webshit weekly
An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the third week of November, 2016.
Disclaimer
Nobody mentioned Rust this week. The Rust Evangelism Strikeforce is on leave following the huge push to get last week's point release sufficiently praised.
Miles Deep – Open Source Porn Video Classifier/Editor with Deep Learning
November 15, 2016
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After Yahoo!'s stunning success at teaching computers to look at porn, the internet teaches computers to develop specific fetishes. Hackernews wants to use this to sell things.
ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit
November 16, 2016
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An internet posts a retrospective on a chat protocol that nobody outside Russia has used since 2001. Hackernews all log in and verify that they still do not use ICQ.
Google Earth VR
November 17, 2016
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Google releases a VR version of their map imagery. It is not compatible with Google's VR hardware and it is not available through Google's software store. Hackernews gets sidetracked asking each other for recommendations of programs they can use to convince themselves current VR tech is worth a shit. Another group trades tips on bypassing the arbitrary hardware lockouts Google put on the software.
The .blog Bait and Switch
November 18, 2016
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An internet is salty about vanity TLDs charging more for domains people might actually want. Hackernews writes thousands of words railing against the inflated costs of domains they want, telling each other it's 'market value' for domains they don't want, and generally exhibiting all the shitty behavior webshits thrive on. Reading the entire comment section is an excellent way to remind yourself why adults only register domains in com/net/org and ccTLDs.
The psychology of stress and burnout
November 19, 2016
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The BBC runs an article glorifying people who live their entire lives teetering on the edge of a complete nervous breakdown. Hackernews trades tips about how to nail your feet to the cliffside.
Who Will Command the Robot Armies?
November 20, 2016
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An internet tries to help people realize that the entire Internet of Things movement is an unsustainable nightmare factory. Hackernews uses it as an opportunity to turn a forum thread into the Silicon Valley version of a political argument on Facebook. Spoiler alert: the answer to the original question is "the same people who control the actual armies."
New for AWS Lambda – Environment Variables and Serverless Application Model
November 21, 2016
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Amazon makes it easier to just upload the function you wrote instead of having to understand how anything works. Hackernews is elated that it got easier but furious that it still requires any effort at all.