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788 points jsheard | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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danso ◴[] No.42892901[source]
One tip I like to give for exploring public data is to do an early search for the word "fuck". It's a pretty ubiquitous word, but one that you assume shouldn't show up for certain fields, so seeing it, or not seeing it, can give useful insight to the the scope of the data universe and collection. Including where/who the data comes from, whether or not any validation exists during the collection process, and how updates/corrections are done to collected data.

For example, you're required to provide accurate info about yourself when donating to a U.S. federal political campaign [0]. Is it possible that someone, somewhere in America is legally named John Fucksalot? Or works for a company named Fucks, Inc? Maybe! We're a huge country with wildly diverse cultural standards and senses of humor. But a John Fucksalot, CEO of Fucks Inc, who lives in Fuck City, Ohio 42069? Probably not, and the fact that this record exists says something about how the rules and laws regarding straw donors are readily enforce. And whether or not an enforcement action happened, what field in the FEC data indicates a revised record?

Seems like this tip can still be useful in the Age of LLMs. Not just for learning about the training data, but also how confident providers are in their models, and how many guardails they've needed to tack on to prevent it from giving unwanted answers.

[0] https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?...

replies(1): >>42893028 #
pjc50 ◴[] No.42893028[source]
There used to be a Fucking, Austria until they decided to self censor for the pesky English speakers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugging,_Upper_Austria
replies(2): >>42893165 #>>42893619 #
notahacker ◴[] No.42893165[source]
disappointed that Fucking has self censored, bearing in mind their road safety signs used to suggest local residents were in on the joke https://imgur.com/5KOCwdC
replies(1): >>42893481 #
1. awiesenhofer ◴[] No.42893481[source]
They didn't self censor, they had to change the name because most tourists behaved like assholes. Stealing the road signs, parking anywhere, walking into peoples gardens, etc.

Also the road safety sign, while a funny combination, is pretty standard and can be found all over Austria.