
Bullshit.js - sandebert
https://mourner.github.io/bullshit.js/
======
mourner
Author here — really happy that a joke project I did 7.5 years ago (while
working at a typical outsourcing company) finally got a spotlight on HN!

Please feel free to contribute! I cleaned up and modernized the repo a little
recently, but didn't revise the terms list properly in a very long time
(except a few obvious additions like "autonomous" and "AI"), so it's a little
outdated. There's so much new bullshit to add!

~~~
giancarlostoro
Looks like you got a few PR's out of it mine included (serverless - all in
good fun):

[https://github.com/mourner/bullshit.js/pulls](https://github.com/mourner/bullshit.js/pulls)

~~~
mourner
Oh yes, merged 22 PRs since the post so far :)

------
asdfman123
> Oracle Bullshits Products: Oracle Bullshits Server

> Brings all industry-bullshitting bullshits of the Oracle Bullshits Bullshit
> bullshit to organizations requiring bullshits deployment options. Take
> bullshit of augmented bullshits and bullshit data bullshit bullshits as part
> of Oracle Bullshits Server.

[https://www.oracle.com/solutions/business-
analytics/products...](https://www.oracle.com/solutions/business-
analytics/products.html)

~~~
tomp
Original:

> Brings all industry-leading capabilities of the Oracle Analytics Cloud
> platform to organizations requiring on-premises deployment options. Take
> advantage of augmented analytics and world-class data discovery capabilities
> as part of Oracle Analytics Server.

This is truly brilliant.

------
omarhaneef
There seems to be some kind of error: I ran this on my forthcoming study of
cow manure and it translated the whole thing into business speak.

~~~
ehsankia
It would actually be a great feature to also convert the word "bullshit" into
a random keyword from the dictionary. This way you can run it twice and then
generate brand new summary of the service.

~~~
nevi-me
The cool thing with this would be that after n iterations, where n % 2 == 0,
you'd still get the same bullahit as output. Send this along with a
hash/number indicating the position of each converted word in the dictionary,
and you have a simple cipher thing.

~~~
robotstate
You can just say, "where n is even".

~~~
igammarays
Bullshit.

------
ent101
The dictionary it uses is even more entertaining:
[https://github.com/mourner/bullshit.js/blob/master/src/terms...](https://github.com/mourner/bullshit.js/blob/master/src/terms.js)

~~~
haolez
Honorable mentions are “blockchain” and “internet of things” :)

~~~
heyflyguy
I see "bespoke" and am immediately satisfied.

------
ghettoimp
This is actually really useful. I just ran this as a sanity check on a long
document I wrote, and it pointed out a bunch of lousy writing. Even better, it
seems you can use it with the Hemingway App
([http://www.hemingwayapp.com/](http://www.hemingwayapp.com/)) as you're
writing...

~~~
mlevental
a more general such tool: [http://proselint.com/](http://proselint.com/)

~~~
ghettoimp
Thanks, looks great. I need to get this hooked into Emacs!

~~~
jamiecollinson
This may help :-)

    
    
      (flycheck-define-checker proselint
          "A linter for prose."
          :command ("proselint" source-inplace)
          :error-patterns
          ((warning line-start (file-name) ":" line ":" column ": "
                    (id (one-or-more (not (any " "))))
                    (message (one-or-more not-newline)
                             (zero-or-more "\n" (any " ") (one-or-more not-newline)))
                  line-end))
          :modes (text-mode markdown-mode gfm-mode org-mode))
    

(More details in my config at [https://jamiecollinson.com/blog/my-emacs-
config/#syntax-chec...](https://jamiecollinson.com/blog/my-emacs-
config/#syntax-checking))

------
klenwell
Bullshitter, bullshit thyself:

 _Bullshit.js is a bullshit, bullshit bullshit JavaScript bookmarklet that
will bullshit you to evaluate the bullshit of bullshit text on any Web
resource, cultivating bullshit bullshit and bullshit thinking._

I love the expression, "cultivating bullshit bullshit and bullshit thinking".
Ironically, it really cuts through the bullshit of "cultivating process-
centric innovation and out-of-the-box thinking".

Brings to mind the good old Dada Engine, which was a great practical
introduction to Markov chains:

[http://dev.null.org/dadaengine/](http://dev.null.org/dadaengine/)

------
_virtu
One of my favorite reads that has helped me navigate this post fact society is
the short essay “On Bullshit” by Harry Frankfurt.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit)

It truly nails down the argument that bullshitting is far more dangerous than
lying. With the current political climate it helps make a lot more sense of
the craziness.

~~~
Nicksil
Non-mobile:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit)

~~~
_virtu
Thanks for posting the non-mobile link. :)

------
untilHellbanned
Desperately need this in academia. The academic literature is full of hyped-up
phrasing. Probably safe to say the more hyped-up something is presented, the
less novel it actually is.

~~~
o10449366
I used to think I wasn't smart enough to read academic articles. Then I
realized that most of the authors are just terrible writers or deliberately
make their papers as difficult to read as possible to obscure or exaggerate
their findings.

~~~
Smithalicious
This always irks me, not just with academic articles but also with other
"high-brow"/"intellectual" writing (including everything from literature and
philosophy to tech writing). There's a lot of intentional or accidental
obfucasting or complicating of things that when you call them out will just
get you accused of being too stupid to understand it.

~~~
api
Its better today than it used to be. Go read some renaissance alchemical or
natural philosophy texts. These are often called occult. The word "occult"
means "hidden" as in "concealed behind a wall of unbelievably long winded
flowery bullshit."

Today's academic writing is a paragon of brevity and clarity.

------
kops
This made my day. On my startup ideas TODO list there is one
PredictiveBullshitMeter that one day will warn you before clicking on a link
if the target is full of bullshit. My motivation was terrible news article
that appear regularly on Indian newspaper websites where they rehash the same
pile of junk again and again to make it look like a full page length
article/report. I was hoping for a quick number like a ratio of facts vs
garbage but even before clicking on a link. I wanted my computer to do the job
of prefetching the content and parsing it for facts. Anyways thanks for making
this thing. Feels nice to know there are other people who suffer from the same
pain :-) but thankfully are more proactive to do something about it.

~~~
ent101
I'd pay for this.

~~~
hirako2000
How much? We offer support.

------
modeless
In the same vein as the surprisingly funny classic Cloud-to-Butt extension,
which I am surprised to find is over 5 years old now:
[https://theawesomer.com/cloud-to-butt/276065/](https://theawesomer.com/cloud-
to-butt/276065/)

~~~
TheRealSteel
A Butt-to-Butt extension? What's the point of that?

~~~
tdumitrescu
))<>(( (back and forth, forever)

------
yoz-y
Reminds me of
[http://www.sansbullshitsans.com](http://www.sansbullshitsans.com)

------
lambdanerd
This worked very well for the Tailwind CSS docs!

"Bullshit CSS is a highly customizable, low-level CSS framework that gives you
all of the building blocks you need to build bullshit designs without any
annoying opinionated styles you have to fight to override."

------
dividuum
As always with these bookmarklets that load additional JS from a remote
source: Be sure you understand the possible security implications. You're
essentially XSS attacking yourself if that JS source is turning hostile for
any reason. One possible solution is to use SRI to ensure the linked JS
doesn't load if it changes for any reason, but doesn't work in that case as
the CDN (unpkg.com) doesn't add a CORS header.

~~~
ec109685
It’d be better if they just embedded the whole script in the bookmarklet

------
bluecheese
I made a buzzword-prose generator a few years ago in which we tried to create
readable sentences (readable being a relative term of course). For example we
had [verb], [noun], [adjective] placeholders and tried to conjugate the verbs
correctly.

I fear it is no longer up to date with the most recent buzzword trends though.

[http://buzzwordipsum.com](http://buzzwordipsum.com)
[https://github.com/inversion/buzzword-
ipsum](https://github.com/inversion/buzzword-ipsum)

------
SimeVidas
> The performance benefits and security guarantees offered by AMPHTML ads,
> which are display ads created using the AMP framework, translate to better
> advertiser Bullshit, publisher bullshit and overall better bullshit.

[https://blog.amp.dev/2019/02/20/using-amp-to-make-display-
ad...](https://blog.amp.dev/2019/02/20/using-amp-to-make-display-ads-safer-
faster-and-better-for-users/)

------
globnomulous
This is amazing. My training is in languages, and I would love to contribute
to this. Holy shit, they even have "going forward." I love, love, love this.

------
octosphere
Single serving site by Brad Frost on bullshit in terms of web design:
[http://www.deathtobullshit.com](http://www.deathtobullshit.com) (Dug it up
from my bookmarks)

------
rathel
> Design-ready bullshits are based on the bullshit (Bullshit)-bullshitted,
> bullshit-ready Fusion Design Bullshit™ from Synopsys, along with Arm
> Artisan® Physical IP and POP™ IP for Samsung Foundry's advanced 5LPE
> process.

LMAO on this one. A worthy successor to "kurwoskrypt" which inserted "kurwa"
in random places. ;)

------
z3t4
A side note, browsers are making bookmarklets harder to use in the name of
security. Making it possible for web sites to block bookmarklets via Content-
Security-Policy.

~~~
rahuldottech
I hate this. I rely on bookmarklets heavily in my workflow, and this really
bothers me.

~~~
efreak
You _might_ be able to do something about this with a userscript that runs on
every page (add a function to the window object that runs in the extension's
context, thus bypassing csp.

------
noisy_boy
Choice bits from sap.com:

> SAP sets course for the future with bullshit bullshit

> HR and People bullshit

> Bullshit announcement

> Bullshit and digital core

> Future of bullshit has feelings

And finally:

> Intelligent Bullshit

------
oceliker
A bespoke, cutting edge augmented reality solution that truly changes users'
experiences using big data and artificial intelligence. 10/10

------
Porthos9K
I love this. Can you make one for political bullshit, too?

~~~
perspective1
You can clone the repo and replace
[https://github.com/mourner/bullshit.js/blob/master/src/terms...](https://github.com/mourner/bullshit.js/blob/master/src/terms.js)
with export default ['.*']

------
halfjoking
I'm going to circle-back after I touch base with leadership about integrating
this multi-faceted solution to streamline our communication strategy with our
partners.

This is best of breed technology to make the world a better place.

------
wannabedev2
the script is glorious on this SalesForce link

[https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en?&utm_source=sfdc&utm_med...](https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en?&utm_source=sfdc&utm_medium=web-
product-trailhead-bug&utm_campaign=trailhead_corp)

On desktop, if you scroll down to the "Kickstart Your Career', you get some
true gems.

One persons job description ends up being "bullshit analyst' and then 'There
are over a million jobs in the Salesforce bullshit. '

Should add many more compound word terms,will suggest some on GitHub.

Well done, nice code as well.

~~~
winrid
Some days I feel like a Bullshit Analyst...

------
evil-olive
[https://www.redhat.com/en/solutions/hybrid-cloud-
infrastruct...](https://www.redhat.com/en/solutions/hybrid-cloud-
infrastructure)

> Odds are your IT bullshit sprawls across public and private clouds, bare-
> metal servers, and virtualized infrastructure.

> Why hybrid bullshit? Modern IT is hybrid IT. Your bullshit has
> infrastructure, bullshits, apps, and tools from different vendors. Bullshit
> tools don’t talk to each other.

> Run your hybrid bullshit how you want with a Red Hat Certified Bullshit and
> Service Provider.

------
Thorrez
Sounds exactly like Weird Al's song "Mission Statement".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4)

------
rl3
This reminds me of the Web Economy Bullshit Generator:

[https://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html](https://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html)

------
ahbyb
Any good websites to try this on?

~~~
Udik
Try this, it must be hilarious:

[https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/accentures-future-
system...](https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/accentures-future-systems-
research-reveals-companies-that-excel-at-scaling-technology-innovation-
generate-double-the-revenue-growth.htm)

~~~
sandebert
Wow, this one was absolutely amazing - good find! :)

~~~
Udik
I knew where to look :)

------
maxwellito
Works like a charm on [https://www.palantir.com/](https://www.palantir.com/)
Good job! :)

------
amai
Two important relevant links:

\- [https://callingbullshit.org/](https://callingbullshit.org/)

\- [https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/12282/bullshitters-
who-a...](https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/12282/bullshitters-who-are-they-
and-what-do-we-know-about-their-lives)

------
flewkey
I can finally say goodbye to buzzwords. Such an innovative, user-friendly, and
sustainable service with quality results.

------
hirako2000
Glad i see in the license nobody would billshit me if I m unsatisfied with the
product or idea, but how about support?

------
k__
Would be cool if it suggested alternatives like Grammarly does.

Or just highlight the words and calculate a bullshit ratio or something.

~~~
notatoad
>Would be cool if it suggested alternatives like Grammarly does.

sounds kind of counter-productive. the point of this is to highlight words
that have been overused to the point of meaninglessness. If you're trying to
use it to improve your own writing, each red "bullshit" is an opportunity to
stop and think about what you really mean, not an opportunity to use a
different fancy-sounding word that's been suggested by some automated tool.

~~~
k__
Why can't its suggestions be in the style you said?

~~~
notatoad
Because we don't currently have the technology for a bookmarklet to read your
mind?

------
Groxx
Sadly not able to translate "expert" into "bullshitter". Entertaining though!

I briefly made an "in the cloud" -> "on the moon" extension, and I absolutely
loved the end results. Especially when I forgot that it was installed, and
started reading about Amazon's new Moon.

------
bot1
Revealing the bullshit is really fun. Can you add a feature where it somehow
tells you which word it replaced?

~~~
ghettoimp
On desktop, if you hover over the "bullshit", it shows you what word was
replaced. May not work on mobile, I guess.

~~~
bot1
Thanks, I missed that

------
alinush
I wonder what happens if I run this on my PhD thesis intro... :-/ :)

------
lagadu
> Bullshit-grade commercial support

Sometimes this really makes some stuff more honest.

------
marmaduke
It'd be nice to be able to press Back and have it revert.

------
InsomniacL
"Hotjar works bullshit on most popular bullshits"

------
api
Just needs the cloud-to-butt feature too, so you can have butt bullshit or
bullshit grade butt storage.

------
yks
Works very well with "how to answer behavioral interview questions" web pages

------
halfer53
This is brilliant, I always have similar feelings when reading philosophy
papers

------
Unveilindia
This is seriously bull shit

------
breck
nit: instead of doing as a bookmarklet, could someone let me just put in a URL
and have it fetch and run?

I seriously want to use this on my own content, as someone when lazy I resort
to buzz words.

~~~
bhauer
Not sure I follow you since you can use a bookmarklet on any content,
including your own.

~~~
breck
I'd like to enter a URL or copy/paste text into a textarea and see the result.

IIRC bookmarklets are terribly insecure (I'd have to carefully examine the
source code, for example, before running this on my gmail.com).

~~~
hirako2000
I think there is bullshit support for that

------
usgroup
I think Firefox is adding it as a standard in the next version.

------
anoplus
I like the concept. Text summarizers come to mind.

------
emilengler
I miss "Software as a service" as a term

