Incredible account. I love these. If you posted translation would you mind posting the original as well? Great story.
Thank you！Here is the original link https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20240110A03FKJ00
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
#272This was a great read. Can't wait for the next installment. Where do you live now?
Thank you! I live in Toronto right now.
Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
While reading through the post, I too felt it being similar to LLM generated text, but the stories and the perspective is uniquely human, or is there something specific that sticks out as inhuman from the text? Specific parts that sounds implausible? It obvious that something was used to do the translation, but it doesn't feel worse than any other machine-translated texts, as long as I get the gist and the overall id…
I’m going to guess that the dash gave it away. What a lot of people don’t see to understand is that using an LLM for translations is better than using vanilla translate. The traditional translation apps lose a lot of context and subtly, and they sound even more artificial.
I'd just ask writers to be up-front about it. "English isn't my native language, so this is processed using an LLM." Even the replies in HN comments scream "LLM".
Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
While reading through the post, I too felt it being similar to LLM generated text, but the stories and the perspective is uniquely human, or is there something specific that sticks out as inhuman from the text? Specific parts that sounds implausible? It obvious that something was used to do the translation, but it doesn't feel worse than any other machine-translated texts, as long as I get the gist and the overall id…
Yes I used AI to translate. You said "Specific parts that sounds implausible",and the second part is more unbelievable, I can only guarantee it's nonfiction.
Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert
#275Absolutely 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.
Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 d…
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:《我在404长大》
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."
Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
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!
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.
I don't think I'm criticizing Western narratives. This is simply my personal perspective and experience growing up there.
Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert
#278Is 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…
Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert
#279Absolutely 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…
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.
Re: Growing up in “404 Not Found”: China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert
#280Earlier 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.
I don't think I'm criticizing Western narratives. This is simply my personal perspective and experience growing up there.
They weren’t accusing you of that, but asking the other commenter what the meant :)