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

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    • Civility and self-righteousness don’t mix
      • There may be a group of people today who are far more tolerant and accepting, their numbers increased by young people who have grown up in a far more connected world, and have been exposed to more creeds and races than their forebears. That’s a good thing. And we should, rightly, be intolerant toward the [...] Read More... from Civility and self-righteousness don’t mix

    • These covers could be hazardous to your eyes
      • Of the public-domain paperbacks we’ve published, I like to think we’ve done a very decent job. In the case of A Farewell to Arms, we’ve had some custom because no one has published the book in its uncensored form till now. We’ve given something to the literary world and we finally fulfilled Ernest Hemingway’s wishes. [...] Read More... from These covers could be hazardous to your eyes

    • Another advocate for non-tracking ads
      • Again, not alone here, just ahead of the game (at least ahead in terms of public pronouncements; I’m sure Jon has had this in mind for some time). Post by @jon View on Mastodon With an excellent reply by Dan Seitz further down the thread (a direct quote since Vivaldi Social isn’t displaying [...] Read More... from Another advocate for non-tracking ads

    • No matter how bad you had it, someone had it worse
      • Two things: I did say “AI” programs would ultimately make up false stories about us all. And what happened to me in 2024 was not as bad as what happened to Arve Hjalmar Holmen in Norway. There are still a few disinformation stories left about me—about four more where companies who would normally enforce their [...] Read More... from No matter how bad you had it, someone had it worse

    • Autocade turns 17
      • March 8 isn’t etched into my memory as much as October 20—the birthdays of Autocade and Lucire respectively. Autocade, therefore, has just turned 17, and back in 2008, I certainly never expected it to exist as print yearbooks come the mid-2020s. As mentioned, I had toyed with doing a print version and Keith Adams (AROnline, [...] Read More... from Autocade turns 17

    • If you want a slice of the pie, then compete
      • A very interesting analysis on Crikey by Bernard Keane on the turmoil the occident finds itself in. In the opening paragraphs we find this zinger about what the right wing believes it was to protect the west from. Protecting from whom? Name your favourite other—the Soviet Union. Islam. China. Declining birth rates. Secularism. Immigrants. Globalism. [...] Read More... from If you want a slice of the pie, then compete

    • No one is an island, not even when on an island
      • With the dismantling of the US by Lone Skum and others, Mike Masnick wrote in Techdirt: ‘And now we’re watching Musk, Trump, and their allies destroy these foundations. They operate under the dangerous delusion of the “great man” theory of innovation—the false belief that revolutionary changes come solely from lone geniuses, rather than from the [...] Read More... from No one is an island, not even when on an island

    • I’m no longer alone in calling for Big Tech to face bans
      • I’ve been saying this for many years, certainly for at least five, but the most ready example I can find on my blog was from August 2024: we have seen repeatedly how dishonest Big Tech conduct, which is often left unchecked, festers into something appalling, whether it’s anticompetitive conduct or the genocide of Rohingya Muslims [...] Read More... from I’m no longer alone in calling for Big Tech to face bans

    • The end of US free shipping at Libriz (hopefully just for now)
      • With regret, we’ve had to remove free postage for US customers at Libriz. The price had shot up considerably for us, and those of you who have been checking out the site will know that this was carried out last week, and has nothing to do with a certain meeting at the White House. Compounding [...] Read More... from The end of US free shipping at Libriz (hopefully just for now)

    • It’s finally mainstream to report what Big Tech has been about for over a decade
      • Now that the world is waking up to Big Tech and its shenanigans, there is less need for me to post about them. Finally, what was once very evident to me is becoming mainstream thought, from Big Tech’s kowtowing to the suppression of a free press. I posted because it was frustrating to see everyone [...] Read More... from It’s finally mainstream to report what Big Tech has been about for over a decade

    • The beauty of not having something
      • I’ve told the story about not having Noelene Morris’s The Lettering Book as a child, because I knew the NZ$5 was outside my parents’ budget. Ultimately, this was a good thing and it led me to remember and create typeface designs, later becoming the first digital font designer in New Zealand. Another item came to [...] Read More... from The beauty of not having something

    • A new edition of Confucius’ 論語, The Analects
      • Our third random paperback is out: 論語 (The Analects), as recorded by the followers of Confucius. After this, we’re likely sticking with our usual Lucire and Autocade brands in our publishing business for the remainder of 2025. The decision to do The Analects came from inspiration from one of my closest friends in London, [...] Read More... from A new edition of Confucius’ 論語, The Analects

    • We do not do paid or guest posts—and here’s why
      • I don’t know how much more abundantly clear we can make things on our sites when we say, for instance, at Lucire: ‘We receive multiple enquiries from SEO or “outreach” companies enquiring about paid or guest posts each day, and if you fall into this category, please do not contact us: it’s going to be [...] Read More... from We do not do paid or guest posts—and here’s why

    • A decade on AWS stagnated this company
      • For many years (2002–12), we hosted with a US company that gave us a Plesk front end. That meant we did a lot in-house: create PHP and MySql databases, started up hosting environments for new domains, even managed our own email server. That company eventually opened up an Australian branch and my appointed customer manager [...] Read More... from A decade on AWS stagnated this company

    • Everyone now sees the rot economy—and we’re beginning to understand what’s behind it
      • Again, things I’ve been pointing out for over a decade—heck, even over two decades, if you consider early concerns I had over Yahoo!—are now mainstream thought. Ed Zitron’s latest newsletter begins: A great deal of what I write feels like narrating the end of the world—watching as the growth-at-all-costs, hyper-financialized Rot Economy seemingly tarnishes every [...] Read More... from Everyone now sees the rot economy—and we’re beginning to understand what’s behind it

    • The public is waking up about Google
      • Former journalism academic Dan Gillmor writes: Post by @dangillmor View on Mastodon People are waking up. Such warnings have been on this blog for over 15 years. The Facebook ones started a bit later when it became evident that they were a bug-filled privacy danger zone, then Twitter. Dan is right: ‘You never [...] Read More... from The public is waking up about Google

    • Lucire receives second honour from Luxlife; Autocade reaches 41 million page views
      • Two items of good news on the digital end: Luxlife has named Lucire its best digital fashion magazine as part of its Style and Apparel Awards 2024; and Autocade, buoyed by some positive press coverage in Octane for our Year of Cars 2025, has reached the 41 million page-view milestone in just two months. The [...] Read More... from Lucire receives second honour from Luxlife; Autocade reaches 41 million page views

    • X-odus
      • This was already in the air in 2019: Platforms can run their course and to me, Twitter had already jumped the shark by 2019. By then I had had three years on the fediverse, two on Mastodon. Who needed Twitter? And who needs it now? [...] Read More... from X-odus

    • Six refreshed or brand-new company websites since 2021
      • I am going to give myself a pat on the back over the last few years of redesigns and site developments, helped to no small degree by getting all our sites off AWS (Amazon Web Services), which must be the most disempowering, retrograde set-up for hosting I have encountered in 30-plus years of working in [...] Read More... from Six refreshed or brand-new company websites since 2021

    • OED: capitalize Black American
      • Yesterday, we had to come to a decision about capitalizing Black when referring to Black Americans, with Black History Month. We adopt Hart’s Rules, which is silent on the matter, but the Oxford English Dictionary, which needs to be referred to in tandem, does capitalize Black American, as of the 2011 revision. We were operating [...] Read More... from OED: capitalize Black American

    • Testing the search engines: quickest to index, more site: searches
      • Who was the quickest at indexing any part of Autocade World? January 17: Google—probably because I had obtained an SSL certificate January 21: Internet Archive, because of ‘certificate transparency’ [January 30: First public mention by me on Facebook to get our members off there] January 31: Bing February 2: Mojeek Yandex, Baidu, Brave [...] Read More... from Testing the search engines: quickest to index, more site: searches

    • One of the last times we went out-of-house for typesetting
      • A spot of nostalgia today: another little sheet dug up among all the old paperwork. After desktop publishing came out, the technology wasn’t good enough for everyone to have access to it, so some elements were still contracted out of house. This would have been one of the last times, done by one of [...] Read More... from One of the last times we went out-of-house for typesetting

    • Autocade World: the site of the book of the site
      • When The Producers—the film with Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane—was released, Mel Brooks said it was the film of the musical of the film. Autocade World is the website of the book of the website. My intro on the site gives the raison d’être, but in a nutshell, the new site initially exists to [...] Read More... from Autocade World: the site of the book of the site

    • Kudos for Lucire; global trade sans the US; and our ads go tracker-free
      • Nice to see Lucire can still pick up kudos with Feedspot putting it into their top 100 fashion magazines, ranking it at 21st. Not bad after 27 years, and going on 28, with a fraction of the budget of the multinationals. We’re two behind Women’s Wear Daily, and three ahead of British Vogue. We do [...] Read More... from Kudos for Lucire; global trade sans the US; and our ads go tracker-free

    • One of the lucky ones
      • The last time I had a proper birthday party—where you invite your friends—was pre-COVID. And my group of friends was, and is, eclectic. Individuals from all walks of life, many of whom are being authentic to themselves. In many cases, they are people who have looked at restrictions placed on them by society or norms [...] Read More... from One of the lucky ones

    • Testing the browsers: can Vivaldi be succeeded?
      • Because of regular errors with Vivaldi, which they blame on my antivirus, I’ve been testing alternatives for Windows 11. The errors include this message, rendering the program useless. Vivaldi’s people would have you believe that an antivirus program is deleting things out of the folder, but that doesn’t explain why, after many attempts, [...] Read More... from Testing the browsers: can Vivaldi be succeeded?

    • January 2025 site: tests on occidental search engines: Bing recovers
      • After running my latest round of search engine site: tests, I think we can safely say that Bing has recovered in terms of its index size, and it’s no longer down where Alltheweb was in 2002. It actually has tens of millions of results for Microsoft’s own domain, and not a few lakh. This is, [...] Read More... from January 2025 site: tests on occidental search engines: Bing recovers

    • History in jeopardy
      • Benj Edwards wrote a very good post at Vintage Computing and Gaming, which begins: For a while—in the ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s—it felt like nerds were making the world a better place. Now, it feels like the most successful tech companies are making it worse. Among there, he notes: And there’s another problem. Very [...] Read More... from History in jeopardy

    • Another nonsense “SEO” word appears on the web
      • I’ve noticed another nonsense word make its way on to the search engines: appkod. Similarly to how Semrush told users that jackyan was trending alongside Google SEO, there are weird web pages all over with SEO service appkod or similar combinations, such as Appkod SEO Agency and Instagram marketing Appkod. A Pakistani company has adopted [...] Read More... from Another nonsense “SEO” word appears on the web

    • A new edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four
      • George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four joins A Farewell to Arms among our fiction titles at Libriz today. We’ll only sell it where the title has entered the public domain, so principally our edition’s for the UK market. Fully reset, it is arguably easier to read for contemporary eyes. Being a newer title than A Farewell [...] Read More... from A new edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four

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