RIP, UWP We hardly knew ye, and never cared.

Way back in 2017, I wrote a post that I titled, "UWP is a failure, and Microsoft knows it."

Nearly two years after releasing Windows 10 and UWP into the world with dreams of marketplace dominance dancing in their heads, Microsoft themselves are only now bringing their 2nd-biggest software product [i.e. Office] to their own store. And it isn't a native UWP version of the program, either; it's a port, brought over via the Project Centennial Desktop App Bridge (henceforth referred to as PCDAB).

That's right: Windows 10 and UWP have flopped so hard that Microsoft themselves can't be bothered to develop natively for the platform.

If Microsoft can't be bothered to develop natively for UWP, then nobody else is going to, either, ever, and that means that UWP is effectively dead on arrival. The only programs that Microsoft will see on its storefront from here on out will be PCDAB ports, none of which will perform as well as Win32 executable versions of those same programs, and even that assumes that developers bother to do that much; with the Windows 10 store being such a shit-show, and the added costs involved in maintaining a 2nd version of their software, all in service of lining Microsoft's pockets, I suspect that most developers simply won't bother to port their programs over in the first place.

Worse yet, a dearth of quality UWP apps means that Windows 10 users are spending this crucial time in the platform's life-cycle locking software-buying habits that exclude the Windows store almost entirely. That's not reversible; if even Windows 10 users are thoroughly trained to buy their software elsewhere, then developers have even less reason to develop for UWP, and that is self-reinforcing. It's a vicious cycle, with the lack of adopters resulting in a lack of apps, which ensures not only a slower rate of adoption, but also ensures that new adopters of Windows 10 don't adopt the storefront along with the OS, resulting in ever fewer apps...

At this point, Microsoft would probably love to be faced with a simple chicken-and-egg problem, rather than this rapidly increasing inertia [...] It seems to be that only one question remains: is this vicious cycle now so well-established that Microsoft is simply unable turn it around?

That was then; this is now. And here in the now, we have the answer to this 100% rhetorical question, as reported by The Verge:

Microsoft had a dream with Windows 8 that involved universal Windows apps that would span across phones, tablets, PCs, and even Xbox consoles. The plan was that app developers could write a single app for all of these devices, and it would magically span across them all. This dream really started to fall apart after Windows Phone failed, but it’s well and truly over now.

Microsoft has spent years pushing developers to create special apps for the company’s Universal Windows Platform (UWP), and today, it’s putting the final nail in the UWP coffin. Microsoft is finally allowing game developers to bring full native Win32 games to the Microsoft Store, meaning the many games that developers publish on popular stores like Steam don’t have to be rebuilt for UWP.

“We recognize that Win32 is the app format that game developers love to use and gamers love to play, so we are excited to share that we will be enabling full support for native Win32 games to the Microsoft Store on Windows,” explains Microsoft’s gaming chief Phil Spencer. “This will unlock more options for developers and gamers alike, allowing for the customization and control they’ve come to expect from the open Windows gaming ecosystem.”

That's right; UWP is definitely dead, and I fucking called it, two years ago.

Who's the man? I am.

The truth about nuclear power and carbon emission reduction

[Reposted from my other blog.]

It turns out that there are better ways to reduce carbon emissions than risking meltdowns, or managing and securing tonnes of weaponizable radioactive material for decades. Who'd have thought?

These totally obvious insights come courtesy of Gregory Jaczko, who once served on the United States' Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and who had previously been a big believer in nuclear power's necessity when it came to combatting global climate change. It took him a while, but he's since come to exactly the opposite conclusion, as he writes in this length article on CommonDreams:

For years, my concerns about nuclear energy’s cost and safety were always tempered by a growing fear of climate catastrophe. But Fukushima provided a good test of just how important nuclear power was to slowing climate change: In the months after the accident, all nuclear reactors in Japan were shuttered indefinitely, eliminating production of almost all of the country’s carbon-free electricity and about 30 percent of its total electricity production. Naturally, carbon emissions rose, and future emissions-reduction targets were slashed.

Would shutting down plants all over the world lead to similar results? Eight years after Fukushima, that question has been answered. Fewer than 10 of Japan’s 50 reactors have resumed operations, yet the country’s carbon emissions have dropped below their levels before the accident. How? Japan has made significant gains in energy efficiency and solar power. It turns out that relying on nuclear energy is actually a bad strategy for combating climate change: One accident wiped out Japan’s carbon gains. Only a turn to renewables and conservation brought the country back on target.

What about the United States? Nuclear accounts for about 19 percent of U.S. electricity production and most of our carbon-free electricity. Could reactors be phased out here without increasing carbon emissions? If it were completely up to the free market, the answer would be yes, because nuclear is more expensive than almost any other source of electricity today. Renewables such as solar, wind and hydroelectric power generate electricity for less than the nuclear plants under construction in Georgia, and in most places, they produce cheaper electricity than existing nuclear plants that have paid off all their construction costs.

In 2016, observing these trends, I launched a company devoted to building offshore wind turbines. My journey, from admiring nuclear power to fearing it, was complete: This tech is no longer a viable strategy for dealing with climate change, nor is it a competitive source of power. It is hazardous, expensive and unreliable, and abandoning it wouldn’t bring on climate doom.

The real choice now is between saving the planet or saving the dying nuclear industry. I vote for the planet.

[Emphasis added, by me.]

The entire piece is much, much longer than this excerpt, and definitely worth a read -- the details of Jaczko's journey towards this conclusion are quite compelling. It shouldn't surprise anybody, though, that he finally reached this conclusion after analyzing the available evidence, since almost everybody who wasn't already inside the dying American nuclear industry had already done exactly that, years ago.


I understand why the United States, in particular, are still clinging to the nuclear illusion. America ushered in the atomic age, and can still look nostalgically backwards to a time when an atomic-powered version of 1950's America looked like it might be the future. But it really wasn't the future; it was, and is, nothing but an expensive dead end. And it's high time for the last adherents of the nuclear delusion to admit that those rosy 1950's visions of an atomic future should be relegated firmly to the past, where they belong.


Nothing says "the past" quite as strongly as something that once screamed "the future." Maybe one day, we'll get fusion power, clean and plentiful energy based in nuclear physics that doesn't come with the costs, dangers, and long-term waste management problems of fission technology. But that day is not today, so for now, let's just all put down the Vault-Tec, shall we?