webshit weekly

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

A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics
December 01, 2018 (comments)
A Google wrote a book trying to teach math to computer programmers. Hackernews skips to the back to check for answers. Not finding any, they attempt to rectify the omission using the only tool they know: Github. One Hackernews declares that mathematics suffers from a 'lack of rigor,' unlike computer programming. I weathered this irony storm long enough to see that the next thread contained Hackernews arguing about the proper way to operate books. Further deponent readeth not.

I quit Instagram and Facebook and it made me happier
December 02, 2018 (comments)
A journalist abandons social media and writes an article about it, which contains a link to the journalist's Twitter account in the byline. Hackernews also deletes their accounts on all their employers' services, then bemoans the preponderance of websites where unpopular opinions are deplatformed. The complaints are made on "Hacker" "News", a web forum that automatically removes unpopular posts. The surviving opinion is that social media sucks because of the users.

Quora User Data Compromised
December 03, 2018 (comments)
Some webshits spill the beans. Hackernews briefly wonders why webshits had the beans to begin with, but immediately pivots to bitching about the tools they use to keep track of the trillions of passwords they just can't help creating.

Announcing Open Source of WPF, Windows Forms, and WinUI
December 04, 2018 (comments)
Microsoft dumps another box of junk at the charity shop. Hackernews immediately wants to know whether these unpopular garbage libraries can be shoehorned into whatever operating system Hackernews is currently using. The real question, says Hackernews, is whether Microsoft will ever open-source any software that people actually care about. The question nobody asks is "who cares?"

Canada has arrested Huawei’s global chief financial officer in Vancouver
December 05, 2018 (comments)
The Canucks toss a suit in the hoosegow. Hackernews would like to know how laws work, and does not let a lack of ability stop them from lecturing endlessly on international law, political conspiracy theories, and the ethical characteristics of nations. One Hackernews claims that someone died of blockchains, which is the closest thing to technology anyone posts.

Goodbye, EdgeHTML
December 06, 2018 (comments)
Mozilla looks forward to coming in second in a two-browser race. This thread is designated as the Monthly Firefox Opinion Repository, with the same eight complaints as all the other threads even tangentially related to Mozilla: My preferred extension was deprecated; I can't live without this obscure feature; it's too slow; I don't like the development tools; it's not made by Apple; it's not made by Google; it's funded by Google; my computer is old. Neither this comment thread nor the original article will influence anyone's opinion, either on "Hacker" "News" or at Microsoft.

Facial recognition: It’s time for action
December 07, 2018 (comments)
Microsoft announces a new lobbying campaign. Hackernews is ecstatic that technocrats are unilaterally declaring policy, as this system is much cheaper and more effective than outmoded and obviously ridiculous alternatives, such as democracy. The rest of the comments are Hackernews eagerly reading political tea leaves or angrily demanding that Microsoft be given authority to conduct capital punishment against anyone who inconveniences them.