Heat, heat, heat

It's all over the news this week. Not all of it is bad.

Spain has an age-old way to beat the heat: The siesta

Nothing seems to have beaten Spain’s famous midday break, which sees many employees work until 2 p.m., then take a two- to three-hour pause for lunch, or a nap, before returning to work for a second shift.

Now, that's civilized.

The siesta is not only a sacred ritual in Spain. It has also been increasingly promoted around the world by unions and research institutes as a sound strategy for coping with the hot afternoon hours.

Coming soon to a heat wave year you?

(Take my word: It's fine on a cold day too.)

So not driving then?

A New Job for Electric Vehicles: Powering Homes During Blackouts

A (paywalled) story from this morning's New York Times — not linked because it reads like a press release from the power company (I used to write them so I know) — enthuses…

By soaking up power when it’s abundant and releasing it when it is scarce, electric vehicles…could serve as “a bigger rubber band to absorb the shocks [to the electric grid] and manage them day to day and week to week.”

Of course, while your electric car or truck is acting like a rubber band powering your house it's not driving anywhere, and furthermore…

In the auto industry, some experts have warned that frequently using cars to power homes or the grid could degrade batteries faster, reducing range — the distance that vehicles can travel on a full charge.

Big automakers, however, are down with the idea — "keen on marketing the versatility of their battery-powered models to people who have suffered power outages or fear blackouts."

What is the sound of one hand washing?

[If you're keen on reading this story for yourself, it's here.]

Oops…maybe it won't save the planet after all

AI is going to use way more energy than the cloud. 'It's staggering.'

An AI data center will need up to three times more power than a traditional cloud facility, he estimated. A regular setup might have 30 kilowatts powering a rack of cloud computer servers, while a new AI version of this will need 100 kilowatts, he estimated.

Or, at least, we're gonna need a few more of those charging stations than we're planning for.

[The article is from Business Insider, here on Apple News+ or on a newsstand (or in a library) near you.)]