4 ms·

I think this is really cool, but math seems off: > A company (Sun King, SunCulture) installs a solar system in your home > * You pay ~$100 down > * Then $40-65

I think this is really cool, but math seems off: > A company (Sun King, SunCulture) installs a solar system in your home > * You pay ~$100 down > * Then $40-65/month over 24-30 months But also: > The magic is this: You’re not buying a $1,200 solar system. You’re replacing $3-5/week kerosene spending with a $0.21/day solar subscription (so with $1.5 per week half the price of kerosene) $1.5 week is $6 a month, not $60.

tetris11 11mo ago
Isn't $6 a month the cost of the subscription, but the $40-56 a month the cost of the installation?
icedshrimp 11mo ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-atDnj5jE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-atDnj5jE video from sunking from 7 years ago where the cost of a basic system was 25¢ per day. Probably cheaper now. the article wording/numbers seem mixed up but the overall argument holds up when you look at the actual products they're talking about here
titanomachy 11mo ago
And earlier they say “$120 upfront might as well be a million when you’re making $2/day”. The whole article reads like it was vomited up by an LLM trained exclusively on LinkedIn posts. The math errors are consistent with that.
- safety1st 11mo ago
  Yeah way too many tell-tale ChatGPT rhetorical devices in this article, which is a shame because the topic and premise are fascinating, but those turned me off from finishing it. AI slop hits 700+ upvotes on Hacker News. The Dead Internet and the triumph of quantity over quality loom. A sign of things to come.
  - cycomanic 11mo ago
    It's getting boring how every. single. article. has comments how the article is AI generated. The funny thing is the article writing styles are completely different, but every one has apparently "tell-tale" signs of "AI slop". It just gets tiring. For what it's worth I pasted the first couple of paragraphs into several AI detectors and 4/5 said it's clean, while one said mixed (partly AI generated partly human). So either all these AI generation tools are crap, or the text is not so "obviously" AI generated. Not saying either way, but it seems to at least not be so obvious.
    - Version467 11mo ago
      All of those tools are garbage. There is no reliable automated way to detect ai generated text. In 2023 OpenAI had a tool for this as well and they eventually took it down because it wasn't accurate enough. The major AI labs are probably best positioned to make such a tool work. If even they can't, then some random company with access to a fraction of a data and a fraction of the compute almost certainly also cannot.
      - MattSayar 11mo ago
        Agree those tools are unreliable. Unless you have a massive amount of ML models trained on individuals' writing[0], the best you can do is vibe-checking[1]. [0] https://mattsayar.com/can-ai-tell-if-im-writing-ai-slop-a-machine-learning-journey/ https://mattsayar.com/can-ai-tell-if-im-writing-ai-slop-a-ma... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing
    - mattvr 11mo ago
      The detectors are wrong. Here’s the thing: AI slop has a distinctive structure that many of us spot from a mile away. The kicker? This setup-punchline format sets off a red alert for astute readers’ AI detectors. This isn’t just AI slop, it’s an industrial AI sludge factory. (note: this was ironically written by a human)
      - 11mo ago
- testdelacc1 11mo ago
  They say $120 might as well be a million and they immediately follow that up with “$100 down payment to get started”. But I thought it was like a million dollars?? LLM slop. Author couldn’t even be bothered to read the slop before clicking publish.
  - fouc 11mo ago
    another comment clarified the $100 downpayment is for the agriculture solar (SunCulture) not the residential solar (Solar King)
ncruces 11mo ago
They mixed up the numbers for residential solar (Solar King) and agriculture solar (SunCulture). The $100 down + $65/mo is for agriculture. (not that the numbers are correct or make sense)
samdoesnothing 11mo ago
It's obviously AI generated. Was a bummer because I was interested in the premise.
dangoodmanUT 11mo ago
this, they also say 45-60/month which is NOT 0.21/day
- minusLik 11mo ago
  These 0.21/day are MPESA transaction fees. I stumbled upon that, too.
veunes 11mo ago
Would've been clearer if the author had separated those models explicitly, but yeah, you're right, those two numbers don't map to the same product

tetris11 11mo ago

Isn't $6 a month the cost of the subscription, but the $40-56 a month the cost of the installation?

icedshrimp 11mo ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-atDnj5jE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-atDnj5jE video from sunking from 7 years ago where the cost of a basic system was 25¢ per day. Probably cheaper now. the article wording/numbers seem mixed up but the overall argument holds up when you look at the actual products they're talking about here

titanomachy 11mo ago

And earlier they say “$120 upfront might as well be a million when you’re making $2/day”. The whole article reads like it was vomited up by an LLM trained exclusively on LinkedIn posts. The math errors are consistent with that.

safety1st 11mo ago
Yeah way too many tell-tale ChatGPT rhetorical devices in this article, which is a shame because the topic and premise are fascinating, but those turned me off from finishing it. AI slop hits 700+ upvotes on Hacker News. The Dead Internet and the triumph of quantity over quality loom. A sign of things to come.
- cycomanic 11mo ago
  It's getting boring how every. single. article. has comments how the article is AI generated. The funny thing is the article writing styles are completely different, but every one has apparently "tell-tale" signs of "AI slop". It just gets tiring. For what it's worth I pasted the first couple of paragraphs into several AI detectors and 4/5 said it's clean, while one said mixed (partly AI generated partly human). So either all these AI generation tools are crap, or the text is not so "obviously" AI generated. Not saying either way, but it seems to at least not be so obvious.
  - Version467 11mo ago
    All of those tools are garbage. There is no reliable automated way to detect ai generated text. In 2023 OpenAI had a tool for this as well and they eventually took it down because it wasn't accurate enough. The major AI labs are probably best positioned to make such a tool work. If even they can't, then some random company with access to a fraction of a data and a fraction of the compute almost certainly also cannot.
    - MattSayar 11mo ago
      Agree those tools are unreliable. Unless you have a massive amount of ML models trained on individuals' writing[0], the best you can do is vibe-checking[1]. [0] https://mattsayar.com/can-ai-tell-if-im-writing-ai-slop-a-machine-learning-journey/ https://mattsayar.com/can-ai-tell-if-im-writing-ai-slop-a-ma... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing
  - mattvr 11mo ago
    The detectors are wrong. Here’s the thing: AI slop has a distinctive structure that many of us spot from a mile away. The kicker? This setup-punchline format sets off a red alert for astute readers’ AI detectors. This isn’t just AI slop, it’s an industrial AI sludge factory. (note: this was ironically written by a human)
    - 11mo ago
testdelacc1 11mo ago
They say $120 might as well be a million and they immediately follow that up with “$100 down payment to get started”. But I thought it was like a million dollars?? LLM slop. Author couldn’t even be bothered to read the slop before clicking publish.
- fouc 11mo ago
  another comment clarified the $100 downpayment is for the agriculture solar (SunCulture) not the residential solar (Solar King)

ncruces 11mo ago

They mixed up the numbers for residential solar (Solar King) and agriculture solar (SunCulture). The $100 down + $65/mo is for agriculture. (not that the numbers are correct or make sense)

samdoesnothing 11mo ago

It's obviously AI generated. Was a bummer because I was interested in the premise.

dangoodmanUT 11mo ago

this, they also say 45-60/month which is NOT 0.21/day

minusLik 11mo ago
These 0.21/day are MPESA transaction fees. I stumbled upon that, too.

veunes 11mo ago

Would've been clearer if the author had separated those models explicitly, but yeah, you're right, those two numbers don't map to the same product