Posts by llaryllama

Taiwan tells Uncle Sam its chip ecosystem ain't going anywhere

Re: Lutnick

China literally has a popular colloquialism spread liberally across social media and by the upper echelons of the CCP: 留島不留人 literally meaning "keep the island, don't keep the people" - e.g. completely raze the place and build a new China on Taiwan.

I am not naive enough to think that the US has our best interests at heart but China explicitly wants to take us by force as soon as they are able, killing as many people as necessary as long as they aren't mainland Chinese. The rest of the world at best doesn't care about Taiwan or actively sides with China. So America is the lesser of many, many greater evils.

Rackspace tests customer loyalty with brutal email price hike

If you have several hundred or more mailboxes to look after, why would you be working with a service that charges per mailbox?

There are thousands of companies around the world offering fully managed hosting for anything from a few tens to a few hundreds of $ per month (my recommendation goes to Bigscoots, not employed or sponsored by them).

Email is very easy to self manage and you have complete control over your data, it's very easy to migrate an entire virtual server to another provider.

Techie ran up $40,000 bill trying to download a driver

Re: Implausible to say the least.

Redhotant had an all you can eat 0800 internet service for a fixed flat fee, they didn't last very long but I got in early enough that it was worth it for a few months unlimited use.

I vividly remember using a chunky laptop with IR port beaming to a Nokia 8810 which made me feel like I was living in a scifi movie. Now I get mad if my gigabit wifi drops out for a few seconds, ah nostalgia.

NASA bars Chinese citizens from its facilities, networks, even Zoom calls

Re: Overt racism

As much as you defend China at every opportunity it appears you've never actually been there, so I would like to remind you that:

1) Americans have never been allowed anywhere near Chinese military or aerospace facilities and

2) Most Chinese hotels flat out refuse service to foreigners.

For all of its many faults America has robust laws against racism in general so you could sue a hotel that refused service purely on the basis of ethnicity.

Oracle VirtualBox licensing tweak lies in wait for the unwary

Re: All because

A more accurate analogy would be:

You ride a bus. You are told the ticket is free. 6 weeks later you get an invoice for $63,000 and a legal notice for improper usage of your bus seating license.

You eat food. Grocer says your onions are $3. As you are serving a nice beef pie to guests the grocer turns up to audit your kitchen and gives you a $100,000 bill because he only licensed the carrots for raw usage. Turning them into a pie requires a completely separate license. It's your fault for not asking to see the terms of sale.

You get your hair cut. Barber cuts off your ear but nothing you can do about it because you signed a contract and the barber has a massive team of lawyers.

Re: All because

Every article relating even tangentially to America or China features a scathing anti American / pro Chinese diatribe from VoiceOfSomething right at the top.

This sudden pivot to defending what some people (including me) see as one of the worst examples of American capitalism is both fascinating and hilarious.

I'm going to need more popcorn for this.

China successfully tests hypersonic aircraft, maybe at Mach 12

I was with you until the last paragraph.

Shared blood / shared history is flawed logic that the Chinese Communist Party use to justify its threats against Taiwan, but what happens if you apply the same logic to the United States, Australia, Canada and so on? The ROC was founded in 1912 which is a few decades earlier than the PRC was founded. Taiwan has already progressed through several generations forming its own identity that is very distinct from China despite having shared cultural roots - similar to Canada/France, Australia/UK etc. China ripped up its entire cultural and political foundation in the 60s so there is very little old historic China left. Cold War politics have nothing to do with this, the Soviet Union was not involved in a major civil war and the bifurcation between Taiwan and China is very much real, organic and distinct.

Do you trust Xi with your 'private' browsing data? Apple, Google stores still offer China-based VPNs, report says

Re: Better them than Five Eyes

This seems a rather dangerous and flippant outlook if you spend any time studying history leading up to World War II.

Re: China hit piece, nothing more

I am Taiwanese and came here to discuss an article about China because it happens to be an issue that's very close to me. It's very frustrating that any discussion whatsoever about what China is doing wrong or could do better immediately descends into whiny rants about America or the West in general.

The argument that China does not get involved in hot wars is rather tiring when you understand that China are masters of grey warfare and proxy tactics. China would never directly attack an enemy unless they are all but guaranteed a win. With the rate that the PLC is increasing military budgets and general regional belligerence I wonder how much longer it will take until anti-Western armchair commentators stop parroting the "peaceful China" line pushed by China Daily.

America does not have thousands of missiles pointed in my general direction, nor have they ever threatened to bomb my country or throw our citizens in prison for having fairly mild political opinions. Given a binary choice between America and China as world police I think America is clearly the safer option. But like I said, that's neither what the article was about or what I came here to comment on.

Re: China hit piece, nothing more

What most China apologists and whataboutists fail to understand (or choose to ignore) is there is no such thing as a truly private Chinese enterprise.

Sure, pretty much every government in the world has some kind of data tapping law and is able to subpoena the likes of Google for customer data.

The big difference is that an American company is allowed to publicly challenge government overreach and in fact here we are openly discussing this issue with different viewpoints.

Chinese people and businesses have no choice in the matter. Saying that doesn't affect Joe Shmo so we shouldn't worry about it ignores the plight of millions who are detained, tortured or executed for rather silly and petty ideological reasons.

China does not allow free access to data, discussion or thought and for most people VPNs are the only way to tunnel out of that information black hole. I feel very strongly about this issue and get rather annoyed at glib responses like "America is just as bad or worse at x" when a) that is not the problem being discussed and b) no, they really aren't.

More Voyager instruments shut down to eke out power supplies

Decay

Power output is reduced by almost 1% per year as the Plutonium decays. The poor old Voyagers are already running on fumes at this point.

Taiwan reportedly claims China-linked ship damaged one of its submarine cables

Re: Only a matter of time

For a nation like China that is very much at home in the Grey Zone and doesn't really care about international image there are almost no downsides to this behaviour. See how much damage they can 'accidentally' do to test Taiwan's monitoring systems and reactions, gradually increase the frequency and seriousness of their actions until there is some pushback, let off for a while then repeat. At best they cause some real damage and glean valuable data, at worst they cause an expensive annoyance to their perceived enemies.

Chinese cyber-spies reportedly targeted sanctions intel in US Treasury raid

Re: What goes around comes around

Ah yes of course, state sponsored hacking/terrorism/spying/violence should never be called out because X was doing it first.

A New Year's gift from Microsoft: Surprise, your scanners don't work

<smug mode> Since switching my main desktop to Ubuntu a few years back I've had almost zero issues with printing and scanning. I had almost ground my teeth to the gums in frustration over connecting printers with Windows, but the Linux desktop has made surprising leaps and bounds in this area. It's very satisfying turning up at a job site and being able to instantly add almost any network printer without any driver downloads and have it just work. </smug>

China again claims Volt Typhoon cyber-attack crew was invented by the US to discredit it

Great point, I've just added an underscore and a 1 to all of my passwords. Time for a pint, see ya!

China outspending US, Taiwan, and South Korea combined on chipmaking kit

Re: .. maybe the reason

Does pavlecom get a commision every time they rave about some Chinese made product or service?

American interest in electric vehicles short circuits for first time in four years

The problem I have with EVs in 2024 is that too many people see them as a drop-in fix for all of our environmental issues. Make no changes to your lifestyle whatsoever - just buy a heavy EV, drive it with a lead foot then hang out on forums bashing ICE vehicles as scourge of the planet.

I own an ICE car that does fewer than 2500km/year and a motorcycle that does less again. Most of the time I'm on foot or bicycle.

I've done the math before and I guarantee that my emissions are much lower than most of the people crowing on EV forums about how environmentally friendly they are.

What the world needs is not this frantic sudden demonization of ICE and emergency push to get everyone into electric cars, but sensible changes to urban areas so that walking/cycling is seen as the safer/more pleasant option.

As it is right now I often get bullied on my way to work by impatient Tesla drivers who I can't help imagine are rushing to get online and tell someone how great they are for saving the planet.

Three Chinese balloons float near Taiwanese airbase

Re: China will be encouraged ...

The situation is a little different as Hong Kong was never an independent sovereign state, like it or not it was always known that the lease would end.

Taiwan is also quite different from Ukraine as our military is self sufficient with capabilities to make our own advanced missiles, submarines, jet fighters etc. There is also the mind boggling complexity of landing troops on an unsinkable aircraft carrier surrounded by sea mines and anti-air defenses.

Re: Might be the right time to leave

China has been making threats and kicking off periodically since 1949. In Taiwan we pretty much ignore themnand get on with our lives. They will never start a hot war they won't definitely win unless the domestic situation deteriorates to a point that some external enemy/distraction is needed.

Japan complains Fukushima water release created terrifying Chinese Spam monster

Fairly blatant politicizing considering that China quietly dumps many times more tritium and other crap into the ocean on a regular basis. Unfortunately they have a much more effective e-propaganda machine than Japan.

Chinese media teases imminent exposé of seismic US spying scheme

Re: Whatever China

It's kind of different though if the people can vote him out if the majority are not happy with him, and can debate/joke about him on internet forums without being thrown in jail.

After decades contributing to science, John Goodenough powers down

Re: Good Grief

Pot meet kettle.

I had a look through some of your posts and half of them are crapping on Americans and/or telling people they must be American because X.

For someone who proclaims that el reg should not mention America or Americans in an article about a well loved scientist who passed away you sure love mentioning America and Americans every chance you can get.

Or maybe it's ok to report in an article that an American has done something bad, just not that they have done something cool?

I'm confused.

I am a non Han Chinese Taiwanese citizen who made a lot of effort and sacrifices to earn my citizenship.

I am proud to represent my country whenever given the chance and I am also proud whenever I see scientific or sporting achievements by fellow Taiwanese.

This spirit of national comraderie and friendly competition with other nations is perfectly healthy and also encourages scientific achievements that benefit everybody.

Ironically for all its many faults America is a country that has gone to great lengths separating the idea of race from nationality. So you will see Americans of all colours being proud of American scientific achievements no matter where those scientists or their parents were born.

Not something you will see in e.g. China where nationality and race are very much connected and the percentage of black or white Chinese citizens is in the zeroes. A rather unhealthy and ugly attitude that seems closer to what you are peddling here.

You're just embarrassing yourself, pal.

5 seconds of searching el reg for {country} boffins

https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/22/japanese_solar_powered_cyborg_cockroach/

https://www.theregister.com/2009/03/27/space_curry/

https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/27/china_defence_research_starlink_countermeasures/

Can noise-cancelling buds beat headphones? We spent 20 hours flying to find out

The best compromise I have found for compact travel/jobsite earphones that won't fall out when sleeping/working/exercising are the Sony WI-1000XM2 for around US$200 (they also have a cheaper/smaller WI-C600N). For some reason this style of neckband earbud is very unpopular so these can be hard to find but I think they are brilliant. Battery life is longer than true wireless style and most importantly you can run around, sleep or whatever and the earbuds will just dangle off the cord if they pop out.

Elizabeth Holmes is not going to prison – for the moment

Re: The best legal system money can buy

Not sure what you're getting at, people who pass fraudulent checks shouldn't be prosecuted or people should be thrown in jail during a complex trial because they're "probably" guilty?

The US would sooner see TSMC fabs burn than let China have them

Re: Does it matter?

China could destroy Taiwan for sure, but take it? Taiwan is called the unsinkable aircraft carrier for a reason - any pre-invasion build up on the Chinese side would be seen months in advance and physically landing troops is severely hampered by geography and weather through most of the year. Look how Ukraine manage to hold up against a shared land border using some old Soviet hand me down weapons - Taiwan has hundreds of modern fighter jets, advanced fast attack vessels and sophisticated home grown missile systems. How many sunken ships full of young men can the CCP regime handle before its population starts getting testy?

Re: source?

Scarborough shoal; Senkaku islands; basically the entire coastline of Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia; Nepal (already started physically encroaching); India (also physically breached); Bhutan (illegal construction by China across the border); Indonesia (infringement of Indonesia's EEZ); Laos (China now claiming large parts of Laotian territory on historical precedent going back to the Yuan dynasty); Socotra Rock (South Korea); Mongolia; Myanmar; Tibet (already completely annexed, of course).

Taiwan's claims over certain islands are an interesting quirk of ROC history and its current relationship with the PRC. China has explicitly stated that Taiwan changing its constitution in any way will be considered an act of war so Taiwan is stuck with a slightly mad official charter claiming the whole of China as ROC territory. Obviously almost no Taiwanese actually believe in this as reality but we are stuck with it for now.

Re: I am a Rock; I am an Islaaaaannnnnnd

Interesting that China has major domestic problems, really major, with a rapidly falling birth rate and high %age of people also believing the CCP propaganda machine so it's no surprise that Xi is sabre rattling to divert attention away from internal strife. Worked for the USSR.

As Big Tech lays off staff, TSMC swoops in to hire 6,000

Re: Cost of leaving

TSMC is mostly based in Hsinchu, north Taiwan.

Lots of people commute from Taipei where a city apartment would cost you anything from around GBP400/month to GBP2k+ if you insisted on some kind of luxury serviced apartment).

Just outside Taipei or further south in Taichung or Kaohsiung you can get a large house in the mountains for around GBP500/month or basic apartment for half that. High speed rail takes about 30 minutes from Taichung into Hsinchu and costs around GBP15. Electric and gas are very cheap.

NT$2m/year would allow you to budget $100k/month for a very swanky lifestyle living in a nice apartment and eating out every day with cheap trips to SE Asia, Japan etc. if that's your thing. It's not even close to London cost of living.

Re: Cost of leaving

As someone who lived in both the UK and Taiwan you can definitely live better on NT$2m in Taiwan than double or triple this salary in the UK after tax. Taiwan's healthcare is also way better than the NHS and there is almost zero crime.

China makes it even harder for data to leave its shores

Re: @Sceptic Tank - No, not Yahoo!!!

Chinese people helped move the Chinese people from poverty, not the CCP and not their shitty policies.

By the way, I'm not sure if you've ever actually been to China but it's about the furthest from a communist/socialist society you can get. Rabid capitalism with Chinese characteristics would be a more appropriate designation.

Twitter starts auction to flip the bird, furniture, pizza ovens, gadgets galore

Auctions generally charge the buyer a fee of at least 10% on the hammer price, and often take a commission from the seller also. Seller commissions are usually lower or free to encourage more items on auction, and it's easy for buyers to get excited in the rush of bidding and forget about the extra 10% premium they will need to pay when the dust clears.

I have mixed feelings about Elon in general and there is probably a more ethical way to go about his firings but I've been wondering for some time how and why Twitter ended up with something like 7,000 employees and all these swanky offices in the first place.

Let's not forget it's a site that lets you post 140 character text only messages. OK, so they have close to half a billion users but still it feels like the ex management team have been riding the VC money train for a little too long.

Taiwan bans state-owned devices from running Chinese platform TikTok

Re: Taiwan

Better an American Stooge than a... git.

Instagram star gets 11 years for $300m email scam plot

Re: I wonder how long Elizabeth Holmes will get

Which part of the argument is flawed? The part about 11 years being pretty light for defrauding SMEs, businesses and individuals out of millions and laundering money for very unsavory entities?

BTW looks like Holmes got a 1/4 year longer sentence than your poor maligned Instagram friend there, so..

Re: I wonder how long Elizabeth Holmes will get

Nice try but 11 years is actually surprisingly light for someone who has aggressively scammed hundreds of millions, knew exactly what he was doing and then flaunted his ill gotten gains. Bringing up a non relevant and bizarre race argument is - dare I say it - kind of racist.

Intel plans to cut products — we guess where they’ll happen

Re: Don't get us wrong. Intel's NUC mini PCs are cool, little feats of engineering

I use Asus mini PCs in a light industrial environment, this particular model comes with a 7 core AMD processor and a five year warranty. They have an excellent mounting system so you can slap them on the back of a touchscreen monitor.

In Rust We Trust: Microsoft Azure CTO shuns C and C++

Declaring that C is dead and we should all be using X is a little silly. I guess now I understand what old COBOL programmers felt like when the computing world moved on.

Honestly Rust is a good language and I can't wait to see what a younger generation of programmers will do with it, but I don't see myself writing any serious Rust applications.

Like many programmers in their 40s and 50s I have 30 years of experience with C and I can definitely write much higher quality code in C/C++ than I could in a completely unfamiliar language, even if the language happens to be fundamentally better/safer.

Taiwan chip magnate pledges cash for defense against China: 'I'm telling everyone to oppose the CCP'

Re: Another Rich Corn Flake?

I'd like to see how your "blockade" works in an actual hot war when your boats are being attacked by Taiwan's very advanced domestically made land to sea missiles.

In Taiwan nobody cared about the whole recent Chinese show of force and we just let you get on with it like a parent ignoring their 3 year old's tantrum. You were being laughed at by most of Taiwan the whole time.

Tibet, South Korea, India, Soviet Union.. it's almost like the history books you read are missing some parts hey?

The PRC stated that it doesn't steal intellectual property, wasn't going to militarize its artificial islands, doesn't interfere in foreign politics etc. etc. Well that's me reassured.

Re: NEWSFLASH CHINA HAS NUKES... THE US WILL NEVER GO TO WAR WITH CHINA

What relevance does this comment have to do with the article?

Nobody mentioned the US, we are talking about Taiwanese defending Taiwan.

Off topic tangent notwithstanding

1) Taiwan is nothing like Vietnam

2) Taiwan also has cruise missiles (devastatingly good ones, in fact), what's your point?

3) Taiwan's trade with China is rapidly becoming irrelevant as our current administration has been expanding trade with SE Asia, North America and the EU. We are not just exporting chips either, Taiwan has a massive export trade in general electronics and industrial machinery. A very large percentage of high end quality tools sold around the world are currently made in Taiwan.

Re: Another Rich Corn Flake?

I have recently been to a similar civil defense course here in Taiwan, the focus is mostly on first aid (which very few Taiwanese are trained for), urban survival techniques and generally dealing with emergency situations. There is some very basic handgun training - bear in mind almost all adult males have done compulsory military service so already have some experience with rifles.

If we did end up in a hot war it can only help to have an extra few million people able to use a gun and administer first aid. In peace times this kind of training is still very useful for car accidents, earthquakes, floods etc.

Re: Another Rich Corn Flake?

We get universal healthcare in Taiwan for an average of around $40/month per household and hospitals are pretty much US standard so yeh, it's a pretty efficient place.

Newport Wafer Fab sale to Chinese company held up again by UK.gov's probe

Re: Do not sell to the enemy

Once again, nobody mentioned the US. Go take it somewhere else.

Apple tells suppliers to use 'Taiwan, China' or 'Chinese Taipei' to appease Beijing

Re: Can anyone answer the question, logically...

Many people in Taiwan including me are fighting to change the constitution, but the PRC has explicitly stated that any change in Taiwan's constitution is an act of war.

If a group of very large men with guns followed you around and insisted that you need to wear a sign saying "I am a dickhead" but otherwise let you go about your life normally I think most people would put up with some minor humiliation if the other choice was fighting the big men with guns.

There is a very big difference in perception for the majority of westerners who know little to nothing about the Chinese civil war and this is part of the cognitive warfare China is waging against Taiwan.

Republic of China (Taiwan) is clearly disconnected from the PRC even if you know nothing of the geopolitics or history. "Taiwan, China" is a lot more murky as most people would read this as "Taiwan, the province/City/region of (PR) China".

Re: CHINA IS NOT GOING TO GO AWAY...

1) from the same article: "Broad Sustainable Building spent four and a half months fabricating the building’s 2,736 modules before construction began. The first 20 floors were completed last year, and the remaining 37 were built from 31 January to 17 February this year, Xiao said. "

2) calling the Hainan/Guangxi landing vessels aircraft carriers is perhaps something of a stretch. For those interested in making up your own minds look up the PLA type 075 assault vessel.

4) I don't know what a scotsman argument is but it doesn't change the fact that China is still massively behind Japan, Taiwan and Korea in the top end of high-tech industries.

5) I'm Taiwanese living in Taiwan and I can tell you categorically that no Chinese expressway has even broken ground anywhere on Taiwan.

Saying that the Beijing-Taipei expressway is partially completed is like saying the US-UK expressway is partially completed because both countries have roads.

Re: CHINA IS NOT GOING TO GO AWAY...

Sigh. I'm not sure what Chinese kool-aid you've been drinking but..

1) China has not built any skyscrapers in 60 days

2) China's aircraft carriers are all Russian hand-me-downs except the Fujian which is a copy of the Russian hand-me-downs

3) The US does have hypersonic weapons along with several other countries, it's something of a nonsense buzzword in military terms

4) China does not have any truly capable 7nm fabs yet, making one simple chip with 7nm features does not make you a true 7nm fab

5) China is not building a road to Taiwan. Chinese state media have pushed out articles stating that China is going to build a tunnel to Taiwan but Chinese state media says a lot of things that are untrue. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Nancy Pelosi ties Chinese cyber-attacks to need for Taiwan visit

As a Taiwanese who would absolutely love to normalize our status the sad fact is that it's complicated and we have to be somewhat pragmatic.

I can travel (at least I could pre-covid) with my green Taiwan e-passport visa-free to most of the world including Europe and the UK. We vote directly for our representatives and presidents. We have our own currency, military, political system, banking network, postal service, phone prefix etc.

Yes, it's pretty annoying when you book a hotel or flight and have to click "Taiwan, Province of China" in the dropdown box but if the only option to scrap that is going to war I guess we can deal with it. Apart from that we are already a 100% independent democratic nation and a pretty damn fine one if I may say so.