GaryBluto 3 hours ago

How inspiring. In a war torn country, a man perseveres and continues making the internet worse.

The founder's LinkedIn describes his job as "Automating phones for you - Dead internet as a service", and also has a post where he proudly states that this post was "banned on Hacker News", so I don't doubt that he's abusing the phones here too.

It isn't a click farm, it's a bot farm.

happosai an hour ago

> Next thing you need is some way to convert 12V DC battery voltage to 230V AC mains voltage to power common devices like servers.

But the server and phones use 12V/5V DC. Why the extra step of DC 12V (inverter) -> AC 220V (server PSU) -> DC 12/5V ?

Farbklex 2 hours ago

I respect the hustle but I hate the idea.

sheepscreek 6 hours ago

> Large grocery stores and apartment buildings use big generators, they are the size of a car and way quieter than small generators.

Many industrial generators are enclosed in a box that absorbs most of the noise, unlike the smaller ones.

  • Maxion 2 hours ago

    The big ones are also diesel, run at different RPM. ~3500 RPM For the smalle gas ones and around 1800 RPM for the big diesel ones. The noise characteristcs are also different. The big diesels produce more low frequency noise, whereas the small gas generators are literally lawn mower / leaf blower engines and sound the same.

    The enclosures of the big generators remove mainly lower frequency sound, making them perceptually even quieter.

sriacha 5 hours ago

Has there been any significant use of decentralized mesh communication networks in Ukraine in the last years?

  • gotts 5 hours ago

    To limited extend by Ukrainian army, more like a fallback method if something happens to Startlink. Mesh networks are getting used more and more by Russian army for coordinating drone attacks and surveillance - they use Chinese modems e.g. 70M-6Ghz/Uper C-X-Ku).

  • Maxion 2 hours ago

    AFAIK a lot of military gear works over mesh networks.

fennec-posix 12 hours ago

I love the ingenuity of this, truly in the hacker spirit! I also lol'd at how fast this got onto the FP given what these guys do, jolly good show gents! Well Played.

mmastrac 12 hours ago

"We now continue to work as before, getting social media engagement for us and our clients, applying to YC 2026 and other VCs."

Ehh, so this is a click farm?

  • snakeboy 12 hours ago

    At this point, is the most "effective ethical" career path for a software developer to work on LLMs to flood social media and ad-clicks to speedrun the collapse of digital marketing? And thus freeing competent but money-driven software engineers to work on something else?

    • Klaster_1 an hour ago

      That's one of opening points of Dodge in Hell by Neil Stephenson.

  • dansmith1919 12 hours ago

    Yeah now we know why it’s on the front page not even 10 minutes after posting…

  • xnx 5 hours ago

    With only 60 phones, this is like a click homestead.

  • chrisandchris 12 hours ago

    > We help startups get attention with automated social media marketing on physical phones.

  • breppp 12 hours ago

    Combining what Ukraine is known for, kicking Russian ass and creating shady software

  • mbreese 12 hours ago

    > Your own army of physical phones in just a few clicks

    From a project page linked from the original post.

  • antoniojtorres 12 hours ago

    What a rollercoaster to arrive at that in the end

  • Nextgrid 12 hours ago

    Click farms effectively function as janitors, mopping up spam someone else paid to throw so that no real user stumbles upon it, so they are beneficial.

    • Den_VR 7 minutes ago

      It’s computer fraud by the operator and wire fraud by the client…

  • liquidise 12 hours ago

    "I saw the best minds of my generation..."

IshKebab 12 hours ago

> There even was an official program to replace your old lightbulb for a new LED one for free

Wow do they still have incandescent lightbulbs? Mental.

  • lb1lf 7 minutes ago

    That depends on what the source of your heating is.

    Say, in Norway we largely use (hydro-) electric power for heating, anyway.

    So, the 2% efficient (for lighting) incandescent bulb doubles as a 98% efficient space heater, utilizing the 2% loss to light said space. 100% efficient!