@ckent@urbanists.social

· 2w ago

The whole "it works without batteries!" could probably label me as a prepper, if anything

I hate what happened to AM content, and I hate that this is the real reason it got the votes. I also hate what they did to Sirius XM quailty, somehow making digital sound as bad as AM.

It really makes you wonder if it's someone's job to stop us having nice things.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@nske @erisceleste @eniko it’s weird it’s weird we never applied LLMs to “Windows network troubleshooter” just to find out it’s always DNS, no, I was expected to waste my own time on that

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@ofossum@social.tchncs.de @bicycletting@mastodon.ie @chrisafk@fosstodon.org Why wear clothes! But in fact we must, even by law.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@mcmartin @eniko @thomholwerda I hear assembly language is fairly rare on LLM abilities 🤗 same for embedded systems control, and anything else that has no incentive to be sold, shared or pirated

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@SecureOwl@infosec.exchange @Pkbwood@mastodon.online I need to dig out that notice for the respiratory disease conference that got cancelled in March 2020

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@valhoga01 @DemocracyMattersALot Or a percentage. You don’t want him to be giving away his services if he works for free for a friend. But this case is diabolical and deserves its own chapter in the textbooks: His INCOME is what causes further damage. He goes to work and keeps ramming the rod into the victims, to make the money. It’s like a nightmare dark comedy / sci-fi scenario out of Douglas Adams or an early TNG episode.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Beachbum @DemocracyMattersALot Is it really about “the judge”? This sort of problem is sadly endemic in the justice system, and the delays are a feature. But I think a legal class on lawsuits and damages would explain the minimum requirements to force money out of a recalcitrant opponent.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@lumi @eniko it might all revert to “money is the root of all evil” The money always flows downhill. Like water. It takes a powerful force of sunlight to lift it back into the sky, and the mountains where it’s pure again.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@FritzAdalis@infosec.exchange @mtothevizzah@mastodon.gamedev.place @paco@infosec.exchange yes!!!

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@mtothevizzah@mastodon.gamedev.place @corbden@defcon.social See, if the church wanted me to believe in miracles, we need to set the baseline at THIS

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@datum@zeroes.ca @mtothevizzah@mastodon.gamedev.place I think I take your point, but there are many dental operations that I completely fear with any modern alternative that they promise me “you’ll remember nothing” — no thanks, I’m too sympathetic with my inebriated self Also, the happy gas works scarily on my autistic mind

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@millie@infosec.exchange @Heliograph@mastodon.au Back when I was studying and they’d just turned it from Applied Science into Science, there was a lot of grim consternation that ours was the only “profession” without ancient (or medieval) guidelines for integrity and reliability Or airlines — they’re just a teenager at 1 century and a bit. They sorted their shit out.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 25mo ago

Replying to

@rberger@hachyderm.io @kims@mas.to The sentence "Doing so has become more lucrative than mining itself" is about a really interesting dynamic — but shouldn't be so provocative. Flat tariffs, typical retail pricing is an artificial construct. True demand is variable, and cheap renewable energy (wind & solar) is variable too. And just as important — battery storage is far easier & cheaper than old nuclear, vaporware modular flavour even more so, and "exists" more than thorium or fusion. Time-shifting is GOOD …

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 25mo ago

Replying to

@rberger@hachyderm.io @kims@mas.to I am … going to go for "chaotic neutral" on this one, due to my personal experience with my house on the wholesale energy market

The underlying good news on this is that the grid is flooded with cheap clean energy on sunny days, and that's a good thing to begin with, a good thing to end with, and in the middle requires some reassessing assumptions and norms

What I want the future discussion to be is to split:

What we make with energy and
How we generate & timeshift energy

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 25mo ago

Replying to

@rberger@hachyderm.io @kims@mas.to The Economist is usually better than this, but the article didn't mention batteries, just saying "sell power back to providers" without explaining generation or time-shifting I can't judge the harmfulness until I know if a loophole exists that's being exploited. In the past we've seen rebates and bonus tariffs — but they're always temporary, always subsidised. But if it's what I'm using — pure market prices — then it's both sustainable and (partly) virtuous to sell power.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 43mo ago

Replying to

@QasimRashid@mastodon.social @SoftwareTheron@mas.to I’m not saying we should research the past failures of 12 white men, but we should also research the past failures of 12 white men

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 25mo ago

Replying to

@rberger@hachyderm.io @kims@mas.to A chunk of the reason I can make that profit is the "emergency" days when three or more things go wrong on the grid, e.g. sun has set, wind is seasonally calm, and then an interconnector fails. (Bad Texas, bad bad Texas, you should stop being anti-interconnection with other states because "ideology"). The upshot of this is that I get paid a month's bills in one night, but that's because my energy is SUPER useful to the grid's stability. Cheaper than building spare power plants!

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 25mo ago

Replying to

@rberger@hachyderm.io @kims@mas.to The basic mental rearrangement is that Lunch = Cheap, Dinner = Expensive. And yes that really means you can run a profit AND use more than you export. But only if you consume power when it's … sunny? Windy? Honestly, no harm no foul. I'm keeping one eye out for abuses of course — and subsidies exist everywhere, exemptions too. If everybody played by the same rules there'd be milk and honey for all. But "baseload" linear generation & consumption 24/7 is a fiction.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@antdude@mastodon.social @tante@tldr.nettime.org oh my that's a vibe

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

RE: @newsguyusa@flipboard.social

The future of warfare is this — is it?

Maybe it’s progress? Long distance small targets instead of WMDs on ICBMs.

And throttling economies and supply chains instead of chemical warfare in the trenches. There are measurable levels of harm and evil.

It’s like a Minimum Viable Product of weaponry. But we have another 75 years of this century to go, gulp.

flipboard.social

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@_elena@mastodon.social @timixretroplays@digipres.club I’m using air-conditioning for heating in Sydney today, so am wondering why this isn’t something that was added to homes at the same time as cars, buses and trains? Over the last 10, 20 years?

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@depereo@mastodon.social @tante@tldr.nettime.org I'm actually HAPPY for it to be opt-out, but that's the thing — it needs to be a Big Red Button™ which actually works We have extensions. Plug-ins. Whatever — we have always had that. Use it or don't do it at all then.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 25mo ago

Replying to

@rberger@hachyderm.io @kims@mas.to In my case, I'm absolutely paying a flat fee for grid connection, another for retail operations, and a demand fee for all the grid power I consume 3pm-9pm (yes, I try and succeed to keep that to zero). Most importantly, the energy I export is worth 10¢/kWh less than the same energy I import. After all that, I still make a profit most months — not to mention, in the summer half, pumping 3x more solar into the grid than my house consumes.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@mcmartin @eniko it's where I found joy at an early age

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 25mo ago

Replying to

@rberger@hachyderm.io @kims@mas.to The context of that last sentence is that a solar farm the size of Manhattan or Monaco can power entire countries … it's a ridiculously good news story Solar in 2024 is NOT what solar in 2014 was, or 2019 It's powerful AF. My house is the tiniest on the street, 100 years old. For several hours in a sunny summer day, I generate 5x more than I can use … if I try REALLY hard. Over a 24-hour period, it's 3x. Winter is 30% as strong. I sized my system based on my heat pump need.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 3w ago

The TV series that followed s bunch of kids from age 7, 14, 21, 28 etc, is about to wrap up (for real this time) at age 70 — “70 Up”

The director who managed the episodes through ages 14 to 63 died since then, and this time the (surviving) participants get to pass judgement on him and the series.

#7up #70up

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/sep/15/70-up-review-itv1-itvx

urbanists.social

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@kotking@blorbo.social @timixretroplays@digipres.club the sad truth is solar (plus batteries) is cheaper than the rest, but you can add wind in there too

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@samir @lisamelton That’s fascinating. Self-censorship as input filters to the universal aggregation. Yes of course.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

(having emerged from the Malcolm Turbull jacket fashion festival) #malcolmturnbull

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

@rasmus91@fosstodon.org @me@social.taupehat.com perhaps, the irony was intended

Bill was known for it, amirite

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@gee8sh @eniko you may not have been around “forever” then 🫠 but your brethren are out there

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Axomamma @ghost_shit @fakemetrotrains Not all unimprovement is AI In fact which LLM would even do this? We’ve seen reckless indifference with spelling before.

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 9mo ago

Replying to

@prefec2@norden.social @tante@tldr.nettime.org I ask because I would have known this 20 years ago but don't anymore: What is the risk of relying on a fork? Whether one of the existing ones or something for this purpose? And again — I should know the answer but I don't — is Mozilla-the-foundation the irreplaceable part to this? Is the Foundation valuable in a way that it cannot be replaced? Because if so, I'm not sure we should have aimed to get to here either. (Again, if I presume correctly), shouldn't we aim elsewhere?

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@me nay, he doth woke, in word and in temperament! — one must heed to cancel such thought in part and in all, as surely in this one man ... as in ALL of culture? lest ye too — be eaten like dog and like cat

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Christian Kent @ckent@urbanists.social

· 25mo ago

Replying to

@rberger@hachyderm.io @kims@mas.to So I struggle a bit to criticise *this* element of the crypto miners' operation In fact … surely … if they're shifting business model, it's an improvement if anything The final original bitcoin will be mined in a few years anyway, but I'm quite happy to debate "what's a waste of resources" and how to incentivise things correctly … or stop perversions that incentivise the wrong things. One of the questions is: What resources are limited? We can make > 1000x more solar than now

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