webshit weekly

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

Disclaimer
Somebody mentioned Rust this week, but nobody cared. The Department of Justice recommends reporting any Rust Evangelism Strike Force sightings directly to your local garbage collection office.

U.S. top court tightens patent suit rules in blow to ‘patent trolls’
May 22, 2017 (comments)
The United States Supreme Court issues a ruling that it was right the first time. Hackernews has lots of questions to ask about the implications of this ruling. Fortunately, Hackernews also has lots of answers, whether they have any clue or not.

1Password Travel Mode: Protect your data when crossing borders
May 23, 2017 (comments)
An internet introduces features that delete things from your phone when you suspect a government might want to see them. Hackernews recommends even more extravagant gymnastics. Some Hackernews don't understand why anyone has a problem with regular old-fashioned bribery. During the course of a largely pointless and hypothetical debate, Hackernews recommends breaking several other federal laws, before settling in to bikeshed the entire concept of authentication.

The largest Git repo
May 24, 2017 (comments)
A Microsoft decides to molest git, in accordance with corporate policy, by needlessly overcomplicating it and forcing dependencies on other Microsoft products. Hackernews criticizes this move because git already has lots of needlessly-complex tools designed to enable bad development practice. The thread immediately devolves into incredibly dull arguments about micromanaging repository history. Because this is a Git thread, Larry McVoy shows up to explain that BitKeeper is better.

Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)
May 25, 2017 (comments)
An internet posts a magazine article advocating assholery, which was written in the runup to the Great Depression. Hackernews spends a couple days describing their neuroses to one another, then explaining that everyone else's neuroses are wrong. Some effort is expended on reconstructing human relationships, sentience, and truth.

Linux Inside – How the Linux Kernel Works
May 26, 2017 (comments)
An internet writes a book on github about linux. Hackernews is both in awe of and contemptuous of the work done by actual programmers.

View Counting at Reddit
May 27, 2017 (comments)
A webshit overcomplicates inaccurate counting. Hackernews argues about which sort of inaccuracy is preferable. Nobody wonders if it might have been easier to just count shit instead of getting three different shitty databases involved.

How to Sleep
May 28, 2017 (comments)
A magazine posts what appears to be an article but is in fact a rambling series of uninteresting anecdotes to promote a book some doctor wrote. Hackernews complains about how hard it is to sleep because they do not want to. Everything from light frequencies to someone else's breathing is considered an impediment to normal human bodily function. Idiotic rules are proposed and ridiculous excuses abound.

Why do so few people major in computer science?
May 29, 2017 (comments)
An idiot blogs (with a tracking tag in the url) about why nobody is majoring in computer science. The core assumption is that computer science degrees are appropriate for software engineers, instead of, for instance, software engineering degrees. Hackernews implicitly buys in to this incorrect assumption, and decides (again) that the barrier to entry is "programming is hard." The rest of the thread is people congratulating themselves for using computers a lot.

SCOTUS: Patent Rights Over a Printer Cartridge Are Exhausted When It Is Sold
May 30, 2017 (comments)
The United States Supreme Court instructs Lexmark to stop being assholes. Hackernews immediately begins rambling about European software law, then spends two days incorrectly explaining first-sale doctrine and patent exhaustion. The conclusion: nobody but Hackernews understands anything, and it is fervently to be hoped that these judge assholes get on board soon.

Kerbal Space Program Acquired by Take-Two Interactive
May 31, 2017 (comments)
Having lost all of the original developers, a video game project is sold off to another publisher. Hackernews takes this opportunity to list their favorite television shows. One Hackernews does not appreciate the pointless undereducated pedantry that many players develop. Hackernews regards this attitude as an existential threat, since pointless undereducated pedantry is a core characteristic of Hackernews. The rest of the day is whiled away bikeshedding the game's project management.