I was in the Air Force back in the late '80s, and SO MANY of the old equipment I worked with fit quite nicely into this color scheme. I can almost smell the old electronics now. It also reminds me of the AWESOME aesthetic that is the nixie tube.
Any and all. It's not particularly justifiable. It's more like, I'm a software engineer, and this is my home workshop. I run dozens of services, experiment with a bunch of different LLMs, tune my Postgres instance for good performance on large datasets, run ML data prep pipelines. All sorts really.
I'm also into motorcycles. Before I owned a house with a garage, I had to continuously pack my tools up and unpack them the next day. A bigger project meant schlepping parts in and out of the house. I had to keep track of the weather to work on my bikes.
Then, when I got a house, I made sure to get one with a garage and power. It transformed my experience. I was able to leave projects in situ until I had time. I had a place to put all my tools.
The workstation is a lot like that. The alternative would be renting. But then I'd spend a lot of my time schlepping data back and forth, investing in setting things up and tearing them down.
YMMV. I wouldn't dream of trying to universalize my experience.
I haven't purchased a new computer in, at least, 10 years. I take pride (i.e., I have a sickness) in purchasing used laptops off eBay, beefing them up, and loading Debian on them. My two main computers are a Dell E5440 and a Lenovo ThinkPad T420. I, too, am a software developer, but [apparently] not as much of a rock star software developer at this gentleman. :-D
Well obviously that would happen mostly only on the biggest business scales or maybe academic research; one example from Nvidia, which showcases Apache Spark with GPU acceleration to process "tens of terabytes of JSON data":
> "This bothers a lot of people for a reason (I think) that has nothing to do with the technology. The fear isn't really about losing a job title, it's about losing the story you tell yourself about who you are."
No, it is 100% about the fear of losing a job due to companies replacing skilled people with AI.
> "the EU currently has the most user-friendly laws when it comes to data protection"
I have not done any research into this facet of EU laws, but isn't the EU simply horrible when it comes to privacy of your data from a nosy government?
> but isn't the EU simply horrible when it comes to privacy of your data from a nosy government?
It's a case of "better is not perfect".
Yes, the EU & it's member states allow the police quite a bit of access to data and servers. However, there are still decently functional checks and balances. Unlike China, unlike Russia, unlike the US, where there is a carte-blanche already employed by authoritarian governments.
What the line really seems to refer to is General data protection. While "the state spies on you" is one attack vector, and one certainly becoming dangerous for oppressed minority groups in the US, it's not the only one.
For most people, really, all people because the authoritarian systems rely heavily on data from breaches, the chief risk to one's wellbeing are said data breaches. Of companies recklessly collecting all data they can get their hands on and retaining it forever.
There, the EU does have notably better laws. Where data collection and retention are restricted, and user-requested deletion is a legal right. (Enforcement of this is still a mess.)
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