This month's editorial looks at the possible ethics issues that could come with introducing a reliable detector to the filtering process of a submissions system. Curious what people think. https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/clarke_05_24/
@clarkesworld A few thoughts: You are dealing with a special kind of spam here, call it slop spam. To catch a spammer, remember they are lazy people. They don't fake meta data well, or don't even bother.
Look at repetitive patterns in IP addresses or user agents of the submitting Browser.
don't accept submissions from outdated software, like a ten year old firefox.
don't accept submissions by people that don't bother to hide they are using curl or wget. #spam#slop#ai 1/3
@clarkesworld 2. Validate the author's email address, and check if it exists and is answerable. There are online services dealing with this. Don't accept submissions using disposable email addresses. Consider rejecting submissions from freemail services or services with a bad security record. Yes, this includes yahoo for example. #spam#slop#ai 2/3
@clarkesworld 3. The author's postal address should exist. Validation is more expensive than email address validation, but surprisingly accurate in developed countries. The same goes for the phone number. Look for patterns.
4. Give captchas a try on your submissions page, if you haven't already. #spam#slop#ai 3/3
So, I started playing World of Warcraft again this weekend ... 😁
I've been playing it on and off since just after its European release in 2005. My oldest characters have reached legal drinking age. 😅
I stopped playing in 2021 as I really disliked the Shadowlands expansion. The one before was excellent, and I'm now playing Dragonflight from 2022, which also seems good so far. There is a new one coming after the summer or thereabouts. We'll see how long I last this time!
@veronica It's a waste of time (as you already know). Once I realised how computer games work by addicting people through the brain's reward system, I felt like a complete idiot levelling up or grinding or whatever you may call it. It doesn't matter if you play WoW, Minesweeper or Tetris. I've been clean for at least 15 years now, and I never looked back.
Instead, I picked up bass playing again. Playing in a band is the best cooperative multiplayer game I can think of. #gaming#MMORPG#music
@veronica Granted, I have to admit I never took notice of the artwork other than as a vehicle to facilitate immersion. Vs. TV, you still have interaction, which usually is simplistic (or at least in can be seen as simplistic). I'm glad it's enough for me to auto-suggest myself out of playing.
I've seen two partial solar eclipses in my life. One that passed over Europe in 1999, and one that passed over the arctic in 2015. First hit too far south, second too far north to be total where I lived. Still, they were pretty awesome, and I was out looking at both.
@veronica The 1999 total eclipse was a 2-hour drive from where I live. We were sitting on a hill somewhere in the countryside, waiting and chatting, while the world around us dimmed slowly. When the darkness was complete, all birdsong stopped. I don't remember seeing any stars. By the time the eclipse was total, the cloud cover was already spoiling the experience.
The drive home took longer 🤷, too many people going home at the same time.
Both the Chancellery and the German Ministry of Defense know nothing about a quick or already made decision in favor of the German Taurus cruise missile. A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense also told BILD: “There has been no change in the current status of the issue of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine. No political decision was made regarding the release.”
We already talked to former US commanders Ben Hodges and Mark Hertling for in-depth interviews. But who would you like to see interviewed and give their opinion about the situation in Ukraine? And what especially would you want to know from them?
@noelreports hmmm, nice of you posting twitter links, but hard to see anything there for those without an account, and probably also for those with an account. #twitterdown
Many people have switched from Twitter to Mastodon, but not everyone who followed me before on Twitter knows that I'm active here also. Will you help me increase my reach on Mastodon? Share this post, boost it or comment and let me know why you're following me. Maybe with some smart hashtags. Thank you! 👍 😊
