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Want to wade into the sandy 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.)

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[-] maol@awful.systems 25 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)
[-] BurgersMcSlopshot@awful.systems 12 points 3 weeks ago

joke is on us, Heaven's Gate picked the right time to exit.

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[-] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Here is a video of Eric Schmidt getting loudly booed at a commencement speech

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5MYggR_PPRg

https://www.youtube.com/live/b1eM3jv0vWY?t=7923

It is an impressively bad speech.

[-] lagrangeinterpolator@awful.systems 14 points 3 weeks ago

I find it really funny how after he gets booed he says, "If you don't care about science, that's okay, because AI is going to touch everything else as well. Whatever path you choose, AI will become part of how work is done." Yeah, if you're worried that AI is only going to fuck up science, don't worry, it's going to fuck up everything else as well. Was he trying to stick to a (terrible) script, or is he genuinely this incapable of reading a room?

"When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on." No, my mom taught me about stranger danger. I know what to do when a sketchy old man named Eric Schmidt pulls up with a rocket ship that says FREE ICE CREAM.

"The rocket ship is here. Let me give you some advice. First, find a way to say yes. Listen." Thanks for revealing how AI adoption is really about coercion. It doesn't matter what you think, AI is inevitable and you ignorant Luddites are gonna have to find a way to like it.

Truly a masterclass in public speaking by Eric Schmidt. When the audience reacts negatively to what you said, just double down and shove it down their throats. You're a billionaire, so you know better than them.

[-] gerikson@awful.systems 10 points 3 weeks ago

“When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on.”

obviously didn't watch that Treehouse of Horror ep where Bart and Homer are placed on the rocket ship headed directly towards the sun , along with that time period's analogs to Eric Schmidt

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[-] BurgersMcSlopshot@awful.systems 10 points 3 weeks ago

When some offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat, you just get on.

I don't know mate, I think I do neither of those things because the kid-diddling natalist doesn't seem to be good at making ones that don't go boom.

Christ what a fucking shitweasel.

[-] swlabr@awful.systems 14 points 3 weeks ago

When someone offers you a seat on a submarine, you do not ask which seat, you just get on

[-] BurgersMcSlopshot@awful.systems 12 points 3 weeks ago

Get in losers. We're going imploding.

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[-] dgerard@awful.systems 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

STOP FINDING THINGS

  • WEB PAGES WERE NOT MEANT TO BE FOUND
  • YEARS OF SEARCHING yet NO REAL-WORLD USE FOUND for PAGES of SEO-OPTIMISED AI SLOP
  • Wanted to find things anyway for a laugh? We had a tool for that: it was called WIKIPEDIA "RANDOM PAGE"
  • "Yes please give me ONE HUNDRED AND TEN MILLION of my search. Please give me TEN ADS and A PARAGRAPH OF SLOP FIRST" - Statements dreamed up by the utterly Deranged

LOOK at what Search engines have been demanding your Respect for all this time, with all the ad views we gave them

(This is REAL Search results, given by REAL search engines)

  • "None of Africa's 54 recognized countries start with the letter 'K'."
  • "Add about 1/8 cup of non-toxic glue to the sauce"
  • "Understood. No more templates—just direct answers, hyper-focused on exactly what you need."

"Hello Something went wrong and an AI response wasn't generated"

They have played us for absolute fools

[-] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

SpaceX has chosen a ~~sacrificial~~ ~~disposable~~ ~~naive~~ crypto billionaire to captain a mars fly-by someday: https://gizmodo.com/spacex-taps-crypto-billionaire-to-lead-first-crewed-mission-to-mars-2000762451

The mission is expected to take two years and here's what he has to say about that:

I can stare at the map view on airplanes all the way from takeoff to landing, so I think I will enjoy the trip.

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[-] gerikson@awful.systems 14 points 3 weeks ago

Despite the promise of being uploaded to the computer would free men from the shackles of the flesh, LW still finds time to debate the fine points of what makes a woman want to fuck a man:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/w3y9G4ybNb3rmTgev/why-physical-attractiveness-matters-for-men-s-dating

A month ago, I went to a sex club for the first time. One big thing I noticed: the classic “your eyes meet” trope absolutely did not happen at that club. And I don’t just mean it didn’t happen to me - every single woman there avoided meeting the eyes of anyone.

gee I wonder why

The promise of physical attractiveness, for men, is that you can pay an upfront cost to get in good shape, dress well, etc. You do it basically once. And then, connecting with new women doesn’t take an enormous amount of time. And you don’t need the absolutely miserable skill of trying to build attraction from scratch. [...] It’s all about making that very first contact easier, because the very first contact is the biggest pain point for guys.

hear me out here, this is just off the top of my head, how about treating women like human beings instead of mysterious creatures who must be seduced into liking you

1 comment, essentially saying if you're not above average height you might as well die alone

[-] anise@awful.systems 10 points 3 weeks ago

of course they get caught by incel culture immediately, trying to quantify attractiveness is so far in their wheelhouse they might as well have come up with it

[-] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 11 points 3 weeks ago

Most incel forums proliferate pseudoscientific slop to justify their beliefs.

He was this close! This close!

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[-] lurker@awful.systems 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

AI CEOs Baffled by Hatred of Their Technology

"Why do people hate us so much? We only constantly say the technology we're making is dangerous and then block regulation, suck up resources, commit mass theft and plagiarism, threatened to destabilise the economy, enabled more CSAM, caused widespread mental health issues and multiple suicides, unleashed a barrage of slop, engaged in mass surveillance and mocked people against the tech? Don't they know AI is the future and will create a utopia where we all live in a simulation in space?"

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[-] o7___o7@awful.systems 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Ask HN: Company is rapidly cutting AI tool spend how to prep team?

Company I work for is now rapidly planning to scale down its AI tooling spend. Claude code access is basically getting removed and people are forbidden from using personal plans. Reasoning is cost apparently our monthly Claude bill has become astronomical for the org. Nearly 3x our saas's cloud spend.

Apparently we are going to get limited access to codex at severely reduced plans.

I have tried some local models such as Kimi, however most are barely functional.

I am very concerned as the expectation of amount of work done is to remain consistent. Ignoring the fact teams have made entire workflows around Claude I am very worried and frustrated.

How can I help my team ease this transition? Are their local models that run well on local machines that only have 16gb ram?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48189073

[-] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 12 points 3 weeks ago

If only there had been warning signs of how heavily subsidized the rates absolutely had to be, and how bafflingly stupid it was to intentionally design workflows to maximize token use. If only people had been trying their damndest to shout it from the rooftops but were ignored because Corporate was listening to the automatic yes man instead.

[-] V0ldek@awful.systems 12 points 3 weeks ago

people are forbidden from using personal plans. Reasoning is cost apparently our monthly Claude bill has become astronomical for the org

How does using personal plans impact the company's bill? If someone is so profoundly stupid as to spend their own money on a "tool" for their job then why stop them?

[-] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 10 points 3 weeks ago

That's a good point. I wonder if they're also realizing that the promised efficiency gains haven't manifested and their code quality has started dropping. Can't really say that without embarrassing everyone and so it gets written up as all cost.

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[-] sansruse@awful.systems 10 points 3 weeks ago

WELL WELL WELL, if it isn't the consequences of my own voluntary deskilling

(plus a dose of corporate greed)

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[-] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 12 points 3 weeks ago

Edward W. Niedermeyer calls the plans to put SpaceX and OpenAI public at ludicrously inflated valuations and dump shares on index funds for real money BAGNAROK. American pension funds are starting to say out loud that this is a bad deal.

The officials - representing three of the top four largest public pension plans in the U.S. - objected to the amount of power the board has given Musk over the company, including voting control over the stock, veto power over his ​own removal as CEO, and protections from litigation, including mandatory arbitration for SpaceX shareholder claims.

...

In their letter, the pension leaders urged SpaceX to adopt one-share, one-vote or sunset super-voting shares within seven years; install a majority-independent board and separate ⁠the CEO and ​chair roles; eliminate provisions protecting Musk from termination without his approval; scrap mandatory arbitration; and require independent approval of related-party ​transactions with Musk's other companies.

"Precisely because SpaceX is poised to occupy a position of systemic importance in the public markets, and to become, through index inclusion, an unavoidable holding in our portfolios, its governance must at least adhere to the baseline protections upon ​which long-term institutional capital depends, rather than seeking to diminish them," they wrote.

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[-] aninjury2all@awful.systems 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)
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[-] gerikson@awful.systems 11 points 3 weeks ago

A LWer of the female persuasion makes the entirely reasonable point that most screw-top openings are probably constructed by looking at median male grip strength, not female. But the real fun is in the comments, where people who can post comments on a blog are seemingly unfamiliar with opening jam jars.

Women should be able to open things

[-] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 13 points 3 weeks ago

But anyways - why is there a vacuum in the jar? To preserve the jam? Isn't jam a preserve? Like, I thought the whole raison d'etre of jam was as a way to make fruit keep, unrefrigerated, through the winter? Why must we preserve the preserve? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

what is going on with these people i’m so annoyed i’m about to cry

Why do so many containers require women asking a man for help in order to open them? (Or carrying around an opening tool or living in a kitchen?)

how often do you open jam jars outside the kitchen?? it’s not that hard! you don’t actually have to force them open through grip strength like an idiot man!!

[-] maol@awful.systems 11 points 2 weeks ago

why is there a vacuum in the jar? To preserve the jam? Isn’t jam a preserve? Like, I thought the whole raison d’etre of jam was as a way to make fruit keep, unrefrigerated, through the winter? Why must we preserve the preserve? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

I...basic common sense alone would tell you that something with a lot of fruit and a lot of sugar in it might spoil if left open outside of a fridge. Why do these people act like they've never seen a banana before

[-] istewart@awful.systems 9 points 2 weeks ago

why understand biochemistry, if you're part of the cognitive elite who can reconstruct it from first principles should it become necessary

[-] fullsquare@awful.systems 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

But anyways - why is there a vacuum in the jar? To preserve the jam? Isn’t jam a preserve? Like, I thought the whole raison d’etre of jam was as a way to make fruit keep, unrefrigerated, through the winter? Why must we preserve the preserve? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

this is "fucking magnets, how do they work" translated to rationalist, except that explaining magnets involves quantum mechanics and explaining jam jars involves high school physics (saturated vapor pressure vs temperature. that might be before high school). i also like how one linked explanation sits near two pieces of slop and is wrong

[-] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 10 points 3 weeks ago

The comments section really is incredible, the level of ignorance about basic kitchen things, which since it’s womanly knowledge instead of dyson spheres they seem to be completely incurious about …

[-] fullsquare@awful.systems 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

their practical skills are weak, and they won't survive the winter (because they don't know how to make jam)

but frame the same physics in terms of what makes steam turbine spin, and they'll pretend to get it but won't apply it anywhere else. the longer you look the worse it gets. it's like they have never watched how it's made as kids

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[-] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 9 points 2 weeks ago

I use grip gloves for opening jars and love them so much. Same ideas as plastic jar grips, but even easier. I find I usually have enough strength but that my skin is too sensitive to fully apply it without grip gloves.

Maybe women just aren’t that into designing programming languages?

James Damore flashbacks ohno

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[-] gerikson@awful.systems 11 points 3 weeks ago

Here's a galaxy-brained take: AI datacenters in space do not have a cooling problem

After discussing radiative cooling and how much launches are required (" between 100-500 Starship launches"), the conclusion is

It’s still wildly impractical to build AI datacenters in space. But it’s not impossible, and it’s certainly not impossible because of the cooling, which is a relatively minor component of the total mass that would have to be launched into space.

It's not impossible to build a triumphal arch entirely in solid gold either. After a certain point, what's economically impractical shades entirely into impossible.

[-] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 11 points 3 weeks ago

For some reason once you start talking about space people stop thinking about it as one of many alternatives. If you want to think about industrializing space, simply being possible isn't enough. The unique challenges of operating in orbit (of which cooling is only the most obvious among a great many problems) need to be addressable efficiently enough that sending it up still makes more sense than building it on the ground.

Microsoft's experiments with underwater data centers serve as a powerful parallel since it has many of the same challenges but is still significantly cheaper. If it were economical to put a data center in orbit it would be even more economical to put it in an underwater container, so if we aren't doing the latter we would need a hell of a good reason to do the former. See also the economic challenges of living on Mars, the moon, or even LEO compared to Antarctica or ocean platforms.

[-] it_wasnt_arson@awful.systems 10 points 3 weeks ago

I think it comes free with a deeply embedded belief in the coming thousand year space reich- sorry, millenarian kingdom of heaven- sorry, era of cosmic endowment after infinite growth and Progress inevitably consume all available resources on earth. If growth is infinite, then eventually we'll need to put everything in space, so we may as well solve all the annoying little problems of practicality ahead of time to get a head start on manifest destiny. There are many roads to get there, but it's all but unavoidable once you start sincerely believing in exponential curves.

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[-] BioMan@awful.systems 9 points 3 weeks ago

But space is The Future, The Grand Destiny of Humanity, Literal Heaven.

The mythologization of space as somehow transcendant, that going there somehow changes everything rather than it just being another environment which happens to be utterly inimical to life such that everything that makes anything possible has to come from your point of origin, is so utterly ingrained into the culture at large and the cult of progress/tech/humanity-as-master-of-the-universe. Once you see it you cannot unsee it. And it's incredible how much space SUCKS, such that the people on the ISS are just living off a constant hose of material from Earth. They're not living in space, they're glamping.

[-] cstross@wandering.shop 10 points 3 weeks ago

@BioMan I blame Konstantin Tskiolkovskii! Although to be fair, he got it from his teacher, Nikolai Federovitch Federov, grandfather of Cosmism and one of the wellsprings of TESCREAL ... which brings us full-circle to the AI bros again.

[-] BioMan@awful.systems 1 points 3 days ago

I know very little about Fyodorov compared to Tsiolkovsky. Do you haven any writing you'd recommend to learn more about him?

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[-] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 10 points 3 weeks ago
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[-] blakestacey@awful.systems 10 points 3 weeks ago
[-] lurker@awful.systems 9 points 2 weeks ago

The myth that talking about bubbles prevents bubbles for when someone starts saying some “oh but everyone says AI is a bubble which must mean its not”

[-] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 12 points 2 weeks ago

This website is intended for the use of the wholesale clients only. I declare that I am a wholesale client as defined in the Corporations Act 2001. I declare that I will not provide any information on this website to a retail investor.

Jokes on them I read the page without clicking the agree button here and without being a wholesale client!

[-] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 10 points 2 weeks ago

Owenomics is also worried about changing the rules to add SpaceX and OpenAI to NASDAQ and the S&P500 while only a tiny fraction of their shares are available for trading. "Bad idea. If float is too low, the market cap is meaningless and should not be relied upon for any purpose. "

Back in January he said that the US stock market is not in a bubble until Robert Shiller's "CAPE rises to 80 (similar to Japan’s CAPE in 1989)." The CAPE (a ratio of price to the average earning for the past ten years) of the S&P500 is around 40, similar to the US in January 2000.

He does not mention new era thinking (chapters 5 and 6 of Shiller's Irrational Exuberance).

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this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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