Ted Cruz, known coward, wants you to buy bitcoin from his friend Ced Truz to save Texas's completely self imposed isolated and inefficient energy grid.
BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
“Because of the ability to Bitcoin mining to turn on or off instantaneously, if you have a moment where you have a power shortage or a power crisis, whether it’s a freeze or some other natural disaster where power generation capacity goes down, that creates the capacity to instantaneously shift that energy to put it back on the grid,” Cruz told conference attendees.
Bitcoin mines, which typically consist of rooms full of specialized computers that churn numbers all day in search of the answer to a puzzle that creates the next block on the blockchain, are notorious for their energy use. Bitcoin mining is well-known to use more energy than many countries and corporations, and it’s designed to become more difficult (and thus use more energy) as more miners plug into the network in search of profits as the price of Bitcoin increases.
...
According to Carey King, research scientist and assistant director of the University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute, it’s unclear how adding more power consumers to an already-stressed grid helps even if they can shut off at a moment’s notice.
“Mining is a consumptive use of electricity, not a generator, so this doesn’t make sense to me,” King said. “I don’t need a middle man (the miner) in between the generator and the consumer to provide electricity.”
KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
...so the way to save the strained, failing electric infrastructure is to use up astronomical amounts of electricity creating useless speculation assets
next, we'll save America's failing bridges by removing the support pylons and cables, loading them onto trucks on top of the bridges, and arranging them into a giant message asking aliens to help us out
It's fun to play the stupid or evil game with politicians and capitalists
0
Options
BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
look if I smash all the windows in your house, the window repair lady makes some money, the insurance claim guy makes some money, the police officer investigating makes some overtime money, and they're all gonna spend that money at the butcher and the baker. Everyone's getting some more cash! It's a win - win - win!
minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
None of that makes a bit of goddamn sense, which is true of pretty much every fucking crypto bro when they try to come up with reasons why bitcoin is the savior of humanity. Thing is, it's also just vague and technobabbly enough that a lot of people don't question it for fear of looking dumb. You're not dumb, non-tech-nerds. You're just being grifted.
One of the co-owners of the company at my previous job (whose main gig is running an esports betting company) spends an absurd amount of time posting shit on facebook like "if refugees used bitcoin instead of cash, that would solve 90% of their problems because fiat currency is the real issue" and I'm really fucking glad I don't (indirectly) work for him anymore.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
It's fun to play the stupid or evil game with politicians and capitalists
I would think with the Zodiac Killer Ted Cruz the answer is always the latter.
"Simple, real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." -Mustrum Ridcully in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather p. 142 (HarperPrism 1996)
0
Options
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
I'll admit, I've been waiting for some ghoul to pitch Bitcoin mining as an off-peak balancer ever since I watched that Tom Scott video about the lake that's a battery.
I didn't know it was going to be Ted Cruz, but I reckoned it would be some choad exactly like Ted Cruz.
+1
Options
minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
Well, why settle for Sam’s Choice Dipshit when you can have the real deal?
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
My Android YouTube app just updated, and now there's this slide to seek feature, and I can't just... tap a video and pause it? What in the world is going on
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I think it's a convoluted way to build extra power infrastructure without using gov't money to maintain it. If they have a ton of extra power plants running to power mining operations they can just cut off the mining operations when they need the extra capacity in an emergency.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Cruz says Bitcoin is the solution for Texas' strained electrical grid. https://t.co/lix77M22dN
I wonder how many levels of grift are involved in this.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
+21
Options
KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
Can't they already just cut off less important energy consumers in an emergency, to reroute the power to where it's more urgently needed?
Cruz is basically like "what if we dump 80% of our electricity production down the drain, so that then in an emergency we can stop dumping it and it'll be like, wow look at all this electricity we have!"
BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
edited October 2021
For one, the blackouts during Texas’ February cold snap happened because power companies failed to winterize their generators, whether they were natural gas, coal, nuclear, or wind. Lives were at stake, and yet the companies didn’t prepare for the worst. Unlike power plants that serve the grid, bitcoin mining isn’t critical infrastructure—no one dies if a crypto data center shuts down. Plus, bitcoin miners are in the game first and foremost for the money, and they would be loath to spend extra cash to winterize their operations.
But let’s say the power stays on but demand surges. In that case, bitcoin miners would be unlikely to offer their generating capacity to the grid unless they were sufficiently compensated. Texas already has a system like that in place, offering generators a premium for bringing additional power online during shortages. During the February cold snap, wholesale electricity prices surged to $9,000 per MWh, the maximum allowed by law, leading to electricity bills as high as $10,000 for some people.
That raises all sorts of ethical questions, of course—for one, should power companies sell people plans with hidden fees that surge in times of greatest need? Should people from other states have to shoulder the cost? But brushing those concerns aside, bitcoin miners would likely demand even more than the current $9,000 per MWh cap. One bitcoin currently sells for $57,000, and to crunch the numbers to win that one bitcoin, mining rigs draw just under 1.8 MWh. In other words, for bitcoin miners to be willing to contribute to the grid, wholesale electricity prices would have to hit $31,700 per MWh, or 3.5 times greater than prices during the February cold snap. Those $10,000 bills would turn into $35,000 bills.]
My Android YouTube app just updated, and now there's this slide to seek feature, and I can't just... tap a video and pause it? What in the world is going on
this happened to me, it seemed to fix itself after a restart? or possibly after an OS update since this was on a new phone and the restart was for an OS update, but if you got it AFTER an update try just restarting the phone I guess.
+1
Options
KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
"Look, adherence to a flawed philosophy of rampant predatory capitalism crippled our infrastructure and cost lives. What we need to fix it is another, completely counter-productive scheme founded on predatory capitalism."
Hell yeah, I love being able to take out a predatory loan in order to eat mediocre pizza. Can't wait to have my credit score ruined because I really needed that extra garlic sauce.
+24
Options
KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
So its like a credit card but I get two extra weeks to pay it off
0
Options
minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
We just keep trying to one-up Idiocracy with this shit, don’t we?
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
Who's their PR person? Did they not realize how close "Zilch" is to "Filch"?
+1
Options
Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
Cruz’s plan is also massively pro fossil fuels where the new plants need to run 100% of the time so that way they are doing something with the power during non peak times.
Can't they already just cut off less important energy consumers in an emergency, to reroute the power to where it's more urgently needed?
Cruz is basically like "what if we dump 80% of our electricity production down the drain, so that then in an emergency we can stop dumping it and it'll be like, wow look at all this electricity we have!"
"If I run this marathon wearing an overcoat, I'll have something to take off if I get warm!"
Can't they already just cut off less important energy consumers in an emergency, to reroute the power to where it's more urgently needed?
Cruz is basically like "what if we dump 80% of our electricity production down the drain, so that then in an emergency we can stop dumping it and it'll be like, wow look at all this electricity we have!"
During the last freeze, they did. Which is why poor areas has 1-3 days without power, while rich neighborhoods didn't even have to suffer through 1-3 minutes.
The only thing Cruz knows about running the Texas electrical network is how to run to the Caribbean when there's a problem.
0
Options
KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
honestly Cruz is enough of a greedy shitbag and Bitcoin is enough of a scam already that it would not surprise me at all if one of the rich assholes near the top of the Bitcoin pyramid just told him to promote Bitcoins whenever he can so the attention makes the value rise and the speculators can juice the bitcoin loyalists a little harder.
I have committed a cardinal sin and purchased a keyboard for work.
In my defense, the last round of tech replacements gave all the branch managers a laptop and a dock so that we could take our work computers to in-person meetings more easily (whoops.jpg) and mine came with a mouse but not a keyboard. And since I didn't want to request another mushy enterprise-grade Dell keyboard from IT, I've just been using my old Eclipse. But recently it's been dropping inputs on the left side of the keyboard, and so I reluctantly went to Best Buy to replace it.
Lo and behold, before I could even get to the keyboard section I spotted a Fnatic Streak on the clearance rack for $50. That's the same keyboard I replaced the Eclipse with in the first place, and so I bought it.
I know it's bad form to buy a mechanical keyboard for an office setting, but it's got brown switches instead of the blues I use at home, and I've got my own office that's right next to the noisy book sorter in any case. Also, shut up. I've got a great keyboard for the computer I'm forced to use 40 hours a week, and we're in love, and we're running away together.
Now my only problem is getting used to the lighter key resistance, so I don't accidentally keep typing wwwwwwwwwwww into a random field because I let my finger rest too heavily.
I always forget does decimated mean reduced to 10 or reduced by 10?
I think the second. To kill every tenth person in the traditional meaning.
Obviously now a days it is just to cause a lot of damage/
I almost wonder if the existence of the similarly sounding and meaning ,"devastate" caused some of the drift in meaning. Just makes it easier for our brains to conflate the two?
0
Options
KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
I always forget does decimated mean reduced to 10 or reduced by 10?
I think the second. To kill every tenth person in the traditional meaning.
Obviously now a days it is just to cause a lot of damage/
I almost wonder if the existence of the similarly sounding and meaning ,"devastate" caused some of the drift in meaning. Just makes it easier for our brains to conflate the two?
Probably that plus the need for a word that means “reduce by 10%” in regular conversation is pretty rare.
honestly even having known the original meaning for like a decade now, I always assume that the intended effect in the first place was a) psychological devastation and b) taking a significant enough chunk to make a noticeable impact
so the present English usage fits perfectly fine to me even in the spirit
This documentation clearly states, in multiple ways in multiple places, that they are transmitting big-endian data, and yet here I am looking at numbers that only make sense in little-endian.
I, just. Hmm.
This documentation clearly states, in multiple ways in multiple places, that they are transmitting big-endian data, and yet here I am looking at numbers that only make sense in little-endian.
I, just. Hmm.
Are you sure you're not looking at the data upside-down?
This documentation clearly states, in multiple ways in multiple places, that they are transmitting big-endian data, and yet here I am looking at numbers that only make sense in little-endian.
I, just. Hmm.
Gotta wonder if it was always wrong or if they changed it and forgot to update the documentation.
minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
“Decoded the html source code” would be a hilarious goddamn statement if there weren’t enough tech-illiterate people in positions of power to possibly actually prosecute this.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
This documentation clearly states, in multiple ways in multiple places, that they are transmitting big-endian data, and yet here I am looking at numbers that only make sense in little-endian.
I, just. Hmm.
Sounds like it was written by someone bell-endian.
Posts
I wonder how many levels of grift are involved in this.
...
next, we'll save America's failing bridges by removing the support pylons and cables, loading them onto trucks on top of the bridges, and arranging them into a giant message asking aliens to help us out
One of the co-owners of the company at my previous job (whose main gig is running an esports betting company) spends an absurd amount of time posting shit on facebook like "if refugees used bitcoin instead of cash, that would solve 90% of their problems because fiat currency is the real issue" and I'm really fucking glad I don't (indirectly) work for him anymore.
I would think with the Zodiac Killer Ted Cruz the answer is always the latter.
I didn't know it was going to be Ted Cruz, but I reckoned it would be some choad exactly like Ted Cruz.
... Turn bitcoins back into electricity
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Cruz is basically like "what if we dump 80% of our electricity production down the drain, so that then in an emergency we can stop dumping it and it'll be like, wow look at all this electricity we have!"
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/10/ted-cruz-says-bitcoin-will-stabilize-texas-electric-grid-heres-why-hes-wrong/
this happened to me, it seemed to fix itself after a restart? or possibly after an OS update since this was on a new phone and the restart was for an OS update, but if you got it AFTER an update try just restarting the phone I guess.
Hell yeah, I love being able to take out a predatory loan in order to eat mediocre pizza. Can't wait to have my credit score ruined because I really needed that extra garlic sauce.
Satans..... hints.....
"If I run this marathon wearing an overcoat, I'll have something to take off if I get warm!"
During the last freeze, they did. Which is why poor areas has 1-3 days without power, while rich neighborhoods didn't even have to suffer through 1-3 minutes.
The only thing Cruz knows about running the Texas electrical network is how to run to the Caribbean when there's a problem.
christ this is creepy
Gonna get shushed by the librarian.
Probably that plus the need for a word that means “reduce by 10%” in regular conversation is pretty rare.
so the present English usage fits perfectly fine to me even in the spirit
I, just. Hmm.
Are you sure you're not looking at the data upside-down?
Gotta wonder if it was always wrong or if they changed it and forgot to update the documentation.
How to tell the entire world you don't understand technology AND you're a colossal asshole in one fell swoop.
Sounds like it was written by someone bell-endian.