241 karma · joined January 27, 2021
The biggest downside is initial cost in time, effort and cash compared to typing in a credit card.
Ok other downsides include lack of power redundancy and decent networking which are more common in data-centers.
Other side of this is, why buy 8xa100 for that project to stick them on eBay to recoup cost when you can rent them?
Frankly the right tool is sometimes the one you have in front of you.
But anyone who's seen disaster DIY videos or worse had a house full of said projects from previous owners knows, there are problems caused by "When all you have is a hammer..." And an enthusiastic inexperienced amateur.
How about we go back 20yr and train a generation of unix sysadmins and self host at companies and at home.
What a thumbass idea.
Changes mean things change!
Back prop requires and limits to analytically differentiable in a normal way.
Attention is... Oh dear comparing linear regression to attention is comparing a diesel jet engine to a horse.
Unlike the Sudan we don't produce the remaining 15%+/-5 because we're a wealthy nation and can engage and have become semi-reliant a little on trade. And our tastes have changed as a result of the availability of luxury goods. This is wildly different to not having capacity or infrastructure which can be tweaked. (I'm not saying magically tonnes of milk and honey appear from nowhere) And this is ignoring the scary word of rationing.
Sudan either can't, won't or is constrained from producing the missing part of the food required to feed their people. But that's more linked to US foreign policy than this hypothetical discussion otherwise.
Edit in not even touching RoI vs UK army. I'm not pretending any show down would be bloodless, but the UK has a few plain numerical overwhelming superiorities. Again stating simple facts.
That's comparing production means today with an inflated population due to uncontrolled migration. (Main confronting factor to pop growth in last few years so can't be avoided as topic).
Comparing blockade numbers to peace time production is a false equivalency.
Am I saying there won't be unrest no, but you just started a scenario by blockading Britain. If you think we don't produce enough food, it's about the only thing we actual do produce here other than empty city promises and patents. The country would eat itself before the means of food production hits the top 5 of our problems if honestly bet.
The country has capacity to engage in intensive farming of several means which we currently do not because of animal rights concerns, lack of manpower etc. In a blockade scenario animal rights go out the window to a starving populace. Food waste is addressed in several means and we start engaging in battery farming and crop yields yes move to calorific content vs serving the Ritz their flav d'jour.
And let's not pretend NI is included under any sensible scenario other than the British military blockading and subsuming control of RoI. There's no scenario where a blockade of Britain as an island would leave us "struggling to feed NI with RoI being supported by the European block" as another absolutist.
Please educate yourself because that statement is just factually incorrect. That's not a talking point, that's just wrong.
Besides I'm referring to the british who just use the white plastic as a side for kormas, vindaloo or a rice pudding.
Pretending this is economically viable is short sighted at extreme best.
> domestic food security and diversity.
Aside from switzerland who else is so well placed for this in geographical Europe?
ITS AN ISLAND
There's plenty of problems reminiscent of the 30s after the whole chain has been kicked around due to labour from Brexit, supply due to Brexit, access to markets from Brexit and then the joy of dealing with the cv19 lockdowns.
The sector is still facing real financial problems and none of the last few governments have seen farmers as anything other than land owning cash cows.
This is like trying to claim bioethanol is somehow carbon negative.
It's broken from a farming standpoint (and we're a nation starting to face issues with production. Notice how I say starting not we're starving there's several world's of different yet)
It's broken from an economic standpoint because you're going to try and take on the whole of Asia who could crush you in a single shipment.
It's broken from a mindset perspective. British wine may be one that grabs interest over here like British vodka. But people will not pay 10x or more for British rice. It will be seen as a stupid concept or idea.
It's broken because again... Who in Britain is clamouring for more rice options? This is a product type which is already over saturated at the normal supermarket, let alone the choices when you're willing to shop online.
If there's no discouragement to projects like this idiots will run the land into ruin, lose a lot of money. Drive away needed capital from farms looking to turn around their fortunes and damage the sector.
I'm not saying British farms are about to collapse and we're all about to starve here, but the sector is struggling.
Yes _that_ is the product you choose to grow. Not idk products popular amongst British customers...
Have you seen the state of scientific "computing".
We get it you have some political bent and don't like those in charge, but given the professionalism of the setup you don't know how quickly it was setup. If the place was rented last month that _is_ a $1M investment all up front. If it's over time it's still a professional setup all the same by people looking to abuse the system in some way or other for profit. I.e. unknown threat actor until proved proven otherwise.
Honestly picking at a public body bigging up the work they do for the public isn't worth a rant. If this was close enough to the UN buildings and Embassy's to cause a problem then yes. That becomes an international issue. Do you honestly think if this was just a scam farm they wouldn't take money from someone else to burn the thing and turn the city into a circus?
Besides if this was an agency with tech skill but limited funding, like a certain northern province in Asia, they'd bankroll it by scamming to start anyway wouldn't they.
But frankly security theatre was always going to descend into this with a thousand wannabe l33ts targeting big projects with LLMs to be "that guy" who found some "bug" and "saved the world".
Shellshock showed how bad a large part of the industry is. It was not a bug. "Fixing" it caused a lot of old tried and tested solutions to break, but hey, we as an industry need to protect against the lowest common denominator who refuse to learn better...
To a "non-developer", yes that's what being in _this_ industry is like/about. If like taking a random coder and expecting them to read instructions to make something using crochet. There's a learning curve...
How about not making any public messaging so black and white. B&W messaging leads to polarised ideas on healthcare and everything else...
</rant>
_sigh_ don't remind me...