I also think it is important to learn to feel and to separate the feeling from the acting on the feelings. In my mind this is what distinguishes an adult from a child. Sadly, I know many adults who have never learned this lesson (including members of my own family), so it's probably not a very good legal definition, although I like it as a practical one.
I sometimes encounter this phenomenon among college students in my job as a professor. Most college students have learned some form of it, but not all of them. I often think "somebody should teach them those skills" but it has always felt like it was out of scope for _me_ to be the one teaching them. I'm supposed to be teaching computer science. On the other hand, being unable to act rationally on stimulus is ultimately self-sabotaging, and will they be able to absorb my lessons if they can't get past little things like the way I look or the way I dress? This is not a hypothetical: any faculty member whose courses solicit end of semester feedback gets comments like "I didn't like his class because he seemed smug" or "I could not concentrate because I hated her accent" and nonsense like that.
This reminds of me the following wonderful Numberphile video [1] where they compare the success of billionares to gas molecules: "everybody is just bumping around randomly but the one person that, you know, that became a billionare or something--they wrote their autobiography 'how I got here, all the great decisions I made to beat everybody'... It was just random." I've always wondered whether it would be possible to compute the expected number of billionaires with a model like this. If the number is higher than the expectation, well ok, some fraction of them are consciously steering themselves into billionaire-hood. Otherwise, it's probably dumb luck. It's a fun null hypothesis.
How does panel shut-off work for emergency responders? Where I live, a solar energy system is required to have a shut off switch. For example, my system has a big red handle mounted on the side of the house. This is important not just for first responders like firefighters but also for linemen repairing downed lines, which are pretty common where I live (a mountainous rural area).
Given that these store-bought panels are being plugged into house AC, it follows that they have built-in inverters. Many grid-tied inverters are “grid follow”, meaning that they adjust themselves to grid frequency/phase. So, just speculating here… maybe the inverter senses when the mains go down and turns itself off? I would love to know from an EE what is actually happening wrt safety.
It'll be the same as larger inverters for roof-top solar - they are constantly monitoring the mains cycle and will shut off if the voltage (or probably frequency too?) goes out of range, let alone drops out entirely. The relevant standards in the UK are G98/G99.
Not necessarily, but most inverters (in Europe, at least) aren't designed to function without a grid anyway.
Some models of inverter brands like Victron (which isn't very common outside its niche of self-sufficiency because they are rather expensive and sometimes complex) can form a micro-grid. They have the option of a special circuit breaker [1] that decouples the inverter from the grid if the grid is detected to be down, which allows their use during a power outage.
I have two left hands (and one of them is backwards) and components spontaneously disintegrate when I touch them. I know I'm not capable of building a computer so I bought mine from Tuxedo computers, who sell computers running GNU/Linux. I might be the GNU/Linux whisperer who manages to not have any major issues, but that doesn't correlate with the type of technical aptitude which would let me turn a heap of components into a working machine. I even managed to break a laptop by trying to replace the CMOS battery.
Making any hardware changes whatsoever to a laptop is dramatically more complicated than building a desktop. It very much is just a matter of 1) buying compatible parts (there are websites for this, or if you shop in person they'll be more than happy to help), then 2) matching plug labeled A to socket labeled A.
Hah! You're like one of my family members. We keep her away from anything electronic because the failure rate in her presence can not be accounted for by accident alone.
Oh, and laptops are nasty. They are put together in ways that can easily confound you when you have plenty of experience. Lots of it revolves around little pieces of plastic that are marginal when new and that just want to break by the time the device needs service. It's a conspiracy!
Anyway, at least you know it can be done. The conditional still holds.
I tend to agree but I think the strategy here is to convert people who stubbornly cling to gas vehicles because EVs somehow defy their expectations. I have been approached many times at highway rest stops by people who are curious and slightly skeptical about the EV value proposition. They see me hanging around the vehicle for a half hour and think “ugh, no thanks” as if that’s all I do when I travel. What they’re not seeing is that I rarely use public chargers at all, because 99% of my charging is done either at home or at the charger in the parking lot at work. It’s really just road trips. Not to mention, if you’re an ICE owner hanging around long enough at a rest stops to notice that I’m hanging around, are you really that much faster on a road trip?!!
Back on topic, I am ok with losing a little efficiency in the fast charging process if it means that more people switch away from a horribly inefficient and polluting technology.
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