Hacker News: mc32

New comment by mc32 in "AI companies are shredding rare books"

mc32 — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 13:11:48 +0000

Old rare books where there are single digit copies should enjoy some sort of patrimonial protection just like museum pieces. You can own them but have the state have the option to buy it if you’re about to significantly deface it or destroy it.

New comment by mc32 in "US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search"

mc32 — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 11:36:59 +0000

China is known to hold Canadians on the excuse of being spies… spying for them is oftentimes filming without prior approval in non coastal but still civilian regions.

New comment by mc32 in "A 77-year-old Republican man is staging a solo protest against Flock cameras"

mc32 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 22:17:23 +0000

Oh like Snowden then… he or she just has to be okay living under those conditions…

New comment by mc32 in "Em dashes are amazing"

mc32 — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:28:16 +0000

Which one is the minus symbol?

New comment by mc32 in "Startup founders urge Trump not to shut off Chinese open weight AI"

mc32 — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:55:36 +0000

One’s like taking something from your brother or sister and the other is like taking from your neighbor with whom you have a bad history…

New comment by mc32 in "OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future"

mc32 — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 14:16:19 +0000

The guy who took over JC Penney's after leaving Apple's Retail division is a good example of this. On paper great pedigree. Success --but did not understand a different, albeit retail, market so well and things tanked horribly.

New comment by mc32 in "Who's afraid of Chinese models?"

mc32 — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 14:47:58 +0000

I don’t think these issues only exist or have existed in this admin. Previous admins were tapping the phones of the heads of state of Europe. There was also mishandling of intelligence. Perhaps the magnitude is changed though I don’t have evidence for that.

Some of it I think is selective picking. Similar to election interference where we know quite a few foreign states like interfering with our elections but we typically only hear about one of those states as being the culprit. Now, obviously we like interfering as well (Ukraine in ‘14 and Iran today, though Iran would be less controversial) and many others over the years.

New comment by mc32 in "Who's afraid of Chinese models?"

mc32 — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:39:13 +0000

Hasn’t that been the assumption since Carnivore? Also we tapped European pols phones back in ‘12, was it? Though it’s not like the Eu are a bunch of innocents either…

It’s not a new thing. Industrial espionage has always been a thing as well. So has bribery (for deals) been a thing especially by euro concerns.

New comment by mc32 in "EU ban on destruction of unsold clothes and shoes enters into application"

mc32 — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 18:19:22 +0000

Food4Less I think is owned by a larger grocery store brand. They sell near due date or past due date foods at a reduced price. There are also third party past due grocers in secondary cities.

New comment by mc32 in "More Bounce to the Ounce"

mc32 — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 15:15:39 +0000

Wild cowboy ideas of yore. Will we ever be able to make it safer to use on earth or would we save that for a moon base -get to the moon and from there blast away with these atomic fahrting machines…

New comment by mc32 in "After wearing the Pebble Time 2 for two weeks, I'll never buy another smartwatch"

mc32 — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 13:49:38 +0000

Unfortunately I think in the general consciousness people treat Garmins as “legacy” devices even as their systems are in some ways superior to the flashy upstarts and newcomers.

New comment by mc32 in "'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'"

mc32 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 17:24:17 +0000

It’s port area. Are you certain the protestors/saboteurs were locals?

New comment by mc32 in "'We used acid to sabotage Microsoft hyperscale data centre construction'"

mc32 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 17:01:12 +0000

It’s as productive as people who glue themselves to roadways. It irritates drivers/commuters (who are then more likely to have a negative view of the cause) and it slows traffic resulting in even more fuel usage. Yet, they think they are doing something good.

New comment by mc32 in "I also filed the corners off my MacBook"

mc32 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 12:44:42 +0000

Maybe… but less likely since few people remember plus we don’t have an issue with Mitsubishi and they built planes that gave us pain as well. What I’m saying is if Mitsubishi had been Mitshit instead they’d likely also feel pressure to change their name due to its sound rather than WWII infamy.

New comment by mc32 in "I also filed the corners off my MacBook"

mc32 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:38:33 +0000

Good idea since depending how you pronounce junkers in English it could sound like an undependable appliance.

New comment by mc32 in "My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded"

mc32 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:43:41 +0000

I think it’s cameras. I used to know people who took these matters into their own hands with baseball bats to the offending vehicle at 3 in the morning. But that was many years ago where if there were any witnesses they’d be glad some blue collar kind of guy got fed up with the noise making nuisance of a car.

New comment by mc32 in "Mawlynnong, India, transformed by tourism, bans visitors on Sundays"

mc32 — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 23:42:02 +0000

What in hell? I haven’t seen or heard people spit on sidewalks other than some homeless people in ages.

In parts of Asia where people chew betel nut, of course that’s a different story -they put the old west custom of spitting tobacco chew to shame.

New comment by mc32 in "Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family"

mc32 — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 13:17:53 +0000

Those things are a symptom of an undeveloped economy. It harkens back to a time of less development where there were more hands than jobs and much of the labor was manual. Not to excuse the practice in modern times but go back a few generations and that was the reality of the world -everywhere.

New comment by mc32 in "Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family"

mc32 — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 13:15:04 +0000

The practice of live-in maids has been somewhat common throughout the world up until WWI and into WWII. Well-to-do families would taken in boys and girls from poor families and use them for house and yard work. It wasn’t slavery, or even indentured servitudes, but it did take opportunity of their misfortune. Aristocrats and well to dos would take girls and boys mostly from the less educated countryside or from war-torn areas of the rest of Europe and use them as cheap labor. Some would stay on and some would go off to seek better future outside those families. It was somewhat symbiotic the poor kids (and their families) needed the money and the wealthy could show off they had money to spend on domestic help.

New comment by mc32 in "New York City to ban deceptive subscription practices"

mc32 — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 23:57:13 +0000

If taxes were uniform across geography (political boundaries) you could argue that, but as it is, taxes are not uniform.