webshit weekly (2018/08/21)

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the third week of August, 2018.

Markov Chains Explained Visually (2014)
August 15, 2018 (comments)
Hackernews links to some cartoons about math, carefully noting the year they were made, in case math changed a lot in the last few years. The analysis in the comments comprises two camps; the louder group frothing at the mouth, overwhelmed at the amazing possibility implied by cartoons about math. The other group cannot seem to understand why javascript cartoons are the obvious vehicle upon which all human progress will soon depend.

NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students
August 16, 2018 (comments)
A medical school makes it slightly easier to go to medical school. Hackernews, armed with a keen insight into the fundamental workings of both economics and human society, dives into a thoughtful examination of why rich people who are good at standardized tests make the finest medical professionals. Anyone breathing a hint of a concept that perhaps someone might choose not to go to medical school because it's expensive is labeled a dangerous seditionist. Many lectures follow about how rich kids actually have it worse than poor kids, taxation is theft, and studying any subject not directly related to javascript makes you a selfish burden on civilization.

Why Do Keynote Speakers Keep Suggesting That Improving Security Is Possible?
August 17, 2018 (comments)
An academic, freshly escaped from corporate shackles, tells some assholes they're wrong. Hackernews ignores every single aspect of the lecture, and focuses on comparing themselves to medical professionals. Again. Anyone suggesting that any programmer take any responsibility for anything at all is immediately threatened with national economic destruction or Internet Explorer. The remainder of the comments are dipshits trying to whatabout their way out of looking in a mirror.

My dad’s resume and skills from 1980
August 18, 2018 (comments)
A webshit posts two photographs and three sentences to Github, which requires eleven commits and a pull request. There is one open issue. Hackernews bemoans how much nicer the information technology industry was before Hackernews fucked it all up. Someone tries to hire the dad.

Redux vs. The React Context API
August 18, 2018 (comments)
Some webshits write up a deep dive into the newest, fullest septic tank. The "Full Stack" you hear so much about has reached so high, and the lower layers ossified so quickly, that Hackernews is forced to bicker about which abstraction is appropriate as a simplified model with which to build business logic to control the next abstraction down the stack ... which may change depending on which AbstractionHandlerFactory you're targeting with your glorified web guestbook. Pedantic arguments break out about which abstractions represent which other, slightly-more-generalized abstractions. If you or someone you love has any positive opinions about any technologies discussed in this article, please contact your nearest tertiary education facility to determine if there is a path available to healthier living. I hear medical school is affordable these days.

Don’t Do This in Production
August 19, 2018 (comments)
A webshit takes a thousand words to say "don't paste random internet shit into your program." Hackernews nods sagely and reveals the hidden knowledge: it is possible to get higher quality results by hiring qualified workers. The conversation turns to which ebooks contain the best candidate evaluation to blindly step through, then which ebooks contain the best human resources practices to blindly mandate. No technology is discussed.

Docker cannot be downloaded without logging into Docker Store
August 20, 2018 (comments)
The internet gets retroactively mad about a slight change to some company's webshit. Hackernews meditates on the correct way to inform your users that your business model is shit and you're selling them up the river for cash. The rest of the comments are people bitching about other comments, bitching about the company who changed the webshit, and armchair lawyering.

Twenty-two states ask appeals court to bring back net neutrality
August 21, 2018 (comments)
Some bureaucrats bureaucratize. Hackernews decides this is either a sign that America has failed or a sign that America has succeeded. An argument breaks out about whether it is possible to survive without Facebook. Nobody is sure.

webshit weekly (2018/08/14)

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the second week of August, 2018.

Google AMP – A 70% drop in our conversion rate
August 08, 2018 (comments)
A webshit is nervous about Google's shared-hosting free tier. Hackernews explains to one another that Google's AMP program is not a cynical consolidation of adtech power, but is in fact a deftly-engineered substitute for courage, since webshits apparently can't stand up for themselves or their work. Some Googles show up in the comments to defend their land grab beneficent community-empowerment tool, and to reassure everyone that despite the direct personal experience of literally every single person who has tried, Google is totally open to feedback and willing to care about bug reports from their tenants users.

Julia 1.0
August 09, 2018 (comments)
Some academics promise to try to hold it steady. Hackernews is cranky that the brochure doesn't look like other brochures and slightly afraid because people seem to be using the language to perform arcane rites with impenetrable magical symbols. The academics show up to reassure people that math is a normal, healthy hobby and anyway the language can also be used to do retarded things with garbage hardware if you want. Most of the comments are people complaining that languages don't provide enough handholding for people who failed to design their programs properly, or that languages don't provide enough handholding for people who failed to select their operating systems properly.

I don't trust Signal
August 09, 2018 (comments)
An asshole is pissed at some other asshole. None of the reasons are interesting. Hackernews draws lots to decide which asshole to defend unto death; the basic argument seems to be the set of Hackernews given to hero worship versus the set of Hackernews who thinks the world owes them (for free) flawlessly-implemented, perfectly-intuitive software capable of resisting concerted attack by advanced persistent threats. Nearly five hundred comments are posted, all of which stridently proclaim The Correct Opinions about software nobody uses except DEF CON cosplayers and journalists who followed bad advice on social media.

1/0 = 0
August 10, 2018 (comments)
A webshit gets wound up by a tweet. Hackernews does too. Most of the arguments involve the difference between mathematics and ALU design, but none of the discussion is interesting because none of the participants are meaningfully engaged with either topic. It doesn't help that the entire context of the debate is some webshit's disused toy language.

Worst Computer Bugs in History: Therac-25 (2017)
August 11, 2018 (comments)
An internet describes a time that bad software directly led to the deaths of actual human beings. Several "takeaways" are provided, absolutely none of which involve recommending anyone be held responsible in any way. Hackernews is gratified that so few deaths were all that was needed to distract people from all the other ways that software developers are failing civilization on a regular basis. Other Hackernews suspects the kill count is so low because only someone completely unhinged would put their safety directly in the hands of a computer programmer. When highlighting other, less severe failure stories turns out not to be fun, Hackernews explores ways they might blame someone else for the deaths.

Thank you HN
August 12, 2018 (comments)
A Hackernews thanks the rest of Hackernews for not advocating suicide. Hackernews lists all the terrible shit they did and/or had happen to them and, as usual, catalogs every single real or perceived solution to mental health issues they've ever tried or read about. The consensus is that exercise helps. No technology is discussed. An asshole violates the Prime Directive.

Using FOIA Data and Unix to halve major source of parking tickets
August 13, 2018 (comments)
An internet is trying to help. With awk. Hackernews squabbles over whether or not it's even possible for most people to help, given the baseline requirement of "noticing things." The Hackernews contingent of Critical Mass shows up to bitch about cars standing in bike lanes. Inadvertently, the Hackernewsest possible sentence appears in the comments: "If it's not technically criminal then that's all that matters."

Serverless Docker Beta
August 14, 2018 (comments)
Some webshits celebrate minutiae. Hackernews is excited about the minutiae, except for the ones who actually do things with computers once in a while. A long discussion breaks out about the proper method to embed auto-playing video containing nothing but text. After a while Hackernews gets bored with the actual limitations of the garbage software described in the article and starts running thought experiments about what even worse software might look like. They don't reach consensus, but I'm pretty sure they're accidentally describing Sun software.

webshit weekly (2018/08/07)

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the first week of August, 2018.

Learning Math for Machine Learning
August 01, 2018 (comments)
Some random asshole takes two thousand words to tell us to study statistics, calculus, and linear algebra in order to be good at statistics, calculus, and linear algebra. Hackernews immediately takes the opportunity to shill a book on Amazon, then spends hours arguing about just how little understanding of mathematics one can get away with while selling it to credulous investors. At another lunch table, Hackernews discusses related topics: how arithmetic works, how to stop being afraid of abstract concepts, and which YouTube videos are in fact flawless substitutes for advanced study.

You don’t need standups
August 02, 2018 (comments)
A webshit, newly promoted to management, immediately posts a thinkpiece to Medium. Hackernews is outraged that someone might be operating outside of the parameters laid out by whatever bureaucratic pop-psy book they most recently read. Arguments break out about which Mediocrity Checklist is the one that God wrote, and which ones are apostasy destined to destroy your startup's rad, bloggable culture. No technology is discussed.

Learning from Terminals to Design the Future of User Interfaces
August 03, 2018 (comments)
A webshit thinks things could be better. Hackernews thinks that Slack plugins are a gateway drug to the "electronic typewriter" school of user interface. Dozens of comments just name application shortcut keys in random programs. The bi-weekly Unix Shells Versus Microsoft Shells cricket match breaks out, but is interrupted by a streaker waving a Twenex flag. Another thread is comprised entirely of posts whining about user interfaces being "hard" in one breath, congratulating one another for not having any answers in the next breath, and then claiming to have the answers in the third breath. Most of the rest is just bitching about the four programs Hackernews actually uses more than once a year.

4D toys
August 04, 2018 (comments)
Someone wants to sell software. Hackernews bikesheds the software, computer display technology, human eyesight, and mathematics.

I’m a very slow thinker (2016)
August 05, 2018 (comments)
Another random asshole brags about being a pain in the ass to communicate with. Hackernews understands this is a point of pride, because they are also very, very smart, and have catalogued a large collection of evidence to support the fact that they are very, very smart, and being very, very smart is why they are all destined to be rich.

Let's Encrypt Root Trusted by All Major Root Programs
August 06, 2018 (comments)
A pack of idiots celebrates full admission to the Circlejerk of Trust by finally using their own products on their webshit. Hackernews takes this opportunity to lecture one another on how TLS works, why this pack of idiots is the greatest gift the internet has ever received, how wonderful it is to conflate line encryption with authentication, why authentication is irrelevant as long as we have line encryption, and how crucial it is that Let's Encrypt requires bizarrely-frequent reauthentication. The rest of the comments are dozens of people trying to help each other get basic functionality out of the idiots' software, which is necessary because the software is so low-effort and failure-proof. Unless their servers are down again.

EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing
August 07, 2018 (comments)
The Environmental Protection Agency diligently protects the manufacturing business environment. Hackernews argues about car brake pads. The rest of the comments explore the idea that maybe public safety is something that someone in the government should possibly think about regulating, but this line of thinking is judged too dangerous to permit, because someone might apply it to the information technology sector. The conclusion that anyone who cares enough to have an opinion is ipso facto unqualified to have an opinion: just relax and let it happen, baby. It's fine.