My EV sits in the driveway and soaks up excess production from my PV setup.
My main problem is it's never really empty enough.

If I'm on the road, a high voltage DC charger gets me from 10% to 50% in about 10 minutes. Barely enough time for a coffee and a leak, then it's another 2 hours of driving. Rinse, repeat.

Sure, you can't barrel down the Autobahn for 10 hours straight without stopping but who wants that?

Oh, they're putting a lot of thought into it I'm sure.

That thought being "Money, Money, Money, Profit, Profit" of course.

Man könnte noch argumentieren, dass es in Sichtweite gilt und die Bewohner dieser Institution durchaus kurzsichtig sind.

Coconut at least...

That feature is right on the border between real neat tech and deeply unsettling.

"Hey, my phone uses its last few electrons to turn into a bluetooth beacon to stay findable" sounds like sci-fi "reserve power emergency mode"

"I can't turn off the locator chip in a device that holds half my life and memories" is just dystopian.

I'm wondering if there would be a way to keep it useful while minimizing impact for people who stay off the grid. A hardware switch would probably be a good start but they won't fly with current all-touch designs.

They occupy a strange niche full of contradictions.

Entering the code on the device itself should increase security as opposed to entering it on a compromised computer.

But plugging it into a compromised computer means the data is compromised anyway.

Their security is way harder to audit than a software solution like PGP. The actual "encryption" varies from actual decent setups to "entering the code connects the data pins with no actual encryption on the storage chip"

Not having to instal/use software to use them means they are suitable for non-technical users which in turn means more support calls for "I forgot the pin, it wiped itself, can you restore my data"

They are kind of useful to check the "data is transported on encrypted media" box for compliance reasons without having to manage something bigger.

Decent writeup by Charles Stross:

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/01/worldcon-in-the-news.html

The mode of operation of WorldCon/the Hugos seems interesting as in "May you live in interesting times"

Edit: fixed auto-co-wrecked spelling of Charles Stross

JellyFed(eration) would be awesome. It should use an anonymous overlay network so federation is not limited to people you trust in copyright-zealous jurisdictions.

I didn't know you could hear a picture so clearly.

Hmpff, ich fand ihn ja schon immer latent unsympathisch. Dass er jetzt mit den "Christ"-"Demokraten" Politik machen will bestätigt das irgendwie.

I've always held that Non-fungible is a typo. It's meant to say non-functional token.

Because collecting data that is not strictly necessary is almost always a bad move. IP addresses might be relatively harmless, but might link you to other activities.

You personally might be okay with reddit knowing your IP addresses, but some people might get into trouble.

Take the insane anti-abortion laws in some US states. If an IP address from those states accesses pro-choice subreddits, that might be enough for law enforcement to start harassing someone.