Author: Steven Garrity

Unintended consequences of net metering

by Steven Garrity

Where I’m so fortunate to live, on Prince Edward Island, we have a Net-Metering system for electricity (see the legal act). My oversimplified explanation of PEI’s net-metering policy is:

  • For any energy my solar panels generate, but that I don’t use gets shared back out to the grid.
  • For any unit of energy I share back to the grid, I get a credit for that same amount of electricity.
  • The credits are 1-to-1 value, with the caveat that we pay tax on the electric bill before credits are applied
  • Credits can’t be carried year-over-year, and credits can’t be exchanged for cash value

A 1-to-1 credit system like this is pretty good. It means I benefit of every bit of energy I can generate even if I can’t use it at the time. Economically, at least it’s like the entire grid is my infinite battery, that I can charge up when it’s sunny, and draw from whenever I need.

The unintended consequence for this type of pricing is that I now have no financial incentive to do any electricity storage myself. I could pay $15,000 or more for a home battery system that would allow me to keep much of the surplus energy I generate and use it during hours when I’m using more, but generating less.

If there wasn’t a net-metering system, I’d have an incentive to get my own storage, but net metering is great. I don’t want to lose it.

Two incentives I can imagine would help people like me get home battery storage:

  1. Vary electricity costs (charge more during higher demand). A smart battery system could draw down my battery during peak rate times. This would save me money and reduce my draw on the grid at key times. As a human on a warming planet, I want this. As a consumer – I don’t want to have to think about the price of energy at different times of the day.
  2. Just pay me. If we want to reduce the draw on the grid at peak times, we could have the government incentive residential storage costs.

One other relevant thing to note (thanks to Steve for the tip in the comments): One of the first things you learn when you get solar panels (without some kind of battery storage) is: when the power goes out, your solar panels don’t work. A common residential solar installation without a battery storage component requires grid power to function.

 

The 1,000 Day Stopwatch

by Steven Garrity

It turns out that if you start a stopwatch in the Clock app on macOS, it will keep counting through reboots and upgrades. As of today, my stopwatch has been running for over 1,000 days.

I wonder what it was I was originally timing. Looks like the first ‘lap’ was 100 days long.

Screenshot of macOS Clock app showing a running time count of 24000:48:44.87.
 

Don’t prescribe values to the weather

by Steven Garrity

I have a pet peeve about people talking about the weather, particularly on the radio, which is where I hear most of my weather-talkin’.

You’ll often here the weather-person express a kind of value judgment on the weather: it’s going to be a ‘nice day’, or the weekend ‘looks good’, or they have ‘good news in the weather forecast’.

The thing is, there isn’t good or bad weather.

Ok, there can be bad weather. No one wants a tornado or a flood.

Other than those extremes, though, weather isn’t good or bad. It depends on your preferences and needs.

Throwing an outdoor wedding reception? You probably don’t want rain. Trying to keep failing crops alive after weeks of drought? You probably do want rain.

I know people who love a hot and humid day. They call it a “beach day”. I hate hot humid days. I can only take off so many clothes.

This is mostly trivial peeve of language, but I do think there’s a deeper issue. If we prescribe values to something as arbitrary as the weather, then we allow something which we have no control to impact how we feel.

Don’t value judge the weather! It’s is a path to sadness!

 

Meetings need margins

by Steven Garrity

In the world of CSS, there are two different types of spacing between elements:

  1. Margin is the space outside of an element
  2. Padding is the spacing inside of an element
Diagram showing how padding is the space inside a rectangular element and it's contents, and margin is the space outside the element between it and other elements.

I’ve come to believe that scheduled meetings have MARGIN and PADDING too. Meeting Margin is the space between two meetings. This needs to be explicit. The screenshot below shows two meetings with no margins. They’re bumping up against each other.

Meeting Padding is the space inside a meeting required to make space between other meetings/activities before and after. For example, if I show up immediately after a previous meeting, I’ll still need a minute to find my notes, or run to the bathroom.

Screenshot from Google Calendar showing two meetings running right up against each other. The first is "Big Meeting that runs long" and the second is "Other meeting without a bathroom break"

I try to give meetings Margin so they don’t end up with too much Padding. I try not to put two meetings immediately adjacent on the calendar. I don’t always success.

I wish calendar tools like Google Calendar would make this basic human requirement a bit more obviously part of the flow of booking meetings. Let me know that this meeting runs right into the next one, or that the person I’ve invited has zero minutes between their previous meeting and the one I’m scheduling.

 

Printers are the new trucks

by Steven Garrity

Everyone knows that if you have a truck, you have a social responsibility to help your friends and family move stuff. It’s in the Bible.

Now, if you have a working printer, you have a social responsibility to help your friends and family print stuff. I humbly accept this responsibility.

 

YouTube is making money on scams

by Steven Garrity

This week YouTube started showing me an ad with an obviously (to me) fake video of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney asking people to sign up for some AI program. The link points to a form hosted on TypeForm.

YouTube screenshot showing an advertisement with an AI-generated Mark Carney standing outdoors with a Canadian flag in the background and a prompt button to Register here.

I’ve reported this ad as a scam at least three or four times, yet YouTube continues to serve it to me.

I can see how it would be infeasible for YouTube to screen every video they host – but as soon as they accept a penny from an advertiser, they take on the complete burden of filtering out (at least obvious) scams.

I would also expect that some facial-recognition might be in order for a G7 world leader.

Shame on YouTube.

 

Hanson + Smashing Pumpkins + Fountains of Wayne + Cheap Trick

by Steven Garrity

Did you know there was a super-group that released an album in 2009 that consisted of:

  • 🎤 Taylor from Hanson (the MMMbop dudes!) on vocals
  • 🎸 James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins on guitar
  • 🔊 Adam Schlesinger (RIP) of Fountains of Wayne on bass
  • 🥁 Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick

Weird but true. Enjoy Kind of a Girl by Tinted Windows.

Update: I learned from Wikipedia that the guitar play from the Lemonheads also performed with Tinted Windows. And the Lemonheads have a great new song out.