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TXSG8R

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Everything posted by TXSG8R

  1. So the town square has a cover charge? Pay here to access your free speech? Seems legit. You're seriously underestimating how much people hate paying for media on the internet. Real media companies have struggled with it for as long as the internet has been a thing, and there are no social media companies that do it, because people will just move to the free alternatives. That's why they are all ad-based for revenue, and why they are loathe to take real action against the fringe shit on their networks/apps. If you make it cheap enough for people to not sweat, it will be cheap enough for state actors to still flood with bots and manipulate. The random social media star that buys 20k bots to boost his/her numbers isnt a problem anyone is worried about. Its political/social manipulation, and thats being driven by state actors. Russia/China wont blink at spending millions to keep sowing discord in the new subscription based free speech twitter.
  2. A subscription model will be the end of twitter. People dont want to pay for shit on the internet.
  3. I also question why people believe Elon would have any real incentive to kill the bots and/or change how the AI works. It will kill what little money Twitter makes. Unless he really intends to throw 44 billion down the drain, his proposed cures will likely kill revenue. Removing bots = removing a fuck ton of ad revenue. Stopping the AI from pushing people into fringe shit = reduced traffic, which will lower ad revenue.
  4. I posted this in the twitter thread in CR, because I thought that was where twitter specific stuff was supposed to be discussed, but Ill repost here. Killing bots will be a lot harder than Elon and the GP thinks.
  5. As captainant has said before, it’s the data stupid. It would be one thing if this was being used purely to drive ads, but it’s not. They are using the data to drive traffic, and it can be easily manipulated to signal boost crazy shit to people that are predisposed to be manipulated by it. It creates the rabbit holes for people to follow, they think they are “doing their research” but in reality they are being led by the nose to more fringe shit so they will keep generating traffic.
  6. Ads are part of it, but generating traffic is as well. More traffic = more ads = more revenue. Controversial topics generate a lot of traffic, both pro and con, so the algorithm will favor them. Machines don’t know if shit is true or not, it doesn’t matter as long as the numbers go up and ad revenue increases. The AI can be manipulated by bots boosting bullshit trends, which the AI will signal boost to the masses, which is how disinformation can spread. Hence the human intervention up to this point.
  7. To expand on this now that I’ve had some coffee, this is a simple trap for Elon’s free speech rhetoric. How do you filter people from bots? Twitter was filtering speech that caught bots and people, but the goal was to stop disinformation, so baby with the bath water and all that. Elon wants to avoid infringing on people, which I think he will find is close to impossible. Plenty of people repeat the same shit bots are saying (see yesterdays ivermectin trend). So he can’t do a simple filter on “ivermectin works” because he will catch plenty of people in the same dragnet. He is going to find it extremely hard to filter bots without targeting speech. Any smart bot operator will intentionally include “live” accounts that mirror their bots so they can cry foul when the filter pulls based on metrics. The idea of validating people based on anything technical is laughable. They aren’t going to verify accounts via IP, because that’s easy to defeat, and not everyone gets a public IP anyway. Elon’s baby Starlink runs on CGNAT for fucks sake. It’s also difficult to imagine them using govt IDs considering the global footprint of Twitter.
  8. Uh, you’re definitely barking up the wrong tree. My point was bots do what botnet owners tell them to. And just because there’s this new surge of RW followers doesn’t mean it shows some change of heart on the part of those owners. If a foreign actor is sowing discord through social media, this is just a new phase of the same game plan. Twitter was fairly active in knocking down disinformation so the bots had to be a little more subtle. Now that Elon is saying that those shackles are coming off, the bots can go back to signal boosting the crazies.
  9. You think bots switch sides? Why do you think that this sudden shift in followers isn’t part of the same game plan?
  10. The GOP doubled down on the core elements that spurred J6, and purged “real” conservatives like Cheney and Kinzinger because they didn’t toe the party line. It has nothing to do with what the left expected. The right had a chance to do the right thing and didn’t just flinch, they outright conceded the core of the party to the fringe elements you claim not to support. When the Rs take the house and Mcarthy is speaker, who do you think will be front and center in the retaliation hearings?
  11. Being weaker conventionally makes an unconventional response more likely, not less. I wouldn’t try to make rational calculations for someone that hasn’t acted rationally most of his time in power. Russia’s doctrine is that a tactical nuke is their reset button in an escalating situation, especially with the west. Putin would rather drop nukes than lose face, especially domestically.
  12. Ideally they would create a standards body with some kind of audit and enforcement mechanism, but I think that’s beyond wishful thinking. Ain’t nobody got time for corporate communism.
  13. That’s the rub though, if the feds start dipping their toes into that water they are potentially creating 1st amendment/free speech issues.
  14. Combat arms MOSes are generally not full of Mensa candidates, so yes, most weapon systems are usually extremely easy to train and operate by design. Aircraft generally being the exception to that rule. There are other hurdles to overcome though, mainly in logistics and support. There’s a reason we always have a large contractor contingent that follows US forces into combat. Most of our equipment can’t be sustained at the unit level beyond a few weeks without external support. I think that’s the biggest issue facing handing off a lot of our gear to the Ukes. Second point is also correct, we usually don’t provide anyone else our top shelf toys to anyone that runs the risk of losing them.
  15. Same, had that hail for a solid five minutes. Truck looks like a golf ball.
  16. Or the smart motherfucker dropped someone else’s credit card.
  17. I beat the game on my confessor this morning. Couple of the last bosses really suck. I have a hero and sorcerer both in the high 80s, and a samurai at 19 that I’m really enjoying. Not looking forward to some of the end game content on pure melee characters.
  18. I would plan for at least 5 pounds a person then. Like Chief said above, some guys can put away 10 pounds, but if you plan around that and they stay closer to 5 (or you have some no-shows) you’re sitting on a shit ton of extra bugs that you’ll have to tail for storage. You buy them in sacks that range from 30-35 pounds, so I would shoot for two heavy sacks and stay at 70 for a first run. You’ll learn from there what your people actually eat and can plan better for the next trip. If someone is genuinely hungry after putting away 7 pounds tell them to eat some potatoes and corn and see a doctor. You’ll need a few big coolers. One for the bugs on ice, one for extra ice for soaking (or pro move, cooler full of beer and grab some loose ice for the cold soak), and one or two for cooked dumps (we separate the mild bugs from the rest). We keep our sacks under ice until the day of. We wash and purge (come at me heretics) our bugs the morning of the cook. Dump your sacks into the cooler, hit them with the hose, cover them with water, and then dump half a container of iodized salt and let them burp for about half an hour. After that multiple flushes until the water stays clear. During the washes you have to look for dead bugs and pull those. Don’t pull until after that first burp unless they are obviously dead (bodies crushed) because some take a bit to wake up after being on ice. If you’re unsure pick them up and hold them for a few and see if their legs move. You’ll also be clearing out any loose grass and shit while sifting for dead bugs. Hope this helps.
  19. How long do you have to boil torches and pitchforks before they are edible?
  20. I’m not sure you'd be able to tell the difference between citrus honestly, the acidity just brightens the flavor. We have always done oranges because I saw a guy in Louisiana do it and his bugs tasted great. Never thought about onions or celery, may have to give that a go. We normally do elephant garlic, but apparently that’s another supply chain victim. HEB said they can’t even order them right now, so we went with regular heads. Chop about a half inch off the tips to expose the pods. They soak up more flavor and they are easier to eat, you just squeeze and they pop right out. I like mushrooms, but I’ve never thought it would go well with the boil flavors.
  21. That cooler shot was the last batch, first few were loaded with corn, taters, chokes, garlic, and green onions.
  22. That’s tough to answer. Are these 10 serious bug eaters or just people casually munching? I think restaurants usually serve like a pound or 2, plus a potato or two and an ear of corn. I cooked 45 pounds and we had 8 people eat on that, but 5 were serious. The rest just had a plate and moved on to other stuff. We also do a low country boil for people that don’t like crawfish. I use Zatarains powder. There are directions on the jar, but we have our own method that comes down to taste and experience. We usually do about a third of a jar on the first batch, that’s mild for the casual eaters. We add oranges to the boil as well. Cook potatoes, garlic, and artichokes first. When the potatoes are halfway done add corn and sausage. When potatoes are close to done add bugs, green onions, and 2 sticks of butter. Time will depend on your cooker and size of veggies. Once the bugs float, which only takes a few minutes we kill the fire and let them soak for 20. After that we dump half a jar, and start over. Heat goes up each batch. Final batch we also do a cold soak. After the 20 minute hot soak we drop in half a bag of ice and soak for another 20. Ideally you would cold soak each batch, but we are lazy and our cooker isn’t massive. Start to finish it’s about an hour and a half of cook time, add whatever it takes to get your cooker up to a boil for the first batch.
  23. Cooked a sack and a half for the family. Love this time of the year.
  24. My guess is they are told to go out and hit the enemy, and if they come back with stuff in their pods there are consequences. This is someone trying to make chicken salad out of chicken shit.
  25. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44803/russian-attack-helicopters-are-now-wildly-lobbing-rockets-over-ukraine Really good article showing the absolutely idiotic flying Russian helo pilots are doing now. Still flying daylight sorties, but because they are terrified of manpads, they are popping up, lobbing pointless unguided rockets, then dumping flares and altitude trying to get away.
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