Recent posts

#21

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by viper37 - Today at 02:33:43 PM

Not sure where you're getting that from. Also, the math doesn't work he was either 18 or 19 not 17.

In any event, I can't believe people are actually defending someone who fought in a Waffen SS unit. I get babies tribalism and his strong feelings for Ukraine presently. But for fucks sake's folks, you're defending and justifying people who fought in an SS unit.

You have to understand the context of this region of Ukraine.  They were never part of Russia or the USSR.  They were part of Poland.  When the USSR invaded Poland, they saw their friends and their family get deported by Staline.  Years prior, they heard the stories about the famine in the neighbouring counties of Ukraine, created by the USSR.

The man's blog read like any Ukrainian resistant letters of the time.

He didn't enroll because he hated Jews.  He was part of the SS because foreigners weren't allowed to form battalions for the Whermacht.  His only other choice was the partisans. Which were cooperating with the SD.  Not much better.

You can read his blog here, with Google translate:
https://komb-a-ingwar.blogspot.com/2010/10/blog-post_4610.html


He did not deserve a standing ovation for sure.  But I don't see him as a war criminal simply for joining an army fighting against the USSR on his home soil.  It's nothing like the Charlemagne Division, or some of the other SS units.

After seeing his teacher, his friends, some of his family members leaving in trains to the east, I understand how he felt.

#22

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by Tamas - Today at 02:23:33 PM

As we discussed, I find that a profoundly city-dweller view. For people not huddled up in urban centres, it opened up their wider region to exist in.

I'd say that is the city dweller view. Dismissive of how much life could be found in smaller towns before the coming of the car.

I grew up in a village listening to the tales of pre-car village life. There was plenty of life sure, what you did not have plenty of was options.

#23

Off the Record / Re: POLOT - President of Langu...

Last post by Barrister - Today at 02:14:15 PM

BB is de facto president for life; although constitutionally, I'd argue he gave up the title when he went into self imposed exile a couple years ago 

I have no need to be President for Life.  I swore an oath to the Constitution of Languish and will gladly step down from my position when a new President is elected.

Your President believes in democracy and the Rule of Law, after all.

#24

Gaming HQ / Re: The Miscellaneous PC & vid...

Last post by Josquius - Today at 02:11:24 PM

I wouldn't agree nostalgia isn't much of a thing in games.
It probably goes in waves. I remember back in the psx days there was a lot of nostalgia and remakes for old early 80s arcade games and 8 bit consoles with a lot of remakes.

I've heard the most recent street fighter game contains a virtual arcade where you can play the old games and this is proving more popular in multilayer than the normal game.

#25

Off the Record / Re: Football (Soccer) Thread

Last post by Barrister - Today at 02:03:17 PM

I forgot they were called the Elks

Yeah.  I continue to think A: the Eskimos name was fine, with a majority of Inuit people being in favour of the name, but B: the name issue was never, ever going to actually go away with a loud minority very against the name, so you might as well just get it over with.

#26

Off the Record / Re: Football (Soccer) Thread

Last post by Josephus - Today at 01:25:44 PM

I forgot they were called the Elks

#27

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by Josephus - Today at 01:22:55 PM

On the context of our Ukrainian soldier. Wasn't he a child when he joined the unit?

If so of this had happened in the 21st century we would consider him a victim of the Nazi regime.

I find this APP/CPP discussion quite interesting. A facet of Canadian life and federal government that doesn't apply to Quebec.

He is 98 now.  He joined the unit in 43.  Making him 18 when he joined.

He joined at 17.  After seeing his teacher and half of his village getting deported by the Russians.

Not sure where you're getting that from. Also, the math doesn't work he was either 18 or 19 not 17.

In any event, I can't believe people are actually defending someone who fought in a Waffen SS unit. I get babies tribalism and his strong feelings for Ukraine presently. But for fucks sake's folks, you're defending and justifying people who fought in an SS unit.

I've consistently not justified him

#28

Off the Record / Re: POLOT - President of Langu...

Last post by HVC - Today at 01:22:37 PM

Death to the pretender. Long live CCR

#29

Off the Record / Re: POLOT - President of Langu...

Last post by Josephus - Today at 01:20:54 PM

BB is de facto president for life; although constitutionally, I'd argue he gave up the title when he went into self imposed exile a couple years ago 

#30

Off the Record / Re: Elon Musk: Always A Douche

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 01:13:49 PM

Every time someone has a Tweet (Xeet?) on screen it's a "view" regardless of interaction or just scrolling past, including multiple views by the same user. And with the API restrictions probably a lot of scraping scripts?

It's like counting newspaper views by how often I walk by a news stand.

That's the problem with measuring media impact online in a nutshell Everyone tries to work out what is a meaningful click from a media perspective - for social media it's normally a scroll. And the honest answer is it's really difficult to work out. There is no agreed metric. I know some look at time spent on the page - but again that doesn't account for the length and complexity of the article.

You can identify some bots because they declare themselves or because their behaviour is obvious. But it is not easy and there are an awful lot who are not declared but scraping (in media the default paranoid assumption is that is someone hoovering up our content to build AI models). And some bots are actually a legitimate view from a social media perspective - for example, if you post a Tweet to another social media platform that social media platform will scrape Twitter's site to display a thumbnail. Given the way Twitter works especially that is often enough to read the Tweet, there is no need to click in the way there normally is with, say, an article or an Instagram post.

For what it's worth the internet equivalent of newspaper circulation figures is largely based on views and clicks - at the minute the best we can do is supplement that with surveys and market research. I think it does capture something and is a really important additional bit of context with viewership and circulation figures. But it is really imperfect and there is an irony that arguably the media that allows us to collect the most data is actually the one that we have least information about.