• 0 Posts
  • 24 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: April 8th, 2024

help-circle



  • Recently we also got more and more smart meters here in Germany, as there are a few power companies that calculate your price by the hour. But that’s not based on your maximum consumption but on the time of the consumption. If you use the solar and wind power on a windy summer day it’s basically free, whereas the price goes up when it’s expensive power from gas plants on a windless winter night. So you can lower your price by washing or charging your car at the right time.

    That probably would not work that way in Norway as you have a lot of hydroelectric power which is available much more continuously, as far as I understand.


  • optional@sh.itjust.workstoFunny@sh.itjust.worksGenius
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    29
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 month ago

    Are there really people in the US driving from house to house reading the meters? In Germany you just get a letter (or an email nowadays) asking you to read the meter and tell them. Unless the values you’re providing are obviously wrong, noone questions you.

    If you lie there you’ll be found out when you move out of your apparent or when the meter is changed after 20 or 30 years.


  • It was xz, a software most people probably use without even knowing it as it is a library which is included in a lot of other projects. The vulnerability targeted openssh which is one of these users.

    That being said: Do you also audit the dependencies of the software you’re installing? I usually don’t, unless a customer pays me for it. However, before I pull any dependency into one of my own projects I take a look at it’s dependencies. If a library for a simple task brings tons of dependencies with it, I rather not use it.









  • There are (at least) four different definitions of winter:

    • Astronomical seasons are what you describe, and these are obviously based on astronomical events, for which the equinoxes and solstices are the perfect fix points. That the seasons start at these days is purely conventional, and in some times (roman empire) and places (Celtic calendar) people used these days as the center point of the season instead (also known as “Solar seasons”). Why those don’t match up with the actual temperature has already been explained in countless other replies.
    • Meteorological seasons use a simple, month based approach, where winter is just December, January and February. That makes it easier for statistical usage but obviously is also just a man-made convention.
    • The energy sector defines winter as the time of extended energy needs due to heating. Where I live, that’s defined as 1. of October - 31. of March, but for obvious reasons that’s highly dependent on where you are.
    • Phenological seasons are a bit more what you’re looking for: They are based on biological events in indicator plants and a lot more complex than just being four fixed periods and only ever the same for small regions. Where I live, there are ten phenological seasons, winter starts when the English Oaks drop their leafs and ends with the blooming of the Common Hazle.

    In other cultures there might be vastly different seasons. In many tropical countries you’ll only have the dry season and the monsun season.



  • It seems to be some kind of production facility with machines standing in there. So maybe the Idea is to have electrical boxes on every pillar, so you’ll have electricity available wherever you place the machines. If the production lines are changed regularly, you wouldn’t want to rewire the entire building each time. A bit like these cubes hanging from the ceiling so you don’t need to run extension cords through your workshop whenever you need power somewhere, but a bit more encapsulated.