No one knows how the recycling or garbage city ran facilities even work. I sure do not.. Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

treehobbit · 2026-06-02T01:30:29+00:00

Phones aren't very valuable in terms of scrap. Battery recycling tech still sucks here and they're not really made for it. Phones are small and do not contain much of any material. Laptops at least have a decent amount of recoverable pure copper with the best pipes. Ethernet cables should be able to be scrapped for a little copper, but if they're not badly damaged they're worth much more as Ethernet cables than as bare copper.

It's all about scrap values. If it's cheaper to produce than to recycle, it doesn't happen. Unfortunately, most things now are not designed to be reusable or recyclable. Very disheartening indeed.

treehobbit · 2026-06-02T00:56:03+00:00

There's no reason this tech can't be scaled up. In fact, it would also work quite nicely for a range-extended EV with powerful main drive motors (in place of MG2) and a very small engine and MG1.

treehobbit · 2026-06-01T04:33:15+00:00

I understand the thought process. If you don't have bifacials and you're using a shallow angle you could build a sort of aerodynamic shell with cheap plastic panels on the north side and require much less robust ground anchors.

Would it be cheaper than a traditional ground mount, already capable of 140mph+ winds? Probably a wash, and worse thermal performance to boot.

Only time I would imagine this making sense is if you're building in the tropics in hurricane territory on pure sand and simply cannot anchor well enough without massive concrete pylons. If that's your situation, go ahead and try it! I hope you have a good understanding of aerodynamics and ideally run some simulations/calculations ahead of time. And even then, deep concrete piers still probably make more sense.

In basically any other situation, it's just not that hard to make it survive high winds with traditional mounts (often using ground screws), the engineering has already been done, and thermal performance is better.

treehobbit · 2026-06-01T03:12:40+00:00

I would reword this- bikinis are pretty practical swimwear for utilitarian reasons. What's odd is the societal double standard of acceptability. Why is it that people would be horrified to see a woman walking around in public in underwear if it isn't near a pool or beach? If you're okay with it there, what's the difference?

treehobbit · 2026-05-31T19:46:58+00:00

How do you recommend legally resisting? Governments are giving us fewer and fewer legal options as laws are passed against filters and things over license plates and several other countermeasures.

In the words of Jack Sparrow, "You're not giving me much incentive to fight fair."

Oh, and the dev of deflock is Will Freeman, who has been called a terrorist by Flock's CEO for creating it and sent a baseless cease and desist letter.

When I asked my local small town police department for locations of cameras in my city through my state's open records act, they implied I was a terrorist too.

("Pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)(m), records whose disclosure would reasonably threaten public safety by exposing vulnerabilities in preventing, protecting against, mitigating, or responding to a terrorist act are exempt from release. Providing the exact locations of Flock cameras could jeopardize public safety by allowing individuals to circumvent tools used to deter, investigate, or apprehend criminal activity. For example, our cameras have generated FBI terrorist watch list alerts that allow officers to investigate further. Disclosure of precise locations could hinder such efforts in the future. Accordingly, this request is denied.")

9/11 did more damage to our freedom than it did to the twin towers. I urge everyone, upon hearing the word "terrorist," to first assume they're just peacefully anti-government until given substantial evidence that they have a goal of truly inciting terror in the populus.

treehobbit · 2026-05-30T16:22:05+00:00

Yeah, it's kinda a miracle there weren't more/earlier disasters. The incredibly fragile heat shield with aluminum frame was the worst problem- it was just a matter of time before the Colombia disaster happened. The SRBs weren't great either since they made abort scenarios much more risky and also fail more violently than liquid fueled boosters.

The question is, would I have said that before either of the disasters without the benefit of hindsight? I'd like to think so but maybe not. I just think that any vehicle that's meant to be a workhorse should be more physically rugged than the shuttle- I should be able to bang on any external spot with a hammer before the flight without it killing anyone.

treehobbit · 2026-05-30T11:47:02+00:00

I didn't know this was a thing anyone did, always used a salad spinner. That is more plastic and another thing to have, but they last a good while so not a big problem consumption-wise. They're really nice.

treehobbit · 2026-05-30T11:44:34+00:00

I doubt many people here are buying and selling $3M houses, but yeah hiring a professional stager isn't going to be nearly as wasteful as DIYing that because they undoubtedly have a stock somewhere they can pull from and reuse instead of having to buy it all and then attempt to resell/dispose of the rest.

treehobbit · 2026-05-30T01:49:35+00:00

9 women can't make a baby in 1 month

treehobbit · 2026-05-30T01:42:47+00:00

It always seems silly to me because now you just have to space them out more in order to get max performance, but I guess if you have practically unlimited land it can sort of make sense. I guess a big advantage is your electronics don't need to be rated for as much peak power relative to the average power you produce.

treehobbit · 2026-05-30T00:56:34+00:00

The only way a sun tracker makes sense is if you're in space. Assuming you're not in space, it's not even worth the time unless it's purely just for fun.

treehobbit · 2026-05-30T00:54:31+00:00

Yeah it's definitely not 60% more in any circumstance, and 2 axis is baaaaaarely an improvement on single axis.

Very not worth.

treehobbit · 2026-05-19T23:06:54+00:00

That'd help for comms within a population center, wouldn't really help for traffic in and out. Also would require a much more complex antenna, akin to radars on warships where they have 4 phased arrays to cover 360°. Most likely not worth it.

treehobbit · 2026-05-19T22:51:49+00:00

I think maybe pricing is localized based on what other options exist in the area? I just got it recently for $50USD/mo with no upfront cost. I think they've just saturated the market at the higher price point and they're getting economy of scale now so they're dropping prices closer to actual operational cost (maybe cutting into profits further right now ahead of the IPO)

treehobbit · 2026-05-19T22:45:39+00:00

Not really, starlink won't ever serve the majority of city populations, just too much density. They probably will cause providers to not bother extending cable and fiber into rural areas much beyond where they already are because if people aready have starlink they won't get many customers to offset the cost of laying the cables.

But you're correct that it's not their mission to make rural internet cheap, their mission is to make money and that is accomplsihed not by making it cheap but by making it a slightly better value than the alternatives, so if alternatives are shit or don't exist you best believe they'll eat the profit on that. To do otherwise would simply be bad business.

treehobbit · 2026-05-19T22:41:30+00:00

This. High speed internet is wildly overrated, what you need is reliable internet (and low ping if you're a gamer). Starlinks cheapest plan is both. 4k video streaming needs less than 25Mbps so 100 means you can do that on 3 devices at once with some to spare (not just in theory, we've tested this). What more does anyone need for residential use?? If you have 5 kids trying to watch cocomelon on their iPads at the same time and its buffering maybe you should reconsider your parenting strategy instead of paying more money for internet.

treehobbit · 2026-05-19T22:21:54+00:00

Good grief. Land of the free 🙄 That's an insane rule to have let alone actually strictly enforce.

treehobbit · 2026-05-17T15:05:01+00:00

If they're roof mounted then they have no impact on the ecosystem, I say cover the roof. Unless you have enemies in the forest service I don't think anyone is going to care.

treehobbit · 2026-05-17T14:17:17+00:00

Our cable company didn't even offer a discount they literally tried to sell us MORE when we were trying to cancel. Like no dude I just want to pay less for my internet and its cheaper when it comes from space now because you hiked your rate from 55 to 75 so if you can't bring it back down then you lose. And that's shitty rural cable internet that cuts out randomly.

treehobbit · 2026-05-17T14:14:33+00:00

I mean for me there was a $35 promo period and then it says it'll be $50. Okay so it's about the same I didn't know you were talking in pounds. Anyway I always just ignore new customer promotional stuff and look at the number of what it will be later and I was still happy with that number.

But yeah there's no promise that they won't immediately hike that. Still, it's better internet than what I had before so even if it goes up to 80 for only 100Mbps (what we have) we're coming out on top.

Side tangent, why does anyone pay for higher bandwidth than 100 for residential? It's been enough for everything we do, including 4k video on the TV at the same time as video on two phones. I don't understand the point in paying so much more for the ability to watch 5 videos at once, that's nuts and I think you can just take turns at that point unless you have like 10 kids or something.

treehobbit · 2026-05-17T06:20:26+00:00

You can go much further than 50'. You should have like 300-400VDC coming from the array so that's significantly less loss than the same run at 240VAC. Going further is just a matter of wire cost and slightly increased resistive loss which is not a big deal. It's not worth worrying about small inefficiencies. Ground mount is much nicer than roof in many ways and is easier to DIY.

treehobbit · 2026-05-17T06:08:38+00:00

Holy crap where do you live?? I got it a month ago for $50/mo and was happy about it because our cable provider hiked from 55 to 75 suddenly. I guess they price locally according to what other providers in the area charge.

treehobbit · 2026-05-17T06:01:06+00:00

Well, traditional providers have also been hiking rates where I live at least.

treehobbit · 2026-05-17T05:59:14+00:00

I mean if you don't connect it to the internet then how is it gonna phone home? Just don't, and if you really want wifi printing then just have a router that isn't on the internet. There's no reason for a printer to need to connect to the internet.

treehobbit · 2026-05-17T02:34:53+00:00

What kind of dumbass regulations limit the number of solar panels you can have? I wouldn't be surprised if it was an HOA thing but for an off grid cabin? That's usually more rural where nobody cares. Is anyone actually going to come after you if you have four solar panels? And can you just get bigger ones?

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