Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47609108

Points: 11

# Comments: 2

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47534951

Points: 28

# Comments: 2

>You send it to johnsmith@gmail.com

>You receive a new message, it says "Hey, can you please stop using my email address?"

>You're johnsmith@gmail.com, you only know that's the address that's being used

PD: I know that if he resets the password he can get the other address, but this scenario was funny in my head.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47067724

Points: 6

# Comments: 1

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47055755

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46969452

Points: 8

# Comments: 0

> New construction on thermoelectric power plants and other hydroelectric plants has been stalled for years, and localised power cuts are a daily occurrence around Venezuela.

> There have also been problems with the supply from the Guri dam in the past.

> In 2010, Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, declared an “electricity emergency” after a drought caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon left waters at the dam dangerously low.

> Six years later, Venezuela’s worst drought in four decades again affected the Guri dam, which then provided about 70% of the country’s electricity.

> In May last year, a union leader representing workers in the state power corporation, was arrested by Venezuela’s intelligence service, Sebin, after warning that poor maintenance and systemic problems meant that a blackout was likely to happen.

I will use an extract from the Spanish Wikipedia article[2] about the 2019 blackouts because it summarizes the situation pretty well:

> On March 9, Ángel Javier Sequea, head of office and operations in Guyana, was found dead after being detained by SEBIN.[3] Ángel Javier left a recorded audio message about the lack of maintenance on high-voltage power lines. He worked for 13 years in the powerhouse next to the turbines at the Caruachi Plant.

> Between the night of March 11 and the early morning of March 12, 2019, SEBIN agents arrested and raided the Caracas home of journalist Luis Carlos Díaz, who was then transferred to the Helicoide.[4] Díaz was accused of inciting the blackout.[5] On the night of March 12, 2019, he was released after a hearing in the Caracas courts, in which, according to the organization Espacio Público, he was charged with the crime of “incitement to commit a crime” and was required to appear in court every eight days and prohibited from leaving the country, speaking to the media, and participating in public demonstrations[6]. On March 22, Francisco Alarcón Orozco, secretary of the Corpoelec union, was found hanged under strange circumstances[7]. Govany Zambrano, a Corpoelec worker, was arrested after participating in a press conference[8]. “Our infrastructure at the national level is in a state of neglect, vandalism, abandonment, and terrible conditions...” The government never accepted failure due to lack of maintenance as the main cause, as explained in 2010 by José Aguilar, an expert in electrical risk and international advisor[9].

As a Venezuelan, I can say that the national electrical system is in a terrible condition, with constant blackouts and power surges that damage household appliances and industrial equipment. Depending on the time of year, blackouts become more and more intense. It's very common to see news reports of areas that have lost power, and it can take weeks for CORPOELEC (the national electricity company) to fix the problem and depending on the location, even months.

No one here doubts that the blackouts of 2019 and all those that followed have been the government's fault due to lack of maintenance, failure to renew equipment, and failure to build new power plants.

Years ago, there were plans to install renewable energy sources such as windmills on the coast, but all the money disappeared thanks to the typical corruption around here[10].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/13/venezuela-blac...

[2] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apagones_de_Venezuela_de_2019

[3] https://www.aporrea.org/ddhh/n339228.html

[4] https://www.europapress.es/nacional/noticia-detenido-caracas...

[5] https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/03/12/actualidad/15523...

[6] https://www.elmundo.es/internacional/2019/03/13/5c888f29fc6c...

[7] http://www.venezuelaaldia.com/2019/03/23/muere-otro-trabajad...

[8] https://web.archive.org/web/20190713213240/http://puntodecor...

[9] https://web.archive.org/web/20100816181129/http://www.el-nac...

[10] https://climatetrackerlatam.org/historias/la-paralizacion-de...

There have been images of protests in the US against the government because of the attack and even some pictures of banners supporting Maduro, like ignoring the that he was a dictator.

I'm in a somewhat middle position, because I feel the same that we're being ignored (especially in left-wing spaces), but at the same time there are a lot of Venezuelans that don't understand all the problems of this, some even wish that Venezuela converts into another state of the US and for me that's unreasonable.

It's so hard to talk about this from the perspective of a venezuelan.

Venezuela is under a dictatorshipt that has violated human rights massively, in Caracas (the capital) there's a prison know as El Helicoide, that's the headquarterts of the SEBIN (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia), they are the secret police and the have arrested opposition members, reporters, human rights activists, and even family members of any of the three. and El Helicoide is a prison that is the equivalent of Guantanamo, but in Venezuela; it's the largest torture center in Latin America.

On July 28, 2024, presidential elections were held, which were extremely difficult to reach. Negotiations with the government were necessary to allow the opposition to participate. The opposition held primary elections to determine its candidate, and María Corina Machado (MCM) (the previous year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate) won with approximately 90% of the vote. There was also a high voter turnout that the government had not anticipated, so they disqualified her, she then proposed another candidate, but this person was also disqualified, and ultimately, they had to put forward Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU) at the last minute, an stranger in Venezuelan politics, and she had to even convince him to participate in the elections because he was the last option they had.

During the campaign, the government placed every possible obstacle in their path to prevent them from campaigning, closing roads, arresting campaign workers, and issuing threats. On election day, there were several irregularities, and at midnight, the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that Maduro had won. However, MCM claimed there had been fraud and, days later, presented evidence. She had conducted a large-scale operation to collect all the electoral records from every polling station in the country, managing to gather the vast majority, which showed that EGU had won with 67%. This sparked widespread protests and severe repression, including the arrest of many members of Vente Venezuela (MCM's party). She was forced into hiding, and EGU was forced to leave the country, but only after making a deal with the government while taking refuge in the Spanish embassy. His son-in-law was also arrested and remains missing to this day.

If you ask any Venezuelan, many agree with an US invasion. The vast majority are against the regime, just like me, although many aren't aware of how dangerous Trump is, or the things he's done in the US. To me, Trump isn't so different from Chávez: he insults those who disagree with him, he doesn't respect institutions, he installs his people in positions of power, and he only cares about loyalty. That's why I'm in a very complicated position, because on the one hand, I want this dictatorship to finally end; on the other hand, I don't like Trump. He's quite capable of trying to establish his own dictatorship in his country. He's not doing this just to liberate us; he's doing it because he has his own interests.

There are also many people who have spoken ill of MCM; many have said she didn't deserve the Nobel Prize and that she's just a puppet of Trump.

I couldn't disagree more with those statements..

Being in her position is very difficult, due to the alliances the government has made. A large part of the left worldwide has sided with the dictatorship or doesn't denounce its atrocities, and because of that, she has no choice but to ally herself with right-wing people, including Trump. I don't think she agrees with everything he does, and she's even asked him to treat Venezuelans better, but she can't anger him either, because he's the only ally who can help her with this. That's why she told him he should have received the Nobel Prize, to avoid further anger and to try to appease him.

I don't completely agree with her; I have a somewhat different ideology than hers, but even I can see how much effort she puts into everything she does and here in Venezuela she's greatly admired. I'm not one to admire people or have idols, I even criticize her a bit because she never makes it clear what the plan is for getting out of this situation and always says that freedom will come soon, something that gets very tiresome, but even so, I can understand her

It's also important to mention something else: the Venezuelan government has used various operations to manipulate public opinion, both inside and outside Venezuela, trying to portray itself as a legitimate government and claiming that everything the U.S. does is for the sake of oil. While this is partly true, it also attempts to tarnish the reputation of MCM and the opposition. It's possible that here, on Twitter, Bluesky, or many other sites, there are fake accounts trying to promote this narrative, so be careful what you read, because this government has committed atrocities; don't forget that.

Talking about all this is very difficult, because on the one hand this is a dictatorship that we want to free ourselves from, but on the other hand Trump is one of the worst things that has happened to the world and everything can go wrong.

Here's an addendum based on the information that I've since yesterday:

What Trump and Marco Rubio has said about the situation is worrying, because they make very obvious that their priority it's the oil and democracy seems more like an afterthought. There's a big possibility that they let Delcy Rodríguez (the vicepresident) to be in power and use if she's more obedient, that would mean that the chavismo would still rule the country, changing nothing in democracy regards.

They talk about that there's going to be a transition, so I don't want to think in the previous scenario, but the way they dismissed MCM enraged me, because Trump said that she doesn't have the support nor the respect, and perhaps he refers to within the FANB (Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana), but what Rubio said today dismisses the idea of she or EGU getting in the presidency in the short term, something that I can understand because we have to make a transition, but at the same time is extremely worrying how they're sidelining the opposition.

I have the hope that things will improve, but at the same I don't like a lot of things that USA is doing right now, and that without mentioning what Trump has said about Colombia's president, Mexico or Greenland.

Excuse me if my text seems strange, I originally wrote it in Spanish and translated it in Google Translate, although I know English, it was easier for me to do it this way.

Venezuela is under a dictatorshipt that has violated human rights massively, in Caracas (the capital) there's a prison know as El Helicoide, that's the headquarterts of the SEBIN (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia), they are the secret police and the have arrested opposition members, reporters, human rights activists, and even family members of any of the three. Their headquarters is El Helicoide, a prison that is the equivalent of Guantanamo, but in Venezuela; it is the largest torture center in Latin America.

On July 28, 2024, presidential elections were held, which were extremely difficult to reach. Negotiations with the government were necessary to allow the opposition to participate. The opposition held primary elections to determine its candidate, and María Corina Machado (MCM) (the previous year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate) won with approximately 90% of the vote. There was also a high voter turnout that the government had not anticipated, so they disqualified her, she then proposed another candidate, but this person was also disqualified, and ultimately, they had to put forward Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU), an stranger in Venezuelan politics, and had to convince him to participate in the elections.

During the campaign, the government placed every possible obstacle in their path to prevent them from campaigning, closing roads, arresting campaign workers, and issuing threats. On election day, there were several irregularities, and at midnight, the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that Maduro had won. However, MCM claimed there had been fraud and, days later, presented evidence. She had conducted a large-scale operation to collect all the electoral records from every polling station in the country, managing to gather the vast majority, which showed that EGU had won with 67%. This sparked widespread protests and severe repression, including the arrest of many members of Vente Venezuela (MCM's party). She was forced into hiding, and EGU was forced to leave the country, but only after making a deal with the government while taking refuge in the Spanish embassy. His son-in-law was also arrested and remains missing to this day.

If you ask any Venezuelan, many agree with an US invasion. The vast majority are against the regime, just like me, although many aren't aware of how dangerous Trump is, or the things he's done in the US. To me, Trump isn't so different from Chávez: he insults those who disagree with him, he doesn't respect institutions, he installs his people in positions of power, and he only cares about loyalty. That's why I'm in a very complicated position, because on the one hand, I want this dictatorship to finally end; on the other hand, I don't like Trump. He's quite capable of trying to establish his own dictatorship in his country. He's not doing this just to liberate us; he's doing it because he has his own interests.

There are also many people who have spoken ill of MCM; many have said she didn't deserve the Nobel Prize and that she's just a puppet of Trump.

I couldn't disagree more with those statements.

I don't completely agree with her; I have a somewhat different ideology than hers, but even I can see how much effort she puts into everything she does. Here in Venezuela, she's greatly admired. I'm not one to admire people or have idols. I even criticize her a bit because she never makes it clear what the plan is for getting out of this situation and always says that freedom will come soon, something that gets very tiresome, but even so, I can understand her.

Being in her position is very difficult, due to the alliances the government has made. A large part of the left worldwide has sided with the dictatorship or doesn't denounce its atrocities, and because of that, she has no choice but to ally herself with right-wing people, including Trump. I don't think she agrees with everything he does, and she's even asked him to treat Venezuelans better, but she can't anger him either, because he's the only ally who can help her with this. That's why she told him he should have received the Nobel Prize, to avoid further anger and to try to appease him.

It's also important to mention something else: the Venezuelan government has used various operations to manipulate public opinion, both inside and outside Venezuela, trying to portray itself as a legitimate government and claiming that everything the U.S. does is for the sake of oil. While this is partly true, it also attempts to tarnish the reputation of MCM and the opposition. It's possible that here, on Twitter, Bluesky, or many other sites, there are fake accounts trying to promote this narrative, so be careful what you read, because this government has committed atrocities; don't forget that.

Talking about all this is very difficult, because on the one hand this is a dictatorship that we want to free ourselves from, but on the other hand Trump is one of the worst things that has happened to the world.

Excuse me if my text seems strange, I originally wrote it in Spanish and translated it in Google Translate, although I know English, it was easier for me to do it this way.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46322532

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

An example of this is MP4: Browsers can decode videos encoded with H264 in MP4 containers, but not H265 even if it uses the same container, because one thing is the container and another thing is the codec, they're related but they aren't the same.

https://kartkrew.org/