frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Cubans rendered powerless as outages persist and tensions with US escalate

https://apnews.com/article/cuba-us-oil-power-outages-electricity-trump-ccab32796f7b57353adedc380181c68f
39•petethomas•1h ago

Comments

mothballed•1h ago
It's amazing people are living on $6/month when even someone in Liberia or the Congo can make $50/month solving Captchas and only spend half that on internet.
goda90•1h ago
This really illustrates how important it is to switch to renewable energy. I know it's not an easy task for impoverished communities to get the startup capital to install solar+batteries, especially one in such a politically tumultuous position, but that really is a path to stability for so many people around the world.

A YouTuber known for talking about dishwashers and Christmas lights recently put out a long rant about how ridiculous it is that humanity still leans so much on single use fuels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM

cosmic_cheese•1h ago
Extensive deployment of renewables and battery storage is perhaps the best thing that can be done anywhere (even in developed countries) for making the grid more robust. Not only is there no fuel supply to be cut off, targets become too diffuse and decentralized to take out quickly, especially if you can manage to cover 30-40% of cities with rooftop solar.
bryanlarsen•56m ago
You can hit a solar plant with a missile, and it can be back in operation with a reduced capacity within a week:

https://www.wanhossolars.com/news/ukrainian-solar-power-plan...

pixl97•2m ago
Honestly I'm not sure if it would take a week in most cases, just took this long in this case. Its really not worth going after the panels with a conventional missile. Maybe something that explodes well above it and litters it with ball bearings would be far more effective.
lstodd•1h ago
> At length I remembered the last resort of a great princess who, when told that the peasants had no bread, replied: "Then let them eat brioches."
propagandist•1h ago
It also illustrates the importance of not getting caught on the wrong side of the global hegemon right next door who can choke you out and prevent you from importing energy and integrating with the global economy.

A lot of food for thought all around.

mothballed•58m ago
That's definitely part of the equation, but the blockade has been over for a long while. They have suffered not only the brutal effect of US colonization/hegemony but also the brutal effect of the legacy of Castro's brand of economics. If they were just suffering one or the other, they'd be significantly better off.

Edit since I am throttled on posts and cannot reply below: The US briefly blockaded Cuba in the 60s, but they have only embargoed them since then. They are not blocked from international trade by the US, except with the US. There is no meaningful block from Cuba engaging in the greater international non-US "global economy" such as EU,Asia, etc.

user982•37m ago
> the blockade has been over for a long while.

What are you talking about?

bryanlarsen•23m ago
The embargo was partially lifted in 2015. The article is about the effects of the re-tightening in 2025.
user982•14m ago
> The embargo was partially lifted in 2015

And then reinstated in 2017. How has that been "over for a long while"?

roumenguha•27m ago
Do you mean Batista?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista

buckle8017•35m ago
Much of the developing world is close enough to the equator that solar and batteries just have to last a few days.

In most developed countries solar is seasonal.

anonymars•12m ago
Solar is one type of renewable. The Nordics have done all right

https://www.nordicstatistics.org/news/the-5-large-nordic-cou...

standardUser•51m ago
I recall visiting Cuba during the second term of Obama (shortly after his visit) and seeing the various reforms that were taking place and feeling very optimistic about the island's future. We saw a lot of highly political art on display, ate at some of the first private restaurants, watched a helicopter explode overt the ocean as they were filming a Fast and Furious film, and went to a nightclub/art show event that rivaled anything I've been to in NYC.

In a sane world, we would be Cuba's largest trading partner and largest source of tourists. In that hypothetical world, the ongoing economic and cultural exchange would have propelled the island towards a different political system. Instead, we doubled down on an approach that has failed for 70+ years.

giancarlostoro•42m ago
In that same world we have Puerto Rico with a fragile power grid. I'm not sure what the best course of action is for Puerto Rico, I am from the Island, and there's just way too many issues on the island, the biggest thing I do know is that the old tax incentives made the island thrive drastically. There was a point in time where Puerto Rico was as high up in terms of production quality as Japan, above the US itself. A lot of pharmaceuticals come from Puerto Rico, so much so that hospitals in Florida have shortages if the Island loses power due to a major hurricane.
logicx24•28m ago
> the ongoing economic and cultural exchange would have propelled the island towards a different political system

The blocker to this has always been the government refusing to reform. I don't see how increased exchange changes this. If anything, the Cuban government would've blocked any integration that threatens their control.

giancarlostoro•44m ago
I have a coworker from Cuba, her grandmother still lives there, this has been going on for about 2 years. She had sent her grandmother a power generator thinking she could just buy gas, but when it became apparent that they have gas shortages, she bought her grandmother a solar based one, this was several months ago if I remember correctly.
D-Machine•33m ago
Cuba is dying and collapsing, with this kind of issue being just a part of a broader systemic set of causes. It is a serious tragedy and humanitarian crisis. If people aren't aware of how bad it is: they haven't had reliable food and electricity for a while now, even parts of Havana and other cities look eerily like a ghost town, and it seems as if almost anyone that is able to has been fleeing.

"Compared to the peak of 11.2 million inhabitants reached in 2012 – the year of the last census – Cuba has lost 13% of its population. [...] A quarter of the island's population is aged 60 and over, and it is the only demographic category that has grown in recent years"

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/04/30/c...

mperham•23m ago
The fossil fuel industry has stolen the bulk of Cuba’s income. Need to switch to solar and batteries to onshore your energy production. China could help here and get a big diplomatic win if they were to give Cuba subsidized access to their clean energy assets.

The limits of interview questions

https://orchidfiles.com/the-limits-of-interview-questions/
1•theorchid•2m ago•0 comments

ImportKit – Embeddable CSV import widget for SaaS apps

1•gissurthor•2m ago•0 comments

Incarcerated activists from Oscar-nominated documentary sent to solitary

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/30/alabama-solution-activist-solitary-confinement
3•konaraddi•5m ago•0 comments

What Happens When You Delete a File

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up9DoD2hs_E
1•artisandip7•6m ago•0 comments

Counter-Strike Bench: GPT 5.3 Codex vs. Claude Opus 4.6

https://www.instantdb.com/essays/codex_53_opus_46_cs_bench
1•stopachka•8m ago•0 comments

We Reverse-Engineered Docker Sandbox's Undocumented MicroVM API

https://www.rivet.dev/blog/2026-02-04-we-reverse-engineered-docker-sandbox-undocumented-microvm-api/
1•pploug•11m ago•0 comments

My name is Sensurround Q. Catgirl, and I microwave bacon

https://twitter.com/ShamashAran/status/2019442354524979502
1•delichon•11m ago•0 comments

'The EU runs on Microsoft' – and Uncle Sam could turn it off

https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/04/eu_foss_fears/
3•belter•13m ago•0 comments

Geometric Art in Ancient Greece

https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/geometric-art-in-ancient-greece
1•sebg•15m ago•0 comments

meepr

https://meepr.co/
1•bookofjoe•16m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Graph DB-backed game, like Dobble/Spot it to play with Projective Plane

https://github.com/jpadams/fastmatchgame
1•jpadamspdx•16m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Hacker News Topics that Span Multiple Discussions

https://hn-related.dosaygo.com/?sort=comments&p=1
1•keepamovin•18m ago•0 comments

A First Course in Causal Inference

https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.18793
1•Anon84•19m ago•0 comments

Commodore, IBM, OS/2, ARexx: Deal or No Deal?

https://datagubbe.se/os2/
4•rbanffy•21m ago•0 comments

Trojan Virus in VSCode Extension with 1.3M Downloads

https://vscan.dev/?analysisId=74c4c949-862c-46c8-a8be-e469d4ff1f06
4•shadow-ninja•24m ago•2 comments

TrumpRx: Find the lowest prices on prescription drugs

https://trumprx.gov/
3•0xedb•24m ago•0 comments

Schneier: Data is a toxic asset (2016)

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_toxic.html
1•insuranceguru•26m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Obooko – Free ebooks with an open-source web reader

https://www.obooko.com
3•gthartley•26m ago•0 comments

Building an ERP in public and looking for early partners

https://www.vantumerp.com/
1•adnan1507•27m ago•1 comments

$300B Evaporated. The SaaS -Pocalypse Has Begun

https://www.forbes.com/sites/donmuir/2026/02/04/300-billion-evaporated-the-saaspocalypse-has-begun/
1•user20180120•28m ago•0 comments

C Isn't a Language

https://faultlore.com/blah/c-isnt-a-language/
2•stickynotememo•29m ago•1 comments

Before Crisis Strikes – Smartwatch Tracks Triggers for Opioid Misuse

https://today.ucsd.edu/story/before-crisis-strikes-smartwatch-tracks-triggers-for-opioid-misuse
1•geox•31m ago•0 comments

Show HN: AcidTest – Security scanner for AI agent skills

https://github.com/currentlycurrently/acidtest
1•cloudmanager•31m ago•1 comments

Show HN: IncidentFox, AI SRE that auto-builds its own integrations (open source)

https://github.com/incidentfox/incidentfox
1•chiehminwei•34m ago•0 comments

Sudo's maintainer needs resources to keep utility updated

https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/03/sudo_maintainer_asks_for_help/
2•birdculture•34m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Does global decoupling from the USA signal comeback of the desktop app?

3•wewewedxfgdf•35m ago•0 comments

On history and flattery

https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/on-history-and-flattery/
1•hhs•38m ago•0 comments

Watch Claude Code debug WebGPU code without a GPU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x791YvPIhFo
1•logicallee•40m ago•1 comments

Show HN: PR Bro – a TUI that helps you decide what PR to review next

https://github.com/toniperic/pr-bro
1•toneric•43m ago•0 comments

The AI boom's surprising winners aren't even tech companies

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/05/ai-walmart-stock-wmt-consumer-goods
2•petethomas•44m ago•0 comments