The spooks grow ever closer, and the abyss grows ever sandier.

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.)

  • mirrorwitch
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    2 days ago

    recently I got into crocheting and I was immediately thrown into the hobby drama about all the havoc that generative “AI” is wreacking into the community. fake slop patterns that don’t work, fake photos of impossible amigurumi, that kinda stuff.

    then I learned that, a few months ago, Hobbii, an once-beloved crafts supplier currently in a death spiral after being purchased by private equity, had the brilliant idea of alienating their entire client base by talking about how they love “AI” and use it all the time at the company. while firing a ton of people no less, including all the familiar faces that interacted with people online.

    in damage control during the entirely predictable backlash, the new CTO Tomas Antvorksov Krag posted this:

    While we take our responsibility very serious we have to explore new technologies as they enter the market or risk being left behind.

    My brother in Christ Tomas Antvorksov Krag CTO of Hobbii, you are the CTO of a textile crafts company. Every client of yours does crochet or knitting or fucking macramé by hand, for fun. What technology do you figure we would be afraid of being left behind by? The spinning jenny??

    • Rinn
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      1 day ago

      Yeah it’s really bad, I’ve been into crocheting and knitting (more of a knitter now) for about 2 years and if it’s not fake AI patterns or yarn companies dropping the ball, it’s pattern designers using AI to generate background pictures and stuff. I’ve been really disappointed with some people who really should have known better. You are in a creative, artistic hobby space! Why are you using a slop machine and devaluing work of other artists! Ugh.

      At least being on ravelry and checking out other people’s project attempts/pattern comments has so far saved me from falling for AI bs.

    • YourNetworkIsHaunted
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      2 days ago

      My wife has been talking about the scourge of AI in fiber arts for like a year or more, and when I asked if she had any brands that were still trustworthy she said “good luck, mate”.

      It’s so bad.

      • froztbyte
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        2 days ago

        I follow a couple (like, 2~3) of fiber arts people and that was about the impression I got too, it’s blown up with that much spill

    • Soyweiser
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      2 days ago

      risk being left behind

      Im also simply not sure how much of a risk that is, people keep saying that but I’m not sure being conservative on new tech has lead to much business closures the past 20 years.

      • samvines
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        2 days ago

        It’s just such a clichéd remark from AI bros now that I cringe whenever I hear it along with “sure the current model can’t do X but the next one will be able to bro… Just one more model bro”

    • rhamph
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      2 days ago

      I think there’s a typo: we have to explore new technologies as they enter the market TO risk being left behind [by our customers].

    • rmf
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      2 days ago

      Holy shit, I also got into crocheting last week. I have, however, managed to entirely avoid any hobby drama so far, but of fucking course this one is also being thrown into the fucking AI meatgrinder, ugh money people are so smart, man