[127361]

Yes, caught for "stealing" 63 milliwatts of electricity, from charging the 88uF capacitor in that video from 426V to 489V over a period of 40 seconds.

If that was running all year round it would consume 0.6kWh of electricity, which is probably capacitive losses to the surroundings and would be lost anyway.

If it ever got to court, it would be thrown out instantly.

This is the same mentality behind thousands of bullshit complaints to the FCC by radio amateurs because someone broke a petty rule somewhere, and it's why I want nothing to do with the amateur radio hobby at all. The vast majority of them the FCC ignores.

[Simulacra]

Inductively. You're not actually splicing into the line, or damaging the equipment to retrieve the power. It would be the same as putting a rain barrel to capture water runoff from a public road.

[dymk]

Your house is attached to the grid via transformers, and gets all its power via an inductive coupling. Trying reason that it's inductive, and therefore a form of power transfer that is not stealing does not follow.

[dmd]

which is, in fact, illegal in several western us states

[vajrabum]

Yes, somebody owns the water rights which are separable from and often senior to land ownership. The details of how that works varies quite a bit from state to state and jurisdiction to jurisdiction and may be spelled out in your property deed.

[kernelbugs]

I'd imagine illegal for environmental reasons, however, rather than financial losses of some other party.

[0xcde4c3db]

Not financial, but it's essentially considered to be stealing water from the river basin, which is allocated by an old agreement [1]. I don't know the details, but I've heard that this has been relaxed quite a bit in recent years, with collection limits replacing outright bans in several jurisdictions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact

[CuriousCosmic]

Eh it's both. Rain water collects through the watershed and somebody owns the rights to that water.

So you can get into some really funky situations where you are "technically" stealing that water if you improve rainwater->groundwater retention on your property and as a result either have to dismantle the retention mechanisms or have to pay out damages.

[devsda]

Interesting. Do these rights also come with responsibilities ?

If the rights owner fails to collect their water in a timely manner( like heavy rains or blockages leading to water logging or flooding), should they be held responsible in any way ?

[voakbasda]

Water rights must be used in accordance with the terms dictated by the State when they were assigned. It's literally "use it or lose it".

I finished building three ponds on my farm in 2022. The permits dictated the times of year that I could store water (vs letting the flow pass unimpeded), what I can do with the stored water, and the size and function of bypass channels. If they decide it's necessary, they can tell me to install flow meters and depth gauges.

In times of drought, they unilaterally can order me to leave my ponds empty and let all water pass through, because older water right holders get precedence. They can hold me accountable if I do not follow their terms, up to and including revoking my permits.

Honestly, I'm not really sure it was worth the effort and cost, because the whole point was to improve water security on my property... but I have no meaningful control. It's completely bonkers, because my ponds have unquestionably improved the watershed's ability to store water. If anything, they should be paying farmers to build more small ponds like mine.

In other words, these government regulations pose a significant impediment to solving the growing water crisis. No sane person would go near the process, which I now understand is why most of the ponds in this area were built without permits.

[dmd]

You would imagine wrongly, then. (At least in Colorado.)

[asdefghyk]

I'm interested. Can you give examples ? "... bullshit complaints to the FCC by radio amateurs ..."

[127361]

I can't be bothered to search for it.