zbrozek

52 ms·

661.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Zoning in the United States is out of control in most suburban-and -up places. Too restrictive. It drives a lot of our ills (megacommuting, unaffordable housing, sprawl, etc) and needs to be liberalized. Like sure, I get it, don't put
662.
by zbrozek 5y ago
IT departments in large organizations often see their users as adversaries rather than customers. The department's goal isn't to enable productivity but to prevent computing. This is probably WAI.
663.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Shrug. The almost-religious belief in the necessity for ultra-consistent branding within some companies is nearly comical so long as you're on the outside.
664.
by zbrozek 5y ago
I'm more than 600 days into trying to get permission to ask for permission to edit an existing home.
665.
by zbrozek 5y ago
I can't describe how much I hate the "internet" control in the shade, or the lack of a switch for the cell radio specifically.
666.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Is domain enough? I doubt it. You probably also need your own server in your own rack in your own building with your own peering to other networks. Once you've done all of that, you can probably credibly keep your site up counter to co
667.
by zbrozek 5y ago
My own plan is to keep growing my solar and battery array until I'm self sufficient. I'll be electrifying as the additional load doesn't generate revenue for PG&E. I expect the last-customer-standing problem you bring up
668.
by zbrozek 5y ago
So we've paid the cost of the gas line upgrade but the cost of the electric upgrade to mitigate the fire risk is still incoming. Therefore we should expect a price shock on electricity in PG&E territory above-and-beyond the large-b
669.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Oh for sure there's tons of benefits if it can be made to make sense. I'm going to get one as my solar and battery capacity grow. But right now it's unimaginable to do so in PG&E territory where electricity prices rise 4-
670.
by zbrozek 5y ago
My baseline electricity rate is $0.29/kWh and my baseline gas rate converts to about $0.06/kWh. Weighted for best-case efficiency that makes the the heat pump water heater 18% more expensive to run than the gas heater. Adding cogn
671.
by zbrozek 5y ago
I would dearly love to electrify everything, but electricity around here (California) has price growth strongly exceeding inflation while simultaneously getting less reliable. You're economically better off converting electric loads to
672.
by zbrozek 5y ago
CEQA needs to be repealed. It seems to have accidentally acquired scope far beyond what its writers intended.
673.
by zbrozek 5y ago
No, but we have plenty of other policies designed to prevent construction. Like having needlessly complicated and subjective lot coverage rules where simple objective ones would work fine. Or nerfing SB-9. Our town government also extorts c
674.
by zbrozek 5y ago
I've always enjoyed being multimodal. There were workarounds but I didn't like not having access to a useful touchpad. It seemed like a clear hardware problem because I had the same problem in Windows as in all desktop environment
675.
by zbrozek 5y ago
I used an x220 as my primary machine for a long time. The low resolution screen and the unusually crappy touchpad are what got me to upgrade. The touchpad in particular was horrible because it had different resolutions in X and Y. In one of
676.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Lots of restaurants are forcing this. I stop going to them. I don't go to a coffee shop to spend 3-10 minutes futzing with phones instead of talking to the person I'm meeting.
677.
by zbrozek 5y ago
I'm in the SFBA, but grew up in central KY and eastern TN. While I'm very interested in moving out, my wife isn't ready yet. Personally I find California to be oppressively over-regulated (zoning and planning are horrible, bu
678.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Following up - I'm currently visiting my parents in eastern Tennessee and asked to see their electric bills. They're all-electric and they averaged 3x the consumption that I do. But their electricity bill is 2x lower. I almost cri
679.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Right, but I'm not trying to optimize carbon efficiency. And neither are the regulators. If they were trying to reduce GHG emissions, they'd keep the nuclear plants operational, try to drive down the price of electricity relative
680.
by zbrozek 5y ago
The SFBA is, for better or for worse, largely zoned R-1 for single family home construction. At that density just about everyone gets enough sunlight to support their needs. In my previous place - a townhouse where I owned much less roof -
681.
by zbrozek 5y ago
At present I have no use for hydrogen. That may change someday in the future, but it doesn't seem hugely likely.
682.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Because it isn't valuable. Around here you get paid approximately nothing to put power into the grid. The asymmetry is comically large.
683.
by zbrozek 5y ago
I think you've hit the nail on the head: just use the type-C connector. Bonus, it means the connector could be on the same side of the PCB as all the surface mount components and not impact insertion direction. If you need a type-A, go
684.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Maybe, but the other side also needs to be cleaned. And the car side TX won't be anywhere near as bright as a street lamp (and probably IR) and will be more vulnerable. As you point out, all of this is likely surmountable, but... why b
685.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Correct, though I was actually referring to the existing cell network as great for road trips.
686.
by zbrozek 5y ago
California (specifically the CPUC, as servant of the for-profit utilities here) is choosing to make electricity extremely expensive, which is making it short-term economically less favorable than it could be to switch. I have an EV, which m
687.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Aperture fouling (dirt / grime) seems like it would make such a service flaky. Aside from needlessly low data caps, the cell network is pretty great for road trip connectivity. High bandwidth intermittent connectivity would be nice for
688.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Car batteries these days are sealed, so you don't really have much opportunity to replace their acid. A regularly-driven car isn't deep-cycling its battery, so I'm not sure what else you'd do to maintain it.
689.
by zbrozek 5y ago
I can believe that lead-acid batteries in a thermally-regulated and immobile location would have a longevity advantage. But what magic dance are you doing to get car batteries to last longer than 5 years? I - and my parents, and seemingly e
690.
by zbrozek 5y ago
Maybe, but I doubt it. It wasn't throwing any codes and I notice other Priuses also sagging by 5-8 mph on uphill sections of 280. Nowadays I habitually change lanes if I see a Prius in front of me just prior to an incline.

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