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giblfiz

190 karma · joined November 10, 2010

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giblfiz··on Requiem for a Solar Plant
Battery and and solar with battery have (nearly) the same tax credit advantage.
giblfiz··on Requiem for a Solar Plant
Hey, original author here.

  > Ah yes the age old story of a rich guy without a clue diving into a new industry and failing.
Yep, very much so. I was well aware that I didn't have a clue, and thought that I could make up for that with professional expert advice, elbow grease, a pretty good combination of tax advantages, and a willingness to learn.

The project was intentionally limited in scale as to be a "learning project" for me and the whole team. I'm also sort of ok with the idea that it failed, though super frustrated with the entire underlying incentive structure changing so much that we can't use anything we learned to try a second time.

Batteries were intentionally excluded because of the additional complexity overhead they added, and because the way the interconnection rules are written it would have put us into a different MW class which would have dramatically increased a number of other bureaucracy issues.

You are ABSOLUTELY INCORRECT that we would have had a net negative value to the Texas grid without batteries. Batteries are valuable, and increasingly so, but so is raw power (even at mid sun). This is reflected nicely in the hourly price charts, which at this point I'm super familiar with.

giblfiz··on Requiem for a Solar Plant
Original author here, If you look a little more carefully the thing that killed us was an actual physical infrastructure problem. Mineral rights were a nightmare, but we were humping our way thru it bit by bit.

Interconnection was limited because the wires they thought were in the ground were not what was actually there. (well, had degraded)

This was more of a "atoms are hard" kind of issue.

giblfiz··on Requiem for a Solar Plant
Hey, I'm the original author here.

I didn't want to do BTC for two reasons: 1) I'm already WAY over exposed on crypto in my portfolio 2) I consider energy burn on mining to be part of a "zero sum helps no one" situation. I was trying to actually do something net positive for the world so didn't want to just drop more into that bucket.

giblfiz··on Requiem for a Solar Plant
I'm the original author. I'm not sure why you got down-voted for this, this was absolutely a "tax dodge". The polite term is "tax mitigation strategy", I'm also not sure why this is seen as an openly negative thing? The government wants a type of thing done, they say "hey, we won't pay people directly to do it, but we will subsidize it thru tax incentives"

I was like "yeah, I like that thing (solar) and think it's good for the world, I will do it in return for tax incentives"

Why exactly is that bad?

giblfiz··on Requiem for a Solar Plant
Hi Gwern, I'm the owner of 7goldfish, the developer in question, and a fan of yours via reputation and the occasional comment I run into on Reddit.

First I want to acknowledge that draft one of this was LLM written, by Claude, though it reflects a pretty detailed outline of an experience pretty accurately. As you point out the quotes from both Mr. R and myself were also mostly spat out by the LLM as well (though not the quotes from external entities)

Mr. R signed off on the draft before posting, and well, it was me. I tended to think of it more as a "movie treatment" than a technical post-mortem, so I wasn't really worried about it. I also was only expecting this to get circulated within my own small/medium sized community so, in general, wasn't really worried about it.

That said, I definitely love using LLMs to write. To be perfectly honest they write considerably better and faster than I do (as you noted, lots of typo-o's and similar. I was still spelling at a 6th grade level when I graduated from Uni with CS degree), though I still feel like I have both ideas and experiences worth sharing. If you click any of the earlier stuff you will probably see the clumsy results that take about 10x the time.

I waffle on the idea of how much disclaimer of "written via LLM, but with multiple revisions and actual thought" vs "just don't bother saying anything" it's worth including. I'm curious if you consider having a ghost writer to be lying, or a cinematic re-enactment. I notice as I say that that it sounds defensive, and I want it to be a genuine question, as I share your concern about living in a media world where it feels like "basically nothing can be trusted".

For what it's worth, the numbers should be about right, though there is only so much energy we were willing to spend on the post-mortem. If there is some informational reason you would like to get into it deeply I would be happy to share the post mortem docs privately.

giblfiz··on Eggs US – Price – Chart
Yep. In the U.S. the eggs are all machine washed which removes a natural protective outer coating (as well as dirt).

This means that they don't store as well or as long, and really should be refrigerated. It _might_ reduce salmonella.

giblfiz··on Nine writers on their Adderall use and experiences
Slate Star Codex did a great write-up of risks and rewards of adderall from their perspective as a "gatekeeping psychiatrist"

It's a super informative, and kind of technical read.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mo...

giblfiz··on Santa Barbara's collective memory, sold for kindling
THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

SOMEONE SHOULD KEEP AN ARCHIVE OF OUR PRECIOUS CULTURAL HERITAGE.

They could even keep in on the internet!

We could call it the "Internet Archive"

And with this amazing technology, there could even be a way we could go way back and look at things that were published before, right on the internet as well.

We could call it the "wayback machine"

Oh wait: http://web.archive.org/web/20220322003618/https://newspress....

Seriously though, three out of four times when I see someone crying "but our precious cultural heritage" it's something that has already been taken care of by archive.org, or that it would be trivial to have them help out with, instead of trying to force the hand of some corporate giant.

Did you know that archive.org even has a special legal exemption to ignore copyright law for archiving software?

giblfiz··on Apple cider vinegar for weight management
Not sure where you got that number... Protocol described in the paper was:

>Groups 1, 2 and 3 consumed 5, 10 and 15 mL, respectively, of ACV (containing 5% of acetic acid) diluted in 250 mL of water daily, in the morning on an empty stomach, for 12 weeks.

giblfiz··on Apple cider vinegar for weight management
Nope BMI is just a "weight to height" ratio ( https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/bmitool... )

This can lead to some funny errors in edge cases, like Mr.Universe Arnold being morbidly obese according to BMI

giblfiz··on Show HN: I made an app to use local AI as daily driver
So there are a few questions that leap out at me:

  * What are you using for image generation? Is that local as well (stable diffusion?) Does it have integrated prompt generation? 


  * You mention the ability to import ChatGPT history, are you able to import other documents?

  * How many "agent" style capacities does it have? Can it search the web? use other APIs? Prompt itself? 

  * Does it have a plugin framework? you mention that it is "customizable" but that can mean almost anything. 

  * What is the license? what assurances do users have that their usage is private? I mean, we all know how many "local" apps exfiltrate a ton of data.
giblfiz··on Show HN: I made an app to use local AI as daily driver
I mean, ok, then how do you distinguish yourself from LM Studio (Free)
giblfiz··on A 'scam manual' written to help immigrants not become victims
Something I'm learning from reading the comments is that the culture has moved in what it calls a "scam"

In my mind, and from my background, a scam is a pretty brutal outright fraud. You buy a toaster and they send you a box of bricks.

From the top comment: - Rainbow vacuum cleaner (I would say it is not a scam, just an overpriced and underwhelming product)

- Aqualife water filter (Similarly I would just call this an overpriced product)

- Hiring someone to take us to another city to buy a car to "help get a good deal" - turned out he was working for the seller, and it was not a good deal at all. (Depending on details, this actually does sound like a scam, though a small one. The scam part is where they hired the intermediary, other than that it's just abusive sales)

- A summer job for me selling Vector cutlery (not a scam, It's a crap job for sure, and MLM for sure, but they do in fact pay you for what you sell. I sold cutco and I made a little money)

Some others:

Trading in a car? Last-minute they discount the trade-in value due to damage and hope you won't realize that's already counted in the KBB value. (arguably a scam, but mostly I would just call that aggressive hagling)

Car's making a weird noise? The mechanic wants to replace your struts for 1800$ even though the sound is just from the brakes being worn down. (Might be a scam, but it also might just be a mechanic who's not great at their job. I have blown many thousand dollars in billable hours for my clients by misdiagnosing software issues before. Sometimes the people we hire just fuck up and that's part of life. If you as the client are really out of your territory then you are more prone to hiring someone incompetent)

Inherited money in a trust? The trust manager calls you to "discuss your plans" and get you to let them manage the money without you ever seeing it. (Again, conceivably a scam, but also it's a little tricky because the trust working just right would look similar. This feels a lot more the mechanic example where it's not so much a scam as you are hiring someone who isn't very good)

Miss paying taxes in a state because you thought you didn't owe them anything because you didn't actually live there? I'm still getting fake letters that try to scare me into calling them even though the bill was cleared up. years ago. (Ok, this one sounds like it's pretty much a scam)

And then the infamous "investing in a Friend and Family business" and never getting the money back. I have no doubt that this is sometimes a scam... but I'm an angel investor and also do quite a bit of F&F investments and I can say for sure: I don't think I have ever been scammed, and the vast majority fail burn the capital and show no positive return. That doesn't make it a scam! Running a business is hard! I think we already know this on HackerNews. Just because someone bets and looses doesn't mean they got scammed!

giblfiz··on Epic vs. Google: Google Loses
>It’s interesting how the judges in Apple vs Epic stayed with Big Tech

My thought is that the judges are likely staying with the "letter of the law" which is what Big Tech (Big anything really) hires all of their lawyers to make sure that they technically stay within, while flagrantly violating the spirit of the law in a way that helps the business model.

The Jury is more prone to look at the spirit of the law.

giblfiz··on Tidal energy is not renewable
Wait, isn't most of that "tidal power" that we would be capturing going into grinding rocks into sand along the coast?
giblfiz··on Screen Time at Age 1 Year and Communication, Problem-Solving Developmental Delay
I appreciate that they corrected for a few other variables, but honestly this seems like a really really underpowered list.

>Covariates > >We selected covariates that may affect the association between children’s screen time and developmental delay based on previous studies.7-18 Children’s sex was garnered from birth records. Information about maternal age at delivery and parity (nulliparous, or primiparous or multiparous) was gathered from medical records. We divided maternal age into 4 categories (<25, 25-29, 30-35, or >35 years). Information on annual household income (<¥4 000 000 [US <$28 400], ¥4 000 000-5 999 999 [US $28 400-$42 599], or ≥¥6 000 000 [US ≥$42 600]) was gathered from the midpregnancy questionnaire. Data on maternal educational attainment (high school graduate or less, junior college or vocational college graduate, university graduate or above, or other), child living with grandparents or other adults (yes or no), and maternal postpartum depression and maternal bonding disorder were gathered using the questionnaire at 1 year post partum. Maternal postpartum depression was assessed using the Japanese version of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS).28-30 In Japan, an EPDS score of 9 or higher is widely used as the cutoff point for screening of postpartum depression, with previous studies reporting sensitivity of 75% and 82% and specificity of 93% and 95% at 1 month post partum.29,30 Maternal bonding disorder was assessed using the Japanese version of the Mother-to-Infant Bonding Scale31-33 (MIBS-J), and the cutoff point was set at 5. A previous study of Japanese mothers with 1-month-old infants showed that an MIBS-J cutoff point of 4 or 5 correctly classified approximately 90% of pathological maternal bonding disorders.33

giblfiz··on The One Ring card, Magic: The Gathering’s coveted collectible, has been found
https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/article/A-History-of-the-Pric...

Looks like it floats around a 20% to 35% APR depending on the years.

giblfiz··on Nuclear-fusion lab achieves ‘ignition’: what does it mean?
Yes, but the name "ignition" is very useful.

The idea, ultimately, is that like with a wood fire, the energy from the fuel "burning" is what starts the next bit of fuel "burning", and then as it runs on it's own as long as you keep giving it more fuel, you collect the excess heat by boiling water.

So, similar to a wood fire, you might need to use a blowtorch to get it started, and run at a net negative of energy, but the exciting thing is that there was a little flame... that means we can probably make a roaring fire out of it.

giblfiz··on Tornado cash takedown and its repercussions
Yep, which is actually specifically what tornado.cash was. It was a zk based mixer.

As you say: You absolutely CAN seamlessly mix crypto, but it will show a point in it's history where it says "this is where the crypto was seamlessly mixed"

giblfiz··on LG 28-inch 16:18 DualUp Monitor
As a free alternative (which I use daily) I would recommend "Hammerspoon" https://www.hammerspoon.org/

You will need to do a little configuration, but it does the snap zones thing perfectly.

giblfiz··on Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest
I, for one, never have corrosion problems on my software projects.
giblfiz··on I hate telephones
In general this doesn't work out as well as you would hope. In many cases (financial, medical, legal) another person can't trivially act as your agent. (I.E. your secretary can't do it for you)

I think the very wealthy handle this via specialists with specific licensing, but I personally had no luck going the virtual assistant route.

giblfiz··on Tears
Particularly blurred because of the Baldwin Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_effect

The short short version is that once things have intention, they can evolve more rapidly in synch with that intention (Assuming that the intention also yields more viable offspring)

giblfiz··on Upspin – Another option for file sharing
there are 14 competing standards.... We need to develop one standard that covers everyones use cases

https://xkcd.com/927/

giblfiz··on Show HN: Invite friends to SSH into your laptop using their GitHub handle
how is

"curl https://www.teleconsole.com/get.sh | sh "

Still considered even a remotely acceptable method for installation?

giblfiz··on Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own
Without actually knowing anything about the subject my guess is that the very cheep synthetic diamonds you heard about were / are intended for tools, (Where all that they care about is the hardness, so they can be small, yellow, and messy)

Also, I do know that you can get synthetic ruby for ~$1/carat on ali-baba. (I actually bought a few)

giblfiz··on Hyperloop One Raises $50M, Hires Former Uber CFO
So that's a really interesting statement... He has an B.S. in physics and an Honorary doctorate in Aerospace Engineering, and an Honorary doctorate of Engineering from Yale.

So I'm not sure what exactly it takes to count as an aerospace engineer, but it seems like he has both the bit of paper, and the employment history.

giblfiz··on Ethereum hard fork successful with mining majority
DTH == DAO Tokens (Money in the DAO) HF == Hard Fork PoS == "Proof of Stake" as opposed to PoW Proof of Work. This means that a large part of what goes into mining will be owning ether, and causes a concern about a hostile entity owning a huge pile of stolen Ether.
giblfiz··on Little Known Ways to Think about Discipline
Interesting that you should bring that up. I'm the author, and I talk about the Marshmallow experiment a great deal in the next article http://7goldfish.com/in_defence_of_cognitive_bais
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