webshit weekly

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the second week of September, 2019.

Sunsetting Python 2
September 08, 2019 (comments)
Some Pythons promise, in small words so that Python programmers can understand them, that they're going to stop updating a version of their language Real Soon Now, honest this time, they swear on their mum. Hackernews chides the laggards and an argument breaks out about whether moving to the new version is the easiest thing ever conceived or else the most grueling six-month slog ever enforced.

94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet
September 09, 2019 (comments)
Bitcoin Idiots, LLC senses a disturbance in the Force. Hackernews indignantly nitpicks the description of this event, carefully laying out lengthy and proper definitions of terminology nobody cares about and spending hours performing economic analysis of the flow of midichlorians. Hackernews then proceeds to incorrect one another about the finer points of financial systems before holding forth on transaction confirmations, processing power required to cripple the system, and the mathematics of cryptography. You know, things that you have to know intimately when dealing with a totally valid currency that human beings will ever trust.

Uber lays off 435 people
September 10, 2019 (comments)
Uber (business model: "Uber for cars") appeases concerned investors with a massive staffing shakeup that sends shockwaves throughout the planet as it affects nearly two per cent of its workforce. Some Ubers arrive in the comment thread to cheerlead the shitcanning. Hackernews argues about whether it's better to write your own internet chat program or use one of the ten trillion indistinguishable internet chatting startup services.

Edward Snowden: Permanent Record
September 11, 2019 (comments)
An itinerant knowledge worker presses "print." Hackernews tries to decide if anything the author did mattered. Other Hackernews try to remember what, exactly, the author did.

California bans private prisons
September 12, 2019 (comments)
California snatches dinner from the mouths of children, forcing happy private-enterprise employees to get involved in the filthy bureaucracy of government. Hackernews thinks governments should get out of the law-enforcement business and back into the union-busting business where it belongs. Hackernews who are not from America struggle to understand the concept of putting people in cages for profit for extended periods, since most Europeans are accustomed to efficient, clean, publicly-funded death camps who have the best interest of the leader at heart.

Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914
September 13, 2019 (comments)
Some academics complain that there's not enough magnesium in the modern diet, but fail to recommend eating readily-available sources of dietary magnesium, such as helicopters and motorcycles. Hackernews cannot decide if high-yield farming, which feeds more people, is preferable to old-fashioned methods, which feed people more. Some Hackernews prefer to just rant about whatever book about hydroponics they read first, except for those who learned about it online. After that, dozens of comments arguing about agricultural methodology are presented by dozens of urbanite technology workers.

France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
September 14, 2019 (comments)
The social media wing of Bitcoin Idiots, LLC are politely but firmly asked to leave. Some European Hackernews arrive to timidly suggest the possibility that some government regulation might be warranted in specific cases, and an absolute shitstorm ensues. Eonomics, financial theory, trade unions, and money are all reinveted from first principles (and in this case one of the principles is "let Facebook do whatever they want always").