Hacker News: maximinus_thrax

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division"

maximinus_thrax — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:59:26 +0000

I own a kindle and use it daily. I just borrow all my ebooks from public libraries. I buy the books I want to keep, in physical form.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Book review: There Is No Antimemetics Division"

maximinus_thrax — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 15:08:34 +0000

Please don't 'buy' digital items from Amazon, because you won't actually own them. Pay extra, support your local bookshop and get a physical copy which you will actually own.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta"

maximinus_thrax — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 21:34:32 +0000

There are a lot of defenders of capital on hn, which is expected, that's totally fine. But I think we should all have a bit of admiration for someone who risked her life to shed light into the internals of an arguably sick business entity.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta"

maximinus_thrax — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 21:30:04 +0000

> The author didnt disclose any illegal activities in her book. And she didnt claim whistleblower status.

Both statements are factually incorrect.

> Wynn-William filed a whistleblower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission in April 2024 and with the Department of Justice in 2025, according to her filing.

Also, here's a short but not comprehensive (read the book when it came out and I forget things) list of the sledged illegal activities described in the book:

- Collusion with the chinese authorities

- Securities fraud

- Illegal foreign political contributions

- Sexual harassment and workplace retaliation

I don't know the reasons for why there has been no enforcement/further investigations aside from some congressional circus, especially when Zuck was caught lying to Congress. But I would be willing to bet that they involve money in politics.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta"

maximinus_thrax — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 21:22:17 +0000

The legal system makes illegal activities part of the public record.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta"

maximinus_thrax — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 16:22:39 +0000

> "non-disparagement" clause

Do you believe a civil contract should be able to stop a person from disclosing potential illegal activities?

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Learn Claude Code by doing, not reading"

maximinus_thrax — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:29:23 +0000

I'm very surprised to see enshittification starting so early. I was expecting at last 3-4 years of VC subsidized gravy train.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice"

maximinus_thrax — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 16:04:38 +0000

Great insight, didn't thing about it even anecdotally. I was lurking on Reddit since 2008 and finally created an account in 2012 when someone was really 'wrong on the internet' and had to step in.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice"

maximinus_thrax — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 16:56:08 +0000

Not only that, but subreddits like r/AmITheAsshole are full of AI slop. Both in the comments and in the posts. It's a huge karma mining operation for bots.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Tell HN: Russians may soon lose access to the global internet"

maximinus_thrax — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 03:20:32 +0000

The front line is everywhere, as you know. You are fighting an information war and some of us are here to troll you back.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Russian women who don't want children will be sent to psychologist"

maximinus_thrax — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 16:31:10 +0000

Russia is indeed the exception. As a 3rd world country, anyone would expect it to have a very high birthrate.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "France's aircraft carrier located in real time by Le Monde through fitness app"

maximinus_thrax — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 12:41:23 +0000

You're in a very weak position to attempt whataboutism, tovarishch

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_March_2022_Chernihiv_bombing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_March_2022_Chernihiv_breadl...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2023_Chernihiv_missile_...

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Dnipro_residential_buildi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_July_2024_Russian_strikes_on...

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

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Kramatorsk_restaurant_mis...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2022_Chasiv_Yar_missile_s...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_2023_Sloviansk_airstrike

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Kostiantynivka_supermarke...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Yarova_attack

And many more, the Russian armed forces being the consistent all-time barbarian horde of Europe.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft"

maximinus_thrax — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 03:19:01 +0000

Akshually it's the the 2nd (France), 5th (Germany), 6th (Italy), and 9th (Spain) spots. But that's a bad argument, say.. a way of lying with statistics, considering the 1st place has 43% of the market share AND that exporting arms is not very relevant when the topic du jour is military build-up. The muscovites for example export 7.8% of the market share but that's not that relevant considering they're using the lion's share of military industrial output to terrorize Ukrainians.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft"

maximinus_thrax — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 03:11:39 +0000

Some other country started by _stealing_ US tech and now they arguably have a higher military tech throughput. Everyone has to start somewhere..

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Airbus is preparing two uncrewed combat aircraft"

maximinus_thrax — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:39:08 +0000

Good! Great to hear! EU needs to grow its domestic military industry, the French were right all along.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Russia's deportation of Ukrainian children amounts to crime against humanity"

maximinus_thrax — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 03:03:12 +0000

> war zone

It's a war zone now? I thought the line you were supposed to say was 'special military operation' zone. Keep it consistent, товарищ

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Russia is aiding Iran's war effort by providing Intel on US Military targets"

maximinus_thrax — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 05:33:03 +0000

Not defending what the DoD is doing right now, I firmly believe the US intervention is unconstitutional, BUT

Iran has been 'at war' with the west for a very long time. It's time to redefine the concept of war to be compatible with the 21st century and also include hybrid warfare and war-by-proxy. Iran has been waging war using Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas-aligned factions, Iraqi militias and the consistent aid it gave Russia through the Shahed drone program which is targeting civilians in Ukraine. And I don't even want to go into details about the war Iran is fighting against its own citizens.

I hate to quote Hegseth, but this is the FO phase of the FAFO cycle.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "'To be free, we have to be feared,' Macron says in keynote nuclear speech"

maximinus_thrax — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 04:31:18 +0000

How? This is 100% the ideology of the Russian foreign policy apparatus.

Just one example that comes to mind: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2014/05/11/romania-queries-mo...

At least Macron isn't threatening anyone, unlike the muscovites.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Dulce et Decorum Est (1921)"

maximinus_thrax — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:29:18 +0000

> After Khamenei death Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement that Russia is "against killing of the leaders of sovereign countries". Somehow they didn't mention nor regular citizens nor rank-and-file soldiers of sovereign countries.

Rich, coming from the state that sponsored more than a dozen assassination attempts on Zelenskyy. But russians get over this hypocrisy by not recognizing a country as sovereign, so it's fair game.

New comment by maximinus_thrax in "Meta’s AI smart glasses and data privacy concerns"

maximinus_thrax — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 01:34:53 +0000

I love the Facebook glasses, they seem to be the swan song of a shitty company. Young people have abandoned Facebook when their parents started hanging out, now it's all boomers and bots posting conspiracy theories.

If they think this surveillance tech is going to push the company forward, it means leadership is even more disconnected from reality than the Amazon people who greenlit the superbowl ad. It means the company is dying. Huzzah!