webshit weekly (2018/01/07)

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

The mysterious case of the Linux Page Table Isolation patches
January 01, 2018 (comments)
An Internet notices the Linux kernel developers swarming over some code. After looking at the changes, and reading about the other work of the authors, a conclusion is reached: there's a big problem poorly being kept secret. Hackernews grab their badges and guns and report for detective duty. After pages of furious discussion, they discover that there's a big problem poorly being kept secret. Some Hackernews are angry that the Internet is not helping to keep the secret.

NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg
January 02, 2018 (comments)
It is a good time to buy real estate in Laurel, Maryland. Hackernews thinks that the government should pay higher salaries to attract employees away from the current hub of surveillance: Silicon Valley. Other Hackernews think the real problem is that the existing Panopticon staff isn't working hard enough. A few Hackernews wonder if maybe the US is better off without a giant uncontrollable technoespionage agency, but this is regarded as crucial to competing on a stage. One Hackernews thinks the government is a good place for women to work because they can have more babies that way.

Reading privileged memory with a side-channel
January 03, 2018 (comments)
The veil of incompetent secrecy is lifted from a big problem. Because the problem is more complicated than "fetching data from non-https URLs," Hackernews files into the virtual lecture hall to take turns misunderstanding it. It turns out the basis for every "computers are fast enough, we don't need to optimize this" excuse dating back to the release of Borat is useful for fucking over the basis of every Hackernews startup since the introduction of Amazon Web Services. Hackernews decides to design the solution in a web forum.

“My ten hour white noise video now has five copyright claims”
January 04, 2018 (comments)
An Internet wastes Google's hard drive space. The data activates automated bureaucrats. Hackernews trades war stories about the times they activated automated bureaucrats. Nobody has ever beaten them.

Why Raspberry Pi Isn't Vulnerable to Spectre or Meltdown
January 05, 2018 (comments)
The leading manufacturer of light-blinking hardware is smug about the fact that their computers are too primitive to be affected by the problems of real computers. The Monarch of the Echo Chamber arrives to ignore the article and whine about a different topic. The rest of Hackernews is just relieved that someone took the time to explain the issue to them.

Many packages suddenly disappeared
January 06, 2018 (comments)
Some webshits fuck up. Their 'incident report' fails to mention this. Hackernews takes this opportunity to remind each other that this service is prone to such fuckery, but instead of fixing or replacing it, the right answer is to just make ten million copies of all the webshit in case you need it later. The rest of the comments are devoted to expressing shock that this happened, shock that this is allowed to happen, shock that it has happened before, and shock that it affected them. The webshit in question is praised for saying "fuck."

The Empathy Gap in Tech: Interview with a Software Engineer
January 07, 2018 (comments)
An Internet points out that the engineering trade is full of assholes. Hackernews decide they are all victims; the reasoning is that because they were unpopular, awkward children, they must have undiagnosed developmental disorders. Some time is spent exploring the court of public opinion, then battle lines are drawn over whether problems are worth fixing or whether we're better off leaving assholes in charge.

webshit weekly (2017/12/31)

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the last week of December, 2017.

Kids in ‘Netflix Only’ Homes Saved from 230 Hours of Commercials a Year
December 22, 2017 (comments)
A website about internet video advocates internet video. Hackernews is in a huge honking hurry to declare that they do not watch television, and when they do, they hate it. Several hours are devoted to glad-handing each other about being the geniuses that elevated entertainment from idiotic noise like "Twin Peaks" and "The Wire" to the current stratospheric heights of twitch.tv and "YouTube personalities."

How I went from programming to consulting (2012)
December 23, 2017 (comments)
The Hackernews Beauty Pageant Bronze Medalist reveals the secrets to business acumen, which involve dark magic like "charging money for services rendered." The wizard arrives in person to complain that advocating spam is not considered engineering. Hackernews decides people only want to pay for goods and services when the seller is a global celebrity, such as someone who posts a lot on a nerd website.

I Got Paid $0 from the Uber Security Bug Bounty
December 24, 2017 (comments)
An Internet didn't make as much money as expected working for Uber. The plot twist is that this person wasn't driving a car. Hackernews decides this person got what was coming. Hackernews briefly considers the societal value of Uber, but immediately gets distracted trying to invent taxis from first principles.

Yew: Rust framework for making React-like client web apps
December 25, 2017 (comments)
The Rust Evangelism Strike Force attempts to compete with javascript. Hackernews is over the moon, since it gives them an excuse to post six hundred thousand immediately-abandoned github repositories under the guise of learning something. A shit fight starts over whether javascript is bad. Other shitfights start over which fake assembly language is bad.

Remove my password from lists so hackers won't be able to hack me
December 26, 2017 (comments)
An Internet makes a joke on github. Three hundred people attempt to follow suit. Hackernews misinterprets the joke about thirty different ways.

How to hack a turned-off computer, or running unsigned code in Intel ME [pdf]
December 27, 2017 (comments)
An Internet writes about a computer problem. Hackernews frets over whether the bug applies to anything they care about, then frets over whether people who aren't computer-touchers care hard enough. Every single one of them will continue to buy the products they claim to be angry about. Lots of excuses are made for such behavior.

A Message to Our Customers about iPhone Batteries and Performance
December 28, 2017 (comments)
Apple continues the war against its own users. Hackernews approves of Apple's approach to battery-life reporting, which in this case is performance art. Other Hackernews stop to wonder if maybe Apple doesn't care about them personally, but shake off the doubt and decide to wait for the next WWDC.

Call of Duty gaming community points to ‘swatting’ in Wichita police shooting
December 29, 2017 (comments)
The Wichita Police Department debuts its new startup, "Uber for Assassinations." Like Uber, their work does not even appear to be monetized. Hackernews accuses their first customer of murder, on the assumption that any interaction with a police officer will result in death. One Hackernews theorizes that there should be two kinds of cop: one with a lot of guns, and one with slightly fewer guns. Another Hackernews explicitly names SWAT while declaring this practice is impossible. The rest of Hackernews tries to construct a rudimentary ethos by trading links to news stories.

Spamnesty – A Bot to waste spammers' time
December 30, 2017 (comments)
An Internet runs a chatbot for spammers. Hackernews thinks that spending time and resources on interacting with spammers is a great idea, since spammers are well known to be people with busy schedules. Similar projects are bandied about and everybody's email bounces.

Some excerpts from recent Alan Kay emails
December 31, 2017 (comments)
An Internet posts some email. Alan Kay thinks that R&D funding is being suboptimally distributed. Hackernews agrees, but thinks it's okay since computers are nearly perfect now. One Hackernews is suspicious of people with experience.

Better luck next year.

webshit weekly (2017/12/21)

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the third week of December, 2017.

Unknown Mozilla dev addon "Looking Glass 1.0.3" on browser
December 15, 2017 (comments)
Mozilla continues the war against its own users. Hackernews is furious that Mozilla would have the bad judgment to shove pointless code into a web browser: something that Google would never, ever do. Battle lines are drawn between those who think that TV show promotions are the natural mission of web browsers and those who think that browsers should get back to basics like reporting every possible scrap of user data directly to Google.

Firefox is on a slippery slope
December 16, 2017 (comments)
An Internet is mad about yesterday's news, but mistakenly thinks Mozilla's reckless disregard for sanity is a recent development, instead of something inherited from Netscape. Some Mozillas arrive to defend their idiocy. Confusion dominates the comment threads as many Hackernews struggle with the idea of a computer being anything other than a device that displays advertisements from tech companies. The Mozillas are unable or unwilling to understand why Pocket, Cliqz, and now this crap would anger anyone. Finally, one Hackernews realizes that web browsers are sufficiently complex that nothing short of a major corporation can sustain their development. Other Hackernews rush in with warm milk and survival blankets to reassure everyone that this is for the best.

Neighbor's house alarm triggers when I put my car in reverse
December 17, 2017 (comments)
A Reddit can't figure out why a car makes a neighbor's alarm go off. Reddit spends a while making shit up and then utterly forgets it ever happened. Hackernews uses this opportunity to tell each other campfire stories about computers fucking up.

Oh shit, git: Getting myself out of bad situations
December 18, 2017 (comments)
An Internet copes with bad software. Hackernews decides this is a user interface problem instead of a fundamental design flaw. Other Hackernews decide the best course of action is to let someone else do everything. Several million arcane software invocations are advocated, but everyone agrees that any program with this many command-line arguments available must be really high-quality.

Google Maps' Moat
December 19, 2017 (comments)
An Internet is super impressed that Google clutters its maps with pictures of buildings, even in places where it can't get the roads right. Google's mapping products, most recently in the news for sending people directly into an oncoming inferno, are heralded by Hackernews as the best of all time. Some Hackernews suggest that maybe service could be better where they live, in Lower Fuckistan, but their suggestions bounce off the Silicon Valley bubble and scatter into the wind. One Hackernews predicts that something will come out of a race in pole position. The rest of the comments are devoted to respectful worship of Google programmers, and whispered speculation about how these wizards cast their spells.

Magic Leap One
December 20, 2017 (comments)
Yet another company wants to make money selling nerd goggles. Hackernews is mad that the nerd goggles don't work with spreadsheets.

Chrome is Not the Standard
December 21, 2017 (comments)
A webshit is upset that nobody cares about non-Chrome browsers. Hackernews agrees that the web is not perfect, but they firmly believe that perfection can only be achieved when everyone in the world uses Chrome and accesses nothing but Google services. Hackernews mocks the author's usage of web browsers that Google did not deliver from the mountaintops. Everyone agrees the first step is convincing Apple to let them run Chrome on iPhones.