thanks for the thoughts; I've tried speech to text in the past and it was awkward and inaccurate for coding; maybe things have improved since then though.
interestingly xylophone-like images are the first thing that gemini draws when I try to describe what I have in mind. It's been difficult to get the system to generate an image of what I'm thinking of :)
Different, not strictly better. Zotero saves a SingleFile html snapshot and will save the original URL and extracted metadata in its database, which is handy if you use Zotero anyway, but unnecessary if you just want to save text. Additionally you'd need to use Zotero to search it instead of Spotlight.
This is an encouraging milestone. Is it trivial at this point to figure out whether a solar home install is cost effective? ie plug in your address, your last 12 pg&e bills, and get a complete quote with a break down of time to profitability?
Not trivial. Factors: Local labor costs, PV import tariffs, net metering arrangement, roof space and tilt angle, electricity prices, local solar irradiance levels, solar seasonality, and large cost difference between grid tie versus hybrid battery systems.
If you live in a reasonably sunny country, the shorthand you can use is 4.5*(system size in KW), which equals the daily number of kWh your system will produce. Say that number is 30kWh. Then multiply 30 by your per kWh electricity costs. Say $0.2*30. That's your daily savings estimate, $6. Then you can figure out how many years to ROI by comparing it to the system cost. This approach will be more or less accurate if you have a battery or a nice net metering arrangement. It will be less accurate without either of these things.
I've been frequently tempted by that tool but then when I go to try to take the next step I hit a bunch of complexity with installers. The Tesla experience is pretty good but seems to carry a huge markup.
Yeah, I put my contact info into one of the modeling websites thinking I would get a technical estimate, and not only did it not get it, they just sold my info ad now I get 3-5 spam calls a day. They all started as solar companies, but have branched out into general scams.
I definitely agree with the limit of only lending what IA bought - and their brief violation of that policy was wrong in my opinion. But that shouldn't be used as an excuse to enforce a completely separate regime on "digital books".
I was not aware of the dividend on every loan in other countries. If you can provide a reference to where and how much, that'd be quite interesting.
Under EU legislation, all 27 member states are obliged to have a scheme to remunerate authors for the lending out of their works by libraries.
Ireland has it in place under the provisions of our Public Lending Remuneration Scheme, which is currently capped at €200,000 per annum, paid at a rate of 4.39 cents per title borrowed in 2020. Payments to individual authors are capped at €1,000 with a minimum sum of €2. Authors receive an average payment of just under €32 per year for having their books borrowed from public libraries in Ireland.
Under the PLR scheme in the UK authors can receive a maximum annual payment of £6,600.
I also do not condone copyright violation. But I don't think there is a separate "digital lending right" that automatically accrues to a publisher or the author, beyond the purchase price of the book. A library should be able to lend out its legally acquired copy of the book, whether there's an internet or a fancy system of mirrors in the middle, or not.
While I think that's a natural extension, it shows libraries don't scale in the digital world once the barriers to entry (driving to the library) are removed and you can change the utilization so books can be re-lent as soon as the app closes. Suddenly, you'd need 5% as many books as before, crushing the publishing model.
I honestly don’t believe that’s true. People who might check something out of the library are a very large superset of the people who might actually purchase the book. Society loses out if the browsers can’t browse, but the publishers rarely do. If anything, those browsers might one day actually purchase, if they could learn more about the item.
