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DamonHD

4,273 karma · joined April 7, 2017

http://d.hd.org/ https://mastodon.social/@DamonHD

https://www.earth.org.uk/ https://mastodon.energy/@EarthOrgUK

meet.hn/city/51.3817763,-0.2769933/Royal-Borough-of-Kingston-upon-Thames

Socials: - github.com/DamonHD

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submissionscomments
DamonHD··on What's That Burning Smell?
I periodically re-tighten such connections in my much-lower-powered off-grid system. 10A is the most I expect to see in any part of mine. I have had overheats from poor connections.
DamonHD··on Can anti-fraud make large-scale attacks unprofitable?
It's always about costs - cost to run the service, cost to abuse the service.

I was founder/CTO of a UK small e-money issuer, and while I am no fan of Musk, at PayPal he made a good observation that while the money handling bit is not so hard, the anti-fraud part is.

I also created/ran an early UK ISP, helped moderate a busy (US) forum, etc, etc, and I observe that while you generally cannot eliminate bad behaviour, you can make it costly enough that you stop being the easy target and attention goes elsewhere...

And you should have a range of broad signals to evaluate with.

DamonHD··on UK households free to install plug-in balcony solar panels from end of August
In the UK as a consumer you can (always AFAIK) get a smart meter for free, and your retail supplier is required to offer you a non-zero rate (the "Smart Export Guarantee") for what you export back to the grid. That can be as high as about half the rate to import.
DamonHD··on UK households free to install plug-in balcony solar panels from end of August
Those risks are covered.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/plug-in-solar

DamonHD··on UK households free to install plug-in balcony solar panels from end of August
The US is a patchwork, but it is legal in some places, including Utah!

https://grist.org/buildings/balcony-solar-is-taking-state-le...

More in other links on my page too: https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-G83-lite.html#sources

DamonHD··on Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
Ofc I meant 8kW! Eeek.

But also it is unlikely that we used 24kWh in any one day ever.

DamonHD··on German startup offers solar awnings
For a retractable you probably wouldn't be doing that more than once a day, and probably not for more than half a year, and less if if winds don't get too high. I can imagine 10Y life might be reasonable. But these don't seem to be retractable.

"The systems use monocrystalline solar cells backed by a 10-year product warranty."

DamonHD··on Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
My home is in London UK and is relatively small and efficient, but 8kWh may be higher than our peak demand ever over more than 20 years in this house...
DamonHD··on Count Binface
Do you mean "must be able to sit in Parliament"? The Lords and Commons are the two distinct chambers.

There have been non-MP (ie non-Commons) PMs.

DamonHD··on FCC approves test of space mirror to light night sky
Obvs "MaaS" capitalisation for the full stock valuation.

Obvs(2) a variant of this service has traditionally been provided for free by drunken teens. They might prove to be better and more thoughtful custodians of investment funds.

DamonHD··on Eight facts about air conditioning amid an overheated global debate
Note that this is a UK-focused piece.
DamonHD··on Why I use the GPL and not cuck licenses
You are constructing a universe that simply does not exist or apply to me at least. I and my code are just not that important or special in the grand scheme of things.
DamonHD··on Why I use the GPL and not cuck licenses
You seem to be asserting some simple zero-sum exclusionary game here that does not exist. I am entirely content if Amazon or Google extracts some value - that in no way inhibits anyone else doing so in reality. But to me the far more important case - a messy long tail - is smaller organisations such as the small telco that used a few lines of my code to help avoid early smart-ish picture phones on their network blowing each other up with malformed JPEGs. Said telco could not have released the exchange's software suite under GPL if I'd had that 8 lines of my Java under GPL rather than Apache.
DamonHD··on Why I use the GPL and not cuck licenses
Availability to use, without adding other complications, is a key aim. I'm trying to maximise to other people whatever value there is in the work that I've done.
DamonHD··on Why I use the GPL and not cuck licenses
I just gave an example: not all potential users of code can either use GPL-ish code or are profit-driven megacorps such as Google; false dichotomies are false. There are many small or intermediate organisations (and individuals) who would like to use open source code with the fewest legal and admin complications possible. I supported a similar cohort with an early multimedia site with simple free licensing.
DamonHD··on Why I use the GPL and not cuck licenses
It's my (open source) code and I want to make it widely available, ie as open as reasonably possible, including cases such as my past small start-ups with no budget and not able to release everything open source. Why do I have to justify or explain that "why"?
DamonHD··on Why I use the GPL and not cuck licenses
I very much want my (open sourced) code to be used by anyone who wants to use it, in any context, including commercial, and with Apache I also want the patent protection effects.

Using such an inflammatory term to refer to someone's non-preferred style of licence is unhelpful to reasonable debate.

DamonHD··on Why I use the GPL and not cuck licenses
This is simply rude and wrong in its claims that (all) people (such as me) using BSD and Apache licences are doing so out of ignorance, rather than because we know and want the effects that they have.

This childish inflammatory bile rather hurts the standing of GPL and friends, which do have appropriate applications too.

Nuance would have been a fine thing.

DamonHD··on Ask HN: How do founders get early beta testers?
Friends and family and their contacts.
DamonHD··on Occupancy Math on the AMD MI355X: A From-First-Principles Guide
For me the text renders in multiple low contrast fonts which are starting to give me a headache after the first para...
DamonHD··on UK/GB: Plug-in solar: Regulatory amendment and interim product specification
Key parameters: no storage/battery, maximum microinverter output 800W/3.5A, maximum panel kWp 2000W, maximum PV Voc 120V, use of ordinary BS 1363 plug.
DamonHD··on Cleaning up after AI rockstar developers
Hmm, ~30 years ago the compilers that I was using were generating generally fine assembly/machine code. Some of the other tooling was more troublesome: cross platform high performance numerically stable code and C++ static template deduplication paid for a lot of beers around then, and I needed them.
DamonHD··on Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony
My war story from dot-com times is being asked by a (v well known and then horribly imploded) Bay Area start-up what about its hiring form would need to change for the UK (if I was to run the UK office)... So under the "bad things you've done" section I said to change the exclusion from "minor drug stuff" to "fixed-penalty motoring offences"...
DamonHD··on GitHub Is Down
And it came back for me, at least for a refresh or two...
DamonHD··on GitHub Is Down
First time that GitHub has ever been down for me (London, UK):

    504 Gateway Time-out

    The server didn't respond in time.
DamonHD··on I am retiring from tech to live offline
I do not own a car.

I (/we) own outright a small home.

I am happy that I do not need to own a car (in a London UK suburb).

I am happy that I do not need to heat or maintain a large building.

Our outgoings are low. One child is already at university and the other will be soon.

My perception of a common US notion of a 'good' life only intersects somewhat with mine, and I have spent a reasonable amount of time in various US locations from SF to NYC via the midwest, etc.

DamonHD··on I am retiring from tech to live offline
I have asbestos in this modest[0] house: it's not any sort of a problem. (Lead only in my soldering kit in significant quantities so far as I know...)

I always have been fairly frugal and am in semi-retirement now from the residues of my last two small start-ups (to which COVID was unkind, so died simultaneously!).

My extended family has/had big houses, including one in which a famous film was set it seems, but I see those as mainly expensive liabilities. Never owned a car. Etc etc.

[0] As described by a visiting Secretary of State!

DamonHD··on I am retiring from tech to live offline
Wait for the money to evaporate ... more slowly than your remaining lifespan (and dying happy in your own bed for example) is one definition of winning.
DamonHD··on Scammers are abusing an internal Microsoft account to send spam links
Happy note: just had a sensible interaction with my bank where it called me back but the caller understood why NOT to ask data that could be used to access my account, and we managed to resolve the issue that I was having (which, I think, was my error)!
DamonHD··on The real cost of owning a home
> you also know for sure when you're going to leave it

Well, about that...

There is a thing called a Compulsory Purchase Order in the UK, with equivalent in the US for example.

Guess which freehold home owner with two thumbs can expect a CPO sometime in the next 10 years?

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