noibl

The bit about assigning probabilities is interesting, precisely because I can think of very few contexts in which it would be of use to me. People seem to have little tolerance for shades of uncertainty when expressing views, whereas privately we think in probabilities all the time. It's as though we play a kind of poker where our need to conserve our 'stack' of reputational authority makes us relegate the actual ideas in contention to mere 'hands' to be represented, bluffed, and trivially discarded when a more amenable certainty presents itself.

A couple of highlights from Australia's energy transition story in the last few days, which show some of the work being done at state level in spite of a largely renewables-hostile federal government over the last several years:

> the Western Australia grid ... reached 82 per cent renewables for a half-hour period on October 30 ... and it is likely that new peak is the highest for any gigawatt-scale grid in the world.

> South Australia ... has established the world’s highest share of renewables – as a percentage of demand – in any gigawatt scale grid in the world, when it reached 146 per cent on September 14. The excess is, of course, exported to the neighbouring state, in this case Victoria.

It doesn't quite say that. It says[1] that they didn't sign up to the event on the 12th. However, news outlets are reporting otherwise.[2][3] The Internet Association, which they founded, launched its petition site[4] on Monday. Microsoft is now also a member. Apple, for whatever reason, is not.

Google also has its own 'Take Action' page[5] but I'm not sure how old it is. Mark Zuckerberg has publicly stated support for net neutrality.[6] But both companies have been criticized[7][8] in the past for using a self-serving interpretation of the term. And, as the recent EU ruling against Google reminds us, telcos are not the only internet gatekeepers we need to worry about.[9]

But it still works as a good example of the economics: "With Netflix spending a reported $100 million to produce two 13-episode seasons of House of Cards, they need 520,834 people to sign up for a $7.99 subscription for two years to break even. ... That sounds daunting, but at the moment, Netflix has 33.3 million subscribers, so this is an increase of less than 10 percent on their current customer base."[2]