And that was what I consider the real issue. I don't give a damn if MS installed IE on those computers I was forced to buy with an MS operating system on them. It was trivial enough to install another browser, but unless I wanted to take the time to build my own computers from parts and then have basically no warranty on the system as a whole, I had to pay MS for their OS. And that points out that having an MS OS on the system wasn't the issue, it was having to PAY for the privilege.

And you ought to know that I was buying those systems with grant money, which means the taxpayer was actually paying for an OS that was going to be deleted as soon as the system got here.

MS also installs 'explorer' on all their systems, but you could buy Norton commander. Is the fact that 'explorer' was part of the MS bundle a problem? No.

That's what my electric utility already does. I do have a slight problem with this:

"But you shouldn't quash an entire emerging industry just to protect an old and established one."

Nobody is quashing an emerging industry. What they're saying is that they don't want to have to buy electricity from everybody.

Forcing them to buy electricity was a bone thrown to the solar energy, as are the various tax incentives for installing solar. I actually want to install solar myself, badly, but I would prefer this to proceed with the least government interference.

The ability to network is a skill I've spent a significant amount of time to become adept at.

Nice to see *informed* input!

I would argue that the problem is the flat rate pricing of $/KWH. A KWH produced at 1 AM has far less value than one produced at 7:00 PM. Why are we charging them the same? Much of the issue you mention would largely vanish if electricity prices were negotiated more frequently. EG: hourly or 15 minute increments. If there really is a surplus of power between 10:00-2:00, as you state, then the price during that time of day would be low to accommodate. This would create an incentive to input power when there's matching demand, and let the utility company profit off the difference.

Yes, it's a significant cost to upgrade the power grid and contracts to work this way, but when has it been bad to connect buyers to sellers in a way that reflects an accurate use of resources?

For example, I read a study a while back that pointing solar panels West of due South resulted in a much better match between electricity use and demand

If you are disabling an app so it cannot be used at all, why do you care that you have to remove an update to the very app you don't want in the first place? Others have pointed out the technical reason for the way it is.

The real issue back then was that MS required OEMs to install MS OS on every computer they sold if they wanted to install it on ANY computer they sold. That's why you didn't have an option of buying a pre-built computer without Windows. I ought to know, I had to buy alot of them.

in newbamamerica, you have no rights or freedoms.

If you think even for a *second* that this would not have happened during the prior administrations, or that the majority of damage to your freedoms had not already been done prior to Obama's terms, you really should see someone about that brain tumor, because it's made you into a flaming idiot.

I bet the NSA has had this, and more than this, for many years, and will only see to it that this fellow is stomped into mush.

That'd be the American public you're asking about.

When congress decided to shove the PATRIOT act up everyone's colon, lubricated only by a healthy dose of TSA, all the American public did was enquire how far they should bend over. They're still bent over. The majority likes it that way. Because fear. Unreasonable, agit-prop and ignorance based fear.

It's called "principle", something that's uncommon in the left-wing world.

The Earth's radius was pretty well known, yet still Columbus worked with a few very wrong assumptions. His expectations of the distance to China (on the "known" route to the East) were vastly overblown (mostly because a good deal of that distance estimate came from Marco Polos expedition there some three hundred years earlier), while at the same time his estimate of the size of the Earth were a bit too small. Search for Behaim Globe (Behaim was a German cartographer who made globes before America was discovered) to see what his expectations of Earth would have looked like.

From this point of view, his idea wasn't as idiotic as it may initially appear. Actually, he expected to hit China or at least Japan approximately where the US midwest would be.

Damn those treehuggers for wanting breathable air! It's so Un-American!

My bad. I always thought that GM's main business was branding and marketing cars. Guess it's not, so what else is it?

It's kinda hard to take someone's opinion on a competing product without a grain of salt. It's like some ex-MS head honcho calling the iPad a fad that will never replace the desktop. He may be right, of course. But it still smells a bit of sour grapes.

He's a car guy?

Then what the heck was he doing at GM?