‘I’m a modern-day luddite’: Meet the students who don’t use laptops
‘I’m a modern-day luddite’: Meet the students who don’t use laptops
The vast majority of students rely on laptops – and increasingly AI – to help with their university work. But a small number are going analogue and eschewing tech almost entirely in a bid to re-engage their brainsDazed Digital
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What is more, the masses did not come out simply to support a new regime blindly. Take the case of Niger: when the military leaders – who were primarily compelled by the unchanging poor protections and remuneration while fighting on the frontline against terrorist incursion, often linked to alleged French support – it was the grassroots organizations that led the call for the ejection of the French military and diplomatic forces, laying siege to the French military garrisons and embassy. These were not simply anti-French outbursts, but a profound rejection of a system that had for too long denied the people of the Sahel their dignity and their right to self-determination. The AES, therefore, is not just a military alliance, but a political project, a bold attempt to forge a new path based on Pan-Africanism, endogenous development, and a resolute anti-imperialist stance...
The challenges ahead remain immense. The economies of the AES countries remain heavily reliant on the export of raw materials, leaving them vulnerable to the vagaries of the global market. The security situation, while improving in some areas, remains precarious. And the forces of imperialism have not been idle. But to focus solely on these challenges is to miss the larger story. The people of the Sahel are not waiting for a savior. They are taking their destiny into their own hands...
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I've been to Kerala several times, and there is a fabulous health infrastructure. It starts right at the beginning, with the quality of their educational systems for children and adults. They work on the basis that averaging everyone up leads to the whole being better, including the people running the businesses. Everyone wins. Shock horror, left leaning / socialism works.
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TIL tar keeps permissions of the files and directories archived if possible.
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.tar.7z aka .t7z when I want maximum compression.
Source : wasted 8 hours trying to figure out why something didn't work anymore (had to switch from tar to zip because stupid security system wouldn't let me transfer the tar file)
tar -czf <folder>
mv folder.{tar.gz,zip}
You can sync user and daemon UIDs across machines with LDAP and SSSD.
And even if you don't do that, keeping the information is useful when restoring to the same machine
I just assumed that whenever it would be expanded that the contents would have the default permissions for that user.
It's actually a cool feature I just feel dumb for how long it took me to realize this was the issue.
It's even a tape archiving tool. Just pretty much nobody uses it in the original way any more.
Very much one of those "if it ain't broke, don't replace it" tools.
Since no one has yet mentioned, by default if you're running tar as a non-root user it extracts files with owner/umask of the current user and if you run it as root (or superuser) it'll preserve ownership and permissions. From tar man page:
--no-same-ownerExtract files as yourself (default for ordinary users).
--no-same-permissions
Apply the user's umask when extracting permissions from the archive (default for ordinary users).
As mentioned, with root the defaults are to keep UID/permissions as they are in the archive. (--preserve-permissions and --same-owner).
Worse, it preserves "special" files like the ones in /dev or /var which aren't removable by anyone other than root. Love extracting a system file backup in my file server as a regular user in order to get just a few files out of it, and promptly not being able to fully delete it afterward without SSHing into the server and using sudo.
I don't get how a regular user can even create files like that. Sounds like a security vulnerability.
For those wishing they could do that with zip and 7zip, you can add a permissions file to the archive that you first make with getfacl, and then on the target after extracting said archive, restore permissions and ownership with setfacl from that file.
Handy for certain support organizations that insist on a zip but that later want the permissions. (Looking at you SAP and IBM).
Pretty pictures
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Trump says he’s designating Antifa as a terrorist organization
President Donald Trump said he is designating the far-left anti-fascism movement Antifa as a terrorist organization, announcing the move on his Truth Social platform in the early hours of Thursday morning UK time.
It wasn’t immediately clear what mechanism Trump would use to make the designation, and Antifa lacks centralized structure or defined leadership, making it unclear who or what precisely would be targeted.
“I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” Trump wrote. “I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
A White House official told CNN, “This is just one of many actions the president will take to address left wing organizations that fuel political violence.”
Trump — who’s overseas for a formal state visit — signaled the move earlier this week in remarks from the Oval Office following the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/17/politics/antifa-terrorist-designation-trump
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If you can declare a non organization a terrorist organization, you can also claim that anyone you don't like is a member.
This is deliberate
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and he wouldn't be wrong if these people are well, anti fascist.
just a way to criminalize resistance with a swift handwave.
Yep so those schedule No Kings for October will be considered terrorist gatherings.
Protest will no longer be allowed. At least peaceful ones. Time for general strike shut this country down.
Is he legally able to do that?
I’m sure the republicans will give him carte blanche here, but I’m wondering if there’s any minimum bar to declare a group a terrorist organization.
He's Facist and AntiFa is short for Anti-Facist
Makes sense from his fantasy version of the world.
Can't wait for him to fall asleep in public and not wake-up
Trump Jnr was on some show a few days ago explaining how Antifa stands for Anti-Fascist but that they’re using the tools of fascists and are become fascist themselves.
This is how they will explain it to the sheep in red hats
If you're against fascism, you're now an enemy of the state.
Better start doing Nazi things to hide your true anti-fascist terrorist feelings, so you don't get arrested!
Probably my favorite line in Lower Decks is from Shaxs.
PAH-WRAITH: You can snap my neck, but what will you do against all your victims? All the Cardassian warriors getting their revenge.SHAXS: They weren't warriors. They were occupiers!
Shaxs has some great anti-facist quotes!
BOIMLER: I just asked if you learned how to throw pots on Bajor.SHAXS: You think I had time for anything other then resisting? Fighting Fascism is a full time job!
Unnecessary lens flares are antifa? Good to know.
[Some people think those lens flairs are really necessary.]
It wasn’t immediately clear what mechanism Trump would use
This is true for nearly everything he's done so far. Yet, he just keeps doing them.
Who runs Antifa, trump? WHO FUCKING RUNS ANTIFA???
NOBODY DOES, YOU SHIT-BRAINED FUCKWIT
When he brings in a random political enemy and dubs them "antifah'z leadurr" and literally nothing changes, his dumbass dickriders will still cheer and party while their freedom continues to erode. They get to blame the most absurd reasons spoonfed to them from daddy propaganda and we have to live with knowing it's their goddamn fault this happened.
Thanks for reading my rant.
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That's the point.
It's a anyone that don't want around. Label them antifa and now you can do everything the law allows with terrorists and worse.
Uncle-fa banning antifa. Hah.
Guess someone that isn't right-leaning have to be blamed for the assassinations and the far-right sure as hell won't have anything coming at them.
This is going to lead to an escalation of political violence.
If something as nebulous as antifa is "terrorist", then it's easy for anyone to be classified as a terrorist. See also what is going on in the UK with Palestine Action. But instead of embarrassed unarmed bobbies doing the arresting, in the US it will be masked, unidentified goons, mirroring ICE practices. So that lowers the threshold to drop into a "homo sacer" category that can be basically shot on sight. Which means, more people will have nothing to lose. Which means more political violence.
Against fascism? Terrorist
Against Trump? Terrorist
Pro-LGBT? Terrorist
Pro-free speech? Believe it or not, terrorist
Designate a concept as a terrorist organization, and then you can label anyone you don't like as antifa so you can prosecute them.
It's ridiculous how far the US is now into fascism. If the frog knew any history it would know what it means to be in a nice pot with warm water on top of a stove.
This feels like those theatre plays for children where the wolf is hiding behind the main character and all the children are shouting "the wolf is there!!" While the main character remains oblivious.
He will label ActBlue as antifia. Its how a lot of progressive gather money to fund their campaigns. So AOC etc will either have to turn to super Pacs and fall inline or get no support.
Just watch they already mentioned investigating them before.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz-htW9D…
It's annoying to explain
Because it's actually quite simple
So listen closely
Because I'll say it only onceIf you're anti-ANTIFA
you are FA
You can say what you want
But that's the truth
And I wish I didn't have to constantly be against something
But how is that supposed to work with all those goddamn Nazi pigs?And if it annoys you to hear that
that's not my problem
but your problem...
not hard to understand at all.I could take care of nice things
We could take care of nice things
Instead, we have to deal with the scumIf you're anti-ANTIFA
you are FA
You can say what you want
But that's the truth
And I wish I didn't have to constantly be against something
But how is that supposed to work with all those goddamn Nazi pigs?How is that supposed to work?
How is that supposed to work?
How is that supposed to work, please?
- YouTube
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So will LGBTQ+ people. Especially trans people.
Similar to how they’re working on porn bans while simultaneously saying that being trans is just a weird sex thing. The end goal is to ban these minority groups from public, and give authorities carte blanche to harass them simply for existing.
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
Massive Attack Turns Concert Into Facial Recognition Surveillance Experiment
Massive Attack Turns Concert Into Facial Recognition Surveillance Experiment
Massive Attack used live facial recognition technology on concertgoers, turning surveillance into provocative art that sparked debate about privacy.Gadget Review
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Social media erupted with bewildered reactions from attendees. Some praised the band for forcing a conversation about surveillance that most people avoid, while others expressed discomfort with the unexpected data capture.Unlike typical concert technology that enhances your experience, this facial recognition system explicitly confronted attendees with the reality of data capture. The band made visible what usually happens invisibly—your face being recorded, analyzed, and potentially stored by systems you never explicitly agreed to interact with.
The audience split predictably along ideological lines. Privacy advocates called it a boundary violation disguised as art. Others viewed it as necessary shock therapy for our sleepwalking acceptance of facial recognition in everyday spaces. Both reactions prove the intervention achieved its disruptive goal.
Your relationship with facial recognition technology just got more complicated. Every venue, every event, every public space potentially captures your likeness. Massive Attack simply made the invisible visible—and deeply uncomfortable. The question now isn’t whether this was art or privacy violation, but whether you’re ready to confront how normalized surveillance has become in your daily life.
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If this disturbs you, then good. That was the point.
These guys are amazing. Of all the shows I saw at Roseland NYC, theirs in 96 was the absolute best.
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Summer of 97. I had just turned 18.
Whenever I hear, teardrop, I am transported back to that night at Roseland.
Roseland was perhaps the greatest musical venue ever do exist. Better than CBGBs.
Cowboys by Portishead gives me goosebumps every time I hear it
Edit: Link, because I had to go listen to it as it's been years: youtu.be/ApQpx-MVk0w
This disturbs me in the best way. I love/hate it.
I wonder how long they can run this before their backend database vendor cuts them off with some flimsy pretext because this kind of thing is bad for business.
Thanks, I just watched the video linked by @spizzat2@lemmy.zip and I see that now. It’s actually a little disappointing and I’d love to see the same kind of public spectacle on hard mode with real-time doxxing from a commercial backend. That would be far more provocative.
I think the article hugely understated that nuance.
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.m.youtube.com
I will agree that it was still powerful. All of the phone videos would memorialize any real doxxing so it’s maybe just as well that they didn’t do it.
I think it would be better with minor obfuscation like F***e L***e for Firstname Lastname. Something instantly recognizable to the victims/participants but not for the entire audience.
That would be far more provocative.
Yes, but depending on the country that could be (public + illegal) if it lists [what is legally considered] personal sensitive information or accidentally reveals someone's secret like the Coldplay incident.
It would be fascinating, but IMO unnecessary and unethical.
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.m.youtube.com
Yes, while its generally common on this platform, we are early adopters for tech so we understand it first. The general public gets exposure much slower, especially when there is efforts to subvert it for profit.
Attention and time are limited, those that focus on tech know things first. Its the same as a chef knowing about food more than the average person.
extreme ironer
I did come across that hobby when I was trying to list examples of productive sports. Yeah, it's a thing.
Why would anybody willingly visit that site. Wtf
I got a video that started playing which only had an arrow to expand but no x to close. It kept following while scrolling.
Not sure why my ad blocker didn't block it.
Edit: after staying on the page for about a minute it just auto showed up
IronFox OSS / IronFox · GitLab
Private, secure, user first web browser for Android. https://ironfoxoss.org/GitLab
Oh hang on. My ad blocker was disabled.
I turned it off to test something because my browser kept hanging when surfing the web on my phone.
It is related to ublock origin for some reason. Because the moment I turn it off I can browse like normal.
Case solved why I'm getting it 😀
yeah it was way less offensive than the typical news sites that get posted
pinhole ftw?
The point is that, if you're going to a concert of that size, this technology is being used whether you like it (or know about it) or not. Massive Attack was never going to be able to play venues the size that they do without at least tacitly allowing this to happen. Like literally, the venues would likely not allow them to play.
So I think doing this is better than just letting it happen and staying quiet.
It’s a great way to showcase that these things are in use and will be in use in places with bad privacy laws (and by those that ignore such laws). Most people don’t want to think that this happens on a daily basis, it’s logical for them when you tell them, but they’re busy with their lives and they don’t actually see it being done with their own eyes.
Now tell them how this data is connected to your ticket and your face/video being analyzed after the fact, which is then sold off to become what is basically an quantification of you as a person to judge you and determine what your addictions, views and flaws are, in order to expoit it to make you as miserable as possible. And people won’t really believe it since it’s uncomfortable to believe in. Showing someone’s face makes it more believable and difficult to ignore.
The only people offended by this are those who have something to hide!
/s
https://x.com/IpswichPolice/status/1892910824517177743
I do trust Massiva Attack more than this violent gang of thugs
What is wrong with the populace of ipswitch ? Are they all cattle already ?
Pretty cool... But anyone else get major AI vibes from the way this article is written?
Why even become a journalist anymore if you're just going to be putting prompts into a black box and copy/pasting the output?
"The Consent Question Nobody Asked"
Yeah, that tastes like AI this turn of phrase
This article gives me vibes that someone wrote a few lines outlining the situation and asked the AI to write the article itself. Interestingly though, I think most people would just rather read the outline, less time wasted and less llm.
A part that screams AI would be:
This wasn’t subtle venue security—your biometric data became part of the artistic statement, whether you consented or not.
"This isn't this--it's that" is an extremely common AI sentence structure, further exposed by the fact that the part before the em-dash doesn't even make sense to begin with. No one was asking themselves whether it was part of subtle venue security.
As a sidenote, sometimes I read sentences like this and I wonder "could this ever even have been written by a human?" I think that there's a very low chance that this article didn't have at least some amount of AI involved, but I know that somewhere out there there must be some people who actually write like this. And that's kind of sad.
tbh I don't even know why I even wrote this, the entire article appears to be one big example of generic AI writing
But that's what capitalism is all about! Efficiency.
Now one journal-ist can produce hundreds of art-ickles per hour!
/s
Citizen, we have detected Bad Thought, as well as sarcasm. Have no fear, re-education drones as well as Correct Thought beams are headed your way! Please take this time to make sure the correct flags and slogans are on prominent display.
Have a Wonderful Day!
I'll gladly introduce you to Massive Attack because it seems you never heard of these Trip Hop legends from Bristol.
Good. People don't understand implications until it happens to them. Suddenly they don't like this security features anymore because it became personal.
We need more people to experience that discomfort
If you live in a city (not only) anywhere, you are on at least 5-10 security cams when you leave your home on the way to work or the store, more counting those in your workplace and the store. Unknown how much are with face recognition soft. Think of it, you are tagget.
Worst knowing that a lot of live cams are even with public access and even streaming on YouTube.
- earthcam.com/
- skylinewebcams.com/es/webcam.h…
- worldcams.tv/
- webcamera24.com/
- whatsupcams.com/en/
- webcamtaxi.com/en/
- ....etc.
EarthCam - Webcam Network
EarthCam is the leading network of live streaming webcams for tourism and entertainment around the world with 4K streaming technology.EarthCam
asciinema [as-kee-nuh-muh] is a free and open source solution for recording terminal sessions and sharing them on the web.
Not just on the web. I've previously used it to embed a short clip in a presentation.
The nice thing is that it doesn't do a massive screencap but only captures the text. This way the replay will be freshly rendered at native resolution.
How to get TSA PreCheck while protecting privacy?
I'm in a bit of a bind. I have to get TSA PreCheck, but I really don't want to give up my biometric data to the government. I've read that TSA PreCheck requires my fingerprints and possibly my photo (it's unclear). Interesting, though, is that when you're enrolled in PreCheck you do not get fingerprinted when passing through the airport.
So, I plan to fill in my fingerprints with superglue when I sign up for PreCheck. Weak fingerprints are a condition that affect a lot of people -- construction and farm workers, chemo patients, or some people just have it genetically -- so I don't think it will be too weird if my fingerprints don't show up well in the scan. From what I've read (FlyerTalk, Washington Post) you can still get PreCheck even if you have weak fingerprints. And, since they don't check my fingerprints at the airport, I'm not worried about ever having to match this scan.
My face is effectively a lost cause at this point, so I'm not gonna sweat that one.
My questions.
- Is there any reason my fingerprint plan won't work?
- The PreCheck sign-up process is run by private companies (Idemia, Telos, Clear) and I can choose which one to use. I am going to rule out Clear. Is there any advantage between using Idemia or Telos?
- Is there anything else I should know before signing up?
EDIT:
Wow, these replies are so useless, I had to check to make sure I wasn't on reddit!
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Gaza: Top independent rights probe alleges Israel committed genocide
Senior independent rights investigators appointed by the Human Rights Council alleged on Tuesday that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, a charge flatly rejected by Tel Aviv.UN News
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I think people can separate between people of a faith and a genocide government better than he thinks.
What I would hope to see of Jewish communities all over the world is some public separation from and critique of the Israeli governments actions.
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Intersex people face high levels of violence in Europe
cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/48936466
One in six intersex people was physically assaulted in the year 2022, an EU agency report said.
Intersex people face high levels of violence in Europe
One in six intersex people was physically assaulted in the year 2022, an EU agency report said. Intersex people are the only LGBTIQ group that has not experienced a drop in discrimination since an earlier survey in 2019.Hauwau Samaila Mohammed (Deutsche Welle)
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To be honest, I'm confused about this too.
How are 40% of respondents being harassed at work for being intersex? How do people even find out?
Only about 30% of the people surveyed identify as cis, and around 15% describe their orientation as heterosexual, so I'm sure that they definitely face many of the same struggles that the LGBTQIA+ community faces as a whole.
But why would discrimination at large be decreasing, except for intersex people? Maybe they're feeling more empowered to come out, and people don't know how to react?
I would even expect, if anything, that bigots would be more understanding of someone for whom Nature made life "visibly" harder, but maybe I'm just naive.
In any case, it doesn't seem like the study sheds enough light on this, hopefully more studies will follow so that we can find a way to do better.
discrimination against trans people is increasing in most of the world.
intersex people often look trans, and often are trans.
Lithuanian FM: European sanctions should not seek to punish Israel
cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/48941454
Lithuanian FM: European sanctions should not seek to punish Israel
Lithuanian FM: European sanctions should not seek to punish Israel
European Union measures on the war in Gaza should focus on changing the situation on the ground rather than punishing Israel, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said Wednesday.Vilmantas Venckūnas, BNS (lrt.lt)
Russia-linked group planned parcel bomb attacks in Europe
A Lithuanian investigation has determined Russia-linked suspects packed explosive devices in packages shipped by land and air to the UK, Poland and Germany. Authorities say more attacks were in the works.
Prosecutors in Lithuania said on Wednesday that it disrupted a Russian-led plot to use mail parcels for bomb attacks across Europe.
Several suspects with ties to Russian military intelligence were involved in the plot, a Lithuanian general prosecutor and criminal police said.
According to Lithuanian National Television (LNT), among the suspects charged are nationals of Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine.
Homemade incendiary devices were to be concealed in massage cushions and cosmetic tubes. The suspects packed the parcels with thermite, a highly flammable substance used for industrial and military purposes.
Google misled users about their privacy and now owes them $425m, says court
A court ordered Google to pay $425 million after finding the company misled 98 million users about data collection through its "Web & App Activity" setting1. The case revealed Google continued gathering user data via Firebase, a monitoring database embedded in 97% of top Android apps and 54% of leading iOS apps, even after users disabled data collection1.
Google's internal communications showed the company was "intentionally vague" about its data collection practices because being transparent "could sound alarming to users," according to district judge Richard Seeborg1.
This ruling adds to Google's recent privacy settlements, including:
- $392 million paid to 40 states in 2023 for location tracking violations
- $40 million to Washington state for similar location tracking issues
- $1.38 billion to Texas in 2025 over location tracking and incognito mode claims1
Google plans to appeal the $425 million verdict, with spokesperson Jose Castaneda stating "This decision misunderstands how our products work" and asserting that Google honors user privacy choices1.
- Malwarebytes - Google misled users about their privacy and now owes them $425m, says court ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Google misled users about their privacy and now owes them $425m, says court | Malwarebytes
A court has ordered Google to pay $425m in a class action lawsuit after it was found to have misled users about their online privacy.Danny Bradbury (Malwarebytes)
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Out of 50 FOSS apps (F-Droid) i use, none use googleanalytics, google-tagmanager or any other tracking framework. Some of them display a send bugreport popup on crash, which redirects to E-Mail.
Out of 5 proprietary apps i use (Aurora store in shelter profile), i see Adobe Experience Cloud, Appdynamics, Google Admob/Crashlytics, AltBeacon and those are some of the more tame apps.
Tested with TrackerControl and confirmed via App Manager.
In short, your claim is false. Are you maybe confusing things with LineageOS optionally using analytics?
TrackerControl | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
TrackerControl allows to monitor and control hidden data collection in apps.f-droid.org
Why don't we treat them like other criminals.
You've done a crime, go to corpo prison for 20 years
Why are we treating corporation, which we "Limit Liability" of the operators already, nicer than we treat humans ?
Like, what happens if you're found to have done fraud ?
That's like 5 years in prison isn't it ?
Don't necessary put the C-suite in prison, just put the corporation in prison for 5 years. Everyone that works there can work somewhere else during the time out.
Other corporation can fill the vacuum while the criminal corporation is absent ?
Because if not, two things are going to happen.
Way more C-unts are going to get Luigi'd
and/or
I'm going to start a criminal corporation and we're going to mulch cop-babies for protein.
Ok, fork it the fuck over.
If we all started going in on all the privacy violation lawsuits and collecting on them it adds up.
Why am I supposed to clip coupons but not collect free money these giant corporations are hemorrhaging?
Edit: Actually just checked and it's about $4/user. I'll take $4 out of spite.
news.bloomberglaw.com/litigati…
Google Hit With $425 Million Jury Verdict in Privacy Trial (5)
Google LLC must pay $425.7 million in compensatory damages for violating the privacy rights of almost 100 million Google users who asked that their account data not be tracked, a jury decided Wednesday.Isaiah Poritz (news.bloomberglaw.com)
And it will be on a prepaid card and you'll need to sign up for a google account to get the card.
That's what Equifax did to people. Made them create an account and fork over personal details to get the settlement payout.
A settlement Equifax had to pay over stolen data. Oh the irony.
The case revealed Google continued gathering user data via Firebase, a monitoring database embedded in 97% of top Android apps and 54% of leading iOS apps, even after users disabled data collection
This is why we can't have nice things.
People were ever confused about Google's relationship with privacy?
I think if anyone is financially liable for misleading anyone, it's the Android community. I mean the fanboys, the anti-Apple guys, the ones who downplayed, omitted, or straight up lied about Android being a vehicle for data collection first and foremost. But they have no direct financial gain for doing so (they gain nothing if you buy a phone running Android, and they lose nothing if you buy an iPhone) so they can't be held liable.
Google has never been your friend if you care about privacy. You use Google tools because they're free and they're pretty good. You pay with your privacy. Always have. You use Android because it's more customisable than iOS, and because of the illusion of open source (iOS is based on macOS which was based on NeXTSTEP which was basically UNIX, so who cares if Android is Linux?). And because you can install custom firmware (e.g. GrapheneOS) which is Android with the tracking stuff stripped out. But you're still paying Google and paying into their business model, i.e. rewarding them for bad behaviour (or at least that which you profess to disapprove of).
(FWIW, I use both platforms. I like both platforms, and I can tell you what I like more about each one beyond what I've said, but it's apocryphal at best.)
I'm sure Google profited more than $425 million by doing so.
This is just part of the cost of doing business.
Great
So lawyers get half right off the bat. Leaves 212 ish million.
This affected how many, let's say 1 billion users. Your privacy is worth 25 cents.
Oh and let's not forget google gets to keep that data it illegally collected.
Bombshell ‘Wall Street Journal’ Investigation Finds Tyler Robinson Once Had Trans Uber Driver
ST. GEORGE, UT—As questions continue to swirl regarding the motive behind last week’s assassination of Charlie Kirk, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell investigation Monday that suggests alleged gunman Tyler Robinson, 22, once had a transgender Uber driver.
“In its thorough examination of the suspect’s activities in the years leading up the shooting, the Journal found evidence that in March 2021, Robinson rode for nearly 12 minutes in the backseat of a Nissan Sentra driven by a transgender woman,” veteran investigative journalist James Kovacs wrote in the article, which reports that Robinson appeared to have been satisfied with the experience, having given the driver a perfect five-star rating and a $2 tip.
Bombshell ‘Wall Street Journal’ Investigation Finds Tyler Robinson Once Had Trans Uber Driver
ST. GEORGE, UT—As questions continue to swirl regarding the motive behind last week’s assassination of Charlie Kirk, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell investigation Monday that suggests alleged gunman Tyler Robinson, 22, once had a transg…The Onion Staff (The Onion)
Yielding to External Coercion Will Only Make Mexico More Passive
cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/6133209
The Mexican government has recently submitted a legislative proposal to Congress, seeking to impose tariffs of up to 50 percent on a wide range of imports from countries that do not have a free trade agreement with Mexico. Statistics show that the measure covers 19 sectors and 1,463 tariff fractions, accounting for about 8.6 percent of Mexico’s total imports. If enacted, this tariff adjustment would raise Mexico’s average tariff rate to 33.8 percent – more than double the current level. The move has drawn considerable international attention.It is clear to any keen observer that the real driver behind Mexico’s latest tariff adjustment is the heavy political pressure and geopolitical coercion coming from Washington. Many international media outlets have noted that the proposal was announced at a time when the US is exerting enormous pressure on Mexico. By leveraging the upcoming review of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) next year, Washington has thrust Mexico into the eye of the storm, attempting to force the Mexican government to sacrifice its own interests in order to serve US geopolitical strategies.
For an economy heavily dependent on foreign investment and exports, protectionism is not a shield, but the beginning of a domino effect. Mexico’s growth has long relied on the global division of labor in supply chains, especially foreign investment in manufacturing and access to export markets. Yet today, the Mexican government’s repeated resort to tariffs in response to external pressure sends a signal of regulatory volatility and policy uncertainty. This undermines Mexico’s reputation as a “reliable production base” and weakens investor expectations in the long-term allocation of capital, technology, and high-end capacity. Should investment shift toward more open and stable Latin American neighbors, Mexico would not only see its industrial foundation eroded, but also risk falling into passivity and marginalization in regional competition.
Yielding to External Coercion Will Only Make Mexico More Passive - Mexico Solidarity Media
Appeasing the US brings no benefit to Mexico itself. It makes Mexico appear susceptible to coercion, raises doubts about the independence of its policymaking, and encourages the pressuring side to demand even greater concessions.Mexico Solidarity (Mexico Solidarity Media)
Is there a difference in updating via an uppdate manager/discover vs using the terminal?
I have 3 machines I've switched to Linux: an old laptop with Mint, and my primary laptop and PC runing Ubuntu Studio. I use Protonvpn on all 3.
Today I had my app manager on Mint and Discover on Ubuntu showing new updates. I installed Mint's first, via the manager and Proton was an update. It mentioned it would uninstall a few proton things so I figured it had to uninstall them in order to install the new update. Protonvpn stopped working after, it looked uninstalled but my killswitch was still active (so no internet at all and no access to open the vpn app). I had to find out how to kill the network processes via ncmli (good new info to learn!) and do a roundabout uninstall through a process I found in an old Proton post as just uninstalling it with normal commands didn't work, restart the laptop then reinstall Protonvpn.
So on my laptop and PC, I updated via terminal instead, using sudo apt update/upgrade. All smooth and no issues.
Was my Mint problem a one-off glitch or is there a real difference when updating via update manager vs the terminal?
Edit: Thanks guys, seems the general consensus is yes, but some of ya's say no haha. I knew going into the question that having Mint screw up with manager and Ubuntu Studio work with terminal opens a lot of os possibilities beyond simply manager vs terminal.
Next Proton update, I'm going to try the terminal on Mint instead of manager, and the manager on my Ubuntu Studio laptop instead of terminal and see if anything screws up.
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dnf command. But after updating system packages via Discover, it prompts me to restart the PC to finish the update. What is it actually doing? Why does DNF not do that?
It's safer, and uses a systemd mechanism to update with most programs not running.
That said, I've never had a problem updating without restarting...
You can change the behavior in System Settings -> Software Update -> Apply System Updates
Pick either immediately or after rebooting
Some things only get applied once you restart. Take the kernel for example. It will be used once restarted. It is safe to restart at a later time but you would still be running a older kernel at that point.
So technically the update is done but not everything is using it yet. Dnf does tell you you should restart for some things to be applied. The choice is yours to do so.
On Ubuntu, I’m not sure about “Discover”, but I use the GUI called “Software Updater”. This is just a GUI on top of apt/apt-get which I can also use from the command line.
Not sure about Mint, but I would expect it to be very much similar.
on my manjaro machine updating via terminal doesn't cover some updates. Opening the software manager reveals missed updates. stuff like gear level and freedesktop.org. couldn't tell ya why.
on my fedora kde machine, it misses stuff from Discover. also not sure why.
on mint, terminal covers everything. same on debian.
The Linux Mint GUI updater is an interesting bit of code, or at least it was about 5 years ago. I looked at updating it a bit with a status bar for a stage I thought could use it.
I opened up the code....Python that just uses a shell call to apt. No muss, no library calls. Okay, that'll do.
It was a functional wrapper on the command line calls, exactly as you'd hope for a tool.
there is. if the updater gui integrates with packagekit and systemd, it can start an offline update that reboots your system and installs the updates while nothing else is running.
kind of like on windows, except that this is one of the things where windows made the right call. complex software does not handle it well if its program libraries and assets are being replaced by newer ones that the running version cannot understand.
its still kind of a new thing, not all distros make use of it yet, but Fedora does, and it's not a Fedora custom solution but something that most distros can have.
automatic filesystem snapshots and rollback can be integrated to this too, and then bye bye to updates breaking the whole system.
Spain cancels $825M 'Israeli' arms deal
Spain has moved to cancel nearly a billion euros’ worth of weapons contracts linked to 'Israeli' firms.
According to documents published on Spain’s official public contracts platform, Madrid has halted a 700 million euros (USD 825 million) agreement for 12 SILAM rocket launcher systems, which were based on the 'Israeli'-made PULS design from Elbit Systems. The deal, awarded to a consortium of Spanish companies, was struck down on September 9, following earlier media reports.
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Spain cancels $825M 'Israeli' arms deal
Spain has moved to cancel nearly a billion euros’ worth of weapons contracts linked to 'Israeli' firms.
According to documents published on Spain’s official public contracts platform, Madrid has halted a 700 million euros (USD 825 million) agreement for 12 SILAM rocket launcher systems, which were based on the 'Israeli'-made PULS design from Elbit Systems. The deal, awarded to a consortium of Spanish companies, was struck down on September 9, following earlier media reports.
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Nepal protesters set parliament building on fire after PM Oli resigns
Nepal protests updates: PM Oli resigns, parliament torched, airport shut
Protesters break into parliament building and set it on fire after Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli resigns.Edna Mohamed (Al Jazeera)
And what a depressing thought it because it recognizes how all this shit keeps happening because it kept working.
The difference now is because of TikTok and even that has been muzzled now.
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Biggest illegal drug importer* in USA is DEA, probably closely followed (and assisted by) Coast Guard.
Edited a letter
In Gaza, the so-called 'evacuation of civilians' is a trail of bombs and death
by Amira Hass
Sept 17, 2025
"𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐚 𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡. 𝐓𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 – 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬. 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝. 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐦𝐨𝐤𝐞. 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐫. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚, 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬."
In Gaza, the so-called 'evacuation of civilians' is a trail of bombs and death
Gaza is being wiped off the map, stone by stone. "Words are losing their meaning and can no longer convey what is happening," one resident writesAmira Hass (Haaretz)
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In Gaza, the so-called 'evacuation of civilians' is a trail of bombs and death
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/36303524
by Amira Hass
Sept 17, 2025
"𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐚 𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡. 𝐓𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 – 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬. 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝. 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐦𝐨𝐤𝐞. 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐫. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚, 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬."
In Gaza, the so-called 'evacuation of civilians' is a trail of bombs and death
by Amira Hass
Sept 17, 2025"𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐚 𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡. 𝐓𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 – 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬. 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝. 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐦𝐨𝐤𝐞. 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐫. 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐚, 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬."
In Gaza, the so-called 'evacuation of civilians' is a trail of bombs and death
Gaza is being wiped off the map, stone by stone. "Words are losing their meaning and can no longer convey what is happening," one resident writesAmira Hass (Haaretz)
Corals Won’t Survive a Warmer Planet, a New Study Finds | Most corals in the Atlantic Ocean will soon stop growing. Many are already dying, leaving shorelines and marine ecosystems vulnerable.
Reduced Atlantic reef growth past 2 °C warming amplifies sea-level impacts - Nature
An analysis of coral reefs in the tropical western Atlantic suggests that nearly all will be eroding by 2100 if global warming exceeds 2 °C, which will worsen the effects of sea-level rise.Nature
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Far-right AfD’s vote triples in elections in German bellwether state
Far-right AfD’s vote triples in elections in German bellwether state
Party takes 16.5% of the vote in North Rhine-Westphalia, behind governing CDU and Social DemocratsKate Connolly (The Guardian)
Special Forces Parachuted With Nukes Strapped To Them During The Cold War
Special Forces Parachuted With Nukes Strapped To Them During The Cold War
Special Forces "Green Light" teams trained to deploy small nuclear bombs called Special Atomic Demolition Munitions during the Cold War.Oli Parken (The War Zone)
How big a solar battery do I need to store *all* my home's electricity? - Terence Eden
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they generate about 3,800kWh per year. We also use about 3,800kWh of electricity each yearObviously, we can't use all the power produced over summer and we need to buy power in winter. So here's my question: How big a battery would we need in order to be completely self-sufficient?
O, god, it's going to be huge. You really can't do the off-grid thing unless you have enough power production to satiate you over any given 3-day moving window. Trying to store power from summer until winter is going to be too expensive, instead buy more panel.
This isn't even going into the fact batteries lose charge slowly. So any power generated in summer will be much diminished by winter, even if you have big enough batteries.
And depending on load profiles, you might not be able to load all of your excess solar power at once (depends on how many Watts the battery can be charged at) or fulfill your power requirement with battery alone (depends on how many Watts your battery can deliver).
Wind isn’t great small scale. You rarely can get high enough for constant wind energy. They are noisy. They don’t produce a lot. In many or even most cases solar will be better than wind.
I’d go so far as building both sun oriented and a solar “fence” line going north/south to get more non-peak solar before putting up small-scale wind.
What is also mentioned is the fact that battery prices are going down. Soon it seems they’ll be down to $10/kWh!
I have seen some wild priced on Ali, in your link the 75Ah and the 210Ah are priced the same, so I guess it's for the smaller one, 30€ for ~0.225kWh or 133€/kWh.
Could be wrong ofc, but it sort of fits what I thought it would roughly be.
I mean even ~133/kWh..
Whats an average, perhaps even gratuitous, level of consumption per household? 24kwh if you are running a clothes drier and an AC nonstop? Lets go nuts, say you are a DIY enthusiast and hosting your own servers, so 36kwh daily.
3192€-4788€ to be and you can be effectively energy independent with a small solar system.
Triple that and you are truly energy independent are any where south of the English channel. I mean obviously its money out of pocket, but its a fixed cost that you pay now, instead of a variable cost that continuously goes up. It just seems basic.
It is. Some of them are getting snapped up to help with powering factories.
I think this is car companies using the incoming battery packs from replacing worn out packs. Time to look it up...
autoblog.com/news/toyota-just-…
This is the article I was thinking of. It's more of an idea than a common use case to use old packs to help power factories.
Using half-worn car battery packs seems optimal for home use.
I'm not putting cobalt based (NMC or NCA) batteries bolted to the inside my house. Thats nearly exclusively what car battery packs are. Thermal runaway is too great a risk to bolt that much energy to a wall in the house. I am comfortable with LFP in the house though.
How big a battery would we need in order to be completely self-sufficient?
Exactly. Haven't read all details of the link,so I react your comment, and have immersed myself a bit in this earlier.
You need to change your way of thinking and energy usage. Start with your daily energy supply and then change your energy consumption pattern to day time use Then, with for example a dynamic energy contract or if you can spare solar energy, buy or store cheap electricity in your storage ( battery ). The energy management system ( charge / uncharge and which cells) is very important.
Also, realize that battery life is tied to charge cycles and need replacing like every 10 years when talking about the better quality Lithium battery . Sodium systems could and maybe should be used in parallel, if you want more storage, safety and longevity (20 years).
It is yet all quite expensive, though imo having a half day reserve like 5 - 10 kwh, battery, would already create more independence (at around € 3K to € 10 K in Europe) .
Seems to me his panel capacity is to small anyway.
We have 11 kWh panels, and yes in the summer we routinely produce 4 times more than we use, and we have a 7.5 kWh battery
But November December and January it's not even close to enough.
In the Winter you can easily have a week with near zero production:
Our Import / export from grid last year:
November 215 / 59 kWh
December 300 15 kWh
January 268 / 34 kWh
Despite we have almost 3 times the capacity, and produce more than twice what we use per year, and we have a decent battery and believe it or not, even the shortest day we can produce enough power for a whole 24 hour day if it's a clear day! But we can also have clouds for 14 days!
But for those months we imported 783 kWh and exported 108 that could have been used with bigger battery.
But the net import was still 675 kWh!! For those 3 months, and that's the minimum size battery we could have managed with, and then we even need 10% extra to compensate for charge/discharge losses.
TLDR:
Minimum 740 kWh battery in our case, and that's without heating, because we use wood pellets.
That means it would require at least the equivalent of 10 high end fully electric car batteries. But also a very hefty inverter, which AFAIK ads about 50% the price of the battery.
PS:
Already in February we exported more than we imported.
The reason to have a battery is that it lasts through the night, or even with a smaller system, it can handle dinner time, which is the most expensive time of day to buy electricity.
Now if you live in some remote area without a grid, a generator is a way better option than a huge battery.
Maybe if you live somewhere very sunny, like Spain and especially southern parts of USA you can probably do it with a modest battery that can handle a couple of days.
In the summer we can make enough electricity on by far the most cloudy days, but in the winter, the sun can't penetrate the clouds nearly as well.
Admittedly London is south of where I live, which is close to the most southern part of Denmark, but on the other hand London is infamous for grey weather with heavy clouds.
OK I didn't see that, that's bigger than I expected, we make about 12.5 MWh per year on our 11.2 kWh panels = 1.1 MWh per kWh capacity.
Your system is 5.1 kWh but you only make 3.8 MWh per year = 0.75 MWh per kWh capacity.
Meaning we have 50% higher yield per kWh rated capacity!
So our production remains 3.3 times higher than yours, despite we only have twice the capacity.
But our panels are pretty optimally placed towards the south.
Considering you are further south compared to us, I'm surprised your yield is so low, despite London is infamous for being cloudy.
they generate about 3,800kWh per year. We also use about 3,800kWh of electricity each year.
Holy shit. I think we used that much last month, which is higher than average but not that high for August around here.
glad I'm not the only one that noticed that.
last time I checked I was using around 4600-5800kwh from May to August. the rest of the year its 3300-4200.
I live in a dual zoned 5200sqft home and my average power bill is around $900.
I've had solar sales try to talk me into solar panels but once they see my consumption they stop answering my calls lol. could be because I told them I'll buy once I can get net zero.
that's an average btw. last months bill was $1100.
this month is already at $960 and we're only halfway through the month.
this year has been lower than previous. I had new insulation installed last November.
highest bill I have ever seen was around $2200 which is over my monthly mortgage.
no crypto farm. though it would probably be higher if I was.
I have personally never seen a bill of more than 60€ per month. I have some friends living in bigger houses, not apartments, and they tell they can get over 100 fairly frequently, the bigger ones more in the North can get over 200 in the winters, but even still, I’ve never even heard of anything reaching 300.
But I’m in my thirties and don’t really know anyone from beyond upper middle class. That might help explain my experience if it happens to be the outlier, but just reading the responses to this, I might not be the outlier here.
Anything four figures is just crazy surreal to me. I can not even imagine what it takes to reach that kind of electric usage. Or maybe it’s just extremely expensive, not the usage itself being crazy? I would think living in a place where sustaining one’s existence requires that kind of resource usage would be very hostile against settling and building in general?
But if it’s just personal usage rather than the regional climate or whatever, and an insane price of electricity isn’t the main reason, then I don’t even know what to say. That’s crazy.
it's kind of a mix of everything.
I grew up poor. like, "take a nap for dinner" poor. I was afforded great opportunities that allowed me to become comfortably wealthy, as in I can freely go to the store and just buy groceries without concern. This is important because I always promised myself that when I grew up I would live comfortably.
I keep my house between 68F-72F year round. I don't open my windows because I have terrible allergies (that my kids have also inherited). at least half of my bill is just heating and cooling. the other half is likely a mix of the servers and the regular appliances.
I have family ranging from 30-60 years old. when I told them how much I spend on power their eyes popped out. they don't run their hvacs as much as I do, and actually use their windows and attic fans. they also don't have the allergic reactions I have either so 🤷.
in my old home, 1600sqft, our highest bill was around $300, and that was still high for the area. our neighbors were average between $100-$150. they were in their 70s though, so likely they didn't use their hvac as much either, nor the technology I was running.
Fair enough, that’d explain it. I did expect air conditioning to be a big part of it, kind of makes a lot of sense that you do run servers as well.
Still, that’s a huge bill to eat each month.
could be because I told them I’ll buy once I can get net zero.
I'm not following your logic. You aren't willing to accept any savings unless you can completely zero out your power bill? Judging from your consumption I'm assuming a good chunk of that is for cooling your home? If so that means you're likely in a pretty great place to harvest solar power. You'd reach payback of your investment on your array much faster than most, and be saving money for probably 35 years or more with little to no additional investment.
Making some guesses for how much your electricity rates are, and how much you're consuming (assuming much from cooling), you might be a full payback in less than 7 years if you took advantage of the tax credit. Then, every month after that you'd be gaining money back.
my house is over 120 years old. it still has knob and tube in half the house. I have even found gas lines for the old sconces, that were "conveniently" used as grounds for said knob and tube in some places. the house is a nightmare, electrically speaking. the only new-ish electrical are the HVAC systems, the 200amp panel, and the basement (where the rack lives).
for me to get proper solar installed, it would cost more than the house cost to buy. For me to find it in any way cost effective, I would need my $900 a month power bill to pay for the $200k loan on top of my mortgage.
appreciate the sound advice. I've rewired plenty of houses that I'm comfortable with DIMS and know most of the NEC.
the problem is time and effort. I'm getting older and just don't have the drive I used to have 20 years ago. the biggest problem is the house is still mostly original plaster lathe which is a huge pita for running new electrical across four floors. add to that the other litany of projects I have to do plus daily life/work. it's a lot.
if I was 10 years younger I'd probably start one room at a time, but I'm old enough now that I look forward to taking my daily naps before bedtime.
I reserved myself to a modest retirement when I bought this house because I knew the risks going in.
Plaster Lathe. My old nemesis. Probably with reed or peat for stabilization, so it explodes everywhere once you touch it.. Wish you the best of Luck.
Also: napping is important at our age.
How ? Is it just AC ?
We oscillate between 300 and 800kwh per month and it's with an old water heater, an electric car charged at home, a dryer and electric oven.
Basically why the grid exists to begin with. You're not supposed to be solving these engineering problems on a household budget inside a single home.
You'd be better off simply reducing your consumption or finding alternative methods of power (nat gas or maybe wind or geothermal) during the longer winter nights.
If you really want to go crazy, you should consider investing in a bigger home with better insulation and roommates. An apartment/condo block can at least leverage economies of scale, if you're dead set on DIY. More people benefiting from the setup dilutes the cost per person.
Basically why the grid exists to begin with
Agreed this is the best option. Economy of scales and our consumers wishes should dictate the Grids plan to incorporate cheap energy ( and emergency) storages.
And, also like you said, change your energy life style and insulate your house wherever you can.
I'm very ignorant on this subject, but couldn't you just sell excess to grid and get it back for a minimal markup?
Sure, but it depends on the incentives in your country. Afaik, excess energy could be sold, but you'll have to checkout your local incentives and energy suppliers for specifics. In most parts of Europe, the are scaling down the prices for excess energy. Therefore, battery systems are being forwarded in some cases as sort of solution for solar panels maintaining like ca. 80% +? integrity efficiency over 20 to 30 years.
For example, I read that in The Netherlands the solar panel market has crashed completely or is crashing. Note here that saturation of the market ( many existing solar panels) can also cause that.
You need to find out;
- energy usage
- insulation options and materials
- costs /benefits
- energy contracts and energy incentives.
- check out current physical electricity wiring and fuses in the house
- DIY or professional?
- budget
etc
TLDR: dont buy solarpanels if you want to be rich. And buy them according and after you've done everything possible to insulate your house, whether in the colder or warmer climates. The efficiency, added value, and comfort reached by insulation outweighs everything else. Then , after doing that, check your kwh usage, and buy solars according to that.
Hope this is helpful, but seems you need to go outthere and do some exploration on the topic.
(Ed: layout)
And buy them according and after you’ve done everything possible to insulate your house, whether in the colder or warmer climates.
In the USA there are silly rules that you can only get 120% capacity of your last years worth grid consumption as solar installed. So if one were to follow your advice and do all the energy efficient improvement prior to solar, then you would be restricted to getting a much smaller array. I understand why they have the rule, but its easy to circumvent by just having artificially oversized consumption for a year in your house, and you can then get the larger array you want before then doing all the energy improvements post-array installation.
In the USA there are silly rules that you can only get 120% capacity of your last years worth grid consumption as solar installed.
Yes , I can see how that impacts the process.
indeed checking the rules and doing some prior info digging is essential.
It's also important to check whether solar overcacity is worthwhile in the UsA. Her3 it is not( anymore).
It’s also important to check whether solar overcacity is worthwhile in the UsA. Her3 it is not( anymore).
I'll say generally speaking in most places it isn't, however, once you go solar, you may increase your electricity usage as you move away from carbon based energy. Before solar we had natural gas furnace heating and two gasoline cars. Now we have two EVs and a cold climate heat pump with zero natural gas and zero gasoline consumption. So I wanted the larger solar capacity to cover the increases in electricity we knew we'd have.
Its worked out pretty well. We have fairly large electricity bills ($400ish) in Jan and Feb, a small bill in March, and usually a tiny bill (under $10) in April. Then no bills for the rest of the year. Also keep in mind that is TOTAL energy costs, no gas or gasoline bought anymore.
I recently got a solar system and came to the conclusion that if you can sell power back to the grid (not everyone can) for some reasonable percentage of what it costs to buy it, then it will always be worth it to be connected (assuming you already are).
Quite simply, if you have enough solar capacity to get you through the winter (no house is going to have months of battery storage), then you will always be creating far more than you need in the summer. Selling this excess will easily cover any costs associated to being on the grid.
Also at current prices batteries are good for backup power only, it's always cheaper to sell excess power to the grid in the day and buy it back at night than it is to have battery capacity to get through the night. I worked out it would take 40 years for our battery to pay for itself (assuming the battery kept a constant battery capacity for 40 years...) but less than 10 years for the rest of the system to pay for itself.
Net metering is great, much better than being paid for the surplus.
With net metering the grid is basically an free, infinite, 100% effective battery.
I disagree, but in not in your situation so I can be wrong.
Unless you are producing way, way more electricity than you can use I think net metering is a great arrangement for the customer. (Not so much for the utility company)
The electricity is usually bought by the utility company at a much lower cost than what the customer is paying. Because the generation cost is only a percentage of the cost, there is taxes, maintenance of the grid ...
For example in France we pay 0.1952€/kWh, but the utility is buying the solar electricity produced by household at 0.04€/kWh.
Meanwhile with net metering your electricity is virtually bought at the same price as what you are buying your electricity for.
What an odd pricing structure! I would normally expect higher usage to mean lower prices per unit.
I guess that gives you a large incentive to have at least a little solar, as there would be a big financial benefit.
Its pretty bad. They only show a couple of the tiers here. pge.com/assets/pge/docs/accoun…
This is an old pdf but the only one they have on the website. They haven't updated it in a while so its not counting the latest 2 rate increases.
Interesting! Your power seems super expensive.
We pay a daily lines maintenance charge of 60c, then 29c/kWh during the day and a little under 27c for off peak night time. Then add 15% tax to these. These are in NZD, so almost halve them to get USD (e.g. 60cNZD is 35cUSD)
We also get about 17.5c for each kWh sold to the grid. So to sell it in the day and buy back at night is a 10c additional cost. A 10kWh battery can save a max of $1 per night, meaning it's really hard to make your money back on a battery that's $10-15k NZD on it's own.
4 years ago it was 18c per kwh. Which was nice.
Yours is very good. and selling back to the grid would be nice! Making me jealous lol.
I'm feeling very lucky now!
We have a national grid that is shared by all power companies, and is open to all. Power companies just buy and sell power on the grid based on a spot pricing system. Because of this, we have very easy movement between power companies, and have dozens to choose from, leading to a lot of competition. Mine is a tiny company that specialises in solar, having sell to grid rates well above most companies.
The company that did our solar install had their top recommended companies, they worked out the best for us, and organised getting set up with them. Was I pretty nice experience to have everything taken care of like that!
battery and solar at the home level is what makes the most sense.
60% of the planet lives between the subtropics and tropics. There is way more than plenty of sunlight hitting our earth to support all of our energy demands, and any naysaying around battery technology is missing the forest for the trees.
I believe it would attribute to cheaper of free energy and to more peace. I am agreeing with you.
And I imagined a all encompassing " worldgrid" across all continents and islands. We did it with phone networks, now we should do energy.
What I want to do is find out what the maximum size battery I would need in order to store all of summer's electricity for use in winter.
I mean, I think that it's probably not a good idea for this guy to try to go fully off-grid if he has access to the grid, but for the sake of discussion, if one were honestly wanting to try it and one is in the UK, I'd think that one is probably rather better off adding a wind turbine, since some of the time that the sun isn't shining, the wind is blowing.
statista.com/statistics/322789…
Wind speed averages in the United Kingdom are generally highest in the first and fourth quarters of each calendar year – the winter months.
The UK is one of the worst places in the world in terms of solar potential:
But it's one of the best in terms of wind potential:
Quarterly average wind speed UK 2025| Statista
Is the UK getting windier? Wind speeds in the UK have been on a downward trend in recent years, with the first quarter of the year usually the being windiest.Statista
Sure, why not. But I was thinking a 4/5G router takes very little power, then a steam deck doesn't take that much either. If that is all you need, few hundred w solar panels and a decent sized camping battery will probably do just fine. You don't need to store a years worth of energy in one go if you can produce more than you use which helps during lower output times.
Then if your employer is mandating return to office, charge the battery there. Make the fuckers pay for it.
Then if your employer is mandating return to office, charge the battery there. Make the fuckers pay for it.
based
"I'll go absolutely barebones on electricity usage. Just a router and my gaming console!"
I don't think it's a good idea to opt out of something like a fridge or lighting.
I lived without a fridge for several months before, it's not that difficult. Half the things I keep in a fridge don't really need it anyway, like chutney and jam would last a fairly long time without it. Eggs in the UK don't need the fridge either. IIRC the US wash off the protective layer on them so they do have to go in the fridge there.
LEDs use very little energy.
Sure it's possible to reduce it, but there is a limit where it becomes extremely inconvenient.
LEDs use very little power, with the cabin in the woods idea I would think its fairly safe to say a log fire is used for cooking, same thing to heat some water for cleaning. Fridge really doesn't use much power if you look for something energy efficient, or just don't have one. Its not like you can't live without it.
I would have thought saying cabin in the woods kinda implies not having some things and living a simpler lifestyle?
Here the problem is regulation that makes it impossible if you have neighbors within 500 m.
If it wasn't for regulation a wind turbine would be a clearly better investment than solar panels.
A huge advantage with turbines is also that it tend to generate power when you need it the most for heating your house.
Something very important that anti-nuclear but otherwise environmental minded people should realize is this sentence:
" There's no practical way to build domestic batteries with this capacity using the technology of 2025."
Also applies to grid storage. There does not exist a chemical energy storage solution that can substitute for "baseload" power. It's purely theoretical much like fusion power. Sure maybe in 50 years, but right now IT DOESN'T EXIST. Economically, practically, or even theoretically.
Why do I bring this up? Because I've seen too many people think that solar and wind can replace all traditional power plants. But if you are anti-nuclear, you are just advocating for more fossil fuels. Every megawatt of wind or solar, has a megawatt of coal or gas behind it and thus we are increasing our greenhouse gas emission everytime we build "green" generation unless we also build Nuclear power plants.
/soapbox
Another myth is that hydroelectric is "green." It's absolutely not. The huge amount of land required to build something like the hoover dam or the three-gorges dam is massively destructive to the existing ecology. It's often overlooked, but land use has to be part of any environmentally sound analysis.
I would say that while the Hoover Dam, or the Three-gorges dam by themselves are acceptable, they are wholly impossible solutions for grid level storage for the entire united states/China. How practical do you think it would be to build thousands of hoover dams?
Other options like kinetic batteries etc, all come down to energy density. The highest energy density options that humans can harness are nuclear Isotopes like Uranium 238, or Plutonium 239 (what powers the voyager probes) After that is lithium batteries at ~<1% density of a nuclear battery. Everything else is fractions of a percent as efficient. Sure there are some specific use cases where a huge fly-wheel makes sense to build (data centers for example) but those cases are highly specific, and cannot be scaled out to "grid-level." The amount of resources required per kilowatt is way too high, and you'd be better off just building some more power-plants.
Unclear if you’re misinformed or disingenuous.
Hoover Dam does generate power, but it’s not an energy storage project to time-shift intermittent clean energy generation to match grid consumption. That’s known as pumped hydroelectric energy storage, and it requires having paired reservoirs in close geographic proximity with a substantial elevation difference. It’s not an ideal technology for several reasons, but it’s the largest type of grid-scale storage currently deployed. Fundamentally it’s gravitational potential energy storage using water as the transport medium.
A higher-efficiency but not yet fully proven technology also uses gravity and elevation differences, but relies on train rails and massive cars. Here’s one company leading the charge, as it were.
Nuclear isn’t a good option to balance out the variability of wind and solar because it’s slow to ramp up and down. Nuclear is much better suited to baseline generation.
There are plenty of other wacky energy storage ideas out there, such as pumping compressed air into depleted natural gas mines, and letting it drive turbines on its way back out. That might also be riddled with problems, but it’s disingenuous to claim that chemical energy storage is the only (non-) option and therefore increasing wind and solar necessarily also increase fossil fuel scaling.
Again, i'm talking energy density. All those other wacky ideas aren't viable at all. Yes I know that the hoover dam is for generation, but the idea of pumped reserve power is literally identical to hydroelectric generation. The only difference is we would have a man-made solar/wind powered pump fill the resevoir, instead a natural source of solar power fill the resevoir. Either way, it's a huge amount of land use for it to be considered "green."
Additionally I never claimed nuclear power should be used as a peak generation, it should 100% used for baseload replacing all of our fossil fuel generators, with huge taxes being applied to carbon generators.
As an aside:
A higher-efficiency but not yet fully proven technology also uses gravity and elevation differences, but relies on train rails and massive cars. Here’s one company leading the charge, as it were.
This idea is trash and as far as I can tell the hypothetical existence of this is an oil industry fud campaign. The only viable version of this is pumped hydro, which has the land use problem I've already described.
Pumped hydroelectric storage obviously works with the same kind of turbines as dams located on rivers, but the land use is far from “literally identical”. For one, I agree with you that damming rivers is generally a bad thing. Large dam sites are chosen to min-max construction effort and reservoir capacity, and usually double as flood control. A grid storage project only needs to hold enough water for its daily power use, and it doesn’t need to be located directly on a water course. That’s not to say that there are unlimited suitable sites, but it’s more flexible.
Pumped hydro storage is quite green in its lack of carbon emissions and ability to time-shift green generation capacity to match grid demand timing. Land use is a consideration, but large anything requires land. You haven’t actually attacked the weakest part of pumped hydro, which is that there just aren’t very many geographically suitable locations for it.
You’ve also neglected to acknowledge the pesky spent nuclear fuel storage problem, which is unsolved and distinctly not eco-friendly. There are potentially better paths available such as the thorium fuel cycle, but they all either have no economic traction or are actively opposed by various governments (which don’t have any good solutions for existing spent fuel).
The solution to nuclear waste is recycling it, which was something France has done quite successfully. The US can't do it because of cold-war era treaties, but realistically it's because Nuclear power is the only thing that can threaten fossil fuel primacy in our society and obviously there are trillions of dollars in the fossil fuel status quo.
As an aside, the aftermath of Chernobyl shows exactly how eco-friendly massive radiation events are, Prypiat is a lush nature reserve now. Human activity is much worse for any given area then radiation is.
Non recycled radioactive waste could be incinerated like we do with Coal and no one seems to be upset about it. /s
nuclear power is the only thing that can threaten fossil fuel primacy
Solar and wind are cheap and easy to build now, and a huge threat to fossil fuel primacy, which in turn makes them a threat to the dominance of the petrodollar as the world’s reserve currency. That’s why the Trump administration has gone all-out to quash their momentum.
Spent nuclear fuel reprocessing is theoretically possible but not politically or economically viable at present. Neither is 100,000+ year storage that has been the concept of a plan of record in the US for decades. I’m not saying that nuclear is inherently unworkable, but your net viewpoint doesn’t seem to be based in reality.
The disaster response in Chernobyl was absolutely heroic but also incredibly lucky. If the melted core had reached the water underneath the concrete pad, the steam explosion would have spread the core atmospherically with devastating results. You’re making light of the disaster that was, and ignoring how close it came to being so much larger. Furthermore, the enormous irresponsibility of the Russian military’s damage to the sarcophagus cannot be overstated. If maintaining isolation for a few decades is difficult, there’s just no chance over 100,000+ years.
But I don’t think you’re arguing in good faith, so I’m done here. I hope you can find your way to more nuanced views in the future.
Hoover Dam does generate power, but it’s not an energy storage project to time-shift intermittent clean energy generation to match grid consumption
All hydro is automatically "time shifting storage" when new solar is added to power the daytime. Just turn on the turbines at evening peak full blast, and at night. Average global capacity factor of hydro is 45% because the water reservoir is not sufficient to go full blast 24/7/365. Obviously, hydro time shifting is also highly complementary to wind.
Hoover dam’s water release schedule is driven by requests from water rightsholders further downstream. Power generation is great, but the dam’s primary design purpose has always been facilitating agricultural irrigation.
That said, I bet you’re right that the water flow rate could be varied throughout each day to help balance electric grid needs. I assume that will likely come into play as we get further along the path to intermittent green power generation.
This is why you have HVDC lines.
The longest one is in Brazil, and is about 2400km long. With that kind of reach, solar in Arizona can power Chicago, wind in Nebraska can power New York, and every single existing hydro dam along the way can provide storage.
These problems are solved. We do not need new nuclear.
Building a dam causes massive amounts of ecological damage, plus unless you're building it in the middle of nowhere you're probably going to be turning people out of their homes, out of their entire towns. We could never build enough dams to be able to meet demand so even trying would be pointless. You would be destroying huge amounts of landscape for no reason.
Kinetic batteries can only store power up to a point, the more power you want them to store the larger they need to be. Again to compensate for base load you would have to have a either a lot of kinetic batteries or a few enormous ones. Plus they are maintenance intensive since they are giant spinning things, or great big heavy falling things.
Heat batteries are a good idea and have relatively little in the way of downsides, but they only work where it's hot, not just sunny but hot. So the number of places you can build them is limited.
If only we could get hold of some astrophage or something.
A country like France would need around 20 truly massive STEPs like Grand’Maison to provide for a single winter night (~60GW for ~14h). That’s 100-200km² to put under water, a massive ecological disaster, and a massive hazard.
And you must find a way to produce enough energy and find enough water to recharge your STEPs in the next 10h before the next night.
And that’s with the current France needs, having only 25-30% of its energy being decarbonized electricity, it’s getting even worse if we go to electrical heating and transports.
Powering an entire country without hydro, geo, nuclear or fossils is just plain science fiction. And hydro and geo cannot be built everywhere, so realistically, you either go fossils, or nuclear to have clean electricity.
And you can verify it empirically: even with trillion invested in solar and wind, the only countries which have decarbonized their electricity have massive hydro/geo/nuclear.
Interactive App | Electricity Maps
Track real-time and historical electricity data worldwide — see production mix, CO2 emissions, prices, cross-border exports, and much more.app.electricitymaps.com
I'm pro-nuclear energy in theory. But I've got to ask - where do you get them spicy rocks from? Do you have to dig them up from a mine? Do they regularly replenish themselves? Does the energy generation have to be constantly checked for pollution leaks?
OK, they may not literally be fossilised bio-matter - but the end result is pretty much the same. Scar the landscape as you dig, release pollutants as you refine, hope you don't run out of material, make sure someone else pays to clean up the mess.
Yes mining still exists. Unlike how Solar Panels and Wind Turbines grow like plants and replenish year over year with no other industrial process required right?
But again, you don't appreciate the energy density that is contained in a reactor fuel. The volume of material is minuscule compared to coal. While oil/gas are a lot better then coal energy density-wise, they have the significant downside of greenhouse gases and causing global warming.
It isn't so much limited by the geography but is made far more cost effective because of it. A long valley with a narrow exit means you don't need to build much dam and store a vast amount of water.
As far as distance from populated areas, I dunno, I live in the UK so its kinda close enough not to matter too much.
I guess if you don't understand units of water per area, then there is no reason to expect you to be able to do any kind of critical analysis about why "pumped hydro" is a problem.
That's a completely unnecessary way to do things. The mistake you're making is that this specific way must provide all power.
It doesn't. You combine methods for a reason. The wind blows at times when the sun isn't shining, and vice versa. We have weather data stretching back many decades to tell us how much a given region will give us of each. From there, you can calculate the maximum lull where neither is providing enough. Have enough storage to cover that lull, and double it as a safety factor.
Getting to 95% water/wind/solar with this method is relatively easy and would be an extraordinary change. Getting all the way to 100% is possible, just more difficult.
It's very infuriating talking to people about this because they never really accept that nuclear power is necessary. They spend all their time complaining about how it's dangerous (it isn't) and how it's very expensive, and how you don't have a lot of control over its output capacity. And yeah, all of those are true, but so what, the only other option is to burn some dead trees which obviously we don't want to do.
Just because nuclear has downsides doesn't mean you can ignore it, unless of course you want to invent fusion just to spite me, in which case I'll be fine with that.
There is absolutely nothing required about baseload power. It's there because the economics of generating power favored it in the past. You could build a baseload plant that spits out a GW or so all day, everyday for relatively cheap.
That economic advantage is no longer there, and no longer relevant.
What makes power when the sun isn’t out and the wind isn’t blowing? Nuclear, gas, or coal.
By being anti-nuclear, you force it to be gas or coal.
Honestly it's like talking to a conspiracy theorist.
What are you talking about, what's "an accounting thing" do you even know what base load is? Go look up brownouts, actually for that matter go look up the term baseload because I don't think you're using it right
You don't need baseload. You need to follow the duck curve of demand.
You had baseload because those plants used to be the cheapest one you could find. That's not true anymore, and the model needs to shift with it.
nrdc.org/bio/kevin-steinberger…
In the past, coal and nuclear were perceived to be the cheapest resources, and the prior electricity system structure relied upon large power plants without valuing flexibility. Today, low natural gas prices, declining renewables costs, flat electricity demand due to more efficient energy use, and stronger climate and public health protections are all driving an irreversible shift in the underlying economics of the electricity industry. As a result, the term “baseload”—which historically has been used to refer to coal and nuclear plants—is no longer useful.
Yes if you ignore all externalities the "economics" means that you can use Natural Gas "peaking" plants instead. But one of the main advantages of nuclear power is zero green-house gas emissions.
If fossil fuels were taxed appropriately, the economics of them wouldn't be viable anymore. A modest tax of a $million USD per ton of CO2 would fix up that price discrepancy.
Most of this is being driven by renewables. Natural gas gets mentioned because its price has dropped due to fracking, but it's not a strictly necessary part of this argument, either. Water/wind/solar solutions have undercut even the plummet in natural gas prices.
Nuclear has no place. Nobody is building it, and it's not because regulators are blocking it. It's also completely unnecessary.
Nobody is building it
France built the fuck out of it, 71% of their power is nuclear. Works darn well.
it’s not because regulators are blocking it
In the US, the over-regulation makes it horrifically expensive. Every plant is bespoke instead of mass produced, with exchangeable parts, personnel, and knowledge. Mass produce nuclear plants and the costs come way down.
Water/wind/solar solutions have undercut even the plummet in natural gas prices.
Wind and solar are paired with natural gas. People still want power in the winter and at night and right now that is natural gas. By opposing nuclear, you ensure it will continue to be natural gas paired with wind and solar.
This has been studied, and we don't need nuclear. All the solutions are sitting right there.
Almost like we can have many solutions where one of them is workable in any given situation.
Edit: also, as for "explody" batteries, that's a factor of certain lithium chemistries. It's not even all lithium chemistries. Sodium and flow batteries are usually better options for grid storage, anyway, and neither has particularly notable safety issues.
In US, and EU is having similar nightmare, nuclear was last built at $15/watt. Installing solar is under $1/watt, and for 20 equivalent hours of nuclear per day (less demand at night means not full production even if available) equivalent to $5/watt-day. $1/watt capital costs is 2c/kwh for solar, and for full day production needs 10c/kwh. All before financing. Nuclear is 30c/kwh. It adds 10 extra years of construction financing, requires political bribes to suppress alternative supply whenever they decide to begin operations, uranium purchases/disposal, expensive skilled operations staff, security, disaster insurance.
Solar does need batteries for time shifting its daily supply. At current LFP prices of $100/kwh, 1c/kwh full cycle is prefinancing cost. and so 3c/kwh if triple the charging/discharging daily capacity. 6 hours of storage is a very high number in power systems. It will capture all energy from a northern summer. It will rarely fully discharge with any time shifting incentives to daytime (much higher convenience to consumers and industry) providing resilience to rainy days. A 2c/kwh value (before financing which is apples to apples comparison to nucclear) means a 5gw solar + 30gwh (much lower if enough private EVs are available for time shifting needs) battery costs 12c/kwh or $8B vs a $15B equivalent 1GW nuclear solution. Both last 60 years due to low battery charge/discharge rates and capacity cycle use, with much lower maintenance costs/downtime for life extension costs for solar/battery system vs keeping a nuclear reactor operational. No/minimal operations costs.
It’s very infuriating talking to people about this
Yes. Nuclear shills are frauds who should be frustrated in their theft of the commons.
Well, unfortunately some people are using nuclear as an excuse to argue that we don't need any renewables at all and that they should be banned entirely. They do this because they know that nuclear faces extreme regulatory and societal challenges and it would allow coal, diesel and gas to continue unabated.
So it creates a backlash where renewable advocates feel they have to fight nuclear to survive.
See, that's a trap that keeps the argument within a frame where you can win. That's not how it works.
What you're doing is focusing on a singular solution, and then showing why it can't solve all the problems. Each individual solution is attacked on its own, and then nuclear ends up being the only option.
Except that's a dumb way of going about it.
Each of these solutions has pros and cons. You use the pros of one to cover the cons of another.
As one example I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, Brazil has an HDVC line 2400km long. With that kind of reach, solar in Arizona can power Chicago, wind in Nebraska can power New York, and every single existing hydro dam along the way can provide storage. What you end up with is the possibility of not needing to build a single MWh of new storage or hydro dams. If nothing else, you don't need very much. Long distance transmission is thus very important, but it tends to get left out of these discussions because it's boring.
I'll leave you with an excerpt from "No Miracles Needed", written by Mark Z Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering:
On July 11, 2011, I was invited to a dinner at the Axis Café and Gallery in San Francisco to discuss the potential of renewable energy as an alternative to natural gas hydrofracking in New York State. Little did I know it at the time, but that dinner would set off a chain reaction of events that turned a scientific theory, that the world has the technical and economic ability to run on 100 percent clean, renewable energy and storage for all purposes, into a mass popular movement to do just that. The movement catalyzed an explosion of worldwide country, state, and city laws and proposed laws, including the Green New Deal, and business commitments. Ten years after that meeting, critics were no longer mocking our ideas as pie-in-the-sky and tooth-fairy-esque. They were no longer claiming that transitioning to more than 20 percent renewables would cripple power grids. Instead, the discussion had changed to what is the cost of 100 percent renewables, how fast can we get there, and should we leave a few percent for non-renewables?
This was from the first edition of the book published in 2023. So quite contrary to your claim that "there’s no practical way to build domestic batteries with this capacity using the technology of 2025", the technology has existed for over a decade. We just need to build it. And we are building it, just not as fast as we need to.
Meanwhile, the NRC continues to stamp permits for new nuclear, but nobody is building. There's a reason for that, too.
I can dismiss the the other solutions that are worse then pumped hydro because pumped hydro is actually the best case scenario for grid-level storage and it requires A LOT of space. Anything else, batteries, pneumatic mines etc etc are going to be worse in terms of space by orders of magnitude, not to mention the actual costs. Hand waving the need for grid-level storage by saying we would us hydro shows you don't understand the scale of the problem.
That excerpt from that engineer is great, but WHERE IS THE STORAGE? Show it to me on a map. You can't because it does not exist. New Nuclear plants are being built, finally, but there is a reason that no grid-level storage exists. It's literally not possible today. There exists a pilot battery plant in Australia, and there exists a few megawatts of storage in Scotland, but these are few and far between and none of them are suitable for massive deployment.
I can dismiss the the other solutions that are worse then pumped hydro because pumped hydro is actually the best case scenario for grid-level storage and it requires A LOT of space.
It's like you didn't even read the bit about how HVDC makes this a non-issue.
. . . but WHERE IS THE STORAGE? Show it to me on a map. You can’t because it does not exist.
It's in every hydro dam that's already built in between Arizona and New York. If we even do need more, there is plenty of land to use.
How about this: I throw out everything I said about synergizing different solutions. We just have solar and storage. No long distance transmission or wind. How much does that cost to power a city?
That study has been done. Going by Lazard's levelized cost of energy 2025 report, the most optimistic cost to build new nuclear is $141/MWh--and keep in mind that I'm giving nuclear the best case scenario here. A solar+storage solution that would provide 97% of the power needed for Las Vegas would cost $104/MWh. "But that's sunny desert with lots of empty land around it", I hear you say. The bigger deal is that Washington DC could have 81% of power done at $124/MWh. Northern city where it snows a lot, and it's still more viable than nuclear.
"But 81% isn't 100%". No, please stop. You get to 81% before you get to 100%. This isn't even the best way to get to 100%.
This study has a comprehensive wind/water/solar solution fighting with two arms tied behind its back, and it's still kicking nuclear's ass.
. . . New Nuclear plants are being built, finally
Nope, not in the US, they aren't.
Here's a map of NRC licenses. The green pips are the ones where licenses are already approved. Here's the list and where they are at:
- William States - Licensed to go ahead in 2016. Canceled in 2017 with a contributing factor being the bankruptcy of Westinghouse (which itself happened because of cost overruns at the Vogtle nuclear plant build)
- Turkey Point - Licensed new builds in 2018. No news on actually going forward.
- North Anna - Licensed new builds in 2017. No news on actually going forward.
- PSEG - Issued an early site permit, but not the full license. The ESP was set in 2016 with no movement noted since then.
- Fermi - This was licensed just in the past few months. They want to have it in operation by 2032, which, lol, no it isn't.
That's not a list of success stories. Add the Vogtle debacle to the list and it's all a bucket of failure.
The AP1000 design at Vogtle was supposed to prevent the need for botique engineering that had been a problem with reactors in the past. You could use one design everywhere. That was hoped to prevent all these cost and schedule overruns. It didn't. In addition to Vogtle, it was also built in China at the Sanmen and Haiyang plants. Like Vogtle, Sanmen went over budget and over schedule, but managed in the end. There's less information about what happened at Haiyang, but the timeline of beginning construction and reaching first criticality is roughly the same as Sanmen; we can assume it went about the same.
There's a very clear reason why this is happening, and it comes down to this chart:
energyskeptic.com/wp-content/u…
This is a list of megaprojects and their tendency to go overbudget. Everything from rail to mining to airports. The third worst budgetary offender is nuclear power at a mean cost overrun of 120%. It managed to be better than Olympic Games, at least. The very worst is the related issue of nuclear storage at a whopping 238% mean budget overrun.
Way down at the bottom, you will find solar, power transmission, and wind. Solar projects have a mean overrun of 1%, energy transmission 8%, and wind 13%.
That should make it very clear why the list above has approved licenses with no actual movement. Who the hell would want to put their money into that? You can invest in wind or solar, have a very good chance of it staying within budget, and it will be making revenue within 6-12 months. You put that in nuclear, and you better hope that other investors will pitch in when the budget doubles, or else you have to do it if you hope to see your money again. In the very best case scenario, you're not going to see a cent of revenue for at least 5 years, but probably more like 10.
Meanwhile, old nuclear is being taken offline because it's too expensive. If it's not even worthwhile to keep what we have, what hope is there for building new?
It's not a matter of regulation, either. The industry would really like it to be, but they've been putting their thumb on that scale for a while now. Even with that, nobody wants to finance this shit.
It's not just that nuclear is expensive. It's a boneheaded thing to drop money into at all.
Biden can rescue the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from industry capture - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Over the past two decades, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been captured by the nuclear power companies it is supposed to regulate.John Mecklin (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
It’s in every hydro dam that’s already built in between Arizona and New York. If we even do need more, there is plenty of land to use.
This is the key factor I'm talking about. There is not "plenty of land" for hydro storage, and flooding the amount of land required to provide grid level storage is an ecological disaster. Plus your analysis of mega-project like nuclear plants going over budget and over-time absolutely applies to any grid-level storage project you would need to go 100% solar/wind.
But just for fun, how much space would the grid level storage projects take up? I'll let you use Hydro because it's the best case scenario that exists today as far as energy density.
But beyond that what is your point, that humans shouldn't build big projects, and any attempt to do so is "boneheaded?" Capitalism can't build big projects I agree, but the problem isn't the projects themselves it's the profit-motive.
There is not “plenty of land” for hydro storage, and flooding the amount of land required to provide grid level storage is an ecological disaster.
We already built it. Good bye.
Author's diagram is about summer. Fall, winter, spring is about heating-degree days. If you're heating your home with electricity, you'll not get there with batteries.
So, working towards a solution, there are other ways to store excess energy than in batteries. One example is sand, which can be heated to very high temperatures. Insulate a sand container well and its storage can do a lot of home-heating.
Example: livescience.com/technology/eng…
We'll need to put a lot of different methods into use. There are many practical ideas out there, and they'll need to be tried.
The sand storage is used for district heating. It's not much of a substitute for single homes that have electrical heating or are off-grid.
It's a great way to balance both the electrical and the heating grids so that more electricity from renewables can be used to offset other means of heat production, but it needs to be done by the district heating supplier. I doubt it makes sense for individual houses.
Right, you really need scale for sand batteries to work. It would be difficult for individual people to do, especially in suburban London.
District heating also works better in denser housing. In other words, not suburban London.
Dunno what heat pumps are available in England, but that's probably the best option here.
Suburbs are fine for district heating, but it's a massive long term investment.
For UK in particular, I also think proper insulation and triple/quadruple window panes are much needed to curb with the increasingly scorching summers and freezing winters. I was surprised to see soo many houses with single paned windows in London.
Oof. If they're running around with single pane windows, yeah, that's pretty bad, but also the easiest thing to fix.
IMO, triple pane and onward provide only marginal benefits over double pane. But the jump from single to double is a big one.
you really need scale for sand batteries to work
Not at all. First, (hot) water batteries are excellent for home heat storage. Sand/dirt is even more storage per volume required, and completely complimentary in sending hot water through it (pipes) to make it hotter. No combustion heat means less air exchanges, and a 300C rock/dirt/sand pit has losses that radiate through house.
When I was a kid my parents had electric resistance heat with some very effective thermal storage.
Each room had a unit about the size of a typical radiator. The unit was basically an insulated box with a small circulation fan. I’m not sure what was inside but always assumed some form of brick - they weren’t expensive so it couldn’t be anything exotic. At night when electric rates were low, whatever was inside the units was heated up. During the day, the only power usage was a small circulation fan controlled by the thermostat.
I just got a heat pump installed and thought thermal storage would be worth considering since I was also looking into solar, but contractors acted like they never heard of it, and there really didn’t seem to be any consumer units available.
The solar panels are another story. I don’t see how such a scammy (in the us) industry even exists. They make it really hard to give them my money
Not that old, plus I don’t see it.
Asbestos is great at insulating really hot things so was used on boilers , especially ships and industrial to insulate the hot pipes and improve efficiency. However in this case we need something with thermal mass: any sand or rock might do, or water, or oil, or a modern phase change material. That material next to the heater will get hot but the entire mass won’t, so can be insulated with standard materials. There’s no point in something like asbestos
An important part of my point was also that what I assume were cheap materials was enough to take advantage of nightly time of use metering. In upstate NY, a standard “radiator” per room was sufficient, similar to hot water or steam heat
Storage Heaters
Storage heaters can help those on time-of-use tariffs (such as Economy 7 and Economy 10) to save money with cheaper off-peak electricity. Find out how storage heaters work, and what type of storage heater is right for your home.Sarah Ingrams (Which?)
It's practical for someone with limited space for panels on a small room, but I ran these calculations by moving almost all loads to daytime, sizing the panel array to the (minimum daily usage + efficiency losses) * buffer factor for days long storms or equipment failure.
Start with the comparitively cheap panels if you have the space, move electrical loads to the daytime and design the house for thermal momentum, and size storage to the minimum inclusive efficiency losses times buffer. If you have the roof space the panels are the cheapest part and you should usually way, way over panel.
The most important thing is having thermal mass enough or living in a climate that allows your home to not need thermal input or extraction at night. Heat is expensive and exponentially moreso if you need to produce it from conventional storage.
It is possible that, not too long in the future, every home could also have a 1 MegaWatt-hour battery. They would be able to capture all the excess solar power generated in a year.
Braindead strategy, that most likely is discrete fossil fuel shilling, for purposes of making decision inpractical.
The cost of storage as a baselines is how much you can charge/discharge per day. Bonus for smaller (= cheaper) that can have more discharge/charge than its capacity per day. Plus the resilience/reserve capacity value which is a convenience factor. Resilience alternatives include fire places or gas generators (that are not expected to be used often) which tend to be cheap per kw. But noise, smell, variable costs, and startup effort are all inconveniences. Driving an EV to a public charger can be a similar inconvenience level to a generator for resilience value. If a 1mwh battery is used 10kwh/day it costs 100 times more per kwh than a 10kwh battery.
OP gives an example of 12kwh summer use (no AC?) which is very high for most people, but can include cooking and floodlights.
The braindead analysis parts are "because 100 days of 10kwh surpluses happen, I need 1mwh battery". Actual battery storage requirements are the lowest theoretical winter solar production over 1-2 weeks, together with running pumps for heat (stored mostly in fall) distribution. A 10kwh/day maximum deficit for 1 week straight, with 60 day average deficit of 5kwh/day (without requiring additional heat input), means that any consideration for a large static battery should stop at 70kwh. This is sharply reduced with 1 or 2 EVs where summer surpluses are free fuel, and EV provides backcharging at 3kw whenever needed. 30kwh battery is plenty to charge an EV overnight (300km range for small car) before next day's sunlight exceeds needs. Even less battery with 2nd lightly used EV, but 30kwh will be cheaper than un-needed EV.
Instead of relying on batteries for heat generation, which is where $100k 1mwh delusion proposition comes, heat generated from solar stored in under $1/kwh hot water and dirt storage. Outside of winter, this also provides completely unlimited showers and hot tub use, and a $10-20k heat pump and heating system (fossil fuel systems often cost the same) and insulation improvements is the the unquestionable non-distracting path.
Do you like our hot sand?
euronews.com/green/2025/06/15/…
‘A very Finnish thing’: Big sand battery starts storing wind and solar energy in crushed soapstone
The 15 metres wide battery can store a month's heat demand in summer - how does it work?Lottie Limb (Euronews.com)
hot water to everywhere in a home is efficient, quiet
Have you never lived in an apartment building?
I don't know why we haven't come up with better solutions for piping. Or maybe it's just because this building was built very cheaply. But anyway... the pipes make quite a loud banging sound if you shut them fast enough. And a lot of whoooshing in the walls just when using hot water.
High rise apartment buildings have a challenge with pumping water up more than 3-5 floors. This can be solved with intermediate storage on floors, but for high rises, forced air is the usual solution. Heat storage still works well enough with forced air, but water is much better due to internal piping through heat source, where air volume is harder to do there, and if gaining heat from outer shell, then insulation meant to keep heat in is not as good at heat transfer. Water is most perfect heat fluid in world. Air not so much.
And a lot of whoooshing in the walls just when using hot water.
This doesn't apply for heat delivery. Tends to be continuous. A faucet is different.
This doesn’t apply for heat delivery.
Pegging your pardon, mister.
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I did math for Toronto, Canada. 2000l of hot water was enough (2m^3^). Winters here have gotten cloudier from great lakes warming. Instead of more water as a buffer, dirt is much more space efficient, and just needs the hot water routed through it to get heat transfer.
The volume looks more like a room than a box, unless you can somehow make it molten that is
If hydronic heating system was already being directed towards outer walls instead of straight up from water storage, then a tall "hot dirt" storage, and dual cold water mixing valves (pre and post dirt flow) next to each other, it's less in additional storage costs per heat unit than water, though it does use more electricity to input heat compared to heat pump.
No need for temperatures higher than melting/softening point of copper to get useful heat storage for a home. Just water can be enough if you have the room.
I looked into one of these thermal systems for my own place but the outlay is just massive for the 11 weeks a year I really need heat, and the rest of the year it's just a stupidly oversized hot water heater that is cooking my glycol and DC pumps.
I ended up paneling up and putting a dumb 9kw resistive boiler for my hydronic floors. The house slab is the battery and although inefficient in terms of strict energy use, winter sun on my cheap pallet of panels dumps plenty into the slab all day. I do have to light the stove if we get a snow storm for a day or two though
Yes. Hydronic flooring is cheap at construction time. Complicated if drilling into finished ceilings/floor with thicker under floor space making. But instead of 9kw of winter electricity you are forced to import, it is free fall surplus generation. 100w of pump circulation.
But you are saying, a resistive boiler made more sense than a heat pump, with the hydronic floor conversion. At first I thought you were just saying resistive heating electric floor. The latter, to me, would be the cheapest capital outlay conversion, and then a heat pump would beat a resistive boiler on operation costs if hydronic.
Did you investigate all of these alternatives?
Yeah I already had the hydronic floors and ran numbers on heating the floors off thermal solar panels, propane, heat pump, and the resistive boiler. The thermal panels made the least sense because they are useless eight months of the year.
The heat pump might have worked but when I really needed it my semi-outdoor closet would be in single digits and full of water supply pipes so the heat pump would be least efficient when I needed it most, and would not help keep the closet warm.
The resistive boiler meant I could add a bunch of panels to run it during the day and get the floors up to 85F, then run all electric appliances with no worries during the day the rest of the year with the extra capacity. So instead of being net positive generation from 10am to 4pm in summer, its now 8 am to 6pm with way more than I can use at peak.
(OP here) Sorry mate, are you accusing me of being in the pocket of Big Oil? Here's everything I've written about solar over the last decade - shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/solar/ - feel free to point out where I've said "yay fossil fuels!"
I didn't include AC because that's not a thing in the UK.
Oh, and I don't use electricity for primary heating. Solar thermal is pretty useless in my part of the world because you don't need much hot water in summer (mmmm! Cold showers!)
As I said in my post, this is a purely theoretical discussion about what future technology might look like. Your argument is like someone from 2001 going "a recordable CD can hold 650MB - so you only need two for a really long car trip. There's no way people in the future will have 1TB hard drives! For anything else, just use AM radio."
Basically, one of us is braindead - and I'm not so sure it is me!
I'm sorry you didn't read my article. If you had, you would have seen me say…
Remember, this is just a bit of fun. There's no practical way to build domestic batteries with this capacity using the technology of 2025.
And
Is this sensible? Probably not, no.
And
remember, this is an exercise in wishful thinking.
At no point did I say it was a reasonable idea. I went out of my way to demonstrate how impractical it was.
I accept your admission that you didn't read my post means you are stupid rather than evil etc.
The energy math doesn't make sense for grid scale applications with solid objects.
However if you can get water between two places it can work quite well. You need to live close to a big change in altitude and do a bit of geoengineering to create the upper and lower reservoirs, which can be destructive to local ecology, but not as much as a dam.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped…
You can also use pumped air underwater with higher energy losses than pumped storage hydro because of compatibility of air.
electricalindustry.ca/changing…
World’s First Utility-Scale Underwater Compressed Air Energy Storage System Activated in Lake Ontario -
Located 2.5 km offshore from Toronto, the Hydrostor Corp. underwater compressed air energy storage systemis designed to store electricity during off-peak hours when demand is low and electricity is cheapest, and return the stored electricity during t…GravityStack Marketing (Electrical Industry Newsweek)
1 Watt is the equivalent of moving 1Kg 1 metre in 1 second.
If you want a kilowatt - you need to move 1,000Kg 1 metre in 1 second. Or, I guess, 1Kg a Km.
Plug the numbers together and you'll see that you need a massive physical load and a huge distance in order to store a useful amount of energy.
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Potential energy (in joules) is mass (in g) times height (in meters) times 9.8 m/s^2 .
So in order to store the 30 kWh per day that the typical American house uses, you'd need to convert the 30 kWh into 108,000,000 joules, and divide by 9.8, to determine how you'd want to store that energy. You'd need the height times mass to be about 11 million. ~~So do you take a 1500 kg weight (about the weight of a Toyota Camry) and raise it about 7.3 meters (about 2 stories in a typical residential home)?~~ (this is wrong, it's only 0.001 as much as the energy needed, see edit below)
And if that's only one day's worth of energy, how would you store a month's worth? Or the 3800kwh (13.68 x 10^9 joules) discussed in the article?
At that point, we're talking about raising 10 Camrys 93 meters into the air, just for one household. Without accounting for the lost energy and inefficiencies in the charging/discharging cycle.
Chemical energy is way easier to store.
Edit: whoops I was off by using grams instead of kg. It actually needs to be 1000 times the weight or 1000 the height. The two story Camry is around a tablet battery's worth of storage, not very much at all.
Actually, yes. Lifting the weight of a Toyota Camry 2 stories seems reasonable for a day's worth of energy storage for a house.
I'm not sure how expensive the lift and generator will be, but the weight itself can be anything that's sufficiently heavy.
You say chemical energy is way easier to store, but is it really easier and cheaper to store the energy needed for a home in a chemical battery?
So do you take a 1500 kg weight (about the weight of a Toyota Camry) and raise it about 7.3 meters (about 2 stories in a typical residential home)?
Honestly that is way, way more reasonable than I was expecting. This isn't half as bad of an idea as I thought it would be
- Is HVAC excluded?
- Do you have an EV?
With an EV you can have 80%-90% of days covered, and top up with EV. You also get to dump daily surpluses into EV, and you can think of covering winter heating with solar and a heat pump. Easier if you have a fireplace for extreme cold possibility.
Storing heat with fall surpluses is path to get winter heating covered. Heat pump can make hot water very efficiently, and resistance heating can make a pile of dirt 300+C. Radiant floor heating is most efficient because water is distributed around 30C. This means your 90C water volume is 60C effective heat storage that is generated at 600% efficiency in fall, and 300% efficiency in typical UK winter, and your dirt heat storage can be 5x more dense.
A 2nd EV even if not frequently used during the day can be an attractive option, especially if used, and tax credits will go away soon, or have gone away (makes used prices lower) can be much easier than home batteries, and much cheaper if it remains uninsured/unused, and resale value doesn't go down much because of few miles driven. Where utility service includes a high fixed monthly charge, ($50/month in Toronto), $12000 over 20 years savings creates high incentive to remove electric utility. Gas utility has similar fixed vs variable equation, but for Toronto, heat is somewhat reasonable from high supply on our continent.
(OP here) Typically, UK homes don't use HVAC.
I've had a few EVs, but moved somewhere with electric buses instead.
Most homes here are heated with gas - ours is.
So electricity doesn't factor in to heating (other than a tiny amount for controlling the boiler and thermostat).
To be completely off grid you would ideally want to be able to go at least a week with minimal to no power generation. Personally that would mean I would need at least 100kWh of batteries.
I would also then want/need a petrol generator powerful enough to power everything that would usually run in a normal day, so that meant be a 15000W one which would be very expensive.
Anyone using "Speech Note" (speech to text) with good results?
I've been using Speech Note (github link) for months, but it often gets things wildly wrong.
I thought it was my mic, so I got one that's crystal clear. I also tried a ton of different models, and other than being slow (or fast), their accuracy is usually pretty similar.
But I'm still needing to take a lot of time to edit the results, and I wonder if there's something I should be doing to get better results.
On other speech-to-text platforms (like Futo keyboard on Android), the results are fast and very accurate. I have a hard time believing that Speech Note can't be as good.
Can any other users share their experience?
UPDATE: Ok, the best model that I've found for Speech Note is the WhisterCpp FUTO English-244, which, funny enough, is the model I use on Futo Keyboard for Android. It's not the fastest, but fast enough. It is quite accurate, and that means less time editing text.
GitHub - mkiol/dsnote: Speech Note Linux app. Note taking, reading and translating with offline Speech to Text, Text to Speech and Machine translation.
Speech Note Linux app. Note taking, reading and translating with offline Speech to Text, Text to Speech and Machine translation. - mkiol/dsnoteGitHub
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I really wanted to use it, because on my Android phone I use voice input all the time.
That's why I'm thinking it's a problem with Speech Note and not my mic, or how I'm speaking to it.
That's a real shame. I can type quite fast, but my hand joints called it quite a while ago. 😵
GitHub - openai/whisper: Robust Speech Recognition via Large-Scale Weak Supervision
Robust Speech Recognition via Large-Scale Weak Supervision - openai/whisperGitHub
I've used it for a short while to test it out. Accuracy was pretty good, as was correct punctuation. Response time also good.
It's using my Nvidia GPU to do the LLM thing, so that may be the difference.
It’s using my Nvidia GPU to do the LLM thing, so that may be the difference.
This could be!
Interestingly enough, I was playing around with LLama, as they have speech to text to interact with their chat bot, and it converts in near real-time with very good accuracy. So I do know that things can be fast and accurate, but I wish it was in Speech Note. LOL
For now, I may just to STT through my phone on a shared document with my laptop.
Chairman Comer Invites CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit to Testify on Radicalization of Online Forum Users - United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Chairman Comer Invites CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit to Testify on Radicalization of Online Forum Users - United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
United States House Committee on Oversight and Government ReformOversight Committee Republicans Verified account
As long as its on the internet, there will be strange people saying strange things.
Also good more censorship! /s
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I hope they all say the same thing:
Shit rolls down hill. You're the hill DC. Fox news and the media are the hill. We're the ditch where the people congregate in and drown in your shit.
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Truth and "Truth social" are different things.
Truth is good.
Truth social is an orwellian social network that is at war with the truth.
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~~Oracle~~ TikTok isn't on there either.
Oh, that's because they already have a government overseer. And owned by a Party loyalist.
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Like everything else, the same laws and rules they have hidden behind to justify and protect their absolute dogshit behavior will be the first things the regime will get rid of for protecting anyone other than their in-group.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Well, it’ll be a difficult transition. But in the long run, maybe not?
As long as the Fourth Estate gets their shit together.
Ah, good point. I guess things would rapidly re-form in the favor of the fediverse if this law was overturned…
Sounds like a monkey paw situation to me!
probably james comer runs onto fox news and whines for an hour and then moves onto the next outrage since his hearings mean dick.
and if it's a subpoena it means even less considering james comer ignored his own subpoena during the jan 6th hearings.
Most people aren’t celebrating the killing of Kirk
I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure
Elon sieg heilling twice and then signal boosting facists and illegally cutting democratically approved and institutionally valid spending, that hasn't radicalized anyone.
Totally normal behavior.
It's gotta be the video games and the dark web. What's dark web? It is any web space I don't know about. Duh.
I am not a fan of a few billionaires locking up every freedom we used to have so they can keep trucking toward the world's first trillionaire.
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Right wing extremism and radicalization?
Nooo problem
A right wing radicalizer gets shot?
We need to investigate radicalization of the online left!
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Right wing influencers and pundits are calling for war and killings as we speak.
We'll see how they will be investigated.
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Macron admitted NATO behind Ukraine conflict – Sachs
Macron admitted NATO behind Ukraine conflict – Sachs
Jeffrey Sachs claims French President Emmanuel Macron privately blamed NATO for the Ukraine conflict despite publicly accusing MoscowRT
US Deficit Tracks Third-Highest Ever Even as Tariff Take Rises
US Deficit Tracks Third-Highest Ever Even as Tariff Take Rises
US tariff revenue hit a new monthly record in August, reflecting President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes, though that still left the federal government with the third-biggest deficit on record so far this fiscal year.Daniel Flatley (Bloomberg)
NASA Analysis Shows Sun’s Activity Ramping Up
NASA Analysis Shows Sun’s Activity Ramping Up - NASA
Editor’s note: This story was updated to clarify the duration of the Sun’s quiet period beginning in 1645.Anthony Greicius (NASA)
Something is preventing shutdown...
Does anyone how how I can diagnose and fix this problem:
Sometimes, but not always, when shutting down the process does not actually complete and the computer does not turn off.
The screen turns off but the keyboard backlight is still responsive, the fan is still going and the power-on LED is lit. Because the screen is turned off I can't interact graphically with the computer and have to just hold down the power button and do a hard reboot.
I haven't tested it properly but I get the feeling it happens more often if I have been doing audio work.
Debian 13
GNOME 48
Intel Core Ultra 7 Laptop
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Have you updated the firmware recently? us.starlabs.systems/blogs/news…
They've fixed a lot of ACPI and power issues with various models, including the mk7: github.com/StarLabsLtd/firmwar…
[Starbook MkVI - Intel][coreboot] Don't wake-up from suspend on lid close
Closing the lid when the laptop is in suspend will wake it up. I've observed this on Coreboot 8.99 and ITE 1.21 This sequence reproduces the issue: With the lid open, put the machine in suspend blu...divico (GitHub)
Try running sudo shutdown -h now and see if it still does the same thing.
If so, try forcing ACPI actions like so and see what happens: askubuntu.com/questions/125844…
I know this an ACPI tables issue, but there's a wide variety of debug steps to figure out which one.
Shutdown does not power off computer
I recently upgraded from Ubuntu 11.10 to 12.04. If it makes any difference, my system is a Dell Inspiron 1520. I encounter a problem whenever I shutdown or restart; it kills all running processes...Ask Ubuntu
I'm not familiar with using logs but looking at them now and filtering for the word 'failed', most of the entries around shutdown contain "dbus-daemon[1248]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service': Refusing activation, D-Bus is shutting down."
There are also a couple of "fwupd[2375]: 17:22:25.596 FuPluginUpower failed to query lid state"
And one of these: "NetworkManager[1332]: [1757956947.0782] dispatcher: (51) failed (after 0.004 sec): Refusing activation, D-Bus is shutting down."
Does any of that shed light on the problem?
That's just saying that things are tripping each other up whilst trying to shutdown.
Try sudo journalctl -b-1 --reverse
That will show the last system log in reverse order, and might help see what's going on.
There's an old bug report (notice I say report, as it's locked and not solved - & I don't have the link to hand) with several people saying that systemd causes this, but, it might be applications or services that have user accounts open, etc, etc...
but... try shutting down services and unmounting any shares / filesystems that might be causing this to see if you can isolate something.
As mentioned in the other thread, try shutting down from the command line on a new TTY (text-only screen) and see if that shows anything else.
journalctl -b -1 but to make it easier maybe this one should be more helpful journalctl -b -1 | grep -i shutdown
I was also experiencing your same issue, just tried @muhyb@programming.dev's recommendation, and my computer shut off completely as desired.
Edit: I also opened a terminal and "sudo poweroff" and "sudo shutdown now" both work, so for me, I didn't need to switch to a TTY console.
I was also experiencing your same issue, just tried @muhyb@programming.dev’s recommendation, and my computer shut off completely as desired.
Which recommendation?
Alt + SysRq(/PrtSc) + o. If that turns off your computer, then the kernel is still running and something is preventing shutdown; if it doesn't, either SysRq is disabled, or ACPI is broken.
Spanish PM calls for Israel to be barred from international sport
Spanish PM calls for Israel to be barred from international sport
Pedro Sánchez says Israel should be treated in the same way as Russia over its war in Ukraine.Guy Hedgecoe (BBC News)
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"The provocation with drones in Poland is the impotence of the West" – Sivkov
"The provocation with drones in Poland is the impotence of the West" – Sivkov
"The provocation with drones in Poland is the impotence of the West" – Sivkov. The Western masters of Ukraine, understanding the situation on the fronts, are trying to draw Europe into a direct confrontation with Russia.This was stated...Pravda USA
Donald Trump calls for US companies to ditch quarterly reporting
The economy is so cooked that the proposed solution is “what if we just… stopped looking at it”
Donald Trump calls on US companies to ditch quarterly reporting
US president says taking a quarterly view on a company is ‘not good’Financial Times
ComradeSharkfucker
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Stillwater
in reply to faizalr • • •like this
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HailSeitan
in reply to faizalr • • •like this
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LainTrain
in reply to HailSeitan • • •HellieSkellie
in reply to LainTrain • • •like this
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Midnight Wolf
in reply to HellieSkellie • • •$5 says it's the "what's a computer" kid from like a decade ago
"'laptop'? it's like a foldable but with half a screen??? and why is this keyboard broken, all the keys move?? how do I get an overwatch skin for it?? this is awful"
mienshao
in reply to HailSeitan • • •What a pedantic (and incorrect) take. Luddite can absolutely mean a person who purposefully avoids technology.
I’m sure I’ll get downvoted, but words can have multiple meanings and take on new meanings over time. Luddite is one of them. This article used it properly.
And anyone who disagrees with me can kiss my linguistics-degree-holding ass.
KSP Atlas
in reply to mienshao • • •biofaust
in reply to HailSeitan • • •In your defense, the statement specifies "modern-day Luddite" which compares it to the historical Luddite bands and excludes the first meaning of the Oxford dictionary.
Also, avoiding is not the same as opposing.
Electric
in reply to faizalr • • •This is just avoiding the issue of having a short attention span.
Reminds me a lot of fellow classmates at my college who I discovered hate online classes because they say they can't stay focused. So I don't know how these "luddite" students plan to not get distracted when their job will most likely involve sitting in front of a computer.
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ɯᴉuoʇuɐ
in reply to Electric • • •I used to be easily distracted during online lectures yet had little difficulty following live lectures. It's a fundamentally different experience, for whatever reason.
Also, the attention span has to be trained. And training it by working without a distracting computer sounds like a good idea.
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LainTrain
in reply to ɯᴉuoʇuɐ • • •Madzielle
in reply to LainTrain • • •Doodle. I always doodled in my notes. Repeating patterns worked for me, because I am no artist.
I am still unmedicated, and method helped me a lot with lectures using pencil snd paper for notes.
Everyones different, I failed my online college courses. In person, I do alright. You may like online better.
But if you're forced to sit in lecture, fuckin doodle.
LainTrain
in reply to Madzielle • • •Nah, that shit woulda never helped me and I wouldn't even know where to start and I never have, we had laptops open on lectures so I just wrote small programs about whatever concepts the lecturer talked about but to sit in the same place for 2 hours it was borderline impossible.
After entering the workforce it was just pure torture sitting in the office waiting to die 8 hours a day, I went through like a full character arc from arrogant to humble to desperate to hate at others to hate at self to finally worldly and gradually radicalized against the onslaught of alienation.
I came back for my masters in 2020 and it was fairly sweet all online.
Thankfully now many years later I WFH. Uni is far behind. Haven't handwritten anything in years, I'm almost curious to try it
Madzielle
in reply to LainTrain • • •That is exactly why I absolutely thrived in manufacturing. Well, the right type of manufacturing. I'd rather die than work in an office. I lasted exactly one month at my one and only desk job before I had to quit and find something different.
I don't write often anymore either, but recently tried to write a letter to someone, wow after a few sentences could I notice how out of practice I was. I 'jot things down' all the time, but a letter, paragraphs, whew.
I think it's tough, because many degree jobs are all desk jobs, so it's like, you want the degree and good money, but the work, doesn't sound fun. Im glad wfh has helped though, thats great
Darren
in reply to Electric • • •And how do you improve your attention span? By not having distractions available to you.
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LainTrain
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Maeve
in reply to Electric • • •like this
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undefined
in reply to faizalr • • •I absolutely love doing everything on the computer and can’t stand writing things by hand anymore. I’ve always learned simply by listening — instructors that force students to take notes were the worst because I would be too busy scrambling to write things down than actually listening and learning.
All of this goes out the window when it comes to foreign language though. I have to do everything old school: textbooks, pencil and paper, and if it’s a non-Latin character set I have to write the same characters over and over for hours.
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bryndos
in reply to undefined • • •For me I always wrote as i listened, still do often.
I rarely read the notes back.
'Revision' was just writing a whole new set of notes either from memory or from sources.
Then, never reading that set of notes.
Massive waste of paper and ink, but it's part of how i pay attention.
Most of my lecturers did provide printouts of all the slides, but I'd scribble all over them anyway.
Typing doesn't do the same thing at all for me.
LainTrain
in reply to undefined • • •Wildmimic
in reply to undefined • • •sensualsunset
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Sunshine (she/her)
in reply to faizalr • • •Tollana1234567
in reply to faizalr • • •addie
in reply to Tollana1234567 • • •I got myself a remarkable after seeing a colleague use one and thinking they were cool. An astonishing price for what is essentially a kindle that you can write on, but that is essentially the entirety of its functionality right there. No web browser, no ebook integration, no keyboard, just a thing for scribbling notes with a big battery life. No distractions.
As such, it's completely ideal for my work diary, meeting notes, D'n'D notes, maps for games that I've been playing, random scribbles, all sorts. Quite a lot lighter than the thousands of sheets of paper that would be required otherwise. Also not as rude as popping open a laptop when you're meeting someone - they can see you're just making notes and writing to-dos.
frongt
in reply to Tollana1234567 • • •shneancy
in reply to faizalr • • •JollyG
in reply to shneancy • • •mang0
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Nikls94
in reply to mang0 • • •ratten
in reply to Nikls94 • • •Akrenion
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ShaggySnacks
in reply to ratten • • •SlartyBartFast
in reply to faizalr • • •blackn1ght
in reply to faizalr • • •Title is misleading:
The second sentence contradicts the first:
then
So basically he's not taking a laptop in to the lecture hall to take notes etc but is still using a computer to complete his work. Which makes sense as pen & paper in that environment is way more practical anyway.
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Akuchimoya
in reply to blackn1ght • • •blackn1ght
in reply to Akuchimoya • • •rustydrd
in reply to blackn1ght • • •ratten
in reply to faizalr • • •Laptops are extremely useful. It really doesn't make sense to avoid them.
I pretty much treat mine as my second brain.
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Dasus
in reply to ratten • • •Just remember to back that shit up.
Nothing like forgetting your brain on public transport and getting instant amnesia for the past five years.
BeeegScaaawyCripple
in reply to ratten • • •