Hacker News: billychuck21st

New comment by billychuck21st in "TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S."

billychuck21st — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 10:31:26 +0000

Some of your points were true 10 years ago but not any more. China has basic food secuirty, ie. there's enough rice and grain to feed the population. What it doesn't have enough is food for livestocks which means no steak at war time, but hardly a fatal blow. China gets most of its oil and gas from Russia, given what we know about Putin it's hard to see Russia cut off the pipeline to help US. Even if they do, I don't think it's enough to stop the war machine, 1/3 of China's electricity is generated by renewable energy, they also have a lot of coal, the reason they built the gas pipeline with Russia is to move away from coal. Chinese navy is no longer a brown water navy, the 3rd aircraft carrier will be battle ready in the next couple of years and the 4th one is being built.

The assumption of US and allies completely blockade China's coast is very unrealistic, it's more likely the allied fleet will try to stop a blockage of PLA on Taiwan, which won't last a few months without external supply. And in term of drones, China is also a big player in the field. I don't think Taiwan has advantage on that. Ukraine can wreck blacksea fleet because it was a very out of date navy, unfortunately you can't say that to the Chinese one.

Difficult to land might be the only defence Taiwan has.

New comment by billychuck21st in "TSMC expected to announce $100B investment in U.S."

billychuck21st — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 15:25:40 +0000

Those thinking China vs Taiwan is like Russia vs Ukraine is greatly mistaken. The Chinese army after decades of build up is way stronger than Russia's, the enire PLA navy and airforce are built for a war with Taiwan. Ukraine still has Europe, Taiwan only has Japan, and has no border to any other countries. If the US wants to intervene, it must throw in its full weight, like the entire pacific fleet and some more, otherwise they won't be able to beat the PLA at its doorstep. With the current US administration, I can't imagine how it would do that "trade". I think it's far more likely the US will "sell" Taiwan to China for some deal that benefits the US financially or politicially.

New comment by billychuck21st in "Apple's Best Option: Decentralize iCloud"

billychuck21st — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 11:52:19 +0000

The odds will be massively in favour to Apple, the British government is broke, they can't afford the consequence of Apple leaving UK market, it will be a fatal blow to the chanceller's pro-business policy.

New comment by billychuck21st in "Most iPhone owners see little to no value in Apple Intelligence so far"

billychuck21st — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 22:23:57 +0000

because there are plenty of research showing majority of screen time is spent on video watching, followed by social media and games.

New comment by billychuck21st in "Most iPhone owners see little to no value in Apple Intelligence so far"

billychuck21st — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 14:31:28 +0000

I think the data would likely to show most people are spending time on short videos.

New comment by billychuck21st in "Apple Vision Pro: Apple’s first spatial computer"

billychuck21st — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:38:47 +0000

This is the "pro" verison, maybe eventually Apple will sell less powerful non-pro version that can connect with the pro one, but at a much lower price, then you can create experience for the whole familiar, if the set of 4 can cost <$6000, then it will be the same as a 8K tv + sound bar + a couple of work monitors.

New comment by billychuck21st in "Apple Vision Pro: Apple’s first spatial computer"

billychuck21st — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:38:26 +0000

This is the "pro" verison, maybe eventually Apple will sell non-pro version that can connect with the pro one, but at a much lower price, then you can create experience for the whole familiar, if the set of 4 can cost <$6000, then it will be the same as a 8K tv + sound bar + a couple of work monitors.

New comment by billychuck21st in "Apple’s Best Hope for New Headset: a Smartwatch-Like Trajectory"

billychuck21st — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 10:59:57 +0000

I think entertainment is still the biggest market for AR/VR, Apple is investing $1B in original content next, won't be surprised some of that goes to bespoke production for the new headset. Paired with a powerful apple tv and apple watch (doube as a gesture remote?), I can see some creative content revolutionize home entertainment.

New comment by billychuck21st in "Leaving China"

billychuck21st — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 12:19:05 +0000

As a Chinese living outside China for the last 20 years, I was seriouly thinking about going back before the pandemic, but now that idea has gone for good, for reasons exactly like the article outlined.

New comment by billychuck21st in "Bard and new AI features in Search"

billychuck21st — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 14:22:50 +0000

people will visit SO less, make it less profitiable to stay alive.

New comment by billychuck21st in "Bard and new AI features in Search"

billychuck21st — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 14:20:47 +0000

maybe people get paid to answer questions that AI can't answer, can be a new eco system

New comment by billychuck21st in "Apple: The only big tech giant going against the job cuts tide"

billychuck21st — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 12:25:46 +0000

apple does start and fail a lot of projects, you won't notice because they keep them secret.

New comment by billychuck21st in "Ask HN: China Protests?"

billychuck21st — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 13:18:57 +0000

The demonstration in Shanghai is a significant milestone, it's the first time in recent decades, a group of Chinese fight for the rights of another group of Chinese.

Technology wise, nothing worth noting, the censorship is complete there.

New comment by billychuck21st in "Amazon Alexa is on pace to lose $10B this year"

billychuck21st — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 13:51:04 +0000

Voice assistant of today has really struggled to prove its value. Most of the things they do can be done with better accuracy by a few clicks on the phone. I think Voice assistant will be useful one day when it's really combined with other more "physical" AI and automation.

New comment by billychuck21st in "Privacy respecting weather app for Android"

billychuck21st — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 09:49:27 +0000

I think the key is to protect individual user from being harmed by misuse of the aggregated data, and provide transparency on how the data are being used.

Corruption always happens for a greedy, unethical few, but with the right technologies, we can make such abuse very costly. That hopefully, would restore trust from most users.