Mastodawn

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 30th November 2025 - awful.systems

https://awful.systems/post/6373632

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 30th November 2025 - awful.systems - awful.systems

Want to wade into the sandy 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 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.)

BlueMonday1984 Nov 24

New Blood in the Machine, about the slop-nami’s effects.

The slop layer

How AI has encrusted our culture and social sphere in a sedimentary layer of slop.

Blood in the Machine

He somehow did an ad read in the middle of a substack post. Sign of the times.

BlueMonday1984 Nov 26

That he’s being sponsored by DeleteMe is oddly fitting in its own right. Were it not for surveillance capitalism relentlessly stealing personal data and invading people’s privacy, its services would be completely unnecessary.

BlueMonday1984 Nov 25

An unnamed OSS project had its license vandalized by AI:

Its currently unnamed to avoid naming-and-shaming any specific devs, but its probably a Mozilla project that was affected.

fiona :BlinkingCursor: (@[email protected])

Today I was browsing the commit history of a project of a very well known open source software foundation that is now "focusing on AI". I almost lost my shit when I discovered that "Claude Code" started rephrasing the included copy of the Apache 2.0 license in a random bugfix commit. yes, they merged it. :blob_cat_sip_glare:

mystical.garden

gerikson Nov 24

Semi-relevant, Matthew Garrett has won a court case against the kooks running Techrights:

nondeterministic.computer/…/115581959497817474

About the only positive thing you can say about Schestowitz (and probably his wife) is that they are rabidly anti-AI, but that is only because they are also rabidly against anyone who does not subscribe to their personal purity-test vision of Free Software (basically it’s them, RMS, and maybe his parrot).

I have an unhealthy interest in them, because during the Andrew Lee putsch they were basically on his side, until he fucked even them, and I kinda drifted into their IRC server to see what was up. It was my unwelcome introduction to the toxic underbelly of FLOSS, with rampant RMS-worship, misogyny, racism and incipient techno-fascism. I ducked out quite quickly.

Tellingly, Techrights is all in on the Gemini protocol.

Matthew Garrett (@[email protected])

In and around 2023, Roy and Rianne Schestowitz were subject to a horrific campaign of online harassment. Unfortunately they blamed me for it, and in turn wrote and published an astonishing array of articles making false accusations against me. Last year, I sued them in the high court in London. In turn, they countersued me for harassment. The case was heard last month and I'm pleased to say that the counterclaim was dismissed and I prevailed in my case. The court awarded me £70,000 in damages.

Nondeterministic Computer

I never heard of Techrights before, they seem rather unhinged, but I had a good laugh when I saw this article about Lunduke. Not even the floss fundamentalists like Lundukes flavor of racist Linux “journalism”.

Techrights — Python is Attempting an Outreach to African-Americans, Microsoft Lunduke Has a Problem With That

flere-imsaho Nov 24

for what it’s worth schestowitzes don’t seem to understand that they lost a defamation case and should stop digging.

David Gerard Nov 25

That seems potentially unwise.

flere-imsaho Nov 25

such words never stopped dr. roy before.

Architeuthis Nov 24

No idea if it was intentional given how long a series’ production cycle can be before it ends up on tv/streaming, but it’s hard not to see Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus as a weird extended impact-of-chatbots metaphor.

It’s also somewhat tedious and seems to be working under the assumption that cool cinematography is a sufficient substitute for character development.

BB and BCS were both kinda slow burns IMO. That’s not to say the new show is worth holding onto (haven’t seen it), just commenting on the trend.

So I got jumpscared recently because that couple were referenced. I was listening to one of my many favourite podcasts, Threedom, when on the most recent episode, “I Definitely Tuned Out and I Agree With You”, this exchange happened, starting around 44 minutes, give or take 10 for ads.

spoiler tagged exchange, in case you are a pisspig* and don't want spoilers.

Context: the hosts are talking about how they value fostering their children’s expressive abilities, even if that means their children do things like scream in inappropriate situations. Scott: I guess what I’m trying to say is that some parents would look at us, and say, like, “oh, you’re not teaching them how to act in social situations or whatever,” Paul: Yes, you should slap them across the face, in the store. <laughter> Scott: Who was that… that… that, like, person who… there’s some parent out there that thinks that you need to like have a million kids or whatever and uh, and a paper writer followed them around and he just smacked his kid right in front of the paper writ-, er… the journalist? Uh, anyway… Lauren: Paper writer? Scott: Yeah, sorry, sorry, Journalist. Paul: Couldn’t sound more specific, and yet I don’t know. <end of reference>

Tried too hard transcribing this and still feel like I did a bad job.

Anyway, gosh, congrats to them on their extreme success in being platformed. Couldn’t have been a more deserving couple. /s

*pisspig is the name given to a fan of the podcast Threedom. The fans picked the name, the hosts aren’t really sure why.

Threedom | iHeart

Scott Aukerman, Lauren Lapkus and Paul F Tompkins abandon their regular formats to focus on the basics of being funny with each other. Can’t wait to hear more episodes? For more info and archive episodes go to www.lemonadamedia.com. Sales and Distribution by Lemonada Media https://lemonadamedia.com/

iHeart

Jonathan Hendry Nov 24

I do think this is the optimal way for the couple to be referenced in media.

Soyweiser Nov 25

Remember the german lawyer who tried to vibe code some compiler fixes. He did it again and learned nothing

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 18th May 2025 - awful.systems

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.)

flere-imsaho 🇺🇦Nov 25

@Soyweiser @BlueMonday1984 jesus. zero understanding. zero will to understand, only grandstanding.

Maybe he doesn’t (can’t ?) understand who much of Software Development is filled with time-wasting, pursuing dead-ends. I’m not sure if there’s a good analogy for a law practice, pouring hours into trying to apply a legal code that is no longer in force?

He does seem very sure of his own rightousness, the problem is “Developer Burnout” not “Substandard Submissions”. What does he even envision when expressing a desire for more “Human-centric” development that incorporates “LLMs”? Is it just grandstanding word salad?

Going to apply the same level of respect he has for software dev on law. Lawyers bill by the hour, it’s completely the opposite of software development.

flere-imsaho 🇺🇦Nov 25

@zogwarg awful goose meme, but with the goose pursuing the dude and asking the question “so what are the reasons for developers' burnout, lawyer dude? what are the reasons for developers' burnout?”

mirrorwitch Nov 25

Reading him downtalking over Mesa compiler core and Vulkan programmer Faith Ekstrand is one of the most infuriating things I’ve ever read. I had to stop before I started emanating cartoon fumes. I think this guy has invented a new low: the vibe-mansplaining, which leverages the inherently mansplainy nature of LLMs to put down an actual woman on her topic of expertise.

JFC, man. Fuck this snivelling weasel. I read the whole thing. How dare he even suggest he has a fleck of humility in his being. He goes in saying he submitted his changes as an RFC instead of a pull request, but goes balls deep on trying to defend his work as worthy of submitting. Utter bullshit.

Some quotes:

My explicit statement of having “no desire to actually learn about the Mesa code-base” was not seen as a gesture of honest humility,

“I have no intent on understanding this codebase that I’m 100% sure I’ve created a good change for, be grateful, peasants.”

also, him, explicitly not a developer, spake thusly:

This sentiment exposes the raw nerve of the open-source world: developer burnout.

vibe codes once I am become jeff, coder at google

Finally, this massive turd:

The Mesa project’s updated contributor guidelines, which now demand that any submitter of AI-assisted code must understand it as if they wrote it themselves, has been lauded by some as a pragmatic solution. I contend it is a policy of convenience, a blunt instrument designed not to solve a complex problem, but to legislate it out of existence. It is a fortress wall built to protect the status quo, and while it may offer the illusion of security, it does so at the cost of innovation and by silencing a new and potentially valuable class of contributors. The discussion should not end here, with a policy that prioritizes procedural purity over measurable progress. The true challenge has been misdiagnosed; the pathology is not the “user with an AI,” but a rigid, legacy process that lacks the antibodies to handle a new form of discovery.

Honestly this guy should just start his own fucking codebase where him and his promptfondling circlejerk buddies can vibecode bricks together.

Soyweiser Nov 25

Yeah I was reminded of this guy by some posts on bsky, and mentioned there I didn’t want to link to him directly because I don’t think that kind of stuff is nice and just leads to harassment, but reading those two new blog posts really made me doubt that for a moment. (Of course only posting it here is a good alternative, looking back at the old posts I had also forgotten that he just was a weird conservative).

I also found the part where he said ‘I even labeled it as an experiment’ quite annoying, that he doesn’t realize that this doesn’t matter at all. The developers still need to evaluate it like any normal post, and he didn’t even ask them permission to do the experiment.

“I even labeled it as an experiment. A social experiment, some might say. I’m saying it was just a prank, bro. But really you’re the bad person because you were mean to me.” This is DARVO, right?

You’re right that sharing this stuff leads to harassment, at least a lot of the time. I have no interest in personally engaging with this fuck.

Soyweiser Nov 25

I’m esp weary of sharing stuff like this on a place like bsky, esp when I was just replying to others being a bit annoyed at people doing LLM based PRs. Hope people here have better self control at not actually going after people.

One would hope! Don’t piss in the popcorn, as they say. Also, don’t do any stupid shit that might cause more work for our glorious admins, i.e. leave a trail of breadcrumbs back to awful.systems.

BlueMonday1984 Nov 25

Honestly this guy should just start his own fucking codebase where him and his promptfondling circlejerk buddies can vibecode bricks together.

GitHub - ms178/archpkgbuilds: A couple of custom PKGBUILDs for Arch Linux and derivatives

A couple of custom PKGBUILDs for Arch Linux and derivatives - ms178/archpkgbuilds

GitHub

the obnoxious self-aggrandizement is dripping all over the text, not the least of which when he conceptualizes himself as a part of a “new and potentially valuable class of contributors”, as if the addition of a slop-generator can transform the layperson into someone capable of contributing to a complex software project. but that’s old news. here’s what’s getting me now:

For a project like Mesa, which uses the permissive MIT license, accidentally incorporating a snippet of code that carries the “viral” obligations of the GPL could potentially trigger a legal catastrophe. Faith Ekstrand drove this point home with a chillingly practical example: “If we piss off Nvidia and they sue us, the project is over. It doesn’t matter whether or not we can theoretically win.”

this is a legal issue – this should be Seyfarth’s home turf! obviously he can’t code and has a sneering contempt for anyone who learns to do so, but in this micro-instance, giving an informed legal opinion on how this issue could be handled would actually be in the Mesa project’s best interests! let’s see how he

However this is a hypothetical scenario and there are several ways to mitigate such legal risks. Most projects already shift the legal burden to the contributor. The project still has to reject any code that openly violates the licensing terms, but if such violations are not obvious, there is little legal risk to the project itself.

“it wouldn’t happen, and even if it did, you could just try to sacrifice your individual developers to NVIDIA one at a time and hope that makes them go away.” great cool thank you. this is the best you’ve got with your legal background. fantastic. what an utter tool

ooh, just found out he has a post tripling down. it’s a rather rich text, maybe could stand to be its own post

When Compiler Engineers Act As Judges, What Can Possibly Go Wrong? How LLVM's CoC Committee Violated Its Own Code

LLVM Code of Conduct

sinedpick Nov 25

Blog von Marcus Seyfarth, LL.M.

LOL

Soyweiser Nov 26

And all of this over a local 1% speed increase. Which he imagines just works just as well for everyone else. (I noted the Rationalism style, calculate this minor increase over all potential (imagined) users to make it into a big thing bit as well).

And his source for the increase? He played two games. (One of which was cyberpunk, which iirc can be weird re gpu optimizations, so it isn’t even a reliable indication).

what i got from reading this is that it’s not X, but Y.

sc_griffith Nov 25

Fourth episode of our podcast about historical misogynist and bigoted texts, odium symposium, is out now. We discuss classic british racist enoch powell and his “rivers of blood” speech.

www.patreon.com/posts/144105193

(it should be available on every platform)

YourNetworkIsHaunted Nov 26

Finally had a chance to listen, continuing to enjoy it greatly and commenting here in liu of having patreon money.

I feel like some of what you talk about with Powell’s libertarian economics contrasting with his racist cultural chauvinism seems to tie in with our good friends in silicon valley and the way their libertarianism seems to have moved so swiftly into technofascism and getting on board with The Guy. Being openly racist appears to have been almost like the missing piece that ties it into an internally consistent political project.

sc_griffith Nov 27

ooh it’s too bad we’ve already recorded the next episode because this comment would 100% have made it into the discussion. about half the episode is a breakdown of sartre’s theory of the bigot’s psychology.

what you’re saying about loud and proud racism as an internal integrative element makes so much sense to me. economic libertarians want to dissolve the state and that’s in tension with their (economic, emotional, whatever) reliance on the state. you can resolve the dissonance of that contradiction by making it your mission to organize society along racial lines

irelephant [he/him]Nov 25

BlueMonday1984 Nov 25

Well, at least the website isn’t vibe-coded. Considering the creator’s an out-and-proud promptfondler (as seen on his Twitter), that’s genuinely shocking.

irelephant [he/him]Nov 25

I honestly don’t know how these people are comfortable posting those things with their real name and face attached.

gerikson Nov 25

m’lady

sinedpick Nov 25

this is very fashtech coded, happy to be proven wrong though.

irelephant [he/him]Nov 25

It is, that’s why I was sharing it. I probably should have made that clear.

Sailor Sega Saturn Nov 25

Based Linux is another non-Woke option if you want a Debian based system that supports systemd, Wayland, XLibre and the GNU tools.

Do… do you think he realizes that Debian is “woke”?

Also I wonder what his beef with Rust is? Is Rust woke?

gerikson Nov 25

Linux puritans are as fissile as the OG Puritans. There’s already Devuan which is Debian minus systemd, and now with XLibre. Not sure why this nerd thinks his particular non-denominational chapel will bring in the crowds to hear him sermonize.

Edit BTW Devuan for me is the epitome of FLOSS techfash.

flere-imsaho Nov 25

it’s good.

BlueMonday1984 Nov 25

Also I wonder what his beef with Rust is? Is Rust woke?

Rust has a Code of Conduct and is allegedly highly popular among trans programmers, so you’re likely on the money

Code of conduct

A language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software.

nightsky Nov 25

Also I wonder what his beef with Rust is? Is Rust woke?

I’ve seen this before. There is a special type of person out there who feels emasculated (yeah it’s always men, isn’t it) by the idea of a language statically enforcing memory-safety. Because, you know, real men write C or C++ with no safety rope and no seatbelt, juggling with raw pointers and chainsaws with their bare hands. They think that the only reason why C/C++ has produced an infinite abundance of bugs and security holes is because other programmers just suck. But they are different, they can handle it, they are very clever after all. And they won’t let some wusses take away their powers with all these ideas of memory safety by design.

Sailor Sega Saturn Nov 26

As a C++ programmer some Rust people can come on a little strong, as if I’ve never thought about the importance of memory safety before and don’t know how to write secure code (well excuse me for building on top of decades of libraries that no one thought to write in rust in the '80s).

But that’s normal programmer flame war stuff. Rust people tend to be young and enthusiastic about security which is all good.

pretty much every programming language discussion I’ve ever been in has at least one person come in with a chip on their shoulder, ready to burn down civilisation in the name of readability or ease of use or memory safety or what have you.

IMO it’s an abyss staring thing; you spend enough time in the code mines and you’ll discover some gleaming orb of fascination. Hypothetically this is cured by grass touching. I have been both places.

That is why I’m proud to announce my new, everything safe programming language: C’thlaglthorp, or Ctt for short.

⠀̸͓͑̌͆͜

T̷̡̬͖͓̲͒ĥ̴̼͑͗̏͗̐e̴̡̧̦̘̘͉̮̠͍͕̩̫̐̎̎̃͆̄͗̇̂̋́̕͠͝ͅ ̴̧̭͎̮̯̥̣̻͍̫͇̼̪̅̋̈́̃̈̾̆̀̓̓͊͂͝ă̵̧̨͎͓͇̦̝͖͎̓̿͠b̸̨̮͚̣̪̪̪͉̮̙͇͎̍͗̕ý̸̘̘ş̷̣̲͙͓̫̎̿̍̈́͛͗́́͝s̶̞̣͖̼̓̅̀̀̉́̃̈́̾̋̄̎͐̀͘͠ ̸͓̈̔͒̽͝w̵̨͚͖̟͚͇̠̘̻͍͕̲̯͍̑́̀͗́̋̀́͛͜͜͠ĭ̸̳̜̰̥̘̟̠̈́͜l̴̡̧̝̣̂͌̿̍̍̿̋l̶̳̙̰̱̫͉̥̃̇̌̂́̈́́͜ ̵̧̤̻̗͈͓̫̮̳͐͊̀̔̍̈̈́̋͂̚͝k̴̨̛͕̠͇͓̝̝̻̘̱͔̫̰̆͂̌̂̀̂̑̈̋͝͠ĕ̷̯̥̝̟̓̓͑̀ę̵̡̨̨͕͍͔̮͂͋̈̍͒̿͛p̸͇̥̺̅͋͐̿͑̿̎͐̈́͛͝͠ ̶̡̟̫͍̲̗͖̓́̽̐̀̀̇̿͝ÿ̴̢̨͚̟̘̼̭͓̘̲̫̮̩̠̺͉̀͜ớ̶̢̪̤͉͎̟̻̩̣̹̬̈́̅̉̈́͂̓̎͌̾͗̓̕͠u̶̗̥͔̹̝̦͕͎͎͍̹͓͕̾̑́ ̷͍̓̃̏̐̄̒̿̅͂̎̉̈́̚s̵̠̭̠͈̖̺͕̬̞͖̫̿̊́̾̾̕̕ͅá̵̯͓͙͕̉͛͌͛̋̕͘f̶̢̛͈͎̥̗̫͇͕̘̦̙̋̇̓̍̊̋͆̓̈͐̚̚͘͜ͅȩ̷͙̝̳̲̈́̽̈́̍̐͝͠

bitofhope Nov 26

People who dislike C’thlaglthorp tend to come in two camps: the ones that prefer significant whitespace and the ones that don’t.

nightsky Nov 26

I was only describing a specific kind of person, certainly wasn’t trying to imply that C/C++ devs generally have no care for security

Sailor Sega Saturn Nov 26

Oh yeah I got that no worries.

David Gerard Nov 26

Rust is the tr*ns language with programmer socks, you see

TrashGoblin Dec 1

I’m surprised they include systemd and Wayland. Those are usually on the anti-woke Linux hitlist.

flamingos-cant (hopepunk arc)Nov 25

Looking at their Twitter and it’s apparently going to use GNOME. Wonder how that’s going to work with GNOME removing X11 support.

irelephant [he/him]Nov 25

It’s probably going to just use an ancient version, if this thing ever even gets made.

flamingos-cant (hopepunk arc)Nov 25

Imagine devoting your precious life to making MATE for GNOME 3.

blakestacey Nov 25

Bloomberg covers the disastrous impact of AI upon food recipes, while still putting an “AI overview” on the top of the page…

In interviews, 22 independent food creators said that AI-generated “recipe slop” is distorting nearly every way people find cooking advice online, damaging their businesses while causing consumers to waste time and money.

Across the internet, writers say their vetted recipes are hidden by the flood. Pinterest feeds are stuffed with AI-generated images of food that the attached instructions won’t achieve; Google’s AI Overviews surface error-filled cooking steps that siphon away clicks from professionals. Meanwhile, Facebook content farms use AI-generated images of supposedly delicious but impossible dishes to the top of people’s feeds, in an attempt to turn any clicks into ad revenue.

All of this, food bloggers say, erodes the simple promise of a recipe: that someone has actually cooked it before you have. To Gargano, this is the core issue. “No matter how clever the AI is,” she said in a recent interview, “it can never actually test a recipe in a real kitchen and see how it works.”

[…]

For Carrie Forrest, who runs Clean Eating Kitchen, AI has been devastating: 80% of her traffic — and her revenue — has disappeared in two years. Although the views started dropping when OpenAI’s ChatGPT was released, it wasn’t until Google launched AI Mode in search that her traffic collapsed, she said. Since then, she’s gone from employing about ten people to letting everyone go. “I’m going to have to find something else to do.”

This holiday season is on track to be Forrest’s slowest in years. She fears that if more content creators give up, the AI won’t have new content to draw from — except content generated by AI. It may get to a point where “AI is just talking to itself,” and home cooks are gambling with the results, she said.

sinedpick Nov 25

I have a hard time blaming AI specifically for the degradation of information sharing. I think we already lost the plot when we started relying on a centralized entity (Google) to “index the world’s information and make it useful”. Ad-tech already fucked up all of the incentives, making recipe sites fill their pages with bullshit in hopes of wiping my eyeballs with messages from third parties hungry for attention. I fucking hate this world.

Sailor Sega Saturn Nov 25

I saw this food on social media the other day which was allegedly caused by a Chat-GPT recipe: reddit.com/…/my_wife_tried_a_chatgpt_crockpot_rec…

gerikson Nov 26

Saw this quality nickname for prompt receivers: Chet Jippity

In French ChatGPT sounds like “Chatte j’ai pété” meaning “Pussy, I farted”.

YourNetworkIsHaunted Nov 26

This bounced off of the earlier stub about LLM recipes to create a new cooking show: Chef Jippity. The contestants are all sous chefs at a new restaurant, with the head of the kitchen being some dumbass who blindly follows the instructions of an LLM. Can you work around the robot to create edible food or will Chef Jippity run this whole thing into the ground and lose everyone their jobs? Find out Thursday on Food Network!