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Cake day: August 2nd, 2023

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  • This is wild to me, not because the company acted like this, that was to be expected, but what they were arguing over: whether the guy who got his legs chopped off deserved workmans comp.

    How is that even a question, even if he made some mistake or ignored some rule, the man got his legs chopped off on the job, he should get workmans comp regardless. Accidents happen no matter how safe you make an industrial environment, rules are often made to be impossible to fully follow, you shouldn’t have to prove the company was at fault to be made whole for getting injured on the job.



  • There’s a lot more nuance to this than most people will admit.

    Net metering is 100% unsustainable, when renewables become a big enough chunk of the grid generation mix, they often generate when no one needs the power. Forcing the grid to accept that power and even pay the homeowner a premium for it is a perverse incentive. Effectively what it does is allow solar array owners to avoid paying to maintain a grid they still use, and since the rich trend to go solar first, the poor are left holding the bag to maintain the grid for everyone.


  • Just pointing out that the grid is paid for by your electric bill, roughly half of what you pay is for delivery (paying to maintain the equipment needed to deliver you that energy), the other half is for supply (paying the power plant that generated the energy). So even if you and all your neighbors are energy independent you’ll still be on the hook for at least half your bill, or they’ll have to recoup it in taxes or something.

    Not saying that’s a bad thing, just clarifying a common misconception that going solar should not mean you eliminate your electric bill. In fact many places where solar does offset 100% of your electric bill are ending up with the rich owning solar and the poor paying to maintain the grid for them.


  • Yes and no, the progress of solar array technology continues unabated, with multiple areas of research that are beginning to reach commercial applications. Module conversion efficiencies now are in the 20% range, but heterojunction cells, or Gallium Arsenide, or Perovskites, or any number of other possible advancements could easily put efficiencies up into the 30% range.

    That being said, the price of the solar modules themselves has already shunk to a small piece of the cost to build a solar array, with the bulk of the costs now being the support structures, wiring, electrical equipment, labor, development, etc. And those costs aren’t going to decline, they’d still be there even if the solar panels themselves were free, so they effectively set a floor to the cost reductions we’re seeing.








  • endlessbeard@lemmy.mltoTechnology@lemmy.worldPhones should have FM radio again
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    1 year ago

    I’m going to chime in here to plug the ulefone power armor 18t I just got. I was pretty nervous to get a chinese phone as I’ve only had samsung and lg phones before, but this thing legit blows me away. Not only does it fully support every band that my carrier uses (rare even for phones made for the US market), but it has:

    • Replaceable battery that lasts 3+ days between recharges

    • Extremely rugged, IP69 waterproof and designed for underwater photography (physical shutter button and diving camera app)

    • 3.5mm jack, sd card slot, FM radio (with built in antenna - no headphones need to be plugged in), and an RGB notification led

    • Dimensity 900 chipset that beats a lot of the snapdragon chips on the market.

    • 12 fucking GB of RAM… yes, 12…

    • Wifi 6(ax)

    • Wireless charging and reverse charging

    • A fucking 60x magnification microscope? (Why???)

    • A FLIR thermal camera (Just because, why the fuck not)

    • Runs mostly bloat free stock android

    All that for under $600 (on aliexpress)

    The only thing it’s missing is an IR blaster, otherwise this is the best phone I’ve ever had, bar none. It is a chonky beast though, be warned.

    This has really changed my view on Chinese electronics, especially at a time when phones for the western world are losing features and functionality all the time (including stuff from South Korean). Turns out capitalism isn’t that great for innovation!


  • Because color is photons in a narrow range of wavelengths/energies visible to the human eye. Atoms have electrons that can emit and absorb photons under certain circumstances, but don’t have any intrinsic color themselves.

    Color charge is a property of quarks thats trinary in nature, and is usually described in terms of red, green, and blue, since color is a useful analogy to how it functions. Despite the name, colored light and color charge are not actually related outside of the analogy.