webshit weekly

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the first week of October, 2016.

How many lines of code is Candy Japan?
October 01, 2016 (comments)
The answer is "around eight thousand." Hackernews is amazed or unimpressed by this answer. A lengthy discussion takes place regarding minimum program size before static typing is desirable. This topic turns out to be as uninteresting as the original article, and no conclusions are reached. In accordance with federal law, someone mentions typing in Rust.

How being alone may be the key to rest
October 02, 2016 (comments)
A Hackernews advocates turning off your electronic devices once in a while. We live in hope that this philosophy is applied to that Hackernews' work. Consensus is reached: it is important to "turn your brain off" now and then. No mention is made of whether any of them will be turned back on in the future. Randall Schwartz posts from an alt account.

Never accept a counter-offer
October 03, 2016 (comments)
An idiot studying English as a second language accidentally publishes a paper for class. Hackernews takes this opinion seriously, but cannot decide if the article is completely wrong or utterly infallible. Nobody involved demonstrates sufficient critical thought to realize the answer doesn't matter and the question is stupid.

Police complaints drop over 90% after deploying body cameras
October 04, 2016 (comments)
It is revealed that police stop acting like assholes when someone monitors their behavior. Hackernews decides that after an adjustment period the police will probably resume beating and killing of black people. They seem concerned about this but unsure how to help the black people. Nobody can find one to ask, but agree they'll try again next time they're in the East Bay*.

Drakon: a visual language for specifications from the Russian space program
October 05, 2016 (comments)
Stumbling upon a soviet knockoff of LabView, Hackernews marvels at the world's last surviving Tk program. A Hackernews with 'hacker' in the username admits defeat before the inconquerable task of installing three packages. Someone points out that Buran was designed with this software, presumably as a warning to others.

N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets
October 06, 2016 (comments)
An idiot gets blackbagged for bringing some classified work home with him. Hackernews decides that Google is in on it, Snowden was in on it, Shadowbrokers was in on it, Hillary Clinton was in on it, the Department of Justice was in on it, and the New York Times was in on it.

Reflections of an “Old” Programmer
October 07, 2016 (comments)
A person who deliberately lives in Pittsburgh wants to tell us what is important in life. The Hackernews Retirement Wing shows up to agree that nothing has changed, nothing has got better, and nobody wants to hire them to fix it. A significant amount of time is spent reminiscing about mistakes of bygone days and classification of new mistakes. Nobody in a position to benefit from this information will ever read it. In accordance with federal law, someone mentions borrow-checking in Rust.