Shitposts Weekly

Medium articles neither rare nor well-done for the week ending 28th July 2018.

The power of doing nothing at all: An old webshit tells new webshits a fable. The punchline is that the new webshits will learn the lesson the same way the old one did: by working themselves mostly to death.

Digital Exile: How I Got Banned for Life from AirBnB: A cat furniture craftsman complains about being banned from a company founded and run by shitheads after butting heads with a shithead.

Breaking down the language barrier between autonomous cars and pedestrians: An ‘innovator’ asks questions about self-driving cars’ potential interactions with pedestrians at unlighted intersections. His ‘innovation’ proposes putting visual cues on the cars. I would recommend making all pedestrian crossings safe for blind people, instead, since that conveniently provides a mechanism that also works for cars, self-driving or otherwise.

Discover the power of first class functions: A webshit shits webshit about a basic property of modern programming languages. What next, a tutorial about fire? Wait, that’d actually be useful in the real world. Hmm…

Mastering Depression and Living the Life You Were Meant to Live: A prognosticator cuts loose with an excessively long wet fart about coping with depression. Short version: if you’re willing to change, see a therapist. Long version: this shitpost.

What Cracking Open a Sonos One Tells Us About the Sonos IPO: A vulture capitalist complains about a startup’s Internet of Shit speakers, at some length, in order to tell us that the emperor hath no clothes.

How I got hired by Google, why I left, and why I chose to join OKCoin: A shithead cons his way into a webshit conglomerate, then quits six years later to fleece stupid trust-fund kids.

Intel’s Toxic Culture: An ancient tech surfaces to explore Intel’s failings, mostly their missed opportunity in mobile a decade ago. Not discussed is Intel’s cavalier attitude toward security, in a year where Intel is having a bad time due to said attitude.

How to write a good software design doc: A software engineer talks about the importance of writing a fucking plan before writing any fucking code, easily the most important thing webshits never learn. Unfortunately, the so-called ‘design doc’ is larded with management process, shit that is completely irrelevant for personal use.

Agile Makes No Sense: An idea-shitter complains about a shitty process for software development, which basically amounts to “use a workflow that makes sense to you instead of playing buzzword bingo”.

(Why) America’s Collapsing at Light Speed: A wanker wanks about the fall of Western civilization. This seems to be a fetish for him, because he wrote several other articles along the same vein.

The Most Mispronounced Word in the World: A prescriptivist has a fit over how Americans have been mispronouncing ‘karaoke’ for seventy years. Sir, this is a McDonald’s drive-through.

To Live a Better Life, Think About Death: A human behaviour professor writes a self-help article about YOLOing life more so you don’t regret your missed opportunities on your deathbed (assuming you end up having one).

Rare articles which are well-done.

The Cognition Crisis: A double-doctor (he has an MD and a PhD) talks about cognition disorders, which includes major depression, anxiety, and more. Technology is to blame, of course, but the good doctor suggests that it’s also a useful tool for treating cognition disorders. I wonder if he’s considered the sociopolitical landscape, though…

How Depression Made Me a Morning Person: A daemon talks about how treating her depression turned her into a daemon.

The Real Story That Inspired “Lolita” Is Somehow More Disturbing Than The Book: A detailed account of the events which inspired a controversial book is given. Quite interesting, if you’re in to that sort of thing.

Debunking The Myths Americans Believe About Immigration — And Themselves: A feminist documents and debunks a bunch of immigration myths. A lot of history is discussed that will never be taught in high school, because that would provoke discussions that most high school teachers are woefully unequipped to handle.

You’re Working in the Wrong Place: The shittiest office layout, which only exists because bean-counters somehow managed to hoodwink people who should fucking know better, is discussed.