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.

(Taking over for Gerard this time. Special thanks to him for starting this.)

  • BigMuffin69@awful.systemsEnglish
    10·
    12 hours ago

    Good news everyone, Dan has released his latest AI safety paper, we are one step closer to alignment. Let’s take a look inside:

    Wow, consistent set of values you say! Quite a strong claim. Let’s take a peek at their rigorous, unbiased experimental set up:

    … ok, this seems like you might be putting your finger on the scales to get a desired outcome. But I’m sure at least your numerical results are stro-

    Even after all this shit, all you could eek out was a measly 60%? C’mon you gotta try harder than that to prove the utility maximizer demon exists. I would say our boi is falling to new levels of crankery to push his agenda, but he did release that bot last year that he said was capable of superhuman prediction, so this really just par for the course at this point.

    The most discerning minds / critical thinkers predictably reeling in terror at another banger drop from Elon’s AI safety toad.

    *** terrifying personal note: I recently found out that Dan was my wife’s roommate’s roommate’s roommate back in college. By the transitive property, I am Dan’s roommate, which explains why he’s living rent free in my head

    • nightsky@awful.systemsEnglish
      11·
      11 hours ago

      This seems like people writing a paper about swinging crystal pendulums, trying to figure out the important question: are the crystals on our side?

      wife’s roommate’s roommate’s roommate

      Wow, how did you manage to figure that out?

      • BigMuffin69@awful.systemsEnglish
        8·
        11 hours ago

        Made the fatal mistake of posting a sneer on my main, only to have my friend let me know they had been assigned the same dorm room as Dan. Same friend was later roommates with my wife’s best friend (and former cohabitant). Small world!

  • Steve@awful.systemsEnglish
    5·
    12 hours ago

    hay guys, sorry for spam - I just want to shill my videos/audios i’m trying to put out twice a week (I’ve already done 9!). They are 3-5 mins long and all around one particular theme of tech crit

    video versions: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwvAAoSdsXWxHwFbULgbpVGiLmJZv4X1g audio versions:

    Let me know if you like it/hate it

  • BlueMonday1984@awful.systemsOPEnglish
    12·
    19 hours ago

    In other news, all hell’s broken loose at BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/culturecrave.co/post/3lhv35la2pk2h

    "#Bluesky confirms they're partnering with an AI company to help with moderation"

    The “AI company” in question is a nonprofit that focuses on open-source safety tools which recently launched at the Paris AI Action Summit, but that was enough to cause things to go nuclear, especially given people initially flocked to BSky to get away from AI.

    Thinking I should make this into a full post.

  • rook@awful.systemsEnglish
    12·
    19 hours ago

    An entertaining bit of pushback against the various bathroom bills being pushed at the moment. Bonus points for linking it with ai training. I feel like this is an idea that’s very adaptable…

    https://mefi.social/@MissConstrue/113983951020093710

    Signs which have been adhered to bathroom stall interiors at the Dallas Fort Worth airport.

    SECURITY NOTICE Electronic Genital Verification (EGV) Your genitalia may be photographed electronically during your use of this facility as part of the Electronic Genital Verification (EGV) pilot program at the direction of the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. In the future, EGV will help keep Texans safe while protecting your privacy by screening for potentially improper restroom access using machine vision and Artificial Intelligence (Al) in lieu of traditional genital inspections. At this time, images collected will be used solely for model training purposes and will not be used for law enforcement or shared with other entities except as pursuant to a subpoena, court order or as otherwise compelled by legal process. Your participation in this program is voluntary. You have the right to request removal of your data by calling the EGV program office at (512) 463-0001 during normal operating hours (Mon-Fri 8AM-5PM). STE OP CRATMENT OA Pusi DFW DALLAS FORT WORTH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

    The contact number appears to be for Dan Patrick, the lt. governor of Texas.

  • Sailor Sega Saturn@awful.systemsEnglish
    13·
    21 hours ago

    Holy smokes Jeeps will reportedly show ads while you are freaking driving:

    Imagine pulling up to a red light, checking your GPS for directions, and suddenly, the entire screen is hijacked by an ad. That’s the reality for some Stellantis owners. Instead of seamless functionality, drivers are now forced to manually close out of ads just to access basic vehicle functions.

    One Jeep 4xe owner recently shared their frustration on an online forum, detailing how these pop-ups disrupt the driving experience. Stellantis, responding through their “JeepCares” representative, confirmed that these ads are part of the contractual agreement with SiriusXM and suggested that users simply tap the “X” to dismiss them.

    “Listen guys, if you don’t want me stabbing you you simply have to ask nicely every time, and also I’m trying real hard to reduce the rate of stabbing incidents so in a way I’m the victim here.”

    Reading around it sounds like modern cars can be user-hostile in general, and this might not be new; so I’m sure glad I have one from the ancient times of 2012. It has a tiny unobtrusive screen which does nothing but show my music, the odometer, the backup camera, any warnings, and the Hatsune Miku wallpaper I loaded into it.

    • istewart@awful.systemsEnglish
      7·
      16 hours ago

      Stellantis is circling the drain even more rapidly than Tesla. The 3rd-runner-up car makers of both the USA and Europe bonded together into one great big Megazord of mediocrity. Unsurprising they’d pull something like this.

    • nightsky@awful.systemsEnglish
      6·
      19 hours ago

      Ugh. With this, and the recent articles about car makers collecting location data, and the multitude of news about car makers integrating LLMs, it seems that cars are going the same way as TVs, i.e. everything on the market is constantly violating privacy while also throwing ads in your face, and there’s no good models left to buy that don’t do it (to my knowledge). Wondering if there will be any good options left when it’s some day time for a new car…

      • khalid_salad@awful.systemsEnglish
        4·
        15 hours ago

        Re: Smart TVs, what works for me is a Roku TV, skip all of the sign-in shit (don’t even connect it to the internet — update firmware via USB if necessary1). Then, plug in whatever devices and navigate to them. Close enough to a dumb TV for me.

        I almost have Android TV figured out: Bought a cheap Onn Android TV box, sideloaded SmartTube in case I need to rewatch The Gemsbok’s Video performing an existentialist reading of Fucking Dark Souls2, installed MullvadVPN3, and sideloaded whatever other apps I needed. The only reason I say it is almost figured out is I couldn’t bypass the Google account creation/login — an insufficient stopgap is to create a throwaway account, though it’s very hard to do this in a way that isn’t linked to your real identity, I think.

        (This will be part of my “how to privify/securify your shit” series, if I ever learn to write.)

        1: it isn’t
        2: this sounds angry but it’s more pumped up, this shit rules
        3: note that “block connections without VPN” is built into regular Android, but not Android TV, as far as I can tell

        • nightsky@awful.systemsEnglish
          6·
          14 hours ago

          I couldn’t bypass the Google account creation/login

          That’s why I try really hard to avoid such things. I still try to (so far successfully) avoid having any Google-created operating systems anywhere in my home, because I trust them even less than Apple (for some years I used an AppleTV, but grew too frustrated with its limitations, and also Apple is becoming less and less trustworthy as well).

          My solution currently: connected to an (older, non-smart) UST projector is a small HTPC (a little box from Asus based on an Intel N200, low power and fanless, but still has a GPU with a modern video decoding engine so it can decode even 4K video without issues). Since it’s a normal x86 system, I run a normal desktop Linux on it. To access streaming services, youtube, etc. I just use the web interfaces in Firefox. Big advantage of the setup is privacy, and best-in-class applications for playing local files (on streaming appliances that’s usually annoying and bad). And I can even watch broadcast TV on it with a USB DVB-T2 thingy, although I do that rarely these days.

          Disadvantage: need to have desktopy computery input devices on the couch to use it (also have an IR receiver in there, but it’s not working well). Still, for me the upsides outweigh that downside.

          • khalid_salad@awful.systemsEnglish
            2·
            12 hours ago

            I tried something similar with my Steam Deck (Bazzite + Gamescope works OKish) but I got tired of using a KB+M.

            I will let you know if I figure out any way to bypass Google account creation. I have this old bullshit Amazon Fire HD 6 (Fire 6 HD? Who fucking names this shit?) that I am trying to fuck with and you can bypass connecting to the internet at all by clicking any SSN → back → not now, so maybe it’s possible on some Android TV devices. Or maybe not and I can finally get around to reading Don Quixote.

            Edit: turns out you can remove your Google account from the device after you’ve reached the home screen, which is a better solution. Also, should have mentioned that I replaced the stock launcher.

            • nightsky@awful.systemsEnglish
              3·
              13 hours ago

              I will let you know if I figure out any way to bypass Google account creation.

              Thanks :) Although I’m so far happy with my current setup.

              I got tired of using a KB+M.

              Using a mouse on the couch sucks, yeah. I still had an old unused Apple Magic Trackpad here, which (to my surprise) works perfectly with Linux, and with that it’s pretty nice.

      • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
        6·
        17 hours ago

        tbh I think the “just vote with your wallet” strategy is probably insufficient. the flipside is that this means it requires people everywhere to start pushing back on this shit, across multiple countries. hard, but necessary

        the positive side is that the outright harms of the tracking industry is more and more frequently becoming known to J Average person, so the fight may become easier

  • rook@awful.systemsEnglish
    13·
    24 hours ago

    In a hilarious turn of events that no one could have foreseen, Anthropic is having problems with people sending llm generated job applications, and is asking potential candidates to please not use ai.

    While we encourage people to use AI systems during their role to help them work faster and more effectively, please do not use AI assistants during the application process. We want to understand your personal interest in Anthropic without mediation through an AI system, and we also want to evaluate your non-AI-assisted communication skills. Please indicate ‘Yes’ if you have read and agree.

    https://www.404media.co/anthropic-claude-job-application-ai-assistants/

    • blakestacey@awful.systemsEnglish
      4·
      13 hours ago

      It’s “Bond villain aesthetics” if the “villain” you mean is the big guy guarding the next location who acts intimidating for five seconds before Bond suplexes him and walks inside anyway, quipping.

      Also, Grimes is not even offering table stakes for being a Bond girl here. Like, she’s an extra in the club through which Bond quickly passes in order to find the actual Bond girl. She’s not a vaguely trans-coded Famke Janssen bringing herself to orgasm by machine-gunning an entire room of technicians while Gottfried John looks on with a “what the fuck, tovarisch” eyebrow lift.

      • blakestacey@awful.systemsEnglish
        6·
        13 hours ago

        Like, if this guy gets a second scene, it’s the one where they demonstrate that SPECTRE does not tolerate failure.

    • istewart@awful.systemsEnglish
      5·
      16 hours ago

      Substantially, uh, wider than I expected. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. The bird flu is probably hitting that fellow’s diet hard.

    • V0ldek@awful.systemsEnglish
      11·
      19 hours ago

      a thermodynamics startup

      what

      Like what do they do, find ways to increase entropy faster? Or are they bootstrapping thermodynamics from first principles to disrupt the field of physics with blockchain-powered quantum synergy

    • bitofhope@awful.systemsEnglish
      7·
      21 hours ago

      I feel like there’s something to be said about how merely wearing a suit apparently means “Bond villain aesthetics”. Or is posing with a pretty young woman what makes the suit Bond villainy?

  • Sailor Sega Saturn@awful.systemsEnglish
    13·
    1 day ago

    Well as they promised Google Maps has finally fallen. It now shows “Gulf of America” and nothing else to US users. I suspect someone outside the US will be shown both the real name and Gulf of America. Denali is still labeled as Denali… for now.

    Disorganize the world’s information and make it universally inaccessible and stupid.

    • David Gerard@awful.systemsMEnglish
      7·
      22 hours ago

      rahaeli on bluesky says this is fine, it’s the same ML that any T&S dept already has to apply to triage the firehose of shit, and doesn’t involve LLMs

    • bitofhope@awful.systemsEnglish
      9·
      24 hours ago

      Well now, this is intriguing. Let me check out their website and see if they have the source code for this open source offering available there. Oh dear, looks like they have forgotten to include a link to the source code (though they did make sure to prominently include the referrer of platformer.news in the URL so that’s good for them). Not to worry, surely they have a GitHub or something. Oh, still nothing. Maybe there’s a link in this Mozilla blog post about it? Still no, but they seem to accidentally imply this is some kind of an AI thing? Is this finally the open source AI we have all been so excitedly waiting for?

      To be a little more serious, there’s barely anything here to even be gullible about. Just a Vaporware idol for corpos to have a circlejerk around and congratulate themselves for pretending to do something about the bad vibes. If there’s a real ambition beyond corporate peacockery here, the motivation is merely to take care of the pesky content moderation without having to pay people to do it.

      • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
        4·
        17 hours ago

        dammit it’s barely days since my open source veneer side comment and then this happens. I’m dubious of even giving a tiny bit of goodwill because with this set of orgs on task and the resources they can muster, surely piddly little things like setting up some infra for publishing and management is in the hours to maybe days spectrum…

        casey’s words:

        Roblox has already contributed an open-source model for detecting abuse, racism, and sexual content in audio clips

        that roblox post that casey links to:

        That will likely be open sourced by the end of the first quarter of 2025

        I have no mouth and I must scream

    • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
      7·
      1 day ago

      merely from seeing the domain and author, probably all of it - casey newton’s got a real bad case of access syndrome, and keeps writing fluff/puff pieces uncritically amplifying tons of bayfucker nonsense

      (it’s even beyond the usual levels of what one may refer to as useful idiot)

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
    11·
    2 days ago

    Idea for another megathread: go to linkedin and post the first thing you see (that provokes a reaction). Here’s mine:

    FWIW I checked a few comment threads and guy is playing this off as lighthearted/a joke, but folks here know better than that.

    • bitofhope@awful.systemsEnglish
      14·
      23 hours ago

      Of all the world wide websites on the web of this wide world LinkedIn might be the one I understand the least, for I dread to even try to understand it.

      I assume it’s like an online CV/résumé where you can list your job experience, which seems sensible enough. But it’s also like Facebook for some reason. Well maybe it’s good that someone who needs your skills can also come to you and you need some kind of messaging, call it social network type functionality for that. But also recruiters are spammy pests because obviously they are.

      Also apparently some people use it as an actual social media and just post their travel photos or random thoughts there, which is wild to me. It’s like someone writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper to tell them about the pancakes they made in the weekend. How is this your medium of choice for this? And then there are the influencers posting the kind of baffling crap seen in this thread, which are already a mysterious animal by themselves, but how on earth are they doing this on the same website that somewhat normal seeming people just use to host their professional biography?

      It’s like you founded a combination of an employment office and a cult temple, where the job seekers aren’t expected or required to join the cult, but the rites are still performed in the waiting room in public view. Sometimes one of my friends tells me about the funny and cringe cultist orgy they saw at the employment office. “Why were you at the orgy cultist employment office?” I ask them. “I didn’t know you were looking for a job.” And they tell me they weren’t looking for a job, they just go there sometimes. Or maybe HR announces a bowling night or blood drive or whatever and the email includes a link to let everyone (cultists, job seekers and neither of the above) at the cultist employment service office know. So my colleagues do, then they crack a joke about how annoying and weird all the cult stuff in that office is and we all have a chuckle. Just another day of having a white collar job, telling about their day to their mostly non-cultist white collar job having friends at the cult temple that is also an employment agency for cultists and non-cultists alike.

      Also it’s hilarious to me that Windows has a built-in global keyboard shortcut for opening LinkedIn in your default web browser and it’s fucking Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Super-L, proving that Windows is the true modern successor of Emacs.

      • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
        1·
        6 minutes ago

        I think, in some sense, it is the purest version of social media. You take anything and everything in your life, commodify and corrupt it into content that serves as some insight into achieving higher business status, garnering reactions, and, in turn, actual higher business status. No other social media is as direct in delivering the desired result.

        It’s like you founded a combination of an employment office and a cult temple, where the job seekers aren’t expected or required to join the cult, but the rites are still performed in the waiting room in public view.

        I think this is absolutely true. A more concrete metaphor might be a quidditch/quadball league. There are all kinds of people there for different reasons. Some are there purely for the love of the game, even if they look weird to outsiders. Others are there because they need exercise but have trouble finding joy in playing the sport itself. Some people LARP as the first camp for ulterior motives, like making friends or getting laid. I occasionally walk by the field where they play for the spectacle.

      • Architeuthis@awful.systemsEnglish
        11·
        22 hours ago

        It’s like you founded a combination of an employment office and a cult temple, where the job seekers aren’t expected or required to join the cult, but the rites are still performed in the waiting room in public view.

        chef’s kiss

    • Sailor Sega Saturn@awful.systemsEnglish
      9·
      1 day ago

      go to linkedin and post the first thing you see (that provokes a reaction).

      Why would you do this to me?

      spoiler

      Great leadership is born under pressure.

      Anyone can perform when things are easy. Real leadership shines in moments of pressure.

      Most people react. Great leaders respond.

      Here’s how you can too:

      ❌ “You need to calm down” ↳ Why: Instantly escalates tension ↳ Instead: “I’m noticing we’re both getting tense. Should we take a break?”

      ❌ “This is a complete disaster” ↳ Why: Spreads panic and paralyzes action ↳ Instead: “What’s the one thing we absolutely must get right?”

      ❌ “You should have known better” ↳ Why: Creates shame, not learning ↳ Instead: “What can we learn from this for next time?”

      ❌ “It’s not my fault” ↳ Why: Signals lack of ownership ↳ Instead: “I may have contributed to this. Help me understand where”

      ❌ “Just figure it out” ↳ Why: Shows poor leadership ↳ Instead: “Can we clarify what success looks like for both of us?”

      ❌ “Why isn’t this done yet?” ↳ Why: Creates defensiveness ↳ Instead: “What’s the most immediate barrier we need to address?”

      ❌ “That’s not my problem” ↳ Why: Destroys team cohesion ↳ Instead: “We’re on the same team. Let’s figure this out together”

      ❌ “I don’t have time for this” ↳ Why: Devalues others’ priorities ↳ Instead: “I want to give this proper attention. Can we schedule 30 minutes?”

      ❌ “I already told you that” ↳ Why: Makes people shut down ↳ Instead: “Let me explain this another way”

      ❌ “That’s how we’ve always done it” ↳ Why: Kills innovation ↳ Instead: “What if we tried a different approach?”

      The truth: Reputations are fragile. And rebuilding them is expensive.

      P.S. Which response do you want to use more often?

      —

      ♻ Repost to help your network communicate better.

      ➕ Follow me for more like this.

      • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
        10·
        1 day ago

        ❌ “Why would you do this to me?” ↳ Why: Instantly creates tension. ↳ Instead: “What did I do wrong, and how can I do better next time?”

        Just incredible that good leadership equals gaslighting yourself into an abusive relationship

    • istewart@awful.systemsEnglish
      10·
      2 days ago

      A bit of a superpower, just a bit. A tiny little morsel, a sample of superpower, if you will.

      If you gotta qualify it like that…