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Hard to tell from the pics, but I would say bumblebees - certainly doesn't look like honey bees Bumbles will only use a nest for one season, so this was probably last year and they shouldn't return Pic 2 of the second post, looks a bit like the base for a destroyed wasps nest

For me there are two major strands here. First is that to really properly develop tools using AI you need domain specific knowledge - not only in terms of both functional and technical specification (because in my experience AI misses this and can very easily run away with itself in some rather bizarre ways and totally forget the original specification, even when taking into account context window and memory degradation), but also in terms of the domain of development - you have to be able to properly and fully sense check outputs and assumptions made by the model. If you don't have the experience, you're going to miss not just major stuff, but the important nuances required in good development. There are definitely problems with how knowledge gaps will develop from short-term profiteering. Second is that I see it as something similar to the 1990s off-shoring of customer service call centres to cheaper locations to eventual great cost and a requirement for brands to re-onshore those services to keep customers happy, or at least provide decent escalation routes. Although it still does happen it was largely a failed endeavor. A lot of what is happening in AI is the same and I think it will bite back - I've already developed an allergy to those cheap horrible customer service bots/agents that never actually answer my question. But on a much larger and equal scale, I think the realisation might be something along the lines of the long term costs of off-shoring all our industrial and manufacturing facilities, knowledge and capabilities. In the UK we've done this in favour of financialisation and services and it's coming back to bite us now. I see this as being the fault of hailed people like Dyson who had a very patronising and blinkered view of offshoring back in the noughties. I remember listening to one of his speeches where he was ever so confident that off-shoring manufacturing to China was nice a clean in that it wouldn't involve any transfer of IP or high value knowledge, as it was only the low value stuff they'd get - oh how wrong he was. So the more we indiscriminately off-shore to AI the more we're going to create a rod for our own back. None of this is to say the AI is universally bad. I use it all the time and it helps me a great deal to get things done in a myriad of ways. Just need to know where your off-ramp is for when it merely gives you the impression of benefit.

No idea how far you are off retirement, we decided to do single storey, with an eye of getting older and limited mobility, making the house fully future proof. All bedrooms have access to decking as does the dining room and all are level thresholds at the doors. Single storey makes passivhaus more difficult due to form factor. We went architect, but on the basis I reviewed and approved all drawings. Treated on a proper engineering basis. He came up with a design I never would have, but to the spec I wanted. I decided build method, insulation, airtightness, designed heating and how to achieve everything. He did the leg work of building regs etc. Worked for us. Be prepared to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in, it isn't a part time task. If you are working full time and doing a build management, be prepared for delays and maybe not getting what you want. But good luck and enjoy the journey. I did.

I have used "3CSharedServices" for the building control for my (solo) self build in Cambridge city. I am currently at first fix and the next inspection is for completion (still some distance ahead). I have been happy with them all the way through. Happy to provide more information if you like. Dreadnaught

Welcome! I am self building (solo) relatively nearby in Cambridge city (at first fix). Be in contact if I may be of any help. Dreadnaught

A couple of people have built to Passivhaus standard and I think that @Gone West got certified. But then he did move down my way. As @MikeSharp01 says, it is easy to go 'geeky'. Good engineering practice will get you to 90%, the thermal properties are not that hard. Then, as we often hear in here, you only have 90% left to do to finish.

Are you tiling past the shower door or flush with shower door frame? You could keep the tile backer board and tiles inside of the door frame which is then fixed back to plasterboard depending on the width of door. Would need a very good seal. You want a T shape trim to cover both the board and tile or a straight edge trim to cover just the backer board. Have a look at: https://www.protilertools.co.uk/categories/tile-trim https://pureadhesion.co.uk/trims/

Hi folks! Gema's other half here! Thanks for the warm welcome. RE PH certification - it's a relatively minor incremental cost given everything else (especially since we are doing all the design work - so it's really just the certifier cost), and we feel it's actually pretty good value for money, given the extremely detailed review and guidance that comes with it. As for the architecting, it's been a steep learning curve, but well worth it. We found trying to iterate over the design with an architect more tedious than helpful, but maybe that's because we are the ultimate control freaks. Let's just say the architect wasn't loving it when we rocked up with full daylight simulations (using Rhino + Ladybug Tools) and resizing & relocating all his windows, for example. Never mind asking for some up-front PHPP modelling and being told to wait, as that'll come during "detailed design". I'm sure there are plenty of good architects out there, but certainly not the one(s) we found. On the [visual] design side is probably where an architect would have been most useful as we aren't normally the creative types. However, we found our mojo and have concocted something we genuinely like (and is simple-ish to build).

We do have rules about firing workers to replace them with cheaper ones. Things like TUPE. But our current breed of politicians tend to focus on the wrong things and AI regulation has been low on their list. Especially since Trump got elected as they seem particularly wary of doing anything that might upset him and the tech industry makes sure he knows about anything they don't like coming from us.

Well you're both right! What you see there is a reflection from the wall, but there is a small amount of shading until about 9:30am in mid-April - this time will become earlier as the sun rises earlier/higher. Yes I could move the panels left a bit but it would be a royal pain in the a**e to do mostly because of the clamps and spacers I've used. If I feel the need I'm more likely to remove the concrete bolts holding it all down and drag the whole frame left a bit. BUT just to the left of the array is a gate that opens onto the frame.... So the further left I go the less the gate can open - which is an issue as I need it to open fairly wide so I can get my boat in and out of the barn that's in front of the array [only twice a year though]. I had given a small amount of thought to putting an optimiser on that one panel but I'm not Ure it would be worth it or even work! Anyway, I finally got round to finishing off all the DC cabling today through surface mounted conduit over the concrete yard and then up into the barn and along the roof steelwork to the inverter, AC isolator and into the barn consumer unit via an RCBO. Total run of about 45m each way The inverter has a DC isolator built in and I'm not sure whether I need to fit an external one as well - I had read that it's another point of failure and wasn't really needed if the inverter has one.

I suspect because they can make laws like this in China - we cannot do that here. We have always adapted to new technologies and we will again, it will be tough for many but an opportunity for many also. This is the knub of the issue and here you and I can share much more common ground - this is down to short-sighted entrepreneurs not realising that if you want longevity you need a pipe line. This is the problem we had with apprenticeships in the 1980s, 90s and noughties here we can demand intervention to stop people saving money and pocketing profit in the short term while destroying productivity in the long term - this we can legislate for. Those who neglect history are destined to repeat it.

Coder who uses llm absolutely! . It’s not about writing code anymore - as I said it’s orchestration of the llm ! ( using the tool ) The issue I see is less juniors / graduates and when ‘ seasoned ‘ programmer / se retire who carries the knowledge/ understanding forward ?

Yes, and China has already started grappling with this. Chinese courts have reportedly ruled that companies cannot simply fire someone purely because AI can do the job cheaper. That proves this is not just imaginary pessimism — governments and courts are already seeing AI replacement as a labour-market issue. And that is exactly my point. If AI were merely “another productivity tool”, why would courts need to decide whether workers can be dismissed because an AI system now performs the role? The fact they are having to rule on it shows the disruption is real. It may make the cake bigger overall, but it can still destroy specific jobs, squeeze wages, and collapse small teams into one person plus AI. That is a major structural change, not just canals becoming railways.

You are absolutely correct there and I can see it in front of me with my students - getting jobs in coding is now very difficult but getting jobs in integrating LLM coding with business objectives is booming. That is also true - just 7 people, all of whom have a finite amount of life left, are making all the headway and a lot of the profit BUT underlying that profit is enough people able to pay for their products when that dries up it all goes phut! Nope, but then maybe the next technology will follow the trend and be even faster, each technology of the recent past has had faster adoption curves than the last one its just the way it is and, so far, we have not seen a breaking of the pattern in my view.

Another point is the speed of improvement. I accept local LLMs are not frontier models. They are behind the best cloud systems. But the pace is ridiculous. Every few weeks there seems to be a better open/local model, better quantisation, better tooling, better context handling, better coding ability, or better inference speed. That matters because the argument is not “can today’s model replace everyone?” The argument is “where is this going over the next 3, 5, or 10 years?” I’ve never personally seen a technology move this fast. With most technologies you get gradual product cycles. With LLMs, the capability jump over months is noticeable. A model that felt barely useful a year or two ago can now write, debug, explain, summarise, plan and generate code well enough to materially change how one person works. So yes, today’s local models are not AGI and not frontier. But the gap is closing fast enough that dismissing this as just another normal productivity tool feels complacent.

I agree it can make the cake bigger. I’m not saying AI is only bad or that we should ignore it. But “the cake gets bigger” doesn’t mean the slices are evenly distributed. Yes, canals to railways to roads changed employment. But those transitions still destroyed some jobs, shifted power, and forced people to retrain. The fact society eventually adapted doesn’t mean the disruption wasn’t real for the people caught in it. The difference here is speed and breadth. LLMs are not replacing one transport system with another. They touch almost every desk-based industry at once: coding, admin, sales, marketing, support, accounts, legal prep, design, analysis, documentation. My own project is a good example. What would once have needed a small team is now potentially one person directing an LLM, with the AI doing much of the manual coding and iteration. That is brilliant for me as the person using it, but it also means fewer people are needed to produce the same output. So yes, learn to use it. I completely agree. But that doesn’t remove the labour-market issue. In fact it proves it: those who use it well become far more productive, and those who don’t are under pressure. That is not just “another technology” in a mild sense. That changes the structure of work.

My project would be a small team . Now it’s 1 person who doesn’t need to manually code . Just this in its own changes everything

No but if you look at it broadly this is the same for the switch from Canals to Railways, from Railways to Roads, Much of these are relatively new work and again if you look at it many jobs today were not around 5 years ago. I am in the optimist camp - I am optimistic that this technology will be good for us. I sometimes move towards the Agnostic but I have never felt like being pessimistic about it. For me this is just another technology - learn to use it and make your fortune, ignore it at your peril and it won't go away. Essentially it is capable of making the cake bigger for all of us.

Quite possibly . You also have to take into account your context window ( chat bot window ) so it depends exactly on what your use is for llm . You can go really small I.e low ram footprint but you are comprising reasoning and accuracy . So it really does depend on intended use . Run in 8gb , yes , useful ? Depends on use .

Welcome Gema to THE forum for people like us. We went down the Architect route to get a good design - we are not aesthetically capable but we had a strict set of criteria and I did the passive house training I felt I needed to be able to keep the architects we finally chose on the straight and narrow - we learned together. We only took them on for the design only and once that was complete we have managed the rest. I think, in hindsight, that I went a bit technical, what my other half calls 'full geek mode' on the build as we chose wooden frame with blown cellulose fibre insulation augmented in places with PU sheets. Its worked out well but could have been more simply done. So its definitely possible to do this with an architect beyond the design phase but to get a standout design, pretty much every house in our road is different to the next one, I felt and still feel the architect route was a good one for us.

Maybe — but I think that understates what’s different this time. Most past technologies made human labour more productive. LLMs do that too, but they also start to substitute for parts of knowledge work: drafting, coding, support, admin, research, analysis, design, marketing, legal prep, teaching material, etc. That doesn’t require full AGI. You don’t need a conscious machine to reduce headcount; you only need a tool that lets one person do the work that previously needed three, or lets a cheaper worker do work that previously needed a specialist. So even if LLMs are “only” productivity tools, the labour-market effect can still be huge. The Industrial Revolution didn’t replace every worker overnight either — it reorganised whole industries, compressed wages in some areas, created new winners, and made old skills less valuable. My concern isn’t that every job vanishes tomorrow. It’s that large areas of white-collar work become more automated, more competitive, and need fewer entry-level people. That alone is enough to be disruptive without invoking AGI. My project would be a small team . Now it’s 1 person who doesn’t need to manually code . Just this on its own changes everything - a hobby project that proves the workflow …

Tricky on Mac and windows . You have to remember Mac is more lean than windows . Linux leaner - but more work . I wouldn’t fight this aspect tbh

Yes but not, as yet, unlike most technological innovations in the history of technology in that it enables people to do more. flint, the railways, the jet engine, the mobile phone, the LLM, the next thing. What will change that is AGI and although that could happen tomorrow I am not sure the underlying technology we have (digital) will get us there.

So you are right to part. But there are lots more out there and can be inspirational, and some are good technically which can avoid problems. Up to you of course but that last 5% can be very expensive. Do you want the 'badge' or simply to have an efficient home? Some of the issues are a matter of opinion anyway. But I look forward to your input.

To a soakaway is more sustainable, and perhaps better for your garden, if it's possible.