webshit weekly

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the second week of July, 2021.

All public GitHub code was used in training Copilot
July 08, 2021 (comments)
Another Internet is still mad about Microsoft's code randomizer. Hackernews is by now so bored with this story that they begin speculating on the nature of artificial intelligence, moving on to questioning the concept of intelligence itself, and whining that massive corporations have more access to resources than they do. Later, Hackernews starts bitching about Hackernews' own response to the story they're tired of.

NDA expired, let’s spill the beans on a weird startup
July 09, 2021 (comments)
An Internet rats on a bunch of fraudsters. Hackernews is glad their particular brand of slime is developing a long and storied tradition, and exchanges anecdotes about other dirtbags they've nearly worked for, or been.

EU withheld a study that shows piracy doesn't hurt sales (2017)
July 10, 2021 (comments)
Hackernews is still mad about the European Union wanting to see our emojis, so they dig up an old story about the European Union being dicks about something unrelated. Hackernews, having completely forgotten the pearl-clutching and well-I-nevering they were just doing about Microsoft trampling over their copyright licensing, is absolutely fucking furious about the various media industries' attempts to protect their copyrighted data.

People Staring at Computers
July 11, 2021 (comments)
An Internet got hassled by the cops for a while. Hackernews is divided: there are those who enjoy a good Streisand Effect story, and those who are outraged that someone would contradict the will of Apple Computer, to include comparing the author to a murderer of children. The rest of the comments are the Hackernews Mock Trial Club incorrecting one another about irrelevant laws.

Tesla’s $16k Quote for a $700 Fix Is Why Right to Repair Matters
July 12, 2021 (comments)
A Tesla (business model: "Uber for Yugo") owner has the temerity to allow a car to be repaired with parts that did not come from Tesla. Hackernews sneers at the idea that someone who leases a car should be allowed to dictate the terms of its repair. Several hundred comments constitute a half-assed and hazily-understood engineering analysis of the repair in question, and the rest constitute a series of increasingly complicated misinterpretation of contract law.

The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)
July 13, 2021 (comments)
Hackernews reads a four-year-old Reddit thread, then bitches about user interfaces, many of which other Hackernews wrote.

The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday
July 14, 2021 (comments)
An Internet reports Rule One. In this case, unfortunately, Rule One is applied to boring nonsense, but it's still effective. Hackernews has had brief run-ins with Rule One, but prefers instead to trade recommendations of airport bookstore fodder. Later, Hackernews argues about vegetable recipes.