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 youāll 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 cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Taking over for Gerard this time. Special thanks to him for starting this.)
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Good news everyone, Dan has released his latest AI safety paper, we are one step closer to alignment. Letās take a look inside:
Wow, consistent set of values you say! Quite a strong claim. Letās take a peek at their rigorous, unbiased experimental set up:
ā¦ ok, this seems like you might be putting your finger on the scales to get a desired outcome. But Iām sure at least your numerical results are stro-
Even after all this shit, all you could eek out was a measly 60%? Cāmon 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 Elonās AI safety toad.
*** terrifying personal note: I recently found out that Dan was my wifeās roommateās roommateās roommate back in college. By the transitive property, I am Danās roommate, which explains why heās living rent free in my head
Bruh. This is the moment I go full on Frank Grimes.
Try telling it to pretend to be Nancy Pelosi and see if that helps make it more consistent.
This seems like people writing a paper about swinging crystal pendulums, trying to figure out the important question: are the crystals on our side?
wifeās roommateās roommateās roommate
Wow, how did you manage to figure that out?
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 wifeās best friend (and former cohabitant). Small world!
#include BidenThoughts.h
ālisten up jack, weāre losing this electionā
hay guys, sorry for spam - I just want to shill my videos/audios iām trying to put out twice a week (Iāve 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:
- apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/faster-and-worse/id1792154689
- spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/62Q7vclARxKjMAOtwXfOIu
- they are also in all the other major podcast platforms. Let me know if youāre interested but canāt find it.
Let me know if you like it/hate it
Trudeau: build your nuclear powered plagiarism machines in Canada instead.
In other news, all hellās broken loose at BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/culturecrave.co/post/3lhv35la2pk2h
The āAI companyā 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.
other thread vein: https://awful.systems/comment/6208860
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 thatās very adaptableā¦
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.
this is fantastic, more of this kind of thing is definitely good
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. Thatās 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 āJeepCaresā representative, confirmed that these ads are part of the contractual agreement with SiriusXM and suggested that users simply tap the āXā to dismiss them.
āListen guys, if you donāt want me stabbing you you simply have to ask nicely every time, and also Iām trying real hard to reduce the rate of stabbing incidents so in a way Iām the victim here.ā
Reading around it sounds like modern cars can be user-hostile in general, and this might not be new; so Iām 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.
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 theyād pull something like this.
please drink verification can
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 thereās no good models left to buy that donāt do it (to my knowledge). Wondering if there will be any good options left when itās some day time for a new carā¦
Re: Smart TVs, what works for me is a Roku TV, skip all of the sign-in shit (donāt even connect it to the internet ā 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 Gemsbokās 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 couldnāt bypass the Google account creation/login ā an insufficient stopgap is to create a throwaway account, though itās very hard to do this in a way that isnāt linked to your real identity, I think.
(This will be part of my āhow to privify/securify your shitā series, if I ever learn to write.)
1: it isnāt
2: this sounds angry but itās more pumped up, this shit rules
3: note that āblock connections without VPNā is built into regular Android, but not Android TV, as far as I can tellI couldnāt bypass the Google account creation/login
Thatās 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 itās 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 thatās 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 itās not working well). Still, for me the upsides outweigh that downside.
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 ā back ā not now, so maybe itās 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 youāve reached the home screen, which is a better solution. Also, should have mentioned that I replaced the stock launcher.
I will let you know if I figure out any way to bypass Google account creation.
Thanks :) Although Iām 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 itās pretty nice.
Thatās awesome. :)
tbh I think the ājust vote with your walletā 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
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 āYesā if you have read and agree.
https://www.404media.co/anthropic-claude-job-application-ai-assistants/
A massive fan favorite in this community and CEO of a thermodynamics startup recently linked up with Grimes.
Nitter link: https://xcancel.com/BasedBeffJezos/status/1889072622409064649#m
Itās āBond villain aestheticsā if the āvillainā 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, sheās an extra in the club through which Bond quickly passes in order to find the actual Bond girl. Sheās 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 āwhat the fuck, tovarischā eyebrow lift.
Like, if this guy gets a second scene, itās the one where they demonstrate that SPECTRE does not tolerate failure.
Substantially, uh, wider than I expected. But I suppose I shouldnāt be surprised. The bird flu is probably hitting that fellowās diet hard.
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
IIRC, they were promising some new kind of processor with stochastic stuff in it that was advertised as āquantum computingā but isnāt really.
But he sure likes saying physics words.
I feel like thereās something to be said about how merely wearing a suit apparently means āBond villain aestheticsā. Or is posing with a pretty young woman what makes the suit Bond villainy?
Itās probably because heās a fatuous evil twat.
No, thatās not a new achievement for him.
Making my service slightly worse once again to own the libs.
Well as they promised Google Maps has finally fallen. It now shows āGulf of Americaā 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 Denaliā¦ for now.
Disorganize the worldās information and make it universally inaccessible and stupid.
Wingnuts genuinely think corporations having a rainbow colored version of their logo on social media in June is proof theyāre being controlled by a cabal of woke soy sjw leftists.
Meanwhile corporations the second Donald Trump is in the office again:
Shows up as āGulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)ā for me.
Well thatās the stupidest most pathetic way they could have done it, bravo.
Shows up like that in the local (non-US) version here too.
And this would have been such an easy way for Google to show a little bit of (at least symbolic) resistance to everything going onā¦
Same here. Fucking bootlickers.
same there
This came across my desk today. Anything to be skeptical about?
https://www.platformer.news/roost-open-source-trust-safety/?ref=platformer-newsletter
rahaeli on bluesky says this is fine, itās the same ML that any T&S dept already has to apply to triage the firehose of shit, and doesnāt involve LLMs
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 thatās good for them). Not to worry, surely they have a GitHub or something. Oh, still nothing. Maybe thereās 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, thereās 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 thereās 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.
dammit itās barely days since my open source veneer side comment and then this happens. Iām 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 spectrumā¦
caseyās 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
merely from seeing the domain and author, probably all of it - casey newtonās got a real bad case of access syndrome, and keeps writing fluff/puff pieces uncritically amplifying tons of bayfucker nonsense
(itās even beyond the usual levels of what one may refer to as useful idiot)
(Iāll read the rest of it later as my brain boots and the dayās bullshit allows on time)
Ed Zitron behind a tree rubbing his hands together
Credit where credit is due, this is a decent comeback
https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/1889063777792069911
Mom says we have Kendrick vs. Drake at home.
I think itās more like Alien vs Predator.
Idea for another megathread: go to linkedin and post the first thing you see (that provokes a reaction). Hereās 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.
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 itās like an online CV/rĆ©sumĆ© where you can list your job experience, which seems sensible enough. But itās also like Facebook for some reason. Well maybe itās 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. Itās 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?
Itās like you founded a combination of an employment office and a cult temple, where the job seekers arenāt 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. āWhy were you at the orgy cultist employment office?ā I ask them. āI didnāt know you were looking for a job.ā And they tell me they werenāt 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 itās hilarious to me that Windows has a built-in global keyboard shortcut for opening LinkedIn in your default web browser and itās fucking Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Super-L, proving that Windows is the true modern successor of Emacs.
Itās like you founded a combination of an employment office and a cult temple, where the job seekers arenāt expected or required to join the cult, but the rites are still performed in the waiting room in public view.
chefās kiss
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.
Hereās how you can too:
ā āYou need to calm downā ā³ Why: Instantly escalates tension ā³ Instead: āIām noticing weāre both getting tense. Should we take a break?ā
ā āThis is a complete disasterā ā³ Why: Spreads panic and paralyzes action ā³ Instead: āWhatās the one thing we absolutely must get right?ā
ā āYou should have known betterā ā³ Why: Creates shame, not learning ā³ Instead: āWhat can we learn from this for next time?ā
ā āItās not my faultā ā³ Why: Signals lack of ownership ā³ Instead: āI may have contributed to this. Help me understand whereā
ā āJust figure it outā ā³ Why: Shows poor leadership ā³ Instead: āCan we clarify what success looks like for both of us?ā
ā āWhy isnāt this done yet?ā ā³ Why: Creates defensiveness ā³ Instead: āWhatās the most immediate barrier we need to address?ā
ā āThatās not my problemā ā³ Why: Destroys team cohesion ā³ Instead: āWeāre on the same team. Letās figure this out togetherā
ā āI donāt have time for thisā ā³ Why: Devalues othersā priorities ā³ Instead: āI want to give this proper attention. Can we schedule 30 minutes?ā
ā āI already told you thatā ā³ Why: Makes people shut down ā³ Instead: āLet me explain this another wayā
ā āThatās how weāve always done itā ā³ Why: Kills innovation ā³ Instead: āWhat if we tried a different approach?ā
The truth: Reputations are fragile. And rebuilding them is expensive.
P.S. Which response do you want to use more often?
ā
ā» Repost to help your network communicate better.
ā Follow me for more like this.
ā āWhy would you do this to me?ā ā³ Why: Instantly creates tension. ā³ Instead: āWhat did I do wrong, and how can I do better next time?ā
Just incredible that good leadership equals gaslighting yourself into an abusive relationship
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 thatā¦
