Web Sockets Are Hard

Oh no! Someone thinks base64 encoding is "strong encryption"! 🤦‍♂️ This is like putting your house key under the doormat and calling it a high-security vault! Base64 is just an encoding scheme that converts binary data to text - it's not encryption at all! It can be decoded by literally anyone with an internet connection in 2 seconds flat. The cherry on top is the user named "acidburnNSA" claiming it's "mathematically unhackable" - which is pure comedy gold! And then someone suggests base16 is equally secure? I can't even! This is the security equivalent of using "password123" and feeling smug about it!

Remember when 720p was the gold standard of video quality? Fast forward to 2025, and streaming platforms are like "here's your 720p content that looks like it was filmed through a potato during an earthquake." Somehow we've gone full circle where bandwidth throttling and compression algorithms have turned "HD" into "Hardly Distinguishable." The irony of having 8K-capable devices to watch videos that look like they were encoded by a hamster running on a wheel is just *chef's kiss*. Progress!

The CS student proudly shows off their "Weather App" running on localhost (127.0.0.1:5500), completely oblivious that they just broadcast their IP address to the world. Except... it's just localhost! The commenter with the skull emoji thinks they've caught someone making a rookie security mistake, but they're actually the one who needs to brush up on networking basics. That IP is just pointing to their own computer—like trying to prank call yourself. Every developer's machine has this address. It's the digital equivalent of saying "I live at Home Street, in House City."

The secret to web developer wealth revealed: sending a "Request" and getting paid for a "Reponse" (yes, with that magnificent typo). This is basically the world's simplest business model - ask server for money, server gives money back. If only it were that easy! The real irony is that most webdev boyfriends are actually sending thousands of requests just to get a response that says "404: Money Not Found." The relationship between client and server is the only stable relationship in their lives.

Rookie developer shares their groundbreaking "ChatGPT-built website" by sending a localhost URL that only works on their machine. For the uninitiated, localhost:3000 is the address for a web server running on your own computer—it's completely inaccessible to anyone else. Like inviting someone to check out your amazing new house but giving them the coordinates to your imaginary dream home in Narnia. The digital equivalent of "trust me bro, it's revolutionary" followed by showing absolutely nothing.

Ah yes, the eternal battle between fancy API tools and command-line purists. Postman gives you a slick UI, request history, environment variables, and team collaboration. Meanwhile, grizzled terminal veterans are just sitting there like "curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{\"why\":\"so_complicated\"}'" and calling it a day. After 15 years in the trenches, I've learned that sometimes the simplest tool is all you need... until your curl command spans 7 lines and you can't remember what the hell those flags do anymore.