I briefly sub-contracted for a bayarea startup (which was funded by an EU subsidiary), where we covertly installed several "test demonstrations" throughout the bay area (just a few dozen, each ~500W) – this was not legal when performed ~2010-2011~, done "for research," but was installed by licensed electricians (just not permitted, as PG&E did not allow this).
Surprisingly, several are still known-to-be operating; aerial mapping confirms that many more are at least still physically-present. This US subsidiary "folded" shortly after the installations went online.
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The coolest installation was using PG&E's "time-of-day" utility rates, along with the homeowner's medical exemption (which allows you more kWHs before being charged higher rates), to lower a small medical marijuana grow from $2k/month to ~$500/month (LEDs growlamps barely existed, back then):
•) During the daytime, the growrooms would be "OFF" [PGE charging 45¢/kWH], and the microsolar would literally offset all the auxilary needs of the grow&house
•) During winter nights, PG&E would literally pay you to burn excess grid capacity [@-3¢/kWH], so all grow rooms would be running @MAX. All year, nights were 5X+ cheaper to consume electricity
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Since California is so-well-connected to its neighboring utilities, its primary daytime-electric generator (grid solar) can instantaneously sell to the PNW grid [and does]; this allows them to similarly-reduce their own fuel expenditures (albeit at the much-larger scale of national grids).
tl;dr: feel bad for the dumb US state which chooses to intentionally self-isolate (i.e. Texas' ERCOT), and thus cannot persevere through predictable 10-year winterstorms [modern news: Texas' current attempt to privatize Austin Energy™, a public coop that provides flat-rate power, inexpensively, protecting Central Texans from surprise winter heating bills]
e.g: allows us to sell your personal data to make money so we can continue offering this service to all customers
I'm done with weasle-words and hours-long EULAs – we're at the point where USA needs to catch up to EU's consumer protections, perhaps with laws similar to already-existing USA "truth in lending" requirements (e.g: interest rates must be prominently displayed in a larger font, including annual fees, on all credit offers).
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My judge-brother always asked during our childhood "why don't you think the judicial system is fair?!?" Thirty years ago, the best I could offer was "because it's a two-tiered system that mostly (only) rich people can afford to participate within."
Now my answer is: "the best example I can give is that our judicial system allows binding arbitration [and qualified immunity for police]. The system is set up so corporate personhood is more important than humanity, and it shows."
>"reset this more than once ... to my surprise I found it re-enabled"
At least when my computer's bluetooth exhibits this behavior (e.g: if you don't have a keyboard&mouse plugged in at boot, bluetooth might auto-enable), I can go inside the hardware and physically disconnect the antenna.
What am I supposed to do in software (perhaps hardcode config.file)? in cloud software services (??)?
Quote from one of the human scientist's papers [†]:
>I can say the first LLM-generated-proof Levent sent me was the most horrendous I have ever read; [once] we verified it ... we have been working around the clock to understand this proof and turn it into something readable.
How incredible that the smartest humans are showing their limits of comprehension. How human that their smugness still gets in their way, in the presence of actual brilliance (i.e. the LLM writes so correctly that humans cannot understand the depth, only seeing "horrendous" until confirmed).
>"The important thing is ... the significance that a mathematician and an LLM model [sic] can now do all this work in a month." [†]
>"THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS WITH RESPECT TO THE WAY WE TRAIN STUDENTS, ASSIGN CREDIT, REFEREE, AND DECIDE WHAT IS WORTH ONE HUMAN LIFE'S ATTENTION CANNOT BE UNDERSTATED." [†]
>"The community needs to have serious and unhurried discussion about where to go from here." [†]
State law in Tennessee requires all alcohol transactors to be ID'd; many retail stores have begun "scanning" the 2D barcode on the state ID's reverse (also for lighters, cough syrup, &c).
If you have a US Passport Card, there is no 2D barcode and your address isn't visible – yet it is still valid ID. I have also had success with placing an "I VOTED" sticker over TN_ID's 2D barcode; if the cashier looks puzzled I'll usually just say "I don't want my ID scanned so I'll just go put this back" – and then I can usually purchase alcohol (without scanless passport).
I always use cash for reasons, even if that is only to not become thousands-more datapoints for some soulless corporate bureucrats' annual dividends.
I no longer have a credit card (nor cell phone [nor email]), so everything is cash or crypto (USA forty-something male). Semi-retired datacenter electrician.
As for "wrench attacks," mine is mostly held in offsite multi-signatures, so good luck (to us both!) on your attack. Multiple hidden guns might help here.
I used Tinder the first (and only) time shortly after its 2012 release – recognizing how dangerous this technology was, I closed my facebook profile (which was then-required to access their meat-matching "dating" service).
For me, Tinder was "the beginning of the downfall" – algorithms picking sexual partners, with a known history of favoritisms for the founder($).
My mother (dob 1960) passed four years ago; she was a pillar of her healing community. She was about as anti-tech as one could be into the 2020s, so it was surprising reading through her journals that she was so ashamed of her nightly doomscrolling and Netflix-binges – it helped explain her constant tiredness (she barely slept, succumbing to dopamine) as she hid this addiction from her family.
Realizing I had noticed the signs of this (without then-noticing) helped me to understand the endemic addiction, across generations, that is internet-capable cell phones (eventually I canceled cell service, now landline-only).
Surprisingly, several are still known-to-be operating; aerial mapping confirms that many more are at least still physically-present. This US subsidiary "folded" shortly after the installations went online.
----
The coolest installation was using PG&E's "time-of-day" utility rates, along with the homeowner's medical exemption (which allows you more kWHs before being charged higher rates), to lower a small medical marijuana grow from $2k/month to ~$500/month (LEDs growlamps barely existed, back then):
•) During the daytime, the growrooms would be "OFF" [PGE charging 45¢/kWH], and the microsolar would literally offset all the auxilary needs of the grow&house
•) During winter nights, PG&E would literally pay you to burn excess grid capacity [@-3¢/kWH], so all grow rooms would be running @MAX. All year, nights were 5X+ cheaper to consume electricity
----
Since California is so-well-connected to its neighboring utilities, its primary daytime-electric generator (grid solar) can instantaneously sell to the PNW grid [and does]; this allows them to similarly-reduce their own fuel expenditures (albeit at the much-larger scale of national grids).
<https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electr...>
tl;dr: feel bad for the dumb US state which chooses to intentionally self-isolate (i.e. Texas' ERCOT), and thus cannot persevere through predictable 10-year winterstorms [modern news: Texas' current attempt to privatize Austin Energy™, a public coop that provides flat-rate power, inexpensively, protecting Central Texans from surprise winter heating bills]
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