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)

  • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systemsEnglish
    18·
    17 days ago

    Had a first-hand AI encounter today at the grocery store. The self-checkout now has a script that monitors an overhead video feed to make sure you’re not getting tricky about what scanned and what got put into the bagging area, and if it thinks you’re shady it will stop you from proceeding and summon an employee with no notification that something is wrong.

    The new self-checkout process is as follows:

    1. Scan your item
    2. Hold the item plainly before you so the overhead camera doesn’t get confused, looking like a Catholic priest about to deliver communion.
    3. Place item in bagging area. Try not to have to shift things around to find a place.
    4. Swear as the nom-mutable voice instructions tell you to bag “your… Item.” Legitimately feels like they got as far as assembling the voice lines before anyone realised that having the compu-checker read every purchase out loud would lead to at best an unworkable cacophony if not several immediate lawsuits.
    5. GOTO 1

    Even as antisocial and impatient as I am I’ve found self-checkout to be a UX disaster, but somehow it keeps getting worse.

    • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      8·
      17 days ago

      sometimes i manage to confuse self-checkout overhead camera by having a bike helmet on, when that happens i have to hold it up over bagging area (but not put inside because weight won’t match)

      • Soyweiser@awful.systemsEnglish
        4·
        15 days ago

        I wonder when the management will figure out these rigid anti theft systems cost a lot more than they save.

        On that note, think i figured out a way to get free products on the lidl checkout. There was a large amount of errors (some of which caused by me by accident). And required help a couple of times and later i realized that i had paid less than expected. Not sure if it is reproducable, as that would be stealing, or trying to get hired as a red teamer.