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.

Last week’s thread

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

  • maol@awful.systemsEnglish
    1·
    4 minutes ago

    Questions To Which the Answer is No, an ongoing series:

    Generative AI - Can it actually help with the day-to-day technical work of a practising engineer?

    The upcoming Autumn Panel Discussion hosted by the UCD Engineering Graduates Association (EGA) will take place on Tuesday, November 19, 2024, at ESB’s Headquarters. This event will explore several pressing topics at the intersection of engineering and artificial intelligence. Attendees will gain insights into current trends in AI, particularly the latest advancements in generative AI tools and platforms. The discussion will feature case studies that highlight the successful integration of AI into real-world engineering processes, offering practical examples of its applications. Additionally, the panel will address the essential skills that engineers need to effectively incorporate AI into their workflows, providing guidance on upskilling for the future. The event will conclude with a Q&A session, allowing participants to engage directly with the panelists and delve deeper into the ethical considerations surrounding AI in engineering.

    No, not software engineers, engineer engineers. Yikes!

  • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    6·
    3 hours ago

    unrelated but we’re all gonna get so many of trumpist brown-nosed sleazes as ambassadors now

    it looks likely that we out there in poland might get georgette mosbacher as next ambassador. she was more of an lobbyist going hard against eu digital tax, but there’s much more

  • o7___o7@awful.systemsEnglish
    4·
    2 hours ago

    hackernews having a normal one (EDIT: Then things got worse)

    HN Title: The evolution of nepotism in academia, 1088-1800

    In the top comments:

    dash2 55 minutes ago | next [–]

    Here’s an interesting extract:

    We find evidence of nepotism for 5–6.6% of scholars’ sons in Protestant and for 29.4% in Catholic universities and academies. Catholic institutions relied more heavily on intra-family human capital transfers. We show that these differences partly explain the divergent path of Catholic and Protestant universities after the Reformation.

    This relates to an important paper providing evidence that indeed Protestantism was associated with scientific progress: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4389708

    red016 3 minutes ago | parent | next [–]

    i’d be more interested in jewish numbers than protestant or catholic

  • istewart@awful.systemsEnglish
    11·
    18 hours ago

    Atlantic writer: “better dubble down on Twitter huhuhuhhuh”

    https://archive.is/OtYCo

    Calls to disengage from X, now that Elon Musk has turned it into a white-supremacist haven, certainly have a moral appeal. But if this election showed how difficult it is to meaningfully “deplatform” speakers you disagree with, it also demonstrated the danger of ignoring the platforms where they speak. Unfortunately, the only way to change what’s happening in an echo chamber may be to add your own noise.

    This is your periodic reminder that Steve Jobs’ widow owns that toilet-paper factory. And that they still pump out hot new singles from hitmakers like David Frum and, occasionally, my personal favorite, Eliot “GW Bush Did Nothing Wrong” Cohen.

    • Soyweiser@awful.systemsEnglish
      5·
      9 hours ago

      Story from .nl, after Wilders “won” (he got the biggest share of the votes, and quite a lot more than before) the election last year, instantly the amount of horrible posts towards visible muslim people massively intensified (other groups, women, leftwingers and lgbt people (and the various intersections) also got worse replies (which on Dutch twitter always was bad already)). So this advice is so dumb, yes expose your people to more risk and potential burnout. And guess what, as we are a year in and most of Dutch twitter is still on twitter. It doesnt help. (And I cant tell, as switching to bsky has made me realize just how much of a breath of fresh air it is, but to me it feels twitter has gotten worse, but that is more likely explained by me getting better).

      E: there is also the ‘they need us more than we need them’ factor. I have not seen rightwing Dutch trolls on bksy yet, Catturd however made the jump (and was promptly banned by everybody).

    • self@awful.systemsEnglish
      14·
      18 hours ago

      what in the absolute fuck

      “you shouldn’t do anything that works to resist fascism” is going to be the neoliberal siren call for 4+ years, isn’t it

      • istewart@awful.systemsEnglish
        9·
        16 hours ago

        It doesn’t even fit with the axioms of market logic! If the platform in question has terrible content moderation, primarily generates revenue from profoundly repulsive people, and was intentionally bought out to be used as the central propaganda organ for a destructive political movement… why wouldn’t you leave?! Dude just doesn’t want to admit he’s too lazy to redo his follows elsewhere

      • self@awful.systemsEnglish
        9·
        18 hours ago

        Unfortunately, the only way to change what’s happening in an echo chamber may be to add your own noise.

        imagine writing something like this and considering yourself to be the adult in the room. just a big ol politics understander, writing and writing and none of it means a fucking thing. you get up every morning and somehow the dread doesn’t make you collapse back into bed.

        • o7___o7@awful.systemsEnglish
          4·
          3 hours ago

          I feel like we could solve a lot of the left’s problems in the US by building a time machine and giving 13 year old Aaron Sorkin about 10 lbs of 2024 weed.

      • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
        6·
        17 hours ago

        Liberals: vote for us, we are diet fascism, we are the lesser evil! We reduce harm!

        It’s been the siren call for the last 400 years.

    • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
      11·
      17 hours ago

      My radicalisation just continues and deepens.

      What deplatforming actually happened that this writer is referring to? “We didn’t deplatform anyone. Therefore deplatforming bad” ???

      • self@awful.systemsEnglish
        11·
        11 hours ago

        “we’ve tried nothing, and nothing is working!” this is going to be such a common refrain

        • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
          9·
          11 hours ago

          God and thinking about it even a little bit:

          Of course deplatforming works, you fuckface! Why did Elon buy twitter if not to secure a platform? It is surprising you managed to write anything at all, you stupid goblin.

  • corbin@awful.systemsEnglish
    12·
    1 day ago

    Orange site envrionmentalism:

    Lawns are functional though, they aren’t just a status symbol.

    I grew up with a mossy front yard, and I have clover and ferns in my current yards to compete with grasses; there are better options, my dude.

    • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
      9·
      11 hours ago

      We’re anti-grass lawns now? Fuck yes. I knew this place had potential.

      I’m no landscaper so don’t quiz me on the options, but grass is in the lowest tier option for things to fill outdoor space with.

      • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
        6·
        10 hours ago

        lawns in addition to other things are fine, but also all the stuff self said applies pretty hard

        we’re lucky in ZA that we’re pretty good with getting a lot of this stuff out, which I’m often pretty happy about, but that’s an incident of geography (and personal location)

    • self@awful.systemsEnglish
      10·
      22 hours ago

      I was going to call them friendless losers who never had company over to play cornhole, have a bonfire, or lounge around on a hot summer day getting doused by a sprinkler while drinking beers because they are repugnant socially awkward cave trolls who are bitter and jealous of people who use their picturesque lawns.

      But I would never do that because that is neither civil nor polite.

      dang hates this one weird trick you can use to be an asshole in spite of the orange site’s civility rules

      also what is that list of activities? did ChatGPT generate this? grass is required to play beep boop normal human games like cornhole now? you’re “having a bonfire” on grass and not in something normal like a firepit that’s safer on rocks or concrete? you’re just laying down on the grass, where the dog shits, slowly getting drunk and incredibly itchy from the grass as a sprinkler douses you?

      picturesque lawns

      oh maybe that’s it, the only people I’ve ever met with picturesque lawns are wealthy and wealthy people ain’t fucking normal

      Or you could just not water it, not fertilize it, not pesticide it and simply run the mower over it whenever the assorted vegetation (which will be mostly grass) exceeds a certain height.

      It won’t look “nice neighborhood” nice but it’ll still be fine.

      i love when my yard is a giant mud patch rimmed by yellow with an occasional glimmer of green when the crabgrass blooms

      the orange site is absolutely populated by the type of shithead who’s proud to be on their HOA’s board

      • self@awful.systemsEnglish
        11·
        22 hours ago

        having a lawn is so easy first just hire a gardener to come every week, second live in a place where tap water’s inexpensive

        motherfuckers

    • BlueMonday1984@awful.systemsOPEnglish
      11·
      24 hours ago

      They can be, but they can also be a social and recreational space.

      Your mum’s a social and recreational space, but I don’t see you going to bat for her despite being more useful

  • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
    8·
    1 day ago

    today’s a fucking trip and a half

    in a mall I saw some Honor laptop[0] ads with “AI” pitch sauce slathered all over it

    later walking between art galleries I saw a roadsign ad for a property sales company promising “more effective strategies using AI” (more effective strategies for… selling… houses…? I guess…? (x up for doubt))

    and now I get this shit in my mailbox from someone who absolutely purchased a dataset with this address in it:

    From: Ai Everything GLOBAL <newsletter@event.aieverythingglobal.com>
Subject: Join the AI Elite—G42, TII, DIEZ, Dell & More!

    [0] - I didn’t even know they were in ZA, but nope, 2-floor hanging banners and ads allllll over elevator doors and shit

  • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
    11·
    1 day ago

    Ah, copilot is so extremely popular that MS has decided to bundle it into O365 for free a moderate “depends by region” price increase

    I’m sure that’ll totally make people want it even more! hordes at the gate!

  • Mii@awful.systemsEnglish
    7·
    1 day ago

    Personal rant: in my ongoing search for a replacement for ProtonMail after they pivoted to AI had me almost sign up with Tuta because, hey, they looked good and were on my radar originally anyway, when I found out that they do not offer any IMAP/SMTP access at all.

    I mean, I get it, their whole thing is privacy and, yes, storing mail locally on my machine kinda undermines the idea of strong and impenetrable E2E encryption, but I should at least have the choice like I do with Proton Bridge. Because without SMTP Tuta is completely unusable for git send-email. I mean, yes, technically I could copy-paste the output of format-patch into the web client but, first, I am lazy and don’t wanna do that, and second, from my experience it rarely works anyway because the clients do some encoding crap so that git am doesn’t eat it without cleanup.

    Meh. I guess I have to keep looking.

    • self@awful.systemsEnglish
      6·
      1 day ago

      huh, I just switched to Tuta and that’s a very good point — there isn’t even a command line mail client, much less an IMAP bridge. the official word from a couple years ago is “write it yourself but we don’t support automated email” which is several kinds of wrong

      so far I’m not hating Tuta but it’s definitely much jankier than Proton. I’m kinda surprised I’ve heard good things about Tuta’a UI compared with Proton — it’s faster, but functionality so far varies from somewhat barebones to mildly broken

      no regrets on the switch on my end so far though, but this might come to bite me at some point. I wonder if a dedicated transactional mail provider could alleviate some of the pain? I can DM you a recommendation for a good one if that seems like it’d be handy

      • Mii@awful.systemsEnglish
        5·
        23 hours ago

        Thanks, I thought about something like that as well, but figured it’d be more hassle in the long run. I like to keep my mail in one basket.

        But honestly, I feel like there just isn’t a good solution anyway. Email comes from simpler times and any encryption is bolted on and either awkward to use or has some problems with functionality. Hell, even Proton’s bridge was a pain to get running properly with send-email because for some reason it insisted on reformatting outgoing mails. I honestly wonder if I should even bother at this point, because most of the stuff I use email for isn’t even private. It’s mostly corporate communication and mailing lists which are public anyway. All private communication goes over other channels (and some of which are arguably even worse than email, like Discord).

        Not saying that this is the conclusion everyone should come to and YMMV, but spending the last weeks combing through the email landscape this feels like the realization I’m starting to arrive at, because I want my email to just work.

        • self@awful.systemsEnglish
          5·
          23 hours ago

          that’s absolutely valid, and I’ve come to effectively the same conclusion: good encrypted email is effectively a different protocol (one which, as of now, is proton-to-proton and tuta-to-tuta only) and should be treated as one. daily unencrypted email is a legacy protocol that can effectively be handled client-side as a different account.

          encrypted mail should be federated, possibly with something like activitypub (though I don’t have a good solution for attachments), but every time I float this I get a lot of very angry feedback about how I shouldn’t propose a new email standard without solving spam first, whatever solving spam means. some of the people giving feedback then float solutions that are basically warmed-over hashcash and then I stop listening.

          the difference between modern webmail and what activitypub already does is very thin — a lot of it is intent, UI (email’s focused on long messages and potentially long threads), and features like attachments going from best-effort priority to crucial. there’s absolutely room in the world for better email — I just believe that internally, it’ll look closer to e2e ActivityPub with something like Soatok’s federated keyserver concept on top, rather than the shitty half baked shit we do now to make PGP work with email

  • David Gerard@awful.systemsMEnglish
    9·
    1 day ago

    “brb going to make an AI blockbuster called ‘Zennos Parhadox’ starring Dwynne Johnson and Rebeca Fernugson and then we’ll see who’s laughing.” – Dick Trauma, SA

    • Mii@awful.systemsEnglish
      14·
      1 day ago

      Wild that “We left OpenAI and founded out own company with alignment and safety”-Anthropic decides to get into bed with Palantir of all companies.

      It’s almost as if their whole safety shtick is complete bullshit. Hmm.

    • o7___o7@awful.systemsEnglish
      10·
      1 day ago

      1. Buy a defense ai system with a cool GUI but that absolutely doesn’t fucking work

      2. PRESS RELEASES

      3. Leave the source code+model weights somewhere that your enemies will find it, preferably next to a big data pipe

      4. Watch them copy it and try to use it on the battlefield

      5. lol

      Just have to avoid naming it something that would give the game away like WIM-PLOW or whatever

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
    12·
    2 days ago

    My hope is that either more progressive third party options become more viable OR the dems finally understand that being essentially republican is a bad strategy and actually become progressive. I know the reality is that the dems will learn nothing from this as they have clearly learned nothing from 2016.