Shitposts Weekly

Medium articles neither rare nor well-done for the week ending 27th October 2018.

How to become a Git expert: A programmer writes the thousand-and-first shitpost on how to deal with git when you make a mistake, because of course the first thousand are somehow not discoverable on DuckDuckGo.

From Clockworks to Computers on Our Wrists: A Googler claims Apple’s smartwatches are overtaking Swiss watches. I can’t say I’ve ever been tempted to buy either one, since I refuse to use iOS devices (because Apple’s QA for accessibility has collapsed since Steve Jobs died) and I can’t read analogue clocks for accessibility reasons.

The ultimate guide to proper use of animation in UX: A self-proclaimed UX/interface designer (for a company whose front page doesn’t look the least bit accessible) claims to offer the last guide you’ll ever need for properly using animations in user experiences. I have something better: if it’s more than two seconds long, don’t. People have shit to do, they don’t want to wait for your flashy ass to sit the fuck down.

The 50/50 Murder: A tech investor poses a thought experiment and tries to wax philosophical. Instead of reading about shitty thought experiments like this, take a real philosophy course.

Can This Evangelical Leader Turn Her Flock Against Trump?: A journalist asks a question, for which the answer is probably going to be “no”, unless she can turn her congregation left without losing any of them. Which is going to be a tall order.

How to Achieve Your Most Important Career Goals in a Fraction of the Usual Time: A chronically lucky overachiever promises tips for achieving career goals rapidly. This appears to be just another fluff piece written by someone trying to share the secrets of their luck success.

How to Be Ready to Lose Your Job: A professional shitposter offers tips on how to be prepared for the pink slip. In short: somehow manage to save 3-6 months’ worth of bills & shopping money, secure letters of recommendation from colleagues before your number’s up, keep networking, get feedback from your ex-boss if possible, take a few days to recover, and appreciate yourself. I’ve saved you the trouble of reading this shitpost.

Sex Is Power, and It Has Freed Me: A writer pens the umpteen-millionth shitpost about how they found sex empowering, having grown up with helicopter parents who insisted on celibacy as a proxy for innocence & purity.

Sofia Sears: Pansexual Student Taking A Gap Year Abroad: A professional shitposter interviews a writer about a book. Like the book, this is a fluff piece.

Rare posts which are well-done.

The Simple Art of Creating Long-Lasting Habits: A professional shitposter writes about habit-forming techniques. Using Spaced Repetition to Supercharge Your Habits is another habit-forming technique from a different professional shitposter, if you wanted more.

How to Win Your Next Argument: A therapist redefines ‘winning an argument’ in order to make arguing less toxic.

Facebook’s Domino Effect on Our Nation: A professor of con artistry marketing states the blindingly obvious regarding social media and modern attitudes toward innovation.

The Finger Banger and the Heart Healer: A writer points out that men are just as capable of healing others as they are of hurting others, using their own experiences.

Why Are The Proud Boys So Obsessed With Not Masturbating?: A writer explores a common taboo among cults.

I Know the Salaries of Thousands of Tech Employees: An engineer at a payment processor discloses their pay rate because pay equity is a huge problem in the tech industry, in part because almost nobody uses fixed pay brackets that everyone slots in to.

I’m an Amazon Employee. My Company Shouldn’t Sell Facial Recognition Tech to Police.: Anonymous writes to complain about the use of facial recognition software by law enforcement. I tend to agree, but they don’t go far enough; facial recognition software should be illegal to develop, manufacture, produce, cause to be made, sell, advertise, donate, distribute, or cause to be disseminated in any form. Period. It is impossible to create a form of facial recognition which cannot be abused to oppress human beings.

There Is Literally No Excuse to Keep Using Facebook: A journalist documents how to escape from Facebook, and why it’s imperative that everybody do so.