fellowmortal

fellowmortal , 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

Please understand that negative prices are the market for electricity breaking down! That is not a good thing. It should mean that if you have solar panels on your roof you have to pay to participate in the national grid because you are dumping energy into the grid when it can't use it, but special rules have been made for renewable plants. Literally, imagine a contract-to-supply for wind or solar...

fellowmortal , 8 days ago

Denmark looking decidedly not green this morning. Check the map regularly to understand why unreliable energy is actually just a way of increasing gas usage...

fellowmortal , 8 days ago

No, there is pumped storage. Honestly, despite the plethora of start-ups claiming to have a solution (sodium batteries, molten-salt, etc) The only really proven way to store electricity for later is pumped storage, but that relies on geography (hills) which not everyone has. Batteries are great for phones, and cars but they simply don't scale to countries.

fellowmortal , 8 days ago

This is wrong. Right now, europe is experiencing high pressure and doesn't have any wind. Check this out its map that shows you how much wind is being produced right now! Can you provide a source that says " the wind is always blowing somewhere" or is it just a platitude?

fellowmortal , 8 days ago

Yeah! Let's dig a big hole till we hit lava and then throw everything into it. :)

fellowmortal , 8 days ago

Negative energy prices are a bad thing! That means that someone is dumping energy into the grid (you should be paying the grid if you have solar panels!!) In the UK all renewable energy had to be called 'experimental' so that the pricing was fixed and the government picks up the tab - that's not good. Check this map - right now the wind isn't blowing and solar hasn't got out of bed - so most of the countries using renewables are looking shit - later today solar will kick in, but tonight it will be bad again. That isn't a solution.

fellowmortal , 8 days ago

The fact that you descend into complete science fiction should give you pause for thought. I doubt it will, but please think about how fantastical your proposed solutions are - "a massive lake of molten salt under every city" (I actually like that one!)...

fellowmortal , 7 days ago (edited 7 days ago)

That is actually very impressive. Thanks! I remain a bit skeptical as its only 1/5th of what they need and it's only one region of one (rich) country. Still, 10GW of lithium battery would be one hell of a fire ;-)

fellowmortal , 7 days ago

Sorry - What?

You said Denmark had converted to green energy. I pointed out that they haven't done anything like that. You are now moving the goal posts and saying "where is the comparative essay defending nuclear power"...

If you must, France turned completely green in the 70s. So they've provided 50 years of clean energy. Its a classic story and not as simple as I'm going to make out, but still. Look at the map link in the last post - any area that stays green is either using hydro or nuclear. Hydro is great, but you need mountains and water.

fellowmortal , 1 month ago

Just a thought... Google wrote the 'we have no moat' document. Is it possible that they are intentionally trying to turn public opinion against AI? [no moat document] It's a bit like they are intentionally churning out shit AI (it won't damage their monopoly) to turn people against using AI (which might topple some serious business interests)... In short you're right, but I get suspicious when big business seems to be doing the right thing. :D
[edit: espirit d'escalier!]

fellowmortal , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

I have thought about this from time to time. I want good surveillance, but I also don't want to lose control of the video.

I think that the solution that I favor right now is a Wyze cam V2 or similar flashed with openmiko. edit:(I had to buy wyze v2 cameras from the US on ebay to get v2 versions, user:@ashok36@ashok36 suggests in this comment to use v3 and Wyzemini firmware - this might do the job. clarification: the point is to replace the manufacturer's firmware which will phone home with something open source that you could audit)

These can be attached via USB or wifi interface to a server with zoneminder (https://zoneminder.com/) From there you could think about offsite records too and motion detection etc. [edit: wifi is useful as I don't want to rewire the house - though could be blocked (or the router could be unplugged!) if you are expecting technically savvy criminals. A solution here would be to use an old router on a separate wifi network, put somewhere where most of the property would have been traversed before it could be accessed (e.g. upstairs).]

Having said this, the setup is just fiddly enough that I keep to finding myself finding other stuff to do. [edit: 'Fiddly' is the wrong word, I think its pretty simple, I just find myself wanting more features until the project doesn't happen at all. I'd be clear that this is a feasible DIY project, so long as you accept that 'done' is better than 'perfect']

[edit: One last note - if you host the video yourself, you take responsibility for the security - this means keeping zoneminder and the OS up to date and offsite backups/networks/cameras secure. This is possibly something that a company is better at (but don't bet on it!). However, you are also a smaller attack target (because bad actors only get your video) so blackmailing you with whatever you do in your surveilled place is less valuable than having the same data for 1000s of people. Also, if someone has access to your home network - they can set up man-in-the-middle attacks and steal your bank details - you have to be doing something interesting in front of those cameras for it to be worth more than the contents of your bank account.]

edit:clarity/details