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 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.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
Neal Stephenson comes out strong and funny against GenAI here:
https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/a-remarkable-assertion-from-a16z
“Hypothesis 1: it was written by a clanker”
@gerikson @BlueMonday1984 The only thing that could have made that article better is if he’d literally ended it mid-sentence.
Best part is the footnote:
About 20 years ago, some spammers came up with a bright idea for circumventing spam filters: they took a bootleg copy of my book Cryptonomicon and chopped it up into paragraph-length fragments, then randomly appended one such fragment to the end of each spam email they sent out. As you can imagine, this was surreal and disorienting for me when pitches for herbal Viagra and the like started landing in my Inbox with chunks of my own literary output stuck onto the ends. Come to think of it, most of those fragments actually did stop in mid-sentence, so I guess if today’s LLMs trained on old email archives it would explain why they “think” I write that way.
Stephenson knows how computers work.
@dgerard he does, looks like
@gerikson @BlueMonday1984 Sub-hypothesis 1B: the AI was fed the whole book but the input was truncated because whatever toolchain they used wasn’t made to handle 160k words at a time.
Lmao imagine reading a Stephenson book and being peeved that it ends
(His sex scenes are far far far worse than his endings, those are a mercy)
oh yeah the relationship between the fusion-device wielding 30-something Aluetian freedom fighter and the 16 year old skateboard courier in Snow Crash is… of its time
Yup that’s one of them. The cryptonomicon protagonist no-nut-Novembering all the way to the ww2 treasure is another special fave
We were reading through various classics for bookclub and we noticed how many books had a ~14 year old girl has romantic/sexual relationship/gets abused by 30+ year old man. Snow Crash was one of those. I know popular thinking on this has changed a lot the past 20+ years but still always a shock, esp when you realize how much you didnt notice it.
Also a reason why the first evil dead aged very badly. Dont show that to people without warning them unless you want them to leaf.
Years ago, I said, “I’ve never finished a Stephenson novel.” Someone replied, “Neither has he.”
@gerikson @BlueMonday1984 please do not insult the noble machine consciousnesses thus. It was probably written by a venture capitalist.
Someone in the comments found the github (??) where they made the site or something, and it def was generated initially, but it used heavy nerd speak so it was translated.
“Warning: his endings are notoriously abrupt, like a segfault in the middle of your favorite function.”
Hypothesis 3: As some people seem to insist, “literally” has recently morphed into a contronym, and now it figuratively also means “figuratively”.
…sorry, I meant it literally also means “figuratively”.
…no, wait, that’s just the same thing. 🙄 It *actually* also means “figuratively”.
(Really? People couldn’t find a better new word to provide emphasis than “literally”? What word do they want to unambiguously represent that concept now? Do they care? Ugh…)
(Really? People couldn’t find a better new word to provide emphasis than “literally”? What word do they want to unambiguously represent that concept now? Do they care? Ugh…)
Bit late to tilt at this windmill tbh. Prescriptivist pedantry is prohibited past puberty. This was decreed by Maximilian D. English (the D stands for dictionary) in 1727. I don’t make the rules (MDE does)
It seems really common for words for factuality to become intensifiers. I just used the word “really” as an intensifier, thought it really means things occurring in reality. “Very” had the same thing happen to it, as it originally meant “truthfully” (as in “verify” or “verity”). If I say something is “truly massive”, am I likely specifying the massiveness is not imaginary in some sense, or am I trying to convey massiveness beyond the lower bounds of “massive”? Is a “proper banger” of a tune distinct from an improper banger or is it just a highly bangerful banger?
truly massive
fuzzy logic says this thing has mass most of the time, ish
english is a fuck
What word do they want to unambiguously represent that concept now?
“Literally, not figuratively”, said in a Sterling Archer voice.
The use of literally in a fashion that is hyperbolic or metaphoric is not new—evidence of this use dates back to 1769. Its inclusion in a dictionary isn’t new either; the entry for literally in our 1909 unabridged dictionary states that the word is “often used hyperbolically; as, he literally flew.”
transcript
Graham Linehan is a normal and well man.
A few hours later, he sends me an example of how he’s been using AI. It’s a “hidden role deduction” game he’s working on. At the top is the prompt he put into ChatGPT: “You are five blind lesbian adventurers out for a good night out. Slaying dragons and whatnot. But one of your number is a hulking great troll pretending to be a woman. Find the troll lesbian and then devise an amusing punishment without giving him an erection.
What the fuck
most well adjusted terf
The CIA wouldn’t be able to torture this kinda shit out of me. Jesus, Linehan.
TIL I take the same medicine as Glinner
Yeah thats a kink. There prob are a bunch of sex workers he could hire who could help him with that.
E: forgot to mention, a sex worker even confirmed this is a kink.
I don’t think sex workers should be tasked with society offloading glinner
glinner should fucking suck less
Certainly. Some might want to take his service however, not going to speak for them. But doubt he would be a good client, nor that he would pass the vibe check for any who didn’t already knew who he was. So not sure if he is even able (also doubt he is mentally able as he sees women too much as objects to he saved/protected vs actual people).
But yes sorry if that came off as offloading societies problems on sex workers.
oh no
He followed his friends Andrew Doyle and Martin Gourlay, formerly of GB News, over here. They were hired by US comic actor Rob Schneider’s production company and put in a word for Linehan. He moved in March and works for Schneider too. Having co-created Father Ted in the 1990s and created The IT Crowd in the 00s, Linehan is co-creating a sitcom called Tenure – “Our academics are like Father Ted academics: they’re very old and musty” – with Doyle, Gourlay and British comedian Jonathan Kogan. They’ve written eight episodes.
coming soon to whatever remains of CBS with an introductory 1 hour lecture by Bari Weiss
Well, at least the website isn’t vibe-coded. Considering the creator’s an out-and-proud promptfondler (as seen on his Twitter), that’s genuinely shocking.
I honestly don’t know how these people are comfortable posting those things with their real name and face attached.
this is very fashtech coded, happy to be proven wrong though.
It is, that’s why I was sharing it. I probably should have made that clear.
Based Linux is another non-Woke option if you want a Debian based system that supports systemd, Wayland, XLibre and the GNU tools.
Do… do you think he realizes that Debian is “woke”?
Also I wonder what his beef with Rust is? Is Rust woke?
Linux puritans are as fissile as the OG Puritans. There’s already Devuan which is Debian minus systemd, and now with XLibre. Not sure why this nerd thinks his particular non-denominational chapel will bring in the crowds to hear him sermonize.
Edit BTW Devuan for me is the epitome of FLOSS techfash.
it’s good.
Also I wonder what his beef with Rust is? Is Rust woke?
Rust has a Code of Conduct and is allegedly highly popular among trans programmers, so you’re likely on the money
Also I wonder what his beef with Rust is? Is Rust woke?
I’ve seen this before. There is a special type of person out there who feels emasculated (yeah it’s always men, isn’t it) by the idea of a language statically enforcing memory-safety. Because, you know, real men write C or C++ with no safety rope and no seatbelt, juggling with raw pointers and chainsaws with their bare hands. They think that the only reason why C/C++ has produced an infinite abundance of bugs and security holes is because other programmers just suck. But they are different, they can handle it, they are very clever after all. And they won’t let some wusses take away their powers with all these ideas of memory safety by design.
As a C++ programmer some Rust people can come on a little strong, as if I’ve never thought about the importance of memory safety before and don’t know how to write secure code (well excuse me for building on top of decades of libraries that no one thought to write in rust in the '80s).
But that’s normal programmer flame war stuff. Rust people tend to be young and enthusiastic about security which is all good.
I was only describing a specific kind of person, certainly wasn’t trying to imply that C/C++ devs generally have no care for security!
pretty much every programming language discussion I’ve ever been in has at least one person come in with a chip on their shoulder, ready to burn down civilisation in the name of readability or ease of use or memory safety or what have you.
IMO it’s an abyss staring thing; you spend enough time in the code mines and you’ll discover some gleaming orb of fascination. Hypothetically this is cured by grass touching. I have been both places.
That is why I’m proud to announce my new, everything safe programming language: C’thlaglthorp, or Ctt for short.
⠀̸͓͑̌͆͜
T̷̡̬͖͓̲͒ĥ̴̼͑͗̏͗̐e̴̡̧̦̘̘͉̮̠͍͕̩̫̐̎̎̃͆̄͗̇̂̋́̕͠͝ͅ ̴̧̭͎̮̯̥̣̻͍̫͇̼̪̅̋̈́̃̈̾̆̀̓̓͊͂͝ă̵̧̨͎͓͇̦̝͖͎̓̿͠b̸̨̮͚̣̪̪̪͉̮̙͇͎̍͗̕ý̸̘̘ş̷̣̲͙͓̫̎̿̍̈́͛͗́́͝s̶̞̣͖̼̓̅̀̀̉́̃̈́̾̋̄̎͐̀͘͠ ̸͓̈̔͒̽͝w̵̨͚͖̟͚͇̠̘̻͍͕̲̯͍̑́̀͗́̋̀́͛͜͜͠ĭ̸̳̜̰̥̘̟̠̈́͜l̴̡̧̝̣̂͌̿̍̍̿̋l̶̳̙̰̱̫͉̥̃̇̌̂́̈́́͜ ̵̧̤̻̗͈͓̫̮̳͐͊̀̔̍̈̈́̋͂̚͝k̴̨̛͕̠͇͓̝̝̻̘̱͔̫̰̆͂̌̂̀̂̑̈̋͝͠ĕ̷̯̥̝̟̓̓͑̀ę̵̡̨̨͕͍͔̮͂͋̈̍͒̿͛p̸͇̥̺̅͋͐̿͑̿̎͐̈́͛͝͠ ̶̡̟̫͍̲̗͖̓́̽̐̀̀̇̿͝ÿ̴̢̨͚̟̘̼̭͓̘̲̫̮̩̠̺͉̀͜ớ̶̢̪̤͉͎̟̻̩̣̹̬̈́̅̉̈́͂̓̎͌̾͗̓̕͠u̶̗̥͔̹̝̦͕͎͎͍̹͓͕̾̑́ ̷͍̓̃̏̐̄̒̿̅͂̎̉̈́̚s̵̠̭̠͈̖̺͕̬̞͖̫̿̊́̾̾̕̕ͅá̵̯͓͙͕̉͛͌͛̋̕͘f̶̢̛͈͎̥̗̫͇͕̘̦̙̋̇̓̍̊̋͆̓̈͐̚̚͘͜ͅȩ̷͙̝̳̲̈́̽̈́̍̐͝͠
People who dislike C’thlaglthorp tend to come in two camps: the ones that prefer significant whitespace and the ones that don’t.
I’m surprised they include systemd and Wayland. Those are usually on the anti-woke Linux hitlist.
