The Off Topic Topic

[Razgovory]

Hello Sophia everything OK?


Edit - my boys first message.
I don't know a Sophia.

Maybe he was trying to contact Bulgaria.

[Tamas]

There's been a rat (gawd I hope it's just the one) that has made its way up to our loft, and runs around down a floor just above our bedrooms. The noise is.. unsettling. Rat guy was here 5 days ago put down poison, waiting for that to take effect.

Yes I know it's going to stink like hell if we can't recover the body. I just want to be dealing with that stage of the problem, will at least know the fucker is dead.

The guy also gave a couple of tips on how to make new infestations harder. Apparently there's a pretty easy highway from the top of our garden fence to the garage roof and from there into the gutter downpipe that leads up to the roof.

[garbon]

Good luck!

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

"Clutching their pearls" has become the latest overused phrase that I've come to hate every time I hear it.

Not a phrase, but my current bugbear is using "spend" as a noun.

[Razgovory]

Rat guy?

[Sheilbh]

I don't know if this has been the case elsewhere but some change in Twitter basically means you can see the very broad general location of that account's tweets.

And all day I've seen lots of far-right content creators ("Yookay aesthetics" etc) verified accounts earning money for the engagement on their content that appear to be based in India or South America I suspected something like this with some accounts I've seen that just had very Indian English grammar but still quite funny to see as a lot of those accounts now seem to be shutting down or pivoting to other content.

Reminded me a bit of the very interesting sounding book about the scam economy in South-East Asia:
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3234-scam?srsltid=AfmBOoqTW63r0hQou6CiwSwyQIre14yUDY35XpvPheA-xhrozs_6Er82

Can't help but feel we're only at the start of seeing developing countries where the quality of internet connection has massively improved in recent years working out how to monetise that (and countries in the Global North).

[Jacob]

Yeah, I posted a link in the Trump thread on how a bunch of top tier MAGA influencers turned out to be based in Russia, Iran, India and so on.

[Razgovory]

Lots of the English language Pro-Palestinian accounts are in Muslim countries like Egypt.  Quite a few Palestinian journalists turn out to not be in Palestine.

See!  We aren't racist, we actually are Jewish!



Oh, well, maybe not.

[Josquius]

Wow. This is something.

https://smartlifetrendingnow.com/lp/smart_uk/?clickid=7c33b2ta51n2t24a&uclick=2ta51n2t&uclickhash=2ta51n2t-2ta51n2t-b4wj-0-b4dz-17tw-q552-d36e1a#tblciGiCRb5r3S7N0EwA7XSJRgWy3IEOxnDUVwkD03OPV5iT0FCD-nHQo-6f025H-3c-bATD-lkA

I was sorting through my tabs and noticed a guardian article was opened titled people are using AI to make money. Thought that sounded interesting so started reading.... It's an ad for some scammy sounding tool. But it looks just like a guardian article. Guess I clicked an ad somewhere by mistake - the previously opened tab is the standard weather channel that comes with android- and it led to this very cunning scam.

I don't know if this has been the case elsewhere but some change in Twitter basically means you can see the very broad general location of that account's tweets.

And all day I've seen lots of far-right content creators ("Yookay aesthetics" etc) verified accounts earning money for the engagement on their content that appear to be based in India or South America I suspected something like this with some accounts I've seen that just had very Indian English grammar but still quite funny to see as a lot of those accounts now seem to be shutting down or pivoting to other content.

Reminded me a bit of the very interesting sounding book about the scam economy in South-East Asia:
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3234-scam?srsltid=AfmBOoqTW63r0hQou6CiwSwyQIre14yUDY35XpvPheA-xhrozs_6Er82

Can't help but feel we're only at the start of seeing developing countries where the quality of internet connection has massively improved in recent years working out how to monetise that (and countries in the Global North).

Yeah, I've seen this too. Great to have the proof of it. The far right are always in constant denial it's their reality.
Saw a few posts from Canadians noting a lot of their Canadian potatriots seemed to be based in the US

[Tonitrus]

With all the crap we've given Musk about screwing up Twitter/X, why should we be so eager to straight up trust the location data that their system spits out?

[crazy canuck]

With all the crap we've given Musk about screwing up Twitter/X, why should we be so eager to straight up trust the location data that their system spits out?

I am not sure why somebody posing as an Alberta patriot would purposely say that they are originating from the United States, or the Philippines, etc.

[Tonitrus]

With all the crap we've given Musk about screwing up Twitter/X, why should we be so eager to straight up trust the location data that their system spits out?

I am not sure why somebody posing as an Alberta patriot would purposely say that they are originating from the United States, or the Philippines, etc.

Full disclosure...I've never used Twitter/X...is this location data being inputted by the user (or bot) themselves?

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Full disclosure...I've never used Twitter/X...is the location data inputted by the user (or bot) themselves?

My memory is a little fuzzy now, but there is a geo association for accounts that is entered by the account owner.  However, we could also detect what geo activity was coming from (subject to the limitations of pinning network access points to a geo).  That said, this feature wasn't a thing when I was there, so I don't know what they're using.  It's probably the owner-provided value, but it could be something based on the system-detected values as well.

[crazy canuck]

With all the crap we've given Musk about screwing up Twitter/X, why should we be so eager to straight up trust the location data that their system spits out?

I am not sure why somebody posing as an Alberta patriot would purposely say that they are originating from the United States, or the Philippines, etc.

Full disclosure...I've never used Twitter/X...is this location data being inputted by the user (or bot) themselves?

I don't know, but if the tool detects where the information originates from, why would someone try to throw that detection off with a false location if they are claiming to a be a patriot?  And if it is user inputted, why would they put in a different location?

[Tonitrus]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj38m11218xo

X says data is '99% accurate'
The location data is visible in a new "about this account" tab which appears on every profile.

It also contains a warning that the location data may be affected by recent travel, temporary relocation and the use of virtual private networks (VPNs).

However, according to X's head of product, Nikita Bier, the information is 99% accurate.

So we're trusting X and their systems now?

Not trying to be obtuse...but it seems there is a rush to trust this data because it appears to confirm what a lot of people want to hear.  And by some anecdotes in the article, may even be correct.  My concern is mostly here is mostly to express that we should be more skeptical of the source of the data, even if we might like to hear it.