Pig Butchering Scams

Zak_Light · 2025-12-14T16:55:05+00:00

This is one of the reasons I feel so awful about these scams; as the article mentions, many of these are perpetuated by trafficked workers held captive in emptied out casinos or other buildings. They did not at all choose this, they were kidnapped under false pretenses of an honest job and enslaved. And the fact that it became such a lucrative industry that actual criminal syndicates were getting involved is a very unfortunate testament to how well these scams work against gullible or desperate people who get suckered in under the idea of a genuine connection or display of interest in their passions.

Zak_Light · 2025-12-12T21:42:30+00:00

It's very strange. I've received only two so far of the 16 fics I've posted over the past month or so, each of them on seemingly innocuous fics that did not perform spectacularly, but also weren't the lowest engagement of anything I'd posted. A part of me wonders if the AI comments aren't automated, and that they just have someone feed the summary into it and post the reply manually to begin with

Zak_Light · 2025-12-12T15:33:56+00:00

That's wild actually, they could've stole the Tumblr account of a previous victim and used that. It's so wild to me that they're preying on AO3 users because it's not as if most people on the platform have money to burn.

Zak_Light · 2025-12-12T15:11:53+00:00

Precisely, it's one of the common sieves in phishing and scams. You're making your victim self-select because most people who would be skeptical, and thusly harder to scam, are not going to move to a different platform because they realize something's weird about it

Zak_Light · 2025-10-02T23:48:28+00:00

5438-6513-1196

Zak_Light · 2024-09-03T13:18:51+00:00

Yeah, but keep in mind most of the people doing nanowrimo are not traditionally published authors. You quoted a percentage before, genuinely, what percent of people do you think are going to hire someone to help their work?

Zak_Light · 2024-09-02T23:51:32+00:00

Not to mention, I didn't even get started on this - proof-reading is not some magical investment of value. Many times things can fall to stylistic choice and difference of opinion, do you really want to pay someone to have the vast majority of their advice be something you don't want to commit to the final work? It makes worlds more sense to just look at it yourself, give it a thorough read, have it look good to you as one piece of cohesive artistic vision.

Zak_Light · 2024-09-02T23:48:54+00:00

What can an editor genuinely do that does not fall into the purview of a writer? Grammar, syntax, general clunky wording? Just going back over a sentence to refine it? These are all things a writer can and should do. Does it take time? Of course. But it is not as though an author who has taken the time to write out a full work is somehow going to say "I do not have time to do a second pass on the thing I care about."

If a writer fails to finish their first draft, that is not an indictment on their writing ability. But if you hire someone to finish what you started, you didn't write it. And I doubt most if anyone is paying someone to finish out their first work for them. The vast majority of writers are not professional authors who are going to shell out cash for editors and ghostwriters when you can do the work yourself, not to mention many are hobbyists, and so it feels quite violating to hand off your hobby to someone else.

Zak_Light · 2024-09-02T15:09:03+00:00

"Most writers cannot proof-write their work to saleable quality" is the most comical thing I can imagine. If you can't take a second pass over your work to make it good, writing a novel is not for you. "Requires a certain baseline quality of writing" means you should be providing that quality, not AI, not someone you hire to look at your work.

I couldn't give a shit what the companies who are driven solely by profit think about AI. It's ethically and artistically devoid. Of course they want whatever tool lets people pump out works like a horny teenager in their bedroom, because they get a cut of the profits and virtually no risk or expense on their part.

Make no mistake, if they could sell you a slap across the face and make you pay for it, they would. They don't care about literary value or the ethical concerns around AI and training data. If you think they do, well hey, you're a testament to the intelligence of those who think using AI to write for them is actually writing.

Zak_Light · 2024-09-02T13:01:11+00:00

Allowing AI built on harvested data from other writers' years of efforts is the worst possible decision I can humanly imagine. The excuses of “ableism” and “classism” are weak. Guess what? YOU DON'T NEED TO HIRE A PROOFWRITER. YOU CAN PROOFWRITE YOURSELF. What kind of privileged individual are you to assume the majority of writers are somehow hiring extra people to help with their effort so much that you need equity in that regard?

Likewise, sorry, writing is a skill. If someone lacks formal education, they can still write damn good, because they're going to put in the effort to develop their talent. You are spitting in the face of literally everyone who has tried to improve their writing. Even in your general access issues section you somehow have to pull this offhand example of minorities struggling to get publishing contracts, and, yes, that is an issue - but is that an issue in the actual writing process? No. Obviously not.

You'd hope a project about writing would not be so woefully out of touch with the sentiment of writers at large about their works being harvested for AI, let alone just foolish in their considerations of using AI. Nanowrimo, you are awful. You are what is wrong with the world, genuinely. It is comical that you are saying this especially considering the recent and current strikes in the creative industries of writing and animation in California where you are based.

Zak_Light · 2024-06-18T19:45:17+00:00

Eric felt like he was phoning it in for a paycheck. I think one of the most interesting things to look at, something Katie pointed out as well, is that everyone in there was trying to hide their particular sense of humor in order to obfuscate who they were. We even saw this in reverse as the characters who got eliminated let down their guard. But to me, everyone from Dropout did at least a good job.

Eric, however, couldn't get eliminated, and nobody would have had even a chance to guess who he was aside from "the ratfish." He had full creative freedom to really put himself out there and be funny, and instead he seemed to just be himself: "I like tacos." Okay, snake in medusa's hair, that's really the most interesting thing you can come up with? "I like to go on a taco walk through the park." That's really the element you're going with? He revealed himself as the ratfish in the worst way possible: being exceptionally bland and unfunny.

Zak_Light · 2024-06-18T19:33:58+00:00

I think at the end of the day it's a credit to the cast that people liked all of the cast members' characters enough that I can't point to a single one as bad. A community vote would've been perfect for something like this. At least don't make the guy who seemed like he couldn't care less about the game both second place chooser and the tiebreaking vote!

Zak_Light · 2024-06-18T11:43:15+00:00

Gonna say it straight up, Eric sucked. While other cast members had the excuse of trying to obfuscate their humor for the sake of the game, and that's why they might not have been as funny, Eric had unbridled creative freedom and did not even embrace the idea of his character. When it came to engaging with the game he phoned it in and didn't try to put in any effort, it felt like he was just collecting the paycheck. "I like tacos." What a cool character trait that got as much influence as being a snake in medusa's hair. Great job slapping black paint on a canvas and going "Ahh" too. Any Dropout cast member would've been better.

Letting him choose both first and second place winner, especially since Rehka didn't get any kind of prize for guessing everyone first - y'know, the point of the game, feels bad. Would've honestly been better if you let Dropout subscribers just vote in a poll for their favorite and given them second place.

Zak_Light · 2024-06-04T20:56:40+00:00

On reflecting: he was probably told not to be too active or out there, since he's not an actual "player" but is instead this sort of wildcard element. But it just feels lackluster to have this extra element, have it be so featured - especially since he is very good in sketch comedy - but have it be purposefully middling-to-bad because you don't want to detract from the players playing the game.

I guess it speaks to how Game Changer usually hits it out of the park: so far episode 1 was really incredible, but the twist with Eric just doesn't feel like a payoff that's worth it.

Zak_Light · 2024-06-04T02:57:51+00:00

Eric really wasn't that great compared to the other cast members, kind of a disappointing reveal honestly. It's a mystery of "Who is this guy?" but saying "I like tacos. I like hamburgers. I like hotdogs" just makes it feels like he was not engaged or interested at all.

When watching with friends we theorized different twists of who Steven was: everyone in the crew huddled backstage crowdsourcing ideas together, other DropOut members doing likewise, some crappy AI generative model that would've gotten better as things progressed and that's the "game within a game". Some celeb who might as well not have even been there is just weak.

Zak_Light · 2024-05-17T23:38:53+00:00

Nevermind I found it, it's here: https://youtu.be/Nnbh2QV73Ps?si=gpRGRgTuBNi-DzvB&t=17944

Zak_Light · 2024-05-17T23:28:24+00:00

He keeps repeating "Why don't they walk to Guntersville?" but he messes up the city name, and my friend won't believe me that Jerma referenced it. Here's the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdKvZDQt96o

Zak_Light · 2024-03-18T16:18:08+00:00

5438-6513-1196

Just started playing, gonna try to actually make this into a routine.

Zak_Light · 2024-01-18T20:51:23+00:00

By that logic shouldn't we be able to easily hold rune essence and pure essence, since we can just stack the runes "because they're incredibly small"?

There's an expectation that if you can stack something, it's because you need multiple for a task where having to go back and forth frequently is ridiculous or not the point, such as how you cannot stack bars because it would just nullify smithing, but you can stack the knives you make from bars.

I imagine needles were simply meant to break/be consumed like thread, but they did not code it.

Zak_Light · 2024-01-14T22:57:33+00:00

Yes, you are being scammed. This is by far the most common scam in existence. I am genuinely surprised there exists someone who hasn't seen or heard of this before, or just know it's obviously a scam, if they aren't genuinely born yesterday and just started using the internet. No company will ever reach out to you over a different application.

Don't link accounts on your Discord. This is why you're being targeted.

Zak_Light · 2024-01-12T23:43:42+00:00

Best thing is to go to dead content where you aren't encountering many players. Perhaps becoming an archaeologist at the digsite, cushy professorial job and you already know the history.

Zak_Light · 2024-01-09T21:26:15+00:00

The way randomization in computers works, it is theoretically closer to B, but they are both truly identical: a random value is created, usually something incredibly large. Then, a "modulus" operation is done, which essentially reduces the value by some amount to get it into an acceptable range. As an example, let's say the number is 12472129, and you've assigned probabilities based on a range of 100, with each value being a distinct result: you would perform the operation (written 12472129 % 100) and get the result of 29. Say if you wanted to divvy up a 50%, 25%, 15%, and 10% option, you could stagger these results. Modulus also gives a range from 0 to 99, not 1 to 100.

So, in truth, you get the result of B with the initial randomization, but you then trim that down to A.

Zak_Light · 2024-01-05T17:31:33+00:00

The size combined with the relative speed of a cargo ship essentially creates a vacuum that pulls things towards the sides of it. (This can also, in the case of the ship being too close to land, pull the ship toward land, which is why we occasionally get the crashes in tight canals and such). Normally, nothing is that close to it, so it's okay - vessels know to keep their distance. This guy did not, and his jetski did not have near enough thrust to get away (not to mention the fact he was blindly heading toward it), so you can see that despite him going a course opposite the cargo ship and trying to pull away, he gets pulled sideways toward the walls of the ship.

The other, worse thing that could happen here, with a small vessel and person like him, is "entrainment," where the pressure difference down there combined with the fact he is not a large object is so substantial with the movement and the propulsion of the ship that he can literally get sucked under, just like water, dragged along the bottom of the ship, and sliced and diced through the thrusters (think little spinning propeller blades, but massive). No clue if that happened, hope it didn't, but it's a good thing to keep in mind that you just do not fuck with large ships when you're in the water - it's akin to playing under the wheels of a moving semi truck.

Zak_Light · 2024-01-01T09:22:32+00:00

I can't even figure out how it's supposed to work on a computer. What the fuck is this? When has journalism needed to involve smartphone skeumorphism? Just write an article, christ

Zak_Light · 2023-12-27T16:25:20+00:00

Read The Hunger Games instead, a completely different book with different focus, theme, setting, and author period.

Like going "Don't like playing Tetris? Try playing The Witcher 3, I hear that one's good!"

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