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Added on 4 Jul 2013. Last read 1 minute ago.

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    • The mean streets of the information superhighway
      • Over the last week we’ve seen Meta suppress the US’s No Kings protests, and Lula won his case in Brazil proving that Meta had, indeed, amplified the messages of his rival, Bolsonaro, to the level of a celebrity, during their presidential elections. I said a decade ago Zuckerberg was palling around with fascists and the [...] Read More... from The mean streets of the information superhighway

    • Reflection
      • A fun memory from 2011. My dad was a believer in fixing things rather than replacing things, so when a supermarket trolley (we think) smashed the rear reflector on my previous Renault Mégane coupé, he used the red handle from a long-dead toothbrush (he kept them in case he needed to use them to clean [...] Read More... from Reflection

    • Voting is not a marriage
      • What a great reminder from Esther Schindler: A non-partisan reminder: Voting isn’t marriage. It’s public transport. You’re not waiting for “the one.” You’re getting on the bus. And if no bus goes exactly to your destination, you don’t stay home and sulk. You take the one that gets you closest to where you want [...] Read More... from Voting is not a marriage

    • WordPress sites potentially hacked through Optinmonster
      • Unfortunately I could find no online references for this error, so here’s one. Two of our sites were hacked. If you see this text, log in to your WordPress installation now. It had appeared on the top of these two sites. === console.log('header!'); // Easy to add and display post grid on your website [...] Read More... from WordPress sites potentially hacked through Optinmonster

    • The uncanny valley got wider
      • I have used some “AI” imagery on this site, and as our perceptions shift, it’s so interesting to see that that imagery, which a year or two ago would have looked convincing to me, now looks uncanny valley. Of the blog header images, the ones with real photographs look, well, real; the generated ones have [...] Read More... from The uncanny valley got wider

    • I am not on Gmail
      • It’s been strange to see emails addressed to me as well as jackyan@gmail.com. First it was just scammers who did this, but yesterday I came across a legit PR company that used it as well. I don’t know who’s at the Gmail address because they’re being unwittingly dragged in to my world, and they should [...] Read More... from I am not on Gmail

    • Our government loves foreign corporations
      • Yes, it would be nice to have greater competition in grocery shopping but once again the New Zealand coalition government has its priorities backwards. It proposes breaking up Foodstuffs, the New Zealand company that has about 53 per cent of the market here. Once again its actions seem misplaced, because it leaves the foreign competitor—Australia’s [...] Read More... from Our government loves foreign corporations

    • Lucire Rouge gets a new look
      • Lucire Rouge, a US-based licensed sister site to Lucire, was down for a few days last week, the fault being attributable to the skin, or the theme. I don’t want to bag the theme too badly since there are other plug-ins in WordPress that conflict with each other, and who knows if an automatic [...] Read More... from Lucire Rouge gets a new look

    • Do not give up on your dreams
      • I came across a post that’s not worth linking at all, where the writer notes that it’s not worth chasing your goals. The odds of succeeding are so slim you should focus on bettering what’s nearest to you, such as your community. It’s defeatist nonsense, because there is nothing stopping anyone from doing both: chase [...] Read More... from Do not give up on your dreams

    • New Zealand political satire is alive, but on social media
      • Attributed to the Labour candidate for Wellington Bays MP, Craig Renney, via the notable blues man Darren Watson. We’re not a poor country, but we absolutely make poor choices when it comes to spending. Let me give you a very brief example. Boot camps. The first round of boot camps cost $4·1 million for ten [...] Read More... from New Zealand political satire is alive, but on social media

    • Upset at Google now? Why not before?
      • Interesting there are people finding themselves upset over Google’s capitulation to another Trumpian demand that Lake Ontario be called Lake America. They weren’t upset over the Gulf of México being renamed Gulf of America, which Google jumped to change last year? Or they weren’t upset when Project Nimbus became public and it was revealed that [...] Read More... from Upset at Google now? Why not before?

    • The John Yan you are looking for is not at jyanet.com
      • For many years, Dad’s old account was getting emails from people purporting to be Chinese women. I had everything from his old account come to me, for obvious reasons. These emails followed a similar formula. They tell a story of a Chinese woman who has moved to the US, wanting to connect with a Chinese [...] Read More... from The John Yan you are looking for is not at jyanet.com

    • New Zealand GDP 2024–5: the worst of the OECD 38 and going backwards
      • You can only pull the ‘But the rest of the world has it tough’ argument for only so long but objective, international stats do not lie. To those friends in the US, the UK and the Continent who didn’t believe me when I said things were bad, who said, ‘It’s just as bad here,’ I [...] Read More... from New Zealand GDP 2024–5: the worst of the OECD 38 and going backwards

    • Libriz attacked; now back online
      • Libriz was offline earlier today, thanks to hackers who upped their attacks on the site last week. No user data were compromised. It’s back for now though there is still some fine-tuning to be done. We had no choice but to put it on Cloudflare. I know a lot of you have a [...] Read More... from Libriz attacked; now back online

    • The “AIs” are contained
      • From people far smarter than me on computing, countering those stories about “AIs” being so powerful they escaped their computers and went on to other ones. The thread began with a CEO who had run his web server as root. Mathias Hasselmann wrote (I’d embed but the system won’t let me): That’s actually the point [...] Read More... from The “AIs” are contained

    • Keep it on the low-down
      • I had an interesting chat to one of the crew, regarding Lucire’s low social media metrics. This has come up once before—that the enquirer couldn’t see that an operation that began on the web before Google, extended its brand into print (one of the first to do so—and by some definitions the first), then into [...] Read More... from Keep it on the low-down

    • “AI” companies do the modern form of book burning
      • Local bookshop Book Haven in Newtown, among others around the world, has seen an uptick in orders—and it’s clear that it’s “AI” companies buying up obscure texts. The tragedy is, after scanning the texts, they’re potentially destroying the books, removing an original source for someone else to enjoy. Book Haven has rightly refused to sell [...] Read More... from “AI” companies do the modern form of book burning

    • Don’t mess with an INFJ
      • My first real Myers–Briggs test was at university. Our lecturer in human resources, his first time teaching, kindly arranged for a firm to process our tests. We were then divided into groups in the class based on our Myers–Briggs types, and we had to see if we had commonalities, reporting back to the class. He [...] Read More... from Don’t mess with an INFJ

    • Keeping the humanity, because tech is coming for it
      • I’ve had this bookmarked for some time: ‘Facebook allegedly detected when teen girls deleted selfies so it could serve them beauty ads’, in Futurism, and it’s not just Sarah Wynn-Williams saying this. The Murdoch Press, which commendably has done its share of exposés on Big Tech, ‘alleged that the company had crafted a pitch deck [...] Read More... from Keeping the humanity, because tech is coming for it

    • The reason for having a personal Instagram is to know who to block
      • I recently popped into my old Instagram—which I haven’t touched regularly since the start of the decade—to find that Meta, as usual, changed all the privacy settings in the advertisers’ favour and without my consent. This is the norm for the company: even back in the 2000s I used to say the only reason for [...] Read More... from The reason for having a personal Instagram is to know who to block

    • ‘I am the death of real’
      • Meta’s Facebook and Instagram have been filled with bots for years. When I used Facebook personally, it was already bot city, and the last time I did a calculation on its user base, I seem to recall half was bot. I’m betting it’s more now, the same with Instagram. And we need to add one [...] Read More... from ‘I am the death of real’

    • Covering 38 years in an hour with Austin Holmes on OverPressure
      • Absolutely thrilled that my friend Austin Holmes has uploaded our OverPressure podcast interview on to YouTube—and what a joy to find that this was one of his favourites! I cover my type design career, publishing, branding, and some of the stories that I’ve never shared before, within the contexts of entrepreneurship, leadership, and service. [...] Read More... from Covering 38 years in an hour with Austin Holmes on OverPressure

    • There’s one US export I wish they wouldn’t peddle
      • It’s very easy to get the impression that US Big Tech is fundamentally dishonest. Examples abound. Its politicians seem dead keen on balkanizing the place, so on public and private fronts, the image the US projects is decaying and untrustworthy. Words like honour and integrity mean little when everything about that level of the US [...] Read More... from There’s one US export I wish they wouldn’t peddle

    • A Curlie-influenced web is starting to happen
      • I had an idea last year about getting rid of the junk in search engine results, and that was to link them to Curlie, which effectively succeeded the old Open Directory Project (Dmoz, Newhoo, Gnuhoo, and other names). Curlie isn’t funded anywhere nearly as well as ODP, but something like it is actually fundamental to [...] Read More... from A Curlie-influenced web is starting to happen

    • Sixteen years on, farewell to WordPress’s Akismet plug-in
      • Akismet, which I’ve used since 2010, spat the dummy in the last 24 hours and the WordPress sites that used my API key were bombarded with spam. Akismet has enshittified, leaving only a very narrow bunch of sites where you can use it for free—completely unlike the early days. Unfortunately, they chose to suspend my [...] Read More... from Sixteen years on, farewell to WordPress’s Akismet plug-in

    • Making something out of nothing
      • I have admittedly taken a softer line on some “AI” gen since our clients use it, and combined with our awareness of how desktop publishing unfolded, and where Medinge Group’s own thinking is heading, in line with our ongoing work into conscious organizations, there is a space for it. You’ve noticed my covering it more [...] Read More... from Making something out of nothing

    • Copy editing: human 1, bot 0
      • One of the team used “AI” to ensure her copy was in line with our house style, namely the OUP one, using Hart’s Rules. I thought that sounded harmless enough so I ran some copy through it to see. Here is my side of the exchange, with censored words where appropriate. The responses from the [...] Read More... from Copy editing: human 1, bot 0

    • I remember back to when I was nine months old, doesn’t everyone?
      • In my last post, I mentioned a memoir that only three people have copies of, in various states of completion. In there, I devote about eight pages to infant memories that I had between nine months (or thereabouts) and five years, as they probably did impact on at least one decision I made in business. [...] Read More... from I remember back to when I was nine months old, doesn’t everyone?

    • Good values are timeless
      • Sometimes you have to go with your creative instincts regardless of logic. Last year I worked on a business memoir—it’s not an autobiography, which means certain significant people aren’t in there as much—which is part of a larger project that I’m fleshing out. Logic would say that the larger project should be prepared first, but [...] Read More... from Good values are timeless

    • Palantir’s dystopia
      • Here are two disturbing opening paragraphs from The New Republic in March (link to X removed): Palantir CEO Alex Karp thinks his AI technology will lessen the power of “highly educated, often female voters, who vote mostly Democrat” while increasing the power of working-class men. “This technology disrupts humanities-trained—largely Democratic—voters, and makes their economic power [...] Read More... from Palantir’s dystopia

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