skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I was under a similar impression, but an independent audit found that while unnecessary staffing (and associated costs) was occurring, it didn't appear that the utility was attempting to sandbag the grid transformation. There's bloat, but also legitimate progress.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/audit-of-hawaiian-electric-...

> Contrary to stakeholder criticism, Hawaiian Electric's support of Hawaii's groundbreaking 100% by 2045 renewable portfolio standard (RPS) has been strong, the audit found. "It has exceeded its mandated obligations" and criticisms "appear to be largely unfounded."

> The problem is cost, it said. Meeting the RPS and the challenge of integrating rooftop solar have led to increased workload and costs, the audit recognized. But Hawaiian Electric increased staffing "with little evidence of any business cases supporting these additions."
Tangential mini-rant: yes. naming things is hard. But we already have 'Nx' -- the monorepo tool.
Here's the Midwest electric grid:

https://www.misoenergy.org/markets-and-operations/real-time-...

Roughly $100.
I had a similar experience with them as well. It definitely surprised me and made me grumpy, but it honestly took half the time as this one because I didn’t put up a fight.

I remember being similarly disgruntled by canceling Prime. Lots of misleading calls-to-action across multiple screens. But something about being forced to talk to a human being really rubbed me the wrong way with the Times.
I don't necessarily agree, but doesn't the parent comment clearly say:

>I'm betting on hyperinflation, though. The reason is that nearly all past hyperinflationary events have come from large sector shifts in aggregate demand and aggregate supply

The user is arguing that large scale shifts in aggregate demand and supply are what is different this time.
BannerBear: https://bannerbear.com/open

Milestones on IndieHackers.com is a lot of journeys: https://www.indiehackers.com/milestones/
Pretty sure that it already does.

https://www.bchydro.com/energy-in-bc/operations/power-tradin...
I would add the reflexive turn in consumer culture from the late 60s on (Bob Dylan, The Graduate, Cool Hand Luke, Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, etc) manufactured the emotional appeal of existential individualism and the absurdity of believing in instutitions and collectivity.

We're basically in the "Beautiful Souls" phase of Hegel's Philosophy of History
GNU, or more properly the FSF, is a non-profit foundation, based on ethical/political ideals. Apple is a private company that maximises revenue and shareholder value. It is true that Apple's stance on privacy is currently better than Facebook, Google et al.,(#) but that has nothing to do with high-minded ideals and everything with it being a marketing benefit for a company that, unlike Google and FB, doesn't maintain power through harvesting user data but by maintaining a tight grip on their ecosystem. The moment that privacy won't sell anymore, Apple will stop caring about it. By contrast, Richard Stallman will probably advocate for user rights until the day he dies, even if nobody should listen to him.

I didn't feel I needed to point this out, but I don't even have to like Richard Stallman to find it almost insulting to compare his passion for fighting in what he truly believes in with the highest-valued company in the world trying to protect their market share at all costs.

> Don’t just grump that “Apple bad”, that’s low quality posting.

It's not "Apple bad", it's "unregulated big tech bad", that includes Apple just as much as Facebook, Amazon, Google, and possibly Epic, although I really don't care about them.

(#) But still nowhere near the level of privacy you can have on e.g. a Linux system running only free software. Apple's privacy track record is good compared to other predatory companies, not necessarily on its own.
Would this not count as "online"? Or is the law specific that a person not be in the loop?
You mean something like this? https://openstartuplist.com/
Every company I've joined has been in a new field that I have never had experience with previously, and that doesn't seem all that rare. People are fairly adaptive.

That VP of sales and CTO will almost certainly do fine. The jobs need to be radically different for it to be worth the morale hit of firing people, and the cost of hiring and onboarding new staff.
COVID Tracking Project is shutting down
How is it legal for them to regulate interstate commerce?
I wasn't able to find the right data to compare it to but it seems to be roughly over 5 time the price compared to Germany and Germany has some of the highest electricity prices in Europe. I.e. compared to some of the Countries with the cheapest electricity in the EU it's something like 15 times the price.

In 2020 the highest wholesale electricity price spike in the US seem to have been $127/MWh with an average of $38/MWh.
Linus Tech Tips recently did a video about Starlink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh1a2K9ZgNA
The incredible thing is that despite not having to compete with wired connections, it is almost competitive with them.

They likely have to price it a bit above wired connections just to keep load manageable in dense areas, but it puts an upper bound on how badly monopolist incumbents can treat their customers.

While I don't think it will actually replace cable/fiber, I think it will drive prices down and service quality/customer treatment up, so its existence is a huge benefit even for people in populated areas that will never actually use it.
Yes. For example, F-Droid, the FOSS store requires a rooted phone to be able to install/update applications on it's own. Even itself.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged...
Developers Say Cloud Development Still Too Manual and Complex
> If you are in a regulated market or are using the regulated utilities like ConEd in NYC, you'll see limited rate increases to deal with the increased cost to supply. These rate increases need to be approved by the state's Public Utility Commission.

If deregulated suppliers are having to raise prices to cover costs, wouldn't that apply to regulated suppliers as well? Unless they have enough cash on hand to ride it out, then they will have to raise prices or go bankrupt. I would feel like the risk of bankruptcy would be higher if they have limited ability to raise prices.

I'm assuming regulated and deregulated suppliers operate similarly. I don't know if regulated suppliers are required to have some sort of backup for this situation.
Gas-based electrical generation is what are failing right now! They are failing left and right! If 100% was gas there would be more problems, not less.

Wind and Solar is pulling above planned generation right now.

If you believe your logic, time to go all-in on wind + solar.
I have the same dream. We just need the connectivity: internet/communications (like via Starlink), and transportation (safe VTOL aircraft for everyone.) Without those things the decentralization of civilization will not be possible.
Yep, we definitely have learned from all our mistakes. Bad actors and the internet of things won’t come close. Right?
If the weather was very moderate then you can get a very high renewables percentage, but that is only because total use is very low.
Not sure how any of that magically creates better politicians, and it's worth mentioning that some people really enjoy large cities and the idea of a megalopolis.

However, I do agree that Starlink could be the answer to impoverished areas not having readily available internet. This is something I hope to see change as a result, as it would really reinforce some of the early sentiments Elon put out a long while ago.
Obviously the blower and controller don’t consume anywhere near the amount of energy that gas delivers, but it consumes more than most people think. The blower on a typical furnace consumes 75-400W per hour of operation, depending on whether or not it’s a single speed or variable speed type.

400 watts per hour isn’t a huge amount of power, a space heater consumes about 1,300 watts per hour, but it’s still a pretty decent chunk of electricity. A deep discharge marine battery (common for cheap backup power) could keep a larger blower running for maybe 3 hours tops, assuming an unreasonable 100% discharge and 100% conversion efficiency. So, not a lot, but still something that you’d need some pretty specialized backup gear to run.
> And the encryption policy? The Privacy policy? The data-mining-of-location-history policy?

What's the difference between this and any other ISP?
To continue with alt-music analogies, I am a big fan of alt-country (bands like Wilco, Son Volt, etc) who were the alternative to the dominant pop-country genre. IIRC in recent years that genre has influenced pop country but never really merged with it.
That is the promise of Microsoft HoloLens and similar devices to enable that scenario.
I have used it and it seems to work pretty well, they just set up a complete integration with 1Password so I trust them because of that as well.
https://www.reddit.com/user/ImmediateAd9633/draft/122a451c-7...
The Frankfurt School boys are definitely laughing their asss off right now somewhere

I would also add that we're definitely in the "Beautiful Souls" phase of Hegel's Philosophy of History
Props to you for looking into it! Economics and finance are really complicated. Bank lending decisions are based on risk and profit opportunities, and not at all on reserves availability. QE mostly just substitutes central bank money for the balance sheet "bank money" in M2, increasing reserves and lowering longer term interest rates without flowing immediately into the real economy. Lower interest rates encourage lending and investment, but do not force it. It's a lot more subtle of a tool.
Because I'm not limited by what the store decides they want to sell me. For example, there's no PornHub application on the Apple App Store. Similarly, Apple has been under fire recently for blocking streaming games, such as Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Streaming or Google Stadia even though it's functionally not different than Netflix's movie streaming, just with input. Or even blocking Steam's remote control Steam Link app from accessing the store: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/05/apple-reversal-allows...

Does them blocking those help me in any way? No, it is just to protect Apple's profits because they want to take a cut. You can't even pay for Netflix through the app, because Apple want their cut.
Reminds me of the old MCI telemarketers. You'd tell them you're not interested in their long distance service, and the rejoinder would be "You don't want to save money?"

I've been witness to a number of cold callers having their heritage and species loudly questioned for using this tactic.
I'd argue that's a consequence of creditors bearing the risk of default. The risk is high both because the business may go under, and because the business has few assets that can be liquidated.
The average price paid for residential^W power in California last year was 16 cents, not 30, not 40.
By your logic any investment is a ponzi scheme. You buy a stock with the hope that you'll sell it at a higher price later on, etc.
$499 to get the equipment and $99/m for service.

Right now service is locked to the cell you purchase in. The intent is to allow mobility eventually.
>>I believe institutional investors do their research before investing in Bitcoin. Why do they still invest if Tether & Bitfinex are fraud?

Because institutional investors are not people borrowing $50K from loan sharks risking their life and limb to invest in one instrument hoping they'll get lucky.

When you have hundreds of billions to manage, your options are to invest everywhere, even in scammy places.

Bay Area billionaires invest money in lots of start ups, every once in a while you get your Google's, Facebook's, Air BnB's and they make up for what they lost else where.

You can use this strategy too. Invest $10 or $50 in lottery'ish places every time you come along one. If you find something pays off, spend a little more there. Take you money out when you have decent returns without getting too greedy.
Please note that not all "Sharia-compliant" financing models are in fact, Sharia compliant. As a matter of fact, many of them aren't (unfortunately). What ended up happening is that many so called "Sharia compliant" solutions are simply changing the names (and some minor mechanisms) of modern day usurious offerings (e.g. bonds, mortgages), and then slapped the "Sharia" label on them. However, talk to proper scholars and they will tell you that they're nothing but usury in disguise.

That being said, I've seen some good attempts at producing proper Sharia compliant offerings. But most people will not want them, because they have true risk sharing, unlike the modern financial system which feeds off the poor and widens the gap.
My understanding is that limitation is mostly technical and managerial at this point, to help manage things in the early stages. I would too imagine this being eliminated later on.
This is what I was doing in 1980.

With emerging digital tools at the time which made it possible to store & retrieve datasets that I was already interpreting in detail anyway.

Since it was programmable too, ended up using the memory to store the key points from many permutations of well-characterized raw training data, then running that against new datasets to give me advice on how to save time on the greatly reduced manual work remaining.
The lightning network is very tested, it just isn't used because it is a nonsense idea that no one wants.
Same, then you get bombarded with ads on Amazon for a free trial despite the fact you're logged into your Amazon account and Amazon knows damn well you're not eligible for the free trial anymore. I quit Audible after prices stopped being related to length. At the $17 a pop for the three-hour books I was buying it was going to cost me $900 to get the whole series. Nope!
Don't short it. The market can stay irrational much much longer than you can stay solvent.
Many folks don’t know or forgot that there are ISPs in the US that do deep packet inspection and inject banner ads into http traffic.
This would just permanently entrench existing wealth structures. Gated communities will be celebrating at what you suggested. It would be the end of economic mobility. Great for the long tail, not so great for those left of the power law.
Does anyone know how many users can be supported per dense area? Would this make sense in a city of 10k? 100k? 1M? Generally speaking Starlink goes against one of the main ideas in 5G, namely that of small cells.
Lending money is absolutely essential to the development of any society. Lending is not predatory by it's nature, or harmful, or destructive. The US for example would not have coast to coast and border to border high quality road and other transportation infrastructure if not for lending. This infrastructure increase the productivity of the nation, allowing that debt to be paid back, decreased the cost of transportation for everyone and increased the standard of living for everyone in the US.

Think of it like this: if you are borrowing money for anything that does not increase your productivity, you're making a mistake. If you're lending money to someone for something that does not increase their productivity, you're increasing your risk of default substantially.

It isn't about greed, fact is, sometimes people need money they don't have, and sometimes people have money they don't need at this very moment, and if both parties make a good, sound judgment, both can benefit from this scenario. Every day people make their lives better by borrowing money. The view that lending and borrowing are innately bad is a very narrow minded view, one based on ignorance of the facts of how lending works.
Substack. Citizen journalism is the future. The MSM solely exist to make every problem your problem through an omnipresent stream of manufactured outrage.
To their credit, they tell you pretty plainly that the monthly subscription is a year-long commitment.

I also find that they're usually pretty willing to keep adding new customer promos if you threaten to cancel because their price went up.
If I wanted to mine a bitcoin to buy a tesla that is going to use some electricity.
Transaction fees are pretty important when trying to do transactions, which is pretty much all bitcoin does.
Renewables are more than capable of supplying "base load". What you're referring to is a fallacy.
They do the same stuff with the paper end. Back in the day used to get it delivered... excruciating time canceling it... for a couple weeks it would keep showing up on the doorstep, and they couldn’t tell me why the cancel didn’t go through.

The process was so abysmal I vowed never to do business with them. It’s a shame.

I dealt with a lot of print companies for some of my business back in the day. The business people would always complain that the editorial boards hated what they did... but then they just replied, “who’s going to pay your salary to write your articles”.

I still think journalism needs a better business model. Ads conflict with honest content, and subscriptions don’t pay the bills when it’s easy to get free news from other less reputable sources.
We just released a new version that has the "about" and "create room" segments flipped around :))

https://jam.systems
Nice try, Facebook.
That's true, I also like some aspects of large cities, especially on the East coast (NYC).

I was thinking that better politicians because of conciousness of the community towards its own governance, we already do that but very poorly. I don't even know who the politicians are in my own county. No idea what they do and I don't know if we have a local newspaper in our county. May be I should engage in town halls and local politics.
From 3rd Jan 2009 until today, "Many often lose everything" is not true. All holdings are in the money. We don't know of the future.

BTC is no more a ponzi than any asset class.
Take a look at https://assetdash.com/
BTC is currently the 6th most valuable asset class by market cap (ignoring that market cap for coin isn't quite the same thing). Literally every asset on that list fits this definition, eg: 'Hope for a greater fool'.

The thing is, in all asset classes, it tends to be the way that early investors reap massive gains. Housing. Stocks. Cryptocurrency.
The great thing for you is it is still very early days for Cryptocurrency.
It was only invented in 2009!

What should be concerning is the sustainability of a 'scheme'. When unlimited USD can be printed at the desires of the administration, how can a fixed emission asset NOT outperform something inflationary?
Wind and solar are above planned generation right now, which was 0. In ERCOT wind has been making less than 6 GW out of 33 GW installed for over 7 days straight [1]. Natural gas is pulling almost all the weight right now, as you can see. So no, not time to go all in on wind + solar.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/EEbf5lM.png (screenshot from EIA, original data here: https://www.eia.gov/beta/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/e...)

Your first statement is partially true. The ERCOT "planners" expected their gas capacity to basically always be there, and the fact that 30 GW of thermal capacity is offline for various weather-related reasons is the primary reason the power is out.

But the remaining gas is pulling almost all the weight keeping people alive so we shouldn't neglect that.
How is that not fraudulent? Obviously they're not giving you online access anymore or sending you papers once your card gets declined for a month-to-month subscription.
I promise small towns have plenty of NIMBYs and people who believe the slight delay they are experiencing is a traffic jam as well.
With an interest bearing loan, the bank will come after the borrower's assets, seeking not just the principal, but the interest on top, until they milk them dry.

This is just one reason why lending money with interest is immoral. Read up about Islam's position on this issue if you want to learn more. It's quite eye opening, and sad that we have to live in a world that is based on fundamentally evil and corrupt financial practices.
Not everything you dislike is cancel culture.

I for one can't wait for stadia to sink.
If Facebook made it this hard to cancel, there would be a New York Times article about it.
We paid 33 cents / kWh on the bay area last year. Not sure how the rest of CA is doing.
Think of it this way "You just dodged a bullet. Any company that would do that you wouldn't want to work for."

It may not be entirely and literally true, but it's certainly metaphorically true and good to run with.
Nuclear plants are the worst possible way to reduce energy costs. They are also incredibly massive single points of failure, so they tend to reduce reliability compared to more distributed smaller generation units. Germany, for example, has seen reliability increase massively as they shift towards more distributed renewables, even though it's not a super high penetration level.

As we shift to more renewables and start to install more and more grid storage, and even home storage, reliability will increase massively. Those people with solar and batteries that can island their homes are completely fine the past few days.

We have a much more modern, cost effective, and scalable set of technologies now than we did in the 1970s. I don't see how nuclear can compete on any level, as it's incredibly inefficient and has proven that it can't scale in the modern world.
Though I will say, asset prices are not determined directly by central bank actions, there is a third component that pushes both asset prices and central bank policy - the global supply/demand of savings vs investment opportunities. Which is driven mostly by demographics, looking at China in particular. I've commented about this before. There is an interesting hypothesis that the global deflationary and asset price-increasing forces will wane as China's economy becomes more consumer focused and as working age people in China age out of the labor force, thus moving from the net-saving part of the lifecycle to the net-spending part. It's very plausible, unless that population bulge bracket is replaced again by another massive, increasingly-affluent population, say in a fast developing India or Africa.

On the inequality side, it is a bit unfortunate to be in the workforce at this time competing with the massive influx of other savers, bidding up productive assets to save for retirement, enriching the people who were "lucky" enough to be in the generation before that population/affluence boom. But there's not really anything that can be done about it, not without tightening financial conditions enough that it has severe negative effects for the labor market.
>> The telos of the politician is -- in the strictest sense of the term -- tragic. It is his job to make hard judgement calls between equally important, but opposing values.

I don’t really agree. A good politician is like a good manager: he empowers those under him by making sure they have the resources they need, removes the obstacles in front of them, and shields them from outside interference. It is not his job to make bold decisions on his own and without any input.
It wasn't the poweder it was the rifle. Before the rifle you could have armies face each other in a sword type formation and shoot, so few bullets would hit that this wasn't that costly in lives. By the civil war a good shooter could always expect to hit where he aimed.

The civil war sometimes had 3 people reloading guns for the marksman. The faster loading guns to come latter just eliminated that.

Even today, the machine gun isnisn't expected to hit. Sharpshooters are one shot one kill and take time to aim. The machine gun is about keeping the enemy undercover while your guys do something. Anyone who dies in machines gun fire it was their own stupid fault.