@stshank@mstdn.social
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stshank

@stshank@mstdn.social

Head of Content at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup developing zero-carbon power plants to help fight climate change. Former science and technology journalist at CNET.

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stshank, to photography
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A bighorn sheep — a younger ram from a mini-herd that dropped by to eat the yard when I was staying in New Mexico a month ago — walking behind a cholla cactus in the middle of a spring snowstorm.

stshank,
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@ThatBlairGuy Not sure — maybe pay off some corrupt official at the state fish/game/wildlife department to helicopter in a few to establish a new population?

stshank,
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@pocketpixels Spring in New Mexico is wacky that way. The bighorn sheep have a pretty broad dynamic range, though.

wesgeorge, to random
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My kid sent me this reel showing several different ways that people hold their fingers to count to 10 which I guess is somewhat culturally derived, I responded by sending them a video of someone counting to 31 in binary using 5 finger "bits" and pointed out that with 10 "bits" one can count to 1023, kinda blew their mind and they immediately tried it. When trying some of the weirder finger arrangements they said, "this is like speed running carpal tunnel!"

stshank,
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@wesgeorge I do this with my kids! But you have to be very careful the number four, speaking of cultural considerations

stshank, to MIjazz
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Hard to express just how impressed I am with the breadth and depth of the CFS operations, manufacturing, and planning that I glimpsed of here at the all-hands. Mind 70% expanded, mind 30% blown.

stshank, (edited ) to Energy
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"Lithium-ion battery prices have declined from USD 1,400 per kilowatt-hour in 2010 to less than USD 140 per kilowatt-hour in 2023, one of the fastest cost declines of any energy technology ever, as a result of progress in research and development and economies of scale in manufacturing."

https://www.iea.org/reports/batteries-and-secure-energy-transitions/executive-summary
#Energy #EnergyTransition #Batteries #Grid #Power

stshank,
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@NaturaArtisMagistra I blame European styling but yeah, comma missing by my rules, thanks.

stshank, to Birds
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Red-tailed hawk No. 2 enters the chat, trying to steal a Botta's pocket gopher that red-tailed hawk No. 1 caught. Pillar Point north of Half Moon Bay, California.

stshank, to Energy
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California power grid now has batteries that can supply 10GW of power, which is a lot. Yesterday they peaked at 4GW vs. total power demand of 25GW in the evening, when solar peters out, per CAISO. (Power demand gets much higher in summer with air conditioning.)

#Energy #RenewableEnergy #Battery #Grid #ClimateChange https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/04/25/california-achieves-major-clean-energy-victory-10000-megawatts-of-battery-storage/

stshank, to random
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Time to level up your Google Slides game, everyone https://www.threads.net/@bgalbs/post/C6Kvk53LnzL

stshank, (edited ) to random
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Grammar time!

stshank,
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@AnnemarieBridy I know, I’m just riling everybody up. I see the distinction between these two words getting blurrier and blurrier as time goes by. As judged by popular usage.

stshank, to random
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Is there a Chrome extension that reproduces Microsoft Edge's ability to copy a website's URL as its title, hyperlinked to the page's URL?

stshank, to Energy
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Bob Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems: It took a 700-page pitch deck and year of due diligence to win over investors, because of course there are no fusion power plants yet.

"You need to get people to believe," Mumgaard said today. "If you don't have the actual thing, the next best thing you do is you can do the hard work of pulling out the science, pulling out the advisors, pulling out the due diligence — pulling the whole thing together and painting that picture."

scalzi, to random
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To be fair, it's easy to forget something that costs more than you were ever going to spend for it, to do things that your phone and/or laptop already do better

https://gizmodo.com/apple-vision-pro-already-forgotten-about-1851426564

stshank,
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@scalzi And that was designed largely for developers embarking on a long-term effort to build a new ecosystem anchored to Apple hardware in hopes future software and hardware would make this into a mainstream product.

stshank,
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@peterbutler @scalzi I saw a guy wearing one on the airplane last week. Seems potentially OK as a private zone for work or entertainment. Obviously not there as a mainstream product, yet at least, though.

stshank, to random
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WashPo reports on California's duck curve: too much solar energy production in the middle of the day has over the years depressed electricity prices, sometimes below $0. (California's net metering incentivizes solar + battery for that reason.) https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/04/22/california-solar-duck-curve-rooftop/

stshank,
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@ke7yxz Larger grids are good for evening out supply/demand, but building new transmission lines is very hard in the US. Some coverage of the issue:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/12/climate/us-electric-grid-energy-transition.html

https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/podcast/americas-electric-power-transmission-crisis/

And you can't average out the evening surge power demand. Batteries are getting cheaper but they're still $$$. Charging EVs during the day could help, especially for cars that sit around most of the day. But unfortunately it doesn't work for trucks in use during the day.

stshank,
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@PJ_Evans 100%. Which is why I have a home battery that powers our house from 4 pm to 9 pm, when electricity costs are higher because of time-of-use pricing. And why there are lots of energy storage startups. Not everybody can afford a battery, and at grid scale they aren't anywhere near what's required to meet demands. Recent trends are favorable but not there yet.

stshank, to random
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"Today, most power lines consist of steel cores surrounded by strands of aluminum, a design that’s been around for a century. In the 2000s, several companies developed cables that used smaller, lighter cores such as carbon fiber and that could hold more aluminum. These advanced cables can carry up to twice as much current as older models."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/climate/electric-grid-more-power.html

#Power #Grid #Electricity

cstross, to random
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Has anyone else tried breaking down (for recycling) the box from an Apple Studio Display?

Apple has ditched plastic/foam padding (good) but replaced it with the Cardboard From Hell—box is heavier than the monitor it contains, layers of laminated cardboard glued together in 2-3cm thick blocks to absorb impacts, smaller boxes inside larger boxes to fill surplus volume, all glued in place!

Chopping it up is a nightmare, really needed an electric hacksaw instead of a box-cutter.

stshank,
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@cstross I hope Apple has looked into such matters, but the rule of thumb is the more complex and multimaterial something is, the less likely it is it'll be actually compostable. I worry about all the glue. Concrete-grade cardboard is also off the beaten track. Every time something goes into the recycle bin that's not easily or fully recyclable, it makes recycling less economically viable, and it's already financially marginal at best.

rmondello, to random
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Instagram is entirely ads and I do not like it.

stshank,
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@rmondello Instagram is painful but still worth visiting for me, but Flickr is the site that sparks joy. Even though virtually none of my friends and family post anything there, so it's more nice photos and less a social network. (I have a Flickr Pro subscription so I don't see ads.)

dth9269, to Birds
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Wood Ducks seen this morning at the Great Meadows NWR in Concord, Mass.

A male (above) and female (below) in flight above water, moving to the left of the camera. The female holds a pink flower in her beak.

stshank,
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@dth9269 Nice photos, fellow bird nerd

stshank, to MIjazz
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Big personal news: after 25 years at CNET, I’ve joined Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup developing zero-carbon power plants to help fight climate change. As head of content, I'll work to make knowledge of fusion mainstream as the technology proves itself worthy. Questions? Hit me up! Details: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7187102636267995138/

stshank,
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@mzedp Well, I'm hardly the boss running the show or the engineers designing the devices, but if the price of fusion power isn't competitive and customers don't buy it, there will most definitely be a reckoning.

stshank, to random
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I have learned I can compensate for gradually degrading vision (nothing dramatic, just age) and small laptop / tablet / phone screens by increasing the screen brightness and burning through its battery faster.

stshank,
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@bert_hubert It was pretty nice having a smaller laptop on the plane yesterday, and I'm kind of interested in trying it out. So for now, I'll see how it goes.

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