We have a similar approach here in Germany. Anyone has the right to install a small solar system on their balcony or similar and feed up to 800W into their local grid. You just mount it and plug it into your house/apartment grid. Technically you have to get it registered, too.
The sky is not falling, buildings are not crumbling and the grid is not burning.
It's not revolutionary either, but slowly picking up traction. You see more and more installations here in Berlin. On the country side where people have their own house and enough space it's a total no-brainer to set up one of those mini solar systems.
The typical systems you can buy off the shelf (800-1000W panels + inverter) amortize after a few years already, and are getting cheaper every year. I have the feeling the main limitation in the city is having a nice balcony with good mounting points.
The sky is not falling in Germany, buildings are not crumbling and the grid is sometimes overpowered with solar electricity when the weather is sunny, there is not enough demand and grid operators can't remotely curtail small solar systems. Like during Easter Monday
Germany has to invest more in smart electric meters, which could project negative electricity prices to individual households.
And more investments in energy storage systems. (Even through I think that lithium batteries would better help decarbonization in EVs than in electric grid storage systems).
Totally agree, the current state of the German grid is not ideal. But I have the naive gut feeling that storage prices will also come down and we will see a similar non-political quiet revolution here as well. I.e. people and companies will simply install more and more storage because it is economically viable, not because of ideology. We'll see.
Germany’s Federal Network Agency is aware of stability issues of the German electric grid on days like Easter Monday and insufficient deployment of smart meters.
It's worth noting that the common complaint about systems like this, which is that they could cause dangerous conditions during power outages when people expect the power lines to be unpowered, is addressed by electronics that only feed power when they detect an active mains.
All solar inventors connected to public electric grid have to detect this state and disconnect. You are not allowed to connect arbitrary inventors to electric grid, they have to be compliant with IEEE 1547, UL 1741.
Right now, they're about 300 EUR at OBI (major home improvement chain in Germany and Austria) if you don't care at all about avoiding ties to specific apps, and about 1000 from solar specialists if you want to go with the more flexible Hoymiles + OpenDTU inverter setup, 4 panels and a 2kWh (or so) battery, and is one of the few things that has gotten cheaper recently.
I'm working on a cycling app that analyzes your Strava data and matches your activities to the OSM street grid. You get cool statistics which paths in your city you've already taken. The goal is to make your commute more fun :)
These points are also useful for your own photo library. Forget about your relatives going through your stuff after you die, that doesn't matter. But which of the hundreds of photos you took over the past few years would you look at again?
Right, it's the same kind of pictures mentioned in the article. Life happening. The kids helping you cooking, mom goofing around, the family hiking etc etc.
It's not the landscape, some flowers, fireworks, a beach usually. What you care about are people and the moments you spent with them.
I know exactly what you're talking about and have been in similar situations many times. For me it's not just limited to speech, but lots of other aspects. Sometimes it feels like being a ghost or some weird Star Trek like phase shift. E.g. one person walks out of a board game night to get some food, everyone stops playing to wait for the person. I walk out, things just continue.
What helped me a lot were 2 things:
1) There are ways to improve your conversation skills. Big topic, with lots of branches. Your speech matters. Your tone. Keep collecting interesting anecdotes. Culture some depth to your personality that is unrelated to work (e.g. interesting hobbies). Essentially train your charisma.
2) The big eye opener for me was the discovery that different groups of people actually react differently to me. I.e. I was simply friends with people who ... didn't care as much about me as I cared about them. The blunt fix here is to change your social circles. Not easy, but doable, slowly, over time.
The "interesting hobby" part of the charisma training actually helps there to connect to different groups of people.
The big eye opener for me was the discovery that different groups of people actually react differently to me. I.e. I was simply friends with people who ... didn't care as much about me as I cared about them
I second this. Make sure you’re in the right “layer” because this mismatch can induce the described avoidance/insignificance. And even if you want to stay there (which is absolutely fine) don’t take it as a global thing. Different groups may value completely different behavior patterns.
Have you tried the code owners feature (assuming you're on Github).
IMO a good approach is to have the actual code owners (i.e. the team responsible for a specific service or library) review the PR. If they think a shallow LGTM review of 3k LOC is enough, they can also deal with the bugs :-)
If you don't have specific ownership in your code base I'd start there.
"I noted, too, that some of these rejections came instantly after turning in an application. [...] I determined that I was automatically being filtered because I didn't have a college degree. Sure, the job posting says it's required, but you do know I have more experience than the average college student my age, right?"
Sure, I never studied medicine and the hospital stated that they are looking for a doctor, but the experience should count no?
Oh man. I keep thinking about Software Engineering as a craft. Only in our profession is it considered completely acceptable to work without any professional education.
Lawyers, doctors, nurses, even tax accountants go to jail if they practice without being licensed.
You wouldn't get your house wired by some random dude, instead you're looking for a proper, licensed electrician.
But in tech? Somehow we normalized random kids just building critical architecture.
I wonder if that's an anomaly from the exponential, chaotic growth that happened to software engineering since the 60s. I wouldn't be surprised if things normalize, like in a lot of other, mature fields of professions.
When I started it seemed like everyone needed a MSCD or some certification but then people figured out how to cheat and made them worthless.
License requirements for those professions you listed are for safety of the public (and for the worker in the case of electricians). Without a basic level of understanding electricity will kill you. Without knowledge of the body you will kill the patient.
Doctors, Lawyers, etc can act as notary so they are given additional powers and must follow a code of conduct.
Anyone can lay concrete, anyone can chop down trees, can paint/grass cut, lay tiles or put in a new floor. Electrical or Plumbing require a license because it would be dangerous not to.
Lawyers, accountants, financial planners, etc are licenses because they represent a public trust.
I don't think developers fit into any of these categories. Scientists or artists do not need a license to do their craft. CEOs don't need a license either.
The sky is not falling, buildings are not crumbling and the grid is not burning.
It's not revolutionary either, but slowly picking up traction. You see more and more installations here in Berlin. On the country side where people have their own house and enough space it's a total no-brainer to set up one of those mini solar systems.
The typical systems you can buy off the shelf (800-1000W panels + inverter) amortize after a few years already, and are getting cheaper every year. I have the feeling the main limitation in the city is having a nice balcony with good mounting points.