I'm curious, what are your TOU prices like in greater Chicagoland? I'm in Seattle and we're *just* now rolling out TOU as an option. Doesn't affect me, I'm ineligible because of solar and net metering. I think you can see my "all electric" usage here: egauge46354.egaug.es/68388/classi...

It's somewhat addicting, because you realize that if you buy an electric car, you buy electrons with money in your right hand and put the money in your left pocket.

Or as you deploy solar. The cost of solar isn't linear, the first kW is expensive (sales cost, install, permits, etc) and every kW after gets cheaper. The more electrons you use, the faster the array pays you back. Tossing out all the gas appliances at once is part of how I got a 5 year ROI

Hydronics is great in cold weather climates. Air to water heat pumps. Some of the units are combined so one unit does domestic hot water and your hydronic heating.

My key to fast solar payback was to electrify everything. Gas furnace to heat pumps. Heat pump water heater. Induction cooktop. BEV in the driveway. No more gas & oil for car, no nat. gas bill, and no CO2 sources. Also, I produce more than I consume, so my total energy bill is $10/mo. #worthIt

East & West works well enough, that's how my panels are. I had my 9.6 kW array put on in 2016. It paid for itself by 2021. In '24 tore off panels and roof, DIYed a new metal roof, put the array back down with fancy no-penetration clamps, and added 2.4 kW more panels.

Yep, in areas with ToU pricing and low solar penetration (most of the Midwest), midday prices are higher, providing a higher ROI for solar self consumption, esp in summer. Out here on the Best coast, midday is cheap b/c CA produces more solar than they can use or store.

Maybe don't? I just cleaned my pollen coated 11 kW array. The daily difference is 68 kWH dirty and 71 kWh clean, so about $0.40/day and maybe $100 worth of production over a year. Let the rain clean them.

Yep, that's the part about being the worst intern...it doesn't seem to know what it doesn't know, so like a human in such cases, it runs confidently ahead.

I'm a recalcitrant user and my long-adopted hot take is, "the best and worst intern I've ever had." As a programmer and OSS maintainer, I'm used to reviewing code. Debugging code from AI is little different than from humans. Experts can identify and fix the errors easily enough.

A fire ring in the foreground and Mount Rainier in the background

We hiked past someone's prized spot for green therapy.

A couple day ago I climbed onto the roof and cleaned my solar panels. Today was the first mostly sunny day since and I produced 3 kWh extra, or about $0.45.

4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment In the past two years, without much notice, solar power has begun to truly transform the world’s energy system.

"According to a 2023 report from the Energy Transitions Commission, all the materials needed to reach net zero by 2050 will be less than the amount of coal consumed in a year." www.newyorker.com/news/annals-...

Hello high and mighty one, you look lovely blanketed in white.

I still have older 27" 5k iMacs. Yeah, it was frustrating being unable to use them externally (Target Display Mode), but Apple probably rightly assumed I wouldn't ever buy the 27" 5k Studio Display if I could keep using older iMac displays with my M* laptops.

Then what? We already have plenty of GNSS with USB. The missing link (to feed gpsd and then chrony or NTPsec) is a USB driver like FreeBSD's ucom with a sysctl to tell it which pin (CTS/DTD/etc) the PPS is wired to. Then we'd have PPS over USB and accuracy within 10s of µs, much better than NTP.

The UK is slowly reconciling with their cognitive dissonance. It makes me hopeful that eventually American First will be recognized a Really Dumb Idea.

Could you think of better budget priorities than tax breaks for the richest 10%?

I really appreciate the high quality nerdery this post inspired. :-)

Great job, as usual. It's timely b/c I've been using 2>&1 for decades and just two days ago I messed it up by putting it *before* redirecting stdout. I was briefly confused by why stderr was in the config file I was generating. 🤦‍♂️

here's a good SO about it: stackoverflow.com/questions/18...

This is not quite accurate. To see, try cmd 2>&1 1> target, and then reverse them: 1> target 2>&1. What you'll find is that 2>&1 syntax directs stderr to the same *target* as stdin. In the first case, stderr will still output in the terminal, in the second it'll follow stdin.

To easily identify the various graders and sidewalk clearers, the Municipality held a naming contest. Members of the public gave their best ideas online over a two-week period in March. After receiving a flurry of submissions, a panel of judges voted for their favorite names. Now – just in time for the plow equipment’s spring hibernation – the “win”-ters have been selected and names have been assigned. For the Municipality’s graders, Berminator froze out the competition, coming in first place. Bladey Gaga clinched second, and The Big Leplowski and Plowasaurus Rex tied for third. Other winning names for graders include Ctrl Salt Delete, Darth Grader, Knik of Time, Plowabunga, Betty White-Out, Blizzard Buster, Austin Plowers and Arctic Blade. Taylor Drift was the top name for the city’s sidewalk clearers. Blizzard Wizard and Luke Sidewalker tied for second place, while Flurrious George and Sweeping Beauty came in third. Other winning names include Clearopathra, Pathfinder, Drift Destroyer, Drift Lifter, Edgar Allan Snow, Nunhdecheni (“One that eats snow”) and Snow Big Deal. While the 2024-25 snow season is (hopefully) over, during future snowfall, residents can see plows moving through their neighborhoods in near-real time at www.muni.org/plow.

The winners of Anchorage's naming contest for snow removal equipment have been announced. #Alaska

You're still using that tired gif in 2025? Really?

Panoramic view of Mt. St. Helens from just above Chocolate Falls, with the sun starting to peek above the ridge.

Mt St Helens at sunrise.

Ivanpah falls victim to Swanson’s Law. Ivanpah, the largest US CSP plant is closing in early 2026. That followed PG&Es plan to terminate their contract. The PPA price from Ivanpah is estimated at $0.135/kWh. The PPA price on a new solar PV plant is about $0.05.
matt.simerson.net/2025/04/08/i...

The team's all here! We created a Starter Pack to help you connect with our regional, mountain passes, Ferries, Amtrak Cascades and tolling accounts here on Bluesky. Give them a follow!

go.bsky.app/QQo1z13

WA’s natural gas initiative unconstitutional, King County judge rules Washington voters in November narrowly approved I-2066 to protect access to natural gas. Here's what to know about a judge's ruling on its constitutionality.

WA’s natural gas initiative unconstitutional, King County judge rules

The calculated (estimate) of solar panel degradation over 8 years almost exactly matches my empirical data. #solar #nerddom matt.simerson.net/2025/02/18/e...