Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. Valve Open-Sources Steam Machine’s E-Ink Display
  2. New PamStealer macOS Malware Uses Clever Tradecraft To Remain Stealthy
  3. US Life Expectancy On Track To Reach Record High
  4. Amazon Has Enough Satellites To Launch Its Starlink Competitor
  5. Sitting For More Than 30 Minutes At a Time Linked To Higher Risk of Cancer Death
  6. Labor Force Participation Rate Falls To Lowest In 50 years
  7. AI Agent Executes ‘First’ End-To-End Ransomware Attack
  8. Godot Game Engine No Longer Accepts AI Code
  9. Meta Is Charging a Subscription for Smart Glasses Features
  10. OpenAI ‘In Early Talks To Give 5% Stake To US Government’
  11. WhatsApp Usernames Are Already Raising Impersonation Red Flags
  12. OnePlus Is Quietly Steering Customers Toward OPPO Products
  13. The Space-Based Data Center Hype Machine Is Already In Orbit
  14. SpaceX Reportedly Has an AI Device Prototype
  15. US Home Battery Installations Hit Record High On Rising Electricity Costs

Alterslash picks up to the best 5 comments from each of the day’s Slashdot stories, and presents them on a single page for easy reading.

Valve Open-Sources Steam Machine’s E-Ink Display

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Valve has open-sourced the design for a customizable e-ink front panel for the Steam Machine, dubbed the “Inkterface.” “All of it is available on their GitLab under the MIT license, which goes over everything you need to make your own and stick it on the front of your fancy new Steam Machine,” reports GamingOnLinux. From the report:
They’re now calling it the “Inkterface” and there’s a good few things you’ll need to make it including:
1 x Adafruit ESP32 Feather with 2MB PSRAM.
1 x Adafruit eInk Breakout Friend.
1 x Adafruit 5.83” Monochrome eInk Panel.
13 x M2.5 x 5mm Pan Head Machine Screws.
4 x 1/4” x 1/4” x 3/16” Stepped Magnet SB443-OUT.

Valve even provided a video on the GitLab showing it being put together […].

New PamStealer macOS Malware Uses Clever Tradecraft To Remain Stealthy

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
Researchers have found a never-before-seen piece of macOS malware that combines a series of clever tradecraft to infect Macs with stealthy, custom-developed credential-stealing code. The malware is delivered in two stages. The first is distributed in a disk image that masquerades as Maccy, a clipboard manager for Macs. It’s compiled as AppleScript that is notable for the way it delivers the second stage. The malware is named PamStealer because the Rust-written infostealer uses the Pluggable Authentication Modules interface built into macOS to validate the target’s login password before sending it to an attacker-controlled server.

[…] PamStealer shows a native password prompt designed to resemble a system authorization request. Text that appears with the prompt says: “Maccy wants to make changes. Enter your password to allow this.” As noted earlier, once a target complies, the malware validates it locally through the PAM API. “This check is done entirely through PAM: there is no call out to dscl, security, osascript or any spawned process to verify the password, as many commodity macOS stealers do,” [said Jamf, a security firm for macOS users]. “The result is a quieter routine that keeps only a verified password, and one fewer process chain for defenders to detect on.”

If the validation fails, PamStealer displays the prompts again until it receives the correct one. Once the target enters the correct password, PamStealer displays a message stating that the file is damaged and can’t be installed. This is designed to be a decoy to prevent the target from suspecting anything is amiss. The malware uses tactics to maximize the information it can steal. One tactic is to request the target grant full disk access to the fake Maccy app. It also contains code designed to access ethereum accounts. The various techniques — particularly the Script Editor lure, a self-contained JXA dropper, a Rust-based second stage, and local validation of credentials through PAM are all noteworthy.

Happy to see…

By PPH • Score: 5, Funny Thread

… Rust being put to use improving our computing security.

US Life Expectancy On Track To Reach Record High

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
The US age-adjusted death rate fell to a record low in 2025, likely pushing life expectancy to a record high as overdose deaths declined and mortality improved across all age groups. CNN reports:
There were about 689 deaths for every 100,000 people in the US in 2025, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the lowest rate recorded in more than a century of tracking. The age-adjusted rate has fallen 22% since 2021, landing about 4% lower than it was just before the pandemic in 2019. […] The top causes of death in the US in 2025 followed longstanding patterns: Heart disease led with nearly 695,000 deaths, followed by cancer with nearly 623,000 deaths.

Unintentional injuries, which includes drug overdoses, were the third leading cause of death. Overdose deaths are still high — about 70,000 people died from an overdose in 2025, preliminary CDC data shows — but experts say that sharp declines probably played a large role in bringing the age-adjusted death rate down in the US.

Yes but we’re all going to die

By thegarbz • Score: 5, Funny Thread

I have it under good authority doing months of Facebook related research while pooping that everyone who had the COVID-19 vaccine is going to die in 2026. The BBC reported on it so it must be true. At least a Facebook post reposted an X post that claimed the BBC had an article which reported on it, so surely that must be true.

Re:Decreased obesity

By Sique • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Lets put it like this: You have to compare 80 years of biography to find out. Right now, people dying did not experience the Great Depression and the Second World War, which gives them a large boost compared to people living 10 years early. We might see the effect of Microplastic in 50 years time.

Re:Decreased obesity

By mjwx • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

How can this be? Climate is killing everyone, air pollution is worse, microplastics is worser, everyone is so poor that they can’t eat, everything that trump or musk does is fatal, every single thing is linked to icreased death. Erm /sarc

Because we’ve got all the low hanging fruit like preventable diseases in childhood, dangerous products, toxic pesticides, et al. But don’t worry, Trump and the Anti-Vaxxers are working tirelessly to bring back such wonderful easily preventable diseases as Polio, Measles, Rubella and if they can manage it, Smallpox.

It should be noted this is a record for the US… which is still lower than almost all other developed nations.

For those who aren’t idiots, I’m sure I don’t need to explain that the biggest factor is the reduction in infant, child and young adult mortality as people under 25 dying in larger numbers skew the statistics downwards.

Re:Decreased obesity

By PsychoSlashDot • Score: 5, Informative Thread

How can this be? Climate is killing everyone, air pollution is worse, microplastics is worser, everyone is so poor that they can’t eat, everything that trump or musk does is fatal, every single thing is linked to icreased death. Erm /sarc

In the event that you don’t know/understand the answer already, I’ll try to illustrate it.

Imagine life-expectancy is say… 80 years and there are exactly 3 causes of death named A, B, and C with evenly-distributed probability.

Imagine we eliminate CoD A entirely. That changes odds of dying of CoD B or C from 33% to 50%.

Imagine also that by eliminating CoD A it adds an average of 5 years of life before death, putting L-E at 85 years.

Imagine we start injecting people with a lightly toxic substance (metaphor for microplastics etc), which damages the body but doesn’t kill. Say that knocks 3 years off the average lifespan, dropping L-E to 82 years.

All of the things you’re reading about can be true at the same time because words mean things. Bad things are bad, and the take-home is that the bad things are what is keeping things from being better than they are. As another illustration, getting a raise is a good thing, someone making a shitty decision that drives up inflation is a bad thing, and it’s possible for you to have marginally more buying power after the two but the shitty decision still sucks.

GLP1 - The Ozempic Effect

By TheWho79 • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
GLP1’s are the Wonderdrug of the century:

While clearly awesome for weight loss, much of the “beyond” benefit is still being untangled as either a direct drug effect versus downstream consequence of the weight loss and metabolic improvement itself. Many clinicians describe seeing improvement across cardiovascular and metabolic comorbidities “probably due to both weight loss and direct effect of the medication. Most of the newer findings are associational, not proven cause-and-effect.

With estimated 50million US having been on GLp1’s in the last 5 years, that more than accounts for the bump in life expectancy.

Amazon Has Enough Satellites To Launch Its Starlink Competitor

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Amazon says its Leo satellite network now has enough spacecraft in orbit to begin limited commercial internet service, with 396 satellites providing “continuous service across initial latitudes.” Early performance will likely be uneven, however, and well behind Starlink. “It’ll be years before Amazon can boast similar performance numbers as it continues to launch a planned 3,232 Leo satellites,” reports The Verge. From the report:
SpaceX went live with its “Better than nothing beta” back in 2020 when it had almost 900 satellites operating in low-Earth orbit. It initially served a narrow band of users in the upper US and Canada, who complained about frequent service interruptions and high sensitivity to obstructions, with speeds between 50Mbps and 150Mbps, and latency from 20ms to 40ms. By 2022, the service and coverage areas had already dramatically improved. […]

SpaceX currently has over 10,000 Starlink satellites in operation, providing robust internet connectivity on land, sea, and air in over 160 countries. Performance varies by the dish, service level paid for, time of day, and location of the user, but we’re now talking 200Mbps median download speeds, 10Mbps to 40Mbps uploads, and latency hovering around 25ms.

illiterate

By nyet • Score: 3 Thread

LEO not Leo, moron.

Yet another /. article that will never get fixed. Is it just not possible to edit posts? Or are you all so damn lazy you can’t be bothered to ever correct something that would take 3 minutes?

almost right

By OrangeTide • Score: 5, Funny Thread

You are correct LEO != Leo, one is an acronym for low-Earth orbit. The other is the name of Amazon’s satellite network. RTFA

Good luck with that

By Anonymous Coward • Score: 3, Interesting Thread
Amazon’s Leo satellites are just barely fitting the LEO definition. They’re 3x higher than Starlink’s satellites so you can expect (a minimum of) 3x latency.

Re:illiterate

By 93 Escort Wagon • Score: 5, Funny Thread

It’s spelled “maroon” - just ask Bugs.

Sitting For More Than 30 Minutes At a Time Linked To Higher Risk of Cancer Death

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:
Researchers who tracked more than 90,000 people over a decade found that sitting or lying down while awake for more than 30 minutes in one period each day was associated with an increased risk of cancer death. The risk increases for every additional hour of continuous inactivity, the findings suggest. However, the researchers also found breaking up periods of sedentary behavior longer than 30 minutes with bursts of physical activity could help reduce the risk. Getting up every half-hour, even for a short walk around the office, could do wonders for your health, they said.

[…] The findings, published in Plos Medicine, focused on the health effects of prolonged sedentary behavior on a daily basis. […] The team analyzed data from wearable devices worn by more than 91,000 UK Biobank participants, who were followed for an average of 12 years. The findings suggest prolonged inactivity lasting more than 30 minutes was associated with cancer risks. Each additional hour of prolonged inactivity every day was associated with a 10% increase in risk of cancer death. However, replacing long spells of inactivity with movement appeared to reduce that risk. Substituting one hour of sedentary behavior each day with light physical activity, such as ironing or washing up, was associated with a 12% lower risk of cancer death.

Replacing 30 minutes of inactivity each day with 30 minutes of moderate physical activity, such as walking at an average pace, was associated with an 8% lower risk. The risk was 22% lower when five minutes of inactivity was replaced with five minutes of vigorous physical activity each day, the study suggested. There were limitations to the research, including the fact that the researchers performed a statistical analysis of an observational study, so could not prove causation.

wait, what?

By usedtobestine • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

What control group did they use, and where did they find people to study that don’t sleep at night?

Standing Desks

By dontbemad • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Everytime I see the subject of standing desks brought up here (among other places), I see droves of commenters come out of the woodwork to announce that “standing is actually worse for you than sitting”. Well, this is exactly why I bought a standing desk; not so that I can stand for 8 hours instead of sit, but so that I can switch between the two frequently. Add to that a cheap under-desk walking pad, and I can get a surprising amount of movement while hard at work.

That being said, I am still very lucky to work at home and take many small trips to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, to the garden to water plants, and more. Should I be forced back into an office (not unlikely), a standing desk would be the first thing I’d acquire.

Cause and effect.

By msauve • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
>focused on the health effects of prolonged sedentary behavior on a daily basis.

If I had cancer, my behavior might change to sitting around more than exercising. Correlation is not causation.

Tip: drink lots of water

By Tablizer • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

It’s good for your system and forces you to move every 90 minutes or so. Just not before long meetings.

Re:wait, what?

By backslashdot • Score: 5, Funny Thread

Nice trick, I spent 31 minutes looking for the control group.

Labor Force Participation Rate Falls To Lowest In 50 years

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
The US unemployment rate fell to 4.2% in June largely because 720,000 people left the labor force, pushing participation to 61.5%. Excluding the Covid-era jobs market, that’s the lowest participation rate since June 1976. CNBC reports:
The decline in the labor force marks a “massive exodus” driven by multiple factors, said Mike Reid, head of U.S. economics at RBC. “The unemployment rate fell to 4.2% as both the number of unemployed workers and the size of the labor force pulled back,” Reid wrote in a post-report commentary. “This may well be a story of retirements but could also be a story of prior job seekers dropping out of the labor force.”

[…] [T]he rolls of those counted as not in the labor force, a group that includes the unemployed and those not looking for work, jumped by 832,000. And while the establishment survey, which counts jobs filled, showed growth for the month of 57,000, the survey of households, which counts the actual level of those working, tumbled by 507,000. On a year-over-year basis, the labor force is down by just over 1 million, while the level of the employed also has fallen by 1.06 million and the ranks of the unemployed have risen by 40,000. The employment-to-population ratio slipped to 59% in June, the lowest since October 2021. All that has happened while the unemployment rate has risen by just one-tenth of a percentage point to 4.2%.

The drop in participation is sometimes attributed to a shrinking immigrant population and retiring baby boomers and Gen Xers. However, in June the biggest plunge came from what is defined as “prime age” workers, or those between the ages of 25 and 54. That rate fell 0.6 percentage point to 83.3%, its lowest since December 2023. “Looking at the statistics now, that argument doesn’t hold up so well,” North said of the retirement and immigration rationale. “I hate to use the word ‘alarming,’" he added, but said the numbers are cause for concern.

Re:“Left the labor force”

By Himmy32 • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Left the labor force also means not actively looking for work. So it’s more than just the losing a job, but also giving up looking. So people who “lost their job” and also retire, die, become a student, care for family, just become disheartened and give up.

So less about being sickeningly weasel worded, but having a different technical meaning that’s a little different than common layperson usage.

Re:Stats are complicated

By neo00 • Score: 5, Informative Thread
It’s worth noting that unemployment rate is not a single measure. The number usually cited is for U-3. There are several measures tracked by the BLS https://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm which may be more aligned with what you’re describing.

The six state measures are based on the same definitions as those published for the United States:

U-1, persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force;
U-2, job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force;
U-3, total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (this is the definition used for the official unemployment rate);
U-4, total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers;
U-5, total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other marginally attached workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers; and
U-6, total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.

Re:Probably people entirely disillusioned

By Local ID10T • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

It is global. We saw these trends reported in China as the “Lie Flat” and “Let it Rot” movements. In Japan as “Satori Generation” or even “Hikikomori”.

Hell in a handbasket… all of us.

Re:Functional unemployment is 20%

By Anonymous Coward • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

President Harry S. Truman proposed universal health insurance in 1945, where workers would pay a fee or tax and the government would then pay the doctor or hospital of the patient’s choice

The AMA claimed this was “socialism” because the federal government controlled the money. They hired the public relations firm Whitaker and Baxter to launch one of the largest political advertising campaigns in U.S. history up to that point.

We have to recognize the propaganda war that we grew up in, and the results of which we live with today in order to stop this madness

Re:How hard is it to just create jobs ?

By sabbede • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
It actually prolonged the Depression by screwing up the labor market and making it impossible for small struggling businesses to find workers.

AI Agent Executes ‘First’ End-To-End Ransomware Attack

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Sysdig says it has documented the first ransomware attack carried out end to end by an AI agent, which autonomously exploited exposed systems, stole credentials, established persistence, compromised a production database, and destroyed data. The research team named the attacker “JadePuffer” and said it gained initial access to an internet-facing Langflow instance by exploiting CVE-2025-3248. “The most striking characteristic, however, was the LLM’s behavior,” Sysdig director of threat research Michael Clark said in a blog post. An anonymous reader quotes an excerpt from The Register:
JadePuffer’s “self-narrating” payloads “contained natural language reasoning, target prioritization, and the kind of detailed annotations that human operators don’t often write but LLM-generated code produces reflexively,” Clark added. “The operation also adapted in real time, retrying failed steps within refined parameters. In one sequence, it went from a failed login to a working fix in 31 seconds.” After exploiting CVE-2025-3248, a missing authentication vulnerability in Langflow that allows remote, unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary Python on the host, the AI agent began scanning for and collecting secrets, including LLM provider API keys, cloud credentials “with explicit coverage of Chinese providers” including Alibaba, Aliyun, Tencent, and Huawei, while also scanning for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform, cryptocurrency wallets, and database credentials.

The AI also installed a crontab entry on the Langflow server to maintain persistence and call back to the attacker’s infrastructure every 30 minutes. JadePuffer’s intended target was a separate internet-exposed production server running a MySQL database and an Alibaba Nacos configuration service, we’re told. Nacos is an open-source service-discovery and dynamic configuration platform developed by Alibaba and used in the cloud provider’s microservices applications. The agent connected to the server’s exposed MySQL port using root credentials, although Sysdig doesn’t know how the attacker obtained them. These credentials weren’t stolen from the victim’s environment.

JadePuffer then attacked Nacos via multiple vectors including an authorization bypass flaw (CVE-2021-29441) and forging a valid JSON web token (JWT) using Nacos’s default signing key. Additionally, using its root database access, the LLM injected a backdoor administrator into the Nacos backing database. It ultimately encrypted all 1,342 Nacos service configuration items using MySQL’s built-in AES encryption function, and created an extortion demand, ransom note, Bitcoin payment address, and a Proton Mail contact […]. However, according to the threat hunters, the victim can’t recover the encrypted data, even if they paid the ransom demand, because the agent escalated “from row-level deletion to dropping entire database schemas, narrating its own targeting rationale,” without backing up any of the encrypted data.

Re:So did it fail in the last stage?

By wed128 • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
You’re not giving them money because they can decrypt your data. You’re giving them money because they *say* they can decrypt your data. By the time you find out your data’s gone, so is your money.

Finally a good use for this tech!

By gweihir • Score: 3 Thread

Or rather something it is good enough to actually do. Keep in mind that attacks, extortion, etc. all to not need reliability, they just need volume. If a rather large part of those attacked are left hanging, that is totally fine.

Re:Whose agent

By gweihir • Score: 4, Informative Thread

While I appreciate the sentiment, if that would work, we would not have a global silent ransomware catastrophe on our hands …

Re: Whose agent

By gweihir • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Stop projecting. Well, maybe you are really this disconnected from actual reality. MAGA? Religious fuckup? Or even only run-of-the-mill self-important moron?

For some actual examples, there have been some spectacular IT attacks on US national security. Did they ever find the ones who did it (beyond mindless political cries of “China!” or “North Korea!”)? No, they did not beyond a very small number of cases. And why did they not? Because it is actually exceptionally hard to do. So hard that even the NSA struggles and often fails.

Backups

By Canberra1 • Score: 3 Thread
Always have multiple levels of backups. Always have a working recovery plan. Know that you can recover when you are ‘out’. Yet gazillions of chimp companies with patsy IT security chiefs (Thinking of Get Smart logic) are there just to absorb the blame. One day AI will mine the darkweb and find the weakest links, and really go to town. Today I read the latest AI engines have malicious payloads to discover the user doing the query. Automated blackmail and smear campaigns coming soon.

Godot Game Engine No Longer Accepts AI Code

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
The Godot Foundation will stop accepting AI-authored code, agent-submitted pull requests, and AI-generated text in contributor communications after maintainers were overwhelmed by low-effort submissions. “It is time for us to recognize that these problems aren’t going away and therefore we need to take steps to reduce the burden on maintainers while ensuring we still have a pipeline to mentor new contributors to become future maintainers,” the Godot Foundation said in a blog post. Contributors may still use AI for limited “menial things” if they disclose it, but humans must understand, own, and be able to fix the code they submit. PC Gamer reports:
The Foundation says the pileup of Godot pull requests pending review isn’t all bad: It’s a sign that interest in using and contribution to Godot is increasing. But the influx of contributions authored or submitted by AI is sapping the projects’ maintainers of their willingness to confront the “already tedious” work of reviewing pull requests. “If your feedback on PRs is just being absorbed by a machine and not going towards mentoring a potential future maintainer, it becomes much harder to justify spending your free time on PR review,” the Foundation said.

As the problem becomes increasingly unsustainable, the Godot Foundation says it’s in the process of updating its contribution policies, focusing on “adding barriers to low-effort slop” contributions, encouraging maintainers to review code, developing new contributors into future maintainers, and crucially, requiring that all contributions come from humans who are accountable for their code — and fixing it if it fails. “AI cannot take responsibility, and we can’t trust heavy users of AI to understand their code enough to fix it,” the Foundation said.

The Foundation says we can expect Godot’s contributing policy to soon include explicit rejections of AI-authored code, noting that contributors should only use AI assistance for “menial things” and must disclose its use. Additionally, the Foundation will reject any AI-generated text in human-to-human communications, saying it’s “a basic principle of respect” — though it says machine translations “are still acceptable” if the original text was human-authored. “Things change every day with respect to the current suite of AI tools available,” the Foundation said. “We will continue taking a conservative approach in our policies towards them, but we will re-evaluate as things evolve.”

Oh my, are we waiting?

By sabbede • Score: 3, Funny Thread
Waiting for Godot?

Ohhhh-hhhh-hh-ooo

Spot on…

By Junta • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

reject any AI-generated text in human-to-human communications, saying it’s “a basic principle of respect”

I cannot agree more with this sentiment. It feels outright insulting to asked to read LLM output in a context where it is *supposed* to be human feedback. Tell me what you would have told the LLM to say, I can take it from there. I don’t need you to LLM it up, because it will bury your point in a bunch of crap.

Could it provide useful info? Maybe, but I can do that myself if so. I want *your* thought on something, however incomplete it might be.

Re:Oh my, are we waiting?

By Himmy32 • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Yes:

The name “Godot” was chosen in reference to Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, as it represents the never-ending wish of adding new features in the engine, which would get it closer to an exhaustive product, even though it never would.

Re:Spot on…

By Eric Sharkey • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Software development is changing. I started coding in BASIC in the 1980’s and have been coding now for over 40 years, over 30 years professionally. I’m good at what I do, but the AI is faster. Claude can churn out code faster than I can, and it’s often better, catching some conditions I would have missed. That said, it often messes up, misses the mark, or goes in directions that aren’t right for the larger context in which the code exists.

Today, professional software development is best done by AI with skilled human guidance and review.

Rejecting AI generated code in today’s environment is trying to turn back time. On the other hand, rejecting a submission where there is no human who can “understand, own, and be able to fix the code they submit” makes perfect sense. There is a big difference between asking an AI to generate a fix and blindly submitting the first thing it spits out, versus having an extended session with an AI, correcting it where it goes wrong, vetting and testing the patch with human review and testing, then submitting the PR.

You kind of have to

By rsilvergun • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
AI slap generators create code with dubious copyright protections. Open source software relies entirely on copyright to enforce its license agreements so once you start polluting your code it’s all downhill from there…

Meta Is Charging a Subscription for Smart Glasses Features

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Meta is introducing a subscription for expanded access to advanced smart-glasses features. According to Wired, "[U]sers will need the Meta One Premium Plan to unlock expanded access to some features for their smart glasses, whether it’s the Ray-Ban, Oakley, or Meta-branded version.” They’ll still be usable with a subscription, but “certain features will be limited,” the report says. From the report:
Specifically, a feature called Conversation Focus, which boosts the audio of the person you’re speaking with so you can hear them better in loud environments. You’ll get three hours per month without a subscription, but if you want to use it more often, then you’ll need to pay up. Though even then, you’re still capped at 15 hours. Subscribing also nets you “Premium Device Support,” where you’ll get faster access to what Meta says are “human experts” trained on the smart glasses’ features, should any problems arise. Guess humans are better at some things after all.

A Meta spokesperson tells WIRED that this is “not an AI rate limit.” Rate limits are common on other AI platforms — users get free access to a feature until they hit a certain cap, then they’ll need to subscribe to use it more until the limit resets at the end of the month. However, the Conversation Focus feature runs on-device, meaning it doesn’t need to head to Meta’s servers for AI processing. There’s no real-time way to monitor how many hours you’ve used Conversation Focus, but you’ll receive a notification when you get near the limit.

“The subscription supports that ongoing work and gives power users expanded access along with premium device support,” the spokesperson says. “We’re going to start testing new optional subscription plans that offer more premium features and advanced capabilities for those who want to unlock more from our apps and AI glasses.”

Same feature without the subscription

By Turkinolith • Score: 3 Thread
Or just get some Airpods Pro 3’s and use the automatic conversation boost without paying for a subscription?

Classic enshitification

By Morpeth • Score: 5, Informative Thread

This seems to be the de facto way companies are operating now, my only hope if enough people just say no thanks (or f*ck off ! more appropriately) that they will back off, but I’m not optimistic. Doctorow’s book actually does a really nice job using case studies to outline how the path the enshitification process happens, Facebook / Meta is pretty much the poster child for it.

Anything with software now, be it a dishwasher, a car, a watch, these asshole companies are either using your data for their benefit, or charging you to access features that should simply be included (or in some case are actually already there but turned off unless you fork over $x per month).

Reverse Gargoyle

By Misagon • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

In Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash — which introduced the word Metaverse from which Meta got its name — the people wearing connected, cameras, sensors and AR-goggles on their heads were the ones who got paid for spying on people left and right.

Want your GF to look hotter?

By awwshit • Score: 3 Thread

We have options.
Shallow Hal package $250/month (your GF looks HOT)
Full Creep package $1000/month (Undress everyone)

I never wanted them before this

By MpVpRb • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

and now I want them even less
Just say no to subscriptions

OpenAI ‘In Early Talks To Give 5% Stake To US Government’

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
OpenAI is reportedly in early talks to give the U.S. government a 5% stake, potentially alongside similar contributions from other major AI companies. “Such a deal would help improve the industry’s relations with the Trump administration and could help garner political support by sharing wealth generated by the AI boom with the public,” reports The Guardian. From the report:
[OpenAI CEO Sam Altman] and other OpenAI bosses have suggested that each of the biggest AI developers in the US should give 5% to their equity to an investment vehicle such as the Alaska Permanent Fund, a sovereign fund that invests US oil wealth into stocks and pays dividends to the state, the FT reported.

The talks are “conceptual” and in early stages, it said, and any deal could require an act of Congress to implement. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have previously suggested in policy papers that a public or sovereign wealth fund may be required in the future to distribute shares to the public. In April, OpenAI said that a “public wealth fund” could provide “every citizen — including those not invested in financial markets — with a stake in AI-driven economic growth.”
Further reading: Bernie Sanders Unveils $7 Trillion Plan To Give Americans Control of AI Industry

Re:What a grift

By F.Ultra • Score: 5, Interesting Thread
note sure, the hope is probably that with a 5% stake the state will find the company to big to fail in the future and will bail them out once the hype is over

Re:Richard Nixon wondering why he resigned....

By jacks smirking reven • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Nixon resigned because if he didn’t he was going to be impeached and removed.

What Nixon really needed was a Republican Congress that was so servile and supplicant that they would just let Nixon off the hook and give him an attaboy. Says a lot about them that their predecessors had some sense of decorum of the office and some spinal rigidity. Now they are all just worms.

Re:Richard Nixon wondering why he resigned....

By cmdr_klarg • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Ole Nixon is down there in hell asking himself why the hell he resigned. In today’s presidential administrations you have to resign if you’re not corrupt enough.

Nixon didn’t have a cult following him, nor did he have a complicit Congress letting him get away with his BS, and he also didn’t have a SCOTUS that wants to let him get away with more BS. SCOTUS at least isn’t rubberstamping all his activities, but they’re done so on far too many cases.

Re:Not Capitalists

By cmdr_klarg • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

You’re even more naive if you believe that nonsense. “bOtHsIdEs” is a dishonest argument that attempts to equate the rather “meh” Democrats with the democracy subverting dumpster fire of the modern Republican Party in an attempt to excuse the GOP of the abhorrent shit that they do. They are NOT the same.

Re:Naked Graft

By ArchieBunker • Score: 5, Informative Thread

One is focused on keeping prices low while the other is focused on funneling money into his pocket.

WhatsApp Usernames Are Already Raising Impersonation Red Flags

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch:
WhatsApp this week started rolling out username reservations ahead of the broader launch planned later this year. The feature — which lets people find and message each other by handle instead of phone number — is already raising impersonation concerns, drawing scrutiny from security experts and regulators in India, the app’s largest market, with more than 500 million users. The rollout marks a shift in how people identify one another on WhatsApp. Instead of relying on phone numbers as the primary identifier, users will increasingly interact through platform-managed usernames, a change that Meta says improves privacy but that critics argue could create new opportunities for impersonation.

[…] Asked about how it protects against impersonation, Meta told TechCrunch it reserves usernames for public figures, government entities, and “some variations” of those names so only the legitimate owner can claim them. The company did not explain, however, how it decides which lookalike usernames get proactively reserved and which don’t. The concerns have already reached regulators in India, where cyber fraud schemes frequently exploit messaging platforms to impersonate police, banks, and government officials. […] Rachel Tobac, chief executive of SocialProof Security, called usernames a net privacy gain because they reduce the need to share phone numbers, which can expose users to SIM-swap attacks, phishing, and account takeovers. Still, she said, lookalike usernames still create opportunities for impersonation. “Ultimately, usernames are a great idea to avoid leaking your phone number to folks you don’t know, but it’s important to verify identity with the username function too,” Tobac told TechCrunch. Her advice for most users: Pick a username that isn’t easily guessable, so it’s harder for attackers to find you, message you cold, or harass and spam you.

[…] The Mozilla Foundation said the introduction of usernames is likely to bring new tradeoffs. “Increased scams and impersonation from fake handles are potentially a big one,” it told TechCrunch. “Checking a phone number can be a useful verification tool, but these harms are also permitted by the platform’s fundamental design choices.” Mozilla also flagged a broader interoperability question — one worth logging if you’re building on top of, or competing with, Meta’s ecosystem. While letting users claim their existing Facebook and Instagram usernames may cut down on impersonation, it also shows how easily Meta can stitch identity together across its own apps, even as users still can’t take that identity, or their contacts, to a rival platform. For now, WhatsApp says it is taking a gradual approach to the rollout. “We’re taking our time and listening to feedback so that when it rolls out later this year we get it right,” the company said in its FAQ.

Re:Ya know…

By Moryath • Score: 4 Thread
Meta as a company ought to have been shut down ages ago for so many violations of law. It’s honestly amazing that they’ve managed to avoid it. Constant impersonation problems, constantly not just allowing but actually HELPING scam artists defraud people, constant security flaws that allowed for taken-over accounts, or that resulted in people losing their accounts through no fault of their own, irretrievably. The best advice I can offer someone is to NEVER use a Meta-owned system, ever.

Re:Ya know…

By Moryath • Score: 5, Informative Thread
Numerous data breach notification laws just for starters, you dishonest Anonymous Meta-Employee Trash Troll Coward.

“That trick never works.”

By shanen • Score: 4 Thread

Boycotts are \the trick that does not work in this case, though you may not even have the option to boycott any more. Maybe Zuck will have to create shadow profiles for the residual humans who decline to play his game on his turf. How else can he fill in the holes in “the members’ profiles” when they refer to people who aren’t there in person. As if “in person” still has a meaning?

On the boycott topic, my second and final Amazon purchase was decades ago. The products (books) and services were mostly okay, but I saw what was being done with my personal data and it stank to high heaven and I wanted no part of it. So I stopped using all things Bezos but kept an eye on the development of the new corporate cancer. Can’t see that my boycott has hurt Amazon any.

(Maybe I just have to wait longer? My first corporate boycott target was Exxon. Never managed to bankrupt them as I planned so deviously, but it sure feels like Exxon has fallen far from it’s glory days. Is an ugly acquisition in Exxon’s future? Oh I hope it’s Chinese or Brazilian!)

Back to Zuckerland and a sort of disclaimer: My identity on Facebook was assassinated a few years ago. I had already looked at WhatsApp and Instagram and decided not to use them, but I had cured my Facebook problem with a timer. Actually two of them. The first one went off at four minutes and then I had one minute to get off of Facebook before the second one buzzed. That was my daily allotment for the last few years before my Facebook identity was murdered for reasons that Facebook declined to tell me about. I declined to “prove” myself to Facebook’s satisfaction, even if that was possible without knowing my hideous crime, but I did exercise the option to download Facebook’s dossier on me and I spent a while searching for any reason, but never even found a candidate. I have a theory it was politically motivated, but only Zuck knows. If Zuck has his way “only Zuck knows” may become the law of the land for the entire universe. “Domination!”

Re:“That trick never works.”

By Moryath • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

My Facebook account was assassinated a few years back for posting "#NEVERAGAIN” and a link to the British Holocaust Memorial Day Trust on May 6. Reason eventually given: the link to a HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE PAGE was supposedly “glorifying violent individuals or organizations.”

That’s right. Nazi Trash Filth Zuckerberg decided that saying "#NEVERAGAIN” about the Holocaust was somehow “glorifying” violent individuals or organizations…

Re:“That trick never works.”

By HiThere • Score: 4 Thread

YOU might think of it as a boycott, but I think of it as “self-protection”. I avoid Musk’s products for self protection…that I also hope it harms him at least a trifle is a minor additional bonus…and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t.

OnePlus Is Quietly Steering Customers Toward OPPO Products

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
OnePlus is directing customers in some European markets toward OPPO devices, with its German website presenting OPPO as the natural upgrade path for existing users. The regional handoff adds to “months of speculation that the smartphone brand is slowly being folded into its parent company,” reports Android Authority. From the report:
The banner, seen on OnePlus’ German website, tells visitors seeking “the experience you trust” that OPPO offers the same speed, performance, and compatibility that OnePlus users have come to expect. It hosts devices ranging from earbuds and tablets to OPPO’s latest foldables, with each button taking users straight to OPPO’s website. Particularly revealing is the wording. Instead of pushing future OnePlus hardware, the company focuses on the fact that OPPO’s products are built on the hardware and software that users already know, while promising seamless compatibility with current OnePlus devices. In other words, if you’re up for your next upgrade, OnePlus seems to be saying OPPO has what you’re looking for right now.

Reports in the past several months have said OnePlus has been scaling back operations in several global markets. Previous restructuring reportedly included cutting headcount, a more focused regional strategy, and greater dependence on OPPO’s infrastructure. The two brands have been sharing engineering resources, software development, and supply chains for years now, particularly as OxygenOS and ColorOS have begun to look more and more alike.

Interestingly, the change appears to be regional. OPPO already has a retail footprint in Germany, so the handoff is fairly straightforward. In the United States, however, things are very different, where OPPO does not officially sell smartphones. That means American OnePlus customers aren’t getting the same messaging, mostly because there isn’t an OPPO lineup waiting to step in.

Re:U.S. Users?

By rsilvergun • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
The current administration is making it hard for Chinese companies to directly sell into the country. It’s part of a push to start up a new cold war with China since Russia is a bust. Kinda hard to scare people with an adversary that can’t invade a country 1/5th it’s size…

So OnePlus is getting pushed out of the market and looking for roundabout ways back in.

This is part and parcel of how America runs it’s empire so it’s likely the next admin will do the same. It’s over of the few nonpartisan things going on right now with the current administration. So OnePlus can’t just wait it out.

Re:Context???

By MachineShedFred • Score: 5, Informative Thread

The fucking summary is pretty clear that they are smartphone brands. Try reading.

Also, you might be shocked to learn that there are smartphone manufacturers that don’t sell products in the US (Oppo) but do sell tens if not hundreds of millions of units throughout Europe and Asia.

Lazy fuck. Literally takes you longer to post this stupidity than to just do a google search and educate yourself.

Satisfactory smartphones?

By shanen • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

I’ve had two of each and I would say that the Oppos have outperformed the Samsungs while costing less. I know someone else who had several Samsungs but then switched to a Pixel of some sort. I could go down the list of problems with Samsung, but there are also problems with Oppo, so I would say it’s mostly a matter of degree of satisfaction in this imperfect world. I’ve owned a bunch of other brands of smartphones over the years with various levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Two Taiwan brands come to mind as near the top for dissatisfaction. There are still improvements, but I feel like most of the big improvements were a long time ago…

In terms of brand-linked satisfaction, I think I would actually have given the prize to Huawei before they were disqualified… I bought about ten Huawei devices of various sorts over the years, but I’m down to one last survivor and do not anticipate searching for or buying another Huawei in the future. In point of fact, I bought this last Huawei in a kind of fire sale and in hopes of higher compatibility with old data.

Re:Context???

By karmawarrior • Score: 4 Thread

That has got to be the worst “We’re reinventing scrolling!111!!!” website I’ve seen in a long time, and I’ve seen some pretty shitty ones. What the fuck is wrong with web designers? Do they know people are scrolling to read things, not watch some bastard child of a flash-animation and a lines assignment set by a teacher as discipline?

The Space-Based Data Center Hype Machine Is Already In Orbit

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
IEEE Spectrum argues that orbital data centers remain far from economically or technically practical despite Elon Musk’s prediction that space will become the cheapest place to run AI within a few years. Deploying SpaceX’s proposed million-satellite constellation would require enormous increases in launch and manufacturing capacity, while cooling, radiation, maintenance, latency, orbital debris, and astronomical interference present major unresolved obstacles. Longtime Slashdot reader xetdog shares the report:
Consider this: There are roughly 14,500 active satellites in orbit. Musk’s Starlink constellation accounts for about two thirds of those. Both the launch cadences and satellite-manufacturing capacity would have to scale up astronomically to deploy a million orbital data center satellites. For context, there have been roughly 7,000 orbital launches in all of human history. To loft 1 million satellites into low Earth orbit on SpaceX’s Starship, which is designed to carry up to 60 satellites per vehicle, would require 16,666 launches exclusively devoted to satellite deployments. Considering that SpaceX launched a record 165 orbital missions in 2025, even at 10 times that cadence, it would take a decade. And how long would it take to build 1 million satellites, given Starlink’s current pace of around 4,000 per year and a generous tenfold increase in capacity? Short of a manufacturing revolution, try 25 years.
Dissipating heat in space also requires enormous radiators. As IEEE Spectrum editor Dina Genkina noted, startup Starcloud has sent only one Nvidia H100 GPU into orbit, and “their radiator was too weak to let the chip run at full power.” A single 700-watt H100 would require about 1.4 square meters of radiator area, while a 100-megawatt data center could need 2,500 radiators measuring 80 square meters each.

So, why are the hyperscalers hyping orbital data centers? Answer: because it’s lucrative. “The Elon Musk part of it is honestly genius because he’s got xAI building the data centers, SpaceX sending them to space, and Tesla building solar panels,” Genkina says. “It’s almost like he’s paying himself.”

Re:Bet against Elon if you like

By caseih • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Silly assumptions? A matter of Engineering? What about physics? Maybe listen to real engineers for once. They’ve been showing us the actual numbers that state clearly this AI data centers are not possible. Sure you can get lots of solar power, but that’s not the issue. The issue is cooling, requiring huge radiators that are far bigger than each satellite. Besides the impracticality of it, you have other issues like air pollution (already a problem with starlink deorbiting), light pollution (who needs the stars anyway). Apparently no on in Musk’s circle is asking, “but should we do this?”

Re: Bet against Elon if you like

By cmseagle • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Military people need to run AI models in situations of compromised ground communication. Running, for example target identification and data selection in space makes 100% sense

That seems like a benefit of relying on satellite communication rather than a benefit of putting the data center in space.

What’s the benefit over running the computation on the ground in a “normal” data center, beaming the results up to a satellite constellation, and then beaming them back down to those who need it? Starlink/Starshield already enable that.

Re: Bet against Elon if you like

By caseih • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Giant black-body radiators are required. This is the the number one reason why space data centers are not practical. The radiators would be many times bigger than the satellites themselves. Every watt of energy generated by the solar panels has to be radiated into space. This is not something that can simply be engineered around, as the OP seems to think.

Re:Bet against Elon if you like

By MachineShedFred • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

There is literally no hardware advancement that makes sense to operate in space, that doesn’t make more sense to operate right here on the dirt.

Why? Servicing and ionizing radiation.

We see elevated failure rates of SSDs in aircraft flying at 36,000 feet from controller firmware getting bit-flipped by passing neutrinos. Do you think that somehow improves by putting the SSDs into even more cosmic radiation exposure, and having less opportunity to service / replace the hardware?

We see hardware using MORE electricity and shedding MORE heat over time, not less. We have an atmosphere and bodies of water to dump heat into here. You don’t have anywhere besides passive radiation to dump heat in space, which means building HUGE passive radiators, which are huge targets for micrometeor strikes and space junk. All on hardware that you have a limited fuel tank on before it falls out of the sky, and no way to service.

None of this makes sense, but because you want to fanboi hard on Elon for some reason, you think he has some secret physics-defying sauce right around the corner.

Re-evaluate your critical thinking skills.

Re:So basically…

By swillden • Score: 5, Informative Thread

… it’s just another pack of lies like everything else Musk hypes up.

Counterargument: Who would have predicted a few years ago that one private company would dominate global launch, launching more by every metric than the rest of the world combined, and — all by itself — triple the number of satellites in orbit in 7 years.

Sure, 200Xing the satellite count is a lot harder than tripling the satellite count, about 66 times harder. But if Starship is successful (by no means a given, also far from impossible), SpaceX will reduce per-kg launch costs by 100X, maybe more.

I’m skeptical… but I would also not just write it off as a “pack of lies”. The things SpaceX is actively working on should make the launch part of it feasible. Will it be cost-effective? That’s a harder question, and heat dissipation is the core thing that may make it infeasible.

Also, the final paragraph of the summary seems to be confused:

So, why are the hyperscalers hyping orbital data centers? Answer: because it’s lucrative. “The Elon Musk part of it is honestly genius because he’s got xAI building the data centers, SpaceX sending them to space, and Tesla building solar panels,” Genkina says. “It’s almost like he’s paying himself.”

Yes, SpaceX will be incredibly lucrative if it owns the whole vertical stack, building, launching and powering — but only if it works. If it doesn’t work, and if orbital compute isn’t cheaper than planet-bound compute, then SpaceX will have no buyers.

The other possibility is that it’s just a pump and dump, but that’s not how Musk has ever worked in the past. Yes, he makes crazy promises, and delivers only half of them, and delivers years after the promised date, but those half-realized, years-late results are still often world-changing.

SpaceX Reportedly Has an AI Device Prototype

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
According to the Wall Street Journal, SpaceX showed investors an early prototype of a slim, “handset-like” AI device running a proprietary operating system and integrating xAI technology. Elon Musk, however, denied the report, calling it "utterly false.” TechCrunch reports:
SpaceX, alongside sister company Tesla, does have the manufacturing expertise to pull off mass-producing a bunch of AI devices — not to mention access to the chips needed to power any on-device compute. SpaceX has also signaled that it’s keen to expand into wireless, with Starlink Mobile as a potential competitor to Verizon and AT&T. One analyst even went as far as to speculate that T-Mobile or AT&T would make fine acquisition targets for the rocket builder, though such a purchase would, undoubtedly, be pricey.

It’s also not clear if SpaceX is just throwing spaghetti at the wall or if it will attempt to really mass-produce and market such a device. But one thing that seems clearer is that if OpenAI is doing it, Musk would, perhaps, want to try to do it better. […]

Like OpenAI, SpaceX’s prototype is reportedly designed to run on a proprietary operating system and integrate technology from xAI, Musk’s AI company that SpaceX acquired earlier this year. This would prevent these new devices from being trapped inside another company’s platforms (like Google’s Android). But the intent also appears to be to create something new, with native AI interfaces. That said, the graveyard is crowded with the unsuccessful launches of AI devices from companies like Humane and Rabbit. A company wanting to sell an AI device does not equate to consumers wanting to buy such a thing. Yet.

AI

By ledow • Score: 3 Thread

Gosh, that must be worth at least a trillion dollars.

Better scramble and invest in their hype of… a handheld box that can run AI… like… phones do.

Musky apples

By fluffernutter • Score: 3 Thread
I guess Musk finally figured out that too many people figured out he tells bold-faced lies about great things he will make so now he is following the “Apple leak” playbook?

US Home Battery Installations Hit Record High On Rising Electricity Costs

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
US homeowners have embraced home batteries in record-breaking numbers in early 2026, spurred on by state incentives while seeking to offset rising residential electricity costs. The trend could even unlock a more flexible energy supply for power grid operators and even AI data centers. New home battery installations reached a record 673 megawatts of energy storage in the first quarter of 2026, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That trend was driven by states with high electricity prices that have implemented policies to incentivize home battery installation, Bloomberg News reported.

This residential battery trend stands out as a natural next step for states that have already successfully boosted rooftop solar adoption among homeowners, given how batteries enable homeowners to use stored solar energy at night. California and Hawaii accounted for the majority of new residential battery storage, while Texas and Arizona also saw significantly higher numbers of installations. California incentivizes homeowners with solar panels to also install batteries by offering better pricing for residential electricity exported to the grid after sunset, Bloomberg reported. Hawaii offers a one-time payment of $400 for every kilowatt of battery storage that homeowners install.

However, the record-breaking home battery installations coincided with a slowdown in residential installations of solar panels — the result of the Trump administration and Republican-driven One Big Beautiful Bill having eliminated a 30 percent federal solar tax credit for homeowners. Nonetheless, US electricity generation from solar power continues to rise and even surpassed coal-fired generation in April. The battery installation spree also coincides with rising electricity costs for US residential customers. The Energy Information Administration’s latest data shows that the nationwide average for residential electricity costs increased by more than 7 percent in April 2026 when compared to electricity costs in April 2025. So homeowners with smart home battery-management systems could benefit from storing energy when electricity prices are lowest and draining them during peak demand periods.

The reason I got it

By OrangeTide • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

It got a lot cheaper compared to what it cost 5 years ago. Also, for people who don’t have net metering, it’s often (always?) better to charge your own battery than sell solar back to the power company.

Re:Kilowatt

By dsgrntlxmply • Score: 5, Informative Thread
It looks like abridged reporting. A quick search suggests that it is a one time payment of $400 / kW capacity feedable back to the grid for a 2 hour interval daily, with a contractual commitment of some number of years. BYOD Plus

Re:The reason I got it

By Powercntrl • Score: 5, Informative Thread

It got a lot cheaper compared to what it cost 5 years ago.

Last time I looked at it, the time-of-use rate plan offered by my utility worked out to where the savings would just about pay for the cost of a battery installation right around the time the batteries are pretty much shot. You’re also gambling that there isn’t going to be any out-of-warranty failures with the inverter/charging equipment before you’ve achieved ROI, too. Plus if you have to add financing into the mix to pull it off, forget it - then the only entity actually making any money from this scheme is the damn bank.

Obviously, if you got a subsidy or use an insane amount of power so the savings adds up more quickly, batteries might end up being worth it. Here in Florida though, batteries aren’t likely to save you any money, but solar might (again though, you’re kind of gambling that a hurricane isn’t going to trash your panels).

Re:The reason I got it

By OrangeTide • Score: 5, Informative Thread

I save a bit of gasoline on the 15 or so days I’m without power. I already had solar, so it seemed a little silly sitting in the dark with nothing to run my water pump to flush the toilet. I was also in a situation where the inverter on my solar system had died and the original manufacturer was out of business. There was not a huge cost difference in getting an refurbished identical replacement versus something fancier that switches between house battery, EV battery, generator, solar, and grid tied. Pays for itself in 60 years, if I go by time of use billing, but I arranged to keep net metering so it’s more like a 27 year break-even for me in part because my battery system is oversized and expensive.

For rural living, it’s worth it, makes a huge difference for us. As an investment that saves you money, it depends, answer is often “no”. But it is insured and warrantied. So not really so much of a gamble, most scenarios are covered.

Re:Silver linings

By Sique • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Additionally, diesel generators need regular diesel transport, while a solar+battery installation, once in place, does not require outside resources. You could even transport solar panels and batteries with a motorcycle along a foot path, which is much more complicated with a diesel generator. And a solar+battery installation is easily scalable, while a diesel generator is not.