I agree, but I feel like I have to speak up here to defend Governor Cox a bit (I live in Utah). He's actually an intelligent and very reasonable guy, and as close to a thoughtful centrist as has any hope of getting elected to a statewide office in Utah. His position on trans rights just about cost him re-election, even though he really wasn't saying anything other than "Hey, we have to be careful here, these kids are suffering and doing the wrong thing could cause a lot more suicides" (Utah already has among the highest teen suicide rates in the nation, and the US has pretty high rates relative to the world). His "disagree better" campaign, while exactly what we need in this country, IMO, also raised a lot of GOP eyebrows in the state. Which is just stupid, but it is what it is.

Anyway, the point is that he has to pick his battles. He often signs legislation he disagrees with because he knows the GOP-dominated state legislature can and will override him if he vetos, and being overridden is politically costly. And if you think that's a cop-out, you should look at the field of competitors he had in the GOP primary, none of whom could be called thoughtful, reasonable or anything close to centrist.

I'd prefer someone the left of how Cox acts, but he's not only the best we've got, he's the best we're likely to get. And I strongly suspect that Cox would prefer to move significantly leftward (which would still leave him right of center, nationally), but he's an astute politician and politics is the art of the possible.

A few comments, in reverse order.

First, code violations are civil, not criminal, in every jurisdiction I've ever heard of. What state are you in? The only way they become criminal is if you refuse to comply for long enough that a judge finds you in criminal contempt. In this case, I'd be shocked (even assuming shutting off the emergency disconnect would get you a citation, which seems unlikely, see below) that the first ticket would simply be an order to turn it back on. From there if you refused to comply it would escalate to fines, then increasing fines, then a court order to turn it on and pay the fines.

Second, the purpose of codes like this is to make sure that the house is livable. I expect the code (if it actually says a grid connection is required) was written before self-generation was realistically feasible and just wasn't considered. Odds are a house that has plenty of electricity but is technically in violation wouldn't be cited, unless you sold the place and the new owner complained, and even then they'd probably just require you to pay for reconnecting it. Further, I expect that as long as your house is still physically connected, it would be in compliance so if you were cited a judge would throw it out.

Of course, you shouldn't take my word for it, but it's pretty easy to find the laws and codes online. I'm curious enough that if you tell me where you are, I might even look them up for you :-)

That said, there very well might be something the power company can complain about if you try to get service disconnected so you don't have to pay the monthly connection fees. There might be some law giving them the authority to issue citations, essentially for non-compliance with their contracts. In practice, what would probably happen if they have that power and you called to disconnect is that they'd just tell you "no". But I'd really be surprised if they complained as long as you kept the service and paid the basic monthly fees; from their perspective it just looks like you're paying them money for nothing.

Finally, not having an exterior emergency disconnect is a serious code violation from what I can find (NEC 230.85 (that link is from NY, but the code is national)), so you might already have a code violation. I guess it depends when that requirement was added to the code vs when your system was installed, but you said your system was just redone recently?

Yep, fake "conservatives" all around.

They don't. They apply the same laws to _anybody_ that does business in the EU. Kind of like US law applies to _anybody_ doing business in the US. But I guess that idea is to complex for you.

Indeed. They think the law essentially does not apply to them. Of course that is not acceptable at all.

As in finding the reference design and putting that on a PCB? Color me non-impressed.

Because it makes the grades meaningless.

or the market can decide without we taxpayers having to whip out a tit for supporting overpriced Musk-type toys

Indeed. And that is the core problem when an engineering discipline cannot perform or cannot perform well: incompetence.

I don't think the EU is claiming Apple has a monopoly in the smartphone market, I think the EU is claiming Apple has a monopoly in the market for apps, etc., for iPhones, where its market share is statistically indistinguishable from 100%.

That's an argument for employers not to care what the grades were, if all Harvard grads are good enough, and I'm sure there are plenty of employers who will take any Harvard grad.

But for the employers who wish to be even more selective, hiring only the best of the best (and obviously offering appropriate compensation because they're competing with the other employers who want the best of the best), it's useful for them to be able to use GPA to discriminate between the mediocre Harvard grads (who would presumably be outstanding anywhere else) and the high-performing Harvard grads.

Harvard does the students a disservice by giving most of them A's. And the smartest students are going to realize it and look for an institution that is more discriminating, where they can prove their worth.

I'm surprised that cover letters were ever a very good signal, myself. Didn't students always get someone else to help them write the letters anyway?

facepunch goalpost

eot

Funny, but I'm wondering if there's actually something behind this. Can you elaborate in what way Utah is friendlier to Crime? Utah does have a long history of multi-level marketing scams, but I think that has made the legal environment less friendly to fraudsters.

You don't know what you're talking about. Spend some time discussing a novel engineering design with a current-generation LLM with a self-talk reasoning overlay.