As a kid I was fascinated by Leonardo da Vinci. Still am, I suppose. I knew that despite his vast output there was little known about his personal life. This is a small, but interesting piece of the puzzle.

Leonardo da Vinci Was Jewish

We used to get storms moving through, mostly in the spring. Seems like we haven’t had many lately. Lots more humidity with really bad storms all going to the north and east. Last night it came down as hard as I’ve ever seen it for maybe an hour. Weatherman said 5″ in North Austin. My rain gauge says at least that. Might have to get a bigger rain gauge.

Wow. California now has so much solar it has to turn it of at times during the day. They have also changed the payback for individual consumers who sell electricity back to the grid. While this makes solar payback time longer, it also encourages batteries. This lets individuals store electricity locally and sell it back when it is more profitable (usually in the evenings after sundown).

Driven by solar, California’s net demand hit zero on Sunday

Had some recent experience with a “rescinded” job offer. Lots to be said about this, but let’s look forward to what this sort of thing means to the future of hiring.

When job seekers realize their offer letter is basically worthless, they will do the smart thing: they will keep interviewing and accept “backup” offers right up until their start date. And if one of those “backup” offers is better, well, of course you take it. And what happens to the other 2, 3 or more “backup” offers the candidate has also accepted? Well, you can only show up for one job. Most likely the others will just be “ghosted” with no expected new hire showing up for work on Day 1.

If this becomes widespread practice, and it should, businesses can expect half, two out of three, or more no-shows on start dates. This will not be a happy scenario for H.R. departments and businesses. But they have made the rules and nobody is going to feel sorry for them.

And what about the placement agencies who collect fees for matching all of these these no-show new hires? Will businesses want their fees back? I bet they will.

The short sightedness of American business always amazes me.

So Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court justice, takes all sorts of gifts from mega-wealthy political donors. The question is do these folks get anything in return. Not difficult to answer. Haven’t we been here before, just after Justice Scalia died? From a previous posting: Supreme Court.

A bit complicated, but there is a new rule to penalize unreliable energy sources and reward reliable ones. Since renewables have this reputation of being unreliable it seems this was a quiet way to prop up existing gas and coal plants. Turns out that so far, this is benefitting renewables, mostly wind.

Gas Generators Get Caught With Their Plants Down