webshit weekly

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the first week of November, 2017.

A Minimalist Guide to SQLite
November 01, 2017 (comments)
An Internet is fond of some software. So is Hackernews. Any comment not devoted to singing the praises of the software in question is devoted instead to arguing about Docker. Again.

Letting users skip our paywall if they wrote an apology
November 01, 2017 (comments)
Unsatisfied merely with charging money for webshit, an asshole also demands contrition. The webshit in question puts text onto gif files. Hackernews reconstructs free trade from first principles, then spends a while debating whether ads are the best way to make money or the only way to make money. The consensus is that it's just too hard for people to give them money. Bitcoin Idiots, LLC makes a half-hearted stump speech or two, but nobody cares.

Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web
November 02, 2017 (comments)
An Internet bemoans the state of the web. Three of the four contact methods provided involve webshit. Hackernews, whose fault this all is, has further complaints to add to the list. Some of them think the solution is podcasts, because the obvious alternative to modal advertisement popups is listening to some Internet stutter into a Blue Yeti for three hours. Another claims to have learned programming primarily via web videos. I had to close the webpage when I got to the Hackernews literally judging books by their covers.

Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
November 03, 2017 (comments)
A cuddle party occurs via Github issue. Hackernews strenuously approves of this practice and brainstorms other ways for people to praise them. The results frequently involve money.

Freelancer.com has ruined my life
November 04, 2017 (comments)
An Internet gets fucked over by a webshit. Hackernews has also been fucked over by this and similar webshits. The comment threads are a shitstorm of people blaming some Internet for insufficiently diversifying income portfolios and other people suggesting that maybe there should be some kind of law encouraging contract enforcement.

Exploring different microcontrollers less than $1
November 05, 2017 (comments)
An Internet surveys a sampling of shitty hardware. The website falls over. Hackernews bitches about the quality of Google search results, then proceeds to rattle off whatever comparably-shitty hardware they're familiar with, regardless of whether it has anything to do with the testing performed by the author. The Rust Evanglism Strike Force arrives to reassure everyone that their shitty programming language works great on shitty hardware, as long as you use one of a very few cared-about platforms.

Chrome breaks the Web
November 06, 2017 (comments)
Google breaks shit instead of doing anything right, as usual. Hackernews is instantly pissed off that it is even possible to question their heroes, and calls for the public execution of anyone who second-guesses the Chrome team. A very few heretics grudgingly admit that they'd like to be consulted -- or at least informed in advance -- when Google engineers decide to take another big shit on the rest of the world, but insist that Google only hits them because it loves them.

An Open Letter to Intel
November 07, 2017 (comments)
Andy Tanenbaum humblebrags about the fact that Intel is using Tanenbaum's code, then whines that they didn't tell Tanenbaum, presumably because it would help drag Tanenbaum's h-index out of the toilet. Hackernews debates the finer points of etiquette, which goes about as well as you'd expect. The rest of the comments are people bickering about bondage-and-dominance license terms, or angry demands that Intel give a shit about the commenter.