Microsoft long ago took over areas dominated by others with the Microsoft "diode".

Step one was the run the leader's stuff - for example their document format.

Step two was to "enhance" the support in a way that made new work incompatible with the former leader.

If they ever want people to buy their smartphones, they will have to start by running Android apps until they get to the point where Windows phone is a necessary app target, just as Apple and Android are today.

The current system lets the home owner use the power grid as a battery, storing excess energy for later use. And this battery is free. But it's not free - someone has to pay for the power lines, meters, and generation or storage capacity that makes it work.

Electric bills have two components, the supply cost and the delivery cost. The supply cost is what the electric company should be paying for electricity it buys from the home owner. But the electricity the home owner buys back should include the delivery cost.

In effect, the utilities are subsidizing home generation, which may make sense for now, but is not a plausible end game.

My understanding is that disks often fail when a head touches the surface, or a piece of dirt gets between the head and the surface. Once that happens, more dirt is produced, increasing the probability of more head crashes, leading to a failure cascade. As a consequence, once one of my drives starts to show unrecoverable errors, corresponding to damaged surface areas, I replace it while it can still be read.

The spare platter strategy does nothing to reduce this failure mode. In fact, all modern disks already have spare space for bad block relocation.

The move from 4x3 to 16x9 was already a big loss - more scrolling for no advantage except using the PC as a TV. Don't know about 1x1 but the old 5x4 worked just fine for me.

I agree this is impossible to measure but..

I'd guess the first level interrupt handler in windows (most of which is in C by the way) would be high on the list.

(Most processors go to sleep rather than running an idle loop, which sort of rules that out).

The cynic in me says that any request you make about your email address just makes that a more valuable address!

Ablock, on the other hand, seems to do the trick pretty well for many people. Adblock plus actually right now - but there is a growing controversy about it.

People always claim that bad beer tastes like piss. And I always wonder how they know! Which reminds me of a childhood memory. We were in the Catskills in what was then called a bungalow colony. One day, for some reasons, the owner had to siphon some gas, which he started by sucking on the hose. My dad asked what it tasted like - it tastes like manure he said. Once we were away, my dad wondered aloud how he knew.

Removed java a while ago. I haven't found a site a cared about that needed it. We should all pressure any sites that still use it to get off it.

This was the beginning - the "new" keyboard on the T530 and brothers. It's OK - but not the wonder that my ancient T40 had. I simply make more typing errors, for a bunch of subtle reasons.

The story prompted me to look at bing maps. Very first direction request produced a poor route. When dragging the route to change it gives less time and distance, you know it's not the source to use! There is no way to reset a drag! etc. etc. I'll stick with google.

But one wonders how this government agency was co-opted.