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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 4th May 2025 (awful.systems)

submitted 3 weeks ago by BlueMonday1984@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.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

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[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 10 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Newsom is pitching Generative AI to make government more "efficient" : https://abc7.com/post/gavin-newsom-announces-ai-driven-efforts-help-california-reduce-traffic-jams-improve-road-safety/16279785/

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[–] TinyTimmyTokyo@awful.systems 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

ChatGPT tells prompter that he's brilliant for his literal "shit on a stick" business plan.

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[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

plex has decided that it is no longer worth maintaining merely partial tax on those who "want more", and has decided to continue on their path to become the bridgetroll:

As of April 29, 2025, we’re changing how remote streaming works for personal media libraries, and it will no longer be a free feature on Plex. Going forward, you’ll need a Plex Pass, or our newest subscription offering, Remote Watch Pass, to stream personal media remotely.

As a server owner, if you elect to upgrade to a Plex Pass, anyone with access to your server can continue streaming your server content remotely as part of your subscription benefits. Not sure which option is best for you? Check out our plans below to learn more.

got your own server and networking and happy to stream from your home setup? no more. the extractivist rentlords are hungry.

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[–] saucerwizard@awful.systems 8 points 3 weeks ago

OT: does anyone else get David and David Gerrold confused all the time?

Also I’m in Viljandi!

[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Stumbled across a piece from history YTer The Pharaoh Nerd publicly ripping into AI slop, specifically focusing on AI-generated pseudohistory found on YouTube Shorts.

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

The insistence on blipping out anything even vaguely sexual (like the word orgasm) to appease the kami of the algorithm is really off putting after a while.

I thought he might be doing a bit but it doesn't feel like it. Also he speaks like old comic word balloons where they would randomly bold every third noun to show intensity.

[–] nightsky@awful.systems 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (9 children)

Warning: you might regret reading this screenshot of elno posting a screenshot. (cw: chatbots in sexual context)

oh noooo no no no

...but that brings me back to questions about "what does interaction with LLM chatbots do to human brains".

EDIT: as pointed out by Soyweiser below, the lower reply in the screenshot is probably satire.

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[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

From:  The Sentry Team <noreply@sentry.io>
Subject:	Update to Sentry’s List of Subprocessors
...
 - Google LLC (Google Cloud Services) and OpenAI, L.L.C. are now reflected as subprocessors for all Sentry products, instead of select features only; and
 - Anthropic, PBC is now added as a subprocessor.

sigh

they do still have user-specified controls (and appear to respect them), but... sigh

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