Tech of the day: Twitter spam

I was asked by a friend why all of a sudden he's got a bunch of people following him on Twitter. He has never updated his Twitter after he joined.

Well, the first thought came to my mind is of course: spammer! The twist is: by following you on Twitter, they can't spam you yet 'coz while they see your update as a follower, you don't see their update because you're not following them.

And the last part was the key! In the early days of Twitter, when you follow a friend (or just an acquitance), s/he usually follows you back as a courtesy. I guess the spammers are hoping that you would still do that. (Apparently PBS came to the same conclusion prior to I did)

So, don't just blindly follow anyone who followed you (of course you could always unfollow a user if you did it by mistake)

每週一噏：監人賴厚

今天拜讀何政協《零分見誰才是失敗者》一文，才學會平時大家口頭講的「監人乃後」應寫作「監人賴厚」。雖然我常常犯這個毛病（解作勉強別人做自己喜歡的事），我卻甚少用這個詞語，對其出處十分好奇。Google過不得要領，即管試試自己解解：「監人」指强迫人；「厚」可解作喜歡；只是個「賴」字有點難解，可能解作傾向吧。

順帶一提，這個詞語相信由來已久，且看這條1947年的片，薛覺先（著名粵劇老倌）的對白就用上了。