webshit weekly

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the last week of May, 2019.

Playdate – A New Handheld Gaming System
May 22, 2019 (comments)
Some Internets would like to sell you a handheld video game system with all the expense and inconvenience of a Nintento 2DS but without the color screens or the games you want to play. Hackernews enjoys bad video games and kitschy electronics, so plenty of both are recited from memory, linked to, and discussed. Since the product in the article is currently vaporware, Hackernews decides to argue about whether the crank on the device is a gimmick or a useful input device.

GitHub Sponsors
May 23, 2019 (comments)
Microsoft regards Patreon as a threat to GitHub's lock-in business model, and does something about it. Hackernews is doubtful of the concept of accepting money for work performed, and suggests instead selling ad space in README files. Despite the fact that people have been able to distribute money in myriad ways for centuries, Hackernews believes that GitHub getting involved is a fundamental revolution. A fight breaks out regarding whether seeding the virtual hat proffered to the software buskers' audience will encourage donations or convince the marks to find needier performers. Later, some Hackernews notice that this is more lock-in fodder, and some Microsofts arrive to defend their realm.

Apple removes game after Chinese company cloned, trademarked, requested takedown
May 23, 2019 (comments)
A Reddit finds out nobody cares. Hackernews suspects that the Reddits are misrepresenting Papa Apple's extremely infallible process, and start digging around for games they don't play in languages they don't speak in order to defend Apple's virtue. Some Hackernews want to spend time competing to see who knows the most about registering trademarks in a nation known for ignoring any and all intellectual property laws. Other Hackernews just apparently really hate China. Later, some Chinese patriots arrive in the comments to explain to everyone that anything uploaded by Chinese firms must take priority over people who are trying to get money in exchange for goods and services.

First American Financial Corp. Leaked Hundreds of Millions of Insurance Records
May 24, 2019 (comments)
An insurance firm spills their actuarial tables. Hackernews lists all the ways that they are smarter than every large organization that exists. A debate is held regarding whether regular counting is okay or long strings of text should be used to index data instead. Many Hackernews feel that these organizations should be held responsible for careless handling of other people's information, as long as the people in those organizations who are actually held responsible will be at a comfortable distance from the programmers tasked with implementing the data management.

Self-distancing can help you make better decisions
May 25, 2019 (comments)
A charlatan recommends dealing with problems by pretending they are happening to someone else. Hackernews nods, purses lips, cradles chins between thumbs and index fingers, and regurgitates airport pop-science books which pretend to understand how the human brain processes emotions. After explaining to one another the definition of 'self' for six or seven hours, everyone gets back to the standard Bay Area conversation-ender: "you should just meditate more."

AMD Ryzen 3000 announced
May 26, 2019 (comments)
AMD would like to sell some computer processors. Hackernews bikesheds the computer processors, and is angry that they are not also video cards. The rest of the comments are people demanding higher core counts, interposed with people demanding to know who could possibly need higher core counts.

Why I'm still using jQuery
May 27, 2019 (comments)
A webshit is uninterested in learning. Hackernews is full of strong opinions regarding how much javascript there should be in the service of a web page, but the opinions seem to range from "there should not be javascript at all anywhere" to "I am angry that my operating system still contains non-javascript software." Because the article has no actual argument to make or information to express, Hackernews has carte blanche to incorrect one another about everything from whether and how web browsers interpret abstraction libraries to whether people who do not use specific javascript toolkits should be allowed to breathe.

Zdog – Pseudo-3D JavaScript engine for Canvas and SVG
May 28, 2019 (comments)
A webshit reimplements SDL in javascript. Reimplementing ancient shit in javascript is Hackernews' entire reason for being, so this story is highly ranked, but the article is about software that is not useful, interesting, or unique, so the comment threads just fight about how to render vector graphics.

Google to restrict modern ad blocking Chrome extensions to enterprise users
May 29, 2019 (comments)
Google continues the war against its own users. Hackernews is mildly concerned that there is literally only one web browser on earth and it is actively hostile to performing the functions the user would like it to perform. Some radicals mention Firefox, but are quickly reminded that Mozilla exists at Google's convenience and thus Mozilla is just an unacknowledged parasite waiting for the host to brush it off and leave it for dead. No solution is reached.

Switch from Chrome to Firefox
May 30, 2019 (comments)
Mozilla, upholding its reputation, belatedly responds to yesterday's top story. A website claims that it takes mere minutes to ditch Chrome and start using Firefox, but Hackernews is keenly aware that both programs are essentially just wildly inefficient operating systems and moving from one to the other is an extremely time-consuming and difficult process. A thousand comments appear, wondering why Mozilla exists, when Google will explain the current salvo in its current Ruin Everything We Touch sprint, and which extremely complicated technical solutions may exist to counteract Google's extreme contempt for the entire planet.

"DigitalOcean Killed Our Company"
May 31, 2019 (comments)
Some webshits put all their eggs in the worst low-rent basket they could find, then have a tantrum when the bottom falls out. Hackernews doesn't really give a shit about the problem, but are ready and willing to link to 4,654,032 similarly low-rent competitors a fresh young company might use to flush its entire business down the toilet. A DigitalOcean appears in the comments to damage control. The attempt is successful.