Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 8th February 2026
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Re datacenters in space:
Multiple hackernews insist that SpaceX must have discovered new physics that solves orbital heat management, because otherwise Musk and the stockholders are dumb.
Edit: may have gotten the ol URL switcharoo:
Current top comment is nice (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46862435
it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sunās power
We currently make around 1 TW of photovoltaic cells per year, globally. The proposal here is to launch that much to space every 9 hours, complete with attached computers, continuously, from the moon.
edit: Also, this would capture a very trivial percentage of the Sunās power. A few trillionths per year.
Multiple hackernews insist that SpaceX must have discovered new physics that solves orbital heat management, because otherwise Musk and the stockholders are dumb.
The leaps in logic are so idiotic āhe managed to land a rocket up right, so maybe he can pull it off!ā (as if Elon personally made that happen, or as if a engineering challenge and fundamental thermodynamic limits are equally solvable). This is despite multiple comments replying with back of the envelope calcs on energy generation and heat dissipation of the ISS and comparing it to what you would need for even a moderately sized data center. Or even the comments that are like āmaybe there is a chanceā, as if it is wiser to express uncertaintyā¦
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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 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 so 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.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. A lot of people didnāt survive January, but at least we did. This also ended up going up on my accountās cake day, too, so thatās cool.)
YCombinator will let founders accept payments in butts:
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YCombinator will let founders accept payments in butts:
āThey pretend to pay us, we pretend to workā
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YCombinator will let founders accept payments in butts:
pegged butts
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Navigation stuff is unfortunately (and embarrassingly) critical for me, otherwise Iād be in total agreement with you.
Iāve been deliberately learning to navigate without GPSes and tech devices, as a life skill (also on foot/public transport). Iām terrible at navigating, but Iām realising navigating is kinda like handwritingāin that itās very easy to fall into the trap of saying āIām terrible at thisā as a kind of immutable personality trait, while in fact itās perfectly expected that one is bad at a skill that one never uses, and turns out I can get better at it even with a little bit of deliberate practice. I suck at things but I can improve.
In the meantime when I use an electronic map to navigate, I still would rather stick a smartphone to the dashboard a car and use whatever navigation app I prefer, than have the screens and navigators built into the car.
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Iāve been deliberately learning to navigate without GPSes and tech devices, as a life skill (also on foot/public transport). Iām terrible at navigating, but Iām realising navigating is kinda like handwritingāin that itās very easy to fall into the trap of saying āIām terrible at thisā as a kind of immutable personality trait, while in fact itās perfectly expected that one is bad at a skill that one never uses, and turns out I can get better at it even with a little bit of deliberate practice. I suck at things but I can improve.
In the meantime when I use an electronic map to navigate, I still would rather stick a smartphone to the dashboard a car and use whatever navigation app I prefer, than have the screens and navigators built into the car.
OT but, though this is mostly about appreciating things in nature rather than navigating a city by car or on foot, this book has helped me a lot with not being anymore a person with a ābad sense of directionā, even when walking downtown: The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley . I really recommend it for people who hike, even occasionally.
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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 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 so 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.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. A lot of people didnāt survive January, but at least we did. This also ended up going up on my accountās cake day, too, so thatās cool.)
Today in excellent cold opens: āI didnāt talk to ChatGPT, I never have. Instead, I took a load of edibles and laid down in the driveway with the hose on. I produced nothing of value and wasted a ton of water, but at least I ate three protein bars so Iām so healthy.ā
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OT but, though this is mostly about appreciating things in nature rather than navigating a city by car or on foot, this book has helped me a lot with not being anymore a person with a ābad sense of directionā, even when walking downtown: The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley . I really recommend it for people who hike, even occasionally.
Iāll check this out, thanks!!
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once again, the facade of the āwhoops, bad companyā falls to the ground the moment she needs her hands to fill the pompoms instead of hold up the venetian mask
::: spoiler transcript a quote tweet by @XiWellWisher, reads: āSo whatās the deal with this ghastly woman again? Sheās a sort of silicon valley Ghislaine Maxwell?ā
the quoted tweet by aella reads: āThereās apparently a pro-billionaire protest in SF on the 7th. I might go to this to support! Anybody else going?ā :::
also, real weird account name on that account, wonder if itās a sock
robin hanson blocked me for referring to him as aella with tenure. i now think that heās ghislaine maxwell with tenure
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YCombinator will let founders accept payments in butts:
Hmm, we already tried the thing where a bunch of startups have their cash on deposit with a couple of normal, FDIC-insured banks that had grossly mismatched duration in their capital structures. I wonder how this will play out
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Thanks for lighting his ass on fire. o7
and it wasnāt even my goal to do that! couple of replies across hours, trying to see if this guy is capable of ā¦ irunno, unassing their head(?) and engaging with the criticisms
then the subtlest thing set them off and shit went mask off so fast
but hey, at least this way we now just know and donāt have to guess. so much easier
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and it wasnāt even my goal to do that! couple of replies across hours, trying to see if this guy is capable of ā¦ irunno, unassing their head(?) and engaging with the criticisms
then the subtlest thing set them off and shit went mask off so fast
but hey, at least this way we now just know and donāt have to guess. so much easier
The vibes were wretched. Why do people to have to battle emotional abuse from a goddamned web browser?
but hey, at least this way we now just know and donāt have to guess. so much easier
+1, yeesh. Btw, if Dingus McGee there resides in the UK, might some of that shit might be legally actionable? Iād certainly have strong feelings about being defamed by the representative of a rather well-funded technology company lol
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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 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 so 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.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. A lot of people didnāt survive January, but at least we did. This also ended up going up on my accountās cake day, too, so thatās cool.)
Tangentially on topic:
Just finished The Regicide Report by friend of the instance Charles Stross. Hell of a finish to the main series! Iāll ikely start a re-read of the whole series soon, and Iām hopeful that itāll win all the awards.
Had a couple of shower thoughts afterward:
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In the previous novel, a bunch of American computer bois with brainworms concocted a plan to disassemble the moon and turn it into orbital datacenters, which is lol
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Ghislaine Maxwell is the Iris Carpenter of pedos.
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Keeping speculative fiction ahead of current events must be exhausting.
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Tangentially on topic:
Just finished The Regicide Report by friend of the instance Charles Stross. Hell of a finish to the main series! Iāll ikely start a re-read of the whole series soon, and Iām hopeful that itāll win all the awards.
Had a couple of shower thoughts afterward:
-
In the previous novel, a bunch of American computer bois with brainworms concocted a plan to disassemble the moon and turn it into orbital datacenters, which is lol
-
Ghislaine Maxwell is the Iris Carpenter of pedos.
-
Keeping speculative fiction ahead of current events must be exhausting.
@o7___o7 @techtakes That's why I'm fleeing screaming back to the arms of far-future space opera ATM.
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