News Stories

[AnimeFan188]

Death toll from earthquake in Pakistan rises to 327:

"The death toll from a powerful earthquake in southwest Pakistan rose to 327 on
Wednesday after hundreds of mud houses collapsed on residents throughout the
remote and thinly populated area, local officials said."

See:

http://news.yahoo.com/toll-powerful-...033539990.html


==================================


Deadly Pakistan quake creates new island:

"A new island appeared off Pakistan after a deadly 7.7-magnitude quake struck
Tuesday afternoon in Baluchistan province's Awaran district -- a dirt-poor expanse of
land that is roughly the size of Wales.

"The island, which is up to 100 feet high and 200 feet wide, surfaced after the
earthquake hit parts of Baluchistan," senior local administration official Tufail Baluch told
AFP.

He said a similar island had appeared at the same place in the sea about 60 years ago
but disappeared after some time, meaning the current island is unlikely to last long."

See:

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/...es-new-island/

[AnimeFan188]

Barack Obama is political king of the fake Twitter followers, with more than 19.5
MILLION online fans who don't really exist:

"Among influential U.S. political tweeters, President Barack Obama is the undisputed
king of the fake followers. A MailOnline analysis ranks his sizable Twitter following as
the most deceptive total among the 21 most influential accounts run by American
politicians: More than 19.5 million of his 36.9 million Twitter followers are accounts
that don't correspond to real people.

The four phoniest accounts in the sample, which included Democratic and Republican
Party leaders in Washington, D.C., were those belonging to President Obama, Vice
President Joe Biden, first lady Michelle Obama and the White House communications
shop.

Of the president's 36.9 million Twitter followers, an astonishing 53 per cent – or 19.5
million – are fake accounts, according to a search engine at the Internet research
vendor StatusPeople.com. Just 20 per cent of Obama's Twitter buddies are real people
who are active users."

See:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...followers.html

[ganbaru]

Anti-shutdown bill advances; big fight still looms
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/senat...vote-obamacare

FBI: Navy Yard gunman left note about radio waves
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...09-25-22-15-34

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

Barack Obama is political king of the fake Twitter followers, with more than 19.5
MILLION online fans who don't really exist:

"Among influential U.S. political tweeters, President Barack Obama is the undisputed
king of the fake followers. A MailOnline analysis ranks his sizable Twitter following as
the most deceptive total among the 21 most influential accounts run by American
politicians: More than 19.5 million of his 36.9 million Twitter followers are accounts
that don't correspond to real people.

The four phoniest accounts in the sample, which included Democratic and Republican
Party leaders in Washington, D.C., were those belonging to President Obama, Vice
President Joe Biden, first lady Michelle Obama and the White House communications
shop.

Of the president's 36.9 million Twitter followers, an astonishing 53 per cent – or 19.5
million – are fake accounts, according to a search engine at the Internet research
vendor StatusPeople.com. Just 20 per cent of Obama's Twitter buddies are real people
who are active users."

See:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...followers.html

I think the question here if that is really something that's particular to Obama's twitter followers. Cause what I had hurt, fake accounts were incredibly prevalent on websites like Twitter. It sounds like that if you did a serious look into the followers of almost any big thing on Twitter (like a movie production for example), you'd find there were allot of fake accounts.


I kinda doubt the President is creating fake accounts just to pad his twitter follower count (especially since even lowballing, it's still in the respectfable millions of followers category).

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

Barack Obama is political king of the fake Twitter followers, with more than 19.5
MILLION online fans who don't really exist:

Haters gonna hate him more. I'm so jealous.

[aohige]

It's kinda natural for these fake bot accounts to attach itself to the most famous names in the world.

[NoemiChan]

^ Celebrities as well.

[Jinto]

Well its not exactly natural, but economically the best strategy. Most of these accounts "advertise" a certain service or product. Now spamming advertisements on "dead" accounts is kinda useless. What advertisements need is a medium with a large base of followers (target demographic).

Now if it was always the same account/follower that spams the exact same advertisement it could be filtered by an algorithm. Hence, the idea is to have a whole bot net of accounts that sporadically spam different advertisements on different, highly frequented accounts.

The problem with such an algorithm is, that it is hard to balance, since the more spam (aka advertisements) is generated from different sources, the more the isolated algorithm thinks this is an account with lots of precious target demographic.

So, the more "real" followers an account has, the more spam/advertisments it will attract, which will generate even more spam/advertisements. Basically the same as compounded interest in banking.

[ganbaru]

Somalis still leaving Minn. to join terror group
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...09-26-01-35-37

Government shutdown wouldn't stop Obamacare
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...09-26-03-10-26
Should someone tell this to Ted Cruz ?

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

FBI: Navy Yard gunman left note about radio waves
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...09-25-22-15-34

FYI :

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Jack Gillum contributed to this report.

I didn't know you can name your daughter that.

[SeijiSensei]

I wondered if Obama's Twitter followers might not include a bunch of accounts set up to monitor the President's tweets for news or actionable material. I could certainly see news organizations, lobbyists, and similar groups subscribing to his account and perhaps using phony accounts of their own to do so.

Of course, since I don't use Twitter, I could be talking through my hat.

[HasuMasu]

It's supposed to be a name anyway.

When Lolita was published and gained popularity, or notoriety, it fell out of common usage.

Well, that's how the legend goes.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

I didn't know you can name your daughter that.

Lolita is a common name.
Its association with sexualized young girls came as a modern pop culture slang after the novel Lolita was published.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I wondered if Obama's Twitter followers might not include a bunch of accounts set up to monitor the President's tweets for news or actionable material. I could certainly see news organizations, lobbyists, and similar groups subscribing to his account and perhaps using phony accounts of their own to do so.

Of course, since I don't use Twitter, I could be talking through my hat.

That would only be a few thousand groups at most though. Maybe tens of thousands. Obama has a twitter account with tens of thousands of follwer. Press/political persons can't be responsible for that number.

[ganbaru]

U.S., Russia agree on Syria U.N. chemical arms measure
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNew...98P1AJ20130927

Panama Canal Authority fines detained North Korea ship smuggling Cuban arms
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNew...98Q01720130927

Artist uses robots to create art in three cities
http://ca.reuters.com/article/entert...98P0RX20130927

[AnimeFan188]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

Downloading Is Mean! Content Industry Drafts Anti-Piracy Curriculum for Elementary Schools:

See:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...ol-propaganda/

7 Moronic Ways Hollywood Wants To Teach Kids About Piracy:

"The Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association
of America have introduced a brand-new educational campaign straight out of the
D.A.R.E. handbook specifically designed to teach elementary school kids about
the horrors of copyright infringement with all the subtlety of an episode of Ancient
Aliens.

Broken up into what both organizations (who have zero background in
education) consider "age appropriate" lesson plans, the curriculum will soon be
tested in select California schools. It is also no less than the craziest, most
brainwashing-est thing anti-piracy groups have ever suggested."

See:

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/7...-about-piracy/

[Ithekro]

Piracy = Captain Harlock


Wait, that's not right....

[Sugetsu]

I think the "Dear Leader" of north Korea has some big competition in Turkmenistan. This guy seems to have a bigger ego to boot.

[NoemiChan]

^ Just kill him if you don't like him. As if he's an immortal.

[ganbaru]

Revealed: The House GOP’s Debt-Ceiling Plan
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner...onathan-strong
Do they remember than they lost the last election? The GOP really show how crazy they are.