Hacker News Reader

Comment by acheron | Hacker News Reader

This is an event that occurred, yes. I don't see the point of it being on HN though -- the guidelines suggest staying away from mainstream news, and as already shown in the first comment here, there's basically no chance of a worthwhile discussion coming out of it.

View on HN

There's a long tradition on HN of having truly major political stories, ones of historical significance, be discussed here.

Nevertheless, if the discussion can't rise above garden-variety political bickering, we're going to bury it.

Can we spin this to discuss what influence it would have on Cuba's IT growth? Now that there is an embassy there U.S tech companies might be more inclined to invest there.

Most direct investment is still forbidden due to the embargo... But I hope it will (somehow) boost the interest in exploring the Cuban startup scene.

[shameless plug] We're holding a meetup next Saturday in Havana: http://www.meetup.com/merchise/events/223604638/

Hopefully bring down the price of internet in the country. From what I have heard from activists on the ground it can often be hundreds of dollars a month. Plus significant restrictions on access etc. There was quite a good Guardian article about it.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/23/cuba-offline-in...

Couldn't the embassy provide a large public WiFi hotspot to the nearby Cuban residents?

I'm sure that they do. They will not forget to record and track all the people using it. (Not that the US government is short of ways to get this data anyway.)

A number of Western embassies in a number of countries deliberately have ramped up the public Wifi during specific events. For example elections where the local government shuts off the internet.

I think it's well worth including on HN. It's a pretty momentous occasion, as the Cold War is arguably the defining geopolitical phenomena of the last half of the 20th century. Sure, some of the commentary is gonna suck, but people vote accordingly and then we move on. But I'm glad we're at least giving discussion a chance.

The very same guidelines also say: "Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com