Sickle Cell disease provides resistance to malaria, but at a steep cost- because of the resulting shape of RBCs, individuals who express Hgb S are at a significantly higher risk for Vaso-Occlusive crises than are other individuals. Think: when blood must filter through small vessels and becomes blocked, we see fun things like auto-splenectomies (where the spleen dies due to lack of blood flow) and liver failure (for the same reason). This in turn renders the individual more susceptible to infections, general organ failures, and typically shortened lifespan. The genetic advantage to this trait is that it allows you to live to sexual maturity and pass on that trait. The downside is that you don't get much beyond that.
...except that the higher survival rate was determined to be due to their immunity to malaria....meaning that if malaria mutates so that it can infect GM mosquitoes, the 'more mosquitos' part of your scenario either doesn't happen, or it self-corrects as more GM mosquitoes contract the new strain of malaria.
* Disable UAC immediately. It's MORE annoying than you think. It really does do crap like "You just double clicked this program. Execute it? [ Allow ] [ Cancel ]" That's right, no joking, it's a worthless piece of crap that's more annoying than Clippy! All it does is train people to click "allow" for everything, which is absolutely terrible for security.
How is this not bad security advice? Disabling UAC will give you the exact same security problem you're saying is a bad thing- if you disable UAC, your entire session executes with elevated privilege, meaning that any successful exploit in your session gives your attacker the privileges of your full security token. Already-elevated processes conveniently don't ask for elevation privileges, because you've effectively bent over and clicked 'yes' to everything. UAC is a good thing, even if it's annoying to deal with the prompts, simply because it provides defense in depth- it allows you to run your entire session as a least-privileged user, only asserting elevated privilege explicitly, rather than the other way around.
Also note: apart from installing or uninstalling apps, you'll rarely see UAC prompts. Once you've got your box set up, you rarely need that privilege.
Perhaps because in the past all such offerings from Microsoft have been crap and not worth using?
If I recall correctly, this feature only became usable in the XP timeframe, meaning Vista is the only upgrade cycle for which it's been viable. Given that widespread vista rollouts are waiting on SP1 or on just new hardware, it may be that nobody's had a real clear case to do so yet.
As long as I'm being modded troll here, I might as well be an informative one: Per technet:
Transfer files and setting using a network
Start Windows Easy Transfer on the computer from which you wish to migrate settings and files by browsing to the removable media or network drive containing the wizard files, and then double clicking migwiz.exe.
If you have any programs open, you will be prompted to close them. You can opt to save your work in each program, and then close them individually, or you can click Close All in Windows Easy Transfer to close all running programs at once. Click Next.
Determine the transfer method to use. Click Through a network.
Note
Both computers must support the transfer method you choose. For example, both computers must be connected to the same network.
Click Connect directly via network to begin the transfer. Alternately, click Save to network location if you want to store the files and settings in a file to be loaded later. If you choose to store the data in a network location, you will be prompted to provide the path.
Click Everything - all user accounts, files, and program settings (recommended) to transfer all files and settings. You can also choose to determine exactly which files should be migrated by clicking either Only my user account, files, and program settings, or Custom.
Review the list of files and settings to be transferred, and then click Start to begin the transfer. Click Customize if you want to add or remove files or settings.
Note that you can ad-hoc a network over a firewire cable.
If part of the value of my PC is in this software, shouldn't my "Free Upgrade" include some sort of guarantee that I will not lose the value of my PC? Of course, the stories of driver issues and performance issues, didn't make me any quicker to change.
This is why the Upgrade Advisor might be valuable to you- you can run it beforehand and it'll flag known issues (like 'this sound card doesn't have vista drivers' or 'that app will not work') before you've made any commitment. I've migrated several machines (mostly OEM boxen, many of them Dell- it's what we've got) to Vista as part of my testing and I haven't found any issues that the 'Upgrade Advisor' missed. YMMV tho.
Can you connect your old PC to the new one with a firewire cable and have the Vista import all the old user data?
Yes. You can export your user data via direct computer link (usb, firewire, network) or via file (burned to disk, stored on the hard drive, on a network share).
Doesn't this violate the Sherman Antitrust Act: where a monopoly cannot use their market power (IE: existing customer base) to extend into other fields / markets.
Doubtful. IANAL, but first of all, Microsoft has been found to hold a monopoly in a narrowly-defined market only: Intel-compatible PC Operating Systems. They certainly don't have monopolies in anything relevant here (search? productivity apps? online gadgets? not even.) so there's not much they can leverage that would be unfair to the competition. They're giving their customers a discount on a product very few people use (Office Live) in exchange for their using another product very few people use, live search.
In other words, it doesn't look like they're leveraging a monopoly, so much as they're courting customers by giving them price incentives to try out the new gizmos.
TFA doesn't specify whether any violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act are happening, but this blog provides a bit more in the way of detail: customers who enroll:
1) choose how many computers they want to enroll,
2) these boxes get a 'bho' installed on them to measure search usage and presumably phone home about it,
3) they get credits based on the measurements.
This looks like a product-bundling incentive program. While searching for information on the legality of bundling, I ran across this discussion, which draws a distinction between what it calls 'mixed bundling' and 'predation'. He concludes thus:
If cross-subsidies from monopoly to competitive markets are considered potentially anticompetitive, a rule against mixed bundling should be based not on a comparison of price and cost, but on the market power in the bundled-product markets. The less likely it is that A is earning monopoly profits in the market for one bundled product, the less concern there is that a mixed bundle could have anticompetitive effects.
dont really see this being applied to commercial passenger or cargo planes. Maybe ultralites.
Think military, recon, and intelligence-gathering. The ability to have a drone orbit the same patch of earth for days over a target with live video feed? You could spy on the sunbathers next door without being detected for sure.
Typically Microsoft fires people below a certain management level in their mid 30s, to make room for younger staff.
Source please?
According to Microsoft's corporate fact sheet, their median age is 36.6 years. 49.5% of their US employees are between the ages of 30 and 39, with another 32% over 40 years old- meaning that 18.5% of their US employees are under 30 and 81.5% are over 30. In other words, what you say is 'typical' can't possibly be typical.
Sorry, but the facts here don't support your assertion- and if you're that mistaken on something that can easily be checked online, I wonder how you're privy to what they're paying their new hires?
get close to actually having the intellectual propery of Microsoft's upper management or founders, they'll find a reason to replace you.
That doesn't make sense, either- first, the IP that's got value is in the code, and any engineer has access to it, but they're not replacing everybody who looks at code. What's more, when you accept work at pretty much any proprietary software firm these days, you sign agreements that say you don't own the intellectual property- the company does. Whatever you're talking about, it isn't IP.
If you can find either of those studies and provide references, I would be very interested in reading them myself. What you're saying makes sense, and I'd very much like to be able to cite that source myself.
he's just lobbying for the Cheap Labor crowd, which includes his own business.
It's funny how this logic is taken at face value here on/.
Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense. Not even a bit.
Microsoft has development centers overseas already. They have no need whatsoever to bring workers here. It's more expensive for Microsoft to bring workers here than it is to have them work there. So what's the motive?
It's not because H1B workers make less money- at Microsoft, they make the same money as their peers- pay is based on level and performance, not on visa status.
If you'll open your eyes and look past the hatred you bear for Bill Gates, you'll see exactly the same argument you've been making about technology, coming from him- only he's making it about labor. And you know what? You're both saying pretty much the same thing: Competition is good. Anti-Competitive behavior is bad. Unless, of course, it benefits you, or something.
Well, they are a logical fallacy, for one thing.
An argument's truth stands independent of the speaker. You may attack the speaker without refuting the argument.
The point of an Ad Hominem attack, generally, is not to refute an argument, but to prevent the argument itself from being evaluated. The output of this process is not factual correctness- it's agreement about what is correct, only without having to bother checking the facts.
As you note, it's rational to ignore the crazies when they rant- who has the time to evaluate it all? By the same token, it's simply not logical to conclude that their arguments are false. This is a case where rational != logical.
Hidden from view is not necessarily a good thing, it is part of what has allowed us all to overconsume energy.
I partly agree, but came to a different conclusion.
What has allowed us all to overconsume energy is that we are insulated from the real costs and impacts of doing so. We don't care about what blows out of the smokestack if it (mostly) goes elsewhere- for us, those costs are externalized (until we pay our health insurance premiums). We buy gasoline (in the US) that is taxpayer-subsidized, which insulates us from feeling the price pain that would otherwise motivate us to either conserve or switch to an energy source that mitigates these costs.
What makes excessive consumption bad is not that it is excessive; it is that there's a consequence of doing so that is undesirable. Get rid of the undesirable consequences and where's the sin? I don't think there's a value in eyesores; they a) don't really make us conserve, and b) are themselves one of the undesirable consequences we'd all rather be without. In essence, they're a solution that comes with a different set of problems, just like the ones we're trying to solve today.
Cost makes us conserve- pretty much every other factor is secondary. Concern about the environment makes us conserve, when cost doesn't override that concern. We'll tolerate mercury in our food so we can have cheap coal-fired electricity, and government deficits so we can subsidize gas prices. We'll for SURE tolerate eyesores, no sweat. (especially since they'll end up being placed in less-desirable locations- again, a function of cost externalization). In other words, there's virtually zero redeeming value in having your power come from an eyesore, simply because that won't incentivize the sort of low-to-no-negative-impact living you seem to really be interested in.
I'm curious now- how would one objectively determine that a given price is too high for what you get? (are there precedents here?) Isn't sorting out prices the market's job?...like, if anybody is licensing the protocols, isn't that a signal that they're worth it to someone (or vice versa- if nobody's biting at that price, is that reasonable evidence that the price is too high)?
I guess I'm asking how the EU has managed to arrive at the conclusion that the price is wrong. I'm suspicious whenever I smell governments asserting control over prices or design, even when they're dealing with monopolists, when there's fines to be levied.
Also, wouldn't it make sense, if it's the EU's position that there's no innovation (and thus nothing patent-worthy?), to go through the process of overturning the patents and THEN (once the overturning process resolved whether there was something patent-worthy or not) issue a judgment on that basis?
I know, this is/. and it's heresy to question the basis of any situation that bends MS over a barrel, but I tend to trust governments (and their motivations) even less than I do big companies (whose motivations I at least understand). Mod as you will.
Now imagine if every couple of days or weeks some random low-value target got blown to smithereens. The entire country would be paralyzed and for *quite* some time.
I dunno. I expect that the result would be the complete opposite of paralysis. We'd make war.
We have endless tolerance for people far away suffering injustice and genocide, but blow up stuff on our soil? That's a whole different ball game.
We might be arrogant, ignorant, and divided politically, but if we unite, look out.
Does the browser also send failed https:/// lookups to LiveSearch?
No. If you specify any protocol (http://, https:///ftp:// file://) IE attempts to resolve the URL directly and if it doesn't, displays a generic error page.
IE7 has the search bar over on the right, but if you start typing something in the address bar, it auto-populates with stuff you might want- for example, if I type 'sla' into the address bar, I get 4 suggestions:
'Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters' -- title of the main page, cribbed from my favorites
'http://slashdot.org/article[...]' --recently visited page at slashdot, from history
'http://slashdot.org/article[...]' --recently visited page at slashdot, from history
'search for sla' -- takes you to a search page
I also noticed while testing this out that it behaves differently at work than it did at home last night: from behind my work's firewall, the search redirect page I expected to see was blocked- instead I got a firewall-blocked-this-page error.
There are many comparisons here by Microsoft apologists to.. firefox defaulting to a google search which yeilds some PPV ads, and then yelling 'See - Those OSS guys are just as bad, Whats the Difference ?'
Except that this isn't bad. At all.
Think about it. You've mistyped a search term in your browser window. What now? Would you rather be given a relevant suggestion or a generic error? I'd want my mom to be given a suggestion, to be honest. What IE (and firefox) do in this case is the right thing- they take the user to a (useful) search page instead of an (accurate, but useless as far as the user is concerned) error page.
This is a genuinely useful feature they got right- it's open, configurable, free to be set by OEMs as well as users, and the majority point to google.
The bottom line here is that Microsoft has zero obligation to forego profit for doing something actually useful, so long as users (and ad-buyers) are free to take their search and advertising business elsewhere. Which they are. To their credit, MS did not yield to the (probably-tempting) urge to control which search engine you're pointed to by default.
If you do some testing, you'll notice that this redirect only occurs when you don't specify the protocol (e.g., http:///https:///ftp:// etc) which means you're already asking IE to search with an ambiguous query, rather than simply telling it explicitly to resolve an unambiguous address. If you do the former, you get that accurate-but-useless 'cannot find the site' error page.
Also note: more IE users' default search engine is google than is live. OEMs (think: Dell) ship IE with Google as the default search provider. Microsoft, let's face it, does not dictate terms the way they did 10 years ago.
It's not bad when firefox redirects a mistyped URL to a relevant ad-funded search on your default search engine, it's not bad when IE redirects a mistyped search URL to a relevant ad-funded search on your default search engine. It's just not a bad thing, any way you slice it. Nobody's forcing you to accept the defaults, the defaults aren't stacked the way they once were anyhow, and even if you end up at one of these search pages, nobody's forcing you to click an ad. There is absolutely zero lack of choice here.
drop the http:/// prefix, it'll attempt to search for you. So long as you prefix it with a protocol, IE attempts to resolve the address- if it doesn't resolve, it'll fail as you describe. It's only when you give a potentially ambiguous URL and it doesn't resolve that it takes you to your default search provider.
Cashier just watches the food to make sure you don't get any unless you obey via the money-mechanism, calls the cops if you make trouble
This has value. It's worth it for the employer to have someone handle the money and manage inventory.
It's easy to think that because someone isn't actually making the product, they're not producing anything of value, especially if you're an engineer (as I am). Unfortunately for folks with this view, more is necessary than just producing a good product. Without sales people or marketing people, your customers can't get your product- and until they do, nobody gets paid.
It's interesting that this view surfaces time and again on Slashdot- something on the order of 'marketing, sales, management don't add value'. If that were true, there would have to be some reason why companies hire them- and there would need to be some way to explain why second-rate technology companies with highly effective sales and marketing organizations tend to mop the marketplace floor with first-rate software engineering shops who don't. Surely vast capitalist conspiracies and illegal monopolies are more plausible explanations for why management and marketing are better-paid than you think they should be, and Windows is on more desktops than your favorite flavor, right?...because it's just plain crazy talk to think that anybody but us geeks does anything of value, man.
Mod me troll all you want- but there's a big difference between someone delivering no value and you failing completely to understand the value they deliver.
There's a difference between a Pyramid (or ponzi) scheme and an MLM. The former is illegal and based on fraud, while the latter is legal, even if it is (shudder) marketing.
In a ponzi scheme, profit comes from subsequent investors' buy-in.
In an MLM, profit comes from the sale of intrinsically valuable goods or services to customers.
The distinction is important. One (the MLM) is a sustainable business model where your pay reflects the value you've contributed (yes, bringing buyers and sellers together does add value), while the other (pyramid) is unsustainable and will inevitably collapse under its own weight because your pay is based not on sales to customers, but on sales to other marketers. Without new customers who buy stuff (or better yet, an ongoing commodity), the only way to remain liquid is to bring in more 'investors'.
If you're asked to invest heavily up front in a 'business opportunity' (usually, the opportunity to sell the opportunity, rather than anything of intrinsic value), odds are it's a ponzi scheme- no responsible MLM is structured to need its representatives' money in order to work. Since what they're selling is contracts to rent power installations over long-term periods, and none of the contracts call for significant up-front outlays on the part of either the marketer or the customer, this doesn't appear to be anything fishy. My only questions have to do with where the solar arrays come from, and how they're financed. Is it possible for the company to finance a solar array with the revenue it generates on an ongoing basis?
This will be an interesting one to watch. What this company is doing, in a certain sense, is competing with local monopolies at their price point, for the right to be your primary provider of electricity. If they can do it and stay in business over time, watch the world change.
Note that I'm not affiliated in any way with these folks. I've looked at what they offer, and my only real concern is that under the terms of the contract, I'd be agreeing to buy all the electricity provided by the array, even if I didn't use it all- meaning I'd be buying power at retail, and selling it at wholesale (those are the terms with Seattle City Light) back to the grid. This means if I choose to be their customer, I don't want an array big enough to produce more power than I already consume. Since my long-term desire is to cover my entire roof with solar panels and put my excess into my car, I may sit this offer out....or I may go with a short-term contract. I don't know yet.
So now that Windows doesn't have support for this and that software
Actually, it does. Don't confuse logo certification with anything but what it is: a process where a MS-certified testing organization (like these guys) verifies that your app Conforms to specific guidelines that you really want your apps doing anyhow if you want them to run on Windows. This is what they check for, so there are no surprises.
It's not like your app won't work if it's not certified (otherwise how would they test it?). Being logo-certified just means you get to put a sticker on your retail box so that shoppers who only know that 'it's gotta work for me and I have windows' have some way to know it's been verified to pass those tests on their OS.
Yes, but beside all that, this probably isn't really the environmental victory it pretends to be.
From TFA, the intention behind the new regulation (imposing efficiency standards on light bulbs) is to reduce greenhouse gas production. This is a laudable goal, but if that's the goal, why don't they regulate the greenhouse gas production itself, instead of going after one way in which power produced that way might be consumed? Trying to impact a system by messing with its outputs is... well, sort of backwards.
If joe consumer saves money on the electrical bill because he uses efficient light bulbs, what's to prevent him spending that savings on another appliance? Sure, less power will go to lighting, but will less power be consumed overall? Maybe, maybe not- the regulation does not apply to other electrical devices- meaning that in order to accomplish the objective, more standards will need to be established for other devices, etc.
Also, if I have a solar array and storage system and power my home with 'green' electricity, whose business is it if I choose my light sources based on the quality of light they produce?
This is a great mission. I applaud the mission. Unfortunately, I don't think this strategy alone will get us there. If we're really interested in reducing our carbon emissions, we'll want to actually focus on how our power is produced as well as taking steps to limit our power consumption.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the article you were looking for.
Sickle Cell disease provides resistance to malaria, but at a steep cost- because of the resulting shape of RBCs, individuals who express Hgb S are at a significantly higher risk for Vaso-Occlusive crises than are other individuals. Think: when blood must filter through small vessels and becomes blocked, we see fun things like auto-splenectomies (where the spleen dies due to lack of blood flow) and liver failure (for the same reason). This in turn renders the individual more susceptible to infections, general organ failures, and typically shortened lifespan. The genetic advantage to this trait is that it allows you to live to sexual maturity and pass on that trait. The downside is that you don't get much beyond that.
...except that the higher survival rate was determined to be due to their immunity to malaria. ...meaning that if malaria mutates so that it can infect GM mosquitoes, the 'more mosquitos' part of your scenario either doesn't happen, or it self-corrects as more GM mosquitoes contract the new strain of malaria.
UAC is a good thing, even if it's annoying to deal with the prompts, simply because it provides defense in depth- it allows you to run your entire session as a least-privileged user, only asserting elevated privilege explicitly, rather than the other way around.
Also note: apart from installing or uninstalling apps, you'll rarely see UAC prompts. Once you've got your box set up, you rarely need that privilege.
If I recall correctly, this feature only became usable in the XP timeframe, meaning Vista is the only upgrade cycle for which it's been viable. Given that widespread vista rollouts are waiting on SP1 or on just new hardware, it may be that nobody's had a real clear case to do so yet.
You're not mistaken. My mistake, thanks.
In other words, it doesn't look like they're leveraging a monopoly, so much as they're courting customers by giving them price incentives to try out the new gizmos.
TFA doesn't specify whether any violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act are happening, but this blog provides a bit more in the way of detail: customers who enroll:
1) choose how many computers they want to enroll,
2) these boxes get a 'bho' installed on them to measure search usage and presumably phone home about it,
3) they get credits based on the measurements.
This looks like a product-bundling incentive program. While searching for information on the legality of bundling, I ran across this discussion, which draws a distinction between what it calls 'mixed bundling' and 'predation'. He concludes thus:
According to Microsoft's corporate fact sheet, their median age is 36.6 years. 49.5% of their US employees are between the ages of 30 and 39, with another 32% over 40 years old- meaning that 18.5% of their US employees are under 30 and 81.5% are over 30. In other words, what you say is 'typical' can't possibly be typical.
Sorry, but the facts here don't support your assertion- and if you're that mistaken on something that can easily be checked online, I wonder how you're privy to what they're paying their new hires? That doesn't make sense, either- first, the IP that's got value is in the code, and any engineer has access to it, but they're not replacing everybody who looks at code. What's more, when you accept work at pretty much any proprietary software firm these days, you sign agreements that say you don't own the intellectual property- the company does. Whatever you're talking about, it isn't IP.
If you can find either of those studies and provide references, I would be very interested in reading them myself. What you're saying makes sense, and I'd very much like to be able to cite that source myself.
Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense. Not even a bit.
Microsoft has development centers overseas already. They have no need whatsoever to bring workers here. It's more expensive for Microsoft to bring workers here than it is to have them work there. So what's the motive?
It's not because H1B workers make less money- at Microsoft, they make the same money as their peers- pay is based on level and performance, not on visa status.
If you'll open your eyes and look past the hatred you bear for Bill Gates, you'll see exactly the same argument you've been making about technology, coming from him- only he's making it about labor. And you know what? You're both saying pretty much the same thing: Competition is good. Anti-Competitive behavior is bad. Unless, of course, it benefits you, or something.
An argument's truth stands independent of the speaker. You may attack the speaker without refuting the argument.
The point of an Ad Hominem attack, generally, is not to refute an argument, but to prevent the argument itself from being evaluated. The output of this process is not factual correctness- it's agreement about what is correct, only without having to bother checking the facts.
As you note, it's rational to ignore the crazies when they rant- who has the time to evaluate it all? By the same token, it's simply not logical to conclude that their arguments are false. This is a case where rational != logical.
What has allowed us all to overconsume energy is that we are insulated from the real costs and impacts of doing so. We don't care about what blows out of the smokestack if it (mostly) goes elsewhere- for us, those costs are externalized (until we pay our health insurance premiums). We buy gasoline (in the US) that is taxpayer-subsidized, which insulates us from feeling the price pain that would otherwise motivate us to either conserve or switch to an energy source that mitigates these costs.
What makes excessive consumption bad is not that it is excessive; it is that there's a consequence of doing so that is undesirable. Get rid of the undesirable consequences and where's the sin? I don't think there's a value in eyesores; they a) don't really make us conserve, and b) are themselves one of the undesirable consequences we'd all rather be without. In essence, they're a solution that comes with a different set of problems, just like the ones we're trying to solve today.
Cost makes us conserve- pretty much every other factor is secondary. Concern about the environment makes us conserve, when cost doesn't override that concern. We'll tolerate mercury in our food so we can have cheap coal-fired electricity, and government deficits so we can subsidize gas prices. We'll for SURE tolerate eyesores, no sweat. (especially since they'll end up being placed in less-desirable locations- again, a function of cost externalization). In other words, there's virtually zero redeeming value in having your power come from an eyesore, simply because that won't incentivize the sort of low-to-no-negative-impact living you seem to really be interested in.
I'm curious now- how would one objectively determine that a given price is too high for what you get? (are there precedents here?) Isn't sorting out prices the market's job? ...like, if anybody is licensing the protocols, isn't that a signal that they're worth it to someone (or vice versa- if nobody's biting at that price, is that reasonable evidence that the price is too high)?
/. and it's heresy to question the basis of any situation that bends MS over a barrel, but I tend to trust governments (and their motivations) even less than I do big companies (whose motivations I at least understand). Mod as you will.
I guess I'm asking how the EU has managed to arrive at the conclusion that the price is wrong. I'm suspicious whenever I smell governments asserting control over prices or design, even when they're dealing with monopolists, when there's fines to be levied.
Also, wouldn't it make sense, if it's the EU's position that there's no innovation (and thus nothing patent-worthy?), to go through the process of overturning the patents and THEN (once the overturning process resolved whether there was something patent-worthy or not) issue a judgment on that basis?
I know, this is
We have endless tolerance for people far away suffering injustice and genocide, but blow up stuff on our soil? That's a whole different ball game.
We might be arrogant, ignorant, and divided politically, but if we unite, look out.
IE7 has the search bar over on the right, but if you start typing something in the address bar, it auto-populates with stuff you might want- for example, if I type 'sla' into the address bar, I get 4 suggestions:
'Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters' -- title of the main page, cribbed from my favorites
'http://slashdot.org/article[...]' --recently visited page at slashdot, from history
'http://slashdot.org/article[...]' --recently visited page at slashdot, from history
'search for sla' -- takes you to a search page
I also noticed while testing this out that it behaves differently at work than it did at home last night: from behind my work's firewall, the search redirect page I expected to see was blocked- instead I got a firewall-blocked-this-page error.
Think about it. You've mistyped a search term in your browser window. What now? Would you rather be given a relevant suggestion or a generic error? I'd want my mom to be given a suggestion, to be honest. What IE (and firefox) do in this case is the right thing- they take the user to a (useful) search page instead of an (accurate, but useless as far as the user is concerned) error page.
This is a genuinely useful feature they got right- it's open, configurable, free to be set by OEMs as well as users, and the majority point to google.
The bottom line here is that Microsoft has zero obligation to forego profit for doing something actually useful, so long as users (and ad-buyers) are free to take their search and advertising business elsewhere. Which they are. To their credit, MS did not yield to the (probably-tempting) urge to control which search engine you're pointed to by default.
If you do some testing, you'll notice that this redirect only occurs when you don't specify the protocol (e.g., http:/// https:/// ftp:// etc) which means you're already asking IE to search with an ambiguous query, rather than simply telling it explicitly to resolve an unambiguous address. If you do the former, you get that accurate-but-useless 'cannot find the site' error page.
Also note: more IE users' default search engine is google than is live. OEMs (think: Dell) ship IE with Google as the default search provider. Microsoft, let's face it, does not dictate terms the way they did 10 years ago.
It's not bad when firefox redirects a mistyped URL to a relevant ad-funded search on your default search engine, it's not bad when IE redirects a mistyped search URL to a relevant ad-funded search on your default search engine. It's just not a bad thing, any way you slice it. Nobody's forcing you to accept the defaults, the defaults aren't stacked the way they once were anyhow, and even if you end up at one of these search pages, nobody's forcing you to click an ad. There is absolutely zero lack of choice here.
drop the http:/// prefix, it'll attempt to search for you. So long as you prefix it with a protocol, IE attempts to resolve the address- if it doesn't resolve, it'll fail as you describe. It's only when you give a potentially ambiguous URL and it doesn't resolve that it takes you to your default search provider.
It's easy to think that because someone isn't actually making the product, they're not producing anything of value, especially if you're an engineer (as I am). Unfortunately for folks with this view, more is necessary than just producing a good product. Without sales people or marketing people, your customers can't get your product- and until they do, nobody gets paid.
It's interesting that this view surfaces time and again on Slashdot- something on the order of 'marketing, sales, management don't add value'. If that were true, there would have to be some reason why companies hire them- and there would need to be some way to explain why second-rate technology companies with highly effective sales and marketing organizations tend to mop the marketplace floor with first-rate software engineering shops who don't. Surely vast capitalist conspiracies and illegal monopolies are more plausible explanations for why management and marketing are better-paid than you think they should be, and Windows is on more desktops than your favorite flavor, right?
Mod me troll all you want- but there's a big difference between someone delivering no value and you failing completely to understand the value they deliver.
There's a difference between a Pyramid (or ponzi) scheme and an MLM. The former is illegal and based on fraud, while the latter is legal, even if it is (shudder) marketing.
...or I may go with a short-term contract. I don't know yet.
In a ponzi scheme, profit comes from subsequent investors' buy-in.
In an MLM, profit comes from the sale of intrinsically valuable goods or services to customers.
The distinction is important. One (the MLM) is a sustainable business model where your pay reflects the value you've contributed (yes, bringing buyers and sellers together does add value), while the other (pyramid) is unsustainable and will inevitably collapse under its own weight because your pay is based not on sales to customers, but on sales to other marketers. Without new customers who buy stuff (or better yet, an ongoing commodity), the only way to remain liquid is to bring in more 'investors'.
If you're asked to invest heavily up front in a 'business opportunity' (usually, the opportunity to sell the opportunity, rather than anything of intrinsic value), odds are it's a ponzi scheme- no responsible MLM is structured to need its representatives' money in order to work. Since what they're selling is contracts to rent power installations over long-term periods, and none of the contracts call for significant up-front outlays on the part of either the marketer or the customer, this doesn't appear to be anything fishy. My only questions have to do with where the solar arrays come from, and how they're financed. Is it possible for the company to finance a solar array with the revenue it generates on an ongoing basis?
This will be an interesting one to watch. What this company is doing, in a certain sense, is competing with local monopolies at their price point, for the right to be your primary provider of electricity. If they can do it and stay in business over time, watch the world change.
Note that I'm not affiliated in any way with these folks. I've looked at what they offer, and my only real concern is that under the terms of the contract, I'd be agreeing to buy all the electricity provided by the array, even if I didn't use it all- meaning I'd be buying power at retail, and selling it at wholesale (those are the terms with Seattle City Light) back to the grid. This means if I choose to be their customer, I don't want an array big enough to produce more power than I already consume. Since my long-term desire is to cover my entire roof with solar panels and put my excess into my car, I may sit this offer out.
It's not like your app won't work if it's not certified (otherwise how would they test it?). Being logo-certified just means you get to put a sticker on your retail box so that shoppers who only know that 'it's gotta work for me and I have windows' have some way to know it's been verified to pass those tests on their OS.
(doh.) Thanks for the correction!
Yes, but beside all that, this probably isn't really the environmental victory it pretends to be.
From TFA, the intention behind the new regulation (imposing efficiency standards on light bulbs) is to reduce greenhouse gas production. This is a laudable goal, but if that's the goal, why don't they regulate the greenhouse gas production itself, instead of going after one way in which power produced that way might be consumed? Trying to impact a system by messing with its outputs is... well, sort of backwards.
If joe consumer saves money on the electrical bill because he uses efficient light bulbs, what's to prevent him spending that savings on another appliance? Sure, less power will go to lighting, but will less power be consumed overall? Maybe, maybe not- the regulation does not apply to other electrical devices- meaning that in order to accomplish the objective, more standards will need to be established for other devices, etc.
Also, if I have a solar array and storage system and power my home with 'green' electricity, whose business is it if I choose my light sources based on the quality of light they produce?
This is a great mission. I applaud the mission. Unfortunately, I don't think this strategy alone will get us there. If we're really interested in reducing our carbon emissions, we'll want to actually focus on how our power is produced as well as taking steps to limit our power consumption.