Walking and finding history if your location has such history to offer to find.
People pay vast accruing cumulative sums over time to go to the gym and my exercise pays me with every single walk. Some of that modern human history I have found dates back hundreds of years in the form of coins and bottles while some of the native human history I have found dates back 10 thousand years. I cannot neglect the fossils either as the oldest I have found reviewed by an expert is said to be Paleozoic tabulate coral being over 251 million years aged.
Thanks to gravity everything lost in the past is under our feet and as digitalization has taken over our global society, created by some of those reading this here, there are not many folks walking let alone looking. I found my first item over 14 years ago now and while my partner HATES the aggregate volume of the things I have collected she cannot neglect the uniqueness, rarity and value of some of those items. Every single walk inspires real motivation however one needs their health first to take that walk.
I have one yes but I rarely take it given the overwhelming amounts of false signals from iron, ironstone, and slag. There are so many surface finds with each tide change that the added human effort of swinging and digging quickly fades.
A town along the water in Maryland founded in 1694 that has documented colonial roots as well with being present in water way form on the only known Native American Chesapeake Bay hand drawn deer hide map, 1590-1620, which still exists in a British museum.
The history here over time is extremely vast and I have been very fortunate in my walks to have located many items related to that history. Speaking only to the Native American finds I have located hundreds of points of vast variety, many hundreds of tools large and small along with objects no expert can explain yet they know to be Native American from their workings. With each tide change the shoreline is manipulated thus revealing more while covering the things missed until another tide change.
One's mind may be curious to ask also of what other things I have found and foregoing specifics I can say as a lead on to those curious that one of the first railroads in the US terminated at the waters edge behind my location. And on that railroad it has been documented that U.S. Presidents, Kings and Queens, Daniel Boone, Benjamin Latrobe, Lafayette and more road those rails and therefore stood on this ground I now walk. Not to far from that railroad was the county's first tavern which hosted those riding the rails and served them libations in bottles while along that journey.
The British landed behind my location too during the War of 1812 and burnt a small supporting outpost town and many boats very near that railroad. In 1999 a water based archeological dig was conducted where a British boat was discovered along with many items in the vessels hull from that era.
I left much out but this alone should reflect the quantity and quality of the items I have found. I have literal buckets of finds and even more buckets of items I have yet to sort.
Several recent HN posts about "time" and these correlate superbly in relation to the now obvious, to nearly all, global energy issues. Those proactive in a reactive world are often mocked and laughed at until as such passage of time is achieved for those only reactive to learn of the proactive's hindsight choices. For those in the United States aware of the 'behind the scenes' energy grid issues this insight reflects that prices will not be dropping for those electrons we all so depressively require daily just like our air and water. Energy grid decentralization is occurring with the actions of each individual and this article supports exactly that because no one alive can survive in our modern world without those electrons. "Necessity is the mother of invention" only now resonates for some while the futurists here that acted long ago acutely understand this growing trend.
> Those proactive in a reactive world are often mocked and laughed at
I'm going to start calling this a Jehovah's Witness complex. Where amplified, mostly imagined mockery of an incredibly dominant view, at least in group, is used as evidence of that view's righteousness and, by extension, rightness.
> prices will not be dropping...Energy grid decentralization is occurring
Cost versus resilience. A low-cost grid has lots of centralised production earning economies of scale. A highly-resilient system doesn't even need a grid, but it's going to be high cost.
The correct answer is in between. Rural electrification should be done entirely decentralised. Meanwhile, trying to run a city (or even most industry) on de-centralised power is a recipe for ruin.
I think the answer may be more complex than that. I mean, I know you are not wrong. My boss only recently made a crack at how pointless solar energy is in the world of cheap gas.
But it is not just cost. It is a level of control the contractor has over it. The solar systems, as currently pushed, are designed to be carefully monitored at all times; if you read the contract ( in IL anyway, but I presume it is common, because my mom had a similar experience ), I have to give the company a way in every time they desire to look at the panels. I can't just take it down, I need to hire them. I can't not sell the house without them ( and the buyer has to take over that contract ).
I like solar tech, but the was it is designed is .. very American in the worst possible way. Yes, there seem to be better options popping up, but that is not where contractor money is at..
edit: Just in case, I got a quote in 2024 so obviously things may have changed on that front ( oddly, BBB may actually help with my particular set of complaints as the contractors will have to spread their bets somewhat ).
> The solar systems, as currently pushed, are designed to be carefully monitored at all times; if you read the contract ( in IL anyway, but I presume it is common, because my mom had a similar experience ), I have to give the company a way in every time they desire to look at the panels.
I did my own install of a ground mount 6.7kW array. I initially declined to connect to the inverter manufacturer's monitoring, because I did not want my system hooked up to the internet.
Then, in the spring of 2024, the inverter failed (it was still under warranty). I was travelling at the time, but that may have made no difference at all. It took me a month to notice that generation had gone to zero.
Once I found out, and replaced the inverter, I chose to connect it not because the system requires it (it absolutely does not!), but so that the manufacturer would alert me in the future if a similar failure happened.
Ideally, I'd like to be able run a monitoring app locally, with no internet connection. For now, I'll take the remote monitoring despite my misgivings about it.
There are inverters with local only monitoring and control. I have one integrated locally with home assistant. You can also add an external current transformer and monitor the production with that independent of the inverter.
Not the person you responded to, but for a current monitor you could look at e.g. Shelly devices.
I have a Shelly Pro 3EM three phase current meter device on my home battery connection just to get more accurate data into Home Assistant because the battery provider doesn't provide it. (In hindsight I should've bought a different battery install but that's not something I can change after the fact...)
Hmm, could you recommend any good references for a personal build? I was debating doing a test run with a shed ( if I mess it up too bad, it won't hurt as much kinda deal ).
Sorry, can't recall anything in particular that I used. I'm a pretty handy person to start with, nothing about the system was complex except for building scaffolding to pre-assemble the metal pipework that formed the frame for the array(s). I used a company (then called Wholesale Solar) to design the system and buy the parts from, which made it all pretty simple.
I did have to take a very challenging exam to get licensed by the state for "home owner solar" - much harder than I expected given the NEC sections and the fact that it was open book.
> solar systems, as currently pushed, are designed to be carefully monitored at all times; if you read the contract
This varies from place to place. I got a quote for solar in Wyoming. It's 100% my deal. Nobody is leasing anything. If I skip inspections and fuck up my roof, that's on me.
If you're buying what someone is 'pushing' you already lost. Solar is not very complicated, particularly if you don't care about grid connectivity. Just buy the pieces for a fraction of the cost and do it yourself without putting money in someone else's pocket for the next 20 years.
First and foremost, grateful for the ability to take and give to this HN community for what HN has done for me. With that stated I am reminded near daily when reading posts on HN of my experience, my age, and some of my now lost hair color.
After nearly 3 decades of critical technology systems architecture and management involving ongoing industry audits my experience and age knows why my hair has lost some of its color. Much of that lost color comes from security management of third party systems, yes the old dreaded dependencies. Elimination of those third parties is key for one's cyber sanity and hair color yet with technology still in its infancy some cannot distinguish the forest from the trees.
Nothing remains the same as progress moves forward correcting for past mistakes while learning what works and does not along that journey, technology platforms are no exception. Analogously early automobiles lacked safety features as well such as windshield wipers and seatbelts so has the passage of time proved their addition to be valued? Few people today truly understand how things work as nearly all just want the instant fix "pill" to alleviate their issues however this approach cannot work with security. True security is designed in from the foundation and such secure platforms go unseen yet we have an endless list of victims from those insecure systems which have "bolted on" security after the fact. This security change and more is coming to system designs as the entire world is now fully aware of cyber security, or in this case, the lack of it.
Time, the young fail to consider it up until a single moment in their life, while the old reflect on where theirs went. After the reflection of one's time however change becomes obvious.
This share link has direct ties to my current technology designs I am developing but since the majority of systems work goes unseen many do not care as nearly all just want it to work when they need it. Design always changes over time yet many neglect to consider time within their moment of thought and thus those who fail to comprehend the long term need of such security changes. I have been fortunate to have lived and been involved in this change several times in my life and comparable too exactly this design change are the countless folks in the mid 1990's that told me no one would be buying things online as I architected and developed an online payments platform. After many decades of building secure technologies, some of which that has been acquired, this security critical technique addresses a growing problem that is impacting everyone, even those not yet connected.
And the verbiage that many will glance over yet will have the greatest future impacts for all alive is: "...includes an energy storage system..."
Todays U.S. meeting "Roundtable on Ratepayer Protection Pledge" with the U.S. President himself leading that meeting garnished commitments from Big Tech as it relates to energy. In time Big Tech Energy divisions will be thing and some citizens will be paying their utilities bill to them.
In Texas and Massachusetts you can actually pick your power provider while paying the natural monopoly for the wires. In time I hope we all can do this.
This is how it works in NYC, but the wires are almost twice as expensive as the power. (If you add taxes and the numerous weird fees, the total bill is a solid 3x the cost of the power.) It's really all about the grid maintenance and management these days.
A comparison: the giant Dogger Bank offshore wind farm project (multi-GW) cost somewhere in the $10bn range. On the other hand, Germany calculates with >$100bn for grid buildout within the next decade (https://www.netzentwicklungsplan.de/sites/default/files/2023...).
Also, having customers that rely on your grid but buy very little of your power is simply unappealing for operators, so I would assume that their pricing tries to disincentivise as much as possible (=> "they gonna overcharge you for the grid connection").
The not-so-hidden costs of collecting extremely diffuse wind / solar is the elephant in the room 10x bill for the supporting grid infrastructure.
Nuclear advocates, like myself, claim drop in replacement nuclear power reactors at existing coal / gas sites would largely obviate this.
Even adding new nuclear power reactors at greenfield sites would constitute a significantly reduced grid build cost, as the power is highly concentrated.
And nuclear is so say that nuclear power reactors employees are routine exposed to less radiation at work than they are at home in their kitchen with granite bench tops.
I can see that argument applying to wind, but for solar its the opposite because that is really easy to get closer to consumers than a conventional plant ever could be (i.e. on the rooftop).
At this point, I don't believe in a nuclear renaissance, because it seems to me that nuclear power got left behind too far; catching up in cost metrics is already hard enough, but matching growth rates (in "installed TWh/a" of wind/solar) seems virtually impossible by now. The only remaining holdouts (China, US, France, ...) are basically doing it as a hedge and/or to keep/obtain related engineering capabilities (and at the very least an easy path toward weapon-grade material).
It is clear to me that no one "actually believes" in nuclear power (by stating clearly: we are solve gonna current and future energy problems by mainly relying on freshly built nuclear power), so I can only see its relevance dwindling (I'd argue that China comes closest, but even they are much more in the hedging/securing capabilities category than anything else).
We do this for gas. IMHO you end up paying monopoly rates for the pipes and then stupid game prices for the gas. Maybe the savvy consumer comes out ahead but seems like a net negative to me.
It's not monopoly rates, it's actual utility rates. The only problem here is if the utility is allowed to make a profit. Gas pipes, electric lines and internet connections are like roads in today's society. Can't really live without them.
So assuming the pipe maintenance is done at cost, with no money not being spent on the network. What would your better net positive solution even look like?
People can live without gas pipes. One of the big tasks at the moment is planning to stop people building new gas pipes that won't be used enough to justify the price and how to phase out the existing gas pipes so the pricing doesn't enter a "death spiral" as people start leaving the network, leaving the government to bail it out.
If you don't put in heat pumps, nuclear reactors are one of the more expensive ways to heat a home.
If you do put in heat pumps, nuclear reactors are still one of the more expensive ways to heat a home, but you need a third as many of them as compared to the no-heat-pumps case, if you insist on heating only with nuclear power.
Nuclear power is really only important if you also want spicy atoms, because it's by far the cheapest source of spicy atoms. Annoyingly, this is now a thing a lot of countries have a solid reason to want.
Appreciate the URLs that reflect what some already know because I can just walk behind my house located along the Chesapeake Bay and see the real world physical impacts that are unfolding from the melting ice.
For those curious the water is not perpetually always higher as the attention seeking north east west south sites project but it is instead contributing to greater tides and thus greater erosion within the weather timing of those tides. These tides are well above what used to be "typical" within known past human time and the very high tides timed against significant weather events are greatly eroding the shoreline. As stated herein a few days back however, erosion brings significant lost items out of the soil which then become new discoveries for those aware to look. Having taken several multi hour shoreline walks in the past few days I have located quite a number of those Native American lost items as my collection significantly grows.
I ask the question: Is it human comprehendible data that has the value?
So would this issue still exist if the data was not human comprehendible yet a system still functioned 100% as needed?
The outlier technologists among us may read between my written lines with piquéd interest while the majority will likely just balk making claims based on lack of knowledge and awareness. For those looking to balk save your time in responding because analogously we no longer drive Ford Model Ts either and in time so too will system designs significantly change to answer the issues created by todays limited technology architectures.
Whether it be in the water you drink, the air you breath, or the technology platforms you rely on; What you cannot see matters most!
Happy to be a 5 year self generation participant contributing to these numbers. Given the very recent winter storms along the East Coast, that still has people without grid power at this very moment, such a residential generate and store system should be an eye opener to those impacted at times of greatest need. My own system was still generating during the storm as many erroneously believe the sun must be fully exposed to move electrons, nope.
I commented here in a recent HN energy post about my surrounding jurisdictions and the exploding utility costs per PJM that literally have governments suing each other. Just today one of those local jurisdictions announced a utility bill financial credit incentive for residents to attend a meeting to learn about what some already know intimately. Link is paywalled of course.
We are witnessing the accelerated adoption of local generation and storage driven by the economic costs of energy that has been directly and indirectly subsidized yet consumption is certainly not equal. As more and more move to self generate and store, per the meetings suggestion, the negative feedback loop is already in motion rising costs even more for those dependent on a centralized system.
For those that can see the light and where it is going; invest accordingly.
I am fortunate to have lived on the water for over 20 years in a location, East Coast USA Chesapeake Bay, that has scientifically documented many aspects of the climate changes that my own eyes have witnessed and photographed here at my home. I can walk out in my back yard and see these changes in this moment of time as they now exist and all of these changes have only become visible to me here in the last 10 years.
Erosion is a significant aspect of what I have witnessed however the ying always has a yang. Just as significant archeological discoveries are being made around melting glaciers so too are such discoveries also being made along eroding shorelines. The known history of the Chesapeake Bay is extensive and the items washing out of its shoreline are too, both known and unknown. Many of the paleolithic/native artifacts I have found can be explained by experts while some I have discovered cannot.
Change is the only thing guaranteed in this life until your life too forces change at its end. Change requires change and that means you but as a species we are wired into our daily pattern and nearly all hate forced change. As the old saying goes: "Nothing stays the same forever."
Trying to keep the planet exactly the same just because we want it to for the benefit of our delicately balanced societies is a futile task which will always end in catasrophe.
Yet again another failed attempt to move to biometric identification linked to a payment instrument thus allowing one not to need to carry that payment method on person.
This is not the worlds first biometric payments failure, as that belongs to PayByTouch, nor will it be the last. Having been deeply involved in the technology systems around the worlds first attempt at PayByTouch I do wonder why the "easy" is not embraced by more? I think I know however as it is likely religious in nature and the beliefs around such things. I can vividly recall being told to hide my employee badge while walking through the crowd of protesters holding signage about "Mark of the beast" and more in my attempts to enter the PayByTouch headquarters which used to reside at 1 Market in San Fran CA many years ago.
Wash, rinse, repeat : Everything old is new again. Just give it time as biometric payments will come around once again for absolute, third times a charm?
I guess the "biometric identification linked to a payment instrument" issue is mostly trust.
Do I trust the entity that identify me using biometrics ?
Do I trust it with my biometric data ?
If I link a payment method, do I trust it with access to my payment details ?
With Amazon Go at WF, I was fine to let Amazon know and store my hand biometrics, and I was fine enough with Amazon know what I purchase at WF, as long as I had something back (loyalty program).
Scaling this though would negatively impact the trust. Maybe I do not want Amazon to know "everything" I purchase everywhere (even though Visa/MC/Amex already know it...)
The challenges will be great and felt by all in some way.
I live downstream from W.L.Gore in Maryland, the creator of this miracle substance, and a few years ago I myself began asking questions. I came to learn that they just dumped the stuff in the stream for decades and that stream is the source of my family's water via the town system. I had my water tested and came back at 70 ppt of which I then spoke to some doctors. This inspired me to write up and speak before the political board of my town and they did not believe me. Hilariously however someone knew because they stopped publishing PFA numbers in our water reports in 2022 but as a result of my speaking a few months later they brought in Inframark Corp who runs our town water and sewer. After they spoke to the town board at the meeting the town board was no longer smiling nor doubting my words. They were told that they must filter the drinking water and the operation will capex at about 4 MM USD with an opex for filters of around 2 MM USD annually. The town board was floored, but wait there's more, Inframark then told the board that they also must filter the sewer too since it must be removed as liquid products we use have pfas as well as RO systems which just re-concentrate it back into waste water. This sewer system capex was quoted at 10MM USD minimum and no opex stated since the plant already runs and filters costs were not known at the moment.
My story is real world for nearly the entire East Coast of the USA but since the problem cannot be seen few know about it or even concern about it. A town close to me, Newark DE, just announced a few months back going to spend tens of millions to filter their water with taxes ballooning from that and more. While a town to my West stated needing to spend about 20 MM USD to filter theirs. This is an absolute issue and I'd wager, polymarket conveniently makes it easy now, that this post ages well with time, or maybe I should say unwell. I have also been speaking with a lawyer in a big state that is running a class action and his information of course should be blasted on the news as more and more folks continue to consume liquids from plastic containers. Veritasium did a great piece on it a while back too but I have yet to have my own blood tested. For perspective I immediately bought a PFA specific filter and I installed it by extending our existing 3 stage to a 4 stage kitchen water tap at a cost of 600 USD for supplies. I then bought a whole house PFA filter a few months later and installed it too, costing me about 2000 USD in supplies, it is the size of a large compressed air canister so room is needed. I have so much more on this PFA topic but I am already going on too long. Your health doesn't matter until it does and no pill is going to filter this stuff from your organs.
So the problem from the post then becomes: the water that we do have to drink probably isn't safe either.
This leads me to question how many other chemicals we continue to "create" that in time will too show health impacts to many. We are certainly leaving our mark in this layer of soil for some future species to find and ask their own questions about us, such as how smart we really could have been given what they dig up.
People pay vast accruing cumulative sums over time to go to the gym and my exercise pays me with every single walk. Some of that modern human history I have found dates back hundreds of years in the form of coins and bottles while some of the native human history I have found dates back 10 thousand years. I cannot neglect the fossils either as the oldest I have found reviewed by an expert is said to be Paleozoic tabulate coral being over 251 million years aged.
Thanks to gravity everything lost in the past is under our feet and as digitalization has taken over our global society, created by some of those reading this here, there are not many folks walking let alone looking. I found my first item over 14 years ago now and while my partner HATES the aggregate volume of the things I have collected she cannot neglect the uniqueness, rarity and value of some of those items. Every single walk inspires real motivation however one needs their health first to take that walk.
Stay Healthy!