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Comment Wasted resources and money (Score 3, Interesting) 52

Just imagine the cost of this over the course of a decade. The utility seems to have borne the brunt of the work, having to analyze and filter this data multiple times per year. That cost would have been passed onto customers - I'm sure it's appreciated that everyone's power bill was just a bit higher to fund this fishing expedition by law enforcement.

Then of course the investigators would be tied up digging through the 33,000 "tips" this data produced. Literally, law enforcement had to review 33,000 potential customers who met this profile, checking them for warrants or other known crimes giving them some excuse to surveil or even search that residence. Pretty extreme when you think about it - and that is just to catch people growing weed of all things. Not the dangerous drugs killing people or contributing to the homeless population on so on.

Finally, the fact that this generated so many potential leads shows how stupid the concept is in general - the "profile" they were going after regarding power usage. I can think of a hundred of other things that would cause higher power usage 24/7 that has nothing to do with growing weed.

Comment Re:Most ambitious infrastructure project?? (Score 1) 130

I'm sorry but the words "most ambitious infrastructure project in human history " were put together to form that sentence. HUMAN HISTORY. Ever hear about the great pyramids in Egypt?

Installing solar panels, batteries (are they even using them?) and charge controller / inverter for a home is an extremely fundamental thing that most anyone can do given simple instructions. In the US and other developed countries it often isn't done by a homeowner because if they intend to sell power back to the grid it has to be done by a certified installer and signed off on by the power company.

Now maybe if the sentence was "most ambitious infrastructure project in Sub-Saharan Africa" I wouldn't bat an eye, and that sounds like a reasonable statement, but not when it comes to the entirety of the human population over all history.

Comment Most ambitious infrastructure project?? (Score 2) 130

Over exaggerate much? Installing solar panels to power individual homes doesn't even come close to the "most ambitious infrastructure project in human history". Maybe building a railroad across an entire continent, or building a massive roadway system with thousands of bridges that span mighty rivers and gorges. Perhaps digging canals to connect the planet's oceans, or building power plants and distribution systems to provide power to a billion people...

What is funding this is companies trying to buy carbon credits. I actually tried to read this article but it was so overhyped and the guy was so giddy to blow it out of proportion my eyes almost got stuck in a permanent eye-roll.

Comment To what extent was it AI generated? (Score 4, Informative) 68

Were the lyrics generated by AI? Were they tweaked or modified by a person? Is any of the music "real" or all generated by AI? I can't seem to find specifics on any of that.

Here's a YouTube link for those who don't pay for Spotify.

Song starts out kinda flat but the vocals really build at the end.

Comment Steam Deck users (Score 3, Interesting) 100

I recently bought a Steam Deck, and I must say this is one of the best gaming devices / consoles I've ever owned. From the ability to switch straight over to a (very nice) Linux desktop, to a refined game store that just works, it seems to do a LOT of things right. The dual touchpads are awesome for mouse navigation in the linux desktop, even if they are hardly used in games.

It's totally unlocked / open platform (which is why I have several thousand games on there from about 20 different consoles - even Amiga games). And of course I have a bunch of modern games on there too.

A number of games run through Proton on the deck, and so all of this is ground Valve has already broken - it's just offering it with more powerful hardware which requires a non-portable form factor (for better cooling and greater power requirements).

Comment Bad headline (Score 4, Informative) 35

This is a misleading headline, making it sound like more PS5s have been sold than all Xbox models combined. What this article is really saying is that more PS5 consoles have been sold than any individual generation of Xbox console. So more PS5s have been sold than Xbox 360, and more than Xbox One, etc.

Less PS5s have been sold so far (84 million) than any previous generation. The most popular was the PS 2, having sold 160 million.

https://www.vgchartz.com/chart...

Comment Regarding the show (Score 1) 82

I watched the first two episodes yesterday (which are the only two released so far), and I have to say it's some of the best sci-fi I've seen in a while. Now how much they'll stick to the sci-fi type premise is yet to be seen. They have set this up so open-ended that they can go in so many directions with it.

The beginning absolutely invoked Contact (an awesome sci-fi movie based on the book by Carl Sagan), complete with the radio telescope array and so on. My concern is that now that they've established the premise they may go in other directions, and it sorta end up a bait-and-switch. Regardless I'm definitely looking forward to the next episode. I've watched all the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul episodes, and based on Vince Gilligan's past creativity and ability to flush out so many nuances in a show, I'm actually pretty excited to see where Pluribus goes. First time I've been excited about a TV series in a very long time.

Comment Not on the hardware front (Score 1) 9

The Switch came out 8 years ago in 2017. It was unique in that it was really a portable gaming system, with controllers that attached to the console, and they could be used in various combinations.

They haven't done anything new since then in the console / hardware front at all. The Switch 2 is just another iteration of the same design. So that means it will be another 5-8 years (so 10-15 in total) before they even potentially try something new.

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