Hacker News with Generative AI: South Africa

South Africa's history uncovered: the 1k-year gap they don't teach in school (theconversation.com)
Were you told that gold mining in southern Africa started after 1852? Or that the export of iron, steel, copper and gold began in the late 19th century? Or that South Africa became integrated into a global trading system only after 1652? Or that the first powerful state in South Africa was the Zulu kingdom?

History, South Africa, Education, Archaeology

22 points by PaulHoule 4 days ago | 1 comments

South Africans clamor for US resettlement after Trump order (msn.com)

Immigration, Politics, United States, South Africa

10 points by impish9208 9 days ago | 4 comments

How the roots of the 'PayPal mafia' extend to apartheid South Africa (theguardian.com)
When Elon Musk’s arm shot out in a stiff arm salute at Donald Trump’s inaugural celebrations, startled viewers mostly drew the obvious comparison.

History, South Africa, Business, Technology, Politics

14 points by JensRantil 9 days ago | 9 comments

How the roots of the 'PayPal mafia' extend to apartheid South Africa (theguardian.com)
When Elon Musk’s arm shot out in a stiff arm salute at Donald Trump’s inaugural celebrations, startled viewers mostly drew the obvious comparison.

History, Business, South Africa, Politics

12 points by rob74 25 days ago | 3 comments

Inside South Africa's 'ruthless' gang-controlled gold mines (bbc.com)
Along with about 600 other men, Ndumiso lives and works in a small gang-controlled "town" - complete with markets and a red light district - that has grown up deep underground at a disused gold mine in South Africa.

South Africa, Gangs, Crime, Gold Mining, Labor

6 points by adrian_mrd 34 days ago | 0 comments

Qantas South Africa flights delayed by falling debris from SpaceX rockets (theguardian.com)
Qantas says it has been forced to delay several of its flights to South Africa at the last minute due to warnings of falling debris from Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets re-entering Earth.

SpaceX, Aviation, South Africa, Delays

186 points by adrian_mrd 37 days ago | 140 comments

McKinsey unit will pay $123M to settle claims it bribed South African officials (cnbc.com)

Business, Corruption, South Africa, Lawsuits

179 points by donsupreme 78 days ago | 123 comments

MPTA Finds Evidence of Gravitational Wave Background (spaceaustralia.com)
The MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array (MPTA) has detected the gravitational wave background within just 4.5 years, using South Africa's sensitive telescope. Lead author Dr. Matt Miles shares insights into this groundbreaking discovery.

Astronomy, Gravitational Waves, Research, South Africa

23 points by raattgift 81 days ago | 0 comments

Musk, Thiel and the shadow of apartheid South Africa (ft.com)
Musk, Thiel and the shadow of apartheid South Africa

South Africa, Business, Politics, History

21 points by NN88 104 days ago | 2 comments

Code that helped end Apartheid (wired.com)
John Graham-Cumming, who happens to be Cloudflare's CTO, cracked a 30-year-old encrypted file that had a role in rewriting South Africa’s history.

Cryptography, History, South Africa, Activism

362 points by impish9208 126 days ago | 207 comments

Cracking an old ZIP file to help open source the ANC's "Vula" secret crypto code (jgc.org)
It's not often that you find yourself staring at code that few people have ever seen, code that was an important part in bringing down the apartheid system in South Africa, and code that was used for secure communication using one-time pads smuggled into South Africa by a flight attendant on floppy disks. But I found myself doing that one morning recently after having helped decrypt a 30 year old PKZIP file whose password had long been forgotten.

Cryptography, History, South Africa, Open Source

316 points by jgrahamc 167 days ago | 37 comments

Let's consign CAP to the cabinet of curiosities (brooker.co.za)

Politics, South Africa, Opinion

135 points by nalgeon 211 days ago | 151 comments

The Rhisotope Project: Insertion of radioisotopes into live rhinoceros (wits.ac.za)