Unions aren't a monopoly they're a democracy. After a democratic vote, the minority has to accept what the majority wants. Yes, sometimes voters make poor choices. New workers know about the union before they join. You don't move to a new state and refuse to pay taxes because you didn't vote for them. Once you're there you get to vote in the next election. America is a democracy and you don't have to revert to feudalism when you step onto the factory floor.
> Unions aren't a monopoly they're a democracy. After a democratic vote, the minority has to accept what the majority wants.
OP is repeating a lot of anti-union propaganda, but this one point is true, which is evident if you look at how unions in other countries work.
In many European companies, it's commonplace for workers in the same company to have a choice of which union to represent them, so two different workers may be represented by two different unions. That's essentially unheard-of in the US, where unions almost exclusively claim majority representation.
Teachers in my local US school district have two unions, but that's the only exception to the rule that I'm aware of. It would be good to see a little more competition, but not enough to weaken labor's bargaining power.
No, the US gov used anti-trust laws to break them up because anti-union efforts are valuable to corps. That's why you'll also see so much anti-union propaganda today.
It's no secret unions are the weakest they've ever been in the US. Are we really better off for that? If you ask the people benefiting from union busting, yes. If you open your eyes, no.
Our betters know better. Don’t believe your lying eyes, listen to Elon. Lol. Clearly making airplanes with doors that fall off is fine, as long as we maximize shareholder value.
The TikTok ADHD community commonly refers to these as "doom boxes" (or "piles") which reflects both the sense of dread that they instill, while also being an acronym for "didn’t organize, only moved".
There are photos of Bob Dylan dipping his harmonica in a glass of (supposedly) whiskey before playing. I've always heard that it would make the wooden comb in the old Marine Band swell which made it airtight and produced a better sound.
The GNU project didn't invent ls. The GNU coreutils (including ls) were originally new versions of either proprietary (AT&T) or BSD licensed utilities.
You don't need internet for everything... by definition these systems are connected to the grid by wires which can transmit a limited signal. Utilities in countries such as NZ have managed load for decades by turning hot water heaters in customers' homes off and on remotely with ripple control units which transmit a signal over the power line itself. [0]
This is correct, an added benefit is if the power poles are actually down then the communication over the powerlines would be down, but that’s fine as power couldn’t be sent over the lines anyway in that case.
What I wonder about/have concerns in regards to, is as someone else mentioned the relays required to turn on and off backfeeding in terms of electrical Utility workers having to de-energize a line to perform work.
I’m not too sure that these workers can entrust their lives to the reliability of various (multiple) relays to not sporadically switch back on once the line has been confirmed as de-energized (in other words depending on the relay not to malfunction and re-energized while the workers are working upon the line )
I assume there will be some types of tools to monitor / alarm the workers for exactly this scenario (ie something they can attach to the line while it is being worked on and if it becomes re-energized an alarm will sound).
Generally grid backfeed capability for these systems is predicated on the presence of a stable voltage and frequency already on the grid - this is both a safety measure and a practical necessity, as the inverter needs to synchronize with the grid frequency.
Just to add the terms: a "grid following" matches the grid's voltage/frequency, so it only works when connected to the grid. A "grid forming" system can set its voltage/frequency independently and can only work off-grid
It sounds like mauvehaus is talking about a hybrid system that has both grid following and grid forming capabilities: switching to grid-forming as it disconnects. But that means that you can't power your neighbors.
I wonder why it is that real world systems don't use a GPS receiver to obtain a 1 Hz signal that's synchronized to the GPS clock and then generate a local 50/60 Hz clock for grid synchronization.
I'm just an EE with no experience in real power systems, so this may be absurd to someone who knows how this stuff works.
It doesn't help under normal operating conditions.
It takes roughly 16ms at the speed of light to cross the US. 16ms is also coincidentally one entire cycle at 60Hz. So, who should sync to GPS and at what phase?
In addition, when the grid begins to get overdrawn, the phase begins to slide due to the physical nature of generators.
Global sync doesn't really matter; local sync is what's important.
I didn't take power systems either (EE that went CE), but even if your clock was accurate and the system was tuned wouldn't you still likely be out of phase? I don't remember enough about the whys (like, does the type of load modify the frequency? gone down the memory hole) but I remember a guest lecturer mentioning that the actual frequency frequently had small deviations from nominal, too
Yeah that's what the synchronization is for - the precise frequency doesn't matter except for consumer devices that use it as a clock signal. If the hot line is at 120V and you're a quarter cycle out of phase at 0V, all of that energy is just going to flow directly to your circuit and destroy something. Since the frequency represents the spinning of large turbines, a power plant going online out of phase is essentially slamming their turbines into a massive external force (things go boom).
If you use GPS-based synchronization you have a reference of when zero crossings should occur. This does not mean that you have to output exactly that waveform.
Once you have a reference you can use a control algorithm. like a PID, to adjust the phase of the grid that you are generating locally.
If you sense that the grid is running out of phase from what your GPS clock says is the true reference you can increase/decrease your power output a bit to increase/decrease its frequency and catch up with the phase error.
It would be analogous to a type 2 PLL. The 1 Hz GPS clock would be the reference clock, the 60 Hz grid would be the "PLL output" and the VCO would be the power turbine, or AC inverter.
> Generally grid backfeed capability for these systems is predicated on the presence of a stable voltage and frequency already on the grid.
You are using the reference clock to know precisely how misaligned the grid is and you use the reference to make small corrections to the generator power or inverter phase to restore phase alignment.
If you have an external stable reference clock (GPS) you know what the grid *phase* should be and it should be easier for network of multiple small inverters to keep the grid stable and to bring it up by themselves if there's a large blackout.
Back in the 90s, I interacted with a home intercom system that ran purely on the electric wires. Just plug in the devices into any electric wall sockets, and they just worked. Voice wasn't too bad either.
It's not the case that there were no alternative designs at the time that v6 was proposed. RFC 1385 described a backwards compatible Extended Internet Protocol which used IP Option headers to stuff in extra addressing space.
So glad to see that "The Dog of the South" made the list. Someone on HN recommended it years ago which is how I discovered it so I'll pass it along. Certainly meets the definition of a "Great American Novel" with the way Portis captured how people speak. He hasn't written many novels but I recommend them all. (I only just learned now that he died in 2020.)
I was thinking of highlighting it too in my comment. The Dog of the South is one of the best novels that no one has heard of. Maybe The Atlantic will give it a bump
I guess I should read it. I just dropped off at the post office a copy of the Library of America's collection of Portis, a birthday present for a sibling. So far, I've only read Norwood.
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