I knew about it, but your post is the first I've heard that SA no longer had those (I only clicked the link because you used the past tense!). I actually thought that no country had ever withdrawn their nuclear program.
This might be the most amazing and hope-inspiring I've read online this week, so I'm grateful for you sharing that link!
My understanding is that they gave up the USSR's weapons (and handed them to Russia), rather than them having built, owned and dismantled the weapons outright through their own nuclear program.
They could have spent substantial effort to make those weapons "theirs" (I've heard people simplify this as "they didn't have the codes but could figure them out") but it would have cost them dearly in international sanctions, versus the assurances and aid they could negotiate by relinquishing them.
That’s true. But Ukraine wasn’t just babysitting weapons made totally elsewhere, either. There was substantial expertise, research and manufacturing built up in Ukraine during the Soviet era.
I think it’s true enough to say they gave up nuclear weapons, even if they didn’t wholly own the nuclear weapons.
Which, in practical terms, means "while I or my investors have money". These guys have 70 years worth of data, can you guarantee to keep it for another 70? The real answer to these kinds of problems is managing the data yourself
There's a difference between an archive and a backup it's true. If this really is intended to be archival they need to come up with a plan with the Library of Congress, the US Archives, or a similar institution. There are archivists in the world and they should come up with a plan for this that's written and will outlast all the people in the room.
Not certain how well LOCKSS has done over time as Internet Archive seems to get all the press, but it seemed to be a solid concept with some level of implmentation:
Taking its name (Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe) from the idea that a file is more likely to survive if it has multiple copies stored in multiple places, LOCKSS software allows libraries to create preserved digital collections out of materials that would otherwise be accessible only through a licensed academic subscription. LOCKSS has agreements with academic publishers to permit libraries to store local copies of content that is usually only accessible through web-based subscriptions, enabling post-cancellation content access.
LOCKSS is a technology and I could imagine it being part of a plan - but archivists still need to consider what entity owns the data and has rights to give access to it, what jurisdiction governs the data, how to transfer ownership/rights, which combination of tools should be used to achieve the goals, and also what goal there is for the data.
At present (especially for PBS), it would be wise to use an archive service that receives zero U.S. federal dollars and is not subject to the executive branch’s efforts to rewrite history to fit their preferred narrative.
"To someone who never did anything like this themselves the result might seem fantastic ..."
I've been "doing this" for over 30 years now and I consider these LLM results to be fantastic.
If one has a deep, conceptual understanding of tools, systems and protocols and if one has the ability to carefully provide careful, concise specifications, these LLM tools are like being granted superpowers.
In fact ...
My next project upon which to bring LLM tools to bear is a fully local, solar-powered, self-hosted LLM toolchain.
Not only do I intend to never work without these tools again, I intend to do so without the ongoing environmental externalities that they produce.
> If one has a deep, conceptual understanding of tools, systems and protocols and if one has the ability to carefully provide careful,
concise specifications
Most people already don't have the ability to do this and their use of LLMs atrophies the little they had. "AI natives" will be completely doomed.
However, I never asked for LLMs nor did my consumer nor professional behavior send market signals that I would use them. They were thrust upon me apropos of nothing.
Now that I find them useful, the least I can do is stop making the problem worse.
As a rule of thumb the energy use to produce a silicon wafer is roughly equal to the energy it will use in its lifetime. For GPU and VRAM this is considerable. To equip yourself with the capability to run an LLM locally is making an upfront investment in the production of extremely toxic and resource intensive products.
Why buy a personal EV with 600 mile range that sits idle 95% of the time when you can take a bus (aka the cloud) that maximizes the resource utilization?
> Sun microsystems rack populated with three e4500
That's super cool; I bet that's a lot of fun to play around with. I wonder how much of this stuff just ended up in a landfill because it was too much effort to find buyers.
"Why would other countries, that don't share the same anxiety about China as the US, would be troubled with the this?"
It's the other way around.
There is a high likelihood that many countries of the "west" (the "global north"?) will outlaw, restrict, or otherwise control LLMs and the tools that enable them.
The US, however, is blessed with the first amendment which makes it extremely difficult to restrain speech in any form - including code.
> There is a high likelihood that many countries of the "west" (the "global north"?) will outlaw, restrict, or otherwise control LLMs and the tools that enable them.
I would think everyone in the HN crowd would be aware of HEAC, the hdmi Ethernet channel, etc.
With full access to the hosts tcp/ip stack, we’d do well not to overlook the potential vectors for a monitor to install software on your computer… especially when the operating system is complicit.
"Ordinary rsync does not understand SQLite transactions. Rsync will make a copy of ORIGIN into REPLICA, however the copy might not be consistent. Parts of the copy might be from one transaction, while other parts might be from a different transaction. The database copy might be corrupt."
You may also find it interesting that South Africa had nuclear weapons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_ma...