Because that's how the grid works. It's part of the reason it (the US West electrical grid) called a single "grid" and not "a bunch of disconnected small grids."*

Also, before commercial-scale energy storage became a thing, it was the only thing you could do besides cut production.

* I'm oversimplifying here, but you get the idea: The US West grid, taken as a whole, gives you the flexibility to produce power in one place and deliver it hundreds of miles and several states away, up to the capacity of the transmission lines and other limiting factors.

It depends on the use case. Software/OSes that are designed for use in network-connected hardware that is expected to last decades (network-connected-cars, -industrial equipment, -satellites, etc.) needs to be supported for at least that long.

If it's designed to be used on a phone that will, at most (other than by collectors/enthusiasts/archivists) be used only until the radios become obsolete can plan for a much shorter lifetime.

If it's not connected to the internet, you are correct.

If it's connected, it needs to be secure. To be secure, the software you are running, including the operating system, needs to be constantly updated against the latest security threats.

If macOS 10.6 (and Safari) were still getting security patches, then you could say "I can safely run my old macOS 10.6 on my old hardware" but it's not, so unless it's a non-internet-connected system, you can't say that, at least not responsibly.

Security updates and, for some users in some situations, application compatibility. Beyond that, you are correct.

Without security updates (be it Linux, Unix, Windows, MacOS, or anything else) I'm a sitting duck if my machine is on the interwebs and I'm using it like most people do.

If I absolutely must run a certain app but it requires MacOS version N or higher, then I will need to be running MacOS version N or higher. But in my case, if I need to run MacOS at all, I don't need to run macOS $CURRENT.

OpenCore Legacy Patcher is your friend if you have an out-of-support Intel Mac.

Models dating back to 2007 are supported, with limits of course.

Once Apple drops support for Intel, that will probably be the end of the line for running the current OS on older hardware.

As you said, confusion reigns. Do you mean capacity as in energy storage capacity (MWh), or capacity-to-deliver (MW)?

If you don't have your own solar and you can't "choose your provider" or your provider-of-choice doesn't have solar available at the very moment you need it, you'll need to use "something else" for power. That "something else" could very well be a battery that was charged by solar.

Also, many parts of California need air conditioning when the sun isn't shining.

Let's remember here that a significant number of poor people in the US voted for this. Lambs voting to be sent to the slaughterhouse.

Have you actually used Apple Silicon? I have M1 and M3 MacBook Pros, and they are well beyond Android-level ARM chips.

We tried the carbon tax in Canada, led by the right wing here in BC, then nation wide. It gave the right slogans such as "axe the tax" as they blamed all the recent inflation on it and came close to giving our own right wing populist an election landslide win.
Seems politics is going to fuck any climate action, especially as many voters seem to just react to slogans.

LLMs are expert systems, where the expertise is this: what has been written?

That's a pretty cool thing to be expert in, and it really does have some fun (possibly even useful) applications. They seem pretty good at demonstrating this expertise, but I guess a lot of people forget GIGO is a fundamental property of "what has been written?" until you point out that a lot of crap has been written. (Shitposters know the megacodex of human writing contains a lot of crap, because we've knowingly contributed our bespoke turds to it. And I bet LLMs have contributed many of their own turds too, which they're eating and redigesting unless their feeds are very carefully controlled.)

That said, I do have to admit that LLMs have made me move the goalposts on detecting/testing intelligence. LLMs know a lot of stuff (whether it's true or false) and I have a pretty easy time seeing how people could be fooled. I know better than to say I can't be fooled.

Every person has agency. You're not a brainless slave. You contribute to emissions just like everyone else.

Who the fuck is taxing poor people? And that climate changes doesn't disprove AGW. Unless you're claiming there is magic that inverts thermodynamic processes, raising the thermal equilibrium of the atmosphere inevitably leads to more energy capture. Fuck me, do you know anything about physics?

Speaking of questions - I do ask a lot of them. What I find interesting is the response.

Some people get quite angry. That's telling me I'm onto something, and have put them in an awkward position.

What I really enjoy is a thoughtful response delivered without rancor. That really makes me think. Sometimes I even change my mind!

And we see a lot of the angered responses in here, even when I offer citations to support my various theses. Watch what happens here - as a test case.

The Democrats got hung up on some things, and took on a distinct anti-science and anti biology approach in addition to abandoning key demographics. I'll skip the cites for this post.

Before we go on, I have no objections to consenting adults to dress as they wish, have sex with whatever consenting adult they wish. As long as you are causing no harm, do as you will.

But the Democrats sided with the people who believe that a man is a woman if he says he is a woman. Which started a whole new group of things, from personal pronouns, to having to change "woman" to "birthing person", "menstruators", "lactating person", and no doubt the tapdance will continue. Since many women find those new terms offensive like how is a prepubescent girl either a birthing person or a menstruator? How is a post menopausal or barren woman a birthing person?

Their demands end up requiring women's sports to be taken over by men. Perhaps we need to rename Women's sports to Menstruators Sports?

Sigh... The difference between males and menstruators in physical activities is obvious and factual. In generalities, men are stronger than women, have markedly higher upper body strength, run faster, and higher natural aggression. Women conversely have some advantages in stamina. Facts of biology and science support this. Facts of the results of men on women's teams domination and the results of men's teams playing women's team in sporting events support this empirically.

So they lost a lot of women with that. They lost a lot of people who believe in science and biology. This eroded once reliable demographics.

So moving on from that, we have the Democrats officially abandoning the "working class", when they told the president of the Teamsters that they would win with or without them.

And men. They were gobsmacked to find that GenZ males have shifted to the right. They shouldn't have, as the Dems support a system that demonizes and dehumanizes men. So young men who have been raised in such a system, where they are now a significant minority in education, are excluded in hiring practices, and still are told that they are the cause of all problems, and the new statement of misandry "Until it is no men, it is all men" they come to the conclusion they no longer want to vote for the party that actively hates them, and refuses to let go of the strong victim mentality that prevails.

They also thought that the ending of Roe vs Wade would cause a blue estrogen wave sweeping the Republicans out of office. Like it or not, not everyone is in favor of abortion, even women. Certainly there are better method of birth control.

The "Old White Male" problem. You can't go around claiming that Old White Males are all sexist and racist without them noticing that you are blatantly judging an entire group by their sex, skin color, and age. Which of course makes them textbook racist, sexist and ageist bigots.

But they hitched their wagon to a small group of academics who were doing a lot of wordsmithing and weren't interested in science and truth, but in philosophical arguments in a reductio ad absurdum where one ends up with calling men women, and continually moving the goalposts to the point that what were once women are now menstruators. They then drop kicked many previous supporters out of the party, at least until the party comes to their senses.

And the Republicans made political hay out of their actions. The results? Loss of presidency to a convicted felon and sex offender, who is now back in office, pissed off, and not terribly competent, a continued minority in the House of representatives, lost the Senate, and Republican judges in the majority in the Supreme Court. An utter curb stomping.

Great work, Democrats! Y'all scored a trifecta - too bad it is the wrong direction. And yes for angry mods, this directly ties into the issue here. You now have these brain dead punitive tariffs, you have a party officially abandoning those who work in manufacturing and labor for lionizing some people who aren't fully connected to reality. The results shouldn't be unexpected.

I make no claims of universality of experience. I have very high drive, even at my ripe age. I'm intelligent, I'm what they call a "quick study". I know how to read people.

So a poor child with no drive - no, they aren't going to make it, even if they are smart.

So why do I annoy people in here with what they likely call an edge case? The short answer is that there may be someone wondering if they can break free of the fatalism that affects so many people. Maybe they can find utility in my offered insights. Insights that fly in the face of what many think are almost laws of nature.

Whatever.

But they have been given an excuse. The school system that tells them that 21 percent is good enough to pass is their excuse. As well as whatever other concepts that the messed up minds of teachers come up with. Once these 21 percent is good enough kids get out into the real world, they have to compete against actual knowledgeable people.

But the question is - are you going to hire people who have so little knowledge that 21 percent of the time, they know what they are talking about?

The rationale tells us that if the San Francisco 21 percent passing grade is a good thing, then it should be the same in college. This is not arguable, if it's right in SF, it is universally right in every education system, and career.

Do you want your airline pilot or surgeon, ship pilot, or nuclear plant operator employed based on that metric?

So your answer is no you will not. Whatever.

But back to high school - It is obvious that there is no point in looking at SF high school grades because they are designed to allow students who know very little to pass. But there is some utility in noting that a candidate might have come from a system that believes that 21 percent qualifies you for the world at large.

What else are you going to ignore?

A point that I'd like to make, but is roundly ignored, is that if we are going to re-write the rules so that a person who guesses the answers is qualified to move on in the world, we just move the point where they fail to when they are a bit older.

And a final addressing of resumes. When we get a resume, we look at it, and make judgements. There are certain degrees that are obviously good. You look at minor's as well. Some degrees are lowkey considered toxic. (in my field it would be looking at the minor because they obviously will have a relevant main degree)

The same with the college they attended. Some good, some not so good. And I'm not talking about so called prestigious colleges. They don't always fit into the good column.

And now graduation from the SF school system is just one more data point. A red flag added to the others. Now of course, the post school experience and work history is important, a candidate can overcome poor public schooling, and work history will show that if it is the case.

I always tried to hire for excellence and merit. Of course it had to fit in with some other parameters we had to follow.

And one thing is inarguable - the San Francisco school system is not grooming for excellence. It's just kicking the failure can down the road to let someone else deal with it. There are better ways to help students than just throwing you hands in the air, and going full Oprah Winfrey "You get a diploma, Youget a diploma, You get a diploma - everyone gets a diploma!"