Samsung plans $17B chip plant in Taylor, Texas

There are two validation engineers for every design engineer in the semiconductor industry. There are even fewer design architects. But they all need a computer engineering background. Design verification is just what’s in demand.

No, the windmills actually produced more power during that cold period than was projected that they would be capable of. They didn’t go offline. A standard Republican refrain is to blame alternative sources of power generation for the faults that actually exist primarily in the old systems that bought off said Republicans. It’s like the pot calling the kettle black, but the pot actually is black and the kettle isn’t.

No, it was the gas-fired power plants that didn’t have enough gas to burn, caused by the fact that many of the gas producers had not winterized their systems, and in fact some of the gas producers got their own power turned off in the rolling blackouts — they hadn’t been marked as mission critical.

Try reading the report.

Sadly, very little has changed since February. The producers and the gas power plants have paid a trivial fee that allows them to choose not to winterize (because that would be too expensive), and so far as I know they still haven’t even bothered to mark those systems as mission critical, so when the rolling blackouts happen again, they’ll get their power cut off again.

The wind turbines need to be winterized, too.

They didn’t do as well as they should have, but they did a lot better than expected.

You are right in criticizing me for not being proportionate enough. I did not take the time to make my post more nuanced. So let me clarify.

I do not believe that the HK protests were mainly due to US sponsorship (even if they were a contributing factor). My point was rather that it's unreasonable to expect a country to not respond to foreign sponsorship with security measures.

I do not believe that the HK protests were mainly undemocratic. However, the undemocratic and violent faction had effectively taken over, while the actually democratic faction failed in reigning this former faction in, so in my opinion trying to rhetorically separate them is a waste of time.

I do not agree with you that the CCP's popularity in the mainland is fake. There are multiple studies that show that their popularity is real.[1][2] The difference is between mainlanders and Hong Kongers is that many Hong Kongers don't have first-hand experience with how the mainland is governed and how the mainland has improved, and that the media regularly injects disinformation. Mainlanders know about Hong Kong, but they disagree. You can blame it on propaganda, but even mainlanders who have moved outside the mainland and who have been exposed to western media, don't tend to change their stance on Hong Kong.

[1] https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/05/did-pande...

What bugs me most is that the criminals are getting away with a good reputation in the west, who wholly paints them as "pro-democracy freedom fighters".

It also bugs me that a lot (not sure how many, but a lot) of protesters don't know what sort of freedom they want. Check the Keybros interview I linked: why could none of the 100 protesters articulate what concrete freedoms they are missing? Why are the protesters mostly younger people who have never lived under British colonial times? There is something deeply disingenuous among a part of the protester movement. I hope they can recognize that economic trouble (e.g. cage houses) is one of the reasons, and I hope that Hong Kong will do something about that. If these protesters think that life in Britain is really better, then they should experience it firsthand and come to their own conclusion on whether their protest was right or not.

What I hope for is more reconciliation between mainland and Hong Kong. I even hope that Hong Kong will get more democracy, namely universal suffrage and a strong Common Law-based rule of law environment. However I want Hong Kongers to be honest about things, and I want more democracy/rule of law at the same time as a Hong Kong that is proud of being part of China, and at the same time where criminals aren't swept under a rug for political reasons. One Country Two Systems, not Two Country Two Systems.

> I do not agree with you that the CCP's popularity in the mainland is fake. There are multiple studies that show that their popularity is real.[...][...].

I am not questioning CCP’s current popularity in Mainland (or Kim’s current popularity in North Korea), given their current control (including in education and media, both propaganda and censorship). When the population were brought up that way, even when presented with opposing view points their thinking is skewed (compared with many other democratic countries), and considers things as conflicts of super powers or humiliation by foreigners. Such thinking frequently persists and affects their actions even after they move outside of China (censor Hong Kong and Xinjiang in FANNG [1]), even in face of opposing evidence (linking Xinjiang to CCP [2]). Many of the Chinese population are effectively exporting their values to the world [3].

For a concrete example, even when foreign sponsorship does not pose material threats, some Chinese would suggest disproportionate responses (such as to consider draconian security measures and the National Security Law, resulting in arrests of the majority of democratic candidates [4]). This is disproportionate because UK and other European nations would not take comparable measures against comparable foreign sponsorship (by CCP). Just like in the US, Texas Secession could be discussed and supported without similar consequences to the NSL in Hong Kong [5]. This shows the resilience of their political systems, and by contrast CCP is overreacting.

Gaining popularity this way may be fine for CCP (or for Kim) for now, but when the system becomes unstable (due to declining economy and shrinking population), things may start to crack. The problem is not that it is fake, the problem is that the system (by censoring dissent and pointing fingers at others inconsistently) is unsustainable. And at least, this is why CCP and Kim do not currently have as high popularity in Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, Czech, Germany, France, or elsewhere.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27649830

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29384161

[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21194083

[4]: https://apnews.com/article/legislature-primary-elections-dem...

[5]: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/obama-administrat...

> It also bugs me that a lot (not sure how many, but a lot) of protesters _don't know what sort of freedom they want_.

Many Hong Kongers want CCP to leave them alone, which was the implicit contract behind the 1997 hand over of Hong Kong. To be more specific, Hong Kongers want to run the city their way (including have their elected representatives not being arrested [4]), and not having laws inserted into their mini-constitution (Basic Law) against their will, to respect their differences—more or less the way Hong Kong was run before 2019. Incidentally, I think that’s what most Tibetans originally wanted, and what most Taiwanese currently want (against unification), too.

Wanting CCP to leave them alone was the main theme behind the 5 demands in the 2019 protest. What they don’t know is how to achieve it, when faced with CCP, the PLA and the massive Chinese population.

I am less worried about them not knowing exactly what or how to achieve the freedom they want, just like the population of Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, or South Korea might not know exactly what they wanted during their democratization (I would not be surprised by a Keybros interview when they democratized. BTW, if you want to know what the protestors think outside of cameras or Keybros, check out https://www.thestandnews.com/). Ignoring the selection bias, not everyone is as articulate, but this does not stop the trend of democratization. They democratized by trial and error 摸著石頭過河, and things work out fine for them. Same for Hong Kong.

> why could none of the 100 protesters articulate what concrete freedoms they are missing?

How did the Keybros interview avoid the selection bias?

> Why are the protesters mostly younger people who have never lived under British colonial times?

The younger ones have less burden and could go to the streets, the older ones with more burden supported them. See the election result for the proof [6].

> There is something deeply disingenuous among a part of the protester movement.

Hong Kongers want to say No to CCP, but this could not be said out loud with the PLA standing by. This is the disingenuous part. (Just like many protests in China would be prefaced with a support of the CCP, however contradictory and disingenuous sometimes it could get. Also, many Taiwanese wanted to say so, but again need to consider the threat of the PLA.) This is why many Hong Kongers left when they still could [6], they vote with their feet, if they could not vote with their hands.

[6]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29346205

> One Country Two Systems, not Two Country Two Systems.

CCP said that first to Tibet in 1951, then to Hong Kong in 1984. Seeing what happened, now in 2021 even the Nationalist party KMT in Taiwan is rejecting One Country Two Systems. Sometimes we need to learn from history.