As I begin this blog post, Autocade has just crossed the 22 million page-view barrier, at 22,000,040. I had estimated we would get there on Sunday, and as itâs just ticked over here in New Zealand, I was right.
We have 4,379 models in the database, with the Bestune B70, in its third generation, the most recent model added. Iâm grateful itâs a regular carânot yet another crossover, which has been the usual story of 2020 whenever I added new models to the site.
As crossovers and SUVs were once regarded as niche models, historical ones werenât put up in any great haste, so I canât always escape them just by putting up models from the past. However, there are countless sports and supercars to go up, so maybe Iâll need to add them in amongst the SUVs to maintain my sanity and happiness. These high-riding two-box vehicles are incredibly boring subjects stylistically.
Itâs a stroke of luck, then, to have the B70: Bestuneâs sole saloon offering now in amongst an entire range of crossovers. The saloons are the niche vehicles of 2020â1. Itâs a stylish motor, too: Cadillac looks for a middle-class price. Admittedly, such close inspirations havenât deserted China altogether, but this is, in my mind, no worse than Ford pretending its 1975 US Granada was a Mercedes-Benz for the masses. Itâs not going to get GMâs lawyers upset. And unlike the Granada, the B70 is actually a fairly advanced car, with refinement now on par with a lot of joint-venture models coming out of China.
You know the drill to track Autocadeâs growth:
March 2008: launch
April 2011: 1,000,000 (three years for first million)
March 2012: 2,000,000 (11 months for second million)
May 2013: 3,000,000 (14 months for third million)
January 2014: 4,000,000 (eight months for fourth million)
September 2014: 5,000,000 (eight months for fifth million)
May 2015: 6,000,000 (eight months for sixth million)
October 2015: 7,000,000 (five months for seventh million)
March 2016: 8,000,000 (five months for eighth million)
August 2016: 9,000,000 (five months for ninth million)
February 2017: 10,000,000 (six months for 10th million)
June 2017: 11,000,000 (four months for 11th million)
January 2018: 12,000,000 (seven months for 12th million)
May 2018: 13,000,000 (four months for 13th million)
September 2018: 14,000,000 (four months for 14th million)
February 2019: 15,000,000 (five months for 15th million)
June 2019: 16,000,000 (four months for 16th million)
October 2019: 17,000,000 (four months for 17th million)
December 2019: 18,000,000 (just under three months for 18th million)
April 2020: 19,000,000 (just over three months for 19th million)
July 2020: 20,000,000 (just over three-and-a-half months for 20th million)
October 2020: 21,000,000 (three months for 21st million)
January 2021: 22,000,000 (three months for 22nd million)
Not a huge change in the rate, then: for the past year we can expect roughly a million page views every three months. The database has increased by 96 model entries, versus 40 when I last posted about the million milestones.
In other publishing news, Jody Miller has managed to get an interview with Rachel Hunter. Her story is on Lucire today, and Iâm expecting a more in-depth one will appear in print later in 2021. Itâs taken us 23 years (not that we were actively pursuing): itâs just one of those things where it took that long for our paths to cross. Both Rachel and Lucire are Kiwi names that are arguably more noticed abroad than in our countries of birth, and I suppose itâs like two compatriots who travel to different countries. You donât always bump into one another.
I end this blog post with Autocadeâs views at 22,000,302.
Well, that was a rather sycophantic interview with Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, on Radio New Zealand, as the online encyclopĂŠdia turns 20.
So I was rather excited when a Tweeter said he was going to interview Wales and asked for questions from the public. I responded:
Why did your co-founder Larry Sanger accuse Wikipedia of being anti-expertise?
What are you doing to ensure that bad actors do not scam their way into senior editor positions?
Why is Wikipedia in English so much less reliable than Wikipedia in German or Japanese?
Letâs say theyâre not going to get asked. He wrote:
There's not really such a thing as a senior editor position. It is unlikely that a bad actor would make thousands of good edits just to get a reputation within the editor community only to then try to undermine the project. Openness means bad actors are identified quickly.
Semantics aside, are there not editors who rise up the ranks to have more editing privileges than others? They donât necessarily undermine the project within the Wikipedia domain. Happy to discuss more if youâre genuinely interested.
No reply. And of course there are senior editors: Wikipedians themselves use this term. I can only assume that it’s going to be another sycophantic interview. Why arenât some people willing to ask some hard ones here? I’m guessing that the only way tough questions are asked about tech is if a woman gets on to it (someone like Louise Matsakis or Sarah Lacy).
Thereâs plenty of evidence of all three of my positions, as documented here and elsewhere, and I didn’t even include a great question on bullying.
This is a comment (with my reply, in reverse chronology) from a NewTumbl user, Thewonderfulo, who often posts about the siteâs rating system. Iâve no idea if itâs official, but it certainly passes itself off as authoritative.
I usually find myself agreeing with them but hereâs a prime example where I donâtâbecause, first, I canât see anything in the NewTumbl rules that confirms this (excepting one sentence below which Iâll get on to); secondly, NewTumbl has told me of some of their positions personally and I feel theyâve confirmed my position; and thirdly, if bare behinds can be seen in PG-13 films (including in their country), then a single ‘buttcheek’ is even less offensive and couldnât possibly be M, which is where NewTumbl classifies nudity.
There is one sentence under the O category (âOfficeâ, or safe for work): âImages that would be considered sultry or provocative qualify as O provided the people in the photo have both their tops and bottoms covered â not just hidden from view, but actually wearing clothes.â Weâd then have to argue about how much âcoverageâ there is, and here Iâd fall back on being alive for nearly five decades and having kept my eyes open about popular culture. Swimwear, for instance, provides acceptable coverage which wouldnât offend most of us in the occident. From memory thatâs the level of skin the post in question was dealing with.
Itâs exactly as I said in my last post on NewTumbl. I love the concept, and the people who run the site, but the moderators are in some sort of Handmaidâs Tale Gilead. In fact, Iâd venture to say that Tumblr wouldnât consider a buttock to be offensive enough for removal. Given NewTumblâs history, as a Tumblr alternative that would be more tolerant, I believe that the moderators really donât understand the whole picture, and where the lines should be drawn.
To think, after chatting directly to NewTumbl I was feeling a bit more chipper about the site, only to have a one-sentence comment and zero willingness to engage by a user who is, I fear, typical of the âstandardsâ that are actually being applied by the overenthused American puritans.
Incidentally, speaking of Americans, the sort of divisive talk that they are infamous for is all too present. Have a look at the thread from my earlier post. Frankly, if they have a problem with a buttock on a woman who is actually wearing clothes, while this sort of mudslinging is fine on a family-friendly post, then I wonât be in a hurry to return. Sorry.
Iâm still blocked from seeing my advertising preferences on Facebook on the desktop, the only place where you can edit them, something that has plagued them for years and which theyâre unlikely to fix. I commonly say that Facebookâs databases are âshot to hell,â which Iâve believed for many years, and this is another example of it.
I can, however, see who has uploaded a list containing my private information to Facebook, and this ignominious bunch includes Amazon, Spotify (several subsidiaries), numerous American politicians, and others. Iâve never dealt with Spotify, or the politicians, so goodness knows how they have a list with my details, but to know theyâve been further propagated on to such an inhumane platform is disappointing.
I signed up to one New Zealand companyâs list at the end of December and already theyâve done the same.
This is a sure way for me to ask to cut off contact with you and demand my details be removed. Itâs also a sure way to earn a block of your Facebook page, if you have one.
While weâre on this subject, I notice Facebook claims:
Manage How Your Ads Are Personalized on Instagram
If you use Instagram, you can now choose whether to see personalized ads based on data from our partners. You make this choice in the Instagram app.
Actually, you canât, so thanks for lying again.
The only advertising settings available are âAd Activityâ (which shows the advertisements Iâve recently interacted with, and thatâs a blank list, natch), and âAd Topic Preferencesâ (where you can ask to see fewer ads on the topics of alcohol, parenting or pets). Unless Facebook has hidden them elsewhere on Instagram, this is more BS, just like how they claim theyâll block an account youâve reported. (They used to, but havenât done so for a long time, yet still claim they do.)
My friend Ian Ryder writes, âNo lesser names than Steve Jobs (Apple), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Kevin Systrom (Instagram) have all taken action to ensure the safety of their own families from some of the dangers technology has created in our society today.â This is pretty telling, isnât it?
Postscript, January 4: I was surprised to receive another email from the company.
It does not appear to be their fault as their email system, from a company called hubspotemail.net, claims I have been removed, yet keeps sending. I won’t file a complaint as it’s obvious that Hubspot is unreliable.
Post-postscript, January 5: My lovely Amanda says these folks aren’t back to work till January 18, so they might not even know about the list being uploaded to Facebook. I should be interested to find out if that’s been automated by Hubspotâin which case anyone using it needs to be aware what it’s doing in their name, and whether it matches what they’re saying in their T&Cs.
Post-post-postscript, January 13: The company has responded even before they’ve gone back to work, and confirmed my details have now been removed. They took it really seriously, which I’m grateful for. The upload function was indeed automated, but they say that with the removal of my details, the Facebook list will also automatically update. Their T&Cs will also be updated, so I say good on them for being genuine and transparent.
Click here for all months (or hit ‘Gallery’ at the top of the screen, if you’re on the desktop), here for December, and here for November. This post explains why I wound up doing the gallery here.
I append to this entry through the month.
One thing about not posting to NewTumbl is I’ve nowhere convenient to put quotations I’ve found. Maybe they have to go here as well. Back when I started this blog in 2006â15 years ago, since it was in JanuaryâI did make some very short posts, so it’s not out of keeping. (I realize the timestamp is in GMT, but it’s coming up to midday on January 1, 2021 here.)
Here’s one from Robert Reich, and I think for the most part US readers will agree, regardless of their political stripes.
In 2008, Wall Street nearly destroyed the economy. The Street got bailed out while millions of Americans lost their jobs, savings, and homes. Yet not no major Wall Street executive ever went to jail.
In more recent years, top executives of Purdue Pharmaceuticals, along with the Sackler family, knew the dangers of OxyContin but did nothing. Executives at Wells Fargo Bank pushed bank employees to defraud customers. Executives at Boeing hid the results of tests showing its 737 Max Jetliner was unsafe. Police chiefs across America looked the other way as police under their command repeatedly killed innocent Black Americans.
Yet here, too, those responsible have got away with it.
I did offer these quotations with little or no commentary at NewTumbl and Tumblr.
What came up with the above was a Twitter exchange with a netizen in the US, and how some places still touted three- to four-day shipping times when I argued that it was obviousâespecially if you had been looking at the COVID positivity rates that their government officials relied onâthat these were BS. And that Amazon (revenue exceeding US$100 milliard in the fourth quarter of 2020) and Apple (profit at c. US$100 milliard for the 12 months ending September 30) might just be rich enough to hire an employee to do the calculations and correlate them with delaysâwe are not talking particularly complicated maths here, and we have had a lot of 2020 data to go on. But they would rather save a few bob and lie to consumers: it’s a choice they have made.
The conclusion I sadly had to draw was that businesses there can lie with impunity, because they’ve observed that there are no real consequences. The famous examples are all too clear from Reich’s quotation, where the people get a raw dealâeven losing their lives.