Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this.)

  • gerikson@awful.systemsEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    Free SFnal short story idea, came to me literally in a dream:

    Dude is living his best life, beatiful house, beatiful wife, gets a job doing computer stuff “improving the world”. But his big fancy work computer is wasting a lot of space so he reformats it/installs Nix, and suddenly everythings gone, all grey wireframe, no way out. Turns out he was given root to his own simulation and there’s no backup.

    Feels I should have read this somehwere but haven’t read short SF in ages so…

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    Did my regular check in of a q-pilled family member’s facebook page. Zuckerberg’s new fash turn is not being received well as he is being read as the worm that he is. i.e. they are still mad about the anti-vax fact checking.

  • Soyweiser@awful.systemsEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    With risk of falling into the ‘classify people into two binary groups’ thing which I have often criticized the Rationalist for. Move over jock vs nerd. There is Jock vs Creep.

  • gerikson@awful.systemsEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    Looks like LW/Lightcone managed to convince enough people to give then $2M, which will totally not be used to settle sexual assault lawsuits in the future.

          • Soyweiser@awful.systemsEnglish
            0·
            1 month ago

            Like every other ‘charity’, rent a room at some super expensive hotel, hire the most expensive cooks and give all your potential donors a free invite, and massive gifts.

    • blakestacey@awful.systemsOPEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      Underlying original post: a Twitter bluecheck says,

      Sometimes in the process of writing a good enough prompt for ChatGPT, I end up solving my own problem, without even needing to submit it.

      Matt Novak on Bluesky screenshots this and comments,

      AI folks have now discovered “thinking”

  • blakestacey@awful.systemsOPEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    So, the Wikipedia article about “prompt engineering” is pretty terrible. First source: OpenAI. Second: a blog. Third: OpenAI. Fourth: OpenAI’s blog. ArXiv, arXiv, arXiv… 43 times. Hop on over to the Talk page, and we find this gem:

    It is sometimes necessary to make assumptions to write an article (see WP:MNA).

    Spoiler alert: that link doesn’t justify anything. It basically advises against going off on tangents: There’s no need to rehash the fact that evolution is a fact on every damn biology page. It does not say that Wikipedia should have an article on some creationist fantasy, like baraminology or flood geology, based entirely on creationist screeds that all cite each other.

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    This is extremely tangential to the areas of sneer interest, but seeing as this is the only technology related community I am in, I’m putting it here.

    This song has been making the rounds on the charts/social media and I refuse to believe that it isn’t about the package management tool apt

  • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    some of the first research science on promptfondlers and model-affine dipshits is starting to see the light of day and, in what will surprise probably 0% of our regulars, it confirms some things

    (I have grumped about their desire for outsourced thinking in the past myself)

  • o7___o7@awful.systems
    0·
    1 month ago

    Read a rumor that zuck’s marriage is falling apart, which scans.

    A second divorced man is about to hit the tower.

  • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    a couple weeks back, I was (bc reasons) looking around to see how to turn off goog’s annoying gemini bullshit in an account, and you can!

    except then even after doing that, accounts in that org still got prompts (in the form of in-app banners, and sparklebuttons in shit like gmail) to Try The Model

    it looks like people aren’t biting enough, because now you get it whether you like it or not, for the low low price of pushing up your base account fee! and I checked in one org - “Gemini App” is disabled org-wide, but the fucking prompt is immediately in the UI (and you get a modal popover opening gmail)

    fuck these people so much

    • Mii@awful.systemsEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      Oh well. Nothing screams healthy business like force-feeding your product to every customer who can’t hammer the conveniently hidden opt-out button fast enough. I’m sure Gemini is doing great.

      • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        oh, no no

        nooooo no no no

        there isn’t an opt-out button

        there is only:

        1. “Continue”,
        2. “Learn More”
        • Soyweiser@awful.systemsEnglish
          0·
          1 month ago

          Im gonna build a special circle in hell for these people, together with the ‘yes’ or ‘ask me again later’ people. On this circle all the software your stack depends on will break your build and releases a new release every friday at 5. Whohahhahah

        • bitofhope@awful.systemsEnglish
          0·
          1 month ago

          Hello, I’d like to punch you in the groin. Will you accept ~or would you like to learn more~?

          Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. Did you say you accept?

          Ah, you don’t want to be punched in the groin. That’s OK, I understand. We value your painless existence very much.

          Now, obviously we cannot let you opt out of the Strictly Necessary punches in the groin. Surely you understand that if it’s necessary to punch you in the groin, your permission or lackthereof is irrelevant. Rest assured, this applies only when we really have to punch you in the groin.

          What, do you want me to list all the possible circumstances in which one might be obligated to punch you in the groin? Don’t be unreasonable, now. I’m sure you know it when you see it.

          That aside, I presume we can punch you in the groin for functional purposes? The kind that may not be strictly necessary, but serve a purpose in the functioning of our service.

          Oh, we can’t? It’s OK, you have the right to make that choice. We don’t judge. Anyway, we take it that you’re probably at least cool with us punching you in the groin for the purposes of analyzing your behavior to improve our groin punching. Let me know if you decide you don’t want us to do that anymore.

          Oh, I thought you were cooler than that. Alright, if you hate the working class and want to make it harder for the poor, overworked developers to improve your experience, we’ll do it your way. I guess we’ll have to make do with just the groin punches that are strictly necessary or for marketing purposes.

          Ah, aren’t you observant. Have you ever noticed that all the adverts you get are really terrible? That’s because advertisers need to be able to punch you in the groin to find out what you like and to make their ads more appealing to you. Just food for thought. But if you really insist…

          Fine, fine. Marketing groin punches are out. As for your question, no we don’t identify as an advertising company per se. But we are partnered with other companies that are in fact advertising companies. Would you like to adjust your preferences for our groin punching partners?

          Well maybe to you it looks like the opt-out process we just went through should also cover this part but can we really know if we don’t look?

          Who’s a good puppy? You’re a good puppy, yes you are! ❤️

          Will you deny us permission to punch you in the groin on behalf of AAAAAAAAAAA Inc. or will you not?

          OK, so we can only punch you in the groin on behalf of AAAAAAAAAAA Inc. for the purposes of Legitimate Interest?

          It means the kinds of purposes where there is a legitimate interest to punch you in the groin.

          Why would you ask if you didn’t want me to answer? Fine, that’s a no for Legitimate Interest based groin punching on behalf of AAAAAAAAAAA Inc.

          Will you deny us permission to punch you in the groin on behalf of AAAAAAAAAAB Inc. or will you not?

          Oh, we have a total of six hundred and sixteen thousand six hundred and sixty-six partners in our crotch impactizing network.

          Indeed, we are proud to have such a wide network of trusted allies.

          Ugh, fine. I guess I can check the end of the list to see if there’s a way to make a selection for all of them at once. Honestly, this form is starting to make me a bit dizzy as well.

          Wow, who knew flipping through all those pages would take so long. There’s a line in here that says “disagree to all”, but there’s no checkbox or anything. It’s just there. Clicking it doesn’t seem to change anything. You can probably assume it worked.

          Please calm down, we’re almost done. Would you like to accept and save?

          Well it sounds like I mean “accept and save the options you just set”, not the ones we offered initially, doesn’t it?

          Your groin punching settings have been applied. I don’t think there were any mistakes, but if you need to change the settings, you can find the form hidden somewhere in this house, assuming we remembered to put it there.

          • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
            0·
            1 month ago

            this is so wildly on point

            yours?

            (it should become an internet copypasta and drift into mass consciousness)

            • bitofhope@awful.systemsEnglish
              0·
              1 month ago

              Thanks. I wrote this last night not expecting it to become so long, but I like to think the real work was done by thousands of very clever people with highly sophisticated moral compasses pretending not to understand privacy legislation.