As someone who spends a lot of time searching and is tired of AI slop, tracking, and targeted ads, it’s a breath of fresh air.

It provides a level of quality and control you don’t get from the Brave/DDGs of the world, and a reliability that’s hard to match with the SearXNGs.

It took a bit of mental back and forth to get comfortable paying for something that has historically been “free”, but I’m alright with it.

I’d love to see more FOSS competition (or frankly any competition) out there but hosting a reliable search engine is difficult and expensive.

It’s cheaper than any of my streaming subscriptions and I use it 10x as much, so I’m good paying the price.

Kagi will let you block slop sites (but you have to manually block each one)

I confess I haven’t used it but I’ve been wanting to try and get my preferred RSS reader app (Feeder) on my computer - that’s the only one that I want though

Do you believe Luigi Mangione killed Bryan Johnson?

Do I think he’s more likely than not the killer? Yes. Do I think that “beyond a reasonable doubt”? No, BUT I haven’t spent as much time studying the facts of the case as I hope each juror has.

Can he be found guilty with the evidence against him?

Of course. With the right frame job, my cat could be found guilty of the murder.

Is your favorite color purple?

The list is short because historically it has been hard to designate domestic organizations as terrorists without violating their First Amendment rights (among others, I’m sure).

Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law.

Glances nervously at the first amendment

You alright bud?

A capacitor has ~1% of the storage capacity of a battery of similar power rating.

Saying its storage performance is better because its holds a larger % of that capacity at low temperatures is nonsense because its storage performance objectively sucks (and not what it’s designed to be good at)

It’s like saying a Tesla is better than a 747 because it can go from 0-60 faster. A technically true statement but a meaningless performance comparison.

30-50% of my energy is the EV. About 20% is 120V plug loads (computers, fridges, home server), ~5-10% lighting, ~15% large equipment (dryer, electric range, electric water heater), and the remainder (15-30% seasonally) is HVAC (heat pump)

Any gas appliances would bring a lot of those numbers down

American House with an EV, all electric, and no solar, I use about 1200 kWh/mo (1.2 MWh/mo) on average. This could only carry me through about 3y. Even if I had access to good public infrastructure I think best I could do is 6y (again, all-electric home).

But I digress. Lithium ion as purely load shifting is a pretty reasonable, I’d argue critical, solution for covering day/night loads, but starts to fall apart completely when it comes to seasonal (summer/winter) loads.

But what makes this plant interesting is the addition of super capacitors. The combo battery/SC plant is less about day/night load shifting and more about providing stability to a shifting grid. As supply and demand grow increasingly decoupled, and we try and shift away from expensive peaker plants always on standby, systems like this can dramatically help smooth grid performance.

~90 MW of peaker capacity is small potatoes currently, but this is a big step towards a more reliable grid future.

Supercapacitors provide ultrafast response times – specified at 0.001 seconds – and maintain over 85% capacity at –40°C, significantly outperforming lithium-ion batteries in extreme cold.

Outperform how? At being a capacitor? That’s their whole point.

On the energy side, 85% of 29 MW-min is 0.41 MWh. Even if the batteries lose 99% of their capacity at -40 °F, last I checked .42 MWh > 0.41 MWh.

These are two different tools for two different purposes, I’m not sure how you compare their “performance” under this metric.

Why “back” of course!! I hear babies got it, so start with them.

I’ll run a backup and restore when moving to a new device, because why not. But regular backups? Meh, the ether can have my messages if my phone dies.

That said, depending on how this new system is rolled out, I may subscribe just to support the Signal foundation.

If i did mean to rape children, it’s all of your faults their fault for “dressing that way” or whatever

FTFY. 100% think he’ll go the “asking for it” route like most rapists.

What I’m shocked about is there’s a $14M black market for rhino horns and they’re principled enough to not just sell dried glue shavings and call it rhino horn.

The news is he was responding to a question about his favorite flavor of ice cream.

How does adopting more progressive candidates in California solve gerrymandering in Texas?

What’s the alternative, let the red states gerrymander and then just hope and pray that our new Republican-run house does the right thing and outlaws their one advantage in governing?

Newsom isn’t doing this in a vacuum, California has had a really well liked nonpartisan districting committee. Texas and other red States have gone with the nuclear option and CA is responding in kind - even more importantly, this is something that has to be voted on by the residents of CA in a special election, rather than by a set of politicians already benefitting from gerrymandering.

I absolutely hate that it has to be done, but as a CA resident I will be voting for it, and I will be pressuring my elected representatives to work towards passing federal legislation outlawing the practice and bringing things to a more even playing field.

The do-nothing alternative is not an option.

This is the Spotify/Apple Music/etc model and the reason why music piracy is practically dead (yes, I know there are a few sites still going).

These services are doing their best to find ways to push people back to piracy but for now they keep it at bay through competition to provide better service.

If there was a catchall video streaming service where all publishers released and got a cut of their plays it would be game over for piracy. Fortunately that’ll never happen.

Hot take - everyone is hitting on nostalgia, but personally I think there’s more to it than just that.

Low-res games invite the player to use their imagination, something that gets lost in the pursuit of hyper-realism.

Unlike most modern AAA games, games like Stardew Valley, Minecraft, or BOTW/TOTK invite the player to use their creativity - not just in problem solving, but also in how they view the world.

This was just an inherent feature of older games, due to the limitations of technology, but now it’s a luxury in a world that’s increasingly trying to script or control how you think and interact at every turn.