@collectifission This might be funny, but it's actually wrong. Germany was a net power exporter in 2024, and mostly only bought power when it was cheaper to buy it abroad than to produce it at home. (And with nuclear power, that's never the case.) /cc @cstross
@collectifission OK, so I remembered wrong, and Germany was indeed a net importer, not an exporter. I apologize.
You, however, got it wrong, too: While 28.3TW might indeed sound a lot when compared to an LED bulb's consumption, it's actually only 6% of the electrical energy generated in Germany. And large parts of that was renewable energy from Scandinavia, rather than French NP. (So much, BTW, that Scandinavians got annoyed because their electricity got more expensive due to all the exports.)
@collectifission And my other statement still applies: Germany mostly only imported because power from abroad was cheaper. There is no technical necessity, it's just the market doing its thing keeping the energy costs low.
For their bachelor in English literature, one of my children is contemplating to write about Pratchett's Tiffany Aching as an example of female coming of age. Since this is a bachelor, not a PhD, this would require some prior literature or other sources on the subject. Since I've always loved the Tiffany Aching books, I am rooting for this topic and want to lend some support. So here's my question:
Does anybody know if there's anything out there on the subject?
@graydon Software *should* be written so that it's easy to read, period. Me and the team I am working with put a lot of effort into this, and mostly for selfish reasons. We keep coming back to our own code in order to fix it, extend it, or otherwise improve it and we want this to be easy and enjoyable work. We all have seen how badly rotten code can get if you do not put enough effort into preventing this and we do not want our project to die because the code becomes unmaintainable.
I'm the Grumpy Old Ape, father of many, ex of two, long-time user of C++, writing 24/7 software that keeps people's lights on. Expect political, social, environmental, and programming-related posts. And maybe some about cooking, gardening, or raising kids. (As if those are not political…)Most of this will be in English, but you might have to gloss over the occasional German post."I'm not intentionally leftist; I'm just trying to behave like a decent human being."