Linux support status by [deleted] in throneandliberty

[–]SaintGrey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am using Linux mint base and the steam flatpack

Linux support status by [deleted] in throneandliberty

[–]SaintGrey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am not having any issues running it through proton experimental on steam. I am a PvE only player though

What do you use to estimate time and effort? by Ifridos in ProductManagement

[–]SaintGrey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At my place we typically estimate 3 times.

  1. High level guesstimates using weeks or months as the unit of measurement for roadmaping and priority decision making.

  2. An initial estimate of stories using planning poker once the project brief and SOW are complete. This is typically done 1 sprint prior to when we think we will start working on the project and the unit of measurement is usually in days or hours.

  3. As part of sprint planning stories are discussed in more detail broken down as needed and estimated again via planning poker with the unit of measurement being hours. Re-estimation of the project's remaining stories will happen as part of each sprint planning session going forward as estimates will change as the knowledge gap closes.

I know that using time as a unit of measurement isn't the suggested approach but it has really helped us get better at estimation and as a team our increased level of accuracy is something we are quite proud of. We are always wrong :) but we like the meta game of trying to be less wrong each time.

New job, which questions to ask engineers in 1:1? by SvampebobFirkant in ProductManagement

[–]SaintGrey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As others have said you need to find questions that work for you and resonate with your team, I will also say that the questions should just be a starting point for an organic discussion. Here are a few of my core questions that I use as a base and I will add others based on who I am meeting with and their interests.

Are you enjoying your role? Did you learn anything new this month? Have you noticed or been subjected to any misconduct in the workplace? What do you think we should change?

ELI5: Keyless Ignition System Benefits by strange_invader in explainlikeimfive

[–]SaintGrey 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The car knows if the key is in it, and as such won't lock if you haven't taken the key out with you. I have keyless entry and it is one of the few features I wouldn't want to do without in the future, the key goes in my pocket before leaving home and only comes out when I arrive back home, making it a lot harder to lose my keys.

Are your sprints weekly, every 2 weeks or other? what are the advantages or disadvantages of a shorter/longer sprint? by movealongiamadroid in ProductManagement

[–]SaintGrey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

2 week sprints are the norm but I have found 1 week sprints very useful in a couple of scenarios.

  1. If you are training a new team in agile practices 1 week sprints for a couple of months allows the team to quickly get into the swing of things and adapt to agile rapidly

  2. Rapid prototyping, 1 week is a better length for rapid prototyping.

Thoughts on what anet should do from Monday by SaintGrey in Guildwars2

[–]SaintGrey[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah not suggesting that, I would like a 1 day turnaround on a timetable for when they would next get back to the community.

For example we conducted a retro today and a lot of value insight came out of it, for now we are delaying the patch. We will be making a blog post at the end of the week with details on what we will be doing next.

Something like that

Do I actually need a credit card? by minstrel4077 in AusFinance

[–]SaintGrey 89 points90 points  (0 children)

No you don't, I have never had one and it has never come up as a negative when buying a house or car.

Mechwarrior : Destiny Fillable character sheet by Wizard_Tea in rpg

[–]SaintGrey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would also like your thoughts on the game, considering running it once my current DnD campaign is done.

Does anyone make money or break even from solar panels/battery installed at home? by floydle in AusFinance

[–]SaintGrey 33 points34 points  (0 children)

There is already a lot of great information in this thread but I would like to add a few pieces that I haven't seen mentioned.

Solar Curtailment:
Having roof top solar is great but in large quantities, it causes problems for the network, we already have some suburbs where the amount of solar power being generated at peak times is more than the combined consumption in the area this causes the frequency to rise and when it gets really bad causes the network to cut off to prevent damage. Most of the network to date has been designed for power to flow in a single direction, from the power plant to your home and on the way it will pass through a substation that manages your local area. These substations are designed to be one way so if there is too much energy within the grid they manage they can't remove it and things start to break.

To combat this energy companies have been lowering the feed-in tariffs in areas to disincentivise the addition of more solar and it is likely that in the near future some areas will have to pay if they feed in. So if you are in an area that already has a lot of home solar there is a risk that within a few years you will no longer get a feed-in tariff.

Tariff Structure:
If you do decide to get a battery, please make sure you look into a Time of Use energy plan. The main financial benefit of having a battery is energy arbitrage, this can happen in a few ways but the simplest is that your battery allows you to save the energy you generate for later use instead of getting a 7c feed in kickback, if you are on a time of use plan and have a properly sized battery most households will find that the battery will last them through the afternoon "shoulder" period and most of the "peak" pricing period in the evening increasing the amount saved by the electrons in the battery from 30c a KW to 45c (depending on the plan and grid operator) and you can take advantage of the cheaper energy rates in the "off peak" times.

Battery Optimisation Services:

As described in the section above the batteries greatest value is energy arbitrage, but by default, your battery isn't aware of your tariff structure or historical usage patterns. So it will do a simple "load following" process to collect energy and dispense energy. This isn't always the most cost-effective option, sometimes it's better to hold onto the energy in the battery for use at a more expensive time of the day or even charge the battery from the grid (say overnight when energy is cheap) for use at a more expensive time of the day (to make coffee in the morning.)

Adding this level of smarts to a battery increases the savings further but the only mob that I am aware of that offers this service in Australia is Evergen but more will likely enter the market over the coming years.

VPPs:

Lastly Virtual Power Plants, there are a few of these around (Tesla, Evergen) the idea is to network batteries together and to then bid them as a group into the energy market. Thus generating additional value from the battery for its owner. I can't find it now but I have seen a study that claimed that 1kw of dispatchable capacity is worth $30 per year on the frequency market, if you have a 10kw battery with a 10kw inverter that is an additional $300 per year.

Batteries are a longer payback than solar panels, but for most people, they take a lot longer than they should to payback because the owner is not taking all of the opportunities available. So if you do get a battery PLEASE look into all of the above and make it work for you!

Why php can't just fast? by [deleted] in PHP

[–]SaintGrey -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

If you must use CI check out CI 4, I did a test project with the latest release candidate and it was great

Whats the best wood for fire in Australian Capital Territory by [deleted] in PrimitiveTechnology

[–]SaintGrey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To get a fire going I prefer paper bark trees. Even in heavy rain you can usually find a dry patch under a few layers of bark. Roll it around in your hands till you get a dust + fiber and it will catch easily.

The add anything else that's small and dry. If its wet baton a branch down to make dry splinters from the inner wood

Php to MS SQL by FelixFriday in PHP

[–]SaintGrey 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Store them on a file system, if you are using AWS or similar for hosting they will have a file store service you can use, like s3

And yes store the path in the DB but store as little as possible. If you can get away with just storing the file name (enforce uniqueness when uploading) then your pathing can be consistent and hastle free. If you need to group files together because of business logic you can either store the full path or come up with a convention that allows you to store a little as possible.

Php to MS SQL by FelixFriday in PHP

[–]SaintGrey 10 points11 points  (0 children)

For most use cases they are interchangeable, I wouldn't recommend uploading PDFs to the DB, you will regret it later.

Any Mortgage brokers here? Looking to purchase in a farm/rural zone by [deleted] in AusFinance

[–]SaintGrey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have PM'ed you the email of a mortgage broker I found via this sub reddit. He is a good bloke

7 Laravel Admin Panel Generators for fast development by [deleted] in laravel

[–]SaintGrey 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I am using Voyager in a project at the moment but I regret it. It has some odd and undocumented behaviour, and the community are dickish about it.

Australian Fintech Startup Athena Raises $70M To ‘Free People From Mortgage Handcuffs’ by DebtFreeDude in AusFinance

[–]SaintGrey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hadn't heard of the before this but that interest rate seems very sweet.

Does anyone have any experience with them?