webshit weekly
An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the third week of March, 2020.
Vienna Opera opened its archive for free streaming
March 15, 2020
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Austria wants you to check out its soundcloud. Hackernews has a lot of links to similar soundclouds. One Hackernews wonders if there's some way to get a radio-like experience over the Internet. Another is angry that Austria wants email addresses.
NPM Is Joining GitHub
March 16, 2020
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Microsoft, having previously embraced Github, extends it. A Microsoft shows up to enthuse about the flawless corporate oversight being provided to the webshit that every single Hackernews depends utterly upon. Hackernews, however, is skeptical. Skype is the obvious comparison to make, so Hackernews gets into a pointless shitfight about whether Skype was awesome before Microsoft ruined it, whether Skype was shit from day one and Microsoft tried to fix it, or whether Skype was shit and Microsoft made it worse. Other Hackernews are just relieved that purported adults are finally at the helm of a webshit source code downloader.
TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by “ugly” people and the poor
March 17, 2020
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The Chinese State Council, which was Hackernews' top pick for global government last week, puts a 'No Fat Chicks' bumper sticker on its Vine clone. Hackernews is astounded that nobody is trying to blame machine learning, but is generally fine with the idea of pretending ugly people don't exist.
GM’s CEO Offers to Make Ventilators in WWII-Style Mobilization
March 18, 2020
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Hackernews doesn't really give a shit about General Motors, and neither does Bloomberg; the article focuses on Elon Musk acting like an asshole. Hackernews spends some time wondering if the United States military will save them from a viral pandemic. Several comment threads develop wherein Hackernews questions General Motors' capability to manufacture things, attempts to demonstrate their keen insight and profound understanding of medical equipment safety standards, and proclaims that only Hackernews is smart enough to react quickly to changing needs. The rest of the comments are Hackernews incorrecting one another on viral epidemiology and treatment of COVID-19, exactly like an old-people Facebook group, except with misplaced assumptions about manufacturing instead of Minion memes.
Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days
March 19, 2020
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Europe shouts for Netflix to hang up the phone so its ZModem download can complete. Hackernews is having network connectivity issues and reports them all in this comment section. Other Hackernews complain about Netflix not being 4k enough for them, and then recommending various piracy services instead. Most of the threads are about Hackernews whining that they're not getting their money's worth and other Hackernews admonishing them to quit being a fuck during a global emergency.
MIT to no longer consider SAT subject tests in admissions decisions
March 20, 2020
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MIT makes an extremely minor change to their application process shortly after kicking all their students out. Hackernews is extremely concerned that colleges are deprioritizing arbitrary standardized testing, since those are the only things Hackernews was ever good at. Other Hackernews point out that these tests tend to return better results for rich people who can afford shitloads of preparatory work, and that this might be an unjust practice that needlessly excludes people without access to the preparatory training. Mostly, says Hackernews, those people can fuck off. If those kids are so smart, why are they poor?
Grocy: web-based, self-hosted grocery and household management
March 21, 2020
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Some webshits really, really like spreadsheets. Hackernews does too, but they spend several hours trying to come up with a way to keep track of all this data without having to type it into a computer like some kind of Neanderthal.