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zonghao

34 karma · joined April 14, 2025

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zonghao··on Ask HN: ADHD – How do you manage the constant stream of thoughts and ideas?
Perhaps you could encode your email address using Base64; this would reduce the amount of spam you receive from a publicly accessible email address:)
zonghao··on Show HN: ADHD Focus Light
Once you open it, place it next to your computer, and then you can ignore its existence.

I don't know if it will work, but it's quite fun.

zonghao··on America's 'Death Line' Goes Viral in China
I grew up in China, lived here for more than twenty years. I've never heard of such a thing: unemployment means a high probability of being homeless, and then losing one's life within three to five years. It's truly shocking.

I have some people in my neighborhood who have been Full-time preparation for the exam to work as civil servants for many years, and some people have simply been living at home without working, relying on their parents' support. However, I have never heard of anyone being frozen or starved to death, nor have I ever seen anyone who has been addicted to drugs.

zonghao··on Maybe the default settings are too high
When I use Claude Code and Codex for development, I've had some similar experiences. Claude Code always completes tasks very quickly, but leaves behind a mess that makes me anxious. Codex, on the other hand, is always slow—it slowly reads through the entire project's code, then makes changes very cautiously, testing and verifying after every small modification, and even calls codex review --uncommitted once more before committing.

At first, I found writing code with Claude Code to be enjoyable, while Codex seemed boring. But over time, I've discovered that I actually prefer Codex. Perhaps slowing down really is the key to writing high-quality code.

zonghao··on How China built its ‘Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips
> there isn't anything huge to gain outside of TSMC (that I know of) by way of an invasion.

The reunification of Taiwan is a fundamental national policy, enshrined in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China. The primary intention behind the desire for national reunification stems from the realization of reunification itself, rather than from other interests. This reflects a complex national sentiment and shared aspiration.

We consider the people of Taiwan to be our compatriots. Therefore, even though our military strength far surpasses that of Taiwan, the mainland is unwilling to resort to force and has always hoped for peaceful reunification. This is because we do not wish to harm or even kill any of our compatriots in the process of achieving it.

Essentially, it has been the United States that has been obstructing this unification process and using propaganda tools to influence public perception in Taiwan. As a result, many Taiwanese people are shocked by the stark difference between the mainland and the propaganda portrays them when they visit. It is truly baffling that, despite living so close to the mainland, their understanding of it is almost in sync with that of Americans.

zonghao··on Penpot: The Open-Source Figma
I self-hosted Penpot, and during use I also encountered crashes — but it was my browser that crashed. I’m not sure what caused it (because I was forced to close the page).
zonghao··on Penpot: The Open-Source Figma
They seem to update very frequently; I don't know if it still crashes now — I'm planning to try it myself.
zonghao··on PRC elites voice AI-skepticism
This may already be a bubble in social or financial terms, but at least for me personally, my capabilities have been greatly expanded (especially when it comes to coding and accessing information).
zonghao··on PRC elites voice AI-skepticism
I think this might be why, during the reasoning process of GPT and Gemini, even for purely English prompts the model may choose to think in Chinese. That may make it easier for the model to express what it means, and thus be more conducive to its reasoning. Of course, a better way to reason is to think in vector space rather than by producing tokens that humans can read.
zonghao··on The fall of Labubus and the mush of modern internet trends
agree
zonghao··on Linux desktop on Apple Silicon M1 in practice
My Mac mini M4 has been sitting idle because I can't install Linux on it, and I don't know how to operate it from a remote terminal in macOS. I'm only familiar with the Linux terminal for things like firewalls, and sometimes I don't even know how to install packages on macOS that work perfectly fine for me on Linux.

I guess this is because I'm not skilled enough, but I really hope Asahi Linux can support the M4 chip soon, or why can't Apple provide a native installation channel? I think many Mac mini owners would love that.

zonghao··on China cut itself off from the global internet for an hour on Wednesday
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44958621
zonghao··on 9 Years of "Learning to Code" and I Still Couldn't Build a To-Do App
I feel like this learning method has benefited me, but it doesn't seem to be widely supported: I'll work on a project for a while, then realize what knowledge I'm lacking, to the point where I can't even think meaningfully while working on it. Then I'll take courses for a while, which helps me build a "knowledge map." I'll think, "Oh, so that's how it works." Then I'll go back to working on projects.

As for documentation, I see many people recommend reading it directly to learn, but I find it hard to get through, and just reading documentation also makes it difficult for the knowledge to organize itself in my mind (it's like getting lost in a well-made game without map hints) If I watch tutorial videos first, then writing projects or reading documentation becomes more comfortable. I think these things might be mutually reinforcing.

I would binge-watch courses on Coursera for many days straight. I think the problem mentioned in this article seems to be that he didn't actually watch the videos he saved, so even if he were to learn through documentation, the result would be the same. Learning and practice are mutually reinforcing, while learning styles may vary for each individual.

zonghao··on To Download Adult Mods on Nexus, You Need to Show ID
When it comes to bypassing internet restrictions, the British have a lot to learn from the Chinese (
zonghao··on The rising returns to R&D: Ideas are not getting harder to find
Yes, there's no doubt I envy these advantages of your country.

By the way, I'm replying to your comment via a proxy server in Los Angeles, HN is also not directly accessible in China. I think this is why I didn't truly understand many things until my twenties, which is a pity.

I also hope we can have a democratic government, at least one that allows free access to information and freedom of political expression.

But this conflicts with the interests of those with vested interests, who fear that giving people a little freedom will cause them to lose the wealth they gained through illicit means. I think this is unjust, but I don't know what to do.

Even Jack Ma was punished for saying the wrong thing and disappeared from public view for several years. He's the one who created Taobao and Alipay; an entrepreneur like that would be respected in the US and would have the opportunity to tell young people in the public eye: you shouldn't sigh, there are many opportunities in this world. But the truth is, the mainstream voice only teaches everyone to obey, and successful and visionary people are gradually leaving this country.

However, I see that the United States seems very chaotic, and for my personal safety, I probably won't consider going there. I really like American culture, especially Silicon Valley culture, but I might consider Singapore or Australia as better immigration destinations. Perhaps the situation in Silicon Valley is different from those chaotic neighborhoods? I'm not in the US, so I don't know much about it. I wish someone could tell me, haha.

zonghao··on The rising returns to R&D: Ideas are not getting harder to find
Yes, this goes back to that fundamental and long-debated question: How do we eliminate poverty?

I've studied some sociological and economic theories, and I generally understand that this problem is very difficult to solve.

From my perspective, China's biggest problem right now is actually unequal distribution (especially between different regions), and it's sad to see such a problem in a socialist country.

I really hope our government can truly commit to solving such inter-regional distribution problems, instead of just shouting slogans and doing nothing (which they often do).

I have many classmates from underdeveloped regions who come to Beijing for university and then never return to their hometowns because there are simply no opportunities there. Major resources are concentrated in a few large cities.

I don't know if this is a common characteristic of East Asian countries (Tokyo is also very large, and small cities in Japan are also declining). However, Japan's Gini coefficient is very low, and I think we should learn from Japan in this regard.

zonghao··on The rising returns to R&D: Ideas are not getting harder to find
I often browse Hacker News and like it here. As a young Chinese entrepreneur, comments like these make me feel frustrated. China has a large wealth gap, and we have many people with lower education levels who earn meager wages through manual labor to support their families, highly dependent on manufacturing for income. In a sense, they are somewhat like the American Rust Belt before the loss of manufacturing (though they probably don't live as well as Americans, as they can afford neither homes nor cars). The setbacks manufacturing faces in international trade are making their lives even worse. I can roughly understand why you made such a comment, because many friendly and kind people around you are, or have been, worse off due to the competition between our countries. The people around me are also friendly and kind, and I think the best outcome should be for all of us to live better, rather than one side getting better at the expense of the other. I think we should find ways to develop that benefit everyone, because we are all human, and those who are awake when you are sleeping are not bad people.