partial_accumen

US increased coal use. China did not.

China increased coal usage too.

China’s coal power on the rise again in 2026, reversing first-in-a-decade decline

Your search with any search engine will produce CO2.

AI-powered searches consume roughly ten times more energy than standard Google searches.

When you’re Googling something add “-ai” (without the quotes to the end of your search string. It will skip processing the search with and AI and answer and presumably drop your Google search CO2 footprint by 90%.

Appliance based DVRs are turn-key solutions. I hope we both agree setting up a Linux box, obtaining a compatible OTA tuner, downloading and configuring Jellyfin all on hardware that is easily integrated into a general home entertainment setting is not a trivial task that most non-technically inclined folks can accomplish.

I personally ran PC based software DVRs for many years predating Jellyfin, but even in those years we had a Tivo for the wife.

Depends on the use case. If you’re someone that wants to watch shows that air on broadcast television, OTA (over the air) DVRs are a great way to get TV content without a cable or streaming service subscription. With the increased number of OTA stations now that represents a lot of ad-skippable content. We get close to 40 OTA stations at our house with just an antenna in the attic.

about how he would fix a nonexistent problem

Nazi-Musk aside, Its not exactly a non-existent problem. Its just a very very small niche problem that doesn’t justify the tremendous resources poured into creating it. Its also an old problem that doesn’t exist much anymore.

There was a time when solar panels were pretty ugly and expensive. Those two things would deter a certain number of people from installing panels. So the idea of cheap solar panels that matched the traditional look some buyers wanted did exist. Heavy emphasis on some buyers because it was a pretty small pool to begin with. What really made solar shingles largely irrelevant was the dramatic drop in cost of regular panels, the drastic increase in performance of regular panels, and the noticeably improved aesthetics of all-black regular panels. So the prior tiny market for solar shingles shrank even more, and the costs of Tesla solar shingles continued to rise without any performance improvements. It was a tiny market before and its a nearly non-existent market now. Solar shingles are bad business.

Lastly, social attitudes changed and having solar panels on a roof switched largely from being seen as an eyesore to a point of pride for many. This last point isn’t totally solved yet. My own housing community doesn’t allow panels on the side of the house that faces the road…except in some circumstances (making the rule even more stupid).

I’m looking forward to the day when I can slap some panels on the other side of the house for even greater solar generation! I’m still have no interest in solar shingles though.

Years ago (maybe still) you can buy them in-person at the Bureau of Engraving and printing in DC. I have a sheet of $2 bills.

I ask for their wifi password. I’m not going to pay for my data to help them do their job.

They’d love nothing more than you using their wifi. The data they can collect about you, your spending habits, and how they can change you behavior to buy more.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s network giant Cisco Systems pitch to store owners how their gear can track you and how the store benefits from it.

"With guest Wi-Fi access available right at their fingertips, they can easily look up reviews about each product. This data gathered from Wi-Fi analytics not only allows retailers to track customers’ interests and identify emerging trends, but also provides shoppers with validated decision-making processes, as they weigh options across multiple providers. "

"Gaining insight into your customer’s identity: By utilizing Wi-Fi analytics, businesses can gain valuable insights into who their customers are. This data can be used to better understand who is using their Wi-Fi network, when they are using it the most and what actions they take while connected. It provides business owners an unprecedented glimpse into their customers’ true identity, as well as more concrete evidence of their buying behavior in order to segment them more effectively. "

If they’re using bluetooth and wifi, we better find and remove those components too.

Removing the Bluetooth/wifi module maybe more difficult. For cost cutting reasons, these controllers are built into the logic boards now, but disconnecting the bluetooth/wifi antennas inside the TV is trivially easy. They are simple push-on mechanical connectors. No wire cutting needed. Gently grab the gold/silver metal part pull straight up from the board.

I just googled “lcd TV logic board” and this was one of the first images I found. I put a red square around the antenna connectors.

I originally went shopping for a Bravia II 7, but found an open box Bravia 5 (which is the one I got) for less than half the cost of the Bravia II 7.

I haven’t. I have not once hooked it up to a network, and my preference is that I never do so.

I recently bought a new TV and did some research to find the “least worst” TV with regard to internet connectivity and reliance on its “smart OS” navigation to just use an external HDMI port. I can report pretty good news for the Sony Bravia line of Android TVs.

• there was no requirement to connect it to the internet
• during setup there is a choice for “basic” which adds only a few default apps (which are uninstallable/disablable by the user)
• there is a setting called “Power on and remember last input port”. What this means is you last used HDMI1 port when you powered off the TV, when you power it back up again it automatically goes right back to that HDMI input port without any extra button presses or user interaction. In practice this means you see the Sony logo on the screen and just a fraction of a second the graphic circles of part of the AndroidTV interface before it switches to the HDMI1 input where we left off before powering off the tv prior.

Bonus feature we like:

• there is a setting you can enable/disable that if the TV is already powered on, when you power on a device on another HDMI port than the one you’re on, the TV will automatically switch to that HDMI input without prompting. So if we’re watching the AppleTV on HDMI1 and then want to watch a Blu-ray, simply powering on the Blu-ray player will also have the TV switch to that HDMI2 input.

I wish there was no AndroidTV OS on it at all, but the only time I’ve ever seen it was the one time when we went through the initial setup. We haven’t seen or interacted with it since.

I think its likely possible to build a data center that a community would be okay with. It would mean making certain design choices:

• Closed loop water cycle - This would mean that only small fraction of water that is normally used by DCs is consumed. This technology is fully mature. The reason most companies don’t use it is, it is more expensive to run the DC this way.
• Large scale PV solar panel installation for the DC - While not a complete answer to power consumption question, it would provide a large offset during the hottest hours of the day when DC cooling is most needed mitigating the worst impacts to DC electricity consumption
• Waste heat reuse - In many parts of the world heat centrally created in a city and distrusted through pipes to other places that need heat. DCs are exceedingly good and producing heat, and it is largely wasted. If a community would know that their own heating bills would come down by using waste head from the DC, that would be an incentive.
• Sound mitigation - most of the sound comes from cooling fans. If waste heat reclamation is done properly or a water loop to a large body of water is available, then the noise could be significantly reduced or eliminated too.

All of these things are possible and if a DC builder did these things on an existing site, then used that as a showcase for what a new DC would be, I think it would be much better received. They can do all of these things. They don’t because its cheaper not to.

I like and use Libreoffice, but its a local application. This makes it fine for working by yourself and on your own hardware. Google Docs (Gstuite) is an online application with the best collaboration integration I’ve seen and works on nearly any device you can open a modern browser on. Yes, both products have a word processor and a spreadsheet, but they don’t serve all the same use cases.

If this new Euro-office can replicate the Gsuite offerings (that Libreoffice lacks), then Euro-office could be a great addition to the open source community.

You need to make sure you always use the “+consent” flag. Never move forward without it.

Is that paying cash for the solar system or financing? Financing can devastate the ROI with interest rates today. I’m looking at as long as 12 year ROI with possibly as short as 7 year ROI if I consider the USA’s federal tax incentives. My slightly southern latitude (a border state with Canada) also likely contributes to slightly higher generation results using the same equipment.

How are the government incentives in Canada? I’m super envious of your great hydro power, my neighbor.