https://ericzhu.dev/ Personal site and writing. Civil engineering, trading, AI, and the messy space where they overlap. en-ca Mon, 28 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/cxmt-memory-chip-cold-war.html CXMT is shipping DDR5 DRAM despite US export controls. Canada has zero domestic memory fabrication and no policy for the dependency. Why that matters. Mon, 28 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/cxmt-memory-chip-cold-war.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/cxmt-ddr5-ai-infrastructure-cost.html CXMT sells DDR5 at 20-30% below Samsung and SK Hynix. For AI clusters consuming terabytes of memory, that discount compounds into millions saved. Mon, 28 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/cxmt-ddr5-ai-infrastructure-cost.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-bank-oligopoly.html In the time it takes you to read this sentence, Canada’s Big Five banks have collectively collected over $5,000 in fees from their customers—a hidden tax that c Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-bank-oligopoly.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-childcare-crisis.html When the Trudeau government promised $10-a-day childcare, it was a lifeline. Three years later, the average Ontario family is still paying $19 a day—and 90,000 Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-childcare-crisis.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-electricity-crisis.html In 2024, Canada's hydroelectric output—the backbone of its clean energy system—fell by 3.8 percent, the largest drop in years, as drought gripped Quebec and Man Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-electricity-crisis.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-food-banks.html In March 2024, Canadian food banks recorded 2,059,636 visits – a number that would fill every seat in the country's NHL arenas nearly 12 times over. Yet behind Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-food-banks.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-gig-economy.html In 2020, Canada’s highest court ruled that Uber’s mandatory arbitration clause was invalid, paving the way for a class-action lawsuit that could reclassify driv Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-gig-economy.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-healthcare-waits.html Linda Slater waited two years for a knee replacement in Alberta, her pain so severe she could barely walk. Then she paid $33,000 for surgery at a private clinic Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-healthcare-waits.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-housing-crisis.html In December 2024, Canada's national home price index stood just 0.3% below its April 2022 record—yet 55% of non-owners say they have no plans to ever buy a home Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-housing-crisis.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-pension-crisis.html At $810 a month, the average Canada Pension Plan benefit already falls far short of what most Canadians need to retire. And for millennials, the math is about t Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-pension-crisis.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-student-debt.html A 20-year-old entering university in 2023 will likely owe more than $28,000 upon graduation—but will step into a job market where nearly one in five 15-to-19-ye Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-student-debt.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-telecom-oligopoly.html In just six months, Canadians filed 19,157 complaints against their telecom providers—a 61% jump from the year before, according to the Commission for Complaint Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-telecom-oligopoly.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/kimi-k3-open-weight-revolution.html Moonshot AI released Kimi K3 — a 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight model that topped coding benchmarks and crashed its own servers from demand. Here is what it actually changes. Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/kimi-k3-open-weight-revolution.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/ai-open-weight-policy-battle.html US senators want to restrict open-weight models like Kimi K3. The EU regulates transparency. Canada is undecided. The policy battle over who controls AI is here. Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/ai-open-weight-policy-battle.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-open-weight-ai-sovereignty.html Canada spends $4.2B annually on foreign cloud services. Open-weight models like Kimi K3 offer a path to AI sovereignty — if Canada builds the infrastructure. Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/canada-open-weight-ai-sovereignty.html https://ericzhu.dev/posts/open-weight-vs-closed-weight-real-cost.html Kimi K3's open-weight release forces a hard economic question: when an open model matches closed frontier performance, what exactly are you paying for? Sun, 26 Jul 2026 12:00:00 -0700 https://ericzhu.dev/posts/open-weight-vs-closed-weight-real-cost.html