webshit weekly
An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the first week of December, 2020.
Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack
December 01, 2020
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Salesforce attempts to negotiate a cheaper fee for their Microsoft Teams access. Hackernews wonders why nobody else seemed to be in a hurry to pay tens of billions of dollars for the pride of owning a gussied-up AOL Instant Messenger reboot. Then, Hackernews wonders why nobody ever paid tens of billions of dollars for other gussied-up AOL Instant Messenger reboots. The mystery, it seems, prevails.
Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges
December 02, 2020
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Google, having realized that their employees are also users, continues the war on its own users. Hackernews gets wind of the fact that Google wants to control people's devices when they have access to internal corporate data, and flips the fuck out. Some apostates arrive to suggest that maybe labor unions could counterbalance the might of their employers, but they are chased out of town by an angry mob. Make no mistake, says Hackernews, it is Google's god-given right to shit upon the people who drive their profits, and the only acceptable response is a tearfully grateful prostration before them, in thanks for the divine privilege of typing programs into their computers.
Stripe Treasury
December 03, 2020
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Some webshits decide that what the world needs now is a toolkit to shit out banking tools. Hackernews appreciates that someone is willing to tear down what has been a definite roadblock in past ventures: the necessity to involve financial experts in financial matters. The webshits show up in the comments to tell everyone to email them. Lots of Hackernews are disappointed that these tools are business-to-business only, but even more Hackernews are angry that Stripe still won't handle payments on their prostitution platforms.
Netscape and Sun Announce JavaScript (1995)
December 04, 2020
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To celebrate the 26th birthday of Jay-Z, a nascent computer company partners with one that should have known better in order to fatally poison the World Wide Web. Hackernews tries to figure out whether Sun crammed the word 'Java' into the word "JavaScript" for any particular reason, or just because naming everything 'Java' was by then a reflex action. Nobody is sure. Later, Hackernews tries to figure out if modern javascript is a magnet for shitty programmers, or if it's just in the nature of ubiquitous webshit that shitty programmers thrive.
Radicle: A peer-to-peer alternative to GitHub
December 05, 2020
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Some webshits decide that what version control software needs is FidoNet and maybe some blockchain. To enable this, they make some webshit and call it a 'desktop application.' Hackernews can't decide whether they hate the project's website. Nobody stops using Github.
Linus Torvalds' good taste argument for linked lists, explained
December 06, 2020
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A computer programmer prefers punctuation. Hackernews bikesheds the computer program, because they're incapable of differentiating between example code and production code. Almost immediately, Hackernews gets distracted trying to explain to one another how programs work. Later, Hackernews declares that they have written a superior version of the example code, and other Hackernews repeat the cycle.
Zero-click, wormable, cross-platform remote code execution in Microsoft Teams
December 07, 2020
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An Internet breaks some webshit. Hackernews all use the webshit, so they are interested, but there's nothing particularly interesting about the damage, and it's already been fixed, so the only thing left to do is bicker about Microsoft. Old Hackernews remembers the days when Microsoft paid for a toll-free number they would advertise as a support line, which was answered by an automated service telling you to go fuck yourself. Younger Hackernews thinks that a webshit text editor means that Microsoft probably won't tell you to go fuck yourself out loud any more. The rest of the comments comprise an argument over how much money Microsoft owes to somebody who breaks their webshit.