Having a large energy consumer that is willing to decrease consumption at short notice for a relatively small amount of money is a great option for managing a grid if it means you can avoid paying for a coal powerplant to be kept ready and staffed just to turn it on for 40 hours a year.
Yes, I agree that this looks good on paper. I'm not posting a comment to debate this premise. I'm simply advising that we include a projection of this arrangement into the future. Beyond the immediate term.
Crypto-asset mining emissions are contributing 140 million metric tons of CO2 to the atmosphere each year. Electricity usage surges due to increased temperatures due to global warming due to crypto-asset mining. Rinse and repeat.
I wouldn't mind this arrangement if the additional power usage brought by crypto mining sponsored carbon-free energy production like nuclear or renewables. But as you accurately describe, these contracts with ERCOT are supporting increased usage of fossil-fuel power plants.
Twitter seems to be doing fine after laying off much more of it's workforce.
If that really happened, Twitter laying off more than 50% of its staff, you'd think that would be newsworthy enough to generate a story on Slashdot. Yet, there has never been a story on Slashdot about Twitter laying people off after Musk took over. I'm thinking you read about that on a different news source.
a consumer grade wireless device instead of a wired one.
I'm thinking there isn't a wire conduit through the hull. The purpose of this wireless scheme might be to transmit signals through the carbon fiber hull to the propulsion system outside the cabin. I'm really questioning the use of carbon fiber for this submersible. Sure, it makes it much lighter to crane out of the water than titanium, but maybe that shouldn't be the feature driving hull material selection.
This can be abused by insurance companies in obvious ways, and also in less obvious ways. Say for instance, premiums are reduced for an employer that records job interviews and submits those recordings to the insurance company. The insurance company then responds with a report of the findings by their ML algorithm. The person might have an undiagnosed disorder they are unaware of, the company becomes biased against that applicant, and the insurance company avoids adding a subscriber who is going to cost them a lot of payouts down the road.
"Life is a garment we continuously alter, but which never seems to fit." -- David McCord