webshit weekly

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

Don’t Get Clever with Login Forms
February 15, 2019 (comments)
A webshit lectures other webshits about all the cute garbage they use to make simple tasks take longer. While the article is specifically about these tricks ruining password managers, the webshit disease is sufficiently advanced as to render the author seemingly oblivious to the fact that this kind of shit also ruins every other aspect of every commercial website on the internet. Hackernews sagely advises webshits to stop reinventing computer interfaces, recommending instead that we should implement standardized interfaces and then progressively destroy them with javascript.

Going Solo, Successfully
February 16, 2019 (comments)
Another webshit posts the same set of advice everyone else has posted about starting a business. Hackernews compares this article to received wisdom of the Hackernews Beauty Pageant, and sounds the alarm when some of it doesn't line up. No technology is discussed.

Flightradar24 – how it works
February 17, 2019 (comments)
An Internet thinks that everyone who travels by airplane also obsesses about the specific location of the plane while they are not on it. Hackernews bikesheds the summary of how the website gathers information, then whines about the operators not releasing the data. The rest of the comments are people arguing about relevant laws and reinventing aircraft transponders from first principles.

I took 50k images of the night sky to make an 81 Megapixel image of the moon
February 18, 2019 (comments)
A Reddit took a lot of photographs and made one large mosaic. Hackernews rehosts the file a few times, argues about what software they should use to host, download, and look at the file, recommends other files to look at, and then argues about which Google webshit provides the best way to see the moon.

Leukemia Has Won
February 19, 2019 (comments)
An Internet, succumbing to illness, bids farewell. Hackernews mostly bitches about the phrasing of the article, but a few Hackernews instead decide this is the right platform for their weird-ass opinions on the scientific method.

U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property
February 20, 2019 (comments)
Someone in the United States federal government notices that the law may not in fact allow cops to just steal shit from people, which comes as a surprise to the cops. It is to be hoped that this ruling does not halt civil forfeiture; deprived of their favorite sport, police will have nothing to do other than pursue their second-favorite sport: murdering civilians. Since no technology is discussed, Hackernews explodes with weeks of pent-up armchair legal opinions, and gleefully spends the day incorrecting each other about the intersection of states' rights and the Constitution of the United States.

COI – Chat Over IMAP
February 21, 2019 (comments)
A pack of deranged maniacs finally unearths the worst possible communications protocol. The XMPP Memorial Society gets super pissy about it. Hackernews separates into partisan fire teams and skirmishes over which shitty protocol is the obviously-correct solution. I was going to write a joke about switching this chat service to using JMAP as a backend, but several Hackernews suggested it as an actual desire.