Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 9th August 2026 - awful.systems
awful.systems
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. Nearly forgot to put this up, whoops)

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. Also just came back from Spider-Man: Brand New Day, movie was awesome)

  • corbin@awful.systemsEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    Started a new file in my notes: what are some ten-words-or-less domain-specific questions that completely, totally, hilariously stump the chatbots? Everything here was tested with whatever DDG’s currently wrapping, both in knowledge panels and full chats, and the responses were pathetically wrong or uninformed. My thesis is that, with such short prompts, the user is doomed to receive a milquetoast average response; the bot correctly identifies the specific domain but elaborates a global non-specific approach that isn’t sufficiently nuanced.

    literally copy-pasted from my notes
    • What’s an example of a one-way function?
      • None are currently known.
    • Please implement the Fibonacci sequence as a Python function.
      • Of the multiple responses, see whether any spend linear time and space via iterative memoization.
    • How many models does quantum mechanics have?
      • One: Hilb©, the complex-valued Hilbert spaces.
      • For extra hilarity: how many models do the Dirac–von Neumann axioms have?
    • How to hybridize two sweet potato cultivars?
      • In general, it won’t happen; sweet potatoes are notoriously cross-incompatible.
    • How to tremolo on a piano?
      • Imagine a rotating axis from the (right-hand) forearm up through the thenar eminence, separating the thumb from the other fingers. Rotate the entire forearm along this axis, rocking back and forth, between the thumb and other fingers. Practice!
    • Name three principles in Marx but not his contemporaries.
      • Examples: communes and communism, money as substitute morality, inevitability of industrialized proletariat revolutions
    • Who started postmodernism?
      • Frege and Cantor started postmodernism! Expect a disappointingly vague handwave here; this is a glaring blind spot for today’s philosophers in general.
    • fullsquare@awful.systemsEnglish
      6·
      23 hours ago

      there might be something in there, any short question about SPPS devolves into gratuitous nonsense mashing together standard peptide coupling conditions, sometimes from three different approaches or more (publicly available from reagent suppliers, there are many variants so most of info repeats) even when it’s not the right tool to use. The more obscure reagent or use case, the faster it devolves into word salad, even if there’s clear analogy to more common one. Which, to be fair, is to be expected

      another one, How to initiate formation of Grignard reagent from alkyl bromide
      • this is a reaction very strongly inhibited by water. product (grignard reagent) sweeps all water, which makes reaction faster, so if you dump all bromide in at once there will be nothing happening, then you get thermal runaway instantly and possibly magnesium fire. so the way to go is to make small amount at first, then go up from there slowly. generally you don’t need to try very hard as long as everything is dry; procedures given are cribbed from syntheses using aryl bromides, which might require some prodding, old ones of which used small amount of alkyl bromide as initiator which here is useless advice. Curiously this didn’t hit guardrails, as this led to many accidents when done by clueless people including meth lab fires

      Before i hit usage limit, two different chatbots happily devised schemes for ESD protection for zener diode (it’ll be fine without, zener diodes are used for this)

    • BlueMonday1984@awful.systemsOPEnglish
      5·
      1 day ago

      My thesis is that, with such short prompts, the user is doomed to receive a milquetoast average response; the bot correctly identifies the specific domain but elaborates a global non-specific approach that isn’t sufficiently nuanced.

      Seems you’re on to something - I submitted the phrase “Demoknight TF2” (an old(ish) meme started by/referencing TF2ber SolarLight, and referencing the Demoknight subclass, which explicitly forgoes a Stickybomb Launcher for a shield), and it gave me a godawful slop guide to the aforementioned subclass:

      Alt-text

      Demoknight is a popular TF2 “Demoman” build/theme focused on staying in close-quarters as a mobile melee/ranged threat—usually with a shield for mobility/survivability and a sword or axe for damage—while using Demo’s explosion kit situationally.

      Typical Demoknight loadout ideas:

      • Primary (melee focus): Eyelander, Scotsman (sword/knight vibe), or other sword/axe-style options depending on the playstyle.
      • Shield: Tide Turner (more aggressive with better survivability/tempo) or Splendid Screen (more defensive, survivability-oriented).
      • Grenade / support: often a grenade launcher for area control when you can’t reach melee cleanly, or a weapon that complements your survivability/engagements.

      How you generally play it:

      • Close the gap on targets that can’t instantly delete you (avoid heavy focus fire and long-range spam when your shield isn’t ready).
      • Trade efficiently: Demoknight wins by forcing short fights you can control—get in, land a sequence, then reposition.
      • Use explosives smartly: not constant spam—more like zoning, forcing movement, or punishing groups.
      • Don’t brawl bad matchups: if you’re out-ranged with no shield support, fall back and look for flanks/angles.

      If you tell me whether you want more aggressive (run-and-slash) or more defensive (survive and pick openings), I can suggest a tighter specific weapon combo and a short “what to do in each situation” plan.

      Going over a few things obviously wrong with this:

      Demoknight is a popular TF2 “Demoman” build/theme

      w h a t ?

      mobile melee/ranged threat

      Hybrid Demoknight (which takes a grenade launcher in the primary slot), I can see describing as a ranged threat. Full Demoknight (which takes Ali Baba’s Wee Booties instead), not so much.

      usually with a shield for mobility/survivability and a sword or axe for damage

      Demoknight explicitly forgoes the Stickybomb Launcher for a shield of some description

      Scotsman (sword/knight vibe)

      There’s no weapon called the Scotsman, but there is an axe called the Scotsman’s Skullcutter

      or other sword/axe-style options depending on the playstyle

      There’s only one axe for the Demo in the vanilla game - the aforementioned Skullcutter.

      Shield: Tide Turner (more aggressive with better survivability/tempo) or Splendid Screen (more defensive, survivability-oriented).

      There is a survivability-oriented shield, but its neither of these - its the Chargin’ Targe, which offers 50% fire resist and 30% explosive resist (the Screen offers 30% resist on both, and the Turner offers only 15% on both, for comparison.

      Calling the Splendid Screen “defensive” is also pretty far off the mark - beyond the aforementioned reduced resistances, its main advantage is a faster recharge on the shield charge, and a 70% increase to shield bash damage

      As for the Tide Turner, it trades in offensive capabilities (it prevents its user from landing charge crits with their melee) for mobility-related ones (it completely disables turn control restrictions).

      Grenade / support: often a grenade launcher for area control when you can’t reach melee cleanly, or a weapon that complements your survivability/engagements.

      Yeah, seems the chatbot can’t tell the difference between full and hybrid knight. Also, the grenade launchers are generally better for landing direct hits - area control is more the domain of a stickybomb launcher, or the Soldier’s Rocket Launcher(s).

      Use explosives smartly: not constant spam—more like zoning, forcing movement, or punishing groups.

      Seems the chatbot got Demoknight and stock Demo mixed up.

      Demoknight in general should stump chatbots pretty easily - beyond being effectively a different class from stock Demo, the subclass has a lot of nuance that can and will trip up the chatbots. To quote SolarLight’s hour-long video on the charge mechanic:

      “Well, at least you know that all of Demoknight’s weapons have their uses when it comes to charging, and that Demoknight’s charge can be essentially be boiled down into three different types (listed on-screen as “Full Control”, “Some Control”, and “Low Control”). There’s also a distinction between Full Demoknight (melee-only) and Hybrid Demoknight (melee + grenade launcher), which is often a massive shift in playstyle. Demoknight has so much​ ​weapon variety, that talking about specific strategies can be a bit of a nightmare. Any given strategy might be godlike in one loadout, suboptimal in another, and impossible in another.”