If you know anyone who might benefit from the data, let me know!
597 karma · joined October 16, 2020
I think you have some good points, especially when it comes to supporting other devs. The hosted dev boxes make sense, assuming it's not laggy / slow to develop on. Will explore the Azure Microsoft Dev Box option and see how it feels.
I'll try out Windows ARM with Parallels.
In this case we didn't acquire their hardware.
Yeah dual booting was the solution I was hoping to avoid, mostly because it's inconvenient to transfer information between the two systems on one machine, but it seems that's the most viable solution.
I looked at WINE, but read that specifically Visual Studio doesn't work very well on it.
We believe that everyone benefits from knowing more about how, where, and by whom electricity is generated. My personal opinion is that there's a lot of BS in the electricity industry and making the actual data available is the best way to clear the stink.
> Where is your code/pipeline published?
Our code/pipeline isn't published anywhere. https://findenergy.com/data/ gives a general idea of where all of the data is coming from (spoiler, it's all from the US government). I'm currently working on an internal tool that'll help us map data from source to where/how it's used on our site, but it's a pretty big undertaking and might take a while. In the mean time, we answer any and all specific questions that are submitted through the website (https://findenergy.com/contact/).
> What is being done with this data?
Currently it's just being shown on the website. We also have reporters, students, and companies reaching out to us asking to use the data for articles, research, and reports respectively.
> Who is benefiting and/or paying for this "research" on critical USA infrastructure?
We're hoping consumers are benefiting. No one is paying us for this work. We're just a couple of guys that are passionate about this data, think it should be available to consumers, and are trying to figure out how to make carrying out that service sustainable financially.
> edit it seems that 3 months ago, we both commented on this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31555938
Yup! Your comment on marketed rates vs actual rates is very true. We calculate our rates by dividing the company's revenues by kWhs sold, so it should technically be closer to the actual rate.
We take a bunch of data relating to electricity, natural gas, and solar, make it understandable, then compile it all together on our website so people can get a good idea of the national/local energy landscape.
> is this like far-away smart people digging through your garage to "find" tools ?
Although some would consider us "far-away smart people" (depending on their geographic location), rest assured that we're definitely not digging through your garage for anything.
Hmm, I didn't even consider accelerators (how ironic). I do think I have a couple of "weak" contacts there. Thanks for the tips! :)
On a more serious note, have you tried working in a public library rather than a coffee shop? Just ask the librarian to hold onto your phone while you're there.
PS. if you're going to say something about the design, or lack thereof, the motivation is utility first, pretty later. If I can't get one user to use it as is, polishing won't improve the value prop.