mcbishop (u/mcbishop)

mcbishop commented on Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout spectrum.ieee.org/puerto-... · Posted by u/ohjeez

amoshebb · 2 months ago

I love solar, but this "those who can afford microgrids can shield themselves from blackouts" paired with net metering where "the wealthy get paid a premium for excess generation and can buy expensive high-demand power back at a discount" probably aren't steps on the path to improved grid resiliency for any definition other than this weird "no island-wide outages" definition.

mcbishop · 2 months ago

Net metering is gone in most of California (for new solar). I think it's going away in general. Distributed solar supports a more stable grid for everyone (per UL 1741-SB requirements).

mcbishop commented on Puerto Rico's Solar Microgrids Beat Blackout spectrum.ieee.org/puerto-... · Posted by u/ohjeez

slipheen · 2 months ago

If you use a string inverter not a emphase style microinverter, most of them are capable of running without the grid- Particularly if you add any sort of battery system.

These use a form of transfer switch like you’d use when you connect a generator- they disconnect the upstream.

mcbishop · 2 months ago

You can run sans grid with Enphase (with their "system controller").

mcbishop commented on Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025) · Posted by u/david927

taxcoder · 4 months ago

Reminds me of Emacs for Excel nerds. I like it! Do you plan to open-source it?

mcbishop · 4 months ago

Thanks so much! I do plan to open-source it. ...Once it's tightened up. Please email me if you'd like to be on a beta list. mike at bishop dot wtf

mcbishop commented on Settling the File Structure Debate muhammedsari.me/settling-... · Posted by u/moebrowne

mcbishop · 4 months ago

tl;dr from the bottom of the blog post:

> Type-based grouping is great for tech-focused tasks, consistent naming, and large sweeping changes.

> Context/process-based grouping shines for domain clarity, team ownership, debugging, and mapping business problems directly to code.

mcbishop commented on Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025) · Posted by u/david927

Suppafly · 4 months ago

I had no idea you could do stuff like that in excel.

mcbishop · 4 months ago

Your comment made my day, thank you :)

mcbishop commented on Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025) · Posted by u/david927

mcbishop · 4 months ago

A framework for Excel spreadsheets, written in Excel VBA. A nine-minute demo video is here: https://www.cabin.wtf (the file is 4mb, not 4kb)

If nothing else, this shows that the Excel UX can be radically changed thru one small Excel file... so much of the object model is exposed to VBA.

mcbishop commented on The School Car Pickup Line Is a National Embarrassment collegetowns.substack.com... · Posted by u/trevin

mcbishop · 6 months ago

We park on the other side of a city park from my daughter's school. ...The five minute walk thru the park together is a highlight of my day.

mcbishop commented on Solarpunk en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol... · Posted by u/nis0s

tppiotrowski · 6 months ago

Sorry about the burnout. Sounds like you've got skills and I'd encourage you to explore something smaller. There is a path as a solopreneur. I do sun and shadow modeling using publicly available datasets [1]. My customers are gardeners, permaculture, hunters, fishermen, photographers and also real estate prospectors but they're people not big orgs or banks. It feels good to work on this level and personally answer emails and questions. I don't make much revenue but I like the grassroots path. Maybe you'd find it rewarding as well.

[1] shademap.app

mcbishop · 6 months ago

I came across shademap.app a ~month ago, and had a "the internet can be so awesome" moment. I wrote to my property mates: "I found a cool free website for seeing shade at our site throughout the day and year. Maybe helpful for garden planning. Our address is loaded in [here]". Reply: "Wow! That is cool!". It seems to be very much in the solarpunk spirit (even more so with your engagement here). I hope to incorporate it into my solar installation work. Thank you :)

mcbishop commented on Ask HN: Has anyone tried alternative company models (like a co-op) for SaaS? · Posted by u/snide

mcbishop · 7 months ago

I recommend the book: Reinventing the Organization. It has case studies of alternative models around the world.

mcbishop commented on How we made our AI code review bot stop leaving nitpicky comments greptile.com/blog/make-ll... · Posted by u/dakshgupta

mcbishop · 8 months ago

Some have a smaller tighter codebase... where it's realistic to pursue consistent application of an internal style guide (which current AI seems well suited to help with (or take ownership of)).

mcbishop · 8 months ago

My comment here got two downvotes. I was trying to contribute positively to the conversation. I've barely ever downvoted anyone. I upvoted the parent comment even though I disagreed with it (because I appreciated the perspective). The drive-by downvoters in HN bum me out.