webshit weekly

An annotated digest of the top "Hacker" "News" posts for the last week of January, 2020.

Procrastination is about managing emotions, not time
January 22, 2020 (comments)
Some academics, via the BBC, correct a misconception nobody had. Hackernews tries to decide if being a lazy piece of shit is heritable or a product of upbringing. The rest of the comments are personal anecdotes about how Hackernews has always been healthy, but really began to excel once they convinced doctors to give them amphetamines.

What happened to Mint?
January 23, 2020 (comments)
The answer to the headline question is "it got bought by a regulatory-capture-enhanced monopoly and ignored." Hackernews has about sixteen thousand stealth-mode startups just about to swoop in and pick up the slack. Each Hackernews who announces such intent is immediately beset by unsolicited advice from armchair bankers. The rest of the comments are recommendations of financial services that almost, but do not, replace Mint.

List of Twitter mute words for your timeline
January 24, 2020 (comments)
An Internet figures out that Twitter's muting system can sometimes block their own advertisement platform. Hackernews complains about a lack of documentation for a list of twenty words to paste into a text box. A Twitter reports that there is nothing users can do to unfuck their timelines. The idea is nice, so the link is upvoted, but there isn't anything to say except "Twitter sucks at the only thing anyone wants them to do" so there isn't a lot happening in the comment section.

Am I Unique?
January 25, 2020 (comments)
Yes, no matter what you do. Hackernews struggles with the age-old conflict of the browser: "why should this program have so much power over my data" versus "I want to do everything I do with computers inside this program." Later, the second-oldest conflict is discussed: "I don't want to be identifiable on the internet" versus "this surveillance company will make my life hell unless I am identifiable."

Access to Wikipedia restored in Turkey after more than two and a half years
January 26, 2020 (comments)
Wikipedia is excited that they are once again available in the Soviet Union. The Erdogan apologists and the free-speech advocates organize a dance-off in the comment threads.

An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google
January 27, 2020 (comments)
A Google resigns to reinvent host-based authentication from first principles. Hackernews recognizes the Google's username, and commences to eulogize. No technology is discussed, but open-office plans are still unpopular.

WireGuard is now in Linus' tree
January 28, 2020 (comments)
The Linux kernel assimilates another hundred and fifty thousand lines of code. Hackernews is excited, because this greatly increases the chances that they'll get to use the software the next time they boot Ubuntu in a virtual machine on their Macbooks. The rest of the comments are people translating their VPN configurations into confused narratives.

Congrats! Web scraping is legal! (US precedent)
January 29, 2020 (comments)
The United States Government declares that website owners must use technology to combat scrapers instead of using the United States Government. Hackernews knows this is getting escalated to a higher court, and so feels entitled to expound poorly-constructed legal opinions based on their understanding of contract law.

Not everyone has an internal monologue
January 30, 2020 (comments)
An Internet discovers a method to determine which people are people and which are artifacts of the simulation. Hackernews quickly determines, based on various experiential reports from around the internet, that there is an hierarchy to how people's minds work, and that Hackernews is definitely at the top of that hierarchy, and that amphetamines are the key to staying there. Another set of Hackernews explain to us that some of these reports are incorrect, the reporters are simply misunderstanding their own thoughts, and Hackernews knows better than you do how your mind works.

My Second Year as a Solo Developer
January 31, 2020 (comments)
A webshit constructs a series of tables explaining in excruciating detail the process of losing money by making webshit. Hackernews is absolutely well-qualified to provide advice regarding the loss of money through making webshit, and proceeds to do so in volume and at scale. The top comment comes from the Hackernews Beauty Pageant Bronze Medalist, who provides hundreds of words amounting to zero practical information, then refuses to respond to the blog author.