Tags

Feeds / Jack Yan posts

This feed is published by Jack Yan.

This feed is read by this Whakaoko subscription

Added on 4 Jul 2013. Last read 2 minutes ago.

To subscribe to this feed, enter the following location into your feed reader.

This feed currently contains the following newsitems (total count 1084):

    • From The Lord of the Rings to Border Patrol: how Sweden sees us
      • My visits to Sweden have been few and far apart, since it is quite a distance to travel from New Zealand: summer 2002, autumn 2003, winter 2010, and summer 2024. There are many interesting observations one can make with so many years in between, seeing how society has changed with brief snapshots from each visit, [...] Read More... from From The Lord of the Rings to Border Patrol: how Sweden sees us

    • Why ad tracking is bad: it puts democracy in jeopardy
      • An excellent reminder from Don Marti on just why ad tracking is bad on the web: The tracking is not there to identify the individual (the data doesn’t have to be accurate) but to enable getting the highest-priced ad onto the cheapest possible site Cross-context tracking puts higher value and lower value sites into competition [...] Read More... from Why ad tracking is bad: it puts democracy in jeopardy

    • Autocade reaches 38 million page views
      • Autocade made it comfortably to 38 million page views today, the counter showing 10,362,605. Add the 27,647,011 on the old server, that’s 38,009,616 (as expected yesterday when it was sitting just shy of the 38 million mark). Currently there are 5,059 entries on the site, and we got to the latest million in just under [...] Read More... from Autocade reaches 38 million page views

    • Continuing the disinformation battle—because we have to
      • The disinformation continues, this time on Quora. Here this person defends the indefensible by … agreeing with me? The up shot is that they did delete their keyword-stuffing spam, so overall my commenting got a result. Quora would have deleted it, but it would have taken longer. There were a couple more on [...] Read More... from Continuing the disinformation battle—because we have to

    • Big Tech lies: that’s the default position
      • If we take everything Big Tech says as a lie, then we wouldn’t be far off what is happening, rendering my recording of the examples I encounter in daily life unnecessary. We know they lie, and it would actually become more unusual to record the times they tell the truth or follow through with something. [...] Read More... from Big Tech lies: that’s the default position

    • Testing the occidental search engines with site:, June 2024 edition
      • I haven’t run one of these tests for a while (for eight months), to track how the occidental search engines were doing with the claimed number of pages for a cross-section of websites. Mojeek and, last time I checked, Bing were actually truthful about these numbers. Bing had missed the mark on this for some [...] Read More... from Testing the occidental search engines with site:, June 2024 edition

    • As we grow and chart a new direction, a fresh site for JY&A Media
      • JY&A Media has a new website, to tie in with the new direction we have for the business. I think it was evident that when we created the Autocade Yearbook and built our e-commerce shop, Libriz, that things were changing. Whereas JYA Creative and JY&A Fonts work with clients to help realize their branding, [...] Read More... from As we grow and chart a new direction, a fresh site for JY&A Media

    • Using “AI”: you need to know when answers are disinformation
      • You need your wits about you more often than not, especially when Bing tells you MIT went online in 1881 Having come up blank in regular web searches on Mojeek, Google and Bing, I resorted to LLM-driven bots to see if they would help. I wanted to know if anyone predated Lucire into turning [...] Read More... from Using “AI”: you need to know when answers are disinformation

    • Google’s had issues with PHP pages for a long, long time
      • From me, link removed. Guess what year? There is one thing Google does not seem to do very well any more: search. That’s an exaggeration, but I have been really surprised at things that it has failed to find of late. For example: stuff on this blog. It is not to do with age: Google [...] Read More... from Google’s had issues with PHP pages for a long, long time

    • XScreenSaver’s privacy policy lays bare Google’s disgraceful conduct
      • After saying that I wouldn’t blog about these, along comes one that is too priceless to ignore. XScreenSaver has been on the Google Play store but was facing deletion unless it included a privacy policy. Since it collected no data, its creators didn’t feel it was necessary, but as Google insisted, they wrote a cracker. [...] Read More... from XScreenSaver’s privacy policy lays bare Google’s disgraceful conduct

    • Tech misdeeds are now too numerous
      • You don’t need me keeping score: misdeeds in the tech industry, from Adobe using user content for its “AI” tools to Elon Musk being a Nazi, are a daily occurrence now, and plenty of others are writing about them. At the top end, it seems such a poisonous area to be in, especially with so [...] Read More... from Tech misdeeds are now too numerous

    • Using once-legitimate sites to host or refer SEO spam
      • The web is full of bollocks these days. Here’s The European Business Review, which looks like a legit publication. Not that you can tell from its website: As their latest print cover is on “AI”, then maybe it is only fitting that their website is stuffed with LLM-written drivel. Do proponents [...] Read More... from Using once-legitimate sites to host or refer SEO spam

    • Strange behaviour on SRWare Iron, and Bing ranks phishing site first
      • I was led to believe that SRWare Iron was Chromium with more privacy, but this morning’s experience testing it was a bit disturbing. Let’s take a fairly common search, like Amazon seller. SRWare’s default search engine is Bing, or at least its own search takes you to Bing. And Bing puts in its first result [...] Read More... from Strange behaviour on SRWare Iron, and Bing ranks phishing site first

    • Praising the small web
      • Jon Henshaw shared his ‘Small matters’ post recently, and it makes for good reading. One highlight: While the Small Web still exists, most people spend increasingly more time on the Big Web [sites controlled by mega-corporations], and that’s a problem because the walled gardens and algorithms keep us from seeing and experiencing the many extraordinary [...] Read More... from Praising the small web

    • Has Bing’s image search tanked?
      • Maybe I have very rotten timing but out of curiosity, I tried out the Duck Duck Go image search tonight for something that I thought would yield a lot of results. You know I wouldn’t give Google praise freely, but to its credit: I thought: maybe DDG had problems with its [...] Read More... from Has Bing’s image search tanked?

    • Google sacks its own team for protesting
      • I had bookmarked this a while back: the statement by former Google employees who were sacked for not supporting the company’s involvement with the Israeli government and military. Some were not even part of the employees’ sit-in protests. But Google is too weak to be able to handle dissent, and clearly doesn’t support the welfare [...] Read More... from Google sacks its own team for protesting

    • Tesla misfires, Toyota lies
      • The 1983 Corolla liftback—the E80 series was peak Corolla, relative to what was on offer in the C segment. Toyota was on a high then. Tesla finished itself this year, by firing its new-product development team at a time when it desperately needs new products—proper products, too, not the Cyberstuck which has so many [...] Read More... from Tesla misfires, Toyota lies

    • My friend Randy writes a book; our ‘Written by humans’ graphic; Hart’s is economical
      • Extra plug for my friend Randy Scobey, who has written a memoir. Since Randy and I met through blogging in 2006, it seems fitting to mention this on my blog. What I wrote in Lucire about his book is heartfelt. If you want to read a first-hand account on the stigma felt by the [...] Read More... from My friend Randy writes a book; our ‘Written by humans’ graphic; Hart’s is economical

    • Autocade reaches 37 million page views
      • I knew this was coming since I saw the Autocade total was 7,000 shy of 37,000,000 yesterday (after a couple of 30,000 page-view days). At 9,373,244 on the counter, plus 27,647,011 from the old server, we arrive at 37,020,255 (which, of course, means we had 27,000 page views over the last 24 hours). That’s 50 [...] Read More... from Autocade reaches 37 million page views

    • Finally, a proper right of reply
      • Finally, my own blog appears up top in one of the Google searches that Semrush claims is happening, but it really isn’t—except maybe by their third-party data supplier’s bots, and me since the misinformation started a few months ago. In fact, the first five slots are truthful, including Scoop’s republication of our release, until [...] Read More... from Finally, a proper right of reply

    • To our Sunday colleagues, you should still be on air
      • Above: Sunday host Miriama Kamo. [Cross-posted from Lucire] To our colleagues at Television New Zealand’s Sunday, including Lucire alum Mava Moayyed, we bid you godspeed and good luck. Your programme didn’t deserve cancellation. This country needs proper, long-form current affairs, and with Sunday airing its final episode [on Sunday] night, this has come to [...] Read More... from To our Sunday colleagues, you should still be on air

    • Which other Glen A. Larson production did this girl group appear in?
      • This girl group appears in three Glen A. Larson productions that I can think of, and probably appears in more. Switch, Knight Rider and Cover Up are the three I know of. Their fashions and hairstyles, plus those of the audience, would place this in the first part of the 1970s—by the time they [...] Read More... from Which other Glen A. Larson production did this girl group appear in?

    • The allies who are helping fight back against misinformation
      • The truth-tellers are starting to emerge on the web, combatting the misinformation that Semrush users have been uploading for the last few months. The best written is from Crestify Studio in New Jersey, where its president Allen Wang has been a great ally. They were innocently and very briefly caught up in the misinformation but, [...] Read More... from The allies who are helping fight back against misinformation

    • Testing occidental search engines on site: again: Mojeek, Bing more normal
      • It was about time I had a look at the occidental search engines again, using a site:jackyan.com search to see how they fared. The previous test for this site was in May 2023. I knew Google was still terrible, and I knew Bing had improved since the days of having 10 results for the domain. [...] Read More... from Testing occidental search engines on site: again: Mojeek, Bing more normal

    • Google ranks LLM-authored junk tops
      • One very interesting development in the whole fight against misinformation using my name is that Google won’t give me a right of reply. You’d logically think that an authoritative site would appear higher, all things being fair, but my posts about the spammy keywords don’t appear in the results. Misinformation, however, does, and [...] Read More... from Google ranks LLM-authored junk tops

    • The logical consequence of Semrush and its users’ misinformation: personal attacks
      • This is the natural consequence of all the misinformation that Semrush encouraged its users to post through the crap generated by its Keyword Magic Tool: people attacking me on Reddit. And who can blame them? It could well look like I was behind this spam campaign, instead of being the victim. The deleted comment [...] Read More... from The logical consequence of Semrush and its users’ misinformation: personal attacks

    • WordPerfect for Linux and Unix character terminals
      • Huge thanks to Paul Kater in the Netherlands for finding these: WordPerfect for Unix character terminals and WordPerfect for Linux. These are classic WordPerfect, without the WYSIWYG UI, but given that WordPerfect was the gold standard in word processors, I’ve no doubt that it’ll beat many of its newer rivals for power and functionality. [...] Read More... from WordPerfect for Linux and Unix character terminals

    • For the sake of our city, it’s important to take the opportunities to move forward
      • The late 1990s were a heady time here in Aotearoa. The web—pre-Google, pre-monopolies—was indeed the great leveller: anyone with the right skills could create something online that competed at a global level. Aotearoa, which had for years felt a little backward in time—TV shows would arrive here two to three years after they aired in [...] Read More... from For the sake of our city, it’s important to take the opportunities to move forward

    • Healthy jumps on Autocade
      • I’m happy to note that Autocade has had a few high-traffic days again, the first time the daily rate has exceeded 30,000 since we put the site behind Cloudflare. After the site was reinstalled in 2022 and the counter reset, Autocade’s Mediawiki stats only update once a day. April 18: 8,633,966 April 19: 8,668,095 [...] Read More... from Healthy jumps on Autocade

    • Do you really want a Nazi brand association?
      • Dan Gillmor wrote: I share Dan’s view. Not only that, why would anyone want their brand—corporate or personal—to be tarnished by Musk and his simplified swastika? Yes, my account is still there, inactive (and locked), making sure no one takes the handle. That’s just prudent, because the one thing worse than having your [...] Read More... from Do you really want a Nazi brand association?

Updated Feeds

Recently updated feeds from local organisations.