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Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert

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Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert

#161

Post by edgineer »

Vincent_Yan404 wrote: post #2

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 ques…

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.

Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert

#162

Post by SilverElfin »

Vincent_Yan404 wrote: post #2

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 ques…

> 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!

Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert

#163

Post by yorwba »

marcellus23 wrote: post #150
yorwba wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 玉门 than to 嘉峪关.

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

40°10′49″N 97°16′36″E is not exactly 39°46′24″N 98°17′18″E. Did you maybe copy the wrong coordinates? Anyways, have an OpenStreetMap link https://www.openstreetmap.org/?#map=11/40.1243/97.3375

Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert

#164

Post by sgjohnson »

colinb wrote: post #56
NotGMan wrote: post #35

>> 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.

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 a…

> 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.

Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert

#165

Post by jiggawatts »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #147
Vincent_Yan404 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Please use actual machine translation systems, not generative AI.

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.

Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert

#166

Post by saltwatercowboy »

sophrosyne42 wrote: post #146
Vincent_Yan404 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (保密教育) 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.

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?

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.

Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert

#167

Post by therealpygon »

idiotsecant wrote: post #112
thomassmith65 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

It’s a valid question, despite the cynical delivery.

Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert

#168

Post by xanthor »

sophrosyne42 wrote: post #142
idiotsecant wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm still curious what specific narratives you had in mind when you said "dominant Western narratives"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46410398

Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert

#169

Post by the_af »

saltwatercowboy wrote: post #159

Something about this feels off. Anyone else?

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.

Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert

#170

Post by the_af »

jeremyjh wrote: post #88
Vincent_Yan404 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The reply to the 418 joke is clearly generated, not just translated.

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.
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