[HN Gopher] Growing up in "404 Not Found": China's nuclear city ...
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Growing up in "404 Not Found": China's nuclear city in the Gobi
Desert
Author : Vincent_Yan404
Score : 651 points
Date : 2025-12-28 06:43 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (substack.com)
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Hi HN, OP here.
|
| I grew up in "Factory 404," a secret nuclear industrial city in
| the Gobi Desert that officially didn't exist on public maps. This
| is a memoir about my childhood there.
|
| It was a surreal place: we had elite scientists living next to
| laborers, a zoo in the middle of the desert, and distinct
| "communist" welfare, all hidden behind a classified code.
|
| This is Part 1 of the story. I'm happy to answer any questions
| about life in a Chinese nuclear base!
| nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote:
| Thanks Vincent for submitting, this is really fascinating.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you! I will post the second part soon.
| grumbelbart wrote:
| Stupid question, but is 404 the real designator of that
| city, or a pun towards the HTTP error code?
|
| Edit: And what a great read, thank you!
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Not a stupid question at all! 404 is the real, official
| designator (Factory 404) established in 1958, long before
| the web existed.
|
| The coincidence with the HTTP error code is purely
| accidental, yet incredibly poetic--because for decades,
| this city literally could not be found on any public map.
| netsharc wrote:
| I wonder why 404, any relation to 4 being similar to the
| word "death" in Chinese?
| embedding-shape wrote:
| My first guess would be that they at one point decided to
| use numbers to designate locations instead of names, to
| make it easier for them to be secret (eg "codenames").
| Then at one point someone figured that actually, lets not
| just thoughtlessly increment the numbers, but pick random
| numbers between 1-1000 so we add even more confusion.
| Kind of like Seal Team 6 I guess.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Yes,4 sounds similar to death in Chinese. But 404 was
| just a coincidence.
| tgv wrote:
| Well written, and interesting. I'm slightly surprised at the
| detailed memories you have from such an early age.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you! To me, my childhood memories are imprinted in my
| mind as vivid images. I'm simply using language to describe
| the pictures that I still see in my head.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Very interesting, thank you.
| ocfnash wrote:
| Thank you for sharing these memories.
|
| I'd be very interested to hear any thoughts you might have
| about Jung Chang's book "Wild Swans".
|
| I read this book a year or two ago and learned a lot from it,
| but I also learned that many people who grew up in China take
| issue with the author's account. I'd be grateful for any
| remarks you may be able to share.
| em500 wrote:
| What are you looking for exactly? And what issues did you
| hear from others who grew up in China? Most of the historical
| / political events (Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution)
| are fairly accurate, while personal / family experiences are
| necessarily subjective. China is a huge, diverse country with
| a vast range of experiences from people growing up in
| different regions and eras (just like the US, or Europe), so
| it's hard to dispute any personal / family experience.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| You've touched on a very sensitive and important point.
|
| It's true that many people who grew up in China have a
| complicated relationship with narratives that focus on
| negative historical periods. There is often a defensive
| reaction, a feeling that such stories are 'smearing' the
| country's image.
|
| However, as a writer, I believe that truth is always more
| important than a curated image. Authentic memories are often
| scarce, precisely because they are difficult to tell. My goal
| with the '404' series is to provide a piece of that missing
| truth--not to judge, but to document a reality that actually
| existed. In the long run, I believe a society is better
| served by facing its complex past than by forgetting it.
| avhception wrote:
| Hello from Germany, and thanks for the blog post.
| Fascinating read. I liked how you intertwined the personal
| point of view with the bigger picture.
|
| "Facing a complex past" is a big theme in Germany, too, of
| course, and I think it's the only proper way to deal with
| it. Direct witness accounts and retelling are important and
| add something that a dry history book can't provide. Keep
| up the good work!
| microtonal wrote:
| I just wanted to say 'thank you!'. This was a really
| interesting read, looking forward to the next part!
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you! I will post on Monday.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Please do share it here :)
| yorwba wrote:
| Since you mention a trip to Beijing, I wonder what the security
| precautions were to keep the secret base secret. I assume
| visitors from other cities would need to apply for a travel
| permit similar to the one still required for some border areas
| in Xinjiang and Tibet, but were there also restrictions on
| people leaving?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| That's a great question. In the early days, physical travel
| permits were indeed the norm. But the most effective
| 'security precaution' was psychological.
|
| We had secrecy education (Bao Mi Jiao Yu ) starting as early
| as primary school. We were taught from a very young age that
| our city didn't exist to the outside world, and we simply
| didn't talk about it. But when I was a kid ,I didn't know
| anything about 404.
| sophrosyne42 wrote:
| Given those precautions and your training, was it hard to
| share about it? Aren't you worried about the Chinese
| government punishing you for sharing?
| saltwatercowboy wrote:
| He sells a storytelling course... perhaps this is meant
| to be a 'gotcha' where he reveals the con after the fact?
| My guess is there are people reading this who know
| something isn't quite right.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| I can personally guarantee that this piece is 100% non-
| fiction.My course also focuses on narrative writing
| techniques.Does 'Storytelling' have to imply fiction?In
| Chinese "story(Gu Shi )" just things happened, it can be
| real or fiction .
| schoen wrote:
| There are a lot of subtleties about connotation here. I
| would say that "storytelling" traditionally primarily
| meant fiction, but some modern uses also include
| narrative technique generally, including nonfiction and
| also marketing. There may also be older traditions of
| nonfiction storytelling, but that has some connotation of
| a ritualized or formalized activity (e.g. children
| sitting in a circle listening to a recitation).
|
| The term that has no connotations of fiction is probably
| "narrative".
|
| I think many languages have closely related words for
| fictional narratives and nonfictional narratives.
| onraglanroad wrote:
| I don't think that's true. Perhaps in your dialect of
| English, but if I was down the pub and someone started
| with, "Did I ever tell you the story of when I...", I
| certainly wouldn't assume it was fictional.
| johanyc wrote:
| Here's a chinese article about 404 published back in
| 2020.
|
| https://chaiwanbenpost.net/article/%25E4%25B8%25AD%25E5%2
| 59C...
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| And how did you know I sold storytelling course before,
| did I mention it somewhere?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| I did write and publish this story in Chinese first.So I
| hope it's fine.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Thank you for sharing. I have been researching this topic for
| about ten years now and no first hand accounts like to talk or
| are they alive anymore, this is a very important story,
| especially in contrast the the dominant Western narratives,
| thank you!
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you for this profound comment. It is incredibly
| humbling to hear this from someone who has spent a decade
| researching the topic.
|
| You are right--the generation that built '404' is aging, and
| many of their stories are fading into silence. One of my
| primary motivations for writing this was the realization that
| if I didn't document these memories now, they might be lost
| forever.
|
| I hope my first-hand account can provide a more nuanced,
| human layer to the historical data you've gathered. There is
| so much more to tell beyond the official records.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| As often as not, these days, when someone online criticizes
| the West, it's for something absurd (eg: Churchill
| interfering with Hitler's continental invasions, or America
| using the word _' regime'_ when discussing Iran). Obviously,
| other times the criticism is wholly justified.
|
| What _" dominant Western narratives"_ apply here? I'm not
| going to bicker. I'm just curious.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| There's no need to be defensive. We are largely westerners
| on a western website studying history from a western
| perspective. There's nothing wrong with that, it's natural.
| It just means we lose some understanding of events if
| that's the only side we know. OP is performing a service by
| documenting first-person history, and doesn't need to
| justify why it's important. It's important.
| sophrosyne42 wrote:
| I'm still curious what specific narratives you had in
| mind when you said "dominant Western narratives"
| xanthor wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46410398
| sersi wrote:
| To be fair, my father in law who is Chinese and had to
| exile himself during the cultural revolution would pretty
| much say the same thing about the Cultural Revolution.
| Educated people in China who lived through it will
| certainly criticise the Cultural Revolution (or The Great
| Leap Forward for that matter) if they are in a situation
| when they can be honest about it.
|
| So I'm not sure that specific comment would be considered
| to be a "dominant western narrative" unless you're going
| to tell me that older (and so who have lived through it)
| educated people in China who don't speak a word of
| English have a western mindset because they're educated.
| xanthor wrote:
| Read Dongping Han
| sersi wrote:
| Oh the fact that there has been some positives from the
| cultural revolution (by having educated people sent to
| the farm and rural area) doesn't stop the fact that the
| cultural revolution was a net negative for the country.
| How many works of arts have been destroyed due to it? How
| many people suffered? Nothing is ever white or black but
| it doesn't mean that we can take a small positive outcome
| and use that to justify atrocities.
| xanthor wrote:
| The fact that you immediately think you know what the
| author I referenced has written and continue to plow
| forward with your pre-established conclusions is evidence
| of the "dominant western narrative" effect.
|
| Accounts from well-off diaspora of any country will
| always be negative. It's a self-selecting group with
| specific interests.
| sersi wrote:
| I mean I skimmed it earlier but I do plan to read it.
| That said my pre-established conclusions are based on
| first hand negative accounts of people who currently
| still live in China some of which do not speak English so
| weren't influenced by any "western narrative" (where I
| also lived for a number of years before moving to HK).
| Those are not accounts from a well-off diaspora.
|
| EDIT: By the way, it's not that hard either to find books
| written by Chinese writers not part of the diaspora that
| are critical of the cultural revolution (Serve the people
| by Yan Lianke, 3 body problem by Liu Cixin) or the great
| leap forward (4 books by Yan Lianke). Obviously, writers
| living in China that have to deal with censorship tend to
| be less directly critical of it compared to writers from
| the diaspora but that doesn't stop some criticism to
| shine through.a
| therealpygon wrote:
| It's a valid question, despite the cynical delivery.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > There's no need to be defensive.
|
| This is extremely manipulative. The only reasons to say
| something like this are to shame the person you're
| respond to and/or attack and discredit them and force
| them to respond defensively. Don't do this.
|
| (it also immediately outs you as not having any valid
| points to make, because someone with a reasonable
| response doesn't need to stoop to emotional attacks)
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| My comment was asking for details about its parent
| comment, not about the main post.
|
| I was curious about the 'narratives' it mentioned.
|
| They might be wrongheaded; they might be valid.
|
| Either way, it piques my interest.
| andruby wrote:
| Not OP, but one example could perhaps be American
| Prometheus and the Oppenheimer film. I would consider them
| "dominant Western narratives" about the origin of the
| nuclear bomb.
|
| And like the person said, there is nothing inherently wrong
| with such a narrative. Like them I'm also curious about
| non-western narratives.
|
| If most groups, cultures, religions, countries were more
| curious about "non-native" stories, maybe we'd all be a bit
| more open-minded and understanding.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| I think Oppenheimer is pretty fair as it goes. It's
| pretty clear with it being the US perspective and they
| give credit to the other countries that they have good
| scientists that will figure the thing out (and they did).
| I think for exposing a man's experience, it's quite good.
| What makes me wrong? (An honest invitation to illuminate
| me)
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| The last paragraph is true, but up to the point where one
| becomes a useful idiot for a totalitarian state. I don't
| mean _you_ , but on social media there are quite a few
| people like that.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| I don't think I'm criticizing Western narratives. This is
| simply my personal perspective and experience growing up
| there.
| girvo wrote:
| They weren't accusing you of that, but asking the other
| commenter what the meant :)
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| I know! It was a fantastic read. My comment was referring
| to another comment with an ambiguous reference.
| viktorcode wrote:
| Just wanted to say thank you for sharing this view into
| entirely different world for many of us!
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you for the kind words! It's been an incredible
| experience sharing this 'different world' with the HN
| community today.
| moffers wrote:
| Was there anything you can recall that 404 maybe had but the
| rest of China might not have because of its special status?
| Access to newer consumer technologies, or something like that?
| Just was curious if there was something "better" about living
| in a government secret beyond long train rides and melting
| neighbors.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Exactly. To give you some concrete examples that I'll dive
| deeper into in Part 2:
|
| Soviet Architecture: Many of our residential and
| administrative buildings were designed and built by Soviet
| experts, giving the city a distinct 'Stalinist empire'
| aesthetic that felt very grand compared to the surrounding
| desert.
|
| Elite Salaries: The wage levels in our factory were on par
| with those in Beijing, which was extraordinary given our
| remote location.
|
| The 'Post-Scarcity' Bubble: For many families, daily expenses
| were minimal because the 'unit' (Danwei) provided almost
| everything. We regularly received rations of high-quality
| rice, flour, and oil as part of our work benefits, so we
| rarely had to spend money on basic survival.
|
| In a country that was still struggling with scarcity, living
| in 404 felt like living in a futuristic, well-provisioned
| fortress. Stay tuned for Part 2, where I'll talk more about
| this 'gilded' lifestyle.
| eastbound wrote:
| You've written more words in answers than in the original
| article. Thank you very much for giving us this privilege
| and providing "support" for details of your writings.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _404 is a classified code for a nuclear industrial base._
|
| Can you expand? A code under what system? What were some other
| code numbers and what (unclassified) things did they refer to?
| Did each code refer to a specific city or specific factory? Or
| were all cities/factories dedicated to a certain type of
| industry or military objective classified under the same code?
| Why did they teach you this code number growing up?
|
| I'm really fascinated by this. Fantastic story overall, can't
| wait for part 2!
| jdietrich wrote:
| Most things in the Chinese military system are numbered
| rather than named. Military units are numbered twice - a
| public cover designator and a private true unit designator,
| originally four and later five digits. Factories got a three
| digit number - 296 for the small arms factory in Jiangshe,
| 816 for the uranium enrichment plant in Fuling and so on.
| Everyone in and around Factory 404 would have known it as
| such, but the _mere existence_ of Factory 404 was a state
| secret.
|
| The existence of such a large and conspicuous secret might
| seem bizarre to the post-cold-war mind, but it was fairly
| common in the West too. For example, the British Telecom
| Tower in central London stands at 189 metres tall and had a
| revolving restaurant that was open to the public, but was
| also a designated site under the Official Secrets Act.
| eastbound wrote:
| Is it victim of the enumeration vulnerability, ie between
| 403 and 405 you can guess what they were busy with and
| therefore identify the activity? Or do they randomize the
| numbers, but then just 3 digits seems little for such a big
| country?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| I don't know the code system, for me they are random 3
| numbers(like Plant 504 : A uranium enrichment facility.)Thank
| you liking it, I will post the second part on Monday.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| These are just numbered designations for many military
| organizations, just like in the Soviet Union. For example,
| pre-WWII Plant No.8 -> Artillery Plant 88 -> post-WWII
| Research Institute 88, nowadays known as TsNIIMash, with
| Special Design Bureau 88 led by Korolyov (known as RSC
| Energia today) as a spin-off.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| Thank you so much for sharing your experience!
| quakeguy wrote:
| Great article, thx for sharing it! What i want to know, where
| exactly is this city? I mean geographically, i even could not
| locate it on GMaps or the like?? I mean, i get it, thats the
| whole point isnt it? Still curious.
| lamek wrote:
| 40.230000,97.360000
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/40%C2%B013'48.0%22N+97%C2%.
| ..
| quakeguy wrote:
| Damn, that looks awful, those tailings alone...
| pixl97 wrote:
| And it looks like they have their own dedicated coal
| powerplant.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Yes,and I feel it's the sweetest home for many years.
| allan_s wrote:
| Thanks a lot, I really first thought "404" was just a geek
| reference and not the actual code name !
|
| I have some very good friends which are Chinese but are not
| able to read English, do you mind if I do a AI translation, and
| if you can check it to see if it translate what you're trying
| to convey ? (I propose that as I think it would be too much to
| ask to ask to redo the text in Chinese)
|
| Edit: haha I see you actually did the reverse ! Do you mind
| sharing also the original CHinese script ? That would also help
| me with my own mandarin learning !
| oofbey wrote:
| Is it just a coincidence that the HTTP code for "not found"
| became the same as the code name for this city?
| marssaxman wrote:
| I find it hard to imagine otherwise. HTTP codes are based
| on the server return code system used in FTP, first
| published in 1971, where each of the three digits had a
| specific role and the values simply counted up from 0-9 as
| different meanings were assigned. HTTP is a little looser
| about the syntax, but it's the same general idea. Given the
| scheme, _something_ was going to be code 404.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Yes,it's just a coincidence.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| That's so kind of you!
|
| I did write and publish this story in Chinese first. You
| don't need an AI translation for them; the original text
| exists and has been quite popular in the Chinese corner of
| the internet.You can search for it using the title:<<Wo Zai
| 404Chang Da >>
| allan_s wrote:
| Zai Teng Xun Xin Wen Zhao Dao Liao ,Tai Xie Xie Ni !Wo Zhun
| Bei Man Man Kan ,Zhen You Yi Si !
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| He Mu Qian De Ban Ben You Yi Dian Chu Ru ,Zhong Wen Ban
| Mei You "Fang She Xing Sha Fa "Zhe Bu Fen .
| fragmede wrote:
| I do not wish harm to befall you, but is it that because
| of CCP censors that you removed it from the Chinese
| version? Did they ask you to remove it or did you do that
| proactively?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| When I first write this in Chinese, they didn't censor
| anything, just let me published without question.The
| first guy wrote this been called by phone, they said it's
| secret, but nothing happened later. Before I published
| here I add some part, for example, the context of the
| famine, in Chinese version, people know what I talked
| about.
| below43 wrote:
| Thanks. It's interesting to compare the original HN article
| with the browser-translated story (from
| https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20240110A03FKJ00).
|
| I definitely appreciate the style of the HN English
| article, but I think the browser-translated version
| possibly gives a bit more context to some of the story.
|
| e.g. This is the English version _" We would clutch candy
| wrappers in our hands, giggling endlessly. The teacher
| would scold us for disturbing the nap, but we Hid behind
| our parents, still laughing."_
|
| This is the browser-translated version: _" I kept giggling
| when I saw her, and she giggled too, and we kept laughing
| with small sugar paper during our lunch break. When my
| parents came to pick us up, the teacher criticized us for
| being undisciplined, and we still hid behind our parents
| and giggled."_
| jl6 wrote:
| Hi OP, as a side question, are you using an LLM like ChatGPT to
| translate or write your comments here?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Yes,English is not my first langue, I have to use AI
| translate for now.
| edgineer wrote:
| What would you say to someone who has long been fascinated by
| nuclear weaponry and hopes to one day witness a test explosion?
|
| I see even China hasn't tested in decades and so my chances of
| doing this are close to nil, but I ask because your answer
| could tell more how you feel about the technology and its
| future. My physics professor told me to study supernovae
| instead.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| To be honest, for me, nuclear explosions only exist in the
| imagery of propaganda and documentaries. I am not a
| physicist; I don't understand nuclear physics on a technical
| level.
|
| My perspective on 'the nuclear' is purely emotional and
| sensory--I simply find it terrifying. I resonate much more
| with the raw, human suffering described in Svetlana
| Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl than I do with the
| scientific future of nuclear power.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| > During the "Three Years of Hardship" (1959-1961), when more
| than 30 million people across China starved to death, our
| factory area faced a desperate crisis. At one point, there were
| only a few days' worth of rations left in the warehouses, and
| workers began to suffer from severe edema due to malnutrition.
|
| I was curious about this part and lingering perspectives among
| Chinese citizens. How do they regard the past mass starvations
| and deaths in the 1900s? Are these events well known? Are they
| seen as a catastrophe? Do they blame someone (like the
| government) or is it seen as the cost of progress or a natural
| disaster? Do old and young people see these events differently
| from each other?
|
| Thanks for writing and sharing!
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| I think it's well known, cause that generation are still
| alive.In the Northern China, the situation was often more
| dire because the land is unforgiving. In the South, people at
| least had the chance to supplement their rations by fishing
| in the rivers.While the official term often points to
| 'natural disasters,'it is widely recognized as a man-made
| catastrophe.
|
| I remember when I was 4 or 5 years old, my mother told me
| stories about those years. As a child, I didn't understand
| the historical context; I thought mass starvation was
| something that happened cyclically, like the seasons. I
| vividly remember asking her: 'Does this happen every few
| years? Should we start stockpiling food now just in case?'
|
| Even today, you will see older Chinese people who cannot bear
| to see a single grain of rice left on a plate. It's not just
| frugality; it's a ghost from 1959.
|
| A common criticism of Chinese people is that they 'eat
| everything,' but a major reason for this is that China has
| endured more famines than almost any other nation in human
| history.
| zerofor_conduct wrote:
| Fascinating and well told - many thanks!
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you!
| jama211 wrote:
| Amazing story, thank you for sharing it
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you! I will post the second part on Monday.
| sgnelson wrote:
| Did you interview Yuan Gongpu or was this part from another
| source?
|
| I'm interested in the laborers who did the work, not just the
| scientists who designed everything.
|
| Thanks for your story.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Sorry I didn't,his Chinese name is Yuan Gong Pu ,you can
| search this and there and many articles about him.
| nephihaha wrote:
| 404 does sound a bit like a nightmare posting, and God knows what
| the adults felt like. They probably couldn't say much. But
| children see things very differently. I forwarded this on to
| several people.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this with others. You've hit on the exact
| emotional core I wanted to explore.
|
| For the adults, 404 was a place of immense pressure, secrecy,
| and often sacrifice. But for us kids, it was just 'home.' We
| played in the shadows of giants and nuclear reactors without a
| second thought.
|
| That contrast--the 'nightmare' for the parents and the
| 'playground' for the children--is what makes these memories so
| surreal to look back on. I'm glad that perspective resonated
| with you.
| Havoc wrote:
| Cool post!
|
| Always interesting to read about people's lived realities that
| are completely different
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you! It was indeed a unique place to grow up. I'm
| planning to publish the next chapter shortly, so stay tuned.
| tomcam wrote:
| My father-in-law worked there as a programmer during the Cultural
| Revolution. There were always guards on the other side of the
| (locked) office door. Sometimes they'd shoot at random things to
| remind the nerds just who was in charge.
|
| When I worked at Microsoft the biggest complaints were parking
| and the variety of subsidized foods at the cafeteria.
| eunos wrote:
| There were programmers already during Cultural Revolution in
| China?
| magnio wrote:
| China made its first computer in 1958 and its first 1
| megaflop computer in 1973, so yes, their nascence of computer
| programming preceded the Cultural Revolution, about 10 years
| after the West.
| nephihaha wrote:
| The so called Cultural Revolution was certainly programming,
| just not of the computer variety and at massive human cost.
| p2detar wrote:
| I could believe it, the timespan should be 1966-1976, so
| maybe in late 70s. I know a lot of automation software was
| being written in my Eastern European socialist country in
| assembly language around 1974. I think mostly for 6800-based
| chips like probably MOS 6502.
| tomcam wrote:
| It was also a Cold War. My father-in-law and mother-in-law
| were both gifted mathematicians and mainframe programmers.
| She also designed CPUs. She is a sweet sweet person and a
| major badass. She is my hero. She's in her 80s and was more
| accomplished in her 20s than you and I put together will ever
| be.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| That's exactly why I wanted to write this story. It is surreal
| to think that while we worry about parking spots today, a
| generation of brilliant minds was working under the barrel of a
| gun (sometimes literally, as you described). The tension
| between the 'Red' (political) and the 'Expert' (technical) was
| a defining tragedy of that era.
| konart wrote:
| Korolev's story comes to mind instantly. Not only his of
| course.
| glimshe wrote:
| I don't disagree with that, but I want to point out that this
| is one facet of hedonic adaptation. People will always
| complain about of what they don't have. For instance, most
| inmates in inhumane prisons would love to have the life you
| describe if they could enjoy some degree of freedom as a
| result.
| cwmoore wrote:
| "inhumane prisons" is as redundant as "ink pen"
| lijok wrote:
| There are plenty of humane prisons out there.
| bdangubic wrote:
| not in america but yea...
| lijok wrote:
| Even in america
| bdangubic wrote:
| name one
| mc32 wrote:
| "Club Fed"
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Not every implementation of "prisons" in the world is
| about payback or keeping harmful people out of society,
| some places focuses on rehabilitation, and more often
| than not, those prisons are not inhumane at all, because
| that would defeat the very point of the prison.
|
| Maybe if you consider "Can't walk wherever I want" as
| inhumane, all of them are, but there is definitely a
| difference between a prison in Rwanda vs one in Norway,
| and probably one would feel humane after observing the
| other.
| mcphage wrote:
| > most inmates in inhumane prisons would love to have the
| life you describe if they could enjoy some degree of
| freedom as a result.
|
| On the other hand, people (generally) get sent to prison
| for committing a crime, not for being incredibly smart or
| talented.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| This is where it gets psychologically complex. I've often
| thought that while happiness often comes from having a
| clear, defined place in a system, freedom is the terrifying
| opposite--it's the absence of those boundaries.
|
| My feelings toward 404 are deeply conflicted. It was a
| cage, yet for a long time, I desperately wanted to go back.
| As I explore in Part 2, the most tragic part wasn't the
| strength of the cage, but its fragility. It vanished almost
| overnight, and when the 'cage' that gave us our identity
| and social standing disappeared, many of us lost our sense
| of meaning entirely.
|
| We were free, but we were also 'lost' in a world that no
| longer had a place for us.
| mc32 wrote:
| That sounds similar to what some ex-Soviets relate. The
| system was bad, but by and large had understandable rules
| that you could use to your advantage, if you had the
| right standing. Once that system collapsed, they were
| left to fend for themselves --so even though they had
| more freedom, they had less certainty in today and
| tomorrow. Like a 13 year old suddenly becoming an orphan.
| xixixao wrote:
| I already grew up in a middle class family, but I had a fellow
| intern at FB whose father used to smuggle furs into Soviet
| Russia. I really loved that juxtaposition. Nothing new under
| the sun, but knowing him personally it hit me more :)
| rixed wrote:
| I once (>20 years ago) had luch with our sales representative
| in ... was it Malaysia or the Philippines? In his custom made
| blue suit, he told me in perfect Oxford English how his grand
| father had to kill several fighters from enemy villages in
| order to be allowed to marry his grand mother...
|
| I don't know how exagerated that was, but yes sometimes
| things go fast:)
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| I think that's the beauty of storytelling--it turns 'nothing
| new under the sun' into something deeply personal and hit us
| differently.Thank you for sharing that connection, it makes
| the world feel a lot smaller.
| martin-t wrote:
| While I absolutely agree that in the current state of things
| most western people are so well off they can't even imagine
| what it means to actually be oppressed and suffer, I can't help
| but notice that the current state of things can quickly change
| and that we're in a constant yet barely visible struggle with
| forces that want to bring about just that kind of oppression
| here and that we're slowly losing it.
|
| You might think this is about the rise of fascism[0] in the US,
| Chat Control in the EU, the failure of revolution in Belarus
| and Turkey, censorship in the UK, martial law in South Korea,
| etc. But it's about all of those.
|
| I am reminded that the only real power comes from violence
| (performed or threatened) and that we keep building cool stuff
| because we get paid a lot, yet we don't own the product of our
| work and it is increasingly being used against us. We don't
| have guns to our heads yet but the goal of AI is to remove what
| little bargaining power we have by making us economically
| redundant.
|
| At every point in history, oppressing a group of people
| required controlling another (smaller but better armed) group
| of people willing to perform the oppression. And for the first
| time in history, "thanks" to AI and robotics, this requirement
| will be lifted.
|
| [0]: https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-
| the-...
| expedition32 wrote:
| The Netherlands in 2025 is a decadent country were everyone
| can do whatever the hell they want.
|
| But a gay man growing up in the 1950s in a rural village was
| plenty oppressed. It's actually quite fascinating how in the
| 1960s/70s we had a Cultural Revolution of our own that ended
| a thousand years of religious oppression! And we didn't even
| have a Mao.
|
| But never forget we are always one bad week away from sliding
| backwards.
| mlindner wrote:
| Whenever people start talking about things called "the rise
| of fascism in the US" as if its a foregone fact rather than a
| highly fringe opinion, it's unfortunately rather easy to
| assume that the person doesn't have a good ability to tell
| fact from "story they heard online from a web post".
|
| It's fine if you want to argue that there is a rise in
| fascism in the US, but you need to actually pose that
| argument, not just talk about it as if its true and that
| everyone agrees with you.
|
| Also, there is not currently any martial law in South Korea.
| That was a brief event that lasted a matter of hours from
| when it was announced and when it was repealed. It's an open
| question if any actions were actually performed under the
| guises of it.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| The POTUS is calling for his political enemies to be
| executed. He has sent soldiers - illegally - into "Democrat
| cities". He is using what is left of the DOJ to prosecute
| political enemies. The dismissal rate in the DC circuit is
| at 20% due to all the baseless vindictive prosecutions. The
| FCC is cancelling shows critical of the POTUS. SCOTUS is
| allowing racial profiling. ICE has committed a half dozen
| high profile cases of political violence against protestors
| - several in direct violation of a federal judges orders.
|
| But yes, you are its hysterical fringe voices calling this
| the "rise of fascism in the US".
| martin-t wrote:
| There's a web post and a web post.
|
| The source I linked is written by a historian[0] - a guy
| who actually studied how this kind of stuff happens. You'll
| also notice that his post uses a fairly high standard of
| proof - using 2 different definitions of fascism and using
| only the wannabe-dictator's own statements to show he
| satisfies all points.
|
| There's also a YouTube video and a YouTube video. Here's an
| actual lawyer talking about the legality of the proto-
| dictator's actions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hybL-
| GJov7M
|
| [0]: https://acoup.blog/about-the-pedant/
| Hikikomori wrote:
| https://whatisfascism.org/docs/Warning_Signs_of_Fascism.pdf
|
| Is any of the boxes not checked?
| rixed wrote:
| > I am reminded that the only real power comes from violence
|
| Rather from numbers in my opinion. "Divide and conquer", or
| its modern equivalent "confuse and manipulate", is what makes
| violence effective. It is always striking to compare how much
| people are similar, even in our divided society, versus how
| much dissimilar they think they are. I'm used to help
| organize long boat trips with all kind of people from various
| backgrounds, and it's funny to watch.
|
| In the past it was easy to convince people that "the other"
| was strange and dangerous, due to physical distance. Today we
| achieve the same with social media.
| martin-t wrote:
| > Rather from numbers in my opinion.
|
| Because for now more people means more violence. If you
| control more people, you control more potential violence.
| So if your enemy controls more people, you need to either
| amass more people in your cause or divide the enemy's
| cause.
|
| And there are limits to how many people you can control.
| Even in the past, they were surprisingly large to my
| liking. Helot slaves to their Spartan owners were 7:1 at
| some point apparently. Soldiers in WW1 had riles and
| bayonets, yet one guy with a revolver could send dozens of
| them to their deaths. But still, it was impossible to
| censor communication among ordinary people and prominent
| enemies of the regime required constant supervision by
| another person. Digging up dirt or evidence could take
| months of work. Now so much communication is online,
| detecting dissent can be automated to a large extent.
| There's a limit to how many people can be in prison without
| starving and without the state collapsing by how many
| people need to perform useful work and how many people you
| need to guard them.
|
| But I bet soon we'll see a new dystopian nightmare where
| prisoners are watched by automated systems 24/7, increasing
| the prisoner to guard ratio. And finally, look at Ukraine.
| Artillery was the primary cause of casualties in the past
| century of wars and you needed people to transport heavy
| shells, load and fire them. Apparently 1 ton of explosives
| per death. Now it's drones, which can be mass produced
| largely automatically and controlled automatically. And
| they are so precise you could use them to target
| individuals in crowds.
| HellDunkel wrote:
| What is this ,,Chat Control in the EU" ?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/after-years-
| controvers...
| NonHyloMorph wrote:
| I have come to that conclusion as well. Curious if there is
| some political or cultural theorisation efforts out there on
| this?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| It might be, but it's confidential, so I think it's hard to
| do such things in China.
| didntknowyou wrote:
| nice read. interesting experience and great writing. looking
| forward to the next part.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you! I will post soon.
| zizon wrote:
| > I was born in 1991, thirty years after China's first atomic
| bomb explosion, and right around the time of the dissolution of
| the Soviet Union.
|
| I smell cooked
| thatsadude wrote:
| Nice read!
| swe_dima wrote:
| My grandfather, who is a nuclear scientist, and my mom also come
| from a small closed-off city in Siberia (Russia).
|
| Visiting my grandparents I remember we had to go through a sort
| of border control to get there.
|
| My mom told stories of how the government would change the
| asphalt every year in that city to cover the nuclear dust.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Wow, thank you so much for sharing this. It's fascinating and
| deeply moving to see how similar our childhood memories are,
| despite being thousands of miles apart.
| NotGMan wrote:
| >> Witnessing such scorched-earth containment makes the modern
| definition of nuclear power as the 'cleanest energy' completely
| incomprehensible to me.
|
| It's called bad governing. To connect nuclear "not clean" with
| such bad governing is bit much.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| You make a fair point, and from a purely technical or policy
| perspective, I agree that bad governance shouldn't be conflated
| with the potential of nuclear technology itself.
|
| However, as a writer, I'm describing the subjective reality of
| growing up in that environment. When you see 'scorched-earth'
| measures taken to manage a city, it shapes your visceral
| perception of that power, regardless of the science behind it.
| My goal isn't to debate nuclear policy, but to capture how that
| specific 'bad governing' colored the way we, as residents,
| perceived the very energy that defined our lives.
| colinb wrote:
| This argument that nuclear power generation is clean if you
| ignore the times when it isn't seems a bit no-true-Scotsman to
| me. It's a thing I've changed my mind about more than once in
| the past. What sways my thinking now is:
|
| - most nuclear power does indeed seem to be well run with
| minimal pollution. - when it goes wrong, the consequences are
| awful and long-lived (I can, off the top of my head, name two
| sites that are dangerous decades after they were polluted. I
| suspect there are others that don't have the same cultural
| resonance for me. - the alternatives in terms of renewables and
| storage are improving seemingly from one day to the next.
|
| The long term consequences, and human frailty in the face of a
| requirement for total and eternal vigilance convince me that
| the risk outweighs the reward. Where nuclear power once seemed
| [to me. I appreciated that some people have always been anti-
| nuke] like the least bad option compared with e.g. coal, now
| there are better ways to make our lives work.
|
| If the endless 50-years-in-the-future ever actually expires and
| we get practical fusion power, it'll be interesting to see how
| this changes my thinking. Perhaps that will will have fewer
| toxic side effects when it goes wrong.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > This argument that nuclear power generation is clean if you
| ignore the times when it isn't seems a bit no-true-Scotsman
| to me.
|
| The same can be said about wind and solar. Nothing about
| producing the rare earths required is clean.
|
| Even if we include Chernobyl, nuclear is still by far the
| safest source of energy when looking at deaths per TWh
| generated.
|
| > I can, off the top of my head, name two sites that are
| dangerous decades after they were polluted
|
| Two? I can only count one. Fukushima is almost perfectly safe
| today, although exclusion zones still exist.
| pixl97 wrote:
| If I set up a wind generator and then leave it with no
| maintenance it's a risk to an area a little bit bigger than
| its maximum height. If I leave a nuclear reactor unattended
| it's a risk to hundreds of thousands of square miles.
| subscribed wrote:
| Precisely.
|
| Especially when comparing the number of deaths(1) from then-
| China's favourite energy source or simply Uranium's
| efficiency(2) and the fact we know now how to recycle most of
| the waste(3)
|
| Sure, I prefer the solar too, but I agree the governance is the
| bigger problem in the example from the story.
|
| (1) https://www.researchgate.net/figure/rates-for-each-energy-
| so... and https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/10/new-nuclear-
| power-is-p...
|
| (2) https://xkcd.com/1162/
|
| (3) https://whatisnuclear.com/recycling.html and
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054421...
| thisislife2 wrote:
| I don't know about "bad governing". It sounds more like a
| rigorous containment policy when nuclear technology was at its
| infancy in China. ( _Regulations are written in the blood of
| your predecessors_ -
| https://old.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/ud3lt4/lpt_osh...
| ). It is also about preventing accident leakage of information
| and preserving secrecy. For e.g. In the 1970s, India learnt
| that Pakistan was working to create a nuclear weapon when
| Indian agents in Pakistan collected hair samples of Pakistan's
| nuclear scientist, from a barber shop where they got their hair
| cut - traces of plutonium radiation were found in the hair
| samples, and Pakistan's nuclear weapons program got exposed.
| FarmerPotato wrote:
| The LLM flipped from "scorched earth" to " bad governing" as
| the sofa faded from its context window.
|
| The metaphor says maybe "extreme cleanliness is like war",
| second pass war is bad governing...
|
| Don't engage with it.
|
| At this point, you're arguing with an LLM, not a coherent
| storyteller. The events your question refers to have been
| downgraded in the context window.
|
| It's like the game of twenty questions where the LLM doesn't
| have a persistent secret object, it's just simulating
| consistency.
| jpgvm wrote:
| You are a great writer. Would love to hear what came next and
| eventually how you found your way to HN. :)
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you so much! That means a lot to me.I'll be posting Part
| 2 very soon on my Substack to continue the story. Hope to see
| you there!"
| electroglyph wrote:
| those jerks put a zoo in the desert!? =(
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Yes, next part I will talk about the zoo.I will post on Monday.
| martin-t wrote:
| > Our license plates started with "Gan-A," the same as the
| provincial capital. We laughed at people from other cities like
| Jiayuguan ("Gan-B") or Jiuquan ("Gan-F"). Even as kids, we joked,
| "We're still number one." Because our grandparents were the
| country's elite and we lived in the "Nuclear City," I always felt
| like I was living at the center of the world.
|
| Am I reading too much into this or does China have a culture of
| competition which involves mocking those you deem below you even
| for the most shallow reasons?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| That's a very observant question. I wouldn't say it's a
| universal Chinese culture of competition, but rather a
| reflection of the naive, bubble-like pride we had as children
| in that specific environment.
|
| We genuinely believed we were special because of the city's
| status, even if that pride was based on something as shallow as
| a license plate. It was our way of making sense of our 'elite'
| isolation. The irony is that this unrealistic sense of
| superiority made the eventual loss of our home even more
| disorienting. When the world you thought was the 'center'
| disappears, you're left feeling completely lost.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Mocking those below you is almost a global phenomena that
| humans seems to have been doing almost forever, and still do,
| almost everywhere on the planet. Doesn't really strike me as
| something uniquely Chinese by any margins.
| Aboutplants wrote:
| You can even take it a step farther because animals display
| the same type of behavior
| wodenokoto wrote:
| In my school in Europe we had 4 classes for each grade. A, B, C
| and D. Guess who felt they were better than everybody else?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Who?
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| What comes before A?
| brabel wrote:
| Same in Brazil, but I think everyone thought their classes
| were superior regardless of their letter! Obviously B is the
| best btw ;)
| eden-u4 wrote:
| mine too, but none was such a dick. also, anything related to
| school (particularly at a young age), is not viewed as
| something to boast of (at least in my experience in italy,
| serbia and portugal).
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Do you really not think this happens outside China?
|
| I've lived in the US and Australia. Both have the exact same
| phenomenon.
| throw4r3w45 wrote:
| You are reading too much into this.
|
| It would be like someone writing an article about growing up in
| a town with a winning sports team, joking with others about
| those living in towns with losing sports teams.
|
| Imagine someone reading that and commenting, "...am I reading
| too much into this or does America have a culture of
| competition which involves mocking those you deem below you
| even for the most shallow reasons?"
| fcpguru wrote:
| Amazing, related story. I had a friend that always talked about
| growning up in 418 Pennsylvania. It began as a company town for a
| ceramics manufacturer in the 1920s. The factory specialized in
| heat resistant vessels. You know like kettles, pitchers,
| industrial teapots. Each stamped each with a model number tied to
| production lines.
|
| Line 418 was the most profitable. When the post office opened,
| the clerk assumed "418" was the town name, not the factory line
| number. By the time anyone noticed, mail was flowing, checks were
| signed, and no one wanted to correct the federal government. The
| factory closed in the 1950s. The town shrank but remained oddly
| proud of its name. Residents leaned into it without explaining
| it.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| I grew up in 200 Pennsylvania. It was ok.
| fcpguru wrote:
| oh i agree, an OK town. But man 406 PA, was just not
| acceptable.
| quesera wrote:
| Named after the original town in Oklahoma, I presume?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| This is an incredible story! Thank you for sharing the legend
| of '418'.
|
| It's fascinating how industrial logic can accidentally become a
| place's identity, whether it's a production line in
| Pennsylvania or a secret code in the Gobi Desert. The fact that
| residents remained 'oddly proud' of a name that was essentially
| a clerical error resonates deeply with me.
|
| In 404, our pride was tied to a secret mission; in 418, it was
| tied to a factory's success. Both show how humans can find a
| sense of home and belonging in the most 'functional' or even
| 'accidental' labels. This is exactly the kind of connection I
| hoped this post would spark.
| amazingman wrote:
| Unfortunately the comment you're responding to is a joke.
| HTTP status code 418 is a joke response: "I'm a teapot".
| FarmerPotato wrote:
| That's a lot of LLM replies, and counting.
| shimman wrote:
| Yeah I was willing to suspend disbelief but that comment
| kinda did it there.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| My sincere apologies to everyone here. You caught me red-
| handed, and I feel terrible about it.
|
| I promise that the story of 404 is my own, lived
| experience. Just as the whole article, they are translate
| by LLM.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| I thought 418 was something similar to 404, and made a
| stupid joke. Sorry again.
| Keyframe wrote:
| oddly enough, your post is the only mention and the source of
| such a town.
|
| edit: 418.. I've been had.
| tacone wrote:
| Quite funny coincidence with 418 HTTP status code.
| frogpelt wrote:
| FYI, 418 is the HTTP status code that means the server is a
| teapot.
| drdeca wrote:
| Technically a HTTCPCP status code I think?
| echelon wrote:
| Atlanta is frequently referred to as "the 404" due to it being
| one of our area codes for calling.
|
| April 4th is an informal city holiday, "404 day".
|
| Lots of artists and companies make "404" branded stuff, and you
| generally see the number all over the city:
|
| https://mondaynightbrewing.com/beer/404-atlanta-lager/
|
| https://sneakernews.com/2025/03/21/adidas-superstar-404-day-...
|
| https://x.com/kodakk6000/status/1775929898390978721
| cman1444 wrote:
| Doesn't this happen for lots of area codes? 305 for Miami in
| particular as Mr. Pitbull likes to remind us.
| ZeWaka wrote:
| Yep. 808 is synonymous with Hawaii, since the whole state
| uses just that area code.
| triyambakam wrote:
| "808 all day" as an example
| Aboutplants wrote:
| 412 is the area code for Pittsburgh and is all over the place
| with branding and slogans. Area codes in general are a common
| signifier within communities and the population. It's always
| neat to see locals rep their area codes as advertisement or
| branding, I like it
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Anachronistic though, as area codes don't really mean
| anything anymore in the era of mobile phones.
| Aboutplants wrote:
| Eighty Four, Pennsylvania is home to headquarters of 84 Lumber.
|
| The name origination is however much less interesting but still
| entertaining
|
| "Eighty Four was originally named Smithville. Due to postal
| confusion with another town of the same name, its name was
| changed to "Eighty Four" on July 28, 1884. The origin of the
| name is uncertain. It has been suggested that the town was
| named in honor of Grover Cleveland's 1884 election as President
| of the United States, but that occurred after the town was
| named. Another possibility is the town's mile marker on the
| Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Another is that the town was named
| after the year the town's post office was built, by a
| postmaster who "didn't have a whole lot of imagination."
| 0_____0 wrote:
| You had me there!! But I've been to a place called "Pie Town"
| NM which got its name in a similar way, so I figured it could
| have been true!
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| There's also Truth or Consequences, NM named after a game
| show (I believe?)
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| On my trip back from china this week I watched a Chinese movie
| about their nuclear bomb project. Basically the equivalent of
| Oppenheimer. Quite interesting movie and now I am reading this
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Yes, it's really like the small town in Oppenheimer.
| lantastic wrote:
| Sounds interesting. What's the title?
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| Roaring Across the Horizon
| Keyframe wrote:
| What's the deal with AI here in the comments?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| You caught me! Yes, I am using AI to assist with the
| translation.
|
| My IELTS score is 7.5, but my writing band is 6.0.
|
| I write my thoughts and comments in Chinese first and then use
| AI to translate them. The entire article was also translated
| from my original Chinese manuscript.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| The reply to the 418 joke is clearly generated, not just
| translated.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| It doesn't sound generated to me
| the_af wrote:
| The comment with "you touched on an interesting and
| profound point" is also not a translation of anything a
| human would write, but AI slop/filler.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Yes it is, really sorry for it. I don't know how to
| delete it.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Right, you do what you think is best. I'm in no position to
| tell you what to do. Having said that, it comes off as
| robotic and impersonal. Personally, I'd rather read you
| trying to write with your own words what you wanted to write.
| That is, if you're not AI yourself which there are high
| chances of and I'm leaning on that theory.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Que Shi ,Wo Zi Ji Ye Fei Chang Tao Yan AIWei De Wen Zi ,Hen
| Xi Wang Wo De Ying Wen Neng He Zhong Wen Yi Yang Hao . Zhi
| Shi Ke Neng Huan Yao Hao Ji Nian Shi Jian Ba .
| hexbin010 wrote:
| You're not just translating though
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| I would like to read the original Chinese version as a native
| speaker. Is there any chance you post that (the article
| itself) too?
| decimalenough wrote:
| https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/22190111
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| Wow, thanks. I vaguely remembered reading something about
| this years ago on Zhihu, and I didn't even realize it was
| the same article!
| themantalope wrote:
| Ni Ke Yi Ba Zhong Wen Ban Fa Dao Wang Shang Ba
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/22190111 Zhe Li Shi Yuan Ban
| De ,Wo Shao Wei Xiu Gai Liao Yi Xie Bu Fen .
| Igrom wrote:
| Xie Xie Ni De Wen Zhang ,Tai You Yi Si Liao . Zhe Yao Shen Mi
| De Gu Shi Rong Yi Xi Yin Ren ,Mo Yi Li Mian Fan Liao Shao Xu
| Yu Fa Shang De Cuo Wu ,Huan Hui You Ren Jie Yi Ma ?Ren Gong
| Zhi Neng Yong Qi Lai Que Ke Neng Zheng Shi Yu Yuan Wei ,Rang
| Da Jia Zhi Yi Ni Dui Gu Shi Jia Yi Guo Kua Zhang Huo Bian Zao
| . Wo Jian Yi ,Di Er Bu Bu Yong Ji Qi Fan Yi ,Shou Dong Fan Yi
| Fan Yi Ba . Hui Fu Ren Xiao Xi ,Zi Ji Xie Ye Geng Hao .
|
| Thank you very much for the article, it was super
| interesting. The mystery in the story draws people in, and
| people surely won't mind a couple of grammatical mistakes.
| But you have to watch out: the use of AI makes it easy for
| people to suspect that the story might've been embellished.
| For the second part, it might be better to try translating it
| manually; the same goes for writing replies.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Yes, I will try my best.Thank you.
| lanyard-textile wrote:
| Your best is more than good enough.
|
| Thank you for sharing your story. It makes the world a
| better place.
| xena wrote:
| I'd rather read something in "bad English" than laundered
| through generative artificial intelligence tools.
| o10449366 wrote:
| Highly doubt this. Have you read a translated book? Are you
| looking for literal translations or a translation from
| someone who's an expert in both languages and makes
| subjective adjustments based on their experience?
| the_af wrote:
| No, I agree with the other commenter. I'd rather read
| broken English than the fake tone AI injects on
| everything (and the suspicion of fabrications, too).
| pbalau wrote:
| In my new domain, photography, the most common "advice"
| for beginners is to learn the exposure triangle, shoot
| manual and get everything done in camera. This kind of
| advice comes from beginners, quite close to take a fall
| from the Dunning-Kruger scale. I'm working towards a
| distinction from one of the most respected photography
| organizations in the world and nobody involved with it
| that gave me guidance ever asked how I took the images.
|
| Maybe or, most likely this is the same for writing: there
| are people that think correct grammar and punctuation and
| no help on achieving this, means writing.
| Aboutplants wrote:
| Tip, I'd rather read slightly bad grammar due to simple
| translation than AI assisted interpretation of what you are
| wanting to say.call me old fashioned I guess
| o10449366 wrote:
| Why? Would a incorrect but literal translation be closer or
| further from what the author is trying to communicate?
|
| I've been seeing this take on HN a lot recently, but when
| it comes to translation current AI is far, far superior to
| what we had previously with Google Translate, etc.
|
| If the substack was written in broken English there's no
| way it would even be appearing on the front page here, even
| less so if it was written in Chinese.
| the_af wrote:
| An incorrect but more authentic translation would seem
| more real, like an human earnestly trying to tell a
| story. We would accept the imperfections and have a
| subjective feeling of more authenticity.
|
| Of course, even this can be faked, sadly.
| o10449366 wrote:
| When the translation differs so much from what the author
| is trying to say in their native language, it loses its
| earnestness.
|
| That's why translation is a job in the first place and
| you don't see publishers running whole books through
| Google translate. No one, least the authors, would accept
| that.
| the_af wrote:
| We don't know how much the imperfect translation would
| differ from the author's intent, but we would sure try to
| meet him halfway. Nobody would criticize his broken
| English.
|
| Contrast this with the faux polite, irritating tone of
| the AI, complete with fabrications and phrases the author
| didn't even intend to write.
|
| Authenticity has value. AI speech is anything but
| authentic.
| o10449366 wrote:
| I mean, you're making assumptions about the author's
| intent going one way, but not the other. What if the
| polite tone is what they intended? And how do you know
| they didn't review the output for phrasing and
| fabrications?
|
| The author acknowledged they used AI to translate. Is the
| translation they decided to publish among the given tools
| they had available to them not by definition the most
| authentic and intentional piece that exists?
|
| All of this aside, how do you think tools like Google
| Translate even work? Language isn't a lookup table with a
| 1:1 mapping. Even these other translation tools that are
| being suggested still incorporate AI. Should the author
| manually look up words in dictionaries and translate word
| by word, when dictionaries themselves are notoriously
| politicized and policed, too?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Please use actual machine translation systems, not generative
| AI.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| That's some grade A nonsense.
|
| The core algorithm behind modern generative AI was
| developed specifically for translation, the task which
| arguably these chatbots are the most suited! It's the task
| that they're far the best at, both relative to older
| translation algorithms (which were also AI), and relative
| to their capabilities other tasks that they're being put
| to. These LLMs are "just" text-to-text transformers! That's
| where the name comes from!
|
| "Stop using the best electric power tool, please use the
| outdated steam powered tool." is what you're saying right
| now.
|
| You're not even asking for something to be "hand crafted",
| you're just being a luddite.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Heh, it's amazing how people have already forgotten
| exactly how terrible older ML translation was.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| The "terribleness" is a feature. It means I can be
| confident that the meaning of fluent output corresponds
| to the meaning of the input: I'm capable of hand-
| translating any passages the computer can't, but I'm
| _not_ capable of proof-reading all the translations to
| spot fluent confabulations.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _The core algorithm behind modern generative AI was
| developed specifically for translation_
|
| Indeed! And yet, generative AI systems wire it up as a
| lossy compression / predictive text model, which
| discreetly confabulates what it doesn't understand. Why
| not use a transformer-based model architecture actually
| designed for translation? I'd much rather the model take
| a best-guess (which might be useful, or might be
| nonsense, but will at least be _conspicuous_ nonsense)
| than substitute a different (less-obviously nonsense)
| meaning entirely.
|
| Bonus: purpose-built translation models are much smaller,
| can tractably be run on a CPU, and (since they require
| less data) can be built from corpora whose authors
| consented to this use. There's no compelling reason to
| throw an LLM at the problem, introducing multiple ethical
| issues and generally pissing off your audience, for a
| worse result.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Zhe Yang Que Shi Ke Yi Bi Mian AIWei Er ,Dan Shi Ke Neng
| Yue Du Qi Lai Hui Ti Yan Hen Chai ,Wo Zui Zao Jiu Shi Yong
| machine translationFan Yi ,Hen Duo Bu Fen Bian De Fei Chang
| wordy,Tong Shi Ling Ren Fei Jie .
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| What models are you using? I'm using whatever's built
| into Firefox 140.6.0esr (some Bergamot derivative, iirc),
| which gives me:
|
| > This can avoid the taste of AI, but it may be very bad
| to read, I first used machine translation translation,
| many parts become very wordy, and at the same time
| puzzling.
|
| Perfectly clear and comprehensible. It's not fluent
| English, there are comma splices everywhere, and it
| translated "machine translationFan Yi " as "machine
| translation translation", but _I_ understand it - and I
| 'm confident it's close to what you actually meant to
| say. I can spot-check with my Chinese-to-English
| dictionary, and it seems like a slightly-better-than-
| literal translation. My understanding of your comment:
|
| > This can avoid the smell of AI, but it may be a
| struggle to read. I initially used a dedicated machine
| translation system, but many parts became verbose (/ very
| wordy) and incomprehensible.
|
| Generative models don't solve the Ling Ren Fei Jie
| problem: they just paper over it. If a machine
| translation is incomprehensible, that means the model
| _did not understand_ what you were saying. Generative
| models are still transformer models: they 're not going
| to magically have greater powers of comprehension than
| the dedicated translation model does. But they _are_
| trained and fine-tuned to _pretend_ that they know what
| they 're talking about. Is it better for information to
| be _conspicuously_ lost in translation, or _silently_
| lost in translation?
|
| Please, be willing to write in your native language, with
| your own words, and then provide us with either the
| original text, or a _faithful_ translation of those
| words. Do you really want future historians to have to
| figure out which parts of this you wrote yourself, and
| which parts were invented by the AI model? I suspect that
| is not the reason you wrote this.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| In the technology industry, many people are not native
| speakers.
|
| Low-level English is normal and accepted.
|
| On the job, I never speak above the level of a 13-year-old.
|
| AI generated English is hated.
|
| Consider using English, not software translation.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| I hate that too, but my english writing is not good enough
| to write a long article, I edited this many times, I
| thought it's acceptable.Yes, I will try my best to learn
| english writing.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Write your comments in Chinese, we will use our own
| translation.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Sounds good.Wo Hui Shi Zhao Yong Zhong Wen Hui Fu ,Zhi Shi
| Bu Zhi Dao Zai HNShang Mian Zhe Yang Jie Shou Du Gao Yao ?
| selfawareMammal wrote:
| What are the coordinates? Been looking for it around 100km west
| of jiayuguan but I can't seem to get it right
| yorwba wrote:
| Chinese Wikipedia
| https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%94%98%E8%82%83%E7%9F%BF%E5...
| has the coordinates. It's a lot closer to Yu Men than to Jia
| Yu Guan .
| marcellus23 wrote:
| Edit: nevermind
|
| I don't know if those coordinates are correct. They seem to
| be the exact coordinates of Jiayuguan City [0], but then the
| article also says that the 404 site is located "100 km west
| of Jiayuguan City," with living areas later relocated to
| Jiayuguan. So I think the article authors just put the
| Jiayuguan coords there.
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiayuguan_City
| yorwba wrote:
| 40deg10'49''N 97deg16'36''E is not exactly 39deg46'24''N
| 98deg17'18''E. Did you maybe copy the wrong coordinates?
| Anyways, have an OpenStreetMap link
| https://www.openstreetmap.org/?#map=11/40.1243/97.3375
| marcellus23 wrote:
| You're right, I think my confusion was that they're both
| labeled Kiayukwan in Apple Maps.
| Eduard wrote:
| DMS: 40deg 10' 48.67'' N, 97deg 16' 36.49'' E
|
| Decimal: 40.180185, 97.276804
|
| Geo URI: geo:40.180185,97.276804
|
| https://geohack.toolforge.org/geohack.php?language=en¶ms...
| frozenseven wrote:
| More info about similar places:
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_city
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_townlet
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| "My biggest dream in kindergarten was to be a big brother. I
| wanted to care for a younger sibling. But under the One-Child
| Policy, if my mother had another child, she and my dad would lose
| their jobs. She had to follow the rules and terminate a
| pregnancy. My wish was impossible."
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| "Once, a soldier entered the residential area after coming into
| contact with radioactive material. His hands turned a necrotic
| black, like charred wood. The authorities didn't just isolate
| him; they traced his entire trajectory and burned every single
| item he had touched. A friend of my father lost his entire sofa
| because of this. Witnessing such scorched-earth containment makes
| the modern definition of nuclear power as the 'cleanest energy'
| completely incomprehensible to me."
| tolerance wrote:
| I'm curious how HN's general warmth toward self promotion is
| going to be affected by the steady proliferation of AI-assisted
| content.
| roncesvalles wrote:
| There is nothing intrinsically wrong about using AI to help
| convey your ideas, as long as the ideas being conveyed are 100%
| genuinely yours. Because then it just becomes a choice of
| _style_ , and a non-native speaker may not have a better choice
| of style than "LLMese".
|
| It's like writing something with a commodity Bic ballpoint vs a
| fancy fountain pen with expensive ink. The style of the prose
| itself is not the valuable artifact, at least not here (it may
| be in certain places e.g. poems and novels), unless you think
| well-written/well-spoken people are automatically more
| veritable or intelligent, which is just as shallow as lookism.
|
| The witch-hunt style comments where people accuse an author of
| using LLMs as if it's some big gotcha that discredits
| everything they said need to stop. It only derails the
| discussion.
| tolerance wrote:
| > It's like writing something with a commodity Bic ballpoint
| vs a fancy fountain pen with expensive ink. The style of the
| prose itself is not the valuable artifact, at least not here
| (it may be in certain places e.g. poems and novels), unless
| you think well-written/well-spoken people are automatically
| more veritable or intelligent, which is just as shallow as
| lookism.
|
| I think this simplifies the entire discipline of literary
| criticism and I suppose every other related science. You can
| _write_ the same prose with both the Bic and the fountain
| pen; the quality of pen only affects the _material_ quality
| of the writing--the ink--but not the style (rhetoric?
| eloquence?) of the writing (i.e., the contents of language,
| how it's conveyed, etc.). We aren't arguing whether it's
| appropriate to depreciate writing generated by an LLM to
| using speech-to-text as opposed to using a keyboard.
|
| The style of the prose _does_ contribute to the value of the
| artifact and speaks to the repute of the reader in addition.
| Readers care about what you say and how you say it too.
|
| Nonetheless I as well as others have good reason to
| interrogate the intrinsic value of LLM-assisted writing
| especially when it refers to writing like the one being
| discussed which I reckon qualifies as a part of the "literary
| non-fiction" genre. So it's apt that we criticize this
| writing on those grounds. Many here have even said that they
| would prefer the 100% genuinely-styled version of the
| author's experience which is apparently only 1.5 points lower
| than whatever their verbal acumen is. [1] Which I imagine
| places them around the rank of your average American...and I
| assume so with charity toward the Americans.
|
| While I think some LLM accusations are lazily applied I think
| communities such as this one benefit from these discussions
| when waged critically. Especially when status and social
| capital are of implicit interest.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46411214
| icemelt8 wrote:
| The most shocking thing in this article is learning about the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine I didn't know
| about it, what an unnecessary loss of life in a modern era.
| aduwah wrote:
| Thank you for sharing your story. Cannot wait for the next part
| moorkh wrote:
| This was a great read. Can't wait for the next installment. Where
| do you live now?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you! I live in Toronto right now.
| arjie wrote:
| Incredible account. I love these. If you posted translation would
| you mind posting the original as well? Great story.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you!Here is the original link
| https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20240110A03FKJ00
| edwardtay wrote:
| This is a fascinating glimpse into a world most people will never
| experience. A few questions if you're open to sharing:
|
| 1. How did the classification level affect everyday social
| interactions? Were there topics that were implicitly off-limits
| even within the city among residents?
|
| 2. You mentioned the zoo in the middle of the desert - what drove
| that decision? Was it purely for morale/quality of life, or were
| there other factors?
|
| 3. Looking back now with perspective, how do you think growing up
| in such a unique environment shaped your worldview compared to
| peers who grew up in "normal" Chinese cities?
|
| Also really interested in hearing about the technical side if
| you're comfortable sharing - what was the general sentiment among
| the scientists and engineers about their work? Did they talk
| about it as "nation-building" or was it more pragmatic?
|
| Looking forward to Part 2!
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Hen Duo Ren Jian Yi Wo Bu Yao Yong AIFan Yi ,Suo Yi Wo Yong
| Zhong Wen Hui Da ,Xin Ku Da Jia Yong Yi Xia Fan Yi Gong Neng .
| 1.Han Qu Li Ji Hu Suo You Ren Ren Shi Suo You Ren ,Wo Ba Ma Fan
| Zhuo Shang De Hua Ti Jiu Shi Tong Shi Ba Gua . Zhe Yang De Hua
| Zheng Ge She Hui Fen Wei Qi Shi You Dian Ya Yi ,Zhi Yao Ni Zuo
| Liao Ren He Chu Ge De Shi ,Hen Kuai Suo You Ren Du Hui Zhi Dao
| . 2.Wo Ye Jue De Jian Yi Ge Dong Wu Yuan Jian Zhi Shi Feng
| Liao ,Wen Zhang Di Er Bu Fen You Ti Dao Zhe Ge . Wo Da Bo Shi
| Fu Ze Tiao Xuan Dong Wu De Ren ,Cong Quan Guo Ge Di Yun Dong Wu
| Guo Qu . Ke Neng Wei Hu Cheng Ben Tai Gao Ba ,Dong Wu Yuan Li
| De Kong Que Man Man Mei Liao ,Bian Cheng Zhen Zhu Ji ,Zui Hou
| Zhi You Ji Zhi Jia Yang Mu Ji Liao . 3.Ke Neng Zui Da De Bu
| Tong Shi Wo Fei Chang Hao Qi ,Dui Yi Qie Du Hen Hao Qi ,Zhi Jin
| Reng Ran Shi Zhe Yang ,Dui Suo You Shi Qing Du Xiang Wen Yi Xia
| Wei Shi Yao . Ling Wai Yi Ge Hen Da De Ying Xiang Shi ,Wo Gan
| Jue Zi Ji Mei You Gen ,Zai Shi Jie Shang Piao . Wen Zhang Di Er
| Bu Fen You Ti Dao ,Zheng Ge Han Qu Ban Qian Liao ,Wo Mei Gu
| Xiang Liao . 4.Na Yi Dai Ren Shi Zhen De Ren Wei Zi Ji Zai
| nation-building,Bu Ji Hui Bao De Fu Chu . Hen Duo Ren Du Shi
| Cong Fa Da Cheng Shi Diao Guo Qu De ,Ta Men Jia Ren Hen Duo
| Nian Du Bu Zhi Dao Ta Men Zai Zuo Shi Yao . Hen Qi Guai ,Zhe Ke
| Neng Bei Ren Wei Shi Zui Yan Zhong De Xi Nao ,Dan Shi Dang Ta
| Men Chi Kai 404Fan Dao Zhao Bu Dao Sheng Huo De Yi Yi Liao .
| saltwatercowboy wrote:
| Something about this feels off. Anyone else?
| the_af wrote:
| It feels off to me as well.
|
| It's the kind of unverifiable story that we would like to
| believe, but there's almost zero way of having independent
| confirmation. The photos could be from anywhere. The author
| seems likeable and writes an interesting story, but who knows
| how much of it is true.
|
| The story seems almost tailored to cater to HN, with secret
| projects, nuclear power, China, and secrecy.
| amdivia wrote:
| Feels AI-ish as well, and OP used em-dashes in some of their
| replies. But it could be attributed to a language barrier of
| sorts requiring the use of LLMs to communicate
| nephihaha wrote:
| I use em dashes in prose -- and I am not AI.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| I'm using AI to translate comments, and it does sounds AI.
| My IELTS is 7.5, and writing band 6.0, so I have to rely on
| the tool currently.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| It is completely plausible, and no details in the story are
| outlandish for China. Heck, it feels tamer than I would
| imagine, even.
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Agreed. In my opinion, too much strange embodied experience
| in this engaged and engaging Part 1.
|
| If I told you stories from my childhood as an 10-year old
| child of an undercover operative in West Germany in
| 1962-1963 I think many would claim "fiction". If I did not
| have my sister as an independent memory backup, even I
| might have doubts. She was lucky and unlucky and had a big
| brother.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Part 2 is the harsh part, including death and execution.
| And now I know how hard life was, but when I was a kid, I
| just feel 404 is the sweetest home.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| That makes sense. I've heard harsher stories in China.
|
| I lived in west Richland Washington as a kid, my dad
| worked at Hanford which is a giant nuclear reservation in
| the western USA. It was mostly typical American kid life,
| so nothing on your experience, except my dad eventually
| died of a rare cancer and we got a settlement from the US
| Department of Energy.
|
| I spent 9 years living in Beijing but first visited in
| 1999 when thinks were kind of still brutaleski. I've had
| a couple of experiences with the PLA (living in a
| building where I wasn't supposed to be living and some
| off limit areas on the border for foreigners that they
| don't tell you about).
| maxglute wrote:
| I was invited to lunch near factory 541, tank city, a
| pseudo closed area sprawled in some Shanxi valley. Turned
| out it was lunch and a show, they were going executing
| some drug traffickers from strike hard. Impromptu don't
| do drug lesson from uncle. We had to turn around because
| I had naturalized western citizenship and weird dialect
| by then and they figure security would not let us
| through. It was pretty surreal experience vs how nice and
| insular danwei life was otherwise.
| johanyc wrote:
| is part 2 already published somewhere in chinese?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Those pictures photoed by me and my parents,I did use LLM to
| translate, cause my english is not good enough to write a
| long article.
| saltwatercowboy wrote:
| I apologise. I write too and I've been bothered by LLM-
| generated content masquerading as the work it takes to tell
| an effective narrative. It was the combination of generated
| responses in the comments alongside what I thought was a
| generated image that set me off, but I was clearly being
| far too militant.
| decimalenough wrote:
| It's translated. Here's the original:
|
| https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/22190111
| qingcharles wrote:
| Were there any birth defects from the radiation? I'm still
| haunted by a BBC report I saw when I was a kid of residents who
| lived near some Chinese nuclear test facility and it showed the
| unbelievable birth defects their children were suffering.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| As far as I know, it didn't happen in 404, cause factory area
| and living area are split. Wo Men Han Qu Li Hao Xiang Mei You
| ,Yin Wei Sheng Huo Qu He Sheng Chan Qu Shi Fen Kai De .
| tingx wrote:
| 404 history
| https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E6%A0%B8%E5%...
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| > Witnessing such scorched-earth containment (ending with
| someones couch being neutralized) makes the modern definition of
| nuclear power as the 'cleanest energy' completely
| incomprehensible to me.
|
| Thats a bit much, isnt it? This was in the early days of their
| nuclear progress, of course at the time it wasnt going to be a
| linear, completely efficient and sanitized. Kind of a weird
| comment, nothing develops perfectly while its development chugs
| along
| jama211 wrote:
| It's a personal emotional experience, nothing weird about it at
| all. Only weird thing is how you singled it out.
| nephihaha wrote:
| The development programme was haphazard. They got bits and
| pieces off the Soviets and had to figure the rest out.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| Right, but the statement extends to the present state of mind
| of the writer. They're saying that they currently find the
| notion that nuclear energy can be clean or the cleanest as
| absurd based on their childhood in the infancy of the
| program.
|
| Isnt it currently the consensus that nuclear energy can be
| one of the more clean energy sources? Because they seem to
| hold their childhood view that thats crazy
| Koekje wrote:
| This seems to be the original story in Chinese, from 2016:
| https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/22190111
| Aboutplants wrote:
| Now I'm confused
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| I posted this in Chinese first.And use AI translated.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Yes,it is.
| desmoulins wrote:
| This is really interesting, from what the first part describes,
| the design and operation of "factory 404" has a lot in common
| with similar facilities built in the US and Russia. The US built
| the Hanford/Richland site in the desert of eastern Washington,
| and Russia built Mayak/Ozyorsk in an isolated part of the Urals.
| They're all versions of this project to build a self-contained
| 'utopia' city in the wilderness, dedicated to secret work on
| nuclear technology. There's also the same social tension between
| highly skilled workers, transient unskilled workers, and the
| military/political leadership. (For anyone interested, _Plutopia_
| by Kate Brown is a good read on the subject)
|
| I wonder if this site in the Gobi ended up having the same
| problems with radioactive contamination from accidents and
| unethical experiments that Hanford and Mayak had?
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| To be honest, growing up inside, we lived in a state of
| 'enforced innocence.' While Hanford and Mayak's histories are
| now well-documented in the West, 404's specific records
| regarding accidents or contamination remain largely
| classified.I only heard some stories from my parents.
| schoen wrote:
| In the U.S. we have belatedly had declassification of various
| parts of military history, including lots of details about Los
| Alamos (where the U.S. atom bomb was invented). Sometimes this
| has happened on a delay of many decades and there are certainly
| still some things that the public might think of as part of
| "history" that are not officially declassified. Has there been a
| similar process in China where older military history is no
| longer officially secret?
| orbital-decay wrote:
| See also "Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in
| the United States" by Alex Wellerstein.
| nonninz wrote:
| Absolutely beautiful story thank you so much for sharing.
|
| I don't mind AI translation at all. The style comes off as a bit
| weird indeed, but I just took it off as a style I'm not used to
| because it comes from a different culture than mine. I wouldn't
| mind much the naysayers, I'd like to see them posting something
| in chinese and see how they'd like it ;)
|
| I really enjoyed the writing style actually, all these different
| anectodes condensed in shorter sentences, without fluff or trying
| to connect them in a single narrative. Maybe this is not the
| correct way to put it, but I'm also not a native English speaker
| nor I have any classical training in writing.
|
| Yours is the first substack I ever subscribed to and can't wait
| to read part two. It actually pushed me to start writing some of
| my childhood experiences.
|
| Thank you again. Absolutely fascinating.
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| Thank you so much! I hope LLM didn't ruin the vibe, so I edited
| many times, but still, english is not my first language, so it
| probably still "looks like AI". I will try my best and I will
| post part 2 on Monday.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Is the "404: not found" error code actually a humorous reference
| to China's secret nuclear city?
|
| After all, HTTP was invented at CERN, a nuclear research
| institute. Staff there would presumably have been aware of "404"
| and probably made jokes about the fact that it didn't exist...
| Vincent_Yan404 wrote:
| It's a coincidence.It's defined both a digital void and my
| childhood home is the kind of irony.
| tsoukase wrote:
| First thank you for the sincere description. Second aren't you
| afraid that the government doesn't run after you? Is this event
| officially declassified? You certainly provide only childish
| memories but... you know.
|
| I am glad to know there was a third place besides USA and USSR
| preparing nuclear stuff during the cold war.
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