A refreshing piece on diversity in our mainstream media

Two fantastic items in my Tweetstream today, the first from journalist Jehan Casinader, a New Zealander of Sri Lankan heritage, in Stuff. Some highlights:    As an ethnic person, you can only enter (and stay in) a predominantly white space – like the media, politics or corporate leadership – if you play by the rules. […]

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From my desk, 1986

Before this gets recycled, I thought I’d scan it as a memento: a 1986 printout off our Riteman dot matrix printer (which I still have, with spare cartridges), hooked up to a Commodore 64. I forget the printer interface. The image isn’t mine: I only imagine that 14-year-old me was claiming copyright over the layout […]

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In the ‘I told you so’ department: Facebook purges left-wing, anti-war accounts

Further to my Lucire op–ed on January 8, and my blog post on January 11, I hinted that this could happen.    From the World Socialist Web Site: On Friday, Facebook carried out a purge of left-wing, antiwar and progressive pages and accounts, including leading members of the Socialist Equality Party. Facebook gave no explanation […]

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An unusual 4,400th model on Autocade

This was an unusual car to have as the 4,400th on Autocade: the Rosengart Ariette.    I did know the 4,400th was coming up since it wasn’t that long ago that Autocade passed 22 million page views, and I checked the stats. But I like to think this would still have been the motor that […]

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Like communist dictatorships, Google and Facebook threaten Australia

You know the US tech giants have way too much power, unencumbered by their own government and their own country’s laws, when they think they can strong-arm another nation.    From Reuter: Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Friday it would block its search engine in Australia if the government proceeds with a new code that […]

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Autocade reaches 22 million, while Rachel Hunter appears in Lucire

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 it’s 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, […]

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Who’d like to ask the hard questions of Wikipedia as it turns 20?

Well, that was a rather sycophantic interview with Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, on Radio New Zealand, as the online encyclopædia 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 […]

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All you need is one NewTumbl user to undo management goodwill

This is a comment (with my reply, in reverse chronology) from a NewTumbl user, Thewonderfulo, who often posts about the site’s rating system. I’ve no idea if it’s official, but it certainly passes itself off as authoritative.    I usually find myself agreeing with them but here’s a prime example where I don’t—because, first, I […]

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BMW, then and now

This isn’t progress. Nice one, as always! Makes me wonder what was wrong with this credo: "Fashionable styling gimmicks are entirely absent, and the dimensions suit the traffic conditions of today." pic.twitter.com/XhpyW6P1Bs — Kolbenkopp (@kolbenkopp) January 7, 2021 You may also like Fun for car anoraks—till you get to the factual errors You never know […]

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This was the natural outcome of greed, in the forms of monopoly power and sensationalist media

I did indeed write in the wake of January 6, and the lengthy op–ed appears in Lucire, quoting Emily Ratajkowski, Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden. I didn’t take any pleasure in what happened Stateside and Ratajkowski actually inspired the post after a Twitter contact of mine quoted her. This was after President Donald Trump was […]

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