Really cool visualization in how the excess solar is being used for dams to pump water back up.
I really hope this heatwave (10k confirmed excess deaths in Germany already) is a wake up call for governments and people worldwide. Energy wise, even batteries are now cheaper than gas plants. With our proximity to north africa (interconnects to carry excess solar), itās a no brainer to invest in storage, solar and wind.
Yet corruption and lobbying still rule, even amidst all the evidence available. I read yesterday that Katherina Reiche has been blocking battery storage and solar in Germany, itās ridiculous. The shortsightedness of German politicians to get rid of nuclear and then to become dependent on Russian gas was something else. Sorry for the slight derailing, but this topic has been a lot of my mind of late. I may be naive but it seems to me like all the pieces exist, but the political will is nowhere to be found.
I am not following that closely, but based on my understanding of how the grid works, one can just set up battery storage anywhere in Europe, with pretty much the same effect.
So if it is indeed cheaper than gas, someone will do it. Apparently they already are.
Most local government meetings have all sorts of decorum rules for stuff like this, and they can use it as an enforcement mechanism in exactly this way to suppress dissent from the public. I wish more people would get involved in local politics, because itās things like this that can have a major impact on you directly. Not just paying attention to who youāre voting for but actually showing up to city council meetings and such and voicing your concerns.
Not disputing this just want to contrast it with the Portuguese parliament where people often get up and scream at each other in such a way that those leading the assembly need to call for order. This is already quite agitated but when I first saw the house of commons in the UK I was really surprised. The aggression and disorder is something else entirely and sitting so close to eachother must also elevate it to another level.
At the end of the day expecting both politicians, and citizens in local meetings, to have no emotion whatsoever is absurd and leads to the things you mentioned.
David Revoy is an illustrator using FOSS tools - and running FOSS art, too (if you have kids, and/or are young at heart, check out his lovely https://www.peppercarrot.com/ - available in 69 languages, thanks to a helpful community). Because of his contributions, heās also mentioned here on Pixls a number of times.
Lately, many people accused him of producing āAI slopā. This is what he has to say about it:
I saw this another day. It reflects the sentiment and experience of MANY creatives nowadays. I am sure AI has taken from you and I, as well as from this most excellent community.
Iāve followed Pepper and Carrot for over ten years. Seeing David Revoy hurt by the AI wave is discouraging. He spent a lot of effort to make sure nothing on his site could be used to track visitors (harder than he initially expected due to even things like font loading). Money doesnāt care.
Read this article about playing games from C Thi Nguyen, the author of The Score, about Bernard Suitsā 70s book The Grasshopper, and was trying to think how it might apply to amateur photography. Maybe explains why we donāt want cameras to be too good and why AI images tend to repel at least some of us.
James Popsys has a video that said basically this, the Sony A1ii was too good with precapture and 50 frames/sec (or whatever it is) that it was so good that it basically made photos without him.
He says all that, but still seems.he got rid of the GFX, which is nice and slow, with a very satisfying shutter flop.
Innnn-deeedy!! Oh, donāt get me wrong, Iād really like to do just a few productive sessions in a nice setting, but coming to it from Louisiana bass fishing, IMHO itās a lot more work than is really needed to craft a satisfying experience. Learning to cast a purple worm into a bramble without snagging it is a satisfying skill, and sufficient to catch fish. This business of hobbling your kit by using too-thin line and a rod designed to load a couple of ounces of tackle to move it around is just a lot of extra effort.
Reminds me of the Indiana Jones scene where heās confronted by the sword-wielding Bedouin (Iām guessing on the ethnicity, so pardon my ignorance). After the sword-guy made a show of how he could swing the sword in threatening ways, Jones pulled his gun, shot him, and moved on to the next challenge. Git-er-doneā¦
I developed my perspective in part by watching my twin granddaughters try to master flycasting at a class taught at our nearby state park. Elizabeth tried to bass-cast it, snagging only nearby people; Katelynn after just 10 minutes of futzing was doing it better than the dude in the Orvis video, loading the rod just like the instructor taught backward and forward, and laying down the fly within a couple of feet of the target. Okay, maybe Iāll take her on a tripā¦
I have nothing against cameras/lenses being excellent in every respect. I am just not inclined to pay 50% more for the last 5% of performance. I imaginr I will get it anyway for free as features trickle down.
I want my camera to be good enough for the images I want to render. That thinking works its way back from there all the way to what it takes to capture the scene. So, I ended up with a Nikon Z 6, enough resolution and dynamic range and the doo-dads to automate as much of focus and exposure as possible to let me concentrate on composition. 24MP is more than enough for computer and phone renders; Iād maybe consider a larger sensor if I were going to print for wall-hanging.
And, thatās the thing, I try to understand the photographic process well enough to know what I need to make the images I want. Now, I just ordered a $600US spectrophotometer, thatās probably more about messing with a particular process for fun (oh, and measuring paint patches for railcar restoration), but thatās just the unexplainable parts of my predilectionā¦
I have a mid-long range thrower(convoy s2) which uses a single 18650 and while not as powerful as the one in the vid, it can illuminate up to 200 meters or more at night. It helped a lot during the blackout earlier this year, as when pointed to the ceiling it could illuminate an entire room.
We are being surveilled by traffic cameras (e.g., Flock), and the information is often being used for illegitimate purposes. We are also being surveilled by our robot appliances, and that information is sometimes used for illegitimate purposes. For example, there is at least one case of a robot vacuum cleaner taking photos of a woman unclothed in her bedroom, and sending the photos to someone, presumably someone in a position somewhere in the vacuum cleanerās company.
We can also be spied upon via our cars. Iām sure some of that information is or will be used illegitimately, too.
This stuff must be stopped. I am glad that they are banning the robo vacuums (in the US), but the ban doesnāt go far enough.
Even in my less-than-seriously-urban area Flocks are spreading. There are four of them (at present) at our local Loweās with others in the area. Maybe Iāll shop at Home Depot insteadā¦ or even better, at one of our locally owned hardware stores.
