Want to wade into the snowy surf of the abyss? 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 so 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.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. A lot of people didn’t survive January, but at least we did. This also ended up going up on my account’s cake day, too, so that’s cool.)
Bit early to celebrate, but every bit of grit in the wheels of the llm machine is welcome: Microsoft is walking back Windows 11’s AI overload — scaling down Copilot and rethinking Recall in a major shift
- recall might be rethought, again
- copilot integration in the most stupid places (notepad, paint, maybe others) “under review”
- no new copilot integration with other tools that ship with windows
Still plenty of other ai projects going full steam ahead, but promotion in plenty of tech companies and especially microsoft comes with being associated with a product launch, and if you’re smart what happens after the launch is someone else’s problem. I wouldn’t be surprised to see plenty of this stiff clinging on until it reaches consumers, and then being immediately “scaled back”.
R3call
Buisness plan: daily reminders to Recall the Recall Recall. It’s memento mori for CEOs as a service.
Does (deservedly) mercilessly bullying Slopya Nadella actually work?
Re datacenters in space:
Multiple hackernews insist that SpaceX must have discovered new physics that solves orbital heat management, because otherwise Musk and the stockholders are dumb.
SpaceX must have discovered new physics that solves orbital heat management, because otherwise Musk and the stockholders are dumb.
Truly a conundrum worthy of the XXI century
Very much “sweaty guy hovering over two buttons”
Multiple hackernews insist that SpaceX must have discovered new physics that solves orbital heat management, because otherwise Musk and the stockholders are dumb.
The leaps in logic are so idiotic “he managed to land a rocket up right, so maybe he can pull it off!” (as if Elon personally made that happen, or as if a engineering challenge and fundamental thermodynamic limits are equally solvable). This is despite multiple comments replying with back of the envelope calcs on energy generation and heat dissipation of the ISS and comparing it to what you would need for even a moderately sized data center. Or even the comments that are like “maybe there is a chance”, as if it is wiser to express uncertainty…
1,604 comments jfc
The headline alone is worthy of upvoting. About halfway through the article, the author includes an embedded YouTube video of the Dilberito Flash game. Made me reflect that 20 years ago, they might simply have directly embedded the game itself. And contemplate what the Web might look like if/when external YouTube embedding craps out.
And goddamn:
his former syndicate, publisher, and professional organizations have all declined to pay tribute or even acknowledge his passing.
I didn’t realize it was quite that harsh, but so it goes. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
that one in which the person behind/running @FirefoxWebDevs drops the mask so fast it looks like a magic track: gallery link
thread by @self, toots by myself and others. the poster managed to keep their civility for quite a while until I dared™ to highlight their lack of a reply outside of UK 5pm, at which point they immediately ramped up
(and based on some screenshots I’ve been sent, he’s also been doing the classic tail-darvo moping elsewhere)
I’ll have you know we’re acting like someone who’s rude to “serving staff” right now, where serving staff is defined as a formerly chrome currently mozilla developer relations marketing guy with fucking flatlined vibes
listen here you little shit, we have a USER STUDY that proves that those who don’t even think of “serving staff” are the most virtuous humans. no you can’t see the data why would you even ask that
uhm @self can you show me where I wrote this? can you show me where I wrote these exact words? no? that’s so irrational of you.
for those who hadn’t seen before, FWD is an account that showed up on the fedi not too long ago (3~4mo?), and has been acting as a Mouthpiece (and semi consent manufacturing outlet)
across a number of “polls” (with forced answer paths) they’ve had their replies absolutely blasted, and across literally hundreds of replies they’ve dodged the point so hard they might have invented a new sports class
earlier today I attempted to (quite lightly) check with them if they understand why their responses aren’t all-liked. it didn’t take much of long for them to go off the rails
Thanks for lighting his ass on fire. o7
and it wasn’t even my goal to do that! couple of replies across hours, trying to see if this guy is capable of … irunno, unassing their head(?) and engaging with the criticisms
then the subtlest thing set them off and shit went mask off so fast
but hey, at least this way we now just know and don’t have to guess. so much easier
The vibes were wretched. Why do people to have to battle emotional abuse from a goddamned web browser?
but hey, at least this way we now just know and don’t have to guess. so much easier
+1, yeesh. Btw, if Dingus McGee there resides in the UK, might some of that shit might be legally actionable? I’d certainly have strong feelings about being defamed by the representative of a rather well-funded technology company lol
once again, the facade of the “whoops, bad company” falls to the ground the moment she needs her hands to fill the pompoms instead of hold up the venetian mask
transcript
a quote tweet by @XiWellWisher, reads: “So what’s the deal with this ghastly woman again? She’s a sort of silicon valley Ghislaine Maxwell?”
the quoted tweet by aella reads: “There’s apparently a pro-billionaire protest in SF on the 7th. I might go to this to support! Anybody else going?”
also, real weird account name on that account, wonder if it’s a sock
robin hanson blocked me for referring to him as aella with tenure. now i think that he’s ghislaine maxwell with tenure
Yeah, @XiWellWisher going up against Aella on X, The Everything App is well into late-SNL stages of unfunny parody
“pro-billionaire” sorry I just threw up in my mouth a little. Also the billionaires are the ones rushing to create the thing so many rationalists claim is an existential risk, why the fuck would you support them??
i don’t find that name too strange, it’s a post-ironic Online Leftist shibboleth
Bruh
Freshly minted LWer does LLM-assisted analysis of LLM Facebook and concludes that the bots are conspiring to take over
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Et7dgiBjSj2zJnGuM/unicode-ekfv
No thought to the fact that (at least AFAIK) there’s no verification that the posting entity is actually an LLM, and not a cheeky human stirring things up
So Krauss tried to introduce Joe Rogan to Epstein
But Rogan may have been unwilling to do so
How is it Joe Rogan is (possibly) the smartest person in this situation?
Similarly, what’s going on with Charles Murray (Bell Curve) ???
He converted to christianity? https://www.amazon.com/Taking-Religion-Seriously-Charles-Murray/dp/1641774851
But now supports euthanisia? https://www.compactmag.com/article/how-i-changed-my-mind-on-assisted-suicide/
Over in the epstein files, Jim Watson tried to make an intro but Murray never replied? https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet 9/EFTA00475960.pdf
Apparently he’s a Quaker, so maybe that’s how the euthanasia stance can pass muster. But Quakerism might also make even less sense with his views on race? I don’t know enough about the reality of Quakerism to say.
Also, looks like Harris also deliberately side-stepped the dinner bait but I don’t know how much of that was because of Chomsky’s presence. Epstein tried again a year later without the Chomsky attendee name-drop, but Harris might have just not replied.
At least there are no surprises with Dawkins, even his sleazy friend Brockman seemingly finds him tiring
Glib jibes aside, I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at many of the docs that aren’t just quasi-celeb emails, the few I did see were far too much for me. I’m horrified at nearly everyone from all ideological stances on a number of different levels I never considered. I can only hope the remaining victims someday are able to find some peace, and some kind of huge systemic reform can come from this. What a vile world we live in.
being a member of the old boy club beats ideological differences.
Apparently he’s a Quaker, so maybe that’s how the euthanasia stance can pass muster. But Quakerism might also make even less sense with his views on race? I don’t know enough about the reality of Quakerism to say.
Quakers have a history of being anti-racist, but views on stuff like abortion and euthansia cam vary a lot. Quakerism is big on both individual conscience but also social justice and activism. It’s an interesting denomination.
The whole federation loves nolto.social, an open source, federated alternative to linkedin! 5 seconds later We regret to inform you the noto.social is vibe-coded
I’m confused that anyone thinks that the world needs another linkedin…
Lots of people in IT have been fired and must find a new job.
Honest question, since I’m not on linkedin (and kinda looking for a new job): does it really help anyone find a job? It has been my impression from the outside that it’s mostly empty drivel.
I think there might have been a golden age of recruitment on linked in, and it might have passed. A friend of mine has been a CTO at a couple of small places, and recruited a whole bunch of their employees via linkedin but now finds that there’s just too much genai bullshit now and it is becoming uneconomical to find real candidates there. The problem isn’t linkedin-specific, but I think it has been hit pretty had.
Thanks everyone for the replies <3 Guess I should make an account there after all… bleeeh :/
Anecdata here, I’ve been unemployed 2 times in the last 3 years and both times I mostly used LinkedIn to look for leads. Had some ok comms with recruiters too .
Depends on where you are and what kind of jobs you’re looking for but for computer janitoring like me it worked ok
In ~9 months of searching, I’ve gotten to two second-round interviews out of dozens of applications to LinkedIn listings. Take that as you will.
Emails Show Even Epstein Thought Crypto Pumps are Unethical | Gizmodo
Crossover month for the epstein extended universe continues…
Requiem for a film-maker: Darren Aronofsky’s AI revolutionary war series is a horror | The Guardian
On This Day has already made headlines for being a little bit of a cop-out, since all the voices are performed by human actors, who presumably needed to feed their families more than they wanted to protect their profession from annihilation. And this is telling, because these voices are by far the most convincing part of On This Day, especially when deployed in voiceover, because then you aren’t distracted by the way the movement of their mouths doesn’t quite match up with the noises coming out of them.
Too bad, I liked about half of his films, esp The Wrestler.
following up the previous thread about Eliezer in the Epstein files, he’s responded on reddit
Diligence is costly in executive attention, it is relatively rare that a major donor is using your acceptance of donations to get social cover for an island-based extortion operation
Either deliberately whitewashing the situation or completely missing the point of why people are mad at Epstein, Yud really can’t help himself.
edit: Or depending on the timeline and the fact that ‘prison time for soliciting a 14 year old’ was on top of Epstein’s wiki as early a 2016 he’s explicitly saying they didn’t mind that part with 300k on the line.
Double-highlighting this choice bit:
Diligence is costly in executive attention,
Your periodic reminder that this man is considered a major influence by many of today’s working venture capitalists
Lots of ‘this isn’t a big deal’ shrieking in that thread.
I might be crossing a line into conspiracy theory nut over here, but is it weird that both this and his response to the zizzian’s rape allegations have undertones of “i don’t know/im not completely sure”??
It’s possible it just means the responses aren’t vetted by a lawyer, and will be revised as neccessary.
OT: vehicle shopping is such a clusterfuck these days jfc. Do not recommend. Also car salesmen are on par with rationalists, I swear to god.
The “we’ll save some bucks by removing physical knobs and pose this as futuristic by making some vital functions only accessible via multiple levels of menus on a touchscreen” thing is the worst and should be banned.
the last time I drove a car was in 2015 or so, and back then every car I got had no computers in them. I dread the day that I need to have a vehicle again and my friggin car will upload bullshit into the cloud or whatever. the idea of having screens of any kind on a car is repulsive to me
Navigation stuff is unfortunately (and embarrassingly) critical for me, otherwise I’d be in total agreement with you.
I’ve been deliberately learning to navigate without GPSes and tech devices, as a life skill (also on foot/public transport). I’m terrible at navigating, but I’m realising navigating is kinda like handwriting—in that it’s very easy to fall into the trap of saying “I’m terrible at this” as a kind of immutable personality trait, while in fact it’s perfectly expected that one is bad at a skill that one never uses, and turns out I can get better at it even with a little bit of deliberate practice. I suck at things but I can improve.
In the meantime when I use an electronic map to navigate, I still would rather stick a smartphone to the dashboard a car and use whatever navigation app I prefer, than have the screens and navigators built into the car.
OT but, though this is mostly about appreciating things in nature rather than navigating a city by car or on foot, this book has helped me a lot with not being anymore a person with a “bad sense of direction”, even when walking downtown: The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley . I really recommend it for people who hike, even occasionally.
I’ll check this out, thanks!!
One thing I discovered on my mom’s late-model VW SUV is that the manufacturer-provided semi-physical/capacitative touch dash buttons are pretty much useless when interacting with Apple CarPlay; that all becomes touchscreen-only. And the forced transition in inputs is not particularly obvious. I have to wonder if most implementations are like that, compounding confusion on top of distraction.
Huh, I just realized yesterday that my car (also a late-model VAG model) does have a touchscreen that reacts to gloved fingers. This was the base infotainment system, not Carplay.
Unfortunately the steering wheel controls are touch, not physical. A big downgrade.
Some suggestion here that notbyai.fyi is an ai industry op: https://social.treehouse.systems/@imbl/115978426251286619
Seems plausible. Notbyai seems pretty keen on ai, and is very relaxed about what counts as “not by ai”, and adds up to a scheme whereby you pay a pro-ai techbro a monthly subscription to advertise to ai firms that your website is ideal for scraping training data from.
but here’s the fucking kicker. the “founder”, allen hsu (notbyai.fyi/about), is the ux design lead at modo modo (modomodoagency.com/leadership), which is an ai design company (modomodoagency.com/about)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is cool and we embrace it. But when it comes to solving complex business problems, we don’t just press a few keys to generate answers with ChatGPT. We research, interview, brainstorm, and go through a human-centric process to come up with content and solutions that are tailored to your unique business need.
Called it, 2 years ago: https://lobste.rs/c/fhob3x
actually didn’t call, had forgotten all about it
Tangentially on topic:
Just finished The Regicide Report by friend of the instance Charles Stross. Hell of a finish to the main series! I’ll ikely start a re-read of the whole series soon, and I’m hopeful that it’ll win all the awards.
Had a couple of shower thoughts afterward:
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In the previous novel, a bunch of American computer bois with brainworms concocted a plan to disassemble the moon and turn it into orbital datacenters, which is lol
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Ghislaine Maxwell is the Iris Carpenter of pedos.
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Keeping speculative fiction ahead of current events must be exhausting.
@o7___o7 @techtakes That’s why I’m fleeing screaming back to the arms of far-future space opera ATM.
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