webshit weekly

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the first week of February, 2019.

New study: Google manipulates users into constant tracking
February 01, 2019 (comments)
Some bureaucrats notice that Google is maximizing shareholder value. Hackernews enumerates all the various webshits and telephone software that various companies use to inspect in minute detail the lives of every single customer, but concludes that stripping yourself bare and presenting your entire life for examination is worth it so you can look up how long your bike ride was on Tuesday. Some Hackernews identify some alternate providers of software and services, which do not traffic in private information. The Google Analytics team dispatches self-driving vans to round them up and deliver them to re-education dormitories.

Dotfile madness
February 02, 2019 (comments)
Some dipshit has strong opinions about where you should keep your files. Instead of letting an idiot like you decide what software to run and where to put things, we are treated to a disquisition on open-source bureaucracy. Some Hackernews think the author is complaining about the wrong files, but the real fight breaks out over whether people should be allowed to use more than one program in association with a given file. On the sidelines, the rest of Hackernews spends some time reinventing filesystem features from the 1980s, then bikeshedding each other into the ground.

Event Sourcing is Hard
February 03, 2019 (comments)
A Python takes the stage to reveal that complicated systems are not simple and designing them may require actual human thought. Now that the topic has been nominated, Hackernews slogs through reinventing each component of an imaginary implementation from first principles. Since technology is being discussed, instead of technological aesthetics, the discussion is desultory and short-lived.

Firefox 66 to block automatically playing audible video and audio
February 04, 2019 (comments)
Mozilla fixes a ridiculous problem they've had for at least ten years. Hackernews bitches about Netflix, then Youtube, then the internet advertising industry, then Safari.

Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3B valuation
February 05, 2019 (comments)
Reddit begs for money from China, because thirteen years is just not long enough to turn a profit. Hackernews, all of whom use Reddit extensively, agree that Reddit faces several problems: its userbase is garbage, the website itself is a pile of shit, and the company is now beholden to extremely rich people who live in a dictatorship. Most Hackernews suggest various UI improvements that can overcome these limitations.

What Happened to the 100000 Hour LED Bulbs?
February 06, 2019 (comments)
An internet destroys some light bulbs to find out why the manufacturers stopped lying about their average service life. Hackernews, of course, is furious about pulse-width modulation. A light bulb engineer shows up in the comments to tell people to shop at Ikea. Other Hackernews wonder if light bulbs would be better if they were connected via USB.

No Thank You, Mr. Pecker
February 07, 2019 (comments)
A good old-fashioned shitfight breaks out between two newspaper publishers, except instead of immigration issues or mining workers' rights, it's more like Joseph Pulitzer threatened to print daguerreotypes of William Randolph Hearst's hog. Hackernews does not want to think about this particular Elastic Beanstalk, so they focus on the politics of the matter. No technology is discussed.