Hacker News - It's not for hackers and it's hardly news.

[UERISIMILITUDO]

I've again organized the opening post a little better. I'm considering removing some of the images and putting them in my later posts, but I'll try to avoid that option. Unfortunately, machine problems have prevented me from quickly writing up the latest news, like that amusing stabbing of some startup founder to a flood of comments that San Francisco is totally safer than other cities, but I'm glad to see I didn't need to make the post here about that. It's funny to see a Silicon Valley hipster faggot get some form of comeuppance. Here's that discussion, by the by:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448899 (archive)

Anyway, here's the latest news I've deemed worthy of mockery and the like:

Half of Black High School Students in the Bay Area Can Barely Read
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35306346 (archive)
I noticed this and figured it would be flagged to get it off the front page, and was correct. It was flagged within minutes of being posted. Sure, it doesn't belong on Hacker News, but neither does most of what's posted there that remains. It reminds me of when an article decrying American tourists was on the front page, to plenty of anti-white hatred, but when people correctly figured it wasn't a white American, and it happened to be a Saudi Arabian or something, it was flagged to get attention away from it. The article here isn't worth reading; it's just complaining that the inability for black high school students to read decently totally isn't their fault whatsoever, and is actually the fault of anyone else, basically.

This is actually a nice comment:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35317679 (archive)


This is another instance of a Hacker News user projecting his incompetence regarding programming, the one thing at which he's supposedly good, onto others; these people can't program, and now use neural network nonsense designed to take copyright away from programmers not sponsored by large corporations, and his response is to mock the art of programming itself:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35332179 (archive)


This is another interesting comment about a recent issue with Google:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35330203 (archive)


On the Lobsters front, I noticed this:
https://lobste.rs/s/prvzij/just_update_rules_between_neurons (archive)
https://www.jtolio.com/2023/03/just-update-rules-between-neurons/ (archive)

I mean, I agree that large language models are surprisingly straightforward and not a lot of code. It’s actually kind of infuriating in some sense that the 1980s multilayer perceptron model with back propagation was so close but all it needed was massive scale. The pieces were invented and then we had another AI winter while we waited for more transistors. Gradient descent is not that hard. It’s all so simple, so there’s no room for consciousness in a system that is essentially picking words out of a Bayesian network’s probability bag, right? Right?

To be honest, I’m not convinced I’m not also only doing that. I mean, how do you know for sure your consciousness isn’t basically that? Am I not just an autocomplete system trained on my own stories?

Okay, so maybe not. Maybe there really is something our brains are doing that our stochastic parrot friends are currently incapable of. But at some point, it is possible we will have replicated the key ingredients to human consciousness and crucially, it may be a shockingly small amount of code.

Personally, I invite idiots to dehumanize themselves in my stead, but notice they never stop at themselves; no, everyone is just as stupid, replaceable, and pathetic, to these idiots.

 

[quackrock]

On the Lobsters front, I noticed this:

The quote block that follows isn't unreasonable. Everything he says about artificial neural networks is pretty much correct. He's way more pessimistic about human consciousness than I think is warranted, but I also think there are parts of our brains which basically do what ChatGPT does in routine or mundane situations. The NPC meme is real for many people at many times, we all know this, he's just speculating on the mechanics.

 

[Dambusters' Dog II]

Personally, I invite idiots to dehumanize themselves in my stead, but notice they never stop at themselves; no, everyone is just as stupid, replaceable, and pathetic, to these idiots.

These are the people who copied from their neighbour to get through primary school, copied out of encyclopaedias to get through college, and copy from StackOverflow to get through their jobs. They really think intelligence is "copy someone else and change it a bit". They have never had an original thought.

 

[Bob Ross Cuckholding]

Yeah sadly hackernews fell off a long time ago, it's still somewhat worth reading though

 

[UERISIMILITUDO]

My computer issues continue, so I'm still behind on the dumbfuckery I wish to cover. I'll try to have the opening post of this thread ready for it to be moved to Community Watch within a month or two. Regardless, this caught my notice and I wish to mock it with you:

The discussion on Hacker News isn't my focus this time, but it's here nonetheless:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35421554 (archive)

This is the attached article:
Safari releases are development hell
https://www.construct.net/en/blogs/ashleys-blog-2/safari-releases-development-1616 (archive)

What makes it so hellish? Well Mozilla and Google both release nightly updates of their WWW browsers, since these programs are some of the few things they produce, but Apple only releases an update preview every fortnight or so, and doesn't have a strict schedule to which it adheres.

Safari 16.4 added support for the Compression Streams API, but it was somehow incompatible with zip.js, which meant opening projects in Construct usually failed. Potentially this also means many uses of zip.js across the web are broken too.

Jesus wept.

Should we assume Safari will ship broken compression streams and issue an emergency patch to work around it? Surely they wouldn't risk breaking zip.js for everyone?

They fixed it in ten days, but that wasn't good enough. Already, this author seems haughty.

He then complains about being unable to test the new Safari version until a week after its release, because the Safari team doesn't make its schedule known.

Next, they uncover a flaw in their software, again with the help of Apple employees, and the author's upset because they had to immediately fix it, since they couldn't have known whether a new Safari version would be released the following day or not.

All of that disruption - and it could well have been averted if Apple merely published a release schedule, as every other browser maker does.

Yes, all two of them.

In the end Safari 16.4 rolled out about a month later. We could have relaxed. The emergency response was an unnecessary disruption and a waste of time.

Again, the Apple employees helped, but it wasn't good enough.

Then they learn their software is broken in Safari 16.4 because the standard allows for behaviours other than that which they assumed. His response is that the standards should be changed.

Safari is shipping OffscreenCanvas 4 years and 6 months after Chrome shipped full support for it, but in a way that breaks lots of content; surely the better option is shipping 4 years and 9 months after Chrome with a full implementation that preserves web compatibility?

Notice web compatibility here means does what Google Chrome does.

In the end, they added a special browser quirk that detects our engine and disables OffscreenCanvas. This does avoid the compatibility disaster for us. But tough luck to anyone else who made the same mistake - the engine-specific hack for us won't save you.

They got a special exception from the Safari team, and it's still not good enough.

He then bemoans how all of this has made him physically ill and stressed, because Apple doesn't treat its WWW browser with the same attention as companies that release little other than WWW browsers. He even admits this:

The short answer for how to fix this is "copy other browser makers".

Never forget that webshits will go on and on about how important the WWW is, and then when challenged by how none of their shit actually works, will claim it's actually incredibly fragile, which it is. The final sentence contains him admitting that he wouldn't mind much if Google totally controlled the entirety of the WWW with its browser:

If we end up with a Chromium monoculture, that will be bad for the web, and will bring its own problems. But if that happens, I have to say that as it stands, I won't miss having to deal with Safari releases one bit.

I'll end with a fun quote:

The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.

 

[quackrock]

4chan WebM embeds don't load on Safari for me half the time, guess now I know why.

 

[K-Glycol]

Great thread. I'll share what I have.

Hacker hates his life.

HN doesn't understand the nature of creative jobs (or anything outside of web developement really).

 

[ditto]

Hacker hates his life.

Lonely developer hates going to social functions full of lonely developers. Dude has negative self-awareness.

 

[The Real Slim Shady]

I cant get it how some of these people like the HN commenter in the reply are such a corporation worshippers that they claim will reduce their daily pay to work on such "cool" stuff like Apple or Squarespace. Good job, Im sure Steve Jobs himself would pat him on the shoulder at the end of the day if he was alive. Reducing your pay is something to do when a mom and pop store asks you to prepare their shop banner for printing, huge corporations are definitely the opposite.

 

[AnOminous]

HN=retard news

 

[quaawaa]

Which one of you is this?

Source

I wonder how that user found a 1958 TIME magazine article about crime rates:

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/national-affairs-the-negro-crime-rate-a-failure-in-integration.164349/

The whole thread is worth reading, but the good parts are all flagged and dead which means that they can only be read when logged into an account with showdead turned on.

 

[UERISIMILITUDO]

This was a simple post about a few messages I wanted to mock, but it's grown from there. I've updated the opening post again, this time to include one particular piece of nonsense which has long amused me, and I'll elaborate on it in this post:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23742870#23745222 (archive)

I appreciate the anti-corporate vibe and at the same time wish they were a little more professional.

This is what a Hacker News user has to say about real hackers. Here are some more highlights, along with the full conversation:

After witnessing how "professionals" act behind closed doors, the difference is merely a mirage, in order to not affect the business image.

Yes, those financial startups are actually just as hacker as the hackers, guys, if not even more. Financial fuckery and making apps are totally in the same spirit as writing a demo.

"On the one hand, I found a program that does exactly what we need. On the other hand, not-quite-dressed anime characters..."

I've had this exact conversation with coworkers before.

Those hackers had better learn to be more professional, if they want the so-called professionals to use their software without paying them or otherwise interacting with them in any way. Why, if the hacker spirit doesn't change, I don't think hackerdom will survive.

One user has a head not lodged in his ass:

Can you articulate what the specific benefits would be if the person providing obscure free tools via esoteric channels suddenly conformed to the behavioral norms your wishing for?

Here's another ignorant fool talking about how ignorant and foolish everyone is:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35574611#35576079 (archive)


Google supposedly has world-class security. When someone can run arbitrary code on Google machines, this is nothing like a security issue, don't be silly:
https://giraffesecurity.dev/posts/google-remote-code-execution/ (archive)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35581532#35583215 (archive)

People from outside Google freak out about this because at their company, in 99.9% of companies, running code on an engineer's workstation would immediately be the highest possible level of breach.

Obviously not true, in fact none of the companies I worked in that was the case.

Selection bias.

This reminds me of some fool on Reddit who, when faced with an anecdote compared to his parroting, replied thus: Statistically, you don't.

This amused me:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643049#35645753 (archive)
https://www.deepmind.com/blog/announcing-google-deepmind (archive)

Being hungry and scrappy seems to be a necessary precondition for bringing innovative products to market.

All the world is a startup.

I'm not going to bother making a screenshot of these discussions, since only their metadata interests me here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35793660 (archive)
Investigating Linux phantom disk reads
128 points
3 hours ago
13 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35786086 (archive)
PornHub blocks users in Utah, cites state’s age verification law
344 points
12 hours ago
839 comments

This second thread is filled with dumbassery and people misunderstanding analogies; someone else may want to dredge up some filth from it.

Lastly is this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35778735#35779759 (archive)
https://evhaste.com/blog/silenced-no-more (archive)

I'd thought this to be about real discrimination, since it had been flagged, but the article is just some tranny complaining. I only mention it because of someone who was mentioned in the comments:

This reminds me of a paragraph I recently read on another blog:

> I’ve been writing for a long time. In 2010, I started a blog, focused on the technology industry—topics included programming languages, organizational practices, and development methodologies—that reached a daily view count of about 8,000 (some days more, some days less) with several essays taking the #1 spot on Hacker News and Reddit (/r/programming). I quit that kind of writing for many reasons, but two merit mention. One: Silicon Valley people are, for lack of a better way to put it, precious about their reputations. My revelations of unethical and illegal business practices in the technology industry put me, literally, in physical danger. Two: since then, my work has become unnecessary. In 2013, my exposures of odious practices in a then-beloved sector of the economy were revelatory. Ten years later, tech chicanery surprises no one, and the relevant investigative work is being done with far more platform, access, and protection. The world no longer needs me to do that job. And thank God.

Source: https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/

What's the progress on including him in the opening post? Surely that brief post from earlier isn't what I was to include, right?

 

[UERISIMILITUDO]

I've had to sit on a few examples of foolishness during the downtime, so I'll make a smaller post this time and split it up so it won't take so long to write.

I noticed this frequent commentator recently. He posts a lot of nonsense. Also, look at his username:
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=crazygringo (archive)

Gee, I thought gringo was a slur, but I guess since it's usually directed at white people that it becomes okay. I don't believe they'd allow the account name crazynigger however. Anyway, here's the fool arguing that drinking soda isn't unhealthy at all:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35876506#35878560 (archive)


I noticed some dumbfuckery from Walter Bright today:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35930518#35932331 (archive)


He's not going to let someone just criticize those poor megacorporations without contest.

I saw someone defending Nintendo in a DMCA discussion, and it was funny because of his username:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35846726#35847466 (archive)


Apparently, he wanted it to be CyberRabbit instead of CyberRabbi, but it's still funny.

I'll complete this post with an old favourite:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29026073#29027241 (archive)

The article begins thus:

In 1783, this obscure English rector predicted black holes using Newton's classical mechanics

It contains this sentence:

John Michell, BD is a little short Man, of a black Complexion, and fat; but having no Acquaintance with him, can say little of him.

The geniuses at Hacker News figure that having a black complexion in 1783 England makes him a nigger:


I really hate these smug fucking idiots.

 

[UERISIMILITUDO]

I'm only now able to login again as of today. Here's another short post, showing something I noticed during the downtime:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35886765 (archive)


Someone tried to bring attention to the continued censorship of a legal website, but that kind of topic isn't suited to Hacker News, as we know. The only way I could even find part of the title was through this view:
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=fightforspeech7 (archive)


Of course, I should repeat the fact that Hacker News has always censored people deemed to be in the wrong, since the beginning.

 

[ditto]

Of course, I should repeat the fact that Hacker News has always censored people deemed to be in the wrong, since the beginning.

Orange Reddit and always has been.

 

[Ass Gazer]

Current year 2600 is borderline cowish.

I remember 2600 and the scene that surrounded it was always very anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, etc. Now they are all a bunch of leftist douchebags. That seems to be a trend among many of the subcultures and countercultures of yesteryear, they start out as being generally pro freedom and against authority and devolve into some kind of leftist authoritarianism while still trying to retain some "rebel" pose. I wonder if they ever really believed in freedom to begin with or if they were always closet authoritarians who are just now showing their true face?

Also I absolutely despise HN and that whole SF tech startup scene. I get the worlds biggest smile on my face when I think of it all collapsing and San Francisco becoming the tech version of Detroit.

 

[AnOminous]

I wonder if they ever really believed in freedom to begin with or if they were always closet authoritarians who are just now showing their true face?

I did. But apparently now I'm a Nazi to these very same fucks. Funny how they use the name of an authoritarian right-wing cult to try to distract from the fact they're a hyper-authoritarian left-wing cult.

 

[ditto]

I wonder if they ever really believed in freedom to begin with or if they were always closet authoritarians who are just now showing their true face?

All these movements are either glowie-adjacent psyops or lumpenproletariat in their employ. I've taken the "anti-authoritarian" blackpill.

Funny how they use the name of an authoritarian right-wing cult to try to distract from the fact they're a hyper-authoritarian left-wing cult.

2600 started promoting themselves as an alternative Wikileaks saying that, unlike Assange, they would publish everything given them. C'mon man, there's just no way in fuck you'd ever publish something like the Clinton emails! Goldstein was out campaigning for De Blasio!

 

[Ass Gazer]

All these movements are either glowie-adjacent psyops or lumpenproletariat in their employ. I've taken the "anti-authoritarian" blackpill.

Yeah there is a book called Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon that presents a pretty compelling narrative that much of the 1960's counterculture was very heavily influenced by the alphabet agencies.

 

[Cyberpunk Panatela]

2600 started promoting themselves as an alternative Wikileaks

Shit, is 2600 still around? I kind of thought that it had quietly died.

As for "Hacker News", I have yet to see a more disgraceful repository of corporate fellatio (although it being owned by y-combinator explains a lot - "startup incubators" are the lowest form of life, IMO.)