this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2025
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TechTakes

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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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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.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 39 minutes ago

A long time ago when the whole "should we cctv everything" idea was new and controversial I recall an interview or something with a london police chief, at the time the most cctved city. He admitted that cctv didnt help them stop crime or catch more criminals. He still wanted more cctv though. I think about that every now and then when there is another 'our surveillance tech actually does not work but we want more of it' story

[–] [email protected] 9 points 23 hours ago (5 children)

one of the most annoying things about writing for a US audience is they're fucking illiterate and alluding to books confuses them

wanna grab editors by the throat and go "JUST WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU PEOPLE EVEN DOING IN HIGH SCHOOL"

actual example from today: "who the hell is Fagin never heard of him"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Fagin, of course, the cocreator of Steely Dan… right?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

yes that's the guy does nobody remember The Nightfly

[–] [email protected] 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

So cards on the table here, I've never actually read Oliver Twist. But even neo-google is able to point me at enough useful details to get enough of a gist to follow it.

And that's assuming you don't pick it up from Wishbone, the animated talking dogs version , or the muppets parody that I'm sure exists somewhere.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

@YourNetworkIsHaunted

I never read it but somehow absorbed bits from the ambient culture. Might have watched a version at some point.

Age may be part of it. I'm 53. Perhaps Oliver Twist stuff was more visible in US culture in the 70s and 80s than it was later.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

The bleakest lol. Your editor said that?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

in this case it was some dickhead, but I've had this shit from editors too

[–] [email protected] 7 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Reading books in US high school was an exercise in frustration. There weren't many books assigned, and not a lot of them vibed with me. Most of my classmates did the minimum reading they could get away with (and this was before cellphones were everywhere).

Also I once read through the entirety of the Lord of the Flies before the first quiz on it and so got a quiz answer wrong because I got mixed up due to remembering stuff that happened later in the book which I'm still bitter about.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 16 hours ago

Our AP English teacher marked down everyone in our class for failing to identify a quote that wasn't in the translation of L'Etranger that we all read. She refused to give our points back even after I brought a copy of the French original and showed that the translation in our edition was correct when hers was not.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Imagine being afraid of allusions to classic literature in your own native language.

It's fine to miss a reference. I do it all the time and make my friends do the same. Not getting a reference is not a punishment to you, it's a bonus to those who do get it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 18 hours ago

that's what got me: this guy was pissed off someone referenced Fagin at all, the crime of making the bozo feel uncomfortable at missing something by not reading

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Slate says: "For the Love of God, Stop Profiling This Couple!"

The Collinses are ineffective, abusive industry plants from Peter Thiel’s extended circle. They know they’re entirely media creations. They play off that fact to ensure that journalists never follow up on how many initiatives they’ve started and abandoned, neglect to interrogate their contradictory stances on issues like abortion and “race science,” and even seem to accept that they’re openly being taken for a ride by these dorks. Yet in spite of it all, no one listens to their podcast, they don’t really have much of a following, and their specific appeal is concentrated to a few far-right circuits.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago

In the new Washington Post profile, Malcolm implies that he “engineered the scene” because “he knew smacking his kid would draw attention, help the article go viral and get their message out.”

How does beating your kid for clicks make anything better!? You still beat your two year old kid!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

i still can't get over how they look
like why the fuck would you wear glasses like those
was there even a point in time where this was fashionable

[–] [email protected] 4 points 22 hours ago

glasses are a fine kink! i guess those ones are a specialist taste

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

West Coast of USA, late 2000s to early 2010s, yes, the thick squared dark eyeglass frames were popular. Every time I see photos of these folks, I'm reminded of a couple people I know IRL as well as folks I know professionally who still prefer the thicker frames. Personally, I've always needed a very heavy prescription, and so I've always looked for the thinnest frames, but it really was a trend a decade ago.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Dear acausal robot God, that was cathartic. Refreshing to see a mainstream journalist see through techbro weirdo uwu smol bean antics for what they are, especially after so many credulous puff pieces.

This includes the Guardian (twice), the Wall Street Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer, CBC News, Business Insider, Bloomberg, and Dallas Magazine, among many, many others. My industry peers very clearly want me to know about these people—a lot about them!

I knew that a couple of outlets had done profiles of them lately, but I didn't realize they were attention whoring this hard. Maybe their thing isn't a breeding kink after all, but exhibitionism.

I also didn't know about the child abuse, though I could have seen it coming without subjecting myself to two Grauniad bits on these fuckers^1^.

And then there’s the slap. The most notable aspect of the Guardian’s May 2024 profile—which, again, profiled them twice in the same year—was a moment when Malcolm slaps his son in the face, in public, after the then-2-year-old accidentally bumped into a table, leaving the boy “whimpering.” To her credit, reporter Jenny Kleeman didn’t let this go, forcing the couple to defend this punishment.

1: Don't even know if "fucker" is appropriate here given these bougie failchildren are apparently opting for IVF for the actual baby making part.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

I think the first Guardian article had some value, just because the reporter hung around the Collinses long enough that they indicted themselves through their own actions and words. Whether that outweighs giving two eugenicists a platform to tell people about their beliefs is difficult to judge.

Iirc, whatshisface defended himself by claiming that black parents were more likely to hit their kids, therefore it was racist to criticise him for doing so

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Headline photo is actually a jump-scare

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Fun fact, I looked at that article. And my monitor exploded. No joke. I was in sudden darkness, and the mains were turned off. Pc survived thankfully, and I have a secondary monitor but lol wtf. (I need to go to bed).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

my bad, I was working on the awful.systems psychic energy collector and it must have backlashed

[–] [email protected] 5 points 20 hours ago

Damn you! Still a monitor from 2008, it had a good run.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Maybe your monitor was trying to protect you

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Rest of my electronics have survived so very likely. Guess it got confused as I'm also looking for new glasses and went "dont pick one of those*

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Today in "propaganda I didn't think I needed to worry about" - Cybertruck kids books!

And another one! This one actually has a good title in "The Ugly Truckling" and I'm legitimately mad as the father of a truck-obsessed child that it's wasted here.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I have some songs for your truck obsessed child (possibly NSFW)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

I think you'll find Guangdong did a lot of the actual building.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

According to some roblox wiki also the richest person (in roblox). So wonder if it is libertarian goes monarchist.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Pivot to AI: Amy is retiring! Probably! yes my cowriter has heard the call of revolution and will be having full and frank debates in the marketplace of ideas. WIth sweet reason.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

Send her my thanks for her service! o7

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So the far right people are already infighting each other with disinformation. Now they are accusing others of being part of the USAID thing. See this tweet by I,hypocrite (lporiginalg) (Note the guy is a bad guy (an anti-Semite for example), so this is fasc on fasc action).

"So let me get this straight...

Vaush

Aella

Richard Hanania

James Lindsay

Were all funded by USAID? WHO ELSE?

<community note pointing out this isn't true>"

They are coming for you Aella, hope you have an exit strategy (Just saying: Publicly burning bridges, and dropping the chatlogs of others would create a lot of goodwill on the anti-fascist side, and would be a good first step in rebuilding trust with some people (even if for a lot this cannot be regained)).

Perhaps using a lot of lying shitheads to get political clout is a bad idea, as even when you are in power, they will not stop lying (and being shitheads).

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

Headline "Heartwarming: The Worst People You Know Are All Fighting" with a picture of Josep Maria García, the man from the "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point" article, grinning happily

Evergreen reaction image.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Basically this is the usual battle between the literal neo-nazi antisemites and the more mainstream fascists who've pivoted from virulent antisemitism to anti-muslim racism and support for Israel (but that won't stop them from having a go at the (((globalists))) every other day). Fun for all.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago (9 children)

I distinctly recall a lot of people a few years ago parroting some variation of "well I don't know about Bitcoin specifically, but blockchain itself is probably going to be important and even revolutionary as a technology" and sometimesI wish I'd collected receipts to say "I told you it's not".

Here we are, year of Nakamoto 17 and the full list of use cases for blockchains is:

  • Speculative trading of toy currencies made up by private nobodies
  • Paying through the nose to execute arbitrary code on SETI@Home's evil cousin
  • Speculative trading of arbitrary blobs of bytes made up by private nobodies

And no, Git is not a fucking blockchain. Much like the New York City Subway is not the fucking Loop.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

year of Nakamoto 17

so what you're saying is, next year a whole lot of these guys are suddenly going to lose interest

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