Tag: facebook

A fire in Hout Bay – but why?

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A fire, indeed. And I should know, because I was there, watching the horseriding and watching the helicopters picking up water from the dam up the road and dumping it all over the fire in question.

There seem to have been more fires than usual in this fire season, but I’m not sure if that’s actually the case or if because some people are suggesting that might the case, we’re all now more aware and the numbers are being blown out of all proportion. The News Phenomenon, as it’s apparently known.

It has been very dry, but dryness alone isn’t enough to start a fire. So what is the actual cause of all these blazes? I wasn’t sure, so I turned to a social media comments section for incisive opinion and accurate information. As you do.

And here’s what I found:

The helicopter was passing by in paarl than the chopper turn around ,the helicopter was like high in the sky than i whats it the hole time

Quite reasonably, I almost gave up at this point, but my readers need answers, and so I persevered.

And here’s what I found:

As far as responsibility for this Hout Bay fire goes, the jury was split. Very split.
There were many suggestions:
Arson.
Arsen.
Schoolkids.
Self-inflicted.
Various political parties: MK, DA, EFF, ANC all got honourable mentions.
Donald Trump.
Terrorism.
“The Fire Lily industry.” – Fire lilies in this case are flowers that bloom after veldfires (and only after veldfires). But there is no Fire Lily industry. Yet. Still, I love the thought that has gone into this one.

There were a few calls for the death penalty to be introduced for arson. Which seems a bit harsh.
And there were lots of people praying for a swift resolution to the fires, but no-one actually blaming god for them happening in the first place.

But this a social media comments section, so anything goes.

Because then there were the loonies:
“Manufactured fires used as a weapon to poison the population.”
Zionists.
Electric cars.

And then there was the Queen Loony, Lorna Cayton, who gave us these gems:
Nexrad HAARP
DEWS!
But then during the COVID years, Lorna Cayton told us that wearing a mask was a Pagan ritual, and the use of forehead thermometers was a means of shooting an infra-red beam into your pineal gland.

So maybe it wasn’t Nexrad HAARP or the DEWS! after all.

Who knew?

Some people appear lucky to have avoided this particular incident. “Doglady Minky” said:

So so sad for all the lives affected, animals and humans?

i almost moved into a beautiful thatched house in that area and my biggest concern was the safety of my animals ?

And it’s not like we’re out of the fire season yet: as one commenter remarked:

More.fires..shame.man..now homes being damaged very badly.

Will this 2026 Fire Season running all the way into April this Year X 4 ? ? ? ?

XXXXX ?? ?? ?? ?? ??

11 : 11 Love 11 : 11

Which I think asks the important question we’re all introspectively asking: Will this 2026 Fire Season running all the way into April this Year X 4 ? ? ? ?

I guess that we can only wait and see.

Trailer Hire

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Bit late with today’s post, but maybe someone can please try and explain this one to me.

It’s a Facebook post from a trailer hire place down in Agulhas, and it starts off quite reasonably.

But then they add the hashtags, and I’ve actually no idea what is going on…

The smiley face at the end is the icing on the cake.

#karma #bitch #pitch #karma

Help. I don’t understand.

F@c€b00k removed my post

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This post.

Yes, I know that it was a machine not a person.
And yes, I get the reasons behind this, given the subject of the post and the sort of people that are out there.

But when you look at their messages to me:

How my post is “misleading” is a bit beyond me. The posts on 6000 miles… publish directly to Facebook so that you can access from there, and the biggest fan of this whole operation is Facebook itself, which is constantly (and irritatingly) reminding me to post more on there.

But when I do…

I have broken none of those rules. Sure, you will end up on the blog when you click the links I share, but I’m not trying to hide it. If you choose to click, that’s your problem, not mine.

We all know what you are letting yourself in for.

The other thing here is that they’ve removed my post, even though I’ve published a blog post every day for almost 14 years, and for at least half of those to Facebook, but then you look at the hate speech, AI images, misinformation, spam, the myriad of scams and general crap that gets through, and you think: why me?

And if it looks like I’m somehow elevating myself above other people posting stuff to Facebook, well yes, I am. Certainly above all of that stuff, anyway.

Who knows if this post will be removed as well? I cunningly tried to disguise the name of the social media service in the title of this post so that Facebook won’t know that the post is about it.
I know: you didn’t even notice, right?

It’s also worth noting that Twitter had no issue with this morning’s post. But then their bar on content quality is so low that it’s a tripping hazard in Hell.

So that’s not that surprising.

Facebook not pulling any punches :(

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Ouch, this “Suggested for you” recommendation was a bit hurtful:

Thanks a lot, Facebook algorithm.

Honestly though, considering how well Facebook is supposed to “know” me, the amount of misplaced ads and posts that it sends my way is quite laughable. Rap stuff, Trucking videos, Ads for Prime (the drink and the TV channel), the latest news from PJ Powers. No.

I think I’ll put this one down to being the same thing. Misplaced. Inaccurate.

Not me.
Definitely not me.

No. Just no.

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It’s the last day of real football today, before we go into this weird, unwanted Qatar World Cup break for the next month or so. Look, I will be watching – because it’s football – but I don’t think that I’ve ever been more disengaged and uninterested in any World Cup in my whole life. And I was only 8 months old for one of them.

Actually, the break could not have come at a better time for Sheffield United, as we might be able to get a few players back from injury while they aren’t playing thirteen matches a week to fit the tournament in. And the injury list is long: Daniel Jebbison, Jack O’Connell, Jayden Bogle, Max Lowe, Oli McBurnie, Rhian Brewster, Rhys Norrington-Davies (who should be on a plane to Qatar with the Welsh squad), Sander Berge, Tommy Doyle, Jack Robinson, Anel Ahmedhodzic and John Fleck. That’s more than an entire first team unavailable because they are broken. We started yesterday’s game with an academy player in midfield, and two more on the bench, and even then we had to add an extra goalkeeper to make up the numbers. Carnage.

(Still won, though.)

So that’s the only positive for me, but that doesn’t stop the constant stream of businesses and organisations trying to make me be interested. The latest one of those is Facebook. And they are very clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel with this nonsense:

Which team will have more corners? wut?

This assumes that a) I am interested in the World Cup, b) I am interested in England v Iran, c) I am interested in how many corners each team will get, and d) my extensive footballing acumen would allow me to predict such a meaningless statistic anyway.

But hey, Joãozin Albuquerque and 5.8M others are playing…

I have no idea who Joãozin Albuquerque is, by the way.

If you’re watching a World Cup (or any other) game just to see who gets the most corners, you’re either part of a match-fixing cartel or you’re doing football all wrong. Both of which do kind of fit with the whole Qatar 2022 vibe, but that’s really beside the point.

Just stop trying to make this happen. It’s not going to happen. Leave me alone.