Gordon Inggs

@nprofile…z6pq right, thanks for sharing - that's still a pretty great saving!
The best our cheap and cheerful Chinese inverter can do is maintain certain battery thresholds at certain parts of the day, but that's enough to tell the system to try mitigate some of the evening peak, if you're producing more during the day than you're using.
Beyond that we don't have on or off-peak rates for residential users, so there isn't much more to be gamed. It's a shame as there is a nice optimisation problem in it

2026-07-24 17:43:36 UTC

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@nprofile…z6pq yay, I remember talking to you about this a year ago or so!
Out of interest, does the battery draw down get you through your evening peak?

2026-05-14 19:37:47 UTC

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@nprofile…vf35 looking forward to doing something interesting with a RSS weather feed for Cape Town.

2026-05-14 19:33:46 UTC

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@nprofile…vf35 thanks for following through today!

2026-04-07 08:30:39 UTC

I can't imagine much that beats Cape Town in Autumn. The heat of summer has left, but winter is running late (probably the traffic).
The coastal walk along the coast from Muizenberg to Kalk Bay is one of the nicest things you can do.
#CapeTown #SouthAfrica
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/362/486/525/981/904/original/13f8fa8790f3e9c2.jpg

2025-10-30 09:38:57 UTC

We have another #data job at the City of #capetown, this time for a Senior #DataEngineer
We build & support data-intensive systems, not just digital plumbing! We're looking for strong software eng skills & an open-source focus (Airflow, Trino, Python). Come work on interesting problems with a great team, for the social good!
Apply by **9 Nov** at https://www.capetown.gov.za/City-Connect/Find-a-job-or-develop-skills/Apply-for-a-job-with-the-City/Apply-for-a-job
#dataengineering #GetFediHired
(would appreciate boosts for reach)

2025-10-05 16:27:49 UTC

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@nprofile…rt5g @nprofile…t0kx @nprofile…gewe @nprofile…p5cl whoops! PyConSouthernHemisphere would be pretty awesome, but will fix my post until such a dream event becomes a reality :)

2025-10-05 16:18:09 UTC

Very excited for @nprofile…t0kx &/ @nprofile…gewe (they've joined forces this year) this coming week, not in the least because I'll be talking about our experience building a RAG bot at the City of #CapeTown - https://za.pycon.org/talks/266-not-losing-our-rag-a-thoughtful-approach-to-knowledge-bots/
I always learn a bunch, have great conversations and just enjoy being around people who believe in things like #OpenSource and making things better!
#python #data #AI

2025-05-18 08:39:15 UTC

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@nprofile…7s4z ah, sure, always a good idea to live in it for a while, to get a feel for what is most pressing. But I could see panels + EV with a very modest battery to start off with giving a lot of bang for buck.
Of course, one has to be lucky to have access to cheap capital, but consolidating with house/land debt at least keeps things (relatively) manageable

2025-05-17 21:49:47 UTC

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@nprofile…7s4z Although, I was in a bit of an odd position - the place I'm renting had batteries and an inverter already, but no panels. So, my capital cost was relatively low, so my repayment is going to be less than a year.
Though, I've noticed installers tend to over spec the batteries. And the Chinese EV makers are doing interesting things with bidirectional charging. Even so another way to come at this might be part of an EV purchase - bring that energy cost per km down to almost zero.

2025-05-17 21:41:32 UTC

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@nprofile…7s4z financing is definitely where there are interesting opportunities. For a new build or a new purchase, it's such a small cost (in interest) to add, with such a good return that it's very much becoming the norm here.
Although it's a bit of a head scratcher why the banks aren't pushing it harder, or allowing people to extend their existing bonds a bit to do it.

2025-05-17 11:26:32 UTC

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@nprofile…7s4z can highly recommend it, if just for smugness reasons! We're 29° S, semi-arid, so I imagine it's pretty comparable.
But also practically, I've had a pretty hectic two weeks and there was an all day grid power outage yesterday that would have thrown things over the edge. But I only noticed because of complaining on the neighbourhood group chat.
As climate change bites, I expect these things to become more common, so doesn't hurt to be somewhat decoupled

2025-05-17 05:30:00 UTC

Heh, guess when I got my #solar panels installed?
One advantage of living in a very sunny place, recouping the investment is happening very quickly! #SouthAfrica
(R1000 is about $50)
https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/114/521/525/266/886/244/original/0da8ff055df742cc.png

2025-03-09 13:05:06 UTC

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@nprofile…rt5g as it happens, have been playing around with #locust since my initial toot - so far, I'm enjoying it!
Time from starting to look at docs, to useful results, about an hour

2025-03-09 11:08:11 UTC

Need to do some load testing of an internal HTTP service, mostly emulating interactive workloads. Primarily interested in measuring latency and throughput. Any recommendations?
#DevOps #API #loadtesting

2025-02-10 06:27:50 UTC

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@nprofile…7wld sure, that presumably would be GCIS. What would be great is if they ran an instance for government use, similar to what the @nprofile…mjyg did (does?). Or a set of instances, per government entity, aligned to the existing `.gov.za` domains
Alas, I was more sharing my experience in light of the challenge in persuading people to think, just a little bit, about the technology that is fundamental to their work.

2025-01-02 18:12:57 UTC

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@nprofile…rt5g did the marrows on my New Years Day braai - they stole the show. A definite winner, thank you!

2025-01-02 14:04:12 UTC

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@nprofile…sr9k very cool! South Africa, when you have a chance, please

2024-12-31 16:27:00 UTC

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@nprofile…rt5g another underappreciated veg on the braai are bell peppers - thick slices, with a little oil. Then you cook them outer side down until it chars. Makes a great starter with some cream cheese melted inside!