UK's hardware talent is being wasted • Hacker News Board

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#931

Post by tuatoru » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 6:31 AM UTC

dzonga wrote: post #926

archsurface wrote: post #808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An illustration of this which I happened to be looking at: Average home sizes (sq ft, sq m): Australia 2,303 214 New Zealand 2,174 202 United States 2,164 201 Canada 1,948 181 UK 818 76 Edit: formatting.

a simple metric is energy consumption look at this chat - courtesy of perpexity. United States 11,855 KWH China 5,474 Germany 6,483 Australia 7,000 (approximate based on recent trends) Singapore 9,000 (approximate based on recent trends) United Kingdom 4,701 Energy consumption of the uK is that of a poor developing country. people will cite the size of uk homes due to lack of land as if you can't build houses with a…

As someone said recently, abundant energy is the basis of prosperity. There are no poor countries that use a lot of energy per capita, and no rich countries that use little. (China is a "middle income" country, not a poor one.)

https://energyforgrowth.org/article/how-does-energy-impact-e...

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#932

Post by pikrzyszto » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 7:26 AM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #916

shawabawa3 wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but politically suicidal for any government that tried to implement it Labour just got into government and literally the third bullet point in their manifesto is: * Reform our planning rules to build the railways, roads, labs and 1.5 million homes we need and develop a new 10-year infrastructure strategy. So i would hope it's not political suicide to follow through on that

> Reform our planning rules to build the railways, roads, labs and 1.5 million homes we need and develop a new 10-year infrastructure strategy. They could do this is one fell swoop with a single bill by the Parliament that dissolves these local councils, and land owners the right (and freedom) to build whatever they want on land they own. Building safety codes would still apply; but zoning permitting could be erased…

zoning is still necessary, you don't want a pig farm (or anything equally stinky) next to people's houses.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#933

Post by Symbiote » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 8:11 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #902

Symbiote wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK left the largest free trade area a few years ago. There's little appetite to join the American one, as it would mean lowering standards (food etc) which ruins Britain's specialties.

When you're starving you eat what's available regardless of how appetizing it looks. The UK isn't starving yet, but how long can they hold out? And has NAFTA ruined Canadian or Mexican food?

Why would the UK run out of food? They grow plenty, and the rest of Europe is very close and happy to sell theirs.

Food is cheap in Britain, cost and supply aren't problems.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#934

Post by dash2 » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 9:04 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #686

ashergill wrote: post #663

> The reality for most graduates is even grimmer: > • £25,000 starting salaries at traditional engineering firms > • Exodus to consulting or finance just because it's compensated better This is _exactly_ my career so far. The key thing about the British economy is that while most things operate in a free market, construction is centrally planned by councillors who are incentivised to block most development. So the wh…

I used to live and work in Cambridge. In many ways it's a victim of its own success; people will, not unreasonably, argue that it's a beautiful little town of historic buildings, embedded in a primarily agricultural county of either prime agricultural land or protected wetland. They're not going to let you build Shenzen in Shelford no matter what the economic benefit might be. Meanwhile it's close enough to London th…

Surely even prime agricultural land is vastly (thousands of times?) less valuable than lab space for engineering companies.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#935

Post by dash2 » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 9:08 AM UTC

ashergill wrote: post #663

> The reality for most graduates is even grimmer: > • £25,000 starting salaries at traditional engineering firms > • Exodus to consulting or finance just because it's compensated better This is _exactly_ my career so far. The key thing about the British economy is that while most things operate in a free market, construction is centrally planned by councillors who are incentivised to block most development. So the wh…

I like Sam Bowman a lot, but are you sure the construction issue is central to this issue in particular? I suspect that access to capital is equally important: the UK is very finance-centric. I wonder how many VCs have engineering expertise, for instance.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#936

Post by dash2 » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 9:13 AM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #609

graemep wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that people think property is a risk free way of making money - even if they borrow heavily to invest. Maybe what we need is a property price crash.

I'm not sure a property price crash would achieve this goal. You will have to decide for yourself if I'm speaking from experience or have motivated reasoning, as I'm saying this as an overseas absentee landlord who bought a UK apartment around the tail end of the previous price crash, initially as a place to live in until I decided the UK wasn't for me any more, and was rich enough to do so without a mortgage. (I lef…

I feel deeply sad having to ask this, but... how did you manage to leave?

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#937

Post by m_fayer » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 9:18 AM UTC

winter_blue wrote: post #916

shawabawa3 wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but politically suicidal for any government that tried to implement it Labour just got into government and literally the third bullet point in their manifesto is: * Reform our planning rules to build the railways, roads, labs and 1.5 million homes we need and develop a new 10-year infrastructure strategy. So i would hope it's not political suicide to follow through on that

> Reform our planning rules to build the railways, roads, labs and 1.5 million homes we need and develop a new 10-year infrastructure strategy. They could do this is one fell swoop with a single bill by the Parliament that dissolves these local councils, and land owners the right (and freedom) to build whatever they want on land they own. Building safety codes would still apply; but zoning permitting could be erased…

A younger me would see this as too radical. After seeing some of this up close, now I tend to support this course of action. It would be a shame, but I think we’ve all collectively proven ourselves to be shortsighted and cheap with the great privileges we’ve been afforded.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#938

Post by ImHereToVote » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 9:33 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #903

ImHereToVote wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't what I mean. The moral hazard is caused by the bailouts. It isn't about the sum itself. Merely the guarantee that the tab for large gambling losses will be taken by the taxpayers.

- not gambling, mortgages - not in the end a loss (banks taken into government ownership eventually sold for about the acquisition price - bank shareholders lost their money - you don't want to see everything turned into Northern Rock bank runs

The banks should have been nationalised.Iceland was able to solve they Monte Carlo GFC event without creating a moral hazard.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#939

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 9:41 AM UTC

ImHereToVote wrote: post #938

pjc50 wrote: post #903

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- not gambling, mortgages - not in the end a loss (banks taken into government ownership eventually sold for about the acquisition price - bank shareholders lost their money - you don't want to see everything turned into Northern Rock bank runs

The banks should have been nationalised.Iceland was able to solve they Monte Carlo GFC event without creating a moral hazard.

They DID nationalise the banks! https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05...

They ended up with 100% of Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley; 84% of RBS, and 43% of Lloyds.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#940

Post by GasVeteran » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 9:47 AM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #884

speedbird wrote: post #877

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.5M new homes won’t even keep up with immigration. Not to mention schools and hospitals.

It'd be better than not having them. Major problems are rarely solved with one fell swoop, but instead thousands and thousands of small improvements.

It would be better if we just change the immigration policy. Last time I checked there was 400,000 leaving the country each year and somewhere between a million and 1.4 million entering.

I live in the countryside (I live in a small flat btw so I don't care about property prices) and I don't want everywhere in the country built over, which seems to be something here everyone wants for some bonkers reason. If you want to live in a concrete jungle that is fine, I and many others don't. I moved out of Manchester because I hated it there.