Cash-strapped GM sells passenger car brands to SAIC to focus on trucks and SUVs
and:
SAIC builds passenger-car brand portfolio with Wuling, Baojun, Chevrolet, Roewe, MG, Buick and Cadillac
You can almost think of MG as Pontiac and Roewe as Oldsmobile ⊠With the decimation of the GM line-up globally, and the segments they no longer field (e.g. C-segment cars in many markets), will they even have the investment needed to sustain the car brands?
I know they are saying this was all necessary to fund the electrification of the range and autonomous tech, but isn’t this the same company that nixed the EV1 and failed to make the Volt a Prius-beater?
The Chinese state wasn’t about creating “Chinese Leyland” when they forced SAIC and NAC to merge. They had much grander plans.
I see Billie Eilish is singing the next James Bond title song, and it sounds pretty good.
The last one, âWritingâs on the Wallâ, wasnât one of my favourites and while I didnât mind Sam Smithâs composition, I felt a female voice might have suited it better. On a Bond music forum on Facebook (when I was still using it), I voiced disappointment, only to get comments in the thread essentially saying, âEveryone who dislikes this song is a homophobe.â
Up until that point I had no clue about Smithâs sexualityâdidnât care then, donât care now. I didnât think much of this until tonight, when it dawned on me that when I say Iâm not a fan of Brexit, on busier social media threads Iâll get, âStop calling British people racists.â
In neither case was homophobia or racism even hinted but it puzzles me that people can somehow go into Mystic Meg clairvoyant mode and see things that arenât thereâand get it completely wrong. And that has to be one of the things wrong with social media these days: people far too much in their own heads to even see what is right in front of them, letting their imaginations run riot. Could they be projecting? In any case, a discussion, or even an argument, is pointless if parties are unwilling to stick to the facts in front of them, preferring to go into snowflake mode and fling out accusations. It does them little credit.
And folks wonder why so many of us have social media fatigue and would be quite content if certain sites vanished overnight.
I wanted to see what TV1 news (I can never remember its official name with all its rebrands over the yearsâis it One Network News, TVNZ1 News, One News, or something else?) had on GM’s decision to shut Holden, but I missed both the six o’clock and the Plus One screenings. I headed online with some trepidation because I recall that I could never find the most-watched programme on the channel on previous occasions. This time I decided to document my attempt.
Usually I would get stumped by the log-in process that made me lose my place, so this time I decided to log in first.
Nowhere to be seen. Ah, but it’s a TV1 show, so what if I go to the TV1 page?
Nope. Under news and current affairs, we have Breakfast, Seven Sharp, Fair Go and Te Karere. There’s a 1 News link at the top, what if I go there?
No joy, at least not for the full six o’clock broadcast. I did spy a Kiwi category, and surely TV1 news is Kiwi-made. Let’s see âŠ
Apparently only the Tonight and Midday bulletins count as Kiwi-made.
Despite my searching for it around 8 p.m., it wasn’t under ‘What’s new on TV’ either. Something that finished broadcasting an hour ago isn’t new.
By this time what I do is go on Twitter to ask for help and eventually someone finds it for me, which isn’t the most efficient way of doing it, but in the past that’s how I’ve solved it.
Tonight I put news into the search box and got it there after doing all the above, but why does TVNZ make it this hard? It’s their flagship news programme. And Conan Gorbey on Twitter found it for me tonight. Thanks, Conan!
My early 2000s Microsoft Intellimouse 1·1 is still the perfect shape for me. After getting the second-hand one into service last year, I thought that I needed a spare. Iâve several other mice, including no-brand ones, that are a decent size, but I got used to having the forward and back buttons on either side.
Microsoft makes a Classic Intellimouse these days, but itâs based on a later design, and it appears the side buttons are on the left only, which seems to be the convention in the late 2010s and early 2020s. Itâs also had some reviews criticizing the quality, so I knew I couldnât go with the latest.
I headed back to Recycling for Charity, where I sourced this Intellimouse, but judging by the stock, Iâm not alone in my preference. All that were left were smaller mice, making me wish that I bought multiple Intellimouses a few years ago and stocked up. This surely is a massive hint to mainstream mouse makers on a latent, forgotten market.
After sampling some during spare time at Noël Leeming in Porirua, which did fit my hand, I opted to look online. The Noël Leeming ones were mostly Logitech, and my experience is that their mice last about two years. I wanted quality.
After much searching, one mouse that matches the dimensions of the Intellimouse (125 mm Ă 65 mm Ă 40 mm) with one millimetre out on the height is the Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) Strix Evolve, and our old friends at Just Laptops in Albany had them on special at under NZ$70 plus freight. Thatâs a lot more than the NZ$3 I paid for the used Intellimouse and the NZ$25 I paid for the Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000 in 2015, but with Asus claiming that the switches were good for 50 million clicksâprobably 10 times more than regular miceâI decided that three times the price for ten times the longevity (at least in one respect) was acceptable. And it had two switches on each side, which I could program.
It arrived a (working) day later. A lot of the gaming features are lost on me: the option to have lighting effects, choosing your own colour or having it cycle, for instance. I donât necessarily need DPI switching. Itâs simply vital that I have something my right hand is comfortable with.
The mouse comes with a second set of covers, so you can raise it slightly to suit your hand. I tried all permutations: left high, right low, vice versa, both low, both high, before deciding on having both sides in the raised position. The rubber side panels help with grip, and they aid comfort.
The first negative is that the forward end isnât as wide as I was used to. The Microsoft mice are a reasonable width all the way down, and the Evolve is slightly narrower. That means my ring finger touches the mouse pad more on the side, as it did with an earlier Lenovo (plenty of those at Recycling for Charity, incidentally). I thought I wouldnât be able to get used to it, as I didnât with the Lenovo, and it does continue to be a slight problem. In other words, I havenât quite got the perfect mouse and itâs a lesson about buying online when your requirements are this strict (though again I wouldnât have considered this a major problem if manufacturers werenât skimping on materials and giving people repetitive strain injuries).
Asus hasnât deceived about the measurements: it is 125 mm wide at its greatest width, just as Microsoft has it on theirs.
I may put up with letting my ring finger drop and go along the mouse pad for the time being just for comfortâs sake and see if Iâm OK with washing the pad more regularly. Or adjust my hand positioning slightly. But I know I cannot use the modern mice.
One Tweeter noted that maybe the mouse manufacturers are finally appealing to women, and I had to agree it was nice for us men to experience just once what itâs like for them in a usually male-designed tech world.
The other features are excellent: the ability to program the switches, which I did very early; and I can turn the lighting off as I see no point to it if my hand is on the mouse obscuring most of it. Then again, Iâm not a gamer.
The mouse wheel and switches are far more solid than anything Iâve encountered, making the 50 million-click claim believable. I do occasionally hit the right button inadvertently, probably out of unfamiliarity, and I must hit the DPI switch from time to time, again accidentally.
Nevertheless, Iâm going to keep my eye out for second-hand Intellimouses. Mine has become the back-up again, and really I didnât think I was asking for much. Microsoft had a perfect design for which the tooling must be long amortized, so it makes you wonder why they donât just trot it out again and make a bundle more off us.
I wonder if itâs time to return to Firefox after an absence of two years and five months. After getting the new monitor, the higher res makes Firefoxâs and Opera GXâs text rendering fairly similar (though Chrome, Vivaldi and Edge remain oddly poor, and Vivaldiâs tech people havenât been able to replicate my bug). Thereâs a part of me that gravitates toward Firefox more than anything with a Google connection, and I imagine many Kiwis like backing underdogs.
Here are some examples, bearing in mind Windows scales up to 125 per cent on QHD.
Vivaldi (Chrome renders like this, too)
Opera GX (and how Vivaldi used to render)
Firefox
Opera renders text slightly more widely than Firefox, but the subpixel rendering of both browsers is similar, though not identical. Type in Firefox arguably comes across with slightly less contrast than it should (especially for traditionally paper-based type, where I have a good idea of how itâs âsupposedâ to look) but Iâm willing to experiment to see if I enjoy the switch back.
In those 29 months, a lot has happened, with Navigational Sounds having vanished as an extension, and I had to get a new Speed Dial (FVD Speed Dial) to put on my favourite sites. FVD uninstalled itself earlier today without any intervention from me, so if that recurs, Iâll be switching to something else. I donât like computer programs having a will of their own.
A lot of my saved passwords no longer work, since I change them from time to time, and it was interesting to see what Firefox remembered from my last period of regular use. Iâll have to import some bookmarks, tooâthat file has been going between computers since Netscape.
The big problem of 2017âFirefox eating through memory like crazy (6 Gbyte in a short time)âcould be fixed now in 2020 by turning off hardware acceleration. Itâs actually using less right now than Opera GX, and thatâs another point in its favour.
I also like the Facebook Container that keeps any trackers from Zuck and co. away.
I did, however, have to get new extensions after having resided in the Vivaldi and Opera space for all that time, such as Privacy Badger.
If I make Firefox the default I know Iâll have truly switched back. But that Opera GX sure is a good looking browser. I might have to look for some skins to make common-garden Firefox look smarter.
On Andrew Yang’s run for the Democratic nomination in the US:
If Mastodon ever stops supporting that Javascript, I wrote: ‘Pretty stoked at what Andrew Yang has managed to achieve. Certain forces tried to minimize his coverage, to give him as little legitimacy as possible (sounds familiar). Yet he also normalized the idea of an Asian American presidential candidate, paving the way either for himself in 2024 or for someone else. #YangGang’. Those forces include some of the Democratic activist media.
It’s a damned shame. Yang didn’t vilify Republicans, listened to both sides, and was a pragmatist with solutions. Granted, there were areas his policies fell short, but at least he presented the optimistic side of American politics, something so rarely seen in what we outsiders perceive to be such a negative, murky world. Now Americans (and those of us watching from without) will likely face a shouting-match campaign.
And found on the web: a cellphone with a rotary dial that its creator, Justine Haupt, claims is more practical for her, and where calling is faster than with her modern phone. No apps, no SMS, but if you’re after something to call people, it does the job admirably. Her frequently dialled numbers are stored, so it’s only new numbers where she has to dial. The dial also serves as a volume control. Since I’m getting sick of apps, and I can’t be alone, Haupt may be on to something.
In her words: ‘A truly usable rotary-dial cellphone to replace my flip phone (I don’t use a smart phone). This is a statement against a world of touchscreens, hyperconnectivity, and complacency with big brother watchdogs.’
I had to put in a good word for Dell’s P2418D monitor (earlier post here) after the multiple negative reviews left by one person.
If I had to write something negative, it would be about their website blocking me from submitting my positive review by claiming I was using an ad blocker. I wasn’t. But I do have ‘Do not track’ turned on and I wonder if that is doing it.
Eventually I got the review through on my eighth attempt by using a vulnerable browser: one with no privacy plug-ins, allowing all cookies, with all the default tracking that Big Tech likes.
After reading another reviewerâs multiple entries, I had a few doubts about this monitor, but Iâm glad I bit the bullet anyway. I bought mine in 2020, so they may have ironed out the bugs.
First up, the QHD resolution is a great thing to have. Windows 10 automatically scaled everything 125 per cent for me, and the programs that were a bit fuzzy were easily sortedâyou just go into the properties and make sure that they use their own magnification and not the OSâs. Iâm actually more productive as a result of being able to see the finer detail. I work in publishing and itâs great to be able read the smaller copy on a spread. Before I would have to zoom in and out to do a lot of my work.
I donât really need 27 inches as I donât want to move my neck to see the different corners of the screen: 24 is plenty for me. I actually have a feeling 27 inches would decrease my productivity, but thatâs just my personal preference.
Iâve noticed no backlight bleed, the edge is fine for me and the desktop appears normally. As to the prompts that appear when the monitor goes into sleep mode (one source of complaint for one reviewer)âfor me it doesnât sleep for ages (it must be my settings) and when it does, Iâm usually out of the room. In three weeks Iâve seen those prompts once.
I had a problem with the driverâWindowsâ security settings prevented me from opening the executableâbut I was able to open it using an elevated command prompt. The controls you need for resolution, brightness, contrast, etc. are in there, too, if you donât wish to fiddle with the buttons on the front of the unit itself.
All the cables are included (USB 3 downstream, Displayport, power), and itâs been great having USB ports on my monitor. Itâs allowed me to tidy up the external HDs a lot (I run three). Going from DVI-D to Displayport has been useful, tooâI know I shouldnât notice 1 ms improvement in speed but I really sense that I do!
The blue-light-blocking comfort mode means I donât get sore eyes if I work late, another bonus.
Iâm glad someone makes QHD at this sizeâin fact, I know Dell does 4K at this size, too. But QHD is fine for meâof the programs not using Windowsâ scaling, I donât want the menus to get too small! A great investment to my everyday computing.
Hope that redresses the balance a bit more for Dell. I get that the other person is annoyed, but stick it all in one review, please!
On Linkedin, they say you shouldnât connect with people you havenât worked with, although in the early days of the site, there were some of us keen to connect with the âpower connectorsâ, those who had amassed lots of connections. Who knows if they really had worked with that many people? But before we knew much about social media and oneâs regular tribes, some of those numbers looked really appealing. In later years I found myself disconnecting from them to give Linkedin visitors a more accurate picture of who I had actually worked with; and sadly, in some cases, disconnecting from people I really had worked with because I noticed my contact list was getting raided by newer power-connector wannabes.
But hereâs someone I havenât connected with on Linkedin, as I assume he isnât on it (based on a fairly comprehensive search): Thomas Nguyen of Professional Painting & Decorating Ltd. And you know he must be good if heâs wound up getting a blog post about him.
Thomas has been working on my partnerâs rental property, both inside and outside. Heâs proved to be reliable and accommodating. And when another contractorâwho I still donât think knew what he was doingâscrewed up his part of it and walked off the job, we asked Thomas to finish things up, which he and his team did.
So far heâs stuck to his quotes, been very flexible as we asked him to do extra things, and heâs even gone above and beyond in a couple of instances. Heâs taken all feedback on board, too, like a real pro. Even his SMSs are well written!
No surprise heâs received four 100 per cent ratings on No Cowboys.
We checked out some of his earlier work before we hired him, so we arenât one-offs.
Heâs been going for five years and relied on word of mouth to get business. I told him I had a particularly big mouth when it came to Twitter, but a blog post seems less fleeting, and more sincereâwe really do think highly of him. If you need someone in the Wellington area, Thomas and Professional Painting & Decorating Ltd. are highly recommended.
Daniel at Harrisons has looked after us on the carpet front and heâs also proved capable and friendly. Out of the carpet people weâve approached, heâs also been the best, though admittedly you donât have as much contact with the carpet salesâ rep as you do with your painters.
It pays to have some ground rules when dealing with the internet. A very big one that Iâm sure that you all observe is: donât do business with spammers. If a Nigerian prince tells you he has $5 million for you, ignore him.
There are tainted email lists that have been going around for years. I used to have filters for all sorts of permutations of my real address, back in the days when we had a âcatch-allâ email. My address definitely wound up on a South African spammersâ list in the late 1990s or early 2000s, and to this day I get South African spam from some respectable looking companies that took an unethical shortcut in compiling their targets. Thereâs a third where the spammer has confused the âcompanyâ and âfirst nameâ fields that began doing the rounds during the 2010s. All so easy to spot. If they claimed I signed up to their list, and don’t know my first and last names, then there’s a massive clue right there.
This all begs the question of why a company with the size and reputation of Netflix feels the need to resort to such lists. Here’s the fourth one this Gregorian calendar year as they up their frequency of spam:
Netflix spam, shown actual size.
Thereâs a thread online where one netizen was told by Netflix that someone else had signed them up, which is incredibly unlikely, and more likely an excuse to cover oneâs dodgy behaviour.
These began in November 2019 for me. The ‘This message was mailed to [âŠ] by Netflix because you created a Netflix account’ is untrue, and if it were true, how come there is no email confirmation of this account creation in any of my emails from 2019? Surely if you created one, Netflix would confirm your address at the very least? And if they don’t, then that’s pretty poor business practice.
This isnât a phishing attempt, as the links all go to Netflix and itâs come from Netflixâs account with Amazon, who doesnât seem to do much about it. If youâd like to see a similar one, someone has posted it online at samplespam.com/messages/2019-07-20/V801I2196eM554074 but where they have a header line with â00948.EMAIL.REMARKETING_GLOBAL_SERIES_CORE_2_DAY_4.-0005.-5.en.UAâ, mine has â00948.EMAIL.REMARKETING_GLOBAL_SERIES_CORE_2_DAY_4.-0005.-5.en.USâ. (Netflix thinks I live in the US.)
Thereâs no reply on Twitter. Nor was there any reply from this email that I sent to privacy@netflix.com last November:
The people they claim are in charge of privacy don’t care about privacy.
I shanât subscribe to Netflix any time soon because of Internet 101. If they don’t care about your privacy now, they’re probably not going to care about it after you’re a customer. In the 2020s, with people more sensitive about it, it’s foolhardy for Netflix to go against the trend. Right now, their email marketing has all the subtlety of a cheap scammerâsâjust with nicer presentation.
