The Internet is a Strange Place (part 26543)

[gilbertharding]

Browsing twitter the other day, I saw a post:

https://twitter.com/SarahJacobsGW/status/1445766155960946688

I'd like to introduce you to someone you should know, someone very special. He was a brilliant brain, a wearer of crazy shirts, and someone who achieved more in his 25 years than most of us could ever hope to: my lovely cousin Douglas Boyes
@diarsia

Very sad - this man Douglas Boyes was researching a subject I'd often thought about (believe it or not) - the impact of LED street lights on insect and bat populations... and he'd died, very young.

I decided to try to find out more. I found out about his work. I found out that he was very well regarded in the entomological community.

I also found this link: https://deathmilitia.com/young-researcher-douglas-boyes-died/

Which seems to be a site dedicated to aggregating news of people's deaths. So far so odd...

But it's all been written up, as if by a robot. Content is protected, so can't copy and paste - but... yeah, fucking odd. Don't know what to make of it really.

Maybe you have something to add. Perhaps you've seen an odd website lately. I dunno.

[madhair60]

A lot of my games writing gets lifted and reposted with machine-replaced words, synonyms of the same word so it looks really weird.

[Dex Sawash]

Wonder if John Wanoa is OK alive

[Emotional Support Peacock]

Most of the writing I do about amusements is canceled and replaced by automatically generated lexicon, equivalents of the same colloquy, so it appears rather queer.

[ImmaculateClump]

Much of the scribing I perform around entertainment is nullified and supplanted by unpremeditatedly give rise to wordbook ditto of the same clambake, therefore materializes a bit homosexual.

IGN 8/10

[Ron Maels Moustache]

I found something pretty bizarre a while back, a page that generates fake news stories about famous people being the victim of death hoaxes. All you have to do is swap out the name in the URL and it generates a pretty convincing(at first glance) page debunking a story that hasn't actually been reported.

https://en.mediamass.net/people/ricky-gervais/deathhoax.html

Fake Fake News!

[gilbertharding]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/30/douglas-boyes-obituary

:(

[JaDanketies]

RIP guy in the OP

https://www.lingscars.com/

[richjj1978]

Most of the writing I do about amusements is canceled and replaced by automatically generated lexicon, equivalents of the same colloquy, so it appears rather queer.

I used to do copywriting where I'd shove my own name in as a spokesman for the company. If I had a pound for every time the auto spinners have grabbed it and changed Rich to Wealthy or some other synonym, I'd be moderately better off.

[The Mollusk]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/30/douglas-boyes-obituary

:(

Born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, to me, an NHS manager, and my husband, Simon, an ornithologist, Douglas grew up in mid-Wales, becoming fascinated by moths at the age of 12 on a Field Studies Council (FSC) course.

Eight fucking commas in that sentence. EIGHT. I dunno what sort of legacy this guy would have wanted but it can't have been eight commas.

[The Crumb]

I found something pretty bizarre a while back, a page that generates fake news stories about famous people being the victim of death hoaxes. All you have to do is swap out the name in the URL and it generates a pretty convincing(at first glance) page debunking a story that hasn't actually been reported.

https://en.mediamass.net/people/ricky-gervais/deathhoax.html

Fake Fake News!

Going through People to Queen Elizabeth 2 yields some pretty incredible results. Is she single again?

[buttgammon]

Going through People to Queen Elizabeth 2 yields some pretty incredible results. Is she single again?

This is amazing!

[Clatty McCutcheon]

The bottom one shows that AI has been 'reading' the Prince Philip thread on here.

[Twonty Gostelow]

Born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, to me, an NHS manager, and my husband, Simon, an ornithologist, Douglas grew up in mid-Wales, becoming fascinated by moths at the age of 12 on a Field Studies Council (FSC) course.

Eight fucking commas in that sentence. EIGHT. I dunno what sort of legacy this guy would have wanted but it can't have been eight commas.

He was an entomologist with a special interest in moths and butterflies, it's what he would have wanted.

[The Mollusk]

He was an entomologist with a special interest in moths and butterflies, it's what he would have wanted.

If it is then I have absolutely zero respect for him. Would like to confirm if possible, anyone got the phone number, or email, or any other form of contact, with his mother, the NHS manager, so we can sort this out?

[beanheadmcginty]

He was an entomologist with a special interest in moths and butterflies, it's what he would have wanted.

Bravo

[gilbertharding]

Bravo

Seconded.

[Twit 2]

Insects have 6 legs.

[gilbertharding]

And 'comma' is a type of butterfly.

[Mister Six]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/30/douglas-boyes-obituary

:(

I don't really understand this. Does The Guardian let anyone do obituaries for their relatives and friends, or something? Is it auto-generated? Why's it in this thread - just because it's odd to see an obituary for someone who, while I'm sure is dearly missed, is not particularly remarkable on a national or international level?

[gilbertharding]

Just because this poor man was the subject of the OP, news of whose death I happened to see crop up on some very strange websites (not just the Guardian)..

[Mister Six]

Ohh right, cheers.

[Twit 2]

And 'comma' is a type of butterfly.

Well I'll be.

[Icehaven]

Well I'll be.

Yeah I didn't get it before either but I didn't want to admit it.

[Johnny Yesno]

I can honestly say I did know that. Here's a couple of pictures I have taken of comma butterflies:





See the little white 'comma' on the underside of the wings that give the butterfly its name.

[Johnny Yesno]

Born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, to me, an NHS manager, and my husband, Simon, an ornithologist, Douglas grew up in mid-Wales, becoming fascinated by moths at the age of 12 on a Field Studies Council (FSC) course.

Eight fucking commas in that sentence. EIGHT. I dunno what sort of legacy this guy would have wanted but it can't have been eight commas.

All that sentence is missing is 'with my reputation'.

[Pijlstaart]

Not the first person I'm aware of to take their life the same year they get a Science Advances first-author, ghosts of the review process perhaps? Maybe a hidden clue, Vaccine Cases End, Access Dance Vein, Ascend Caves Nice, cryptic candidates, it's all above my pay-grade. 

My sister-in-law turned up on a misogyny aggregate website about 5 years back, one of these template forums rejigged as a database, thousands of threads, each one dedicated to a different woman, replete with social media pictures under pages called "NAME, man-hater, false rape accuser" accompanied by largely copy-pasted paragraphs of MGTOW vitriol, she was rightly quite disturbed. It got taken down, but I don't think it was automated, the sole contributor to it was adding women constantly about 10 hrs a day, so it must have been his life's work, a guidebook.

[Captain Z]

And 'comma' is a type of butterfly.

Also a type of chameleon.

[The Mollusk]

Yeah I didn't get it before either but I didn't want to admit it.

I thought it was an abstract anti-joke (hence my reply). I think that makes me slightly cooler.

God what kind of world are we living in when intellect(ual humour) is a gauge for how cool someone is? People like this used to have sand kicked in their faces at the beach. Take me back smh

[Icehaven]

I thought it was an abstract anti-joke (hence my reply). I think that makes me slightly cooler.

That was where I was heading too.

^{And I can't see the comma on that butterfly picture.}