It’s likely been hacked by someone who guessed the default login details (when was the last time you changed the password on your washing machine), and is being used for malicious purposes such as DDoS attacks.

Start today. Download VirtualBox (or equivalent software) and if you make a mistake, you can just nuke the OS and start over without risk.

You can always try Linux risk free in a virtual machine like VirtualBox.

If you like what you see, and you have any valuable data backed-up, you can try dual booting. That way you get to use Linux as your primary operating system, but can switch back and forth as much as needed.

I found I was dual booting Windows and Linux for over 3 years before I was comfortable enough to stop using Windows entirely. Switching to Linux doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing approach. You can take it as slow as you want.

That would be a great idea, and could even help combat climate change.

Windows kept doing things I didn’t want it to.

The last straw was when I had a 24 hours render running, and Windows decided to update and reboot 1 hour before it was done. I was using the computer at the time, RAM, CPU, and GPU were all at max, the mouse was being moved, I clicked “later” every time the update pop-up appeared, and it still rebooted.

Linux does what I tell it to, and doesn’t do what I tell it not to do. I didn’t think that was a big ask until Windows.

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I thought that open source just meant that you could read the source.

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1654:_Universal_Install_Script

It’s about time.

The forum post you were referring to.

I managed to get a vehicle to grid (V2G) charger recently. When these make mass market it will be a huge deal.

My car has about 5x the energy storage of a standard house battery, so I can run the house for several days from the car.
A better option is to switch to wholesale prices. When the wholesale prices go negative (which happens fairly often in SA), I get paid to charge my car. When energy prices spike, I get paid a lot to discharge my car. My last energy bill was about -$190 for a month (not a typical month, I got $170 when the grid interconnecter was down for a day, which caused high prices all day).

I’ve never had any issues with running out of charge, and I don’t think I’ll ever pay for electricity again.

Can you do all 4 at the same time? I genuinely don’t know, I haven’t had access to windows for years.

Framework has the option to purchase a laptop without an operating system.

My computer takes longer to get through POST than to boot Linux. It’s a little frustrating.

Customise the displayed clock. I have 3 monitors, a taskbar on each, and at least one clock on each. From left to right my clocks show:

Unix time (1695110535)
Full datetime (2023-09-19T17:32:15 +0930)
12 hour time (5:32)
Abbreviated datetime (Tuesday, 2023-09-19, 17:32).

If I wanted to, I could display the datetime as YYYY-hh-MM, ss:DD:mm. I’m fairly sure this is not possible on windows.

I’ve worked in IT. You are most likely correct, and anyone with any sense would do it that way, but I would absolutely believe that someone could be incompetent enough to use the computer’s time stamp. I also wouldn’t be surprised if users had access to change the clock.

We have 2 compatible cars. A 2018 Nissan Leaf ZE1 e+ with 62kWh battery, and a 2014 Nissan Leaf ZE0 with 24kWh battery (both Japanese imports). These are total battery sizes, so the usable capacity is lower. The ZE1 seems to be about 50kWh usable, and the ZE0 about 16kWh.

The V2G charger we got is the Wallbox Quasar. It reached end of production in July 2022, and was first approved for use in South Australia in December 2022, 6 months after production ended. I had been contacting everyone I could find to get one, and I was very surprised when JetCharge got back to me a few months later asking if I still wanted one. It took a few weeks to sort out paperwork and logistics, and about a day to install. The unit was about $10,000 and the installation about $5,000 for a total of $15,000.

The Quasar does what it says on the box, but I now understand why Wallbox decided to end production in favour of a new (as yet unfinished) model. The Quasar 1 does not support V2H (at least not well). It has a minimum charge/discharge rate of 6A (1.4kW) so a separate house battery is needed to fill the gap if the house is using less than 1.4kW and you don’t want to import or export power to the grid.
It also doesn’t have the ability to run during a grid outage. We have a house battery with off-grid capabilities, but we can’t legally have the Quasar on the backup circuits because of its ability to overload the house battery. (The same reason the AC and stove are not on the backup circuits).
Both of these issues will likely be fixed on the Quasar 2. The Quasar 2 will be released first as a CCS only model (not compatible with the Leaf), and a CHAdeMO version might be released a year or 2 later, but Wallbox has not confirmed anything yet.

So far I’m happy with the system. It’s definitely not for everyone, and needs constant attention to get any benefit from it.
We are currently getting wholesale electricity prices from Amber. Most days we roughly break even on cost, but occasionally the prices spike from 20c/kWh to over $10/kWh. This only happens once or twice a month, but we make more in those days than we pay for the entire month for electricity.
The house battery (10kWh) can export for up to 2 hours, and the car (50kWh) can theoretically export for 10 hours. In practice, the car won’t export below 20% (I’m assuming this is a limit in the car, not the Quasar), and it often isn’t charged above 80%. This still leaves 30kWh which can last for up to 6 hours at maximum export rate. This is more than enough to cover any possible price spikes, and run the house overnight. The price spikes rarely last more than an hour.

Amber provides some automation for the house battery - importing when prices are low, and exporting when prices are high. They are looking into providing a similar type of automation for V2G. Having to manually set the V2G charger to export during high prices is a nuisance, and without the price push notifications from Amber, we would miss many opportunities to sell to the grid.

The Wallbox app is designed for all Wallbox chargers, and the V2G features seem to have been added as an afterthought. I have encountered several bugs so far, and several design decisions that I don’t agree with. Schedules can be set in the app for charging and discharging, but there are bugs with this too. I’m hoping that most of these issues will be fixed before V2G becomes mainstream.

We have a unique situation here. A house with 10kW of solar, a V2G compatible car that’s home most of the time, a house battery, and wholesale electricity prices. V2G works really well for us, and I regret nothing. Without these things however, V2G probably wouldn’t be worth the current upfront cost.

Friend was idiot. Try to tell friend. Only have calculator. Forgot talking was option. Didn’t work.

Yes! I wish I had one (slightly NSFW).

Thalassophobia generator (and drowning simulator).