zlacker

>>mconle+(OP)
TL;DR: Windows Defender had a bug that made certain system calls expensive on CPU cycles when Defender's Real-time Protection feature is enabled. After discovery, Mozilla reported this issue to Microsoft. Microsoft is releasing a patch that should result in lower CPU usage when using Firefox on sites like YouTube (a ~75% CPU usage reduction was noted when browsing YouTube in Firefox with the fixed version of Defender).

It seems like the HN submission form truncated the # from the end of the URL I linked to, which linked to the relevant comment. I'll try that here:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1441918#c82

and

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1441918#c91

>>mconle+h3
I'm curious how much excess energy has been consumed, and won't be consumed any longer, as a result of this improvement - even just limited to reduced CPU usage on Windows machines using Firefox to watch Youtube.

I love thinking about the impacts of tiny improvements at scale like this, might do some napkin math on it later and see if I can come up with something in the right order of magnitude.

>>cjblac+Tl
Next: Canadian cars and their daytime running lights.

>>2ICofa+qq
Running lights during daytime seems to reduce crashes by about 5-10%, and crashes consume a lot of energy. Depending on crash severity there's at a minimum the wasted time for all involved parties and frequently the necessity for repairs (including the production of replacement parts, paint etc), and at the high end the involvement of emergency personnel and their vehicles, hospital beds, doctors, the production of entire new cars as replacement for totaled ones, etc.

I'm not so sure that running lights isn't a net positive, especially with the introduction of LED lights.