Inappropriate security
off the record meetings
courier go-betweens
likes watching himself on TV
sustainable garden
Spent years in the spiritual tutelage of hateful racists

1) Use Tweetdeck
2) Type this a lot: #
3) Block spammers
Spammers on Twitter are pushing links. They can’t make money from you on Twitter, so they want to get you somewhere that they can.   They want to maximize the number of people they reach, and maximize the percentage of those reached who click on the link.

Spam-bots listen for keywords, or listen to hashtags, or do user searches presumably from other users.  When they see your name pop up because you mentioned a word they listen for, or a hashtag, or they ransacked a friend list for you, then they target you.  They cannot direct message (DM) you, because you are not “following” them.  So they will embed your name in a tweet, and your own built-in channel for monitoring menions of yourself will pick it up.  You have just been spammed.

At this point, you have a choice: befriend/respond/click (fail), do nothing (pass), block and report (#winning!).  Whatever it is, the key is not to avoid certain topics or hashtags; that’s appeasement. The key is to ruthlessly BLACK AND REPORT these dirtbags. But how can you tell who is spamming you?

These are all spam.

The middle one (Kathie-whatever) is the easiest type of stealth-spammer to spot.  The egg icon means that no image has been uploaded–on Twitter we all start out as eggs.  The multiple names look as if it could be a person trying to pul their Tweet-peeps together, in the vein of “Hey, all of you people have something in common, namely me, and I’d like to introduce you”, which is fine.  I have no issue with this, as this is what #FF (Follow Friday) is all about anyway.  Some hate it, some love it, but it’s not really spam.

Any time you see that egg, you should consider it spam unless you are given reason to suspect it’s ok.  If you still sport an egg icon, and yet you are far enough along to read about blocking spammers, it’s time you got an icon.  Anything but the egg.

The real give-away here is that this Twitter account has no icon and has only one follower (and so is guaranteed new), yet is posting names of multiple Tweeple, and almost hidden at the end is a link.

The bottom tweet pictured is not hard to suss. It is very similar to the middle one, but has a bit less text stuffed into the body of the post, and has boobies. That’s right, I said it. This icon will make you look, and if you already don’t know what you’re doing on Twitter, you;re going to click. This is one of the incontestable truths uncovered since scientific investigation of the internet was started: people click on boobies.

Luckily, we have an antidote to this powerful mojo, and that is just the application of a little common sense: If you are excited to see seven-pixel boobies on a micro-messaging SMS derivative, then nobody is sending you boobies. Get over it, click Block & Report, and get out of the basement. Meet some real people.

That brings us to the final spam tweet, the top on in the illustration. Could be a real person, eh? Nothing suspect about the photo, not shot-gunned to a bunch of people I never heard of… link looks a little sketchy. I’ll just click on thi–oh wait. Two followers? No way this is real.

Profile:
[table id=1 /]

http://www.mgmtguru.com/mgt301/301_Lecture1Page5.htm

Ooooh.

This is my utility post. If I have accidentlly published it, kindly look the other way–this is just a scrap of paper lying in the information supergutter.

http://www.xanadu.com.au/ted/zigzag/xybrap.html This guy has a good thing going on, and DESPERATELY needs a re-write of his mewling page. I will do it, gratis.
UPDATE: On second thought, his stuff doesn’t look open source. Puck ‘im?

Good to see you again, Dr. Kanamori! *** A Weak Learning Algorithm (WLA) is a simple one which gives a hypothesis with a high error value. Multiple WLA’s can be integrated to reduce the hypothetical error below what is possible with any single WLA. Some WLA’s can be integrated quite well, some not very well, and others not at all–that is, they do not work and play well with others. Boosting refers to the effort to boost the accuracy of the hypothesis given by a combination of Weak Learning Algorithms. The topic of this presentation is a method to determine the integrability of Weak Learning Algorithms in boosting.

Directions to PCG.

From the West exit of JR Shinjuku Stn: Starting at street level, in front of Keio Department store (the side facing Yodobashi Camera). Directly along the street beside Keio Department Store, you’ll see a number of bus stops. Go to bus stop number 20 and take either bus number 41 or 45 (200 yen fare). Get off at the third bus stop (Juniso-Ike-no-ue)- it takes about 6-8 minutes from the station. After getting off the bus, about 2 meters ahead, you’ll see a green pedestrian overpass. Go up the stairs and come down on the other side of the street, (walking in the same direction as the bus was going) within a few meters you’ll see a narrow street that goes off to your right. Walk down that street until you come to another small side street on your right. Go up that small street. On the left hand side you’ll see a 5-story building. That’s us, we are on the third floor.

Our address is: Pan Nations Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

Nishi-Shinjuku Forest 3F, 4-32-12 Nishi-Shinjuku,

Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 106-0023

Tel: 03-5350-5875 Fax:03-5350-5876

From the I-TOLD-YOU-SO Department

AP: Former Syria VP Says Assad Should Go.

By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 31 minutes ago

BEIRUT, Lebanon – A former Syrian vice president who has openly broken with President Bashar Assad intensified his criticism Thursday, saying the Damascus regime had outlived its time and was unlikely to survive much longer.
Abdul-Halim Khaddam, who left his post in the Syrian government in June, was asked in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press interview from Paris whether he supported regime change.
[SNIP]
Khaddam said such mistakes, in addition to the Syrian regime’s failure to effect political and economic reforms, caused him to give up on the regime and decide to speak out.
He denied that he was encouraged to publicly break with the Syrian regime by Saudi Arabia or any other country and said such talk was baseless.
There had been speculation that his TV appearance on the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya was intended as a message from Saudi leaders to the Syrians.

Your humble correspondant finds this particularly interesting. If the former VP specifically denies on Saudi TV that his statement was influenced by the Saudis, this suggests to me that the exact opposite is true. That the real hardliners in Syria take direction from House Saud, and Bashar Assad is being escorted out of office in accordance with Saudi guidance. He is being told politely that he may leave. If he dawdles, I have no doubt that he will be ejected without much ceremony.

My LGF prediction
of 1/4/2006 01:23AM PST:

Here’s my prediction: Bashar Assad won’t go without a fight. He will not answer any questions of his own will, and you have seen the last of the UN in Syria for a while.
He knows his hands are dirty, and he knows it won’t be hard to trap him if confronted. He won’t allow it.
If we *do* see him answering questions, we may rest assured that things have been set in motion behind the scenes by the real hard-liners. He is (as Hitch put it) a *Dauphin*, and has never been the force in that country; if he never knew that before, he will be shown the truth soon.

This was in response to news that the head of Syrian Intelligence may have defected to London. Syria is rapidly becoming the most interesting part of the Middle East, and where is the U.S Media? A hospital in West Virginia, and a hospital in Israel. Ghouls.