webshit weekly

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the last week of July, 2018.

Intel patches new ME vulnerabilities
July 22, 2018 (comments)
Intel lies about the contents of their most recent firmware update. Hackernews is outraged that Bob Swan won't personally Facetime them to explain the explicit intent behind each individual transistor, and along the way gets into a fistfight about how many years past the sell-by date you're allowed to use a computer. Proponents of the "use it forever" approach are dismayed to discover that Intel won't be fixing anything older than about five years, but may take solace in the knowledge that Intel isn't capable of actually fixing anything at all.

Google: Security Keys Neutralized Employee Phishing
July 23, 2018 (comments)
A webshit signal-boosts a Google press release. The webshit's use of 'neutered' in the original article title and subsequent 301 redirect to the version with 'neutralized' can be attributed to years of painstaking, detail-oriented work as a reporter, and in no way indicates the author may not actually give a shit about this thinly-veiled advertisement for Yubikey. Hackernews circles up to explain to one another how important it is to drag around yet another piece of plastic, and the solemn duty of every human being to throw ourselves at the mercy of the almighty dongle. Fortunately, there is plenty of bickering to be had about which programs to use alongside this month's security farkle.

Zotero: An open-source tool to help collect, organize, cite, and share research
July 24, 2018 (comments)
Academic Reference Tracker № 5,697 attracts Hackernews' attention, presumably because the webshit is made with Bootstrap (motto: "The Design Equivalent of Playing Wonderwall on an Acoustic Guitar at Parties"). Hackernews is eager to enumerate all the ways they've ever kept notes, but the bulk of the comments involve complaints about hyperspecific issues in particular academic reference trackers, followed by at least twelve comments angrily shouting unwieldy workarounds or declaring opinions outdated.

Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars
July 25, 2018 (comments)
Some scientists find something shiny with radar. Hackernews invents socialism, but with the goal of drilling holes in other planets instead of (not even 'in addition to') doing anything at all on this one. One Hackernews seems to truly believe that the only reason an oncologist might want to accelerate cancer research is to get a paycheck. The rest of the comments are pointless tangents about planetary astronomy, pissing matches about who can interpret a report more pedantically, and a couple assholes violating the Prime Directive.

Slack Is Buying HipChat from Atlassian
July 26, 2018 (comments)
There's some kind of movement in the AOL Instant Messenger clone market. Hackernews makes wild-ass assumptions about the implications of this complete non-event, and about a dozen also-rans scheme on how to scoop up the tiny scraps of market they hope the leader might drop. Elsewhere in the comment thread, some Hackernews attempt to explain to other Hackernews what a good idea it is to install a bespoke web browser built solely to grant the privilege of paying someone else to store copies of your internal business communications. Anyone voicing even the slightest lack of confidence in this plan is derided as some kind of virulent luddite, fit only for banishment to the wastes (i.e. anything east of Hayward or north of Bolinas).

The last thing libraries need is Silicon Valley “disruption.”
July 27, 2018 (comments)
A librarian explains libraries to Y Combinator. Hackernews is less interested in what libraries do than they are in finding just the right abstract concept to blame for the downfall of western society. Whatever it is, it sure has nothing to do with them.

A response about dep and vgo
July 27, 2018 (comments)
Lifetime Bell Labs Intern Russ Cox gives the Golang community a hands-on lesson in how the boys from Murray Hill do business. A Golang leaves the longest and most detailed RateMyProfessors.com review of all time. Hackernews regrets the friction caused by the unlubricated and imprecise torquing of some rando "committee" to Google specifications, but hastily arranges worship services to earn the love of the August & Infallible Google Engineers. The Rust Evangelism Strike Force, starkly aware of the source of their patron's funding, spends their forced holiday selecting which slightly-outdated Reddit memes to include in upcoming lightning talks.

Melatonin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know
July 28, 2018 (comments)
A dipshit consumes, digests, and regurgitates as many sleep-related Wikipedia articles as possible. Hackernews isn't really interested in the article, but loves any opportunity to share their biohacking tips on how to carefully calibrate a basic bodily function which does not require manual intervention for, statistically, any living thing on Earth. When it turns out that none of these tips actually work, they all stay up until dawn typing up excuses for none of them being able to sleep.

How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions
July 29, 2018 (comments)
A crime journalist writes about crime. Hackernews scoffs that the circumstances which enabled the crime were entirely preventable, if only someone would have asked Hackernews. No technology is discussed.

Why I Ripped the Same CD 300 Times
July 30, 2018 (comments)
An internet pursues a hobby, despite being impeded by several severe disorders (e.g. Haskell, emoji abuse, German software, Touhou). Hackernews spends a few hours incorrecting each other about how audio processing works, then dives deep into the cargo cult hole to fetch the most asinine possible ways to ensure the aural integrity of computer game music. A few Hackernews are distracted by the shiny pictures in their browser's URL bar, and a handful of others ruminate over whether optical media is even real.

Amazon Dark Patterns
July 31, 2018 (comments)
A webshit is angry that a massive faceless corporation is not interested in feedback. Hackernews shares this frustration, but is also angry that other people don't put sufficient effort into their feedback. A philosophical debate breaks out regarding the precise length of time it is appropriate to hold someone accountable for their work product. The rest of the comments struggle with the idea that Amazon may be in control of its own website, and exactly how much of human society will immediately fail when this news breaks, since Amazon reviews are typically held to be the lone reliable source of unbiased and irrevocable truth in the world.