Shitposts Weekly

Medium articles neither rare nor well-done for the week ending 6th October 2018.

The Economy’s Not Booming. Capitalism Is.: An asshole breathlessly incorrects everyone about a phenomenon economists have known about for years (and have been periodically talking about in the news, oddly enough). Strangely, this segues in to yet another attack on America…during which the asshole continues to incorrect everyone about economic history.

Don’t listen to those productivity gurus: why waking up at 6am won’t make you successful: A webshit pretends to be a self-help booklet. This is mostly the same shit as last week’s article about ultradian rhythms, so I presume the webshit read that article, digested it for a few months, and then shit out this post.

Education is the Key to a Better Future, But…: A professor talks about education, particularly the unfortunate reality that grade school doesn’t really teach kids how to self-educate. It’s not really a result of the push for standardisation of curricula, though; grade school teaches most subjects badly, in part because textbook contents are set by two state boards of education, effectively: Texas’ and California’s. Neither of them require actual pedagogical experience in order to serve on these boards.

REST is the new SOAP: A webshit incorrects everyone about REST because other webshits have incorrected each other about what REST is actually about. (Hint: CRUD is not synonymous with RESTfulness; very few CRUD APIs actually are.)

How to Test for Heavy (Toxic!) Metals — and Why It’s a Good Idea: A professional shitposter documents both their elevated mercury & arsenic levels and their doctor’s pseudoscientific woo to combat it. If the word ‘detox’ ever passes your doctor’s lips and it’s not associated with a negative opinion of this shit, find a new doctor.

Kids Don’t Damage Women’s Careers — Men Do: A feminist complains about men not pulling their weight at home. While this is a problem with implications regarding how kids perceive equity (even egalitarian couples tend to not do equitable divisions of labour), this really doesn’t have anything to do with the shenanigans men damage women’s careers with in the workplace.

Why I’m Only Having One Kid: A parent attempts to explain why they’re sticking to one child. This explanation relies on anecdotal evidence, though; not a single study is cited to support these anecdotes.

What If Reality Isn’t Real?: A journalist discovers the simulation hypothesis, which is basically a bunch of idiots thinking too hard after watching The Matrix Trilogy too many times. This hypothesis rests on two major planks: first, that processing capabilities will be advanced enough to not require a supercomputer to model reality; and second, that we will even be capable of modeling reality well enough for it to be convincing. Given that Moore’s Law has been dead for several years now, and given that game developers still have to utilize motion capture to accurately model interactions, which is really only useful for set-pieces…yeah, no.

Rare articles which are well done.

Extreme Athleticism Is the New Midlife Crisis: A sports writer comments on the recent surge in middle-aged people trying to reinvent themselves through health-consciousness and over-indulgence in exercise. (If you weren’t athletic in high school through mid-20s, please just put the running shoes back on the store shelf; your identity won’t be found there.)

How Juul Exploited Teens’ Brains to Hook Them on Nicotine: A journalist explores how vaping has become the new way for teenagers to get hooked on nicotine, all thanks to the efforts of a single company whose product is now dominating the market. (Protip, assholes: don’t make your products ‘cool’; it attracts teenagers and then the FDA’s negative attention.)

Decision-Making Should Be a Required Course in Every High School: A self-help booklet complains about how grade school leans overmuch on rote memorization and that we should be teaching decision-making processes. While I don’t disagree with the premise, we should be teaching kids how to think. Decision-making follows logically from that.

What Algorithms Know About You Based on Your Grocery Cart: A professor explores algorithms and what your product purchases say about you.

Seeing Through Kavanaugh’s Tears: A writer talks about Kavanaugh’s testimony. Excuse me, I need a moment: Kavanaugh should never have been chosen to begin with, and his behaviour since the allegations of sexual assault came out is inexcusable and should result in him being immediately relieved of his judgeship and his nomination withdrawn, regardless of whether you believe the allegations or not, because he is a man-child who is clearly incapable of comporting himself when his feewings awe huwt, as they clearly were when he lied to Congress.

Why Women Don’t Get to Be Angry: A writer explores how women express their anger and how those expressions came to be.

When Did the American Dream Become Flying Private to Dubai?: A professional grifter writes about the death of the concept of the public good at the hands of con artists who style themselves ‘conservatives’ (and a few who claim to be liberal but really aren’t).

R.L. Stine on the Importance of Scaring the Hell Out of Children: A journalist interviews R L Stine, famed author of the Goosebumps series of children’s literature.

The End of Snap and Tesla: A professor writes about Tesla and Snapchat. Snapchat’s biggest four rivals have more or less conspired to destroy Snapchat. Tesla, on the other hand, is run by a fucking moron whose insane(ly stupid), Ambien- and weed-fueled 120-hour working weeks are catching up to him.