The comparison to Wi-Fi is a bit strained, though.
Lamp light escaping out of the window does not hurt the neighbor at all. He isn't any better or worse off if the escaped rays of light serve someone else for reading or just inconvenience the local cats in heat.
If I hook to someone else's Wi-Fi, I am degrading his bandwidth. Depending on what I download/upload, possibly significantly so. And if I am unscrupulous enough to spread illegal content (such as child porn) over his Wi-Fi, I am setting him up for an unexpected rendezvous with SWAT.
That said, the article probably wants to conclude that employers should pay for utilities such as Internet connection when their employees work from home. I wholeheartedly agree, though a certain ceiling on the total cost should be in order (there is no need why a random accountant would need a 1 Gbps connection paid wholly by their employer).
Has anyone seriously made the argument that it's ok for employers to require but not pay for home internet because you'd use it anyway? It's a cheap move by employers, but being cheap is different from being dishonest about why the policy is as it is. I haven't seen the latter.
Personally I think who pays for internet is not high on the list of most pressing questions for how to adapt to wfh.
Edit: my tech job did not pay for my internet when we went to wfh and it didn't bother me. I think the real place companies are mistreating employees is for things like low paid customer service jobs where they are expecting them to have their own connection, because the cost then is more likely to be material relative to their comp.
Legally, I think there's not a problem with even the strictest interpretation of "you need this, but we aren't paying for it". In many small business manufacturing settings, the typical arrangement is that operators buy their own toolboxes without reimbursement (i.e. wrenches, screwdrivers, even endmills). Strikes me as a dumb way to scare away potential workers, but alas I don't make the rules.
This also applies to wardrobe in nearly every job — professional clothing can be arbitrarily expensive. Even retail workers usually have buy their own plain clothes in the one allowable color.
I've worked as a mechanic in the distant past, at a muffler and brake chain. The shop-provided tools were the most neglected and carelessly handled, often unable to even be found (the torque limiting sticks for safely reinstalling lug nuts w/impact in particular were always MIA).
It's probably desirable to have the employees put some skin in the game for a variety of reasons. Not only will they care for their tools more, but they'll use them more appropriately, not destructively in the wrong applications. What's good for the tools is likely good for the quality of work/outcomes.
I do understand having skin in the game, but at the same time it pushes away candidates, particularly during this labor shortage[1]. And it has disparate racial impact, because oppressed minorities are less likely to have the finances to invest in their own tools.
My thought is that any good company should be able to create emotional skin in the game (i.e. caring) without needing financial skin in the game. If a company isn't there, it needs to sell its mission better and link the availability of tools to that mission.
[1] if you subscribe to the view that there is no shortage but only an unwillingness to pay fair wages (which is totally valid if there are no upfront costs to getting a job), consider that after months of losing savings to a pandemic, candidates may literally not have the cash to buy tools needed for a new job, so in this case it is truly a shortage of candidates with the ability to get the tools
What jobs are you imagining have such difficult/steep tool requirements?
My experience was auto-mechanic, and that strikes me as exceptionally high in the required tools department. They were willing to put up with my being tool-less for like two years before replacing me when an old-timer showed up looking for work, with a freezer sized toolbox in the bed of his truck, and I was clearly not committed to the career having still not invested in even a toolbox.
Construction workers and framing carpenters can start out with very little. A lot of the work is just labor. Back when my dad owned a concrete construction company he would bring most of the durable larger tools in quantity.. stuff like sledge hammers, pickaxes, shovels, those were shared. But the individuals were expected to bring a hammer for nailing/disassembling the framing, and steel-toe boots for OSHA compliance b.s. If you started out without even a hammer you'd just be a grunt then buy a hammer a week later, though someone would probably loan you one if you were that destitute. I think there were more barriers in the area of the union and trade school requirements, but not for a laborer AFAIK.
The flip side of workers taking better care of their own tools is that their tools also actually get used.
When I worked construction (many years ago) you could always spot an inexperienced bullshitter who showed up looking for work on the crew by the fact that his tools would be all shiny and new.
I guess the pro tip there is that if you don't have much experience and want to work construction, take your brand-new tools and beat up on them a little bit before going to look for work. :-)
Triggers a reminder of another similar thought experiment story I read when I was very young. A very poor individual was accused of stealing for eating plain rice while smelling the delicious smells of a nearby restaurant. In this particular instance the restaurant owner was in the position that it was stealing. The judge ruled that payment to him would be in the sound of money passing from one hand to the other.
If I was the judge, I'd find "in favor" of the restaurateur, and the punishment for the pauper would be that they must consume one meal per week (provided by the restaurant at no cost) to be reminded of what they are missing.
Article feels like a bait and switch. They pose the question, ask if WIFI is any different. Never tries to answer the question and instead dives in WFH and compensation. Strangely they pose questions, but never answer any.
While the article's logic is a bit lousy, the site is called "my misanthropic musings". Therefore, your expectation of questions being followed by answers seems misplaced. I have experienced the same myself quite a few times. You just share some thoughts or how you felt about something on the internet, and people start replying "can you sumarize what are the questions here?". It's ok for people to write on the internet without writing answers to their questions, or even without writing questions at all, just sharing thoughts.
Normally I’d be complaining about how nobody read the article and all the comments are only about the title, but the connection between the first and second part of the article is so tenuous I really have no idea at this point…
Slightly tangential from the main point but I'm in a free rider position now I actually feel slightly bad about. I've moved into a row house and I'm in the middle apartment. My neighbours seem to like to live in an indoor sauna. It's now well into winter and I haven't had to turn the heat on. I've actually got the windows open to keep it around to around the 20 - 21 degrees I prefer. Not great but I don't know how I'd contribute without boiling alive.
Why do you feel bad about it? Sounds like you're reducing overall CO2 emissions. I understand that you are the "reader" in this article, but if you did start heating your own apartment then demonstrably everyone would be worse off (except your neighbors, who might need marginally less heating)
A bit different from wifi. Here you are drawing from excess heat that the neighbors are generating. This heat would be wasted if you didn’t do something with it, so it’s perfectly okay.
The author compares the lamp's light to using your neighbour's WiFi. It's not the same thing.
When you use your neighbour's WiFi you're consuming a proportion of the limited bandwidth available on that connection. The neighbour is negatively impacted. You are also interacting with his hardware. It's different to collecting a type of energy that your neighbour is voluntarily releasing out into the world and abandoning.
> When you use your neighbour's WiFi you're consuming a proportion of the limited bandwidth available on that connection. The neighbour is negatively impacted.
Only if your do so when your neighbour is also using the said bandwidth. So by this argument, it would be fine to use your neighbour's WiFi at night or when they aren't home, right?
And by the way, if you are on a DSL link in a somewhat rural area, chances are high that using your internet connection is going to negatively impact your neighbourhood, so it can't really be an argument.
You are also consuming electric power from the neighbor by keeping their wifi non-idle, which means more heat and thus load for their climatization when he comes back. Also the lifetime of the electrical components involved is therefore reduced.
Well, if you want to consider such a small amount of energy,then each time a light you own illuminate you're neighbour's property, you're heating it too…
But the point is that someone is paying for that bandwidth to be available, regardless of it being used or not, at the moment. Light is not consumed, it is produced. Someone else put it that spillover light is gleaned. Bandwidth cannot be gleaned in the same way. You don’t have excess bandwidth like you would have light.
If I remember one of my undergraduate lectures correctly, stealing, at least in the UK requires depriving the owner of the use. So in an extreme example if you take your neighbors car to drive your pregnant wife to the hospital, but return it before they notice, it's not stealing. It might be other things, (I'm thinking mainly of consumables and wear) but it's not stealing.
At the time of the lecture the law didn't have an opinion on "stealing WiFi", (this was at a time when unsecured WiFi was reasonably common) but likely required the owner to be deprived of service.
I suspect it is more along the lines of "depriving the owner of the ability to use", so as long as the car was away, it was a stolen car, because the owner couldn't choose to use it themselves, or to lend it to someone, or show it to someone, or just brag to someone about how cool it looks in their driveway.
Returning it may impact what happens afterwards, but can't change the fact that the car was stolen for a period of time.
I think the difference between the allegoric neighbour/reader and employee/employer is that the employer is paying the employee.
As a remote worker, I signed my contract knowing that I would need to have a functioning home office (provide light) to do my job. I saw how much I was being paid and decided it was a good deal.
The neighbour and reader are both knowing and willing participants in the situation. That changes things.
Now, for work contracts that began as in-office and were forced into remote, one could say the situation is different. I don't agree though. I think that every day one has to look at the employment contract they are in and ask themselves if this is a fair deal. If the changes don't make it a fair deal, ask for a new deal- or turn off the light.
Imagine the reader has a bee hive, that is disturbed by the light and reduces its honey production.
But since the reader approved and even used the situation to its own advantage, he also could be considered responsible.
So in the best of all possible worlds both should be charged with minor misdemeanor.
And punished accordingly with a semester of Kantian moral philosophy, held in a Platonic cave without lighting.
Rethinking the matter again, the punishment seems a bit harsh.
One should also think about the rehabilitation of the delinquents.
The punishment should teach them something and make them better citizens.
So some light, maybe a little fire behind their backs may be allowed.
So they learn a bit about themselves being just a shamefull shadow on the wall...
I don't understand the riddle at all. The neighbour "cast light out onto the street and in to the windows of the neighbouring houses". In a very real and obvious sense, the neighbour's light is no longer theirs at that point. Even by the naive definition of stealing ("taking something which doesn't belong to you"), the Reader is not stealing.
By contrast, Wifi bandwidth, Internet access, electricity, and so on, are limited resources which someone has to pay for. If the Reader connected their Kindle to their neighbour's power supply then they are unambigously stealing electricity. Viewed in this way, an employer requiring their employee to consume electricity, potentially deprive other users of their home Internet of wifi bandwidth, and so on, is quite clearly imposing an extra cost on their WFH employees which they are not imposing on their office workers.
This doesn't seem ambiguous to me, it's just not become an issue yet because the harm is relatively small.
By this logic, your employer should have subjected you to something much worse originally, so you'd be happy to pay the vehicle wear and tear, gas, and commute time.
Correct. This isn't revealing. Norm conditions were worse originally (in factories and other industries) and had settled in a less worse condition recently. Now it's less worse again and people are happier. Unsurprising.
Exactly what I came to say. They pay for a limited resource. The download and upload rates. Which is indeed limited in availability. With the light its not much different than driving around and enjoying looking at others Christmas lights. You didn't buy their lights, they bought them, but you derive value / joy from them which was their purpose.
Try working from a Third World country, you connecting to your company's bandwidth-hungry VPN means anyone sharing the wifi won't be able to do anything.
I’ve heard many WFH setups that record your screen and monitor your camera to make sure you’re actually working. There could be monitoring stuff bundled with the VPN that does consume many resources (or IT dept is screen recording remotely).
Exactly. If neighbor doesn't want their light "stolen", then they can use a curtain and stop throwing the light onto the street. If they don't want rats to "steal" their peanuts, they can grab them from the bag without dropping and leaving a handful on the road.
Candle-light is more expensive than bandwidth is today. Also, bandwidth is the use over a specified allotment.
Aside from the obvious analog that your neighbors wifi is literally a light you cannot see, if they aren't maxing out their bandwidth, then it makes similarly no difference that you use it.
It's not 10 years ago, the neighborhood using your router for Facebook doesn't dent the bandwidth.
> if they aren't maxing out their bandwidth, then it makes similarly no difference that you use it
That is a big assumption right there. The neighborhood streaming 4k cat videos from youtube could make a massive dent, and I can easily use all the bandwidth I have for my own needs.
That's before we consider the potential consequences of them "borrowing" my IP address and all. Of course it's on me to keep my network secure so I don't let that happen, but in theory they could find the next vulnerability that lets them in.
The analogy is only in the contextually relevant case of a limited resource and the consumption.
The juxtaposition of individual vs collectivism, and the inevitable tragedy of the commons, was the relevance.
Of course, any technical analogy on HN gets pedantically deconstructed into atomic trivialness.
Anywho - if you don't broadcast your SSID, or, even less dismissively, don't Faraday cage your house, then anyone interacting with the electromagnetic field that you haphazardly allow to escape the privacy of your residence is within their rights to do so.
> Anywho - if you don't broadcast your SSID, or, even less dismissively, don't Faraday cage your house, then anyone interacting with the electromagnetic field that you haphazardly allow to escape the privacy of your residence is within their rights to do so.
Are you seriously arguing that anyone is allowed to tamper with your mobile phone signal as long as you're at home and they're outside the walls?
> anyone interacting with the electromagnetic field that you haphazardly allow to escape the privacy of your residence is within their rights to do so
You seem to have an insufficient understanding of how wireless communication protocols work, in particular the 'communication' aspect. Simply detecting the signal would not allow you to use the WiFi network. You would have to establish a connection with the access point and actively and continuously exchange information with it, thereby directly using its resources.
This is not the same as coming across a fallen coin in the street, or reading by ambient light emitted by someone else's candle
Reading by the ambient light emitted is constantly exchanging photons, which is information communication. Picking up a fallen coin is displacing localized complexity.
If it wasn't, you wouldn't be given any extra photons to bounce off the book and into your eyes, and wouldn't know of the candle across the street, since the photons were "insufficient" to make themselves known to you.
Again, pedantically deconstructing a technical analogy to dismiss it on its merits is going to be hard when faced with a more pedantic pissant.
The point of the entire exercise is to acknowledge the collective vs individual contributions to the emergent tragedy of the commons.
The author is mixing a lot of largely unrelated topics. Emitting light from your residence is just an externality that can be positive or negative depending on the situation.
The question “who should pay for lighting?” is a classic question that comes up when discussing street lights in the context of theoretical user-pays economics models. As in “what services can potentially be implemented in a user-pays model? for instance you can’t practically charge somebody for benefitting from a street light”.
Using somebody else’s wifi is related to neither of those topics, because that’s about consuming somebody else’s limited resources without their permission. The legality and morality of that question relates to whether the wifi broadcaster should expect that to occur when using unsecured wifi, and whether they should have any obligation to take reasonable steps to prevent it if they don’t want it happening.
If the stealer is actually connecting to the wifi and making their own requests, then they have literally stolen a percentage of limited bandwidth of the channel.
This is very muddled. Reading from the spillover light of your neighbor's lamp doesn't deprive them of anything. Using your neighbor's wifi might deprive them of bandwidth, or use up their data limit if they have one.
The ultimate point they're getting to is a good one though. Should companies pay for increased costs borne by employees working from home? Of course they should. Whether or not they will, will be determined by the labor market and if they need to pay extra to attract employees.
Employees get benefits from working from home too. No commute. Easier to run errands and spend time with family. Maybe those benefits are enough to offset whatever additional costs they incur.
Indeed, your neighbor's lamplight would be considered pollution if you're trying to stargaze. Using their wifi is more like using their hose to water your garden.
This also seems like a good analogy for some copyright issues, where copies of files are the light, and publishers are the electric company complaining about the watts they didn't get to sell.
Using a neighbor’s WiFi deprives the neighbor of using it at the same time, as using it diminishes capacity.
This is not true of light. As the article says, using a neighbor’s light is “free loading”. The article doesn’t really say whether the author thinks that is stealing or not.
> A lamp has much more excess capacity of light than a wifi, I wouldn't notice my neighbour using it with me.
Interesting. I think I would notice the lamp case sooner. Not because I would have less light mind you, but because my neighbour would be creeping for a prolonged time close to my un-curtained window. That would totally freak me out, but i wouldn’t call it stealing. :)
On the other hand I have so much bandwidth that I wouldn’t notice an occasional interlooper who is not being jackass about it. If they connect and saturate my link with torrent or something so much that I start investigating then maybe, but other than that I will only find them with a network scan which I perform only very rarely.
Not sure if capacity is the thing here. Using someone else's wifi does harm to that person. They will be deprived of bandwidth and, if they have a data limit, you may be using that up too. With light, what you're getting is just their waste, it's similar to go through your neighbor's trash. With wifi, if you could use the leaking signal to heat your dinner or something like that, then it wouldn't be stealing, that's just their waste. However, if you actively connect to their router and use their bandwidth, it's a completely different story.
I have the thermostat in my apartment turned to about 19°, which is a bit lower than is usual here, to save money and the environment, and I'm still perfectly comfortable at that temperature. At some point, after I had rented it for a bit, I had to be gone for a few weeks, so I turned the thermostat and all the radiators completely off. The outside temperature was about 5-10°, which I what expected to find on my return. Yet when I came back, it was still at 19.5°. I have only rarely had to turn on my radiators since, even during Winter.
Of course, the place can't be that well-isolated, and I regularly open the windows to let in fresh air, so that energy must be coming from somewhere. I assume it's heat leaking in from my upstairs, downstairs, left and right neighbors. They probably have their thermostats set to a balmy 21-22°, and the heat flux through my walls must be enough to keep the place at around 19°.
I often wonder whether this constitutes stealing. It's not exactly parallel to the light of my neighbor's lamp, since due to the temperature differential their thermostats are working harder than they would be if I heated my place to 22°. In effect, they're all paying for the energy to keep my place at 19°, and I'm presumably paying only a pittance for heat. But on the other hand, I have no need for a higher temperature, nor do I want to pay or incur the environmental cost for unnecessary heating. Nineteen degrees seems like a perfectly reasonable temperature to me, and it's their choice (again, I'm assuming, but where else can it come from?) to keep it a few degrees hotter.
On the ground your floor is either a basement or well, the ground. Whereas on higher floors your floor is another apartment and your roof (might) be the actual buildings roof.
Heat leaves far more easily if there is air on the other side of the wall and(!) you have the benefit of ground isolating you on the bottom floor
I was clearly implying that there has to be another apartment on top of yours (so, a 3 floors building). If you compare ground floor vs top floor, then ground floor wins hands on, I agree.
The unit above acts as an insulator, so you have a heated/cooled unit above you versus outside temperature. The ground itself is a fairly good insulator, too.
Hot air rises; heat doesn't. Heat moves from warm to cold. You would way rather have a heated space above your ceiling than a non-heated space.
In many buildings, the mechanical systems are in the basement and whatever is carrying the heat runs up through the lower units. My old apartment in Cambridge was first floor and the 2nd and 3rd floor ducts were inside my living space and closets. On mild days, I could leave my heat entirely off and just the radiation and small leakage from their ducts was enough to keep my place comfortable. (The furnaces were all atmospheric gas burners with plenty of residual heat leaking into the basement as a result, making it an inadvertently heated space beneath as well.)
Depends where you live. Here the apartments outside bathroom floor heating are usually collectively heated and paid... So actually not using the heat is subsidising others...
So heavily depends on where you live, what type of heating is used and if heating is billed per use.
My ground floor apartment has thin laminate flooring over low quality planks over the freezing void below. This floor is very cold in the winter. Noise from above isn't great either. Not recommended.
I loved my 8th floor apartment I used to have. It had an amazing balcony with a view of the ocean. I would have had a view of a wall if I was on the first floor.
Meanwhile some would argue that your neighbors are contributing to the deterioration of the environment for their own comfort, thus stealing portions of your health or future, for either you or your descendants. Maybe that cancels out the stealing.
I think that's a stronger example than the one proposed. But the outcome is similar. The neighbors are forcibly giving you heat. It just happens that you are ok with 19C. However, if you wanted your home to be cooler than that, to be the same as outside, you'd then have to pay for an AC to do that because your neighbors are making the environment around them hotter. I think stealing is not only taking something that's not yours, but taking something that's not yours without permission. As soon as they start irradiating the heat all over the place, they are effectively giving everyone permission to use it. It's not like you can somehow easily stop or give them back the heat. If they didn't want the heat to escape, then they need to invest in better insulation.
My first apartment in Boston was like this. I was on the top floor and I’d have to leave the windows open all winter because it was so unbearably hot from the heat being cranked up in the units below me. I remember nearly sweating to death during a major snowstorm because I had closed the windows to keep the snow out but keeping the snow out meant I kept all of the hot air in!
Yes, window screens allow you to keep windows open when it’s snowing. However, if it’s very windy/stormy you’d still get a lot of water in and probably shutting a part of the window would be necessary.
Yep my wife and I moved to Connecticut from North Carolina. The summers here are very mild compared to what we are used to and as such leave the windows open to stay cool. But as you mentioned the screens do allow in rain if it’s raining and windy. Funny I never thought about seeing if there’s an alternative material for it.
You don't have (the option for) ventilation shafts in your window frames[0]? Here in the Netherlands (and north-west EU) many homes have those, they're designed to allow fresh air to circulate without the need for opening a window. Most houses have those except for really old ones (which have 'natural' ventilation, i.e. creeks) or really new ones (which have a central ventilation system).
One nice thing about winter heat is that it's just too dry for many insects to survive long. Obviously this depends on the insect, I've noticed that yellow jackets die within a day but lady bugs can survive much longer.
My God, I think I was crazy. It happened to me in several hotels in USA and Europe, I had to leave window open in winter because it was unbereable to be in the hotel room, even with the heating turned off. Glad I am not the only one!
I currently live in the Boston area in an apt. built in 1927. Steam heat. I keep my windows cracked open pretty much all Winter because even with the radiator turned off, I still get too much heat from all sides. Yes, I do have wire mesh screens on my windows.
When you're on the top floor, it's often a catch-22 to do this. Heating for the building can be controlled by a system that takes as input the temperatures from sensors in apartments on the top and bottom floors. So when you open the windows to lower the temperature in your apartment, the system will react by cranking up the heat for the building.
> As soon as they start irradiating the heat all over the place, they are effectively giving everyone permission to use it.
Hmm I wouldn't agree with that. I think the Wikipedia definition [1] captures it more accurately: theft is taking someone's property or services without their consent and with the intention to deprive them of it. In the case of heat, you're neither taking "property" (and "services" would be quite a stretch, unless they provide heating as a service...) noor are you "depriving" them of their heat, so it cannot be theft.
There is one complexity that you left out, which is that they are unknowingly spending more money on heat because of the "freeloader" that they share a wall with.
So I wouldn't call it theft. But it seems like a clear case of freeloading.
It's like that roommate that never does the dishes because they know you will do them when it gets bad enough. Are they stealing your time? I suppose not, but they aren't doing their part.
I wouldn't say it's comparable to that. In this case, they would've faced the exact same problem (even worse, actually), if their neighbor hadn't been home and hence didn't have anything generating heat at all, which the neighbor has every right to do, and which would've provided zero grounds for them to complain. That's drastically different from the dishwashing case where the roommate would actually be using more dishes by their presence than by their absence, not equal (or less).
> I wouldn't say it's comparable to that. In this case, they would've faced the exact same problem (even worse, actually), if their neighbor hadn't been home and hence didn't have anything generating heat at all, which the neighbor has every right to do, and which would've provided zero grounds for them to complain.
At my current residence, the building bylaws require that all units be heated to 60f during the winter, to prevent this exact scenario. So whether it’s a right is very local.
Yeah I'm obviously assuming the resident hasn't already entered into a contract or a jurisdiction with specific laws mandating them to heat their homes, that'd kind of make the question moot.
The countries I used to live in Europe had typically it solved, by using some formulas; the assumption was that living in condominiums puts additional obligations on you; obligatory payments to the renovation funds, paying for shared electricity, heat, services etc.
The original problem 'stealing or not' is most likely moot. The definition of stealing is conventional, unless one believes in some scripture of divine origin detailing such things, or subscribes to philosophies like utilitarianism (which might be fine, it's just hard to argue such things from first principles)
> There is one complexity that you left out, which is that they are unknowingly spending more money on heat because of the "freeloader" that they share a wall with.
They would spend more if they were heating an outside wall with an average temperature below 19 degrees. The unheated apartment acts as additional insulation. An optimal arrangement would be for the hottest apartments to be in the core of the building with cooler apartments radiating out to the edges. But it makes sense in that scenario to price heat into a shared cost that everyone bears equally. No one would be happy with temperatures below their comfort threshold, and at the equilibrium heat flow that satisfies everyone it's worth just about the same marginal cost of keeping the temperature that way; one might offer slightly lower heating prices on the outlying apartments so that residents who had a very low comfort slope vs. temperature could pay slightly less for heat and be slightly cold, making an apartment free for a resident with a steeper comfort slope at a more affordable price.
Actually, they're not. @kmm stated that they prefer their apartment at 19 degrees. Since it is 19 degrees already as a result of heat radiating from neighboring units, even when they have their thermostat set at 19, the heat won't come on.
I don't see how you can justify calling @kmm a freeloader here. Are they obligated to keep their thermostat higher than 19, even though they prefer the temperature of their apartment at 19? If so, why would you say they're obligated to waste energy? The only way to keep the apartment at 19 with the thermostat set higher would be to open the window continuously.
The dictionary definition is "someone who takes advantage of others' generosity without something in return" and is also a derogatory term. In this case, the "freeloader" is not taking advantage of someone's "generosity" and neither are they doing something that deserves to be derogated. In fact, they are doing nothing because they get the heat regardless of whether they want it or not. Since they never asked for the heat, they could be suffering from it isn't having the "advantage.
> Since they never asked for the heat, they could be suffering from it isn't having the "advantage.
But we know it is an advantage to them. They said so.
And freeloading can be passive.
"You're freeloading, but there's not a good way to fix that." seems reasonable to me, in that the derogatory nature of 'freeloader' is basically suspended but it's not forgotten.
There is a way, the neighbors could install better insulation in their flats. They are not being generous with their heating, they are being wasteful. It's a good thing @kmm actually wants that heat. Otherwise it'd be a problem.
If @kmm had their heat turned on (and thermostat set to 19°, then their apartment's heating would contribute to bringing their apartment up to 19°. That would (by Newton's law of cooling) reduce the heat flux through their walls from the neighbor's apartments, causing the neighbors to spend less on heating. The neighbors are thus deprived of the difference in heating costs.
But if the room remains at 19° even when the thermostat is set lower, then the heating will provide the same energy output* regardless of whether it's set at 9° or 19°; that is, zero.
The heat flux through the walls with the neighbours will be the same in either situation, since that depends on the temperature difference, not
The previous comment [0] shows the truth of this, if you wanted the room set to 18° you would need to run cooling, which would cost you AND it would increase the neighbour's bills yet again, since now the heat flux is even greater.
Given the heating output will be zero whether 9° or 19°... this suggests that what people are reacting to is @kmm's intent...
Fair enough in the context of social norms, because with the thermostat set at 9° a non-physics normie would assume they were intending to 'steal' heat, whereas at 19° they are 'contributing fairly'... even when the actual output from their heating is exactly the same.
* This all assuming electrical / heat pump heating and an ideal scenario. In the real world there are temperature variations across the room and the idealist model may very well cease to apply.
This is largely the same problem as piracy. No, you're not depriving someone of their property that they can no longer use due to your actions, but many people who could very well afford to pay for media (of course barring the horrible issue with how you're actually given a "license") end up depriving the owner of revenue by watching it without paying.
> I often wonder whether this constitutes stealing.
Yes, of course it does. Their heating bills are all up because they have an exposed, and probably poorly insulated, constantly cooling wall they have to heat up.
It might not be illegal.
It is also pretty shitty to the neighborhood.
[edit] this struck a nerve, immoral behaviour getting called out really annoys people.
What if the renter moved out and the electricity to that apartment unit was shut off? The result would still be the same (a 19° unit) but nobody would be benefiting from the neighbors’ heat, so it couldn’t be considered stealing.
Even more analogous, what if the resident wants the same temperature as his neighbors, but just because of the position of his unit relative to the others it takes less energy to heat. Is that immoral?
No way it’s stealing. In fact, they are receiving something thing they didn’t ask for. It just so happens that they’re okay with the temperature. What if they wanted it cooler?
The construction of the building and their neighbor’s energy usage are not their problems to fix or be blamed for.
It's not that it struck a nerve, it's just that you're wrong.
If the neighbours want absolutely no heat escaping, they need better insulation. Similarly, if grandparent wants less than 19°C, he needs better insulation himself, or he needs an air conditioner. Everyone stands to lose in this situation, but GP just happened to found a sensible balance that works for him and saves him money.
And I would be pissed too, but I can't blame them. The issue here is clearly lack of insulation.
it just sounds like you found the most hospitable climate for yourself, you don't have to feel bad for being a clever biological organism that is more efficient than your neighbors :)
we're all trying to do the same! it's arguably evolution?
Your neighbours are "stealing" from you, even if you run with that idea. They're not having to insulate your shared walls as much as their outside facing ones.
JFYI, there are largish condo's here (Italy) with central heating that were recently "converted" to new technology.
Basically on each radiator there is an electronic regulating valve (commanded by a thermostat) that logs the usage and that can be interrogated via radio frequency, a managing firm them calculates how much each apartment has to pay for heating.
Set aside the practical folly the system is from a maintenance viewpoint (not working valves, dead batteries, mis-readings and what not), after the first winter the main issues came out.
Till then people paid based on the area of each apartment, suddenly came out huge differences between - say - a central/south/southwest one and an outer/north/northeast one, in some cases the latter costed twice or nearly twice the former.
Yeah, that's what I was wondering about GP - I have some multisensors hooked up to HomeAssistant so I can see what happens over time, and as long as the sun is out the sun can warm mine up like 3-5 degrees between sunrise and noon, even in the winter. It doesn't all dissipate until the middle of the night.
Traditionally (and when/where possible) the way a house is (should be in theory) oriented is/was definite (at least here in central Italy), places where you live during the day (kitchen/dining room/sitting room) should face roughly south, bedrooms should face roughly north.
This way you have most of the light (and warmness) of the sun during the day, while bedrooms are colder (but you have blankets) in winter and fresher in summer.
But that doesn’t seem fair either? GP is perfectly happy at a cooler temperature.
If GP actually preferred an even colder temperature (perhaps for sleeping or exercising) and had to turn on the air conditioner, can they bill their neighbors? GP must pay more for their neighbor’s comfort.
But then the neighbours would both pay them and turn up their own heating to keep their own house at their own favourite temperature, since the airco is working against that.
The heat flux through the walls depends on the temperature of your apartment and your neighbor's apartments -- not on if your thermostat is on or off. So even if you leave your thermostat on at 19° you still benefit. And you have no obligation to turn your thermostat up.
The argument for theft would have to assume that there is a "right" temperature to set. Personally I would be sweating in a t-shirt if I had the heating set to 22C, which would be the only way to prevent the cooling in the example.
As others have pointed out, it's a happy coincidence that the equilibrium is at a point that GP is happy with. If it were higher they would have to actively cool their apartment which can be seen as a cost, sort of comparable to dumping trash on someone's property forcing them to pay to deal with it.
If one of your neighbors left for a long vacation and turned their thermostat off, causing your apartment to cool down significantly, would you turn your thermostat back on?
IMO, the fair thing to do is to set your thermostat to a temperature that you're satisfied with and leave it there. If your neighbors want their apartments at 22 degrees that's their business and your benefit. You don't have any codified responsibility here exactly, but it's still best to follow the golden rule.
This kind of reminds me of the cryptocurrency climate change hack.
Mining cryptocurrency uses electricity and some electricity currently comes from fossil fuels, so that's bad.
In many places the cost of direct heating from fossil fuels (fuel oil or natural gas) is less than using electric heaters, but electric heat is typically lower carbon because grid power is a mix of fossil and non-fossil fuels instead of 100% fossil fuels, and this gets better the more of the grid goes to non-fossil fuels. So switching to electric heat can lower your carbon footprint, but might cost more.
Cryptocurrency mining equipment is effectively an electric space heater that generates revenue. So if you heat your home in the winter using cryptocurrency mining equipment, you turn a profit while lowering your carbon footprint. Or it's carbon neutral free money to anyone already using electric heat.
Then on the other side you also have the lower efficiency of small home furnaces compared to large combined cycle commercial power generation. It's not guaranteed to be less -- if your power grid is 100% coal and you're heating with natural gas, it very well might not be -- but in many/most cases it is. The most obvious winning case being where your power grid is predominantly nuclear, hydro and renewables.
If you're in the US they have the breakdown by state here:
Washington, Oregon and Vermont are predominantly hydro. Illinois, New Hampshire and South Carolina are majority nuclear. South Dakota is, surprisingly, >80% hydro and wind. Wyoming is, unsurprisingly, 80% coal.
Electricity generation efficiency from coal is only 25-50% according to [1].
Heating efficiency of modern home furnaces is typically way above 90% according to [2].
Power transmission efficiency across the power grid is around 94% according to [3].
I'm treating natural gas the same as coal since, while the direct emissions are about half the CO2 per thermal unit produced, its production is much more problematic (esp. emission of methane) [4].
I've taken these numbers and the numbers given at the link you provided and calculated that probably (lacking numbers for the mean efficiency of coal->electricity production) only 10-15 states out of 51 satisfy your claim that heating with electricity (via resistive heating) is making lower use of coal than burning coal locally (as mentioned above I'm treating natural gas as an equivalent). I've put my spreadsheet here [5].
Note that the situation would be much different when using heat pumps instead of resistive heaters. (Aside of the coin generation, cryptocurrency mining rigs are resistive heaters.)
Power plants in active service are probably around 50% efficient.
> Heating efficiency of modern home furnaces is typically way above 90% according to [2].
That number is for the newest highest efficiency furnaces. By comparison you could say that commercial power generation with cogeneration achieves even higher efficiencies, but neither is widely deployed.
The average for the existing installed base is probably around 80%.
Someone evaluating this for personal use might research the efficiency of their own furnace or compare the cost of installing a more efficient one vs. the net cost (possibly net profit) and environmental benefit of heating with electricity generated by rooftop solar.
> I'm treating natural gas the same as coal since, while the direct emissions are about half the CO2 per thermal unit produced, its production is much more problematic (esp. emission of methane) [4].
Then you have to count the same thing the other way when you're heating with natural gas. Fuel oil is even worse because it emits more CO2 per unit heat than natural gas and is extracted using the same methane-leaking process. Worse than that, many oil wells capture only the liquid fuel, have no infrastructure for capturing the natural gas and knowingly release it directly to the atmosphere!
Assuming your equivalence between coal and natural gas, that commercial power generation and transmission are 47% efficient (50% x 94%) and home furnaces are 80%, the percent non-fossil fuels needed for breakeven with natural gas heat is 41.25%. Some even lower number for oil heat. That's pretty much exactly the existing US average (and thus already ahead in places like California which are at >51%), and is only going to move in one direction as fossil fuels get phased out of the power grid.
If the question is about deciding what kind of heating to use, more likely than not the choice will be for new gear. For a new house the choice would be between one of the modern furnaces or electric heating. For someone with an old furnace, the choice would be between no change, a new furnace, and electric heater. I haven't checked the payoff and environmental cost of a new furnace versus no change, but it seems relatively likely that also in this scenario the competition to electric heating would be a new furnace.
Would electric heating mostly use electricity during times when solar or wind is abundant? If not, then, until storage is widespread and is efficient, coal might still end up being used to satisfy those customers' requirements and the mix would be worse. Electric heaters that store heat in a large mass exist, but that approach wouldn't work for mining rigs.
I don't dispute that electric heating can be better than gas/oil, depending on location. But I still don't believe it's the majority of cases. And again, this ignores that in many cases the best solution would be a heat pump. If the argument is about making cryptocurrency mining ecological, it would be disingenuous to ignore that alternative.
A variant of this idea suggests that humans evolved sophisticated intelligence -- and a bipedal stance -- as a way to efficiently let off waste heat in the hot tropical environment. Hard for me to believe, but the idea is out there.
Even when it was -30 outside, our apartment was a warm 22-24 degrees with the radiators completely off.
Our current one is really refreshing, because we can actually get the heat under 20 degrees by turning off the radiators. Took about a month to get used to the lower indoor temp, but we feel and sleep much better now.
we did that when i was a kid. we had central heating where each radiator has some kind of device with material that evaporates depending on how hot the radiator is. the heating bill was based on how much evaporated. we didn't want to save money or the environment, we just liked it a bit cooler. that was decades ago and there was no temperature control on the thermostat. the only way to get to our desired temperature was to turn the heating off.
the result was that measurement devices didn't evaporate at all, and the company had us investigated for cheating. (apparently some people tried to prevent the evaporation by wrapping them in some isolating material.)
I was going to post exactly this :-) I live in a 5 year old apartment, and there are two units above and below exactly the same layout. We don't turn on our heating until it gets well below freezing as the heat from other apartments is more than enough. This season the coldest temperature I've seen is 20.5c - when it was 0c outside and cloudy for one week.
For vertical neighbours you could say they could have insulated the ceilings (when we bought the apartment new it was unfinished, just concrete inside), so it was their choice to allow heat to escape. But we have underfloor heating, so it's not just neighbours vertically but also horizontally, as quite a lot of heat transfers via the concrete floors too (this is the only way the common areas of the building are heated) - you can't insulate that.
In the summer we have AC on, and a lot of our neighbours don't have it, so I figure we benefiting them at that time by taking away some of their heat.
On a related note, if you have underground parking I'd also suggest to choose the lowest floor if you have a choice (as long as there is no flood risk). We are on -2 and when it's 35c outside our car is parked in a cool 18c, and when it's -25c it is 8c.
In slovenia, we have very complicated formulas to determine the cost of heating in multi-apartment buildings, and the costs are calculated by the usage of your radiators (we have energy counters for heat in every apartment), and you add/subtract the some reduced values of your neighbors meter (the ones you share your walls with), and the things are averaged out a bit.
Basically, even if you turn all the radiators off in your apartment, you still pay around 50% or even more (if you share most of the walls) of the average heating bill.
It kind of makes sense. If you turn yours really high, your neighbor doesn't need to turn theirs as high anymore because you will be warming up their apartment
But this assumes that more heat = good is always true. What if it isn't? If you're running a whole bunch of computers in one of the rooms then extra heat from your neighbor might actually be harmful rather than helpful.
A judge made a similar point during in a court case about whether animals have property rights (I believe it was Cetacean Community v U.S). They said "if animals have the rights of humans wouldn't they then have then responsibilities?" Wouldn't you then be able to sue a monkey for not maintaining a stream bed such that it floods you?
That's the reality of multiapartment buildings. People at lower levels don't want to pay for elevator repair, and also don't want to pay for roof repair... people higher up don't care about people parking directly infront of ground level windows, and that the floors at ground level are usually cold(er).
Yes and no. Yes, they pay for some of your consumption, but if the formula is accurate, they save that (or more) because the heat leaking from your appt into theirs means they can heat less.
The owners-meetings are already complicated enough, especially when someone old is away from home for a month, and they get a bill that includes heat, and they complain that their radiators were off all the time :) ...then they find out that they're paying for their neigbors heat, and then they start complaining, about "that neighbor above them" who keeps their windows open, even during the winter :)
...former socialist country, so yeah, people complain, and want everything to be "fair", as long as "fair" means less money for them to pay.
I would read an article with a quick history of this particular formula (who came up with it, who enforces it), what people think of it, how accurate it is in respect to the actual movement of heat, etc. Does it account for heat rising irt mutilevel buildings?
Just a leftfield idea for any blocked Slovenian writers.
This is one of the documents that regulates one type of heating system in slovenia... You can mostly just find companies that do the calculations for you :)
We use heat, when it's cold outside (i think it has to bee three days below 12°C at 9pm - not sure), so if it's too hot for you, you just open a window.
I realised this when I lived in a middle flat. I had the heating set to around 20 degrees I think, but it barely ever kicked on. The downside was in the summer it got too hot and I couldn't cool it well at all. Wasn't great for sleeping.
> I often wonder whether this constitutes stealing.
No, definitely not. You're not responsible for the insulation context of the apartment you're renting (as it pertains to eg such things as shared or external walls). You're not responsible for the apartment design. You're not responsible for the materials it is constructed of, nor how thick its walls are.
You would have to do something dramatic to the construction of the apartment to alter the context you're describing, and that's likely not in your legal purview to do, as such it's not your responsibility morally or legally.
All I can think here is : so you have individual heat billing in an apartment building? IOW separate electric or gas heaters in each apartment?
I’m used to central heating, basically a water-circulating radiator setup, where the overall water temperature is set by the condo management and thermostats regulate the temperatures in each apartment, within the limits of the total heat provided. No way to monitor what people have their thermostats set to.
And, of course, district heating is a big thing. What I’m trying to say here is, it sounds like there are bigger problems with the heating in your apartment building than whether or not you’re stealing heat from your neighbours.
Maybe they have their thermostats set at 20 and are working more to keep those 20 whilst heating your apartment too. Even if they set their thermostats at 25 they would be working extra to compensate.
Is there a mandatory maximum temperature in your country?
My first apartment was surrounded on four of six sides like that and I never used heat in winter. It never got cold enough to need more than a light jumper.
I'd be curious to know what difference it made to your power bills turning your heating off, since if it's sitting above 19° then it was probably just running the fan anyway. Thinking about it, you probably get all sorts of interesting feedback loops going on between the thermostats of neighbouring apartments.
I don't have much to add to the discussion here, but I was expecting this to be an allegory about "piracy". In fact, as others have noted, using your neighbour's Wi-Fi consumes a portion of their bandwidth whereas file-sharing is as close as it gets to free-riding your neighbour's lamp.
What about the oil company? Your pirating light from your neighbor and stealing from the hard working people in the oil industry. If you want light, burn your own oil! /s
>When organisations talk about remote working reducing their costs, it’s worth considering which of those costs are just being passed onto to the employee, and if that is fair.
WTF.
I'm saving hundreds a month not commuting,as well as about 1.5 hrs per day. Even assuming a lower rate , like 50$ an hour for my time, that's 75$ per day.
I can pick a far cheaper city to live in. Why complain about a good thing. It's so nice I'm going to vastly prefer remote working going forward. Being remote is worth 50k or so a year to me.
When it comes to WiFi, my main concern is someone else doing something illegal with it. If I knew it was just some homeless guy reading Wikipedia I wouldn't really care.
I think they’re more talking about energy usage, monitors, desks, etc.
At all my in office jobs, I’ve always had workstations, dual 27” monitors, nice chairs, desks, etc. all provided by the company. Now I just have a laptop and am supposed to buy everything else myself.
Also, the company never paid anything regarding my commute.
Unless you're really weird with money you'll still come out ahead.
I imagine if you lived across the street from your office, and didn't need to pay for a commute then you'd have a point. Commuting, even with public transportation is still at least 120$ a month. You then also have the stress of having to run to catch the train, of occasionally being late, etc. I guess you are correct in that you will have to bear some modest upfront cost, but what professional programmer doesn't at least have a desk and a chair for their own personal use.
Let's just assume you get a job at Big box Corp. Big box is based in San Francisco, when working in the office you'd need to obviously pay San Francisco rent. Then they go remote I can't imagine any world where giving employees the option to move to Alabama or wherever and keep SF salaries wouldn't put more money in the employees pocket.
Hell for my next remote job I'm looking to get a 3 monitor setup.
It’s not being weird with money. Commuting costs have no bearing on the point that I am now paying for things that companies pay for if I’m going in to an office. The overhead for an employee is typically 100-250% of their salary, and this is because it includes costs like monitors, desks, equipment, and energy usage. With employees working from home, that overhead cost has reduced and eliminated in some cases but is not returned to the employee. Some places do subsidize work-related costs at home.
Not commuting may reduce the cost for the employee but it isn’t relevant to the specific argument because those costs were never seen by the company.
You serious don't have a chair and a desk at home already?
You can buy a small desk for 100$ and a chair for another 100$. A monitor can be had for another 200$.
In addition to this you can now live a drastically cheaper life. Moving to a city where rent is 1/3rd as much, you don't need a car, etc.
Let's say you get a job for a company that's located in Los Angeles. In la a one-bedroom is about $2,500, and you need a car which on the low end is going to cost you between a $500 to $700.
If they make you come into the office your core monthly living expenses, even before nice things like food and electricity are about $3200.
However, if they allow you to work remote you can live in say Philadelphia, find a nice apartment for around $1,400 and live car free. A metro pass is like 100$ That's 1700$ a month back in your pocket.
How can you ask for more, of course you might still prefer to live in LA for personal reasons, but then you're choosing to live like that.
I know I'm going to enjoy saving an extra $1,700 a month, not to mention getting up and hopping on the train even if you're in some magical Utopian city where public transit is free, is much harder than just logging in.
WFH saves you money and it saves the company money.
This would be true even if you had to pay your company to work from home, but that would pretty clearly be an unfair situation!
I think it's reasonable to say that if a company gets to stop providing certain utilities at the office, it would be fair to contribute to those utilities for WFH employees. Why don't you think that's reasonable?
This reminds me of the 'power over wifi' research[1]. If a wifi signal goes through your building and you harness the power from it, at the expense of the next building from benefiting from the signal, is that stealing?
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 268 ms ] threadLamp light escaping out of the window does not hurt the neighbor at all. He isn't any better or worse off if the escaped rays of light serve someone else for reading or just inconvenience the local cats in heat.
If I hook to someone else's Wi-Fi, I am degrading his bandwidth. Depending on what I download/upload, possibly significantly so. And if I am unscrupulous enough to spread illegal content (such as child porn) over his Wi-Fi, I am setting him up for an unexpected rendezvous with SWAT.
That said, the article probably wants to conclude that employers should pay for utilities such as Internet connection when their employees work from home. I wholeheartedly agree, though a certain ceiling on the total cost should be in order (there is no need why a random accountant would need a 1 Gbps connection paid wholly by their employer).
Personally I think who pays for internet is not high on the list of most pressing questions for how to adapt to wfh.
Edit: my tech job did not pay for my internet when we went to wfh and it didn't bother me. I think the real place companies are mistreating employees is for things like low paid customer service jobs where they are expecting them to have their own connection, because the cost then is more likely to be material relative to their comp.
It's probably desirable to have the employees put some skin in the game for a variety of reasons. Not only will they care for their tools more, but they'll use them more appropriately, not destructively in the wrong applications. What's good for the tools is likely good for the quality of work/outcomes.
My thought is that any good company should be able to create emotional skin in the game (i.e. caring) without needing financial skin in the game. If a company isn't there, it needs to sell its mission better and link the availability of tools to that mission.
[1] if you subscribe to the view that there is no shortage but only an unwillingness to pay fair wages (which is totally valid if there are no upfront costs to getting a job), consider that after months of losing savings to a pandemic, candidates may literally not have the cash to buy tools needed for a new job, so in this case it is truly a shortage of candidates with the ability to get the tools
My experience was auto-mechanic, and that strikes me as exceptionally high in the required tools department. They were willing to put up with my being tool-less for like two years before replacing me when an old-timer showed up looking for work, with a freezer sized toolbox in the bed of his truck, and I was clearly not committed to the career having still not invested in even a toolbox.
Construction workers and framing carpenters can start out with very little. A lot of the work is just labor. Back when my dad owned a concrete construction company he would bring most of the durable larger tools in quantity.. stuff like sledge hammers, pickaxes, shovels, those were shared. But the individuals were expected to bring a hammer for nailing/disassembling the framing, and steel-toe boots for OSHA compliance b.s. If you started out without even a hammer you'd just be a grunt then buy a hammer a week later, though someone would probably loan you one if you were that destitute. I think there were more barriers in the area of the union and trade school requirements, but not for a laborer AFAIK.
When I worked construction (many years ago) you could always spot an inexperienced bullshitter who showed up looking for work on the crew by the fact that his tools would be all shiny and new.
I guess the pro tip there is that if you don't have much experience and want to work construction, take your brand-new tools and beat up on them a little bit before going to look for work. :-)
If I was the judge, I'd find "in favor" of the restaurateur, and the punishment for the pauper would be that they must consume one meal per week (provided by the restaurant at no cost) to be reminded of what they are missing.
https://mises.org/library/what-externality
The author compares the lamp's light to using your neighbour's WiFi. It's not the same thing.
When you use your neighbour's WiFi you're consuming a proportion of the limited bandwidth available on that connection. The neighbour is negatively impacted. You are also interacting with his hardware. It's different to collecting a type of energy that your neighbour is voluntarily releasing out into the world and abandoning.
Only if your do so when your neighbour is also using the said bandwidth. So by this argument, it would be fine to use your neighbour's WiFi at night or when they aren't home, right?
And by the way, if you are on a DSL link in a somewhat rural area, chances are high that using your internet connection is going to negatively impact your neighbourhood, so it can't really be an argument.
At the time of the lecture the law didn't have an opinion on "stealing WiFi", (this was at a time when unsecured WiFi was reasonably common) but likely required the owner to be deprived of service.
I suspect it is more along the lines of "depriving the owner of the ability to use", so as long as the car was away, it was a stolen car, because the owner couldn't choose to use it themselves, or to lend it to someone, or show it to someone, or just brag to someone about how cool it looks in their driveway.
Returning it may impact what happens afterwards, but can't change the fact that the car was stolen for a period of time.
As a remote worker, I signed my contract knowing that I would need to have a functioning home office (provide light) to do my job. I saw how much I was being paid and decided it was a good deal.
The neighbour and reader are both knowing and willing participants in the situation. That changes things.
Now, for work contracts that began as in-office and were forced into remote, one could say the situation is different. I don't agree though. I think that every day one has to look at the employment contract they are in and ask themselves if this is a fair deal. If the changes don't make it a fair deal, ask for a new deal- or turn off the light.
The light seems to have left the property of the neighbour.
You may even call it light pollution, because of its environmental impact, which may be of greater importance in the long run.
https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution/wildlife/
Imagine the reader has a bee hive, that is disturbed by the light and reduces its honey production.
But since the reader approved and even used the situation to its own advantage, he also could be considered responsible.
So in the best of all possible worlds both should be charged with minor misdemeanor. And punished accordingly with a semester of Kantian moral philosophy, held in a Platonic cave without lighting.
So some light, maybe a little fire behind their backs may be allowed.
So they learn a bit about themselves being just a shamefull shadow on the wall...
So be it!
Salomon has spoken.
In the immediate term it may not change much, but over time it will lead to increased income for people that work from home.
With less overhead to hire an employee, companies will have more resources available to compete against each other for employees on the labour market.
By contrast, Wifi bandwidth, Internet access, electricity, and so on, are limited resources which someone has to pay for. If the Reader connected their Kindle to their neighbour's power supply then they are unambigously stealing electricity. Viewed in this way, an employer requiring their employee to consume electricity, potentially deprive other users of their home Internet of wifi bandwidth, and so on, is quite clearly imposing an extra cost on their WFH employees which they are not imposing on their office workers.
This doesn't seem ambiguous to me, it's just not become an issue yet because the harm is relatively small.
Try working from a Third World country, you connecting to your company's bandwidth-hungry VPN means anyone sharing the wifi won't be able to do anything.
Aside from the obvious analog that your neighbors wifi is literally a light you cannot see, if they aren't maxing out their bandwidth, then it makes similarly no difference that you use it.
It's not 10 years ago, the neighborhood using your router for Facebook doesn't dent the bandwidth.
So how is it not comparable to stray light?
That is a big assumption right there. The neighborhood streaming 4k cat videos from youtube could make a massive dent, and I can easily use all the bandwidth I have for my own needs.
That's before we consider the potential consequences of them "borrowing" my IP address and all. Of course it's on me to keep my network secure so I don't let that happen, but in theory they could find the next vulnerability that lets them in.
The analogy is only in the contextually relevant case of a limited resource and the consumption.
The juxtaposition of individual vs collectivism, and the inevitable tragedy of the commons, was the relevance.
Of course, any technical analogy on HN gets pedantically deconstructed into atomic trivialness.
Anywho - if you don't broadcast your SSID, or, even less dismissively, don't Faraday cage your house, then anyone interacting with the electromagnetic field that you haphazardly allow to escape the privacy of your residence is within their rights to do so.
Are you seriously arguing that anyone is allowed to tamper with your mobile phone signal as long as you're at home and they're outside the walls?
You are allowed to broadcast a cell phone tower signal and MiTM the connection.
You are not forcing others to connect to your signal.
The spirit of this freedom is even emblazoned on every compliant device, look for the FCC warning.
As for jamming, that is entirely unrelated, not comparable, and illegal. It would be akin to blaring loud music and lights.
You seem to have an insufficient understanding of how wireless communication protocols work, in particular the 'communication' aspect. Simply detecting the signal would not allow you to use the WiFi network. You would have to establish a connection with the access point and actively and continuously exchange information with it, thereby directly using its resources.
This is not the same as coming across a fallen coin in the street, or reading by ambient light emitted by someone else's candle
If it wasn't, you wouldn't be given any extra photons to bounce off the book and into your eyes, and wouldn't know of the candle across the street, since the photons were "insufficient" to make themselves known to you.
Again, pedantically deconstructing a technical analogy to dismiss it on its merits is going to be hard when faced with a more pedantic pissant.
The point of the entire exercise is to acknowledge the collective vs individual contributions to the emergent tragedy of the commons.
Wrong. You don't emit photons
> Picking up a fallen coin is displacing localized complexity.
That's a meaningless statement
> Again, pedantically deconstructing a technical analogy to dismiss it on its merits is going to be hard when faced with a more pedantic pissant.
It's an analogy that doesn't work, picking apart the differences is revealing
> The point of the entire exercise is to acknowledge the collective vs individual contributions to the emergent tragedy of the commons.
Another meaningless statement
The question “who should pay for lighting?” is a classic question that comes up when discussing street lights in the context of theoretical user-pays economics models. As in “what services can potentially be implemented in a user-pays model? for instance you can’t practically charge somebody for benefitting from a street light”.
Using somebody else’s wifi is related to neither of those topics, because that’s about consuming somebody else’s limited resources without their permission. The legality and morality of that question relates to whether the wifi broadcaster should expect that to occur when using unsecured wifi, and whether they should have any obligation to take reasonable steps to prevent it if they don’t want it happening.
The EM waves is just how they get there.
If the stealer is actually connecting to the wifi and making their own requests, then they have literally stolen a percentage of limited bandwidth of the channel.
The ultimate point they're getting to is a good one though. Should companies pay for increased costs borne by employees working from home? Of course they should. Whether or not they will, will be determined by the labor market and if they need to pay extra to attract employees.
Employees get benefits from working from home too. No commute. Easier to run errands and spend time with family. Maybe those benefits are enough to offset whatever additional costs they incur.
A lamp has much more excess capacity of light than a wifi, I wouldn't notice my neighbour using it with me.
But a wifi has much less capacity than a lamp, and using it for work might remove noticable capacity from my wifi.
This is not true of light. As the article says, using a neighbor’s light is “free loading”. The article doesn’t really say whether the author thinks that is stealing or not.
Interesting. I think I would notice the lamp case sooner. Not because I would have less light mind you, but because my neighbour would be creeping for a prolonged time close to my un-curtained window. That would totally freak me out, but i wouldn’t call it stealing. :)
On the other hand I have so much bandwidth that I wouldn’t notice an occasional interlooper who is not being jackass about it. If they connect and saturate my link with torrent or something so much that I start investigating then maybe, but other than that I will only find them with a network scan which I perform only very rarely.
Of course, the place can't be that well-isolated, and I regularly open the windows to let in fresh air, so that energy must be coming from somewhere. I assume it's heat leaking in from my upstairs, downstairs, left and right neighbors. They probably have their thermostats set to a balmy 21-22°, and the heat flux through my walls must be enough to keep the place at around 19°.
I often wonder whether this constitutes stealing. It's not exactly parallel to the light of my neighbor's lamp, since due to the temperature differential their thermostats are working harder than they would be if I heated my place to 22°. In effect, they're all paying for the energy to keep my place at 19°, and I'm presumably paying only a pittance for heat. But on the other hand, I have no need for a higher temperature, nor do I want to pay or incur the environmental cost for unnecessary heating. Nineteen degrees seems like a perfectly reasonable temperature to me, and it's their choice (again, I'm assuming, but where else can it come from?) to keep it a few degrees hotter.
Heat leaves far more easily if there is air on the other side of the wall and(!) you have the benefit of ground isolating you on the bottom floor
In many buildings, the mechanical systems are in the basement and whatever is carrying the heat runs up through the lower units. My old apartment in Cambridge was first floor and the 2nd and 3rd floor ducts were inside my living space and closets. On mild days, I could leave my heat entirely off and just the radiation and small leakage from their ducts was enough to keep my place comfortable. (The furnaces were all atmospheric gas burners with plenty of residual heat leaking into the basement as a result, making it an inadvertently heated space beneath as well.)
Oddly, I don’t recall ever hearing a vacuum cleaner…
So heavily depends on where you live, what type of heating is used and if heating is billed per use.
[0] for example https://www.duco.eu/Wes/CDN/1/Products/ProductImages/2016-08...
It was actually designed for this, so you could have fresh air during a pandemic in the winter :)
Hmm I wouldn't agree with that. I think the Wikipedia definition [1] captures it more accurately: theft is taking someone's property or services without their consent and with the intention to deprive them of it. In the case of heat, you're neither taking "property" (and "services" would be quite a stretch, unless they provide heating as a service...) noor are you "depriving" them of their heat, so it cannot be theft.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft
So I wouldn't call it theft. But it seems like a clear case of freeloading.
It's like that roommate that never does the dishes because they know you will do them when it gets bad enough. Are they stealing your time? I suppose not, but they aren't doing their part.
At my current residence, the building bylaws require that all units be heated to 60f during the winter, to prevent this exact scenario. So whether it’s a right is very local.
The original problem 'stealing or not' is most likely moot. The definition of stealing is conventional, unless one believes in some scripture of divine origin detailing such things, or subscribes to philosophies like utilitarianism (which might be fine, it's just hard to argue such things from first principles)
They would spend more if they were heating an outside wall with an average temperature below 19 degrees. The unheated apartment acts as additional insulation. An optimal arrangement would be for the hottest apartments to be in the core of the building with cooler apartments radiating out to the edges. But it makes sense in that scenario to price heat into a shared cost that everyone bears equally. No one would be happy with temperatures below their comfort threshold, and at the equilibrium heat flow that satisfies everyone it's worth just about the same marginal cost of keeping the temperature that way; one might offer slightly lower heating prices on the outlying apartments so that residents who had a very low comfort slope vs. temperature could pay slightly less for heat and be slightly cold, making an apartment free for a resident with a steeper comfort slope at a more affordable price.
I don't see how you can justify calling @kmm a freeloader here. Are they obligated to keep their thermostat higher than 19, even though they prefer the temperature of their apartment at 19? If so, why would you say they're obligated to waste energy? The only way to keep the apartment at 19 with the thermostat set higher would be to open the window continuously.
No. But the fact that there's no simple way to resolve the freeloading doesn't make them not a freeloader. It's a justification/defense for doing so.
But we know it is an advantage to them. They said so.
And freeloading can be passive.
"You're freeloading, but there's not a good way to fix that." seems reasonable to me, in that the derogatory nature of 'freeloader' is basically suspended but it's not forgotten.
The heat flux through the walls with the neighbours will be the same in either situation, since that depends on the temperature difference, not
The previous comment [0] shows the truth of this, if you wanted the room set to 18° you would need to run cooling, which would cost you AND it would increase the neighbour's bills yet again, since now the heat flux is even greater.
Given the heating output will be zero whether 9° or 19°... this suggests that what people are reacting to is @kmm's intent...
Fair enough in the context of social norms, because with the thermostat set at 9° a non-physics normie would assume they were intending to 'steal' heat, whereas at 19° they are 'contributing fairly'... even when the actual output from their heating is exactly the same.
* This all assuming electrical / heat pump heating and an ideal scenario. In the real world there are temperature variations across the room and the idealist model may very well cease to apply.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29288237
Similarly, it's not theft to just take whatever is left on the curb the evening leading into grabage collection day.
Yes, of course it does. Their heating bills are all up because they have an exposed, and probably poorly insulated, constantly cooling wall they have to heat up.
It might not be illegal.
It is also pretty shitty to the neighborhood.
[edit] this struck a nerve, immoral behaviour getting called out really annoys people.
The construction of the building and their neighbor’s energy usage are not their problems to fix or be blamed for.
If the neighbours want absolutely no heat escaping, they need better insulation. Similarly, if grandparent wants less than 19°C, he needs better insulation himself, or he needs an air conditioner. Everyone stands to lose in this situation, but GP just happened to found a sensible balance that works for him and saves him money.
And I would be pissed too, but I can't blame them. The issue here is clearly lack of insulation.
we're all trying to do the same! it's arguably evolution?
Basically on each radiator there is an electronic regulating valve (commanded by a thermostat) that logs the usage and that can be interrogated via radio frequency, a managing firm them calculates how much each apartment has to pay for heating.
Set aside the practical folly the system is from a maintenance viewpoint (not working valves, dead batteries, mis-readings and what not), after the first winter the main issues came out.
Till then people paid based on the area of each apartment, suddenly came out huge differences between - say - a central/south/southwest one and an outer/north/northeast one, in some cases the latter costed twice or nearly twice the former.
This way you have most of the light (and warmness) of the sun during the day, while bedrooms are colder (but you have blankets) in winter and fresher in summer.
Heat is transfered from their apartments, so they must pay more for your comfort.
If GP actually preferred an even colder temperature (perhaps for sleeping or exercising) and had to turn on the air conditioner, can they bill their neighbors? GP must pay more for their neighbor’s comfort.
The neighbors have to spend more energy to maintain the temperature of their apartment because of this person not heating their own.
I could see an argument for theft.
As others have pointed out, it's a happy coincidence that the equilibrium is at a point that GP is happy with. If it were higher they would have to actively cool their apartment which can be seen as a cost, sort of comparable to dumping trash on someone's property forcing them to pay to deal with it.
IMO, the fair thing to do is to set your thermostat to a temperature that you're satisfied with and leave it there. If your neighbors want their apartments at 22 degrees that's their business and your benefit. You don't have any codified responsibility here exactly, but it's still best to follow the golden rule.
Mining cryptocurrency uses electricity and some electricity currently comes from fossil fuels, so that's bad.
In many places the cost of direct heating from fossil fuels (fuel oil or natural gas) is less than using electric heaters, but electric heat is typically lower carbon because grid power is a mix of fossil and non-fossil fuels instead of 100% fossil fuels, and this gets better the more of the grid goes to non-fossil fuels. So switching to electric heat can lower your carbon footprint, but might cost more.
Cryptocurrency mining equipment is effectively an electric space heater that generates revenue. So if you heat your home in the winter using cryptocurrency mining equipment, you turn a profit while lowering your carbon footprint. Or it's carbon neutral free money to anyone already using electric heat.
If you're in the US they have the breakdown by state here:
https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/state-electricity-g...
Washington, Oregon and Vermont are predominantly hydro. Illinois, New Hampshire and South Carolina are majority nuclear. South Dakota is, surprisingly, >80% hydro and wind. Wyoming is, unsurprisingly, 80% coal.
Heating efficiency of modern home furnaces is typically way above 90% according to [2].
Power transmission efficiency across the power grid is around 94% according to [3].
I'm treating natural gas the same as coal since, while the direct emissions are about half the CO2 per thermal unit produced, its production is much more problematic (esp. emission of methane) [4].
I've taken these numbers and the numbers given at the link you provided and calculated that probably (lacking numbers for the mean efficiency of coal->electricity production) only 10-15 states out of 51 satisfy your claim that heating with electricity (via resistive heating) is making lower use of coal than burning coal locally (as mentioned above I'm treating natural gas as an equivalent). I've put my spreadsheet here [5].
Note that the situation would be much different when using heat pumps instead of resistive heaters. (Aside of the coin generation, cryptocurrency mining rigs are resistive heaters.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal [2] https://www.pickhvac.com/gas-furnace/most-energy-efficient/ [3] https://www.ceicdata.com/en/united-states/energy-production-... [4] https://group.met.com/fyouture/natural-gas-vs-coal/66 [5] http://christianjaeger.ch/electricity_production_in_the_US.o...
25% efficient generation is from ancient garbage that has largely already been retired because it's uneconomical.
Combined cycle turbines have efficiency up to 64%:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle_power_plant
Power plants in active service are probably around 50% efficient.
> Heating efficiency of modern home furnaces is typically way above 90% according to [2].
That number is for the newest highest efficiency furnaces. By comparison you could say that commercial power generation with cogeneration achieves even higher efficiencies, but neither is widely deployed.
Existing furnaces are as low as 56% efficient:
https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/furnaces-and-boilers
The average for the existing installed base is probably around 80%.
Someone evaluating this for personal use might research the efficiency of their own furnace or compare the cost of installing a more efficient one vs. the net cost (possibly net profit) and environmental benefit of heating with electricity generated by rooftop solar.
> I'm treating natural gas the same as coal since, while the direct emissions are about half the CO2 per thermal unit produced, its production is much more problematic (esp. emission of methane) [4].
Then you have to count the same thing the other way when you're heating with natural gas. Fuel oil is even worse because it emits more CO2 per unit heat than natural gas and is extracted using the same methane-leaking process. Worse than that, many oil wells capture only the liquid fuel, have no infrastructure for capturing the natural gas and knowingly release it directly to the atmosphere!
Assuming your equivalence between coal and natural gas, that commercial power generation and transmission are 47% efficient (50% x 94%) and home furnaces are 80%, the percent non-fossil fuels needed for breakeven with natural gas heat is 41.25%. Some even lower number for oil heat. That's pretty much exactly the existing US average (and thus already ahead in places like California which are at >51%), and is only going to move in one direction as fossil fuels get phased out of the power grid.
Would electric heating mostly use electricity during times when solar or wind is abundant? If not, then, until storage is widespread and is efficient, coal might still end up being used to satisfy those customers' requirements and the mix would be worse. Electric heaters that store heat in a large mass exist, but that approach wouldn't work for mining rigs.
I don't dispute that electric heating can be better than gas/oil, depending on location. But I still don't believe it's the majority of cases. And again, this ignores that in many cases the best solution would be a heat pump. If the argument is about making cryptocurrency mining ecological, it would be disingenuous to ignore that alternative.
Even when it was -30 outside, our apartment was a warm 22-24 degrees with the radiators completely off.
Our current one is really refreshing, because we can actually get the heat under 20 degrees by turning off the radiators. Took about a month to get used to the lower indoor temp, but we feel and sleep much better now.
the result was that measurement devices didn't evaporate at all, and the company had us investigated for cheating. (apparently some people tried to prevent the evaporation by wrapping them in some isolating material.)
For vertical neighbours you could say they could have insulated the ceilings (when we bought the apartment new it was unfinished, just concrete inside), so it was their choice to allow heat to escape. But we have underfloor heating, so it's not just neighbours vertically but also horizontally, as quite a lot of heat transfers via the concrete floors too (this is the only way the common areas of the building are heated) - you can't insulate that.
In the summer we have AC on, and a lot of our neighbours don't have it, so I figure we benefiting them at that time by taking away some of their heat.
On a related note, if you have underground parking I'd also suggest to choose the lowest floor if you have a choice (as long as there is no flood risk). We are on -2 and when it's 35c outside our car is parked in a cool 18c, and when it's -25c it is 8c.
Basically, even if you turn all the radiators off in your apartment, you still pay around 50% or even more (if you share most of the walls) of the average heating bill.
...former socialist country, so yeah, people complain, and want everything to be "fair", as long as "fair" means less money for them to pay.
Just a leftfield idea for any blocked Slovenian writers.
https://www-pisrs-si.translate.goog/Pis.web/pregledPredpisa?...
Article 15
Do your neighbors have to pay extra when they don't run their AC in Summer?
I so wish combined-cycle gas turbines could be miniaturised enough to run one at home and still have the same efficiencies.
AC usage is not regulated.
No, definitely not. You're not responsible for the insulation context of the apartment you're renting (as it pertains to eg such things as shared or external walls). You're not responsible for the apartment design. You're not responsible for the materials it is constructed of, nor how thick its walls are.
You would have to do something dramatic to the construction of the apartment to alter the context you're describing, and that's likely not in your legal purview to do, as such it's not your responsibility morally or legally.
I’m used to central heating, basically a water-circulating radiator setup, where the overall water temperature is set by the condo management and thermostats regulate the temperatures in each apartment, within the limits of the total heat provided. No way to monitor what people have their thermostats set to.
And, of course, district heating is a big thing. What I’m trying to say here is, it sounds like there are bigger problems with the heating in your apartment building than whether or not you’re stealing heat from your neighbours.
No, it does not mean that. As other comments already mentioned, local energy counters on the radiators are a thing.
I know someone who’s upstairs neighbours radiator pipes ran through their apartment. The pipes are scalding hot when the neighbour’s heating is on.
What is the legality of slapping a big honking heat sink on the pipes?
He never did it but we discussed it, from both technical and ethical points of view.
Is there a mandatory maximum temperature in your country?
I'd be curious to know what difference it made to your power bills turning your heating off, since if it's sitting above 19° then it was probably just running the fan anyway. Thinking about it, you probably get all sorts of interesting feedback loops going on between the thermostats of neighbouring apartments.
WTF.
I'm saving hundreds a month not commuting,as well as about 1.5 hrs per day. Even assuming a lower rate , like 50$ an hour for my time, that's 75$ per day.
I can pick a far cheaper city to live in. Why complain about a good thing. It's so nice I'm going to vastly prefer remote working going forward. Being remote is worth 50k or so a year to me.
When it comes to WiFi, my main concern is someone else doing something illegal with it. If I knew it was just some homeless guy reading Wikipedia I wouldn't really care.
At all my in office jobs, I’ve always had workstations, dual 27” monitors, nice chairs, desks, etc. all provided by the company. Now I just have a laptop and am supposed to buy everything else myself.
Also, the company never paid anything regarding my commute.
I imagine if you lived across the street from your office, and didn't need to pay for a commute then you'd have a point. Commuting, even with public transportation is still at least 120$ a month. You then also have the stress of having to run to catch the train, of occasionally being late, etc. I guess you are correct in that you will have to bear some modest upfront cost, but what professional programmer doesn't at least have a desk and a chair for their own personal use.
Let's just assume you get a job at Big box Corp. Big box is based in San Francisco, when working in the office you'd need to obviously pay San Francisco rent. Then they go remote I can't imagine any world where giving employees the option to move to Alabama or wherever and keep SF salaries wouldn't put more money in the employees pocket.
Hell for my next remote job I'm looking to get a 3 monitor setup.
Not commuting may reduce the cost for the employee but it isn’t relevant to the specific argument because those costs were never seen by the company.
Most of that overhead is stuff like healthcare, payroll tax, etc. It's going nowhere.
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/overhead-include-payroll-607...
You serious don't have a chair and a desk at home already?
You can buy a small desk for 100$ and a chair for another 100$. A monitor can be had for another 200$.
In addition to this you can now live a drastically cheaper life. Moving to a city where rent is 1/3rd as much, you don't need a car, etc.
Let's say you get a job for a company that's located in Los Angeles. In la a one-bedroom is about $2,500, and you need a car which on the low end is going to cost you between a $500 to $700.
If they make you come into the office your core monthly living expenses, even before nice things like food and electricity are about $3200.
However, if they allow you to work remote you can live in say Philadelphia, find a nice apartment for around $1,400 and live car free. A metro pass is like 100$ That's 1700$ a month back in your pocket.
How can you ask for more, of course you might still prefer to live in LA for personal reasons, but then you're choosing to live like that.
I know I'm going to enjoy saving an extra $1,700 a month, not to mention getting up and hopping on the train even if you're in some magical Utopian city where public transit is free, is much harder than just logging in.
This would be true even if you had to pay your company to work from home, but that would pretty clearly be an unfair situation!
I think it's reasonable to say that if a company gets to stop providing certain utilities at the office, it would be fair to contribute to those utilities for WFH employees. Why don't you think that's reasonable?
1. https://news.mit.edu/2019/converting-wi-fi-signals-electrici...