Hacker News: manfromchina1

New comment by manfromchina1 in "Amateur armed with ChatGPT solves an Erdős problem"

manfromchina1 — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 04:22:55 +0000

Free ChatGPT is like a fast car with a barely responsive steering wheel. Guardrails on that thing are insane. Even for math. It wont let you think. It will try to fix mistakes you havent even made yet based on intent that was ascribed to you for no reason. It veers off in some crazy directions thinking that's what you meant and trying to address even a little bit of that creates almost a combinatorial explosion of even more wrong things. Is why I stick to Claude. The latter is chill and only addresses what you had typed. Isn't verbose and actually asks you what you getting at with your post. That said, ChatGPT is more technical and can easily solve math problems that stump Claude.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "America Lost the Mandate of Heaven"

manfromchina1 — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:02:29 +0000

Despite my handle I am not Chinese lest I am accused of harboring any bias. Anyway, I decided to look up what is going on. Apparently, things are nuanced. On the one hand China lags behind when it comes to semiconductors, large commercial aircraft, some pharmaceutical innovation. On the other hand,

> When evaluating the top 10 percent of high-quality scientific publications, ASPI finds that China surpasses the United States across all 8 critical technology domains. The gap is particularly pronounced in the energy and environment domain, where China accounts for 46 percent of top-tier publications compared to just 10 percent for the United States. Despite U.S. leadership in AI, China produces more top publications, contributing 30 percent versus 18 percent for the United States[0]

Basically, China dominates in batteries, solar, quantum communications, robotics deployment, high-speed rail, nuclear construction, autonomous vehicle deployment, manufacturing process innovation, patent volume in most categories

[0] https://itif.org/publications/2025/09/23/how-china-is-outper...

New comment by manfromchina1 in "Claude Sucks"

manfromchina1 — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:51:10 +0000

In the meantime Grok seems to have come a long way. Its free tier allows you to upload 350 page pdfs without complaint and actually crunch data for you. It's now much better at it than either Claude or GPT. It has also become a much more capable mathematician. I am blown away by the new Grok.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to"

manfromchina1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:47:35 +0000

I drove from New Orleans to NYC through the Blue Ridge Parkway once. I thought it was extraordinarily beautiful. Also drove through the north of Arizona from LA back to NOLA. I was surprised how northern the terrain looked. All alpine forest and no cacti or anything even though when you take I-10 from Florida to California it's all cacti, canyons and mountains. Very beautiful in its own right. The scenery in New Mexico could easily shatter minds from Maine down to Florida on the eastern seaboard. It's eerie even during the day when you're driving through that Martian terrain.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "A study linked various SAT test scores to favorite bands"

manfromchina1 — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 09:13:55 +0000

What about the converse? Are the stars of conservatories of music particularly good at math and such? Interestingly, most music here is geared toward millennials and older gens.

Families who insist you study 12 hours a day for higher SAT scores are also likely to believe in 'correct' sort of music and enforce it until that's all you like.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "Miscellanea: The War in Iran"

manfromchina1 — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 05:59:07 +0000

> More relevantly for us, Iran is 3.5 times larger than Iraq and roughly twice the population.

Worth noting that at the time of invasion of Iraq they had about 25 million people per gemeni. They now have about 46 mil people per wikipedia. All else equal, we are comparing 25 mil to 93 mil and not half of 93 mil to 93 mil.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "Sci-Fi Short Film “There Is No Antimemetics Division” [video]"

manfromchina1 — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:14:56 +0000

Reminds me of "Total Rickall"(Rick and Morty: Season 2, Episode 4) which itself is probably a retelling of a retelling of a retelling of a retelling.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "Ask HN: How to Learn C++ in 2026?"

manfromchina1 — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 02:57:51 +0000

I personally did the following:

1. Ploughed thru every problem in "Schaum's Outline of Programming With C++". It's an old book, but the code in it is not particularly different from modern C++

2. Picked up "C++ Crash Course: A Fast-Paced Introduction" to fill in the gaps, understand what wasnt explained in (1) etc

New comment by manfromchina1 in "My (terrible) experience as a British Asian at University"

manfromchina1 — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 15:16:40 +0000

Sounds like how America was 20 years ago.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "The UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks"

manfromchina1 — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 13:04:12 +0000

A US visa is typically for entering only. It doesnt say anything about the duration of stay. The latter is determined by CBP at the port of entrance and printed on your I-94. This is never emphasized anywhere.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "CIA releases new video in bid to lure Chinese military officers to spy for US"

manfromchina1 — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 17:03:13 +0000

The newest one on the CIA channel on YouTube is showing 1920 views right now. It was posted 3 hours ago.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "Boxer loses hairpiece in the ring and blames mother's shampoo"

manfromchina1 — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 17:47:02 +0000

He still won.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "I removed AI from my I Ching app"

manfromchina1 — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 04:31:02 +0000

They would likely pick the cards according to what your text looks like at the moment. You should at least ask them to use a random function. And even then they might keep picking according to the mood/content of the text.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "Havana Syndrome Device Purchased"

manfromchina1 — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 08:59:19 +0000

That link has the following: https://x.com/nettermike/status/2009843044028428714

> Security Guard: Without a doubt. I'm sending a warning to anyone who thinks they can fight the United States. They have no idea what they're capable of. After what I saw, I never want to be on the other side of that again. They're not to be messed with.

Sounds like a strategic bluff.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "The $14 Burrito: Why San Francisco Inflation Feels Higher Than 2.5%"

manfromchina1 — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 18:47:16 +0000

> I haven't been anywhere in the world that has LA beat.

I feel the same way about NYC and NOLA. Both have world class cuisine and the sheer diversity of NYC food scene can't be found anywhere in the US. And for whatever reason NYC style pizza is not as ubiquitous outside the NYC-NJ area.You can definitely find such pizza in Boston, but it cannot be found in every little corner in LA for example.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "The $14 Burrito: Why San Francisco Inflation Feels Higher Than 2.5%"

manfromchina1 — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 18:22:43 +0000

A random stall by the road in LA will charge you $10 flat and the same one in SF will ask for $20. Neither will have a screen for tips. THAT would make your SF purchases simply stratospheric. I have lived in Jersey City, NJ and New Orleans, LA. Neither one holds a candle to LA prices outside some random roadside vendors. Walmarts in greater LA are vastly more expensive than those in NOLA. But grocery shopping in SF is straight up nightmare where they dont seem to respect Murican money all that much if at all. LA could never.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "The $14 Burrito: Why San Francisco Inflation Feels Higher Than 2.5%"

manfromchina1 — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 17:22:30 +0000

Moving from LA to SF will definitely give you a sticker shock. I used to buy nice large burritos in DTLA for $10 flat as recently as 2024. That's with tax. Later that year in SF a nice sandwich in random bodegas would cost well over $20(with tax). SF is probably the most eye wateringly expensive city in all of US. It definitely beats NYC.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "Trump says American oil companies will be "involved" in Venezuela's oil industry"

manfromchina1 — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 16:55:17 +0000

It's not a conspiracy when he says it so openly.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "America's fight back against China starts in Los Angeles"

manfromchina1 — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 15:33:37 +0000

> One is a startup established by one of the first employees of SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket firm, which is working on enriching uranium for the nuclear reactors emerging to power AI.

Wow. That's some serious shit. For LA especially.

New comment by manfromchina1 in "Happy New Year HN!"

manfromchina1 — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 19:55:43 +0000

It's 2026 in Asia. Happy New Year.