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 1200):

    • 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

    • Get your brand right and make it famous
      • There’s a lot of where advertising, marketing and tech have gone wrong on this blog, so what’s the right thing to do when you’re trying to sell your product? There’s the basic stuff we need to answer. We want people to buy our product, to solve a certain need, and they will do so because [...] Read More... from Get your brand right and make it famous

    • Ad tech is suspect
      • Got to love the irrepressible Bob Hoffman. In his March 23 newsletter, he notes that Adlook studied target segments from popular data providers, and asked the people in those segments about themselves. I won’t spoil Bob’s entire list but the top two are: 47 per cent of the people who the data said were women [...] Read More... from Ad tech is suspect

    • Baidu’s “AI” image enhancement tested: clever, but like a hallucination
      • Baidu has been offering “AI” enhancement of its images for a while, and yesterday I bit the bullet, created an account, and trialled it. It was a press image that I had in high-res, but Baidu’s image search, strangely, only had a low-res version of it. Could its “AI” turn it into a high-res image? [...] Read More... from Baidu’s “AI” image enhancement tested: clever, but like a hallucination

    • 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

Updated Feeds

Recently updated feeds from local organisations.