webshit weekly

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the first week of August, 2018.

Learning Math for Machine Learning
August 01, 2018 (comments)
Some random asshole takes two thousand words to tell us to study statistics, calculus, and linear algebra in order to be good at statistics, calculus, and linear algebra. Hackernews immediately takes the opportunity to shill a book on Amazon, then spends hours arguing about just how little understanding of mathematics one can get away with while selling it to credulous investors. At another lunch table, Hackernews discusses related topics: how arithmetic works, how to stop being afraid of abstract concepts, and which YouTube videos are in fact flawless substitutes for advanced study.

You don’t need standups
August 02, 2018 (comments)
A webshit, newly promoted to management, immediately posts a thinkpiece to Medium. Hackernews is outraged that someone might be operating outside of the parameters laid out by whatever bureaucratic pop-psy book they most recently read. Arguments break out about which Mediocrity Checklist is the one that God wrote, and which ones are apostasy destined to destroy your startup's rad, bloggable culture. No technology is discussed.

Learning from Terminals to Design the Future of User Interfaces
August 03, 2018 (comments)
A webshit thinks things could be better. Hackernews thinks that Slack plugins are a gateway drug to the "electronic typewriter" school of user interface. Dozens of comments just name application shortcut keys in random programs. The bi-weekly Unix Shells Versus Microsoft Shells cricket match breaks out, but is interrupted by a streaker waving a Twenex flag. Another thread is comprised entirely of posts whining about user interfaces being "hard" in one breath, congratulating one another for not having any answers in the next breath, and then claiming to have the answers in the third breath. Most of the rest is just bitching about the four programs Hackernews actually uses more than once a year.

4D toys
August 04, 2018 (comments)
Someone wants to sell software. Hackernews bikesheds the software, computer display technology, human eyesight, and mathematics.

I’m a very slow thinker (2016)
August 05, 2018 (comments)
Another random asshole brags about being a pain in the ass to communicate with. Hackernews understands this is a point of pride, because they are also very, very smart, and have catalogued a large collection of evidence to support the fact that they are very, very smart, and being very, very smart is why they are all destined to be rich.

Let's Encrypt Root Trusted by All Major Root Programs
August 06, 2018 (comments)
A pack of idiots celebrates full admission to the Circlejerk of Trust by finally using their own products on their webshit. Hackernews takes this opportunity to lecture one another on how TLS works, why this pack of idiots is the greatest gift the internet has ever received, how wonderful it is to conflate line encryption with authentication, why authentication is irrelevant as long as we have line encryption, and how crucial it is that Let's Encrypt requires bizarrely-frequent reauthentication. The rest of the comments are dozens of people trying to help each other get basic functionality out of the idiots' software, which is necessary because the software is so low-effort and failure-proof. Unless their servers are down again.

EPA is allowing asbestos back into manufacturing
August 07, 2018 (comments)
The Environmental Protection Agency diligently protects the manufacturing business environment. Hackernews argues about car brake pads. The rest of the comments explore the idea that maybe public safety is something that someone in the government should possibly think about regulating, but this line of thinking is judged too dangerous to permit, because someone might apply it to the information technology sector. The conclusion that anyone who cares enough to have an opinion is ipso facto unqualified to have an opinion: just relax and let it happen, baby. It's fine.