Agreed, energy density isn’t really very relevant from a grid perspective; space is pretty abundant when you’re talking about an entire grid region.

I was definitely hinting at the dispatch-ability of PV in my other comments, but you totally have the idea.

And it’s going to be batteries totally. At the publicly owned power utility I work at, I actually was in the energy storage technology group for a small stint. Whole purpose of the group was just running feasibility analyses on installing utility-scale batteries.

The core issue is batteries at scale are a completely infant technology. We had proposals that were literally straight out of graduate research. That’s great and all for the technology development, but my company only cares about reliability, dispatch-ability, and competitive rates. We’re not interested in prototypes.

I’d keep a close eye on molten salt batteries and flow batteries. I think those are the most developed. Especially flow batteries, companies like Sumitomo are making pretty big progress in Japan, and starting to move over to the US.

But again, issue is scale. A useful battery for a medium-sized utility is something like 50MW at 4 hours duration (equivalent to something like a peaker unit, though not all that useful for nighttime baseload). And this battery would be something in the range of like $250M. And a comparable gas peaker unit, about $80M, and that unit can run 24/7.

So the economics at utility scale are getting there, but we’re not there yet.

I do look forward to a 99% solar and battery grid though. With that 1% filled by emergency natural gas.

Solar can go in more diverse locations, absolutely. Especially advantageous because solar can be installed right on top of the buildings that need electricity. Lowers dependence on already-overloaded transmission lines.

Just from a utility perspective, it’s a lot simpler, easier to buy a plot of industrial zoned land, and stick a combined cycle on it. This is enough to power an entire medium city, 24/7.

Compared to logistically working with a massive number of private property owners to install solar on their property. And the result of all that work is enough to power the same city from 7 in the morning to 7 at night.

From a power-generated-per-area perspective, PV is about 500x less dense than a modern gas-fired combined cycle.

I used to be a hunt-and-peck typist. For me, first you have to build muscle memory for key fingerings, which key is pressed by what finger. Then you can start to get faster. Building a strong foundation first.

I would have this site open on one window: www.keybr.com

And this image on another for reference:

KeyBR has “levels” where you work on a specific set of letters first, until you’re fast enough and they give you the next set of letters, adding on to what you’ve already done.

Once you’ve completed all letters, you stop progressing and just type words with all letters.

For me, after my first completion of keyBR, I spent a day or so practicing at the “endgame.” After that, I’d restart the entire module from scratch, back to the individual letters. Rinse and repeat.

After about a month or two, I was already touch-typing.

Then I got really into monkeytype.com, and started typing faster and faster.

I think your local offerings can be a big factor. I grew up in scouts, loved my experience for the most part.

But talking with other people about their experiences can be a mixed bag. Each troop has its own priorities, the national Scouting organization gives troops a lot of flexibility on how they want to run their operation.

My troop, for example, was huge on outdoor activities. We had monthly camping trips, sometimes more than one a month. We did participate in organized “scouting events” as well with other troops, but that was sort of secondary.

Other troops are big on “scouting achievements” like merit badges, “scouting societies” like Order of the Arrow, medals and honors kinda thing, I felt like that would be a bit of a drag. But to each their own.

Also using Booklore with 2 Kobos, works great!

Although annotation syncing isn’t supported yet, I believe there’s a pull request for it already.

I’d recommend setting up StremIO + Torrentio + Real Debrid (takes about a half hour to setup)

About $35/year, almost flawless streaming. Nearly all content available.

Reddit guide

You can PM for help on it if needed, I’ve set them up for tons of friends

I also use Frigate!

Piggybacking to also recommend Tailscale to OP for external access. Not 100% self hosted, but solves the DDNS issue. And works well with Frigate in my experience.

Hey I did exactly this a few years ago! Uses an optocoulper for isolation. I flashed ESPHome on it and connected it to my Home Assistant instance.

Works like a charm!

I also hard wired the ESP power pins to the PC via a spare USB header. Then I enabled a BIOS setting to keep USB ports powered when shut down, so it’s a super seamless install.

Only problem I’m having with it lately is since I run a dual boot system, my default GRUB option is Linux, but sometimes (unfortunately) I need to get into Windows. It’s a bit of a pain to have to update grub to change the default then restart again. I’d rather build in some sort of selection functionality the first time it boots.

I’ve been playing around with using another ESP32 as a filesystem USB device, then having grub read the content of a file on said ESP32, either “windows” or “linux”, then booting accordingly. That’s a work in progress tho

Power company engineer here, it’s true that a lot of our supporting and analytics software went down during the AWS event.

However, most devices that actually control grid units (called bulk electric system cyber-assets) are air-gapped or utilize a data diode.

FERC Reliability Standards and NERC CIP

However-er, flipping through those standards just now, turns out it’s 100% permitted to connect your “bulk electric system cyber-asset” to a cloud integration if done compliantly.

I personally use Frigate, which is default free, but has a plus tier for $50 a year (has custom AI training/models instead of default’s standard model).

Personally has all the features I’d want, curious what BlueIris brings, I’ve heard a bit about it.

I also used to pronounce Gnome this way.

I’ll add I used to say “deb eye ann”, for Debian

And used to say “uh lie us”, for alias

I didn’t have a lot of people to talk about Linux with lol

Unfortunately still have to use W11 for some anti-cheat games I play with friends :(

But being forced to update to 11 motivated me to come back to Linux on a PC. I already have a little homelab with all the flavors, but was wondering how it would game on my desktop.

Ultimately went with Debian + KDE on a second SSD, and it’s just awesome. Especially coming from WSL on my desktop, it’s just so seamless.

Had a little trouble getting Nvidia drivers for my relatively new card (Debian’s latest proprietary driver still didn’t support it lol), so I had to use the official Nvidia repo. And it was a little tricky signing it for Secure Boot, but other than that, awesome.

Need to run better side-by-side tests, but it at least feels like a 10% or so performance improvement.

Thank you Linux! And fuck Fortnite, release a Linux port already!

Ente

Just got my new NAS drives, so about to make the transition.

It’s actually new drives, and a new host. I’ve been running my old Synology NAS for years. But decided I ought to switch to a “real” NAS through Proxmox.

Just set up a simple samba container with Cockpit as a web manager, so far working really well. But I want to validate backups before I start moving all the irreplaceable data.

Something I’m excited about is using my old Synology NAS as an automatic, off-site backup once I transition. Heard about Duplicati from a friend, sounds like a great syncing solution.

Other than that I’ve been looking into using Apple HomeKit features with my Home Assistant devices. And also planning to move my hardware from the cheap Amazon floor shelf to a real 19” rack.

Interesting, hadn’t heard about the situation in SF. That’s unfortunate.

And yes… good old SB2. CA had a relatively lax CCW policy, until we became a “shall issue” state. Now there’s all this policy reform.

If the final part of SB2 kicks in, it’ll be pointless to have a CCW. The last part changes private property that’s open to the public from a default permitted carry, to a default not permitted.

So any business that wants to allow lawful CCW would need to clearly place a sign to opt-in. Which isn’t happening in this state lol.

Fortunately that last part is still being “stayed”. But so was the entire bill at one point. So I’m not holding my breath.

I totally acknowledge that we need gun control, but not restrictions. And going after CCW holders? Literally the owners with the highest level of training? Most compliant with the law? Bananas.

But anyway, I see where you’re originally coming from. It is kinda death by a thousand cuts. Slowly eroding away at gun rights. In the worst way… Criminals could care less about what’s legal, hence criminal.

As far as CCW policy, it’s my understand that cities are very aligned with the state DOJ. I’ve looked at a few policies in the past across cities, and they’re basically cookie-cutter.

As far as issuing, yea, it’s up to your local sherif.

I wasn’t aware of local-specific excise taxes for firearms. The state does have that 11% one though.

Very curious about that renter ban, haven’t heard of that one.

Not trying to be argumentative, just enjoy the nuances of CA gun laws lol

And I agree, on your sentiment. I don’t have any issues with firearm regulation, I just want it applied with common sense. The state of CA’s gun laws feel like they’re a shitty compromise. The guns right’s group fight against the “ban all guns” group, and what’s left is this. Both sides are uncompromising and take little wins here and there. But the environment it creates is weird, and doesn’t flow well. And definitely doesn’t do any favors for law abiding owners.

I’m not aware of any significant local laws in CA. Other than the SF law outlawing sales.

Which one are you referring to?

While California does have a lot more regulation around guns, I don’t think it’s necessary prohibitive. As much as the right claims it is.

We’ve got a written test, takes all of 20 minutes, not difficult if you have common sense and all the questions are online.

Then you have to demonstrate to the salesman that you can safely operate the firearm (load and unload). I’d hope someone purchasing a firearm would be capable of this.

Finally there’s the 10 day cooldown period. So you can’t walk out same day with the gun. I do think this one is kinda annoying. It totally makes sense for your first gun, but why do I have to wait every time?

The rest just comes down to model and configuration availability. Restricted to the handgun roster, but there’s still a decent amount available. Restricted to 10 round magazines, I don’t like this one either. And generally restricted to featureless shotguns and rifles.

But if you wanted to, you could go today and start the purchase of a featureless AR15-style rifle with a detachable 10 round magazine. And you’d pick it up 10 days from now. So I don’t think it’s extremely prohibitive.

I was talking with a colleague about this. They’ve had a lot of “gang culture” exposure.

Their opinion was it wasn’t a MS13 tattoo.

They said MS13 tattoos were notorious for being massive and blatant, not secretive and subtle.

They elaborated that gang tattoos are used for “repping” and need to be immediately clear who you’re repping for, otherwise it defeats the purpose of showing reputation and providing protection.

Just my $0.02