I agree with all of this as an electrical engineer in the field. Base load is only base load because of the load profile of devices connected to the grid having either an on or off switch. Most of the time this means motors/HVACs, but the world of electronics is coming to that equipment just like how inverters have changed how we export solar PV and wind to the grid. VFDs, soft starters, and the like will make our industrial processes that much more efficient. We just need to spread awareness and ramp up implementation, just as much as for renewables themselves.

Yep, classic fallacy (? Bias?) of consider relative scales/change over absolute.

Here are some sources that speak about the difference between the two, and how different interpreters of data can use either or to further an argument:

• https://dataschool.com/misrepresenting-data/relative-vs-absolute-change/

• https://stats.mom.gov.sg/SL/Pages/Absolute-vs-Relative-Change-Pitfalls.aspx

• https://www.designreview.byu.edu/collections/design-in-data-figures-absolute-versus-relative-scales

You’re either a troll or a dipshit. They introduced an example where both interests of removing information from the public forum and having the monopoly of reporting on that information work to undermine archiving. It is important for the truth and for public trust that we support Internet Archive and other archivists/historians.

Bruh I’m an electrical engineer and I have no clue if y’all are kapping rn or not lmao

They might not want to give that actress’s identity out out of a respect for privacy. This information could come out in a closed court room, but with the state of viral social media, it might be smart to hold off on unveiling for now.

OpenAI’s actions could just as easily be explained by them seeking to protect their image as much as possible, knowing that if they let the voice stay then bad PR would only grow.

Even if there is no connection to ScarJo in this case, it’s still in OpenAI’s interest to appease the public for the sake of their reputation.

Yeah I thought OpenAI came out and said that they modeled the voice of a different actress, and they don’t want to share their identity out of a respect for privacy.

It could just be a coincidence that Altman tweeted the image from Her, and people made the connection between the voice and ScarJo, especially since she did something extreme similar in that movie.

Could be coincidental. Could not be. We don’t really have the evidence to say either way, but maybe ScarJo’s suit will affect change so that better rights are granted to people and their digital twins.

I just downloaded Bandcamp, and after searching for my favorite artists, almost none are on the platform aside from 1-2. Did a search on like 20-25. This is why I use Spotify. Maybe if artists started acknowledging Bandcamp as a legitimate alternative to Spotify, then of course I’d listen there. But right now most stuff by my favorite bands are either covers or remixes.

Don’t forget that subsidies also swing in the other direction to fossil fuels companies. If we want to eliminate subsidies, then why not for both players so the playing field is even again? Otherwise, giving EVs subsidies might actually level the playing field more than not.

Interesting insight. Thanks for the correction. Perhaps the choice of lexeme “conservatism” would best be swapped for a neologism like “hierarchism” or something to better describe the principles of the school of thought. Otherwise, I made the connection like OC that conservatism = no change, whether good or bad.

Unfortunately for any minority group that seeks change within a group led by the majority, this is true. Perhaps the vitriol against vegans is part of the game of realizing change: there will always be resistance and tendency from some portion of the population to keep things the same as they always were, regardless of whether those things are good for the population itself.

Yeah that was a wrong decision on the vegan’s part. Perhaps this sort of behavior might be acceptable in the public commons, but work is a private space where people join a company for specific purposes. Work and philosophy/politics should not intertwine.

And who knows: if she excluded herself from the breakroom during lunch without notifying others, maybe coworkers would notice and be more willing to hear her out out of a desire to socialize. It probably could have helped her effort to do this actually.

Vegans live and learn. We are part of a minority group, and with being a minority comes all of its benefits and detriments. We just need to learn that in situations like these, we often are the only vegan around people and so we need to carry our entire movement on our shoulders, whether we want to or not. Else, you get general, anecdotal sentiments the likes of which you see in this post.

As a vegan myself, I’ve only met a handful number of other vegans in my lifetime irl, being raised omnivore for 23 years until changing.

Whenever I talk about the reasons why I made the switch to those who are curious, I always keep the militant vegans in mind and try to offer more charity than I otherwise would.

We vegans need to show the world that whether it’s diet or clothing (general use, specific use, etc.) or medicine or society (e.g. slaughterhouse workers contributing to societal psychosis) or climate or species loss or economic transparency, making the change is easy and a socially accepted thing to do.

This absolutely cannot take form as aggression against those that would be considered outside of our “group”. Any means of using coercion or manipulation to change what others do is a violation of their moral capacities. Unfortunately, humans also violate the moral capacities of more than 100 billion animals every year, so the trade-off can seem justified to some.

Every vegan needs to remind themselves that we’re doing this for the animals first and foremost. All behaviors should be guided by that principle: to reduce suffering for them as much as possible. Being militant, aggressive, and shameful to others can result in backlashes where people dig their heels in. A better way of convincing would be to give the science, show moral charity, offer easy alternatives, and illustrate factual evidence of the crimes done against animals. If we respect people to be able to change their minds given the evidence to do so, then they will.

Not all beliefs are good. Veganism seems to minimize suffering for a group of life on this planet that has traditionally been at the whims of humans.

But as another commenter pointed out, people’s egos can’t usually take the claims that they are making bad choices and should change. This kind of pressure shows up in exercise, for example.

Animals dying don’t care about egos though. On the one hand, entire beings seize to exist, while on the other the top predator remains to exist and satiate their taste buds with a steak or pork chop.

If you are concerned about moral behavior in this world, then you can’t not extend that consideration to animals. If you can’t, then you’re morally inconsistent.

This sounds like a chatGPT post ngl

Indeed, rip GPM

One of the ways solar and wind can become more reliable is by expanding the grid.

I’m not sure where you’re from, but in the US we have three grids: the Eastern Interconnect, the Western Interconnect, and Texas. These grids aren’t connected despite their names, and there have been many attempts in the past to connect them to little avail.

The benefit of larger grids with distributed energy resources is that even if local environments are cloudy or calm, those conditions usually are locally concentrated. This means that if one DER is underproducing, another DER can make up for the loss if that DER’s locale is sunny and windy.

This gets better the wider a net you cast to collect energy (i.e. grid).

On your counterpoints to wind, “the view” is in the eye of the beholder - I’m young and I love the look of modern wind turbines; wind turbines reduce the overall amount of bird deaths from the energy industry as we transition away from fossil fuels; no significant evidence has been found to link wind turbine noise to health issues; and shadow flicker has not been correlated with any adverse health outcomes either, leading me to believe that this propaganda is being propagated by either NIMBYs or the fossil fuels industry or both.

Point is: solutions to climate change will come in a silver buckshot, not in a silver bullet. We need an all hands approach to this so we reverse damage as soon as possible and get to restoration as soon as possible.

Other I agree with you though. I would love to have a backbone of nuclear through the American Great Plains where population centers are low. Only issue there though is groundwater use, but I’d imagine future reactors could make use of geothermal-type solutions to cool instead of surface waters. Maybe there’s a radiation risk there. Idk, need to research more

This is the other issue about thermal plants including coal, natural gas, concentrated solar power (CSP), and nuclear: water cooling.

All of these plants boil water to pass over a turbine and crank a generator, but that steam needs to be cooled so it condenses and makes a closed loop. You need cooling water to do this, and a lot of it.

If water is becoming scarce, and we have other needs for it like residential or agricultural uses, then that can greatly impact thermal generators, leading to outages like you say if cooling can’t be done.

Chris Nelder with the Rocky Mountain Institute has a good podcast episode on this on his The Energy Transition Show podcast. Check it out!

He has a point!

Charging at home is the way to go. You may be able to refinance your home if you haven’t paid it off, and rope in upgrades for new charging circuits.

Plus, there are programs being developed - note none have been finalized - to allow EVs to give power back to the grid and so you could one day make money back from keeping your car plugged in over night. There are already time of use rates too for many markets in the US and EU. Plus there’s peace of mind knowing that your car will always be fully topped off every morning.

As an electrical engineer that has studied the idea of Plug-in Hybrid EVs (PHEVs) and Battery EVs (BEVs), personally I always try to persuade people to look into PHEVs for personal and societal reasons, but even if you don’t go with Tesla for your BEV purchase I think it’s still worth it to go electric. Maybe consider the Chevy Bolt EUV, Nissan Leaf, or Volkswagen ID.4. On the PHEV side, there’s the Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid and Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe. Lots of tax credits out there too for new ($7,500) and used ($4,000) so EVs are definitely still an opportunity!