Hacker News: botanical

New comment by botanical in "YouTube, your RSS feeds are broken"

botanical — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:12:15 +0000

OpenRSS, your website is broken. I get:

> Too many requests are being made from this network, which brings down the performance of feeds for other users. Please try back later.

With regards to the topic, I've noticed this when using FreeTube during certain periods of the day.

Palantir defends its role in the kill chain

botanical — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 16:16:16 +0000

Article URL: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Palantir-defends-its-role-in-the-kill-chain-We-are-very-very-proud-of-that-11211275.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47388830

Points: 107

# Comments: 60

New comment by botanical in "Iran-backed hackers claim wiper attack on medtech firm Stryker"

botanical — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 06:38:15 +0000

Sounds like justification for a false flag operation by the US government. How would they transport these massive things and launch them on a different continent? That, or the US is trying to justify that this illegal war is on their doorstep and need to expand their terror.

Cheap solar is transforming lives and economies across Africa

botanical — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 14:01:15 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/climate/solar-south-africa-china.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46444095

Points: 29

# Comments: 16

US 'Homeland Security' Twitter account seemingly run from Israel

botanical — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 14:26:12 +0000

Article URL: https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2025/11/23/twitter-location-data/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46034470

Points: 50

# Comments: 21

New comment by botanical in "South Africa's one million invisible children without birth certificates"

botanical — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 09:33:20 +0000

Load shedding hasn't been a problem for a while now. With proper maintenance of the coal stations and investments in solar, we haven't had it in Winter either. But you're right, it's always lurking. With increased renewable energy, and less reliance on coal, hopefully it stays in the past.

https://african.business/2025/10/energy-resources/has-south-...

New comment by botanical in "South Africa's one million invisible children without birth certificates"

botanical — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 09:25:18 +0000

True, but I meant in South Africa, SA is the most used. Less so with RSA or ZAR. ZA is somewhat used but SA (I would say) dominates in conversation and in written text.

New comment by botanical in "South Africa's one million invisible children without birth certificates"

botanical — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 16:43:00 +0000

By what metric is it in "steady decline"? As as South African, it's amusing to see how my country is generalised.

New comment by botanical in "South Africa's one million invisible children without birth certificates"

botanical — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 16:39:25 +0000

ISO 3166-2 code for South Africa. It's from Dutch: Zuid-Afrika. It's used quite often to refer to South Africa; RSA or SA is also used.

Developers drop Vercel, call for boycott after CEO posts selfie with Netanyahu

botanical — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 13:35:02 +0000

Article URL: https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/developers-drop-vercel-call-boycott-after-ceo-posts-selfie-netanyahu

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45437551

Points: 31

# Comments: 2

New comment by botanical in "Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its tech in mass surveillance of Palestinians"

botanical — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 03:40:13 +0000

Are they going to rehire the employees they fired for being against this and Microsoft's support of the genocide now? It's more than just mass surveillance, and their leaders need to be held accountable.

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/microsoft-azure-israel-top-cu...

New comment by botanical in "Uruguay ditched fossil fuels for renewables"

botanical — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 07:48:25 +0000

That's really commendable, but I wonder how to do it on a large scale. Uruguay's installed capacity is 4.6 GW. On a larger scale, batteries can't be the answer as their energy density is quite poor.

Mistral's new "environmental audit" shows how much AI is hurting the planet

botanical — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 13:15:21 +0000

Article URL: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/07/mistrals-new-environmental-audit-shows-how-much-ai-is-hurting-the-planet/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44693849

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

Cutting US Military spending could save as much energy as used by a small nation

botanical — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 13:19:14 +0000

Article URL: https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/cutting-us-military-spending-could-save-as-much-energy-as-used-by-a-small-nation

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44454761

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

New comment by botanical in "Signal – An Ethical Replacement for WhatsApp"

botanical — Sat, 21 Jun 2025 06:51:24 +0000

WhatsApp's call quality is second to none. Also the fact that it's ubiquitous, and its sync just works, makes it difficult to move to anything else. Everyone's on it in South Africa. I think we can only hope for regulation to keep it safe and force interoperability with other chat apps.

New comment by botanical in "WhatsApp introduces ads in its app"

botanical — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 09:23:40 +0000

As much as I like WhatsApp, I hate that it's been bought by a company like Meta. Its voice-calling quality is the best from all similar apps, companies use it to communicate with people, and my entire family solely uses it.

I just wish there was something else with such far reach and capability. We can only hope for interoperability with other chat apps.

At least the ads are in Updates, where I never bother looking at

New comment by botanical in "US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists"

botanical — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 05:51:25 +0000

North Korean and Chinese hackers are soundly shunned but for some reason it's always a "company" from a pariah country like Apartheid Israel that are able to sell their software weapons to indiscriminately target any civilian from any country.

New comment by botanical in "Apple introduces a universal design across platforms"

botanical — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 12:26:14 +0000

This translucent 3D look doesn't feel like they took usability into consideration. They just wanted to force a glass-look. At least the Aero look was frosted, this makes it so you have to strain to differentiate buttons and text on it.

New comment by botanical in "OpenAI for Countries"

botanical — Thu, 08 May 2025 14:52:46 +0000

As if Western-backed companies are some type of beacon of light. If news of your company has Trump and Oracle linked to it, you aren't the good guys. This is just the American way of "consolidating power", by "spreading democracy."

Also, it's not like OpenAI responses aren't censored when it comes to "sensitive" topics.

New comment by botanical in "Espressif's ESP32-C5 Is Now in Mass Production"

botanical — Thu, 01 May 2025 15:42:38 +0000

I wanted a board with Zigbee support but $21 ($16 plus $5 shipping) is quite expensive for a single board.