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.

Last week’s thread

(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this)

19 points

From an article about a boutique brand that sells books to rich people:

Assouline has made its name publishing tomes that sell for $1,000 or more.

Oh, so they publish textbooks.

“They represent stealth wealth, intended to tell you what your hosts are about and to provide visual evidence: that the owners are people of wealth, education and taste.”

🎶 Please allow me to introduce myself 🎶

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14 points
*

now where did I leave my hammer and sickle

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11 points

“…37%… That means nearly one in four…”

Eh, no it doesn’t, it means nearly two in five. Which is worse.

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12 points

So you’re saying that they’ve got books worth at least a grand which their owners are literally using to flaunt their wealth?

I’m legally obligated to say stealing is legally and morally wrong buuuuuuuut

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16 points

@BlueMonday1984 Betcha the authors aren’t getting paid industry-normal royalties (10-15% of net receipts) on those Veblen goods …

(A few of my novels have been sold as limited-run signed first editions. Typically for 50%-100% more than the normal hardcover price, so maybe 3-5% as much as this nonsense. Cost of goods for a leatherbound, gilt-trimmed luxury edition is maybe $5-10, plus 10% of the cover price for the author. So someone in the middle is making serious bank.)

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11 points

Of course the books are just vapid art books or travel books.

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7 points

I just learned about this “wonderful” little item too

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18 points

@froztbyte Your term of art in economics to describe this shitbaggery is “Veblen goods”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

“a type of luxury good… for which the demand increases as the price increases, in apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. The higher prices of Veblen goods may make them desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure.”

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5 points

handy to know, ty

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6 points

“Complimentary Carbon Efficient Delivery”

Carbon Efficient even…

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9 points

That means that DHL driver has to take bike instead of car for this one

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5 points

Assouline! The gasoline of ass!

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18 points
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20 points
10 points

Ah, late stage capitalism at its finest.

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14 points

a twitter thread by sv ceo where comment section wants to do some recreational union busting, political assassinations and automating away longshoremen (lmao) over checks notes black friday bringing slightly less profit to mass retailers. to which i say, fuck your black friday then

and he says that it’ll affect elections? specifically in “don’t do anything visible in interest of unions or trump will win” kinda way? what kinda madhouse is this americans explain https://xcancel.com/typesfast/status/1836498432510562788#m

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6 points

Is this the Flexport(?) guy? They’re YC funded I believe.

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4 points

yeah so it seems

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4 points

was/is he unusually shitty or notorious for something

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7 points

dunno really, he’s got a lot of threads on HN where hackernews incorrect each other about logistics

I think the dude is just a wonk who happens to have gotten funding

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13 points

fuck your black friday then

the institutionalisation of it is/was also just fucking nuts

and then in recent years it’s slowly been creeping out into other countries too, with other vendors in other places aping “black friday deals”

I have no mouth and I must scream

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11 points

Blast from the past, we’re kinda behind the times here in Sweden

Hidden crypto mine found in Swedish hospital (link in Swedish)

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12 points
*

I hate how it is called mining, like it is digging up some resource from the earth. While it is just an advanced calculator.

Imagine they found a hidden iron ore mine (That is what I recall being mined in Sweden, if anybody knows something more interesting, like some precious stones, please inform me (looking at this gold/silver could also work)) under a hospital. But nope, just a hidden datacenter.

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9 points

It should be called botting or grinding, at least more than it should be called mining.

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9 points
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Satoshi is/was a goldbug so it’s an entirely intentional term.

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8 points

I had a look and couldn’t find how it started being called mining. Satoshi started out calling it “farming”.

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11 points

Bootleg mining was a thing in coal-bearing areas of Poland and Ukraine during times of greatest economic shitshows (early interbellum and 90s)

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6 points

I wanted to make a joke about artisanal mining, but then I saw it was a thing and how mostly horrible it was.

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6 points

Eh, it’s destroying a common good to extract resources (landscape / minerals, electricity / numberwang). I say the shoe fits.

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4 points

That is a good comparison. Thanks.

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