P.S. I have once used DC to power a pump “directly”. I use quotation marks because the pump (a water pump) was a brushless DC motor with an integrated controller. I used it on a field for removing water after a spring flood. Its controller accepted 24…48 V input, and it was powered from a 40 V solar panel brought on a wheelbarrow. :)

instead of powering the heat pump from the wall, the heat pump can be connected directly to a PV

I have no experience with this exact combination. I know that “batteryless” inverters exist, but most of them are on-grid inverters. In that scenario, all that matters is monitoring your production: if you don’t want grid energy, you only run your system when your PV produces enough.

Another type of batteryless inverters are “pump inverters”. Farmers seem to like them for pumping water from wells into water towers. A pump inverter can be configured to run at 50 Hz (or 60 Hz for North Americans) and 230…240 V (or 110 V for North Americans) alright, but it is not designed to power electronic devices, but dumb agricultural motors. There is considerable risk involved with powering a heat pump from a pump inverter, unless you find an exceptionally simple and dumb heat pump with very limited or resilient steering electronics.

Efficiency losses are small anyway, but mostly happen during battery storage or when voltage needs to rise or drop considerably (e.g. a transition of 700 -> 24 V or 24 -> 240 V would cause a small efficiency loss).

I’ve heard that a PV can directly power a compressor

This seems unlikely as the compressor would have to be a brushed DC motor. That kind of motors don’t last long, they wear out their brushes. Long-lasting motors are brushless, and those generally cannot be run on DC power. For example, a “brushless DC” motor is essentially a three-phased AC motor, just its controller (full of smartness and MOSFET transistors) accepts DC input.

If you have a good technical overview of your heat pump system, maybe you can locate a point where regulated DC can be fed into the system, but that would be hacking. Alternatively, maybe a niche market already exists for DC-powered heat pumps, e.g. for caravans, trucks or ships? But on niche markets, prices typically aren’t good for you. :(

Yep, indeed, I’m already discovering differences too. :) A good document for techies to read seems to be here.

https://reticulum.network/manual/understanding.html

I also think I see a problem on the horizon: announce traffic volume. According to this description, it seems that Reticulum tries to forward all announces to every transport node (router). In a small network, that’s OK. In a big network, this can become a challenge (disclaimer: I’ve participated in building I2P, but ages ago, but I still remember some stuff well enough to predict where a problem might pop up). Maintenance of the routing table / network database / <other term for a similar thing> is among the biggest challenges when things get intercontinental.

Interesting project, thank you for introducing. :)

I haven’t tested anything, but only checked their specs (sadly I didn’t find out how they manage without a distributed hashtable).

Reticulum does not use source addresses. No packets transmitted include information about the address, place, machine or person they originated from.

Sounds like mix networks like I2P and (to a lesser degree, since its role is proxying out to the Internet) like TOR. Mix networks send traffic using the Internet, so the bottom protocol layers (TCP and UDP) use IP addresses. Higher protocol layers (end to end messages) use cryptographic identifiers.

There is no central control over the address space in Reticulum. Anyone can allocate as many addresses as they need, when they need them.

Sounds like TOR and I2P, but people’s convenience (easily resolving a name to an address) has created centralized resources on these nets, and will likely create similar resources on any network. An important matter is whether the central name resolver can retroactively revoke a name (in I2P for example, a name that has been already distributed is irrevocable, but you can refuse to distribute it to new nodes).

Reticulum ensures end-to-end connectivity. Newly generated addresses become globally reachable in a matter of seconds to a few minutes.

The same as aforementioned mix networks, but neither of them claims operability at 5 bits per second. Generally, a megabit connection is advised to meaninfully run a mix network, because you’re not expected to freeload, but help mix traffic for others (this is how the anonymity arises).

Addresses are self-sovereign and portable. Once an address has been created, it can be moved physically to another place in the network, and continue to be reachable.

True for TOR and I2P. The address is a public key. You can move the machine with the private key anywhere, it will build a tunnel to accept incoming traffic at some other node.

All communication is secured with strong, modern encryption by default.

As it should.

All encryption keys are ephemeral, and communication offers forward secrecy by default.

In mix networks, the keys used as endpoint addresses are not ephemeral, but permanent. I’m not sure if I should take this statement at face value. If Alice wants to speak to Bob tomorrow, some identifier of Bob must not be ephemeral.

It is not possible to establish unencrypted links in Reticulum networks.

Same for mix networks.

It is not possible to send unencrypted packets to any destinations in the network.

Same.

Destinations receiving unencrypted packets will drop them as invalid.

Same.

P.S.

I also checked their interface list and it looks reasonable. Dropping an idea too: an interface for WiFi cards in monitor/inject mode might help some people. If the tool gets popular, I’m sure someone will build it. :)

As an anarchist who would welcome other anarchists - sadly, I doubt if that’s a reliable recipe to stop climate change.

Limiting (hopefully stopping) climate change can be done under almost any political system… except perhaps dictatorial petro-states. However, it takes years of work to tranform the economy. Transport, heating, food production - many things must change. Perhaps the simplest individual choices are:

• going vegetarian (vegan if one knows enough to do the trick)
• avoidance of using fossil fueled personal vehicles
• improving home energy efficiency (especially in terms of heating)
• avoidance of air travel
• avoidance of heavy goods delivered from distant lands

The rest - creating infrastructure to produce energy cleanly and store sufficient quantities - are typically societal choices.

As for corals - I would start by preserving their biodiversity, sampling the genes of all coral and coral-related species and growing many of them in human-made habitats. If we’re about to cause their extinction, it’s our obligation to provide them life support until the environment has been fixed.

Also, I would consider genetically engineering corals to tolerate higher temperatures. Since I understand that this is their critical weakness, providing a solution could save ecosystems. If a solution is feasible, that is.

Corals reproduce sexually so a useful gene obtained from who knows where would spread among them (but slowly - because typical colonies grow bigger asexually). Also, I would keep in mind that this could have side effects.

As for tempeature - it will be rising for some time before things can be stopped. Short of geoengineering, nothing to be done but reduce emissions, adapt, and help others adapt. The predictable outcome - it will get worse for a long while before it starts getting any better.

News of the sentencing reached the public broadcaster here in Estonia, including Dale Vince’s comment that “this resembles Russia or maybe North Korea” and Chris Packham’s assessment that “this is a threat against freedom of speech”.

I hope the judgement gets overturned on appeal, and the law that enabled the judgement gets scrapped or rewritten.

I also suspect that the next people who want to stop traffic will not choose peaceful assembly as their method, but will use far more dangerous methods - sabotage from distance, e.g. no more traffic lights on a big intersection. Needless to say, state will cry “terrorism” then, and that is not a desirable outcome, so I hope nobody feels compelled to prove the point.