You’re right, natural gas is not up as much in the U.S., mainly because there’s limited capacity to export it. But oil is up a similar amount. Anyway, average households in the U.S. are not benefiting from higher oil and gas prices, even if GDP is. The extra profits are going to oil and gas owners.
We sometimes hear that the U.S. is doing OK because it’s an oil and gas exporter. But that just means the oil and gas companies and their owners are doing well. Regular people are being hurt just as much here as anywhere else in the world.
Going from a five-year-old router to a new one also made a huge difference for us.
I also find trouble usually starts when I begin talking or gesturing. This may be due to the sudden increase in bandwidth, or because my movements change how the signal reflects through the room, and it needs time to retune the beamforming. But it means testing at the start often isn’t enough. ☹️
Settings > Statistics shows real-time bandwidth for the current call and has some testing options at the bottom. In our house, instability is usually due to the wifi repeater; if I unplug it, there is less bandwidth but it is more stable.
You can get pretty far by building a lot of solar and maybe wind power, then covering what’s left with batteries and some lightly used thermal plants. In much of the world, 50-95% renewable is cheaper than continuing to burn mainly fossil fuels. This also provides cheap power for EVs and industry.
You can get pretty far by building a lot of solar and maybe wind power, then covering what’s left with batteries and some lightly used thermal plants. In much of the world, 50-95% renewable is cheaper than continuing to burn mainly fossil fuels. This also provides cheap power for EVs and industry.
The California Academy of Sciences is awesome for that age group, but a little pricey. Muir Woods is a great experience, but remember to book ahead. Monterey Bay Aquarium is also womderful. Embarcadero, Coit Tower, Alcatraz and Angel Island are good too.
We can easily build a reliable, low-cost, near-zero-emission power system with the technologies we have today. We don’t need to invent anything new. 🔌💡
Articles referring to an “immigration crackdown” or “aggressive immigration enforcement” are in the same category for me. Most of the detainees were people who were going through the legal process to immigrate, who had that abruptly canceled (or not) and were thrown into holding pens indefinitely.
Not to make trouble, but it would be nice to see trains, semi-trailers, dirigibles and container ships on there.
If everyone has to publish dozens of minor papers for tenure, credibility and promotion, that means everyone has to review many dozens of minor papers in the same time frame. But reviewing is thankless and there’s not enough time with the publishing pressure. It’s a recipe for congestion.
I appreciate this idea, but as the rest of the thread shows, the big problem with excess ROE is not the inflated payments—it’s the dumb investments utilities make to get those payments. Maybe we could cut ROE in half—to market rate—but still pay the other half in incentives, even just a fee per kWh?
The kind I do is more computational and normative than predictive—“if you believe these things, here’s what we should do.” Or “here’s what is in-the-money under these policies.” But the power sector is not designed to do what is cost-effective, so you can’t treat these as forecasts.
I generally assume anything I’m working on might be lost when I switch apps. So if a post is complicated, I often copy it over to Notes before I lookup the cross-reference, and then finish drafting it there.
TIL that there are fusion reactor designs that use induction to extract energy directly from plasma expansion. I have been pessimistic about other fusion designs because they still require a steam cycle and conventional generator, making them unlikely to compete with solar panels and batteries.
This isn’t what the American public want. It isn’t even what the fossil fuel companies want. It’s just a few petulant extremists finally getting their chance to cancel climate protections, even if that means making everyone in the country and the world worse off.
It sounds like EDF is burning taxpayer money with a bad bet on nuclear, which is a shame. But something must also be wrong in the market if nuclear is being curtailed with negative "savings" instead of zero-cost solar. And I agree, if there is a glut of clean power, other sectors should use more.
What if the government said the best way to fix a failing dam was slapping duct tape on its cracks?
That's what the House "Power Plant Reliability Act" would do for America's grid - keep our least reliable generation online instead of fixing the actual problem.
www.utilitydive.com/news/congres...
There’s also something fishy if EDF is blaming nighttime nuclear modulation on solar power.
If the nuclear plants cost more to reduce output but they are being curtailed instead of solar anyway, then this is a failure of operating practices, not a technical problem. Get the pricing right and solar will curtail, some nuclear plants will retire or storage or transmission will grow.
An adjustment to my first point: as far as I can tell, these legal immigrants aren’t all being deported, at least not quickly. Instead they are being warehoused in concentration-camp-like detention centers. Either way, this is not what voters asked for: torturing people who followed all the rules.
The American people did _not_ ask for this arbitrary cancellation of legal rights and processes. After a year of terrorizing these hardworking folks trying to pursue the American dream, I think we owe them better, i.e., fast-track approval for anyone without a felony record. End the persecution.
The current playbook is to seize _any_ immigrant, which mainly means legal asylum seekers, then retroactively convert the process to detention while awaiting a decision or simply cancel the asylum process, declare them unlawfully present and deport them.
Wow, at the risk of being an old codger, they don’t make movies like they used to. There are memorable, good movies all the way down to the 140s on that list.
Partially related:
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/u...
bsky.app/profile/tyle...
Why is it that Trump can sue the IRS for leaking his tax details but DHS can’t be sued for assaulting or killing regular people?
