If your intent was to cause distress, then probably. If you’re sending it to a pal that might be hard to prove but to a stranger would be easier to prove I imagine.
I’m a new homeowner and have been looking forward to getting rooftop solar within the next year (recently swapped to a heat pump instead of gas furnace).
The local (PDX, OR) companies seem a bit sketchy but I do have at least one solid recommendation from a friend.
My mother however wasn’t so lucky and experienced something similar to the article where the salesmen claimed it would all be free and pay for itself but the. She ended up with a $16k loan. When she called to clarify they offered to double the number of panels on the roof and install for free, which she agreed to.
Any one else here with experience getting rooftop solar?
I thought I would avoid those issues by buying a system outright, rather than financing it. I had the cash to spare and thought it would be a good investment.
I went with a local company. The owner was an electrician and knew what he was talking about. He didn't try to upsell me. He didn't claim to be the cheapest but the price was competitive and the workers were in-house, not subcontracted. It seemed like just what I wanted.
The installation day came and they arrived early in the morning, and spent hours installing brackets. The solar panels were supposed to arrive by 9am. By noon they were still waiting. Finally they gave up and went home, no answer on the panels. The next day they came back to keep working, still with no panels. I sent them home and called the owner, demanding an answer. Eventually I learned that the panels were damaged in transit and it'd be weeks before they could procure new ones. They couldn't guarantee a date.
They had already charged my credit card for the full amount of the install. I told them this was unacceptable, the law says they can only charge a deposit, with the balance due when the work was actually complete.
They stopped returning my calls, so I initiated a chargeback with my credit card company. That got their attention. They begged me to cancel the chargeback, which I only reluctantly agreed to after they hand-delivered a refund check to me in person.
It took me dozens of calls before I found another company willing to work with the half-completed install. Most companies didn't want to touch it.
In the end, I got the system I wanted and it worked great.
One thing I learned through this process is that there are a lot of companies who want to install solar, but none who want to service your existing solar installation, which is seen as a money-losing business. Lots of homeowners buy a system that supposedly includes an excellent warranty, but then their solar company goes out of business, and suddenly they have nobody to call when something goes wrong.
I don't really know the solution to that problem. It makes me think that if I had to do it again, maybe I should go with a larger national company.
Ugh! Every independent tradesperson that’s spun that line (“I’m not cheap, I’m quality” etc) with me has turned out to be a liar. Super expensive without the quality part …
Most are conmen and incompetent at running a business and price isn’t a strong signal for a good one
Anyone who comes in strong with the hard man, “I’m expensive for a reason” spiel is a hard no now
We got Sunrun within the past year on a house we bought 1.5 years ago (so we're NEM 2.0 which is important).
I'm in San Diego, we were paying about 500/month for SDGE (fluctuating anywhere from 300-800 throughout the year, 800 because of gas prices last January).
We're paying Sunrun a fixed $300/month, with a 4% increase annually for inflation (presumably electricity prices will also go up during the same time).
Sunrun 100% paid for a main panel relocation required by our county to be to code, so we literally haven't paid for anything other than the 300/month bill.
My house faces east-west and so the local solar companies refuse to come out and give a quote. I know it's not going to be as efficient, but I live in an area with lots of power outages, so having a backup system is worth the lack of efficiency, but they all refuse to come out, no matter what I explain up front.
> I live in an area with lots of power outages, so having a backup system is worth the lack of efficiency
Unless you go completely off-grid then rooftop solar isn’t going to help with outages as they are turned off during outages to protect electrical workers and the power grid. [1] Your problem can be solved with home batteries.
I was surprised to discover that even with a backup battery, a typical solar install is not designed to power your whole home in the event of a power loss. Only some inverters support it, and most backup batteries can't generate enough amps to start an A/C unit, even though they'd have enough to run it for a while.
Tesla's PowerWall is more capable than some, but I've heard nightmare stories about working with Tesla customer service so I stayed away from that one, even though technologically it's probably the most advanced.
> I was surprised to discover that even with a backup battery, a typical solar install is not designed to power your whole home in the event of a power loss.
Might even be illegal, depending on jurisdiction. For good reasons, you could kill electricians working on the local grid or firefighters working on your house if you're not careful with the install and adding local shut-offs.
My battery turns off when the grid goes down, but it has 3 outlets directly on the body of the battery, and those always work. I run extension cords from those when the power goes.
That system is 5 years old. It feeds electricity back to the grid.
For an "auto island" functionality, I would need relays controlled by the inverter on all 3 phases between the electricity mains and my main switch box, right? I don't have relays like that.
How much electricity do you use? I have a low range inverter (5KW) and it can give me 4.5kw sustained power from my battery and as much as I want from the grid because it acts as a pass through. At 220V that's 20Amps, or 40A I guess with your American 110V supply.
Add another battery and bigger inverter and you can double that. Unless you've got a kiln or perpetually running hot water heating, I'm left baffled.
It's not AS efficient, true, especially in the winter when the sun is lower in the sky, but it's not like it'll do nothing - and in the summer you get a longer generation period. You'll likely need more panels, but panels (should) be cheap, although in the US you seem to have high prices due to tariffs.
Yes. It's a shame that it is hard to install on the ground - or rather it's a shame that permission isn't easily given for ground installations, if you have space. Ground installs won't damage your roof, and will be easier to clean, install, etc. But then, as noted elsewhere, is it really the answer anyway? Solar doesn't really give you the energy when you really need it - in the winter.
I haven't researched it much, but what's always smelled fishy to me is that rooftop solar is going up, but there's less utility-scale solar in the desert where there's more sun, no shade, panels angled correctly, and consolidated maintenance.
I suspect rooftop solar only appears to work because the sales pitch sounds good, there are government subsidies, net metering is broken, and people don't consider depreciation and maintenance.
I follow Will Prowse on YT. He's full of great information about solar/batteries/etc. He's more about "mobile solar", but tbh... you can apply a lot of the same stuff to your own home. Especially when it comes to storage.
The best reason to close your toilet lid, in my opinion, is you are 99% less likely to ever drop anything into the bowl. I’ve accidentally knocked TP rolls in several times, and the phone once or twice, and probably other stuff. Ever since I started closing the lid habitually I realized I havent dropped anything into the bowl in a long time.
And on the part of who called the police in the first place. In my experience teachers and school management are just too paranoid/neurotic and will escalate everything so they can't be blamed.
It might be legal for them to call the cops, but it still does not absolve them from moral responsibility for their actions. Including all the distress it would cause the child's family, and the likely ongoing PTSD from the incident.
Sorry to hear about this. You probably shouldn’t post anymore about this for legal reasons.
For other readers, I’d be curious the jurisdiction.
The specific app that can turn off iPhones requires the “unleashed” firmware I believe.
Also, regarding legality, if you are DoSing cell phones, you are creating a hazard where users are no longer able to contact emergency services, and this is the most likely avenue of charges, as opposed to FCC fines (if in USA) for using locked spectrums.
And so do reinforced concrete walls, they block the signal and thus prevent emergency services from being contacted too. And so many other things. Radio communications are unreliable by default. Someone's prank should not result in criminal charges unless tangible harm has occurred.
Intent, not the act is 99 percent etc etc. Wether or not harm took place does not matter, if it did, the entire basis of our legal system would rely upon only direct evidence of violent acts.
This is why attempted murder, kidnapping, etc is a charge. We do not yet have a charge of "attempted mass personal device disablement". and there is no reasonable case for......"manslaughter" of a device.
Being "realistic"/less analagous; Your mobile device is the most important inanimate object to you in every single category imaginable. And this is the case for most of humanity for some time now.
If someone knowingly removed my access to my personal device maliciously, I would suddenly start caring very much about seeing that persons freedoms taken away.
Edit: after rambling I wanna reiterate my first bit....intent is 99 percent. In this case, it's a kid. The law has context, and I think they should of course be lenient.
Yes, and if the intent was to prevent access to emergency services, then yes that would rightfully be a crime. But if the intent was to pull a stupid prank that would temporarily disable someone's iPhone for 5 minutes, then that should not be a crime, if only done once.
The kid should be told not to do it again. And no law enforcement should have ever been involved in the first place. Otherwise we are teaching those children to distrust authorities, that authorities are unjust and unfair. Thus undermining the rule of law.
All their classmates are also involved and watching the outcome of the situation. Some might end up seeing the "system" as being unfair and are not going to think twice before stealing or committing some other crime, e.g. fraud.
Good question. This was a pain point for my small team (me, myself, and I) a little while back. We had an unencrypted db deployed with CDK, and then tried to get it encrypted without losing data.
Propofol is a useful, well-tested anesthetic. Michael Jackson abused it and discovered the consequences, but that doesn't make it any less legitimate of a drug.
Actually Michael Jackson's every dose was prescribed, overseen and administered by a professional physician in good standing. Was it Michael Jackson's fault that the good doctor actually didn't care about his well-being?
I'm confused because it seems like you're actually agreeing with the person you're replying to. Namely that improper administration of a drug by a "doctor [who doesn't] care for ... well-being" is an issue. Logically, that doesn't say anything about the appropriateness of the drug for others. Eg. You wouldn't say people shouldn't ever use opiates in hospital settings because opiates are abused elsewhere.
Do you think the current clinical ketamine protocol is to hand the patient a little baggie and tell em good luck? Ketamine is prescribed, overseen, and administered by a professional physician in good standing. You don't just get a bottle and take a bump every morning lmao. It's a monthly or less, supervised administration, with the possible addition of active therapy to my understanding. You can't just go walk into a doctors office and say, "doc I'm real sad, i want ketamine". The whole thing is extremely careful. Why is it different for propofol and ketamine?
I get ads for ketamine on instagram btw. They send you a care package and do the whole thing over video chat. Sounds abominable to me but hey that's healthcare for you.
Now, as in the past, the stigma surrounding mind-altering chemicals overshadows any scientific evidence or testing supporting their therapeutic use.
It is a shame that we as a society allowed puritan ethics and drug alarmism to do such a number on our cultural relationships surrounding mind altering chemicals.
It is 100% stupid quackery to believe that people with serious mental disorders will find their answer in the bottom of a pill bottle.
This is selling false hope, but hey, it's OK to sell false hope, because insurance happily pays for false hope. What insurance doesn't pay for is real solutions.
So why not sell this idiotic drug-based bullshit. For God's sake, I am a child of the 80s. When Mrs. Nancy Reagan said "Just Say No" she meant "Just Say No" to drugs!!!
That certainly explains why various different chemicals are actually incredibly effective at treating various serious mental disorders.
Clearly years of study and scientific evidence are "100% stupid quackery".
Believe you me, it is clear that this attitude and perspective comes from the Reagan era moralizing that did (and continues to do) a real number on our society.
I am so hopeful that some of the stigma is seeming to dissolve and the war on drugs is starting to be recognized for the farce that it is. This will enable real research to be done about mind altering chemicals and the profound effects they have. From dissociative experiences to psychedelic experiences there is an entire frontier of new research to be done now that we are beginning to free ourselves from the hand-wringing of the last century
Bro here is what psychotropics are: they function as restraints. Chemical restraints. This was the overt aim of the original creators of psychiatric drugs, so that they could remove actual shackles and leg irons and replace them with the drugs.
This is what enabled Reagan to close the asylums, because the victims, er um patients, would theoretically no longer require physical restraint in institutions, but could be chemically restrained wherever they lived. And it's true: the mentally ill are now turned out onto the street by the thousands, and restrained by use of drugs. They keep coming back for refills and new prescriptions. It's almost as good as a physical tether or leash.
Psychotropics do nothing to heal or cure mental illness. They place the user in an altered state of consciousness. They dull the intellect, they blunt the affect, they banish the wit. A person under the influence will seldom fight back or think for themselves. They become pliant and malleable to whatever suggestion is foisted upon them. It's quite effective in that regard.
I think something is wrong with me, I keep getting into these kinds of conversations on HN instead of the insightful and intelligent conversations I used to have on here. I think I need to reassess the way I am engaging with this site.
I am not even going to bother linking the research about the actual observable effects of various medications on various mental illnesses because clearly youre an elder and if you were interested in the truth on this matter you would have sought it out by now.
For the second time in as many days I am disengaging from this exchange
I am so sorry to hear that. Have you discussed these thoughts with your psychiatrist? I am sure that she has an arsenal of prescriptions to treat you with.
On second thought, during your weekly runs to the pharmacy for a stack of frozen pizzas and a fistful of prescriptions, your 16-hour workdays and 12 hours on social media consuming rage, fear, and paranoia, did you ever stop to think that there's a better way?
Have you considered eating an organic apple once in a while? 30 minutes of meditation, clearing your mind and listening to your Higher Power? What about disconnecting from the Internet and your phone for a few hours a week, at least? Getting outside, taking a walk, making some Vitamin D?
Sometimes the best cures are perhaps not as easy as popping a few pills; they're not subsidized by your insurance company, and they require forming better habits, but they are truly efficacious and have long-lasting, proven effects. Those are effects that are proven by science, by knowledge, by experience.
The whole Matthew Perry situation has a lot of odd behaviour to it, and I'd make a bet and put odds on ketamine being a cover story to detract from the likely culprit.
Indeed, big pharma loves how well this fear mongering tactic works - and they'd love a renaissance of "the war on drugs" to ban all cheap-relatively natural, highly effective medicines, so their patented drugs can make mega profits for them.
