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

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This feed currently contains the following newsitems (total count 1210):

    • Why should any server resources be given to SEO?
      • Vindication of yesterday’s decision to block Alibaba’s bots on Autocade: it’s attempting to access load.php with a huge string, not one that would normally be available to a casual web user As Autocade’s traffic numbers surge to over a million a month today, we are continuing to make sure the bots are blocked (and, [...] Read More... from Why should any server resources be given to SEO?

    • Weekend thoughts: farewell, Ian Crawford; online disinformation; Alibaba and Amazon scrapers
      • It was sad to read of the passing of Ian Crawford, the former TV producer, whom I got to know through Lucire in his post-Crawfords career. I never pressed Ian about Crawford Productions and preferred to keep things on topic about his Pacific resort. It was out of respect as I had the sense (rightly [...] Read More... from Weekend thoughts: farewell, Ian Crawford; online disinformation; Alibaba and Amazon scrapers

    • Excuses, excuses
      • You’d think ChatGPT would get details about itself right. I wanted to check something out after adding more anti-bot rules to Cloudflare for our highest-traffic websites. (I had to do this automatically as Cloudflare appears to block a few legit bots, like Huawei’s Petal search. That’s another story.) I know this goes against everything I’ve [...] Read More... from Excuses, excuses

    • Autocade’s top 20 leaderboard, three years since the reset
      • Interesting to see the Autocade leaderboard as it was in 2022, as there are some differences today: The first image in the 2022 post was before the site was shifted to a new server. The second was from a couple of months later. There is some jostling around but at this rate, the [...] Read More... from Autocade’s top 20 leaderboard, three years since the reset

    • The frauds of online advertising, and aiming to block sign-up bots
      • Bob Hoffman has his book, Inside the Black Box, available on his website as a free download. It’s a fascinating read about how online advertising is largely a con, with lots of ad fraud, made for advertising sites (MFAs), and opaqueness, he explains. Bob is critical about programmatic advertising (25 per cent of programmatic ad [...] Read More... from The frauds of online advertising, and aiming to block sign-up bots

    • Some of the feeds are frozen
      • It looks like Feed Informer (formerly Feed Digest) is frozen, though this is not a complaint. When someone offers a service for free for years, and hasn’t enshittified, then being down once a year (the last time was January 2024) for a few days is hardly worth getting upset about. Last time it was out [...] Read More... from Some of the feeds are frozen

    • Über gives up rides, website now specializes in puzzles
      • Every once in a while I try this Über thing everyone’s talking about. I’ve never been able to get the “app” to work but you can theoretically use the website. Except I believe Über is no longer doing rides and is now principally a puzzle website. Trying to get one for my partner from a [...] Read More... from Über gives up rides, website now specializes in puzzles

    • Doctor Who actors ranked
      • This was inspired by Craig Majors’ post on Mastodon, when he posted his ranking of favourite Doctor Who actors. A lot of Whovians will completely disagree with my ranking, but one hopes that the fandom is generous and tolerant enough to accept that everyone sees things differently. The only time the world agreed on who [...] Read More... from Doctor Who actors ranked

    • The Barnum effect of chat bots
      • Here’s a post that summarizes generative “AI” quite well. Hat tip to Brian Krebs, posting this on Mastodon. I can’t embed the post here—maybe he s has embedding turned off. The original that Krebs cites, by David Gerard, can be found here. Like the social media websites concocted by the graduates of Prof Fogg’s class [...] Read More... from The Barnum effect of chat bots

    • Unpinning a collaborative Instagram post: it can’t be done when neither party pinned it
      • A few days ago, Lucire’s Instagram account had a pinned post that we never pinned. It was a collaborative post from our friend Michael Nelson in Dubai which he posted in March. Above: Our Instagram page after Mike’s team attempted to edit the post, and we pinned our issue 51 cover to counteract the [...] Read More... from Unpinning a collaborative Instagram post: it can’t be done when neither party pinned it

    • Running site: searches for four of our sites across four engines
      • Google is hiding the number of results for any given search. Google hid this under ‘Tools’ some time ago but now that link no longer works universally. I was able to access it using a vulnerable browser that let everything through, and for this blog, at least, the count is surprisingly poor. Google is so [...] Read More... from Running site: searches for four of our sites across four engines

    • When referring to ‘a techno-authoritarian surveillance state’ is not alarmist
      • If you watch one in-depth interview this week, it should be this one: Jon Stewart interviewing Carole Cadwalladr, on broligarchs, “AI”, and a techno-authoritarian surveillance state. And no, not a single component of that title is alarmist. We have been watching the world head to this point right through the 2010s, except now it’s accelerating [...] Read More... from When referring to ‘a techno-authoritarian surveillance state’ is not alarmist

    • The two Ranis
      • I had suspected Anita Dobson’s Mrs Flood had a connection to the Rani in Doctor Who, only because I was trying to make a connection between the character’s last appearance in the 1993 charity special ‘Dimensions in Time’ (which, as far as I know, is canon) and Angie Watts, who, in EastEnders canon, is in [...] Read More... from The two Ranis

    • The creative sector adds the most value, and we should be proud to say so
      • After sitting on a panel to approve a bachelor’s programme for one polytechnic, I was dismayed to read right after that some of the courses were being cut. I alluded to a disinterest in learning about design in an earlier post, but I was put right by some young people who said their courses were [...] Read More... from The creative sector adds the most value, and we should be proud to say so

    • The “AI”-free joints are the places to hang out (where everybody knows your name)
      • Nice to get some link love from Mashable, though unfortunately Wordpress didn’t pick it up. I only knew because 13 spun splogs, including “AI”-translated ones, picked it up and linked us, and my blog had a queue of track-back requests. Chris Taylor’s ‘Welcome to Google AI Mode! Everything is fine’, with the sub-lede ‘Wait a [...] Read More... from The “AI”-free joints are the places to hang out (where everybody knows your name)

    • Testing the occidental search engines with site:—Bing most improved
      • Having seen the number of results for Autocade drop on Mojeek—something which they said was unlikely—I thought it was about time I ran another series of site: tests, using our random cross-section. And I have to report that for some sites, the drop is real. I can’t speak for whether the others have actually removed [...] Read More... from Testing the occidental search engines with site:—Bing most improved

    • Why AWS is terrible for most businesses
      • I know, if you search, you’re bound to find an opinion that matches yours, and pretty quickly, too. Bhagwad Park (in either Ontario or Florida—I assume one of the addresses on his site hasn’t been updated) happens to agree with me about AWS, except he breaks things down far better, being an expert on web [...] Read More... from Why AWS is terrible for most businesses

    • We need great design and brands—now more than ever
      • It is disturbing to think that design, which you’d instinctively think is an evergreen profession with constant demand, isn’t capturing young people the way it did for me. In New Zealand at least, educators are telling me there’s less demand for graphic design courses. If people are enrolling, they’re often in-house crews in big companies [...] Read More... from We need great design and brands—now more than ever

    • The journey out
      • When I was an infant in Kowloon, a neighbourhood girl, Kit, used to come over to play. I suddenly thought about those days in the 1970s earlier today. When we left Hong Kong, we had not expected that our earlier residency application would be granted while we were on holiday in New Zealand. Some of [...] Read More... from The journey out

    • What they can tell from a single photo
      • Again via Ben Daubney’s blog, which I found yesterday, a site called They See Your Photos, which uses Google’s Vision API to infer information about you. If you feed in a photo, the site provides Google’s output, and it is eerie what they are capable of “seeing”. However, the single photo’s output is not accurate, [...] Read More... from What they can tell from a single photo

    • When dead trees beat the internet
      • Ben Daubney has an excellent post titled ‘The web used to be a reliable library. AI has ruined it.’ A real-life Duck Duck Go (Bing) search he ran netted him six “AI slop” entries in the top 10, and I’m betting that Google isn’t any better. If search engines had kept up with the game, [...] Read More... from When dead trees beat the internet

    • Substantial drop in site: results at Mojeek; is Ecosia now Google?
      • I’m told by Mojeek that this should not happen but it has. In October 2023, it had 3,103 results for a site: search for the original Autocade website, beating Google at 2,910 and Bing at 2,170. Mojeek is meant to build on its index but earlier this year, it dropped into the 700s. Currently site:autocade.net [...] Read More... from Substantial drop in site: results at Mojeek; is Ecosia now Google?

    • Google searches aren’t straightforward any more
      • I haven’t used Google as a default search engine for 15 years, so odds are I haven’t witnessed its enshittification as gradually as most people. To me it is a surprise when I see new bugs and errors. Have these errors simply increased so imperceptibly over time that people just accept them? This [...] Read More... from Google searches aren’t straightforward any more

    • Granddad’s war stories
      • On this day of remembrance, some thoughts about my paternal grandfather, the last member of my family to see active service (thank God). Like so many veterans, he did have PTSD after World War II. The eastern theatre took him around China and to Malaya and Singapore. He never talked much about his experiences but [...] Read More... from Granddad’s war stories

    • Autocade at 42 million, kicked off Weibo, and random links
      • The anorak posts about Autocade milestones now appear on Autocade World, and we hit 42 million page views earlier this week. In other news, a pro-China political post saw my Weibo suspended ‘temporarily’, no sign on when this will be lifted. Hence the Weibo logo disappearing from the footer of this blog. It is a [...] Read More... from Autocade at 42 million, kicked off Weibo, and random links

    • Tariffs won’t make the Big Two great again
      • From me on Autocade World: President Donald J. Trump has been talking about tariffs for a very long time, even as a businessman back in the ’80s. Back then he lamented that the US was being hard done by Japan, with all the Japanese cars and VCRs that Americans were buying, and yet the reverse [...] Read More... from Tariffs won’t make the Big Two great again

    • How the search engines fared with a new site
      • As Autocade World is a relatively new site, it has been interesting to see how some of the search engines have fared. It is a Wordpress site, which experience tells me presents a set of issues when it comes to search. Mojeek: barely anything. Four links to date, though an interesting mix of the home [...] Read More... from How the search engines fared with a new site

    • Common-sense economics
      • I haven’t commented on US politics much lately, primarily because there are others who do it far better. If you want excellent insight without being weighed down in detail, read what Richard Murphy in the UK has to say on, say, US tariffs, or the madness of austerity economics. His blog Funding the Future has [...] Read More... from Common-sense economics

    • License from us, not from US
      • Anti-American sentiment harming sales of your licensed fashion magazine? We have a solution for that. We still provide US coverage but without being US-owned. But, importantly, we recognize that there are great fashion, beauty, lifestyle and travel stories the world over. I have had to think a lot about whether our country-of-origin effect is [...] Read More... from License from us, not from US

    • “AI” bots drive Wikipedia traffic up 50 per cent—as we already witnessed in 2023
      • Another thing I experienced before others: “AI” scraping causing a substantial increase in bandwidth, notably at Autocade in 2023. In Wikipedia’s case, this happened last year, as the “AI” bots sent their bandwidth up 50 per cent. Casey Newton writes: Post by @caseynewton View on Mastodon The bots steal, do not give attribution, and [...] Read More... from “AI” bots drive Wikipedia traffic up 50 per cent—as we already witnessed in 2023

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