this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 19th January 2025 - awful.systems (awful.systems)
submitted 5 days ago by blakestacey@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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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.

(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this.)

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[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

So, the Wikipedia article about "prompt engineering" is pretty terrible. First source: OpenAI. Second: a blog. Third: OpenAI. Fourth: OpenAI's blog. ArXiv, arXiv, arXiv... 43 times. Hop on over to the Talk page, and we find this gem:

It is sometimes necessary to make assumptions to write an article (see WP:MNA).

Spoiler alert: that link doesn't justify anything. It basically advises against going off on tangents: There's no need to rehash the fact that evolution is a fact on every damn biology page. It does not say that Wikipedia should have an article on some creationist fantasy, like baraminology or flood geology, based entirely on creationist screeds that all cite each other.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 4 points 2 hours ago

I have spent the last half-hour in the angry dome

[–] jax@awful.systems 16 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

hells yeah it's time for some action - Drew DeVault is organizing a sit-in protest of Jack Dorsey's keynote at FOSDEM 2025.

[–] sinedpick@awful.systems 6 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

eh? I don't see Jackie D's keynote in the schedule, did the threat of a sit-in make them delete it? https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/ edit: oh, it's linked from Drew's post.

[–] maol@awful.systems 4 points 15 hours ago

The people of Muskogee will have their revenge on Jack Dorsey

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 2 points 16 hours ago

okay so I’ve just found a new shirt I want

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

there it is, sammy has gone and said people are just prompting the model wrong (I recall we’ve had that bit said here earlier)

but in true sammy grift: you just need to be asking the right questions to trump intelligence. “why do you want to suck, as a human?” sammy asks, not understanding a moment of humanity

[–] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 5 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

how do you even define "raw, intellectual horsepower" and how does it differ from knowing how to formulate questions mother fucker

[–] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 5 points 3 hours ago

Pretty sure there's gonna be a contract somewhere that defines raw intelligence as "the amount of money you make for OpenAI."

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

"Raw, intellectual horsepower" means fucking an intellectual horse without a condom.

Oh, wait, that's rawdogging intellectual horsepower, my mistake.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 3 points 2 hours ago

shot:

Von Neumann arguably had the highest processor-type "horsepower" we know of plus his breadth of intellectual achievements is unparalleled.

chaser:

But imo Grothendieck is a better comparison point for ASI as his intelligence, while being strangely similar to LLMs in some dimensions

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

the bit about it that I find subtly glorious (in how remarkably fuckwitted it is) is the baseline idea of “intellectual horsepower”

I’m not surprised that this is a view they (of the company that’s effectively going “just 12 more DCs bro it’ll be enough compute bro I promise bro just watch”) hold and consider in such a simple mechanism-rating scale

but it is funny as fuck

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 6 points 20 hours ago

What they promise: intelligence systems, revolutionary agent which can take over tasks!

What we get: https://youtu.be/izazdBpraC8

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 12 points 1 day ago (3 children)

This is extremely tangential to the areas of sneer interest, but seeing as this is the only technology related community I am in, I’m putting it here.

This song has been making the rounds on the charts/social media and I refuse to believe that it isn’t about the package management tool apt

[–] maol@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I hope Toni Basil and the Ting Tings get big royalty cheques.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

the writers of hey mickey have a writing credit on it, but the ting tings got shafted.

[–] maol@awful.systems 5 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

A shame. Seems like they were clearly inspired by it .... I guess you can't copyright a vibe.

[–] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 9 points 1 day ago

Image

yoooooooooooooo

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago

of course it is one in a long tradition of tech-tangential songs, including this banger about the inevitable collapse of tech bubbles

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

a couple weeks back, I was (bc reasons) looking around to see how to turn off goog's annoying gemini bullshit in an account, and you can!

except then even after doing that, accounts in that org still got prompts (in the form of in-app banners, and sparklebuttons in shit like gmail) to Try The Model

it looks like people aren't biting enough, because now you get it whether you like it or not, for the low low price of pushing up your base account fee! and I checked in one org - "Gemini App" is disabled org-wide, but the fucking prompt is immediately in the UI (and you get a modal popover opening gmail)

fuck these people so much

[–] mii@awful.systems 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Oh well. Nothing screams healthy business like force-feeding your product to every customer who can't hammer the conveniently hidden opt-out button fast enough. I'm sure Gemini is doing great.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

oh, no no

nooooo no no no

there isn't an opt-out button

there is only:

  1. "Continue",
  2. "Learn More"
[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Hello, I'd like to punch you in the groin. Will you accept ~or would you like to learn more~?

Sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Did you say you accept?

Ah, you don't want to be punched in the groin. That's OK, I understand. We value your painless existence very much.

Now, obviously we cannot let you opt out of the Strictly Necessary punches in the groin. Surely you understand that if it's necessary to punch you in the groin, your permission or lackthereof is irrelevant. Rest assured, this applies only when we really have to punch you in the groin.

What, do you want me to list all the possible circumstances in which one might be obligated to punch you in the groin? Don't be unreasonable, now. I'm sure you know it when you see it.

That aside, I presume we can punch you in the groin for functional purposes? The kind that may not be strictly necessary, but serve a purpose in the functioning of our service.

Oh, we can't? It's OK, you have the right to make that choice. We don't judge. Anyway, we take it that you're probably at least cool with us punching you in the groin for the purposes of analyzing your behavior to improve our groin punching. Let me know if you decide you don't want us to do that anymore.

Oh, I thought you were cooler than that. Alright, if you hate the working class and want to make it harder for the poor, overworked developers to improve your experience, we'll do it your way. I guess we'll have to make do with just the groin punches that are strictly necessary or for marketing purposes.

Ah, aren't you observant. Have you ever noticed that all the adverts you get are really terrible? That's because advertisers need to be able to punch you in the groin to find out what you like and to make their ads more appealing to you. Just food for thought. But if you really insist…

Fine, fine. Marketing groin punches are out. As for your question, no we don't identify as an advertising company per se. But we are partnered with other companies that are in fact advertising companies. Would you like to adjust your preferences for our groin punching partners?

Well maybe to you it looks like the opt-out process we just went through should also cover this part but can we really know if we don't look?

Who's a good puppy? You're a good puppy, yes you are! ❤️

Will you deny us permission to punch you in the groin on behalf of AAAAAAAAAAA Inc. or will you not?

OK, so we can only punch you in the groin on behalf of AAAAAAAAAAA Inc. for the purposes of Legitimate Interest?

It means the kinds of purposes where there is a legitimate interest to punch you in the groin.

Why would you ask if you didn't want me to answer? Fine, that's a no for Legitimate Interest based groin punching on behalf of AAAAAAAAAAA Inc.

Will you deny us permission to punch you in the groin on behalf of AAAAAAAAAAB Inc. or will you not?

Oh, we have a total of six hundred and sixteen thousand six hundred and sixty-six partners in our crotch impactizing network.

Indeed, we are proud to have such a wide network of trusted allies.

Ugh, fine. I guess I can check the end of the list to see if there's a way to make a selection for all of them at once. Honestly, this form is starting to make me a bit dizzy as well.

Wow, who knew flipping through all those pages would take so long. There's a line in here that says "disagree to all", but there's no checkbox or anything. It's just there. Clicking it doesn't seem to change anything. You can probably assume it worked.

Please calm down, we're almost done. Would you like to accept and save?

Well it sounds like I mean "accept and save the options you just set", not the ones we offered initially, doesn't it?

Your groin punching settings have been applied. I don't think there were any mistakes, but if you need to change the settings, you can find the form hidden somewhere in this house, assuming we remembered to put it there.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

this is so wildly on point

yours?

(it should become an internet copypasta and drift into mass consciousness)

[–] bitofhope@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago

Thanks. I wrote this last night not expecting it to become so long, but I like to think the real work was done by thousands of very clever people with highly sophisticated moral compasses pretending not to understand privacy legislation.

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 8 points 1 day ago

Im gonna build a special circle in hell for these people, together with the 'yes' or 'ask me again later' people. On this circle all the software your stack depends on will break your build and releases a new release every friday at 5. Whohahhahah

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Google+ but worse

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 9 points 1 day ago

little known historical fact: G+ was actually the mark that service got on its popularity exam

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

some of the first research science on promptfondlers and model-affine dipshits is starting to see the light of day and, in what will surprise probably 0% of our regulars, it confirms some things

(I have grumped about their desire for outsourced thinking in the past myself)

[–] khalid_salad@awful.systems 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Thanks for sharing this. Also

using your own head must weigh far too heavy

absolute chef's kiss

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

being absolutely incensed at blithely rambunctious imbeciles seems to be (one of?) my wordsmithing balmer peaks

(I have mixed feelings about that)

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago

haha thanks

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