webshit weekly

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

Markov Chains Explained Visually (2014)
August 15, 2018 (comments)
Hackernews links to some cartoons about math, carefully noting the year they were made, in case math changed a lot in the last few years. The analysis in the comments comprises two camps; the louder group frothing at the mouth, overwhelmed at the amazing possibility implied by cartoons about math. The other group cannot seem to understand why javascript cartoons are the obvious vehicle upon which all human progress will soon depend.

NYU Makes Tuition Free for All Medical Students
August 16, 2018 (comments)
A medical school makes it slightly easier to go to medical school. Hackernews, armed with a keen insight into the fundamental workings of both economics and human society, dives into a thoughtful examination of why rich people who are good at standardized tests make the finest medical professionals. Anyone breathing a hint of a concept that perhaps someone might choose not to go to medical school because it's expensive is labeled a dangerous seditionist. Many lectures follow about how rich kids actually have it worse than poor kids, taxation is theft, and studying any subject not directly related to javascript makes you a selfish burden on civilization.

Why Do Keynote Speakers Keep Suggesting That Improving Security Is Possible?
August 17, 2018 (comments)
An academic, freshly escaped from corporate shackles, tells some assholes they're wrong. Hackernews ignores every single aspect of the lecture, and focuses on comparing themselves to medical professionals. Again. Anyone suggesting that any programmer take any responsibility for anything at all is immediately threatened with national economic destruction or Internet Explorer. The remainder of the comments are dipshits trying to whatabout their way out of looking in a mirror.

My dad’s resume and skills from 1980
August 18, 2018 (comments)
A webshit posts two photographs and three sentences to Github, which requires eleven commits and a pull request. There is one open issue. Hackernews bemoans how much nicer the information technology industry was before Hackernews fucked it all up. Someone tries to hire the dad.

Redux vs. The React Context API
August 18, 2018 (comments)
Some webshits write up a deep dive into the newest, fullest septic tank. The "Full Stack" you hear so much about has reached so high, and the lower layers ossified so quickly, that Hackernews is forced to bicker about which abstraction is appropriate as a simplified model with which to build business logic to control the next abstraction down the stack ... which may change depending on which AbstractionHandlerFactory you're targeting with your glorified web guestbook. Pedantic arguments break out about which abstractions represent which other, slightly-more-generalized abstractions. If you or someone you love has any positive opinions about any technologies discussed in this article, please contact your nearest tertiary education facility to determine if there is a path available to healthier living. I hear medical school is affordable these days.

Don’t Do This in Production
August 19, 2018 (comments)
A webshit takes a thousand words to say "don't paste random internet shit into your program." Hackernews nods sagely and reveals the hidden knowledge: it is possible to get higher quality results by hiring qualified workers. The conversation turns to which ebooks contain the best candidate evaluation to blindly step through, then which ebooks contain the best human resources practices to blindly mandate. No technology is discussed.

Docker cannot be downloaded without logging into Docker Store
August 20, 2018 (comments)
The internet gets retroactively mad about a slight change to some company's webshit. Hackernews meditates on the correct way to inform your users that your business model is shit and you're selling them up the river for cash. The rest of the comments are people bitching about other comments, bitching about the company who changed the webshit, and armchair lawyering.

Twenty-two states ask appeals court to bring back net neutrality
August 21, 2018 (comments)
Some bureaucrats bureaucratize. Hackernews decides this is either a sign that America has failed or a sign that America has succeeded. An argument breaks out about whether it is possible to survive without Facebook. Nobody is sure.