this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025

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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 19th January 2025 - awful.systems (awful.systems)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week 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

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week 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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Google+ but worse

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

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

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (4 children)

oh, no no

nooooo no no no

there isn't an opt-out button

there is only:

"Continue",
"Learn More"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week 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

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week 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)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Thanks for sharing this. Also

using your own head must weigh far too heavy

absolute chef's kiss

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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

(I have mixed feelings about that)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

haha thanks

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Some news on the people who own/run protonmail. They are pro Trump

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

mv protonmail protrumpmail

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

fucking hell. well i guess moving all my shit elsewhere has become my midweek project instead of my procrastinate-project.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I am also in the "scream and cry" phase of this. However, I have already decided on the following replacements for non-email:

Mullvad VPN
Ente for photos and photo backup
2a. their authenticator also slaps
Filen for cloud storage^[1]^
Bitwarden for password management
4a. Keyguard is great if you are on Android. I am looking into^[2]^ other (non CLI) Bitwarden-compatible password managers for Desktop

edit: Should mention that I am also looking into a calendar replacement.

edit2: maybe mailbox.org? They are recommended on PrivacyGuides.org.

1: This is more like a stopgap for me until I confirm they are worth sticking with or find someone better. The 29.99€ 100GB lifetime storage may be worthwhile for this (though I cannot say whether I am confident they will be around in 5 years, this can at least serve as a short-term solution).
2: lassitude

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This might be a good basis for a sticky post in NotAwfulTech!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

I’m all for stickying a post if one appears!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Thanks! I actually plan on putting a couple of things on Mataroa:

"Here is a list of shit you can do to make your computer suck less (would contain the above)"
"Here is how to make your Pixel phone less frustrating in 2024 (basically, how to use user profiles to create a dumb phone without the massive security issues or headache of 'oh, actually I do need that app occasionally')"

(Aside: if anyone can recommend a better blogging platform, I would appreciate it. I like Mataroa for its privacy focus, minimalism, and low cost-of-leaving. The only issue I have is lack of KaTeX/MathML/however-the-fuck-omg-why-is-TeX-still-trying-to-hurt-me-in-2025 support.)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Aside: if anyone can recommend a better blogging platform, I would appreciate it.

so I can’t promise better, but you’re eligible for an account on the awful.systems blogging platform if you want one. it has MathML! it has jank! you can modify the frontend by PRing into a repo!

it hasn’t seen much use yet, but I was planning on posting a short story I’m writing there when it’s done. I can also say that as much as I don’t like WriteFreely on the web, its phone app is surprisingly ok

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Filen does photos too, so you could consolidate 2 and 3 into one. I went and bought 500 GB lifetime storage on their Black Friday offer. Let’s see if they stick around. So far the experience has been smooth.

And if you mention mailbox.org, let me throw Posteo.com into the mix. Basically the same offer, but where mailbox presents itself a bit more business-like, Posteo seems to market itself towards individuals. I moved my mails there and are quite happy with it, but you have to roll encryption yourself. No auto solutions like Proton or Tuta.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Last time this came up, I considered Posteo but decided to hold off (I think it was actually you who suggested it ❤). There was a concern I had about deleting an account due to inactivity, but I think I just misunderstood or misremembered something on PrivacyGuides. This might be a good choice.

As far as Filen for photos, I am reasonably confident that Ente will stick around (they seem to take sustainability seriously). Stuff like this worries me about Filen (emphasis mine):

What else is planned for Black Friday this year?
As every year, we’ve planned a special surprise to give back to our loyal users this Black Friday. Just like in previous years, we won’t be revealing any details just yet. All I can suggest is to check in with us around November 18th—you won’t want to miss it!

Are lifetime plans stackable?
Yes, we'd like to emphasize once again that all types of our plans can be easily combined. Subscription plans only expire based on their individual purchase dates.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (6 children)

proton’s ceo is, at this moment, trying to post through it on multiple official company accounts

thank fuck I switched to tuta

[I hold up a hand to my earpiece and make a horrified face]

a second milkshake has hit the duck (cw: fetishized racism, you know the one)

I’m waiting to hear back from tuta about what the fuck but this might be the reason why I hop providers again

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Here is their response:

@mav Yes, this was bad. I did not take a screenshot back then (the post was deleted after 30 minutes), but I scrolled all my way through Mastodon to find our apology:

https://mastodon.social/@Tutanota/108910936764865962

https://mastodon.social/@Tutanota/108910937813834878

This was a mistake, we apologized & we made sure that we would never post something similar again.

At Tuta, we foster honesty, respect & diversity.

We are here to fight for privacy & against Big Tech surveillance. We want everyone to get the respect they deserve.

and this:

@shalf We set up guidelines that all team members on social media duty need to adhere to. We also created a social media review group where we post & discuss every proposal before actually publishing. And it has worked fine ever since. :)

Content of Apology

Dear Privacy Fans,

Last week, on Friday, a post was made on our social media profiles which goes against our core values as team members and as a company. This post was made in poor judgement, without stopping and examining the underlying racist and sexist problems posed by this meme template, and it does not represent the culture and environment of the Tutanota Team. After a period of approximately 30 minutes the offensive post was removed from all platforms and a "brief" apology was posted.

This brief apology does not go far enough to address this mistake and we would like to update everyone on how we are working to address this issue internally and how we will make sure that this does not happen again. As a company we are working with all of our team members to foster a culture that respects diversity in all forms. This is both on a personal level between colleagues, but also at an institutional level by working to create structures which allow diversity to flourish.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I mean… it’s an apology, I don’t know what I was expecting. this still feels like a bigger, redder flag than the one cop who called them a honeypot (and at the same time didn’t seem to know what tuta is) — is this really a service I feel safe recommending marginalized people use? probably not, they should use signal. is it even suitable for the “grandma & drug dealer” use case? that question’s a bit more difficult.

could they really have said or done anything to fix this? shit, I don’t know. maybe I need to dig a lot more into who and what tuta actually is. I ran into one of their (former?) developers on mastodon and they seem to outwardly be marginalized and antifascist. if that’s what tuta’s composed of internally, then I’m a lot more able to trust them. until I do that checking though, I don’t think I’ll recommend tuta to anyone who might need it — the opsec risk of trusting your keypair to a company run by assholes is very high, especially in the current climate.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I agree. Currently I can't recommend any email providers. Hopefully Posteo works out, but at this point I am strongly considering just starting my own competitor in the vein of Signal messenger. Basically "we think of email as a public good."

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

jfc

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

@dgerard

Someone should write a dissertation about that porn video and the memes.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Shit's so diseased its a sequel to Tuskegee. They cooked this cack with CIA-grade crack.

(I have no rational way to respond to this - I'm just trying some Dracula Flow-type shit and hoping it lands.)

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

Scooter pulls out Richard Lynn’s national IQ figures. https://archive.is/BJ6bd

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Only got a paragraph in because of the cheerful citation of aporia (the big Nazi website)

I love how he goes on and on about how it actually totally makes sense for the average IQ in Malawi to be 60 because most people don't graduate school, ignoring that Lynn's methodology wasn't up to any basic standard

And by love I mean I fucking hate it

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

oh my god i didn't catch that this was astro slate star and thought i was reading some overtly racist piece of shit instead of a covert racist piece of shit. i haven't kept up with him lately but this this seems very fucked up even by scott's standards.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

isn't it racist / dumb to say they have 60 IQ?

no according to Kirkegaard

Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu (pause to catch breath) uh.

A well at least the mask is totally off now.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

"Isn't this a racist thing to say? Not according to Hitler!"

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

jesus fucking christ

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

bonus steve sailer in the comments

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That isn't a bonus. He is always in the comments.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is what I get for not following these people!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It remains one of those small !!fun!! facts that while Marxbro got permad for being annoying and correct about Marx, Sailer only got a temp ban while being wrong, racist but nice (he has been banned at least once, but racists play by the Tusken Raider rules if not permad)

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

new developments in things understanding by promptfondlers https://feddit.uk/post/22751391

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Underlying original post: a Twitter bluecheck says,

Sometimes in the process of writing a good enough prompt for ChatGPT, I end up solving my own problem, without even needing to submit it.

Matt Novak on Bluesky screenshots this and comments,

AI folks have now discovered "thinking"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Possibly I’m the last to hear about this one, but seeing as proton mail has come up here a few times before: the founder and ceo Andy Yen is apparently a Trump fan.

Great pick by @realDonaldTrump. 10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned. People forget that the current antitrust actions against Big Tech were started under the first Trump admin.

(from the beginning of december, on the nomination of trump staffer Gail Slater to antitrust post at the doj)

https://xcancel.com/andyyen/status/1864436449942110660

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Sorry I and some others missed this post talking about the tweet so we have two top level ones atm. My more sensational post about the subject got a bit more attention. So you were not late but early.

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