Personal

For most of my adult life, I have been on the road travelling. Some years, it was mostly CONUS; other times, it was extensively OCONUS, but I found my old Slingbox while cleaning the basement. What is a Slingbox, you might be asking? Sit down, children and let me talk about a time you will soon see again… Slingbox (Early 2000s) Slingbox, introduced in the early 2000s, was a pioneering device that allowed users to remotely view their home television programming from anywhere with an internet connection. The device connected to my cable box and streamed the content over the internet to a computer, tablet, or smartphone. This groundbreaking technology allowed me to access their live TV and recorded shows without being physically present at home. When I was travelling in countries without English TV, it was a godsend. ...

I will do a little experiment and let ChatGPT also write this blog post. I have made minor edits to ensure it aligns with the screenshots, but this is not me! A few essential items before we dive in: I am using GPT4 with Data Analysis through a paid account I work in the energy space, so I knew basically what I was trying to do with the prompts The Consumers website could have done this analysis in precisely 3 clicks through their portal, so I saved little time Yes, we use a ton of electricity! We have a large geothermal system, 22kw solar array, and 26kw of batteries in the basement. We also have 2 Electric Vehicles and a manufacutring shop on the land. ChatGPT Shortcomings: There is no confidence rating here. You ask the model; it gives answers. Are those answers correct? Sometimes. There is a fallacy that you upload and ask away. In another exercise, I needed to go back and validate the PDF breakout, and the table read needed to be corrected. Verify everything. For a site-by-site analysis, this works great, but scaling this would require API integration. Back to my first point here, you would trust that automation wholeheartedly. As technology advances, the ability to quickly ingest and distil complex tariff documents will be a net positive to the energy industry. We are close, but not there just yet. Steps I used to complete this exercise: I went to GreenButton Connect for Consumers and downloaded my interval and billing data. I tried using some lower-level interval data from my parallel metering, but it was too small of an interval to process correctly. Downloaded the latest tariff book for all Consumers Energy rates. Logged into ChatGPT, selected my GPT4 analysis mode and provided the prompt - How does my utility bill compare to other people in Michigan? before starting to have it evaluate the usage against the tariff specifically. Reviewed the Python code and processing You can see the entire chat minus the actual code here: ChatGPT Chat Prompts ...

In our household, energy is more than just a utility; it’s a way of life. We’ve gone to great lengths to optimize our home, employing a symphony of solar panels, batteries, geothermal systems, and even energy monitoring to keep things in check. But, as they say, the devil is in the details, and I’m on a mission to uncover the hidden secrets that conventional energy monitoring won’t reveal. I often remind my team that energy is a force that doesn’t just vanish into thin air. Whether we’re monitoring temperatures at our EV chargers to predict potential faults or pondering the idea of dissipating excess energy into a vault of oil to tame its fiery temperament, we understand that energy has to go somewhere. ...

Have you ever watched a video and thought, “Is this even real?” In today’s age of digital manipulation, discerning the real from the fake has become an intricate dance. I decided to see how the non-tech folks in my life would react to me using AI and Machine Learning to become multilingual maestro. The Genesis of the Idea The adventure began when I stumbled upon a post on Mastodon about using AI to generate deepfake videos. “Deepfakes,” if you’re unfamiliar, are videos produced through machine learning that often superimpose someone’s face or manipulate their voice to make it look like they’re doing or saying something they haven’t. It’s fascinating, but the implications can be quite worrisome. ...

I am fortunate to have exposure to work on grid policy and implementation in both the US and European Union. The duality of those two worlds colliding helps look for the best approaches in both spheres. I wanted to talk about the most significant differences for those also looking to understand the differences. It is safe to say that both the US and Europe recognise the critical importance of grid security in maintaining a stable and reliable energy supply. As you compare the two governing bodies, the biggest takeaway is how basic KISS security can be, regardless of the policy framework. One area I do see more considerable differences is in market and program design. The US programs allow for more manual intervention and temporal windows, while the EU leans heavily into automation for quicker network response. You see more technical controls around that. ...