theguardian.com

stoy, to upliftingnews in ‘Amazing’: Queensland mum uses electric car to ‘save’ son’s life with dialysis during power outage

I would not be surprised if EVs will be an integral part of the future power grid, though it would be better to have static power pods with batteries distributed in neighbourhoods.

admiralteal, to upliftingnews in ‘Amazing’: Queensland mum uses electric car to ‘save’ son’s life with dialysis during power outage

Australia has a lot of distributed grid capacity. Some of the highest rooftop solar numbers (to the point where curtailment is an issue). And this stuff with vehicle-to-load/vehicle-to-grid capacity is a possible way to continue doubling down on that stuff.

Saul Griffith talked about some of it in this somewhat-recent interview.

It's a weird market. If they play their cards right, Australia -- particularly because of its mineral resources -- will become a huge part of a green energy transition. Though they'll have to commit quite seriously to make it happen.

Decentralizing the grid is a great way to build resilience. It saves lives. But it's tough when you have private capital natural monopolies, especially vertically-integrated ones (as is the norm in the US), in charge of operation. You have to align incentives towards lowering cost, improving resiliency, and meeting growth. Rather than incentivizing giant, absurd capital investment, discouraging maintenance and infrastructure, and pitting the utilities against consumers.

I can't help but smell an orphan crushing machine somewhere in this story. Or maybe just a regular old BEV ad. But this kind of stuff really does need to be the future if we want our species to survive.

snf, to upliftingnews in ‘Amazing’: Queensland mum uses electric car to ‘save’ son’s life with dialysis during power outage

Not to spoil the party, but this would have worked with a gas car and an inverter right? Although for sure it’s much more convenient to have the feature built-in and not need to get any extra kit

czardestructo, (edited )
@czardestructo@lemmy.world avatar

Yes I’ve been doing this with my prius for over a decade. The 12V ‘alternator’ on the prius is enough to sustain about 1000w which is plenty for a fridge and some lights. The engine only turns on once an hour to top off the main battery.

Thorry84,

I have a gas powered car, it has a mains outlet in the back of the center console. As far as I know this isn’t anything special or new. My car is a 2016 Chevy nothing special.

reddig33,

The special part is there’s no risk of carbon monoxide poisoning and it’s about 1/3 of the energy costs.

Vehicle to grid chargers mean you can use your electric car as a house backup battery when the power goes out. Not all EVs support this yet, but it should become commonplace in the next two years.

Lichtblitz, (edited )

Having a static battery in the house that gets additional cycles, isn’t a big issue. Who cares if the capacity decreases by an additional 10 percent because of added cycles. Just get a battery that’s 10 percent larger from the start or add additional cells when you feel like it. In a mobile form factor, 10 percent can be a big difference. You can’t just scale up the battery when you feel like it and in the worst case scenario you would have to replace it. That’s why I would always be very conservative with using a car battery that way.

thallamabond,

Those in car outlets are typically for small electronics. 2016 Tahoe for example is a 150 Watt max, while a typical fridge uses 300-800. So please don’t depend on it for that.

Jaysyn,
@Jaysyn@kbin.social avatar

Yeah, I did this for the last hurricane that knocked out our power. $10k worth of meds in our fridge for two of our kids had to stay cold & I didn't have a generator yet. Now I have a generator & a solar battery kit.

kaboom36,

It would but you would burn a ridiculous amount of fuel for the amount of energy you could use

feedum_sneedson, to upliftingnews in ‘Amazing’: Queensland mum uses electric car to ‘save’ son’s life with dialysis during power outage

Did it save his life or not, the quotes are confusing me.

metallic_substance,

They make no sense in this context. It makes the title sound weirdly sarcastic

ProvableGecko,

Technically yes, they ran the machine off the car battery but most hemodialysis patients don’t drop dead if they miss a session for a day. Also they could have used any vehicle to drive the kid to a dialysis center or a hospital which are probably required to have generators in Australia as they are elsewhere.

feedum_sneedson,

So you’re saying electric cars will save the planet?

Creat, to upliftingnews in ‘Amazing’: Queensland mum uses electric car to ‘save’ son’s life with dialysis during power outage

deleted_by_author

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  • Twentytwodividedby7,

    It’s in the first paragraph…Jesus, you’re lazy…the power was out due to storm damage. That has nothing to do with where they live

    AA5B,

    No power grid is perfectly stable

    DessertStorms,
    @DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

    The implication of your comment being what - that people who live in places with an unstable grid, and who can't move (the Venn diagram there would be pretty much a circle), deserve what they get? Should fuck off and die?

    Seriously, the privilege you must have and the sheltered life you must live to have come up with that for a reply is astounding..

    lvxferre, to reddit in How social media's biggest user protest rocked Reddit
    @lvxferre@lemmy.ml avatar

    In response to such critiques [concerning the decline of quality], Reddit spokesperson Rathschmidt said he did not “know of an industry benchmark for scoring content quality”.

    My sides went into orbit. It’s a Reddit spokesperson acting like the worst of the Reddit userbase: being passive aggressive and using appeal to ignorance, at the same time.

    spider, (edited )

    industry benchmark for scoring content quality

    As if they can be judges in their own case.

    heavyboots, to reddit in How social media's biggest user protest rocked Reddit
    @heavyboots@lemmy.ml avatar

    I feel like it’s unfortunate they didn’t highlight the open source options where the customer is not the product as their article closer, but rather of a quote about how Reddit could be such a better place. Seems to entirely miss the point.

    spider, (edited )

    No surprise there; it’s the same mainstream media that rarely acknowledges the existence of Linux or third-party political candidates.

    7of9,
    @7of9@startrek.website avatar

    They did do a beginner’s guide to Mastodon after Musk infested Twitter, but it does seem like they don’t consider Lemmy or Mastodon to be “serious”

    muad_dibber,
    @muad_dibber@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Lemmy’s still at the “ignore it to death until we can’t anymore” stage.

    WarmSoda,

    They also quote one user multiple times throughout the article. Well, two if you count the deleted comment.

    Zero mention of how ads are now every other post. And zero mention of why everyone hates the official app. “Navigation”? What

    possiblylinux127, to reddit in How social media's biggest user protest rocked Reddit

    Well I’m here now so that’s what matters.

    MrJameGumb, (edited ) to reddit in How social media's biggest user protest rocked Reddit
    @MrJameGumb@lemmy.world avatar

    I left Reddit forever because they were going out of their way to actively make the site worse for literally no other reason than corporate greed. Then they were unbelievably smug about it and insisted it was actually a good thing somehow. Then they tried to gloss over the whole thing by letting everyone play graffiti artist on a virtual wall for a few days, after which they pretended everything was normal again.

    Fuck Reddit.

    RGB3x3,

    Went back recently and found that the “back” functionality was broken. Literally, going back out of a post didn’t take me to the main feed, it brought me back to the new tab screen.

    How does a site as big as reddit screw up basic navigation?

    Nythos,

    On the Reddit app you can’t even sort by most popular on your newsfeed, you’re stuck with just one sort for all your subs.

    spider, (edited )

    And how do they still not have something as basic as a preview button for posting comments? We have that here.

    kaboom36, to upliftingnews in ‘Amazing’: Queensland mum uses electric car to ‘save’ son’s life with dialysis during power outage

    The pros of having a lithium battery pack the size of a full size mattress at your home

    NataliePortland, to reddit in How social media's biggest user protest rocked Reddit
    @NataliePortland@lemmy.ca avatar

    I haven’t been back to Reddit since June. Am I missing anything?

    aceshigh,
    @aceshigh@lemmy.world avatar

    Lots of bots. Lots of reposts. Subs still on lockdown…

    berkeleyblue,
    @berkeleyblue@lemmy.world avatar

    No.

    Omega_Haxors,

    Nope.

    Potatos_are_not_friends,

    Yeah. You’re missing bots regurgitating old posts into new ones, and ai bots responding to that. You’re missing the thousands of samesies “What [movie/video game/song] do you like but everyone hates” You’re missing obvious troll posts like “AITA for defending my 6yo from nearly being a rape victim?”

    DoucheBagMcSwag, (edited )

    Reposts, outrage bait, horny bait (98% of OldSchoolCool) and whOleSomE bait

    Fuck no

    I still use a modded client to lurk on niche subs, but I completely avoid “all”

    slaacaa, (edited )

    I have been back occasionally when searching for some specific thing, and sometimes I checked r/all and my former favorite subs. My overall observation:

    • Top subs already sucked before the API changes, still looking bad. I don’t have too much comparison, as I wasn’t following them anyway, but I would be surprised if they improved
    • My former favorite niche subs went downhill, with lower frequency and quality of content. I assume this is due to some mods and powerusers leaving

    Overall, reddit is still useful as an occasional information source for checking public opinion/sentiment on specific things, but for me, it’s appeal as a general “time-waster” social media, where I keep scrolling for an hour and leave comments is gone.

    ExtremeDullard, to reddit in How social media's biggest user protest rocked Reddit
    @ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    …and how six months later, it all amounted to jack squat and Reddit is back to business as usual. Exactly how Reddit correctly figured outraged internet warriors would get all worked up for a while and then lose interest.

    spider, (edited )

    get all worked up for a while and then lose interest

    …most likely the byproduct of ever-shortening attention and memory spans.

    Che_Donkey, to news in ‘Ramen noodles budget’: EU moves to end exploitation of unpaid internships
    @Che_Donkey@lemmy.ml avatar

    Dude, i don’t know what to twll you but IMO ramen noodles are friggin’ expensive here compared to the US. 4 for 1$ VS 1 for .75/.90€… ramen noodles aint the go to here for cheap eats.

    SlowLoudEasy,

    Its 1 ramen noodle michael? How much can it cost?

    bbbhltz,
    @bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

    True! Guardian is British but still, they need a better analogy.

    Satiric_Weasel,

    Out of curiosity, what is the dirt-cheap meal of choice in the UK if it’s not Ramen?

    Isoprenoid,
    bbbhltz, to news in ‘Ramen noodles budget’: EU moves to end exploitation of unpaid internships
    @bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

    I am a professor as several different schools in France (business, notarial studies, agricultural engineers, communication). I would day 95% of my students are from well-to-do families. But, most of them are required to find paid internships. The notary students usually get unpaid internships.

    As an internship advisor, I can confirm one thing: paid or not, they put in the hours and take the same crap as a paid employee. Sometimes it is worse. For example, if an intern is absent from work, the message gets to me, and I send it up the chain of command and sometimes parents get involved. It is stressful for the students. My business students get paid internships (about €1400/month) but still need help from their parents and many of them will be doing something they don’t really want to do (think finance instead of marketing).

    Now, being a professor I am in contact with a rather large network of of profs spanning the private and public sector… My colleagues from the public sector are worried about this looming change to laws. It would lead to an overhaul of the system as the internship is counted as a credit. If it is decided that they should be paid, how many companies will want to pay when they can just hire a part-timer for the summer?

    seliaste,
    @seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    What do you mean parents gets involved? Aren’t they 18 by the time of their internship?

    bbbhltz,
    @bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

    This shocked me as well because my parents weren’t involved with my work or education after finishing high school.

    In France, this is not the case. The majority of people are supported by their parents until the end of secondary education, especially when it comes to my students who are all in private institutions.

    It is extremely rare for a student to have a job, for example.

    Parents do get involved for even minor things, and will come stomping into the school flanked by a lawyer.

    Why would they be involved?

    Because they pay. That’s all.

    Now, university is practically free and lots of students get a bursary (not a loan) to help them along. But, their parents will still pay rent sometimes because a full-time student with a job is seen as the most amazing thing here.

    I will often bring up this stark contrast to how when I was a student I had 4 different jobs and still ended my studies 60k in debt and didn’t even see my parents during the school year, let alone get any money from them.

    seliaste, (edited )
    @seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    I am french too and while my parents do pay for my studies they are never directly involved. Maybe it’s a school difference but I find this so weird, because I am in a public faculté
    If I remember correctly, my teachers were saying that they were legally restricted from sharing informations to student’s parents emailing them.

    bbbhltz,
    @bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

    Probably a private school thing in that case. I haven’t taught at a public uni since 2008, but parents wouldn’t have tried to get involved back then.

    I cannot contact parents, but administrators will without question.

    seliaste,
    @seliaste@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Damn, what a weird thing. Glad to be in the public then

    fwygon, to news in ‘Ramen noodles budget’: EU moves to end exploitation of unpaid internships

    Unpaid internships really do need to be abolished.

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