this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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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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Want to wade into the snowy surf of the abyss? 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 so 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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[–] mirrorwitch@awful.systems 3 points 51 minutes ago

my landlord's app in the past: pick through a hierarchy of categories of issues your apartment might have, funnelling you into a menu to choose an appointment with a technician

my landlord's app now: debate ChatGPT until you convince it to show you the same menu

as far as I can ascertain the app is the only way left to request services from the megacorp, not even a website interface exists anymore. technological progress everyone

[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 4 points 1 hour ago

Newgrounds user turned Audio Moderator Quest has put together a recap of 2025 (text version), providing stats for how much slop she's dealt with:

2025 Stats:

  • 2818 AI-Generated Tracks Flagged or Removed
  • 3656 Total Flagged or Removed Tracks
  • 12.7 GB Data Used by AI-Generated Tracks
  • 2843 Accounts Which Uploaded Prohibited Audio

Cumulative Stats (since 2024):

  • 4475 AI-Generated Tracks Flagged or Removed
  • 5731 Total Flagged or Removed Tracks
  • 18.93 GB Data Used by AI-Generated Tracks
  • 4113 Accounts Which Uploaded Prohibited Audio

AI Model Breakdown:

  • Suno AI: 82%
  • Udio AI: 5%
  • Riffusion AI: 1%
  • Other: 12%
    • RVC-Based: 0.6%
    • Soundful: 0.4%
    • Mixed: 0.2%
    • Various Other Models: 2.9%
    • Unknown: 7.9%

Reportedly, she's also got an essay-length sneer in the works:

Finally, I am also working on an even larger, long-form essay post about artificial intelligence, drawing a link to something that I do not see draw enough. It’s a big project with a lot of research and knowledgeable people guiding me. This will be released in the coming months. I have a lot to say.

[–] rook@awful.systems 5 points 2 hours ago

Blacksky has delivered on bluesky’s promise of federation by setting up their own app view, creating a complete and independent third party implementation.

https://blacksky.community/profile/did:plc:w4xbfzo7kqfes5zb7r6qv3rw/post/3mcozwdhjos2b

Mcc has an interesting thread on mastodon (https://mastodon.social/@mcc/115918042095581428) which asks a bunch of questions about what the actual consequences of this might be, and no-one really seems to know, but no-one has much faith in the engineering or moderation chops of the bluesky team.

It looks like bluesky is somewhat vulnerable to rich trolls, because the main barrier to entry is cost… blacksky has budget of maybe 80000 usd/year (https://opencollective.com/blacksky) which is well within the reach of a whole bunch of people prepared to spend money to be egregious assholes, especially if they already have access to suitable talent and equipment. It’ll be bleakly interesting to see who tries this first.

[–] EponymousBosh@awful.systems 8 points 5 hours ago
[–] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 7 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Economist John Quiggin posts a critique of William MacAskill's type of utilitarianism with confusing logic, has to retract it when a quote with chapter and verse in his main text does not exist:

Even though I have a clear memory of locating the third quotation in the Gutenberg edition, I can’t find it now. So, I;ve edited the post to deleted it. Apologies for this. I’m assuming the quote I found was some kind of AI confabulation, and that I slipped up on the check. I will need to double check more carefully in future.

(quote is from the comments I have not corrected or added sic)

He says he is writing a book against pro-natalism.

[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 9 points 11 hours ago

Starting off with a double bill of art-related sneers: