Posts by jake 26690 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007
"The proposal sounds similar to how the music collects and distributes royalties."
The music industry distributes royalties? News to me. They collect them, sure ... but distribute? Not so much. Look up Janis Ian's comments on the subject ... Try this link:
https://archives.janisian.com/reading/internet.php
Or was that your point?
I have been contributing to the FOSS world since before BSD was BSD. Quite frankly, I have never thought about getting paid for it for one simple reason: It doesn't matter.
Read that again, it's important: It doesn't matter.
I wrote code, created patches, chased down bugs, wrote documentation, and all the other bits & bobs that go into FOSS because I am extremely selfish. I wanted it to work for ME, my way, in my time. Once it worked the way I wanted it to work, it solved a problem that I had, which more than paid for the time and effort that I put into it.
Then I released it to the wild, without caring if anyone else needed it. It's MINE, it scratched my itch ... now, if you have the same itch feel free to make use of my scratching post. No point in you re-inventing the wheel to do the same job ... and better, it frees you up to work on something to fix another itch.
Thankfully, other people have many other itches. In aggregate, we have created something useful. Without money bags getting under foot.
"This allowed the engine to draw fuel from a local header tank or the main tank."
At bigger blue, the second smaller tank was to provide enough fuel to run the system should a power failure occur right in the middle of the twice-yearly flush & fill of the main tank. The "small" tank was only 300 gallons, the large tank was in the 25,000 gallon range (both numbers from memory). We had a small fleet of trucks in to pump the old fuel out, and then the new fuel in. Took pretty much all day.
Most modern diesel generators have self-bleeding fuel systems. Thankfully.
Back when I worked for Bigger Blue (late 1970s), on Fabian Way in Palo Alto, we'd kill the mains power at 3PM on the last Friday of every month to ensure that the battery would carry the load long enough for the genset to warm up enough to take over. It ain't exactly rocket science. (In the event of failure, everyone went home early with two hours pay. It never happened while I worked there).
Keep in mind that this system ran the entire campus, not just the computers. (OK, nearly the entire campus ... The fine folks in the Faraday Cage over on East Meadow Circle and across Adobe Creek on West Bayshore had their own solutions ...).
"Or perhaps the facilities engineer used the antics of his feathered friends to cover up a cock-up of his own."
Yes. The switch gear for this kind of thing is protected from the elements, and birds. The automatic versions don't have any moving parts on the outside[0], and all access is (supposed to be) sealed. Mine don't even get mud-wasp nests in them. More likely he forgot to wire the automatic bit.
[0] Ive installed many manual versions that have a three position switch that can be thrown from the outside, usually labeled "PG&E", "OFF" and "Generator" from top to bottom. Each position has space for a lock, to keep prying hands from killing you. This switch disappears into a weather (and bird) proof box, where all the mechanical bits are contained, safely away from bird poop, insect damage, ice storms, and the like.
"Kind of difficult to mount a baby seat in the back of a pick-up-truck bed."
It's quite easy, actually. Government regulations, on the other hand ...
Remember the rear seats, sans seatbelts, in 1960s station wagons? With the middle-seats flipped down, and the rear window buzzed all the way down? Heaven for a kid on a long road-trip!
"BBQ gas tanks are cheap and owned by the supplier"
I own my own tanks. Getting them filled is no more difficult (and takes no more time) than filling up my gas(petrol) tank ... except here in California, I can pump my own gas but it require a specially trained attendant (read: local highschooler on minimum wage) to dispense propane.
Here in California, when it rains I make a point to get out on one of the bikes (usually an aging Bultaco, sometimes the Rokon). Gotta make sure the creeks aren't rising and the fences are still there! :-)
Sometimes I take a horse, but most of them don't like riding in the rain as much as I do.
Thus the term "mudroom" ...
"Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles which would be much lighter than an equivalent EV and more useful to those without off-street parking."
And a likely fire (or worse) hazard to those of us who park in garages. Unless you have a fool-proof way of containing hydrogen for weeks at a time, of course.
"And then maybe encouraging kids to walk or cycle to school to fix school run congestion."
Today's molly-coddled little brats WALK? Do you mean OUTSIDE‽ By THEMSELVES‽‽ Do you really think their air-headed, brainwashed-into-paranoia parents would ever agree to that? What colo(u)r is the sky on your planet? Have you never heard of all the terrorists, perverts and other ne'er do wells, waiting around every corner, post box and garden wall?
Next you'll be suggesting they go play outdoors without supervision! You want locking up, you do. You are a danger to yourself, the community, the city and the Nation!
::waves flag::
I seem to remember multiple shareware titles back in the day that specifically and expressly forbade commercial use. There were also a few that forbade commercial use without paying an exorbitant fee, which amounts to the same thing. To the best of my knowledge, those titles should all still be available with their original license.
Quite honestly?
I'd bet a large sum of money that many (perhaps most) American voters would agree to lose LA if it were guaranteed that DC would also be vapo(u)rized, along with all current national politicians, sycophants, hangers-on and lobbyists. Many would also throw in NYC as a freebee.
Regardless, it'll never happen, for better or for worse.
"The chief concern seems to be ensuring large numbers of devices can't be activated simultaneously at peak hours taking out the grid."
Thus pointing out the very obvious failing of the entire "all vehicles have to be electric" concept ... it quite simply doesn't scale. At all.
And some of us don't pay much attention to TV. It's an intellectual wasteland, consisting primarily of advertisers trying to sell me product I'm not interested in. At its absolute best it is entertainment only, and never education. At its worst, it's contentious bullshit designed to inflame and drive wedges between people. In my mind there is very little, if anything, between the two extremes that is worth my attention.
Instead of posting links to cherry-picked short clips surrounded by computer generated verbal diarrhea, how about sticking to your own words ... which I am quite interested in.
Pull up a chair, have a beer. Let's talk.
"is it not already a machine that sends and shares this post with you and all who alight on this message page"
No, amfM. It is not a machine that shares the posts around here. It is human beings (or a mfM, occasionally). The machines are just the transport mechanism, and don't add anything to the conversation..
"Electric grid fails due to too many EVs"
We're already getting blackouts and brownouts here in parts of California ... especially in the summer, when the air conditioning kicks in. Wait until 2024 and 2025, when California's last two nuclear reactors at Diablo Canyon shut down ... California will lose just over ten percent of our currently available electricity. Oh, and by the way, we're also closing down 4 "evil fossil fuel" natural gas plants, removing a further 3.7GW capability at the same time as the nuke shutowns.
We'll need to ban plug-in cars, just to keep the refrigeration going. Or purchase electricity generated by out-of-state evil fossil fuel plants. So we'll be paying more for using more electricity, thanks to out-of-state fees and transmission losses ... with absolutely zero reduction in overall fossil fuel use, and probably actually MORE fossil fuel use (see: transmission losses). Shows you how fucking daft the entire green agenda is, doesn't it?
"I'm a ~2 hour drive South of Sacramento."
Madera? I see plenty of options for open appointments in Fresno if you don't like your local clinic, which also has plenty of open appointments. (A friend reports the new buildings out on Sunrise are quite nice, check 'em out if you haven't already. He got his booster as a walk-in... ask, and keep asking. Squeaky wheel & all that,).
"....so your Zoom background actually consists of real cows?"
(I don't use zoom.) No, not usually cows ... they tend to not enjoy staying in one place for very long, and I'm not chasing them all over the place with a camera just to get a live shot.
When I need one, my live background is variously the hog pen, one of the ponds, a very long distance shot of the Golden Gate (from a friend's place in the hills above Berkeley), my IBM 1401, PDP-11 or other old iron (depending on what is fired up and doing work at the time), a shot between a couple rows of tomatoes or grapes, one of the fish tanks, a pile of snoozing whippets, greyhounds, maine coons and skogkatts, one of the many CalTrans traffic cams, a street view of Sonoma's Plaza, or anything else that catches my fancy at the time.
"Chat: BRB I need some milk...."
You jest ... however, soon after we moved in here, my brother-in-law +wife&kids came to visit for a couple days. On the third morning at about 5:30, he opened the fridge & noted that we were out of milk. I said "no we aren't", grabbed a jug, and told him to follow me. Down to the barn, where Dorrie, my little Jersey, was waiting for her 6AM milking. The poor guy freaked out. I guess he never really thought about what we did with our dairy cow ... A year later we invited them over for a hog harvest. He declined. His wife & kids enjoyed the party, though :-)
So man is figuring out faster ways of killing more "bad guys"[0], all the while protecting as many "good guys"[0] as possible. Thus it ever was, no?
However, methinks the Author was talking about the proverbial man-in-the-street using the technology. Which isn't happening this year, nor the next. Or in our lifetimes, I'll wager. There's absolutely no percentage in it. It apparently doesn't even add anything to porn ... if it did, they'd already be using it. QED
[0] Whatever those terms really mean, in this context.
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