 'Manhattan under water by 2100'. Now I know in many cases that's not science but sensational reporting, but if Greens like to use sensationalism to their advantage when pushing their agenda, they ought not be surprised that their opponents do the same when a favorable bit of news comes by.
In any case, the bigger point is that climate research is of significant political interest-- for Greens and big industry alike. If you think the IPCC operates in a realm of pure science with zero politics then you are seriously deluded.
Climatologists therefore have a responsibility to make sure their research is used sensibly, instead much of their work (especially their worst-case extrapolations) are routinely used by the Green Brigade as a buttress to appeal to protectionist politicians to create artificial energy regimes (Kyoto, something France and Germany are _far_ away from adhering to) which IMO is a LOUSY idea from a economics POV.
PS. I wonder why you have to post as Anonymous Coward for this?/. moderators are usually quite kind to pro-Green posters.
but this is how science progresses. Wherever you see a scientist take a stand saying, "hmm, that's odd, I wonder why that happened" there's a chance that real discovery and a real increase in our understanding can happen.
People who trot out wildly extrapolated results from global warming simulations ("OMG NY will under water by 2100!") sound to me like the same people who predicted city-sized computers back in the 50s because there was no way their simulations could have predicted microelectronics.
Climate is a complex system with many variables, human output being only one of them. Frankly, I've always held the greens would have a much better case if they focused on quality-of-life improvements brought about by cleaner air than by trying to create artificial energy regulations in the name of global warming (which *is* happening, but it doesn't necessarily follow that humans are the sole factor).
But hey, there's a reason green and left politics go together-- sticking it to big industry is a good way of sticking it to the Man.
It can definitely be useful. For example, a company called Redgate makes an Intellisense tool for SQL Server (they're giving it away as a free non-timebombed download until Sep 1, btw) that plugs into your existing SQL editor and adds auto-complete. (I don't know if they've actually used global hooks here or some worse hack, like window code injection, but this is the sort of thing global hooks are useful for)
The point is, any feature can be abused and made into a security risk. Doesn't mean we take features away.
If you believe that all Windows users fit the 'cluel3ss luser' stereotype then you don't need what I'm smoking, the stuff you're on should make you a fortune on the street.
This is an extension of the abstration of the chevron menus... alter the user's environment based on usage. It doesn't work. I've used environments like this and it takes getting used to. You think it was confusing trying to show people how to use Microsoft products when the pulldown menus changed seemingly randomly? Wait until their "ribbons" change based on cursor position.
Are you saying that based on assumption or actual use of the product? I've been using beta 1 for some time and it seems quite natural to me. In particular this is dead wrong: "This is an extension of the abstration of the chevron menus". It isn't. 'Chevron menus' did not appear, you had to basically do a show-all and then choose an item, after which it would be visible until it fell into disuse. The ribbons have a tab strip above them so it's easy to see the ones NOT in front. The ribbons feel like the old Lotus SmartIcons *done right* (unlike the ghastly implementation in some Lotus products like Notes).
> The listed prices range from $149 (student)
Office 2002 and 2003 have been available at the same list price ("student and teacher edition"), and Amazon sells 'em for $99 (valid on _three_ PCs if anyone in your home is a student or teacher).
It's possible but developers are uninformed, there are non-technical issues and some genuine technical problems:
a) many Windows software depend on being able to write to the systemwide COM registry (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT). An alternative per-user registry exists (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes) but even Microsoft does not use this in their installers (they do, however, use it in some places, notably Office extension deployments). Most 3rd party devs are as a result clueless about this.
b) I suspect allowing users to install apps like Office for themselves is an anti-goal for Microsoft-- Office 97 could be run off a network drive, that stopped as soon as MS figured out that it led to a lot of piracy. Similarly, "private" installs would make it very difficult for IT departments to inventory software usage. So neither the vendors nor big customers (IT depts) have a good reason for pushing private per-user installs.
c) It's not a common use case. Even on Linux, most people do a "sudo apt-get install foo" which installs the software 'globally' than do a private install.
d) Some apps really need to be installed 'globally'. For example, an innocuous app like Winamp installs global hooks to support its global shortcuts.
e) Users often create other users on their computer and it confuses the hell out of them when their apps aren't there for the other user.
> If Microsoft can't implement this for their own employees, any CTO looking at Vista would be foolish to think that he could in his company.
And oh, plenty of IT departments have implemented systems that let their users run as NT-class User or Power User. They've done this by blacklisting any app that needs admin rights to run. The list of apps that doesn't run as admin on a modern XP SP2 system is small (unlike what another poster said, WMP et al run quite well as User). Making all developers run as Limited User-- ah, now *that's* a challenge on Windows. Note that some developers (LAMP/Java/Some VB and.NET developers who don't need to install components) can work as non-admin fine.
But some developers need to install things like new software or kernel-mode debuggers, so do you create a process in which faced with such requirements these devs have to go running for permission, or do you let them use an OS that is usable as a limited user and give them the admin password so they can do admin tasks when needed, and trust your employees to do the right thing?
From the article: However, Estberg said that for the moment, the company will continue to leave the responsibility of installing software with its employees it seems Microsoft (like most other software technology companies) have decided to do the right thing, i.e., trust its employees*.
Also, if CTOs are looking for lessons about UAP deployment, Microsoft is a piss-poor environment to learn those lessons from, simply because most real (i.e, non-software technology) companies do not have a user profile like Microsoft's.
*The only industry in my experience who put their developers on a ball and chain, requiring a long approval chain for anything to be done at all, are financial institutions (*cough* Citibank *cough*). And even there most smart developers know how to take advantage of cracks in the system to get their jobs done.
> "freedom OF religion" is not the same as "freedom FROM religion"
Freedom of religion is semantically and grammatically NOT THE SAME as "freedom FROM religion" (not even historically, considering that most (all?) of the Founding Fathers were religious and did not seek to banish religion, only remove the poison a 'state religion' brings). The former however does subsume the latter: freedom of religion includes the right to freedom from religion, i.e., atheism. It's not a crime to be an atheist in the US. Now, it might hurt you in the polls if you run for office and then announce you're an atheist, but that'd happen only if your electorate is religious (in which case you should probably run from places like Berkeley, where they presumably wouldn't care).
Most Windows users (especially those doing anything serious) on their machines know the security landscape and have taken steps to mitigate the problem with a defense in depth strategy (including, importantly, not running as admin). As for zero-day exploits, I'd love to know how anything is immune to specially crafted/0-day attacks.
Also, if someone demanding 'reliability' is going to view jpg and wmf files -- as a privileged user -- and listen to CDs with Autoplay=on (which was how the Sony rootkit spread), then he deserves whatever he's getting on his machine.
> the APIs just were not designed for that.
I disagree-- Windows is designed to be reliable enough for most enterprises to do their file/print, mail, database and app server. (Most IT folk running Windows are quite happy with the 2003 line of servers, for example). But the level of reliability is key here -- getting 5 or 6 9s reliability on Windows is devilishly hard if not impossible (it's much easier on Solaris, IMO).
But then, if you're comparing the reliability of a Windows workstation vs a Linux workstation used by an *average* user-- *shrug* that's a meaningless comparison because the average Linux user is far more sophisticated than the average Windows user.
> It even comes rooted, as the EULA explicitly states that MS can enter your computer in both the Windows and Windows Media Player EULAs.
I assume you're talking about this. Ignoring the tinfoil-hattish tone of that, it was amusing-- reminded me of "Reflections on trusting trust" for some reason. If you cannot trust your OS vendor (especially these days when internet-based binary patch distribution is common) then you're in trouble -- you'd better switch to ports or emerge (and audit every line of code, especially kernel code, before patching anything).
Anyway, the scope of that section in the EULA is to disable software that specifically subverts Windows Rights Management protections. But yeah, if you don't trust Microsoft to do the right thing, you ought to think twice before letting their code run in ring 0 of your CPU.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup. In fact, the story poster is inaccurate when he says "As the story goes, neither Ballmer nor Microsoft's top engineers could fix the infested computer.". TFA actually saysI find it rather unbelievable that a team of engineerings equipped with kernel debuggers wouldn't be able to get rid of spyware. Or even rootkits.
If you don't have existing repositories, subversion might be a better choice than CVS. In fact, subversion's binary delta storage can make it trivial to store Word docs or any other binary file in a SCM system.
This has the added benefit of achieving the poster's goal of record-keeping with minimum disruption to everyone's way of working.
I think "how many errors, not whether an error exists" is just as true for applications and programs written in any language or using any technology. What's so insidious about spreadsheets is their integrity and the difficulty to maintain that.
I'm not sure how many other spreadsheet vendors are addressing this, but MS certainly is trying. You might find this whitepaper interesting reading in this regard. Scroll down to the bit where it says "How the 2007 Microsoft Office System Can Help Address Compliance Challenges", it's mostly about content management using Sharepoint 2007 and the server-side spreadsheets using the new Excel Services tool.
...And if you thought Sharepoint support for Excel was cool, wait till you see the server-side Excel Services that Microsoft's introducing with Excel 2007.
I believe the point the GP was making was Windows' backcompat is better than most other widely distributed OSes. Your indignant all-caps scatologies don't change that.
Also, most users understand that XPSP2's security push did hose some programs. They even provided a back compat layer (which you can activate by right clicking a shortcut and choosing to run the program in Windows 2000 or Windows 98 mode) for apps that couldn't be immediately fixed.
Finally, it all depends on the programs you run. I'd love to hear a little about the 'whole host' of programs that don't work with XPSP2, because there are a LOT of users using XPSP2 and I'd like to know how come there isn't screamin' in the market about how XPSP2 killed user's apps. Can you point to a list of widely available software that doesn't work?
I agree that wireless has reduced the level of capital investment necessary to provide voice comms to a large swathe of people. In fact, wireless needn't be GSM/CDMA only -- off the top of my head, India has deployed a Wireless Local Loop system (in addition to GSM/CDMA) that takes advantage of existing landline infrastructure but eliminates the last-mile problem. This effectively turns 'landline' telcos into wireless telcos.
However, the advantages of landlines (or, if you like the Matrix) _hardlines_ running into your home cannot be overstressed. Hardlines can be classic copper, cable or fiber. And they make a lot of sense in prosperous populated areas. Voice comms for Tanzania are a huge leap forward, but it's going to take a while for them to come up to the point where the average Tanzanian man on the street gets an 8Mbps pipe economically delivered to his home.
Wimax will probably reduce demand for broaband pipes to the home, but I'm betting most people will want a hardline if they can get one at a reasonable price.
Cables are 'land' lines too. Just because it ain't good old copper doesn't mean all the last-mile challenges of landlines aren't there.
Email will get replaced the same way that land lines are being replaced by cell phones.
In what world has land lines _replaced_ cell phones? Even ignoring the American market, where many vendors charge to receive calls on cellphones, cellphone airtime is expensive. The only people I can think of out of my head for whom cellphones are a complete landline replacement are students in dorm rooms.
In the real world, people are discovering that landlines can bring them high-speed broadband (which is a huge killer app for land lines). In some urban areas, your landline needn't even be copper, it can be cable- or fiber-based, in which case you can probably get other services (TV/VOIP) on top of your landline.
Please read up on solar water heating. This can be used to heat water for washing and also for even heating homes...
Heh. When I wrote 'heating water is an indirect application' I almost added 'unless the goal was to heat water in the first place' but didn't -- here's why. Solar-based water and home heating is a legitimate direct application in the first place, but it's a minuscule application: a few people may pay more to have a solar heating system installed, but ultimately the number of homes that don't mean that the effect this has on emissions at their energy company is *zero*.
It's a real pity that sustainable energy advocates totally miss out on the scale at which energy must be *predictably* generated to make a difference to emission levels.
It is still a challenge, of course, but then humankind has risen to other
challenges, such as sending people to the moon. Solutions to these problems could result in valuable technologies which the company developing could sell worldwide as a pinch on traditional energy
Which is a nice way of saying that we don't have the tech now but we could use some R&D on this. I don't mind increasing R&D budgets (a smarter grid is a useful thing) but if I were in charge, I would have to see real cost/benefit figures before allowing this into the real world.
Ultimately the goal is not to replace centralised power production but simply to augment it allowing the centralised power production to be a little smaller and for the total system (taking into account all the production of the equipment and maintenance required and so on) to produce less emissions.
On this thread I've seen a lot of good intentions, ALL of which deliver a marginal or even questionable gain for HUGE amounts of capital investment. It's really no wonder that unable to find _economic_ justification to fund their pet energy projects, most sustainable energy types have to rely on subsidies from governments to get their pet plans on the road.
> It can be. It can be used to directly heat water prior to further heating by other means.
Jeez. So can many other kinds of energy, such as nuclear. Solar energy cannot be used directly because photovoltaics are inefficient and most of our machines aren't photosynthetic. Using solar to heat water is an indirect use of solar energy. In fact, heating water to produce steam to run steam turbines with is far less efficient than using it to power a electrolysis unit which'd yield Hydrogen. The only case where solar has a placebo effect w.r.t emissions is when homeowners use solar cells to heat their home water, thereby reducing their fuel bills.
> They have to retain the capacity to cope with peaks, i.e. retain a potential for supply, but the total supply delivered over time can be reduced.
How do they do that? Retaining capacity to cope with peaks while reducing supply means either a) living with downtime while the system adjusts to the higher load or b) responding relatively quickly to relatively small fluctuations in demand.
Given the time+economics in bringing a boiler online, I think most companies would simply choose to keep buring fuel at their base level.
PS. If you're going to talk about how electric companies should build a next-gen decentralized grid, keep in mind that in the world of virtual networks, we haven't made the leap from ipv4 to v6 yet. Ripping out a *real* network (the electric grid) with another one will takes orders of magnitude larger levels of capital investment.
Ouch, my paragraphs about Solar and Alcohol fuels were mulched by Slashcode. Here they are:
Solar: Since solar energy can't be directly used (photovoltaics have <10% efficiency) you could try using a solar array that decomposes water into hydrogen and oxygen. Problem: you'll need hundreds of square miles of area filled with solar cells just to satisfy ONE state's demand. *And* you'll have to fill those hundreds square miles with complicated mechanical contraptions that keep the cells focused on the sun, which will add dramatically to the set up cost. And let's not forget the environmental impact of cooling hundreds of square miles of land and potentially altering weather patterns.
Alcohol fuels: again, a problem of scale. Brazil produces about 4 billion gallons of ethanol fuel a year because of its unique crop characteristics. In the US, however, California alone consumes 14 billion gallons of gas a year. And any cost savings with ethanol are offset by the cost of disrupting farming/land-use patterns to produce trees/plants that can be used to produce ethanol _plus_ the cost of fitting/retrofitting engines to run on ethanol. While more promising than wind/solar (probably a reason why Gates is investing his own money in ethanol), it will probably not even reduce 20% of our total transport energy consumption of 0.634 terawatts (after a 30% reduction).
> There are many technologies out there that are expensive now because they can't mass produce anything due to insufficient demand.
;-)
I beg to differ-- the technologies that are expensive now will remain so because they have a fundamental problem - they can't scale to meet with the demand.
US Energy Consumption by Sector, 2003
Total: 3.29 terawatts (98.31 quadrillion BTUs)
after a 30% reduction: 2.30 terawatts
of which
Residential: 21.56%
Commercial: 17.75%
Industrial: 33.12%
Transport: 27.57%
(sourced from here.) Assume for a second we can get a 30% reduction across the board through increased efficiency (and that demand doesn't rise). Is there something other than burning fossil fuels that can help us?
Well yes-- nuclear fission. But let's assume that isn't an option because of liability and pollution issues.
In particular, will sustainable energy (solar/wind) help us?
Wind: The UK's current wind program gives it almost a gigawatt of power, or 1% of the UK total demand, when performing at peak capacity, i.e., when the wind is blowing well -- which means wind power will have to be backed up with non-wind sources. That's with lots and lots of wind farms, many of them in the sea, implying a huge capital investment. Note that 1 gigawatt is 0.04% of total US needs (assuming the 30% drop). And in the US you'll run into "not in my backyard" issues and lawsuits from bird-lovers. If you think you can justify this level of investment to fulfil 0.03% percent of demand, you should try starting your own energy company.
Solar: Since solar energy can't be directly used (photovoltaics have in ethanol), it will probably not even reduce 20% of our total transport energy consumption of 0.634 terawatts (after a 30% reduction).
Even distributed power generation (a.k.a 'returning power to the grid'), while popular in California, doesn't help reduce emissions much because the electricity companies cannot reduce supply (and therefore reduce emissions) because households cannot be contractually obligated to return power to the grid. Like all good placebos, however, it does reduce household energy bills and that (coupled with the idea that they're doing good for the planet) keeps people happy.
In the short term, nuclear fission is our best bet (which, incidentally, is what the French do). Over the pond, poor Tony Blair has been catching a lot of flak for suggesting the nuclear option to his countrymen, and I don't think it'd find many buyers here either. But it does remain the most Green alternative.
Longer term, if a space elevator ever materializes, I'd sure we'd see some interest in space-based solar arrays that transmit microwave energy back to the ground. But by then we might've solved nuclear fusion or direct mass/energy conversion or blown ourselves to bits, so who cares
> That is not necessarily the case. For example, if houses were rather better insulated [..]
... I can't look it up now, but what I remember is that figures show industry to be a much larger consumer of energy than home. And that's the reason the US is reluctant to slap mandatory regulations on industry-- it's afraid that it'll make American industries non-competitive.
I am aware of that. For example, the UK has pretty good standards for home insulation (or so it seems to me whenever I visit). However, I believe you overstate the importance of home emissions (or home-demand-led emissions)
> In some countries (e.g. many in Europe) the standard of living (as measured by GDP PPP per capita) has increased over the last decade whilst per capita emissions have fallen.
This hasn't quelled their demand for energy, though -- did you see my other post how France with 1/6 the size and 1/20th the population of India consumes as much energy as India does?
And think for a minute-- what happens when India's 1+ billion people and China's 1+ billion people demand a lifestyle like that of the West and increase energy consumption to France's levels? Good luck telling them to 'reduce their ecological footprint' -- people there have lived in deprivation long enough that they *will* want a more comfortable life, consequences be damned. (India's energy demand grew 200% in 25 years, and China's grew 130% in the same period -- and these two countries are nowhere near satisfying the energy demands of their population. Why do you think gas prices are at an all-time high?)
Other things being equal, sure. Given how dependent we are on fossil fuels to maintain our lifestyle, I'm not sure you could convince people to 'err on the side of caution'. Unless you could talk the first-world into reducing its energy expenditure? (see this post for some numbers).
> That sounds to me like a Katrina style disaster.
Katrina was a Cat5 over the Gulf of Mexico. It weakened and actually became a Cat4 and weakening when it hit NOL . The "water" problem due to Katrina was an engineering problem-- the levees broke in a city with significant bits underwater. Also, re hurricanes, the conservative scientific view (insofar I read realclimate right) is that Global Warming does not cause hurricanes but it does make any formed hurricanes more severe because hurricanes thrive on the warmer water global warming's causing.
There's also the bigger point that as human beings build ever-more-populous cities on more square miles of this earth, any natural disaster will impact more lives and cost more money than before. Imagine a Tunguska-style event in the tri-state area!
Anyway, I don't advocate waiting for the 'waters to rise' before doing something. And reducing atmospheric/biospheric pollution is a laudable goal even if global warming were not happening. Also, 'artificial energy regulations' was a poor choice of words on my part -- regulating energy providers is definitely necessary in the interests of public safety. I *am* against artificially created and regulated energy markets, though-- especially when it turns out that those energy markets are fun to sign but difficult to implement.
> With all that said, I'll add one more thing, climate is indeed a complex system so why are we pumping crap into the air making it even more so?
Because pumping less crap into the air would reduce our standard of living? For example, the US consumed ~100 quad BTUs of energy in 2003. By contrast, a rapidly developing country like India (1/3rd the size of the US but 3x the population) used only 12.8 quad BTUs in 2001. In the same year, a first-world country like France (1/6th the size of India and 1/20th the population) used almost the same amount, ~11 quad BTUs.
It takes a *lot* of energy to sustain the first-world way of life.
Of course, improved research could reduce pollutants like heavy metals and sulfur from getting into the atmosphere, but as long as we have to burn stuff to produce energy, we'll continue to pump CO2 into the air. What I guess we need is better energy storage technology (batteries currently are quite inefficient) and better, safer fission reactors (3rd gen pebble-bed?) or practical nuclear fusion!
It's interesting that you see me as a right-wing nutcase screaming vindication. All I'm pointing out is that:
/. moderators are usually quite kind to pro-Green posters.
- global warming is real
- that humans are the sole or even the primary cause is disputable
- there's a lot we don't know about climate science (and complex systems in general) and the more we know the more progress is made
If this makes me an 'idiot' then I'm proud to be one.
And oh, about Realclimate... I do read it, but as a non-expert I am not qualified to comment on their results. As a computer professional (who deals with non-linear systems and has to use simulations himself) however I do have *big* problems with overextrapolation: the sort of studies that give us 'Manhattan under water by 2100'. Now I know in many cases that's not science but sensational reporting, but if Greens like to use sensationalism to their advantage when pushing their agenda, they ought not be surprised that their opponents do the same when a favorable bit of news comes by.
In any case, the bigger point is that climate research is of significant political interest-- for Greens and big industry alike. If you think the IPCC operates in a realm of pure science with zero politics then you are seriously deluded.
Climatologists therefore have a responsibility to make sure their research is used sensibly, instead much of their work (especially their worst-case extrapolations) are routinely used by the Green Brigade as a buttress to appeal to protectionist politicians to create artificial energy regimes (Kyoto, something France and Germany are _far_ away from adhering to) which IMO is a LOUSY idea from a economics POV.
PS. I wonder why you have to post as Anonymous Coward for this?
but this is how science progresses. Wherever you see a scientist take a stand saying, "hmm, that's odd, I wonder why that happened" there's a chance that real discovery and a real increase in our understanding can happen.
People who trot out wildly extrapolated results from global warming simulations ("OMG NY will under water by 2100!") sound to me like the same people who predicted city-sized computers back in the 50s because there was no way their simulations could have predicted microelectronics.
Climate is a complex system with many variables, human output being only one of them. Frankly, I've always held the greens would have a much better case if they focused on quality-of-life improvements brought about by cleaner air than by trying to create artificial energy regulations in the name of global warming (which *is* happening, but it doesn't necessarily follow that humans are the sole factor).
But hey, there's a reason green and left politics go together-- sticking it to big industry is a good way of sticking it to the Man.
It can definitely be useful. For example, a company called Redgate makes an Intellisense tool for SQL Server (they're giving it away as a free non-timebombed download until Sep 1, btw) that plugs into your existing SQL editor and adds auto-complete. (I don't know if they've actually used global hooks here or some worse hack, like window code injection, but this is the sort of thing global hooks are useful for)
The point is, any feature can be abused and made into a security risk. Doesn't mean we take features away.
If you believe that all Windows users fit the 'cluel3ss luser' stereotype then you don't need what I'm smoking, the stuff you're on should make you a fortune on the street.
This is an extension of the abstration of the chevron menus... alter the user's environment based on usage. It doesn't work. I've used environments like this and it takes getting used to. You think it was confusing trying to show people how to use Microsoft products when the pulldown menus changed seemingly randomly? Wait until their "ribbons" change based on cursor position.
Are you saying that based on assumption or actual use of the product? I've been using beta 1 for some time and it seems quite natural to me. In particular this is dead wrong: "This is an extension of the abstration of the chevron menus". It isn't. 'Chevron menus' did not appear, you had to basically do a show-all and then choose an item, after which it would be visible until it fell into disuse. The ribbons have a tab strip above them so it's easy to see the ones NOT in front. The ribbons feel like the old Lotus SmartIcons *done right* (unlike the ghastly implementation in some Lotus products like Notes).
> The listed prices range from $149 (student)
Office 2002 and 2003 have been available at the same list price ("student and teacher edition"), and Amazon sells 'em for $99 (valid on _three_ PCs if anyone in your home is a student or teacher).
It's possible but developers are uninformed, there are non-technical issues and some genuine technical problems:
a) many Windows software depend on being able to write to the systemwide COM registry (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT). An alternative per-user registry exists (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes) but even Microsoft does not use this in their installers (they do, however, use it in some places, notably Office extension deployments). Most 3rd party devs are as a result clueless about this.
b) I suspect allowing users to install apps like Office for themselves is an anti-goal for Microsoft-- Office 97 could be run off a network drive, that stopped as soon as MS figured out that it led to a lot of piracy. Similarly, "private" installs would make it very difficult for IT departments to inventory software usage. So neither the vendors nor big customers (IT depts) have a good reason for pushing private per-user installs.
c) It's not a common use case. Even on Linux, most people do a "sudo apt-get install foo" which installs the software 'globally' than do a private install.
d) Some apps really need to be installed 'globally'. For example, an innocuous app like Winamp installs global hooks to support its global shortcuts.
e) Users often create other users on their computer and it confuses the hell out of them when their apps aren't there for the other user.
> If Microsoft can't implement this for their own employees, any CTO looking at Vista would be foolish to think that he could in his company.
.NET developers who don't need to install components) can work as non-admin fine.
And oh, plenty of IT departments have implemented systems that let their users run as NT-class User or Power User. They've done this by blacklisting any app that needs admin rights to run. The list of apps that doesn't run as admin on a modern XP SP2 system is small (unlike what another poster said, WMP et al run quite well as User). Making all developers run as Limited User-- ah, now *that's* a challenge on Windows. Note that some developers (LAMP/Java/Some VB and
But some developers need to install things like new software or kernel-mode debuggers, so do you create a process in which faced with such requirements these devs have to go running for permission, or do you let them use an OS that is usable as a limited user and give them the admin password so they can do admin tasks when needed, and trust your employees to do the right thing?
From the article: However, Estberg said that for the moment, the company will continue to leave the responsibility of installing software with its employees it seems Microsoft (like most other software technology companies) have decided to do the right thing, i.e., trust its employees*.
Also, if CTOs are looking for lessons about UAP deployment, Microsoft is a piss-poor environment to learn those lessons from, simply because most real (i.e, non-software technology) companies do not have a user profile like Microsoft's.
*The only industry in my experience who put their developers on a ball and chain, requiring a long approval chain for anything to be done at all, are financial institutions (*cough* Citibank *cough*). And even there most smart developers know how to take advantage of cracks in the system to get their jobs done.
If I were you, I'd download a zipped archive of Firefox and use that--with Adblock.
> "freedom OF religion" is not the same as "freedom FROM religion"
Freedom of religion is semantically and grammatically NOT THE SAME as "freedom FROM religion" (not even historically, considering that most (all?) of the Founding Fathers were religious and did not seek to banish religion, only remove the poison a 'state religion' brings). The former however does subsume the latter: freedom of religion includes the right to freedom from religion, i.e., atheism. It's not a crime to be an atheist in the US. Now, it might hurt you in the polls if you run for office and then announce you're an atheist, but that'd happen only if your electorate is religious (in which case you should probably run from places like Berkeley, where they presumably wouldn't care).
Most Windows users (especially those doing anything serious) on their machines know the security landscape and have taken steps to mitigate the problem with a defense in depth strategy (including, importantly, not running as admin). As for zero-day exploits, I'd love to know how anything is immune to specially crafted/0-day attacks.
Also, if someone demanding 'reliability' is going to view jpg and wmf files -- as a privileged user -- and listen to CDs with Autoplay=on (which was how the Sony rootkit spread), then he deserves whatever he's getting on his machine.
> the APIs just were not designed for that.
I disagree-- Windows is designed to be reliable enough for most enterprises to do their file/print, mail, database and app server. (Most IT folk running Windows are quite happy with the 2003 line of servers, for example). But the level of reliability is key here -- getting 5 or 6 9s reliability on Windows is devilishly hard if not impossible (it's much easier on Solaris, IMO).
But then, if you're comparing the reliability of a Windows workstation vs a Linux workstation used by an *average* user-- *shrug* that's a meaningless comparison because the average Linux user is far more sophisticated than the average Windows user.
> It even comes rooted, as the EULA explicitly states that MS can enter your computer in both the Windows and Windows Media Player EULAs.
I assume you're talking about this. Ignoring the tinfoil-hattish tone of that, it was amusing-- reminded me of "Reflections on trusting trust" for some reason. If you cannot trust your OS vendor (especially these days when internet-based binary patch distribution is common) then you're in trouble -- you'd better switch to ports or emerge (and audit every line of code, especially kernel code, before patching anything).
Anyway, the scope of that section in the EULA is to disable software that specifically subverts Windows Rights Management protections. But yeah, if you don't trust Microsoft to do the right thing, you ought to think twice before letting their code run in ring 0 of your CPU.