Speaking from a developing nation. Upfront solar costs aren't cheap. Reasons why people invest in solar include unreliable grids which result in power cuts from lack of maintenance or capacity. For new buildings bureaucratic processes are so cumbersome and often there is lots of corruption for you to get connected to the grid so people rather just invest in solar and have nothing to do with often hostile local government officials looking for a bribe to get you connected to the grid. It can take years to get connected to the grid.

South African here. Just about all notifications have moved to WhatsApp. Most school classes have a group for the parents, extended family group, immediate family group, residents association group, high school classmates group, gym class group, home town group ... the list goes on. Sounds like a lot but most groups tend to have few messages.

Canadian here.

I have a WhatsApp account and the app on my phone with zero contacts in it. Nobody here uses it. But every time I leave the country I need it for some service or business or who knows what. It seems like the rest of the world all agreed to use this app and Canada (and I think the US) just said “naw thanks…” and have no common app or method.

My theory is that there is a latent hysteresis effect of past SMS and data pricing on mobile accounts that matches up with places that adopted WhatsApp and ones that didn't.

What are people using in Canada? SMS?

If Canada is similar to the US, a mixture of SMS, Discord, and iMessage. The kids use Snapchat, your aunt uses Facebook messenger or iMessage, and occasionally someone might be into Telegram although mostly scammers. Teams or Slack for official workplace or college chat groups. GroupMe was popular for college groups when I was an undergraduate though that’s long since gone by the wayside.

Most importantly, if you show up as a “green bubble” person you will be lightly teased about it, including on a date.

Yeah this is roughly the same. It’s just a smear of apps and no real assumption of anything sure to be shared.

Costco membership meetups

Apple Messages.

Ditto in the UK.

African here living under and shit hole government who has no interest in improving the lives of the people. Starlink has been a game changer! An absolute game changer. I do not support Elon Musk but just putting out there that Starlink is helping kids in remote areas with no electricity (they use small solar panel) to access the Internet.

A monopoly can do good in the world. I am glad this is beneficial to you. I worry, given the history of monopoly behavior, that it will flip to extreme rent seeking in the not distant future.

Hopefully they don't part with books—the way kids in the U.S. have. Hopefully they don't spend all their free time on Tik Tok…

Most people cannot afford to have it in their home. They will get access at school or shopping centre. Most kids don't have phones either but I really do get your point. The other danger is they tend to be susceptible to fake news and stories made up using AI. I have had cousins from the village send me a picture of a mermaid claiming she was caught in one of the rivers.

> I have had cousins from the village send me a picture of a mermaid claiming she was caught in one of the rivers.

For what it's worth, this also happens with printed books.

I wasted the latter half of my teens taking New Age occultism and magical powers as a profound topic rather than a literature and culture topic, thanks to a combination of a bookstore chain near where I grew up and a mother who also took this all very seriously.

I wasn't suggesting that books are some kind of paragon of "truth". But as I think most HN readers would agree, there's just something… tangible about them that seems to stimulate the brain in a way that ephemeral images on a screen don't.

what about being a better parent?

i feel like all these problems people come up with stem from the fact they suck at parenting and have to project.

i and most people i know don’t have these problems. we actually care, and our parents cared about us.

when i was growing up it was kids who drank or smoked (we didn’t have smartphones).

just avoid them.

these days if kids are glued to the phone that’s the parents fault. bad parenting.

take kids to the museum or get them to a classical show or something.

if parents make excuses why they can’t, again L parents.

This reads like you aren’t a parent and haven’t experienced the effects of social and peer pressure. We don’t allow screen time but our kids cousins do. Where do you think watching you tube happens? Should we monitor every moment of their lives and ban them from going to their cousins house?

Hopefully they don't part with books—the way kids in the U.S. have.

Which products are you now using?

I'm looking at a few, haven't made my mind up yet.

Opencode looks like the most promising host, though there's also OpenRouter. OpenCode Go pricing is hard to beat.

Pi looks like the best harness/tool, or I could continue with claude but not use Anthropic's models/hosting, though that has the same risks that I'm trying to move away from.

GLM looks like the best model at the moment, but I think the key is building a workflow that can switch model at will.

Docker desktop sandboxes will work with all of them, so no change there.

Getting them to work together looks like a bit of effort but not too difficult.

As a middle child this rings true for me.

I see a lot of comments critical of the product. I don't know much about the field but I have a teen and I would like to give her product of this sort and see how far she takes it. I would appreciate suggestions and links.

I would look up the arduino UNO starter kits on amazon or adafruit. They are more reasonably priced, have more components, have more tutorials.

On South African national TV the interviewee's chair broke. Still cracks me up to this day. https://youtu.be/XnHIeXQCfog?si=u4kzKfPLKSNGbBf_

Because of their composure, it almost looks like an intended format: you have 20 seconds to make your point before the chair collapses.

Honestly? A political interview show with gags like that would lighten things up. A few "crime is everywhere!!!" politicians would do very well with a whoopie cushion.

The caption declaring him chairperson is absolutely perfect.

That gave me a good laugh on a Monday morning. Thanks.

There must have been some maintenance crew who had been asking for a bigger budget for months...

I wonder if they assisted the chairs downfall...

I wonder if the issue is that the use of AI has generated so much work, a substantial amount none essential and incorrect as per the article and for one to cope with the volume of work you have to use AI. The irony. More pull requests to check, more pages or documentation to review, more new apps or features to get acquainted with all at a rapid pace.

To add. It is jarring for me when I occasionally get to use someone's browser that does not have an ad blocker. It is indeed surprising what users have accepted as the norm.

Turtles all the way down.