I think we need to make a highly-available downdetector from a collection of SBCs hosted around the world. Each node gets its configuration via git-pull which is self-hosted/republished. Simplest DNS configuration possible: each node has a unique $n.isdowndetectordown.ultradowndetector.com while they also happily host a common hostname with simple dns round robin entries for it.isdowndetectordown.ultradowndetector.com. The common page attempts to load a check resource (perhaps just a tiny css output?) from all of the $n.i.u.c nodes which just changes a div from gray to green/red.

It would be interesting to see just how small this whole thing could be; I bet it could be made into a <500MB sdcard image for a RaspberryPi4/2GB that simply updates a static css out of (say) cron and serves a surprising number of HN requests.

With all of this redundancy, there is no way it could fail! /s

> do you consider HN to be social media?

Yes, because I read/interact with comments. It's possible to just peruse headlines in which case it's less social.

> YT in particular has a tendency to draw me into endless shorts holes

Yeah, especially since there are no horrendous ads. YT on my AppleTV has become unwatchable with minutes of ads for minutes of content.

I have to wonder if they are taking into account the AC usage or other factors to get there; When you park in the shade, you don't have to cool your car down nearly as much. This effect is greater in hot deserts with lots of sun. There are likely other benefits to the vehicles and infrastructure.

Reminds me of the xscreensaver, “strange” :)

Anecdata: I have a plot of land in the Santa Cruz Mountains and half of it has redwood coverage and the other half is sparsely covered by much smaller species. On hot days I can go to the redwood half and get an easy 10F temperature drop.

Shade is part of the equation and so is retaining water. Once I was introduced to the idea of check dams and their role in water conservation, I started noticing how the redwoods often build their own on hilly terrain.

The landscape in a forest can be quite complex and rich.