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hettygreen

Re:The US state replacing power plants with home batteries on Wednesday September 30, 2026 @12:05AM (#49904231)
Here's a better article:

https://electrek.co/2026/07/28/vermonts-largest-energy-sourc...

Seems like they supply each person with 2 Tesla powerwalls for the $55/month and get a reduction in their bills that depends on how much power they choose to share to the grid during power outages.

They've already closed down 2 peaker power plants because of this, so it doesn't seem to just be about handling power outages, but also handling fluctuating power usage instead of firing up extra power plants.

So is this what all the datacenters are for?
Re:The Ploopy A+ Trackball Is Here on Saturday August 15, 2026 @04:20AM (#49308798)
This paragraph is wild to me:

"The original Adept had six buttons. However, ever since we released the original Adept, the PCBs have contained two unpopulated lands for additional switches. Our intention was always to eventually move to eight buttons. The A+ finally lives up to the ambition that we set for ourselves back in 2023."

So they designed it to have 8 switches from the start - but then hid 2 of them so they'd have a "new version" once the sales of the old one slowed down. I don't know if that's genius or sad capitalism...

This is why I thoroughly enjoyed building my Prusa as a kit. You see little tricks like this, including this exact one. Or how they embed threaded nuts, or how the print is shaped and oriented to be made without supports, etc. Building the prusa saved a bit of money, but was also a crash course in how to design.
Re:Balcony Solar: $1.74/watt direct plug-in solar on Wednesday July 29, 2026 @04:11PM (#49102396)
If this plugs into the house wiring through a single standard 120V plug, only half of the plugs in the house would ever draw energy from the solar panel.

Household wiring actually has 2 separate 120V supply lines, out of phase with each other (This is how you can get 240V outlets (ovens, driers)). The 120V lines connect to only one of these two lines, and which one it connects to is determined by what slot the breaker is plugged into at the breaker box.

I'd love to see an answer to this question..

You'd think the datacenter boom would have happened during COVID when everyone was stuck at home ordering everything online, streaming everything and doing zoom calls all day as they work from home.

But the fact that it's happening now is weird. Everyone I know has cooled on AI, even my most AI loving friends are no longer using it for art, porn or therapy.

So is it all speculative? Companies hoping to get in on the "AI goldrush"?

Could this be nefarious? Instead of one big underground secret military datacenter, distribute a resilient network of regular datacenters all around the country that are also used for civilian purposes.

I'd love to own one of these!

It could fold my laundry while I'm busy working from home as a teleoperator for Weave Robots.

Re:Thomann takes legal action against Fender on Wednesday June 24, 2026 @06:51PM (#48666545)
F*ck em - let them have that body shape. Seriously at this point do we need more stratocaster shaped guitars?

There's so many cool companies doing unique body shapes, if you're gonna take the time to build a guitar why not put some thought into the design?

Re:The AI Hate Progression on Thursday June 18, 2026 @06:15PM (#48592383)
Serious question: Is AI just being hyped and forced so hard because so many people hold stocks in it?
Re:AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale on Thursday May 21, 2026 @03:57PM (#48228142)
How much were people fined for downloading MP3's off Napster?

And what should AI companies be fined for downloading the entire internet?

Don't forget openAI has been caught several times training their models on copywritten material.

Then it replaces 3 people's jobs, requiring paying 3 UBI's in this thought experiment.
Cha-Ching! I bet $2000 that this guy was going to get charged.
Re:Sam Altman's home targeted in second attack on Tuesday April 14, 2026 @01:56AM (#47761772)
found sam's account
Re:Agent Reading Test on Tuesday April 07, 2026 @12:47AM (#47670866)
At this point I wonder if AI's get updated just to recognize and deal with specific tests like this.

In comparison to solving the root issues, it's gotta be easier to add a few extra lines of code to intervene if someone is asking about walking or driving to the carwash or wanting to know how many "r"'s in the word strawberry.

I wonder if AI is the opaque interesting tech it says it is, but also it's thousands of extra if statements catching known/published/problematic/embarrassing inconsistencies.

Anyone here work for any of the big AI companies? Is it just one big black-box, or a black-box with thousands of intervention points and guard rails?

Can anyone provide a breakdown for what all these new data centers are used for?

Is this storage? If so, storing what?

Is this for AI/processing? If so, doing what?

This looks really cool..

Let me ask a dumb question. Can this be run on a public server (I use dreamhost) with a web interface for others to see? Or is this strictly something that gets run on a local computer?

Re:Put the zip code first on Saturday March 07, 2026 @11:00PM (#47294287)
Americaaaa.. fuck ya!
Re:The Wonder of Modern Drywall on Saturday February 14, 2026 @02:13AM (#47012378)
Question: Would this process of creating synthethic gypsum leave any toxic chemicals from the scrubbing process at the coal power plant exhaust?
Re: on Tuesday February 10, 2026 @06:22PM (#46968488)
Filipino here..

I always wondered why "Taxi Cab Simulator 7" looked so realistic.

Re:The Connection Machine CM-1 "Feynman" T-shirt on Monday February 02, 2026 @10:41PM (#46866180)
Replying to myself here - I decided to just actually go read wikipedia about this. Here's the answer:

<quote>

By default, when a processor is executing an instruction, its LED is on. In a SIMD program, the goal is to have as many processors as possible working the program at the same time – indicated by having all LEDs being steady on. Those unfamiliar with the use of the LEDs wanted to see the LEDs blink – or even spell out messages to visitors. The result is that finished programs often have superfluous operations to blink the LEDs.

</quote>

Re:The Connection Machine CM-1 "Feynman" T-shirt on Monday February 02, 2026 @08:26PM (#46865044)
What were the LED's indicating?
Re:The state of Linux music players in 2026 on Tuesday January 27, 2026 @04:22PM (#46787032)
One more vote for FOOBAR2000 under WINE.
Re:SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation on Thursday January 15, 2026 @02:45AM (#46629375)
Hi Phil, sorry to hear that something went down and involved Limor... that's not cool. A few Q's:

1. Will the freenzy be a 100% drop-in replacement for the teensy?

2. Will the freenzy be able to be programmed using teensyduino?

3. PJRC's bootloader is closed-source (I know, I've built 1000 Teensy-LC's after the product's discontinuation). Does that mean you're sourcing bootloaders from PJRC or reverse engineering the bootloader chip?

Opinion 1: If I can't take code written for a Teensy and upload it straight to the Freenzy, then this is not "Teensy Compatible". Likewise if the pinout is not the same, including all of the rear pcb-pads.

Opinion 2: If this is not actually Teensy Compatible, but just "Teensy Inspired", what about branding this as adafruit's own microcontroller and not cut into Paul and Robin's income by selling a totally different product that rides on their name recognition and decade of work?

"It can totally control itself, but we're gonna have a human control it"

also

"the next version is totally ready, but here's a full-size model"

Re:This is not the future on Tuesday December 16, 2025 @03:36PM (#46294060)
Leave Juicero out of this, luddite! goes back to squeezing juice packets into a cup
I spent a few days in Bombay Beach, a small town right on the Salton Sea. There's a community of people that call this place home, most seem to be artists, outcasts or just people drawn to the ability to purchase an entire house for $20,000.

The air is clearly toxic, you smell it the second you get there. To live there means living in olfactory mental ignorance in exchange for affordable housing and community.

Re:Spending on AI Is at Epic Levels. Will It Ever Pay Off? on Saturday September 27, 2025 @09:04PM (#45400862)
Pay off for who? After learning about "The Gospel" [0], does anyone else wonder if spending on AI is actually just an arms race?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-assisted_targeting_in_the_G...

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