webshit weekly

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

GitLab Web IDE
June 15, 2018 (comments)
Some webshits strike one more task off the list of things they have to do outside a browser. Hackernews, longtime fans of text editors that are essentially web browsers to begin with, are all super excited about a future in which they don't even have to pretend to use non-browser programs. A few sullen reprobates are not immediately overjoyed with the news, but they're quickly shouted down by professional computer programmers explaining that nobody likes to use computers because they're inexplicably hard.

Eight hours a night isn’t enough, according to a leading sleep scientist
June 16, 2018 (comments)
Some idiots declare that everyone's sleep schedule is 5% wrong, and that more sleep would make everyone happier, except sad people, who need less sleep. Hackernews nods along to the story and recounts stories about all the times they were too oblivious to realize their health was fucked. Fortunately, each Hackernews has a unique and unassailable recommendation for an ebook, podcast, or religious experiment guaranteed to fix what ails you.

Forgotten Employee (2002)
June 17, 2018 (comments)
Somebody lies on the internet. The lie details a situation in which the narrator doesn't do anything productive, spends the days deceiving colleagues to engender respect, and is paid well for no reason. Hackernews relates to this narrative spectacularly well, and is eager to contribute their autobiographies to the burgeoning folklore of corporate parasites, bureaucratic bottom-feeders, 'founders,' and other complete wastes of Bay Area bunk space. Afterwards, Hackernews links each other to other stories of people being clever enough to extract low-effort money from people who trusted them.

YouTube’s Piracy Filter Blocks MIT Courses, Blender Videos, and More
June 18, 2018 (comments)
Google thinks that's some nice content you've got there, and it would be a shame if something were to happen to it. Hackernews agrees, but doesn't think strongarming the content creators is enough -- what's needed is revocation of entire sections of European copyright law, for some reason. Apparently the law as written would unfairly require YouTube to perform automatic content scanning it already performs. Hackernews acknowledges that this has nothing to do with Google demanding that content owners opt into Google's advertising program, but it's easier for them to envision overthrowing every government on the entire European continent than it is even to consider challenging Google's behavior out loud.

The Machine Fired Me
June 19, 2018 (comments)
A computer-toucher describes being inconvenienced by a computer. Hackernews debates whether webcams are racist, then pedantically sifts through the original story to find things to be outraged about. The rest of the comments are similar stories about even more people unwilling to interfere with obviously idiotic practices.

Blender is testing PeerTube after YouTube blocks their videos worldwide
June 19, 2018 (comments)
Some video creators decline to be extorted. A Hackernews who appears to defend Google for a living arrives to accuse the rest of Hackernews of being unreasonably mean to an eight hundred billion dollar global corporation. The rest of Hackernews frantically tries to find anything at all to focus on except how quickly Google will take a shit on anyone who isn't making them enough money.

Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try
June 20, 2018 (comments)
A journalist, deep in the middle pages of the New York Times, pretends that we can fix the unending hell of modern webshit by using a slightly different web browser. Hackernews agrees, and encourages all of us to use every piece of software we can find to counteract the shitty tracking and autoplaying video that Hackernews makes for a living, because if you stopped fighting it, the arms race would end and Hackernews would have to do something productive for a living instead.

I discovered a browser bug
June 21, 2018 (comments)
A bureaucrat wastes everyone's time. Hackernews complains that they don't get enough attention.