this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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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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Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid!

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 here 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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[–] gerikson@awful.systems 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

In the comments to a submission about a private company trying to design a new supersonic airliner(!) this gem appears

Can we get LLMs to design the engine?

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39793848 if you have showdead)

The rest of the comments range from the realistic (it's hard to design an airliner, and the market for fast ones is not big) over the inevitable Elon-fluffing (SpaceX is just like an airliner, duh!) to the above insanity.

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[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

a lesswrong: Modern Transformers are AGI, and Human-Level

Modern NLP systems can do most things you would want an AI to do, at some basic level of competence.

For example, drawing mutant rodent dicks of unusual size

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

you know

it's worth trying to get jon oliver's attention on this shit

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago

"this shit" being the examplar majestic rodent penises, and maybe also the causal source. sorta. might be able to spend some minutes on that

[–] mii@awful.systems 13 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I’m actually at a loss of words for this. What the actual fuck …

From here. The article is pretty interesting, though.

[–] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

“AI is jet planes for the mind,”

incredibly polluting?

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago

We eventually figure out that the don't need to be that fast and make slower models?

Or, the doors will fall off if you let the finance people run it?

Or a place for strangers to use computers to inspect your private parts? Right, def that one.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 7 points 8 months ago

Larger expenses in a month than earnings in a year. AI going great. Capitalism going great.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 7 points 8 months ago

automated narcissism maintenance machines. maybe if we can heavenban the promptfans into a room with just their roided clippies, they'll be happier for it

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

He claimed a new, faster version of the Stable Diffusion image generator released earlier this month could generate “200 cats with hats per second.”

Pointless. The set of any type of funny cat picture on the Internet is already infinite.

The Financial Times reported Friday that the company made $5.4 million of revenue in February, against $8 million in costs. Several sources said there are ongoing concerns about making payroll for the roughly 150 remaining employees. Leadership roles have gone vacant for months amid the disarray, leaving the company increasingly directionless.

"... the AI-ristocrats!"

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Justin Murphy on SBF

tasty tasty dead dove, yum yum

The sentencing of Sam Bankman-Fried is humbling. I remember researching his rise to power many years ago, with some care, over a few weeks. Listened to a lot of his interviews, etc. I remember feeling deeply impressed, almost saddened by my own relative inferiority. I thought he was very cool. I really did. I thought he was a legitimate genius, bold, independently-minded, and admirably risk-tolerant: A paragon of contemporary, accelerated, cultural and technological entrepreneurship. His initial rise to power was the kind that often makes me wonder "What is wrong with me? Why can I not be smarter, sharper, bolder, and more successful with my own projects?" Since I admired him, I know that I am in no way above him; I could have very well made all of the same mistakes he made, if I had been given the power that he accrued. "There go I but for the grace of God," as they say. Ultimately, you never know what someone is really doing and you never know what will happen to them. You just cannot know whether someone's life and work are enviable until after they have died. With his sentencing today, I am at present just as awestruck as when I learned about his rise to power, but in the exact opposite direction—the envy I felt toward him I now feel toward my own life, and I'm beyond grateful to have achieved such tremendous success compared to him. If comparison is all too often the thief of joy, for the same reason it can also be a multiplier of gratitude and humility. I pray for Sam Bankman-Fried.

.

you'll be pleased to know that Justin used to think SBF was the smartest man inna worl', but now he realises that he himself is

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 12 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Guy who was previously featured here for championing the merits of dropping the n-word when meeting new (white) people in order to judge them worthy had an extensive twitter rant about how scott alexander may be an actual prophet, while quote-twitting another similarly afflicted person.

If you bother, which I barely did, this is what you're in for:

Trace says Scott has given up his will to power. but it's not a giveaway, it's a trade: if you don't seek power you retain the ability to seek unpolluted truth. here's this tradeoff explained by Curtis Yarvin, another reluctant prophet, whom Scott has definitely read:

eyeroll.gif

[–] slopjockey@awful.systems 7 points 8 months ago

Man I do NOT fuck with TracingWoodgrains. I assume that most of the people who interact with Hannania - and his ilk of wordy r9k robots and reply guys - is a a crypto-reactionary. But I think Tracey just really really likes tweeting and culture war fence straddling? Somehow it's still obnoxious.

Scott Alexander is one of the most gifted and prolific writers of our day—compelling and strikingly original on any number of topics.

An assessment of a writer's skill, with no regards to prose. This is what happens when the only text you consume come from techie microbloggers

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[–] sc_griffith@awful.systems 11 points 8 months ago (3 children)
[–] mii@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago

He seems to have the same amount of brain cells as a GPT at least.

[–] slopjockey@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Courtesy of r/programmingcirclejerk

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

Fucking Hetzner:

https://circumstances.run/@davidgerard/112161019007879382

i am deeply disappointed and annoyed

also billing cycle is 1 April lolollllllll

also where does one find a webhost that's any better? hetzner are great otherwise (a proper company, not a personal project), I used to strongly recommend them.

also they hate crypto

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 9 points 8 months ago (10 children)

AWS: you will pay. also, shit works. also, you get customer service.
Azure: you're running Windows, you hate yourself, probably both
Google: you have transcended beyond such earthly requirements as "customer service" or "functions that don't get deprecated in three years"
Hetzner: you run a herd of carefully groomed pets and not cattle
OVH: wot is dis "uptime" ov which u speek
Oracle: lol
Some Guy LLC: I would rather sign up with Oracle

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago

OVH is Some Guy LLC At Scale

and Google Cloud is Some Guy LLC At Scale At Scale

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[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

fuck sakes this is aggravatingly disappointing to see from them

I'd been a bit sour already because of the power and IP pricing pushes, but I know the former is bc putin. the latter fucking sucks, it's aggressive and feels like trying to get additional revenue for nothing (although I haven't compared RIPE pricing to see if this feeling bears out (and even then, fucking hello? fucking RIPE going on continual price ballooning is some other fucking shit too. but I digress...))

but what the fuck at this. I've had hetzner boxes with other people's shitty php getting content injected and growing coinminers and shit, and none of that has ever had a response like "you need to get rid of that domain/customer". it's had the usual temp-IP-blackhole crap (which I get)

[–] self@awful.systems 7 points 8 months ago

note that this instance is also on hetzner (cause I was also fairly happy with them til now, other than a bit of missing functionality), so suggestions of reasonably-priced alternatives that don’t suck and will let us run NixOS are appreciated

though I might need a bit of convincing if those alternatives take the form of “OVH doesn’t suck now” or “go ahead and put your human flesh near Larry Ellison”

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

i really really hope Hetzner can get their shit together here because this is a fucking pain to even think about. I got shit to do ya know.

every BOFH thinks they could do their own AWS with gaffer tape and paperclips. i actually thought "oh i could just" and then had to whack myself on the head with a newspaper and say NO

i have not the time any more for Some Guy LLC and especially not for being Some Guy LLC, there is good reason to go with the inhuman corporate behemoth and it's because i'm tiiiiired

you will always need your bofh skills in good order and a bugout bag of last night's fresh backups to hand, but given that one can camp out on Inhuman Corporate Behemoth for years

there's comp sci experiments and then there's services, but services are work and if i wanted to work i'd get a job

[–] m@blat.at 6 points 8 months ago

@dgerard @froztbyte I always tell people that the reason so many systems nerds (I don't use BOFH any more as that's.. not really an attitude I like identifying with, it hasn't aged well) use Macs. It's because once you get back from work, frankly, the LAST thing you want to do is system administration on your home machine and OS X is just *nix enough.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Update: Hetzner gives a non-apology that does not address the actual systemic issue

https://woem.men/notes/9rdj6cc1ku7g05xy

[–] self@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago

holy fuck hetzner what in the fuck are you doing. please stop having the lowest tier of the abuse team try to trick the woem.men admin into accepting the shit non-apology legal drafted as a way to try and head off a lawsuit. nobody cares that your PR department got inconvenienced by the strong public response to this (in fact, it’s a good thing)

go and very publicly commit to making policy changes that’ll protect LGBTQ+ folks or fuck off. shit in a way that’ll be legally expensive and embarrassing if you don’t follow through or get off the fucking pot. having your low-level IT staff pretend you’re Some Guy LLC is a bad fucking look. we all know the guy whose only job is to send threatening emails and press the “close account” button doesn’t have any power to do anything of substance. why in fuck is that guy still in the woem.men admin’s inbox making demands?

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Courts to Elon suing to protect Twitter's honour: fuck off (PDF). And fuck off a second time (PDF).

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] dgerard@awful.systems 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

I'm guessing the prosecutor gets something like the 45-50 they were asking for. Madoff got 150 years, though.

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[–] HotGarbage@awful.systems 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

https://www.reuters.com/legal/crypto-miner-pennsylvania-hit-with-lawsuit-over-pollution-bitcoin-mine-2024-03-26/

Buttcoin "miners" literally burning trash. Sponsored by a state who apparently have learned nothing from its 200+ years of environmental destruction.

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[–] mii@awful.systems 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Idk if this even meets the lowest-quality bar, but I just saw something on Reddit's Buttcoin sub, and the fact that this is a real headline is making me question my sanity. The future of finance, everyone.

And the AI-generated image is the cherry on top.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 8 points 8 months ago

Decrypt has been trying a desperate pivot to AI, and even essayed a few LK-99 pieces in superconductors' two weeks

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 7 points 8 months ago

Aah, the smell of second-tier dipshits fomo-farming on meme stocks by people who likely absolutely insist they “were there for the critical r/wsb moments”, such a unique aroma

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)
[–] earthquake@lemm.ee 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Awful at a technical level, tedious at a textual level, overall baffling that there is an audience for this. Everyone seems at times politely humoring to openly bored. The least interesting conversation happening at the worst party you've ever been to.

Please regard this video as a performance of No Exit.

[–] Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Thank fuck this is on twitter, narrowly avoiding the psychic damage

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

have these Dork Enlightenment fuckwits gone so whacko they've wrapped around to the other side of conspiracies and myths?!

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Transhumanism descended from Fyodorov's Cosmism, the Ineffectual Dork Web is shot through with whatever batshit Jordan Peterson is on, LessWrong can't tell that Christopher Langan is a kook....

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

yeah I recall the lineage. just...." the astral realm, ... the Age of Aquarius"

probably too many marvel multiverse movies, created fertile ground for people lap this shit up

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[–] dgerard@awful.systems 5 points 8 months ago

ah thank you for this one!

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