Shitposts Weekly

Medium articles neither rare nor well-done for the week ending 4th August 2018.

What Do 90-Somethings Regret Most?: A Bible-thumper asks a bunch of old people a question. I’m sorry, but if you thought old people were all sexless mannequins who sit at the bingo hall all day instead of, y’know, being regular folks who like doing shit, you’re a fucking moron.

How to make your code better with intention-revealing function names: A webshit shits webshit about self-documenting code, using a trivial app where it’s possible to actually implement his recommendation. Sure, buddy. Why don’t you demonstrate this with a nontrivial application?

Web Architecture 101: A webshit sits on the can for too long about the nest of snakes he calls a webapp. This trash has too many moving parts, probably occasioned by the use of webshit like MongoDB and ElasticSearch. (Here’s a dirty little secret: real databases have full-text search capabilities.)

Minimalist Journaling: A Fun and Effective Tool for Tremendous Habit Change: A self-help booklet claims to teach you how to start new habits. He spouts psychobabble to support his “exciting new system”, which is a bunch of boxes with words in and adjacent to them. Buy a real logbook and work with a therapist.

There Are a Lot of Problems with Sex Robots: A wannabe ee cummings and former sex worker complains about sex robots. The biggest issue is, of course, that she thinks it will enable shitheads who treat women badly. I have some bad news: the current political climate is doing that just fine, no sexbots involved. More than that, these shitheads are unlikely to attract real women to begin with; just ask the Trump administration aides who can’t get a date in DC.

How the ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Color Wheel Explains Humanity: A grognard tries to apply a card game’s colour magic system to the real world. It goes about as well as every other attempt to apply a simplistic and unrealistic alignment system to the real world does. Some idiot exposed this grognard to a shitty fanfic written by a loser who doesn’t understand rationality.

8 New Diseases That Are Coming to Wipe Us Out: An ROI writes neo-Malthusian FUD about problems that would be more readily solved by not handing antibiotics out like candy or working our doctors and nurses to near-death. Or, in some cases, by killing privately-owned mass surveillance platforms.

How to Prevent Injuries Even if You Work a Desk Job: A professional shitposter learns some physical therapy and fails to provide scientific backing for any of it. I’m pretty sure you’d be better off talking to a physical therapist instead of taking PT advice from a professional shitposter, though.

The Extraordinary Power of Prolonged Eye Gazing: A performance artist performs a psychological experiment without bothering with such petty things as institutional review boards or protocols.

How to Make Better Decisions by Improving Your Intuition: An expert self-help booklet suggests trusting your subconscious self more. Given how many shitheads try to use the “oh it just slipped out” excuse as to why they shouldn’t be punished for outstandingly shitty behaviour, I’m not sure I entirely agree with her. Then again, it might make it easier to filter out the shitheads.

Rare articles which are well-done.

Standing desks vs sitting: why sitting ISN’T slowly killing you: A webshit points out that standing desks are fucking stupid and sitting isn’t what’s killing people—it’s shitty diets.

The Secret Trap That’s Keeping You Stuck: An expert self-help booklet who should know better fucks up a work/life balance decision. What follows is a treatise how to deal with side effects.

I Tried 7 Different Morning Routines — Here’s What Made Me Happiest: A self-help booklet talks about how spending time being idle in the morning revs up her productivity.

I Grew Up in the Handmaid’s Tale: A woman documents a Catholic hellscape and how Ireland has largely improved since her nightmarish childhood.

The Secret Life of a Highly Sensitive Person: An expert self-help booklet talks about a surprisingly common, widely misunderstood trait.

When Companies Question the Value of Design: A webshit complains about companies who waste money on advice they don’t follow.