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 youāll 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 cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this.)
Project Gutenberg has AI generated summaries?? How the mighty have fallen.
I was researching a bizarre old sci-fi book I once read (donāt judge; bad old sci-fi is a trip), and Gutenbergās summary claims it was written in the 21st century. Thereās actually no accurate information about this book online, as far as I can tell the earliest reference is Project Gutenberg typing it up into a text file in 2003.
Given that itās in the public domain, no one has any idea where it came from, and it has old sci-fi vibes; I strongly suspect it was written in the 20th century*; making that misinformation. Itās also just a bad summary that, while not wrong, doesnāt really reflect the (amusingly weird) themes of the book.
Anyway someone needs to tell them that no information is leagues better than misinformation.
* maybe the '70s give or take but Iām not a professional date guesser
That is indeed troubling, casts a shadow on Project Gutenbergās judgement. Now I wonder how long until Wikipedia falls too :( Gosh, I miss being excited about new tech. Now new tech is just making things worse.
About that book, so it is more āgood badā instead of ābad badā? Maybe Iāll take a look, some light/weird reading might be better than doomscrolling (and these days thereās so much doom to scroll).
I donāt remember (reading it was a bit like a fever dream) but thereās a non-zero chance it has racist vibes in parts you have been warned.
But oh so quotable:
Okay thanks for the heads-up, I will give it a try. The āNote to the readerā it starts with is already pretty wildā¦ (unless thatās just part of the fiction. Edit: I assume itās part of the fiction)
Edit: okayā¦ a few pages in, I donāt think I can do this. The feeling of reading the first chapter reminded me a little of reading the timecube website.
Ick.