Autocade did get to 27,000,000 page views some time last week, earning its latest million in two-and-a-half months. It was a slower pace of growth than what I had observed through the latter part of 2021, probably because I hadnât done too many updates to the site during Q4 (unsurprisingly, having had to deal with Instagram and Twitter deleting Lucireâs accounts, as well as a hacking attempt from the US, among other things). Only 20 models had been added since the last million milestone, taking the total to 4,544. That was a record, having been reached in one day under two months; nothing quite as impressive this time out, which is only fair if there were fewer updates.
The latest model in the encyclopĂŠdia is the Toyota Chaser (X30), which isnât the prettiest vehicle line, but I guess it is more interesting than yet another SUV! The image came courtesy of Carfolio, which generously gave me a treasure trove of Toyota materials.
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)
April 2021: 23,000,000 (three months for 23rd million)
June 2021: 24,000,000 (two months for 24th million)
August 2021: 25,000,000 (two months for 25th million)
October 2021: 26,000,000 (two months for 26th million)
January 2022: 27,000,000 (three months for 27th million)
Thank you again for your support and hopefully thereâll be more than 20 entries in time for the next million!
Amazing what sort of press releases come in. I had no idea that Auckland is our capital, and I was surprised to find that Toronto and Antwerp are as well in the same release.
Essential Living is a British firm, from the looks of it, and no, we won’t be publishing this in Lucire.
You’d think the PR firm might check as well, but maybe post-Brexit they don’t really care about other countries any more?
Meanwhile, on Twitter. It’s getting nutty toward the end of the year. Just today we saw a motorcyclist come off his Suzuki in Johnsonville, and a Toyota van almost losing control altogether in Tawa. ‘Driving to the conditions’ doesn’t seem to be a thing any more. On Friday, it was this:
Have the rules for traffic lights changed? I stopped on a red at Karo Drive, Mercedes in the next lane went right through, truck driver behind me was beeping like crazy wanting me to go. Clearly Iâm in the minority believing that red means stop.
The truck driver overtakes me, then stops on a red. So I beeped him, because I figured that red now means go. And he gets really upset, starts backing his Park Contractors Ltd. of Wainuiomata truck into me (he doesnât hit). The snowflake canât handle what he dished out.
Could Park Contractors Ltd. of Wainuiomata please send me the updated traffic light rules? It seems red sometimes means go but it also sometimes means stop and as an immigrant I do not know how the locals distinguish between the two types of red.
Itâs hard to believe, but Twitter is far, far worse than Facebook when it comes to straightening things out.
Theyâve now asked for my âgovernment-issued IDâ thrice and Iâve provided it thrice. It meets all their criteria.
This is the latest bollocks:
Hello,
Weâre writing to let you know that weâre unable to verify you as the account owner. We know this is disappointing to hear, but we canât assist you further with accessing your account.
If you know which email address is associated with the account, and you no longer have access to that email, please contact your email provider for assistance.
For privacy reasons, we canât provide any information about this accountâs email address.
Youâre more than welcome to create a new account to get back onto Twitter.
Please do not respond to this email as replies to this account are not monitored.
Thanks,
Twitter
I didnât need to be verified as the account owner. I need the account to be unlocked and you needed me to prove my age. I’ve done that. And I know which email is used, I set it up.
So thatâs 12-plus years and thousands of followers gone?
I really had expected Facebook to screw up somewhere and weâd lose our accounts there, but not Twitter.
Iâve now gone to their IP department and lodged a complaint against myself (as the owner of the @lucire handle) to see if it can be assigned to me. Convoluted? You bet.
And instead of sending them my ID again (I’ve tried passport and driver’s licence), I’m going to send in my USPTO registration. What’s the bet they won’t accept something issued by their own government?
PS.: Maybe their ad department is smarter. Let’s see if they respond to this.
Hi folks:
This is very unorthodox but in practice, the ad department tends to be the best at troubleshooting.
Last month, our business account @lucire was locked. Now, before you refer me to the locked account people, this is the only one where Iâm likely to do any advertising from. We were locked for being honest. Twitter asked us to fill in the date of birth, and that it applied even to businesses. At no point did it ask for my DOB, but the companyâs.
That was October 20, 1997.
The AI came crashing down on us. Turns out that made us underage when the account was opened. Now, Iâm 49, so I know I wasnât underage.
I went through the process of sending in ID, which met all your criteria.
Now theyâre saying that they canât verify me as the owner, which wasnât even the issue to begin with.
Iâve sent in driverâs licence, passport, even a USPTO trade mark certificate (surely thatâll show Iâm the owner?).
Hereâs an account that dates back to the 2000s with thousands of followers that weâd like reinstated.
Weâd really like you to help, as the locked-account process is going around in circles, and we are making no progress. On Facebook, it was the ad âconciergesâ who sorted us out, and I wonder if Twitter will be just as effective.
One good thing to having Twitter lock Lucireâs account: there’s no point having a Twitter gadget or widget on your home page any more. Was there ever one to begin with? I don’t think I’ve ever gone to a site and found a Twitter widget useful.
It did bother me that a Lucire print cover was no longer visible on the top part of the screen with the new theme. The ‘Our latest issue’ has now been moved to the sidebar from the bottom of the page, where it used to reside next to âLucire on Twitter’. It doesn’t make much difference to cellphone users, but all the difference to web ones.
So that’s one positive development to being locked out of Twitter.
I’ve also made a minor tweak to this blog: the left-hand column is now wider, and a few more logos appear. Previously the table width (yes, it’s that old) was 960 pixels, but I figured that most people would have larger monitors by now. The blog also has a working, albeit standard, Wordpress mobile theme, so unlike Lucire there shouldn’t be any problems for cellphone users if I changed things. It does make this blog slightly inconsistent with the rest of the site, but maybe one day I’ll stick the lot on Bootstrap as well.
PS.: The first widget to disappear was Facebook’s, in 2018, weeks before the Cambridge Analytica story. Instagram’s was taken off when we most recently reskinned the home page a few weeks ago. They’re all pointing us in this direction.
In the space of less than a month, another US social network has shut Lucireâs account down. This time itâs Twitter.
When going through the settings to see if Lucire could be verified, Twitter requested that we complete all the information. It specifically states that the date of birth should be entered, even for companies.
It only seemed logical to put in Lucireâs founding date, October 20, 1997.
That was enough to have the account locked. As we started the account in the 2000s, it stated we were under age when that happened.
Weâre not sure why an event in the 2000s would have an impact in the 2020s, but more importantly, Twitter should have worded its request far better.
As a company account, any number of people could be managing it. It so happened that I set up the account, so I provided them with my driverâs licence as proof of my ageâbut thatâs not the age of the company. What if I had assigned a social media manager in their early 20s to do the job? Isnât it conceivable that they would then inadvertently lock the account if they put in their own date of birth?
Not even Facebook or Instagram are daft enough to lock an account based on a companyâs foundation date. What other date would a reasonable person have put down when the companyâs birthday is requested? The date of first operation? The date the idea was conceived? The date of incorporation? All of those would have fallen foul of Twitterâs systems.
For a company that made US$3·7 milliard in revenue last year, it does seem a rather major error.
After I noted this on my personal account, spammers and bots began replyingâaccounts that no doubt have been reported but are permitted to remain.
We remain in the dark on why Instagram locked us out and deactivated our account less than a month ago.
It is perhaps best to either lie to these US social media giants (in the case of some, itâs the behaviour their own leadership exhibits), or to not provide them information at all. Or, better yet, to not rely on them at all and to focus on oneâs own proprietary web presences. It is no coincidence that with our redesign, we left off all social media links, ironically with the exception of Twitter on our home page.âJack Yan, Founder and Publisher
Overnight, Autocade served its 26 millionth page view, which is a new record, having cracked the latest million milestone in a day under two months.
Only 24 models have been added since the last post on this topic, bringing the total to 4,524. Of the last 20, 10 were, rather disappointingly, crossovers or SUVs.
The 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee (the short-wheelbase one) was the newest entrant, illustrated by the base model. Thereâs something more honest about using low-spec pics rather than the high-line ones car manufacturers use. We donât always see the flashest models in real life.
You know the drill. I have OCD so here are the months when we reached each million.
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)
April 2021: 23,000,000 (three months for 23rd million)
June 2021: 24,000,000 (two months for 24th million)
August 2021: 25,000,000 (two months for 25th million)
October 2021: 26,000,000 (two months for 26th million)
A decade separates these two incarnations of Lucireâs shopping home page. Some Facebook gadgets were added during the 2010s and the magazine cover was updated, but it was woefully out of date and needed to be refreshed.
Itâs very unusual for us to go into the less-frequented pages in Lucire and adapt them to a new template before doing a major one such as the fashion index page. But sometimes you go with the creative flow, so it was the turn of the âNewsstandâ pages plus the shopping home page, which hadnât been updated in seven years (and most of it hadn’t been touched for ten).
Needless to say, on the latter, almost everything was out of date. Weâve removed the links to the shopping directory, which last existed to support the print magazine as it was in the mid-2000s. Since then, we havenât really had a shopping section in print, and we ceased to update it much online.
What was disappointing to note, after my lament about the disappearance of so many fashion websites earlier this year, that even more had closed down, so much so that the three âNewsstandâ pages have come back down to two (as it was in the 2000s). There are still some that have not been updated in years, but we have maintained the links for historical purposes.
Poking about the directories did lead me to lucire.com/xp, a framed page with content for our mobile edition in 2000 that was compatible with Plucker. Long before cellphones became the norm, we were already catering for portable devices. I knew we had a Plucker edition, but had forgotten about the xp directory till tonight.
The copy on that page reads, âLucire Express was the hand-held version of Lucire, powered by Plucker. With more recent developments in syndication and content management, support for Express has been discontinued.â
It seemed logical that cellphone browsers would be developed to reduce the content of high-res pages to make them readable, but that is yet to happen (unless one goes into a simplified view mode). To think that programmers found a way to do that in the 2000s. How times have changed, with what appears to be a slowing down of innovationâforcing us to adapt to the technology (developing mobile-friendly themes in-house) rather than the other way round.
For once, you didnât need me to point out the unethical happenings of Facebook, Inc. when the mainstream media actually cared.
First we had the Murdoch Press run âThe Facebook Filesâ in The Wall Street Journal, which I heard about from the incomparable and insightful Bob Hoffman on the 26th ult. The WSJ begins:
Slide through as usual. Mark and Sheryl control the show, have a lot of shares, and think they will weather it as they always did. Mark will continue to ignore subpĆnĂŠ. The US government will continue to lack cohones since candidates on both sides are suckered into believing that Facebook really has as many users as it claims.
And yes, we got Lucireâs Instagram back, and I am happyâfor the sake of our crew and everyone who has ever created for us. The response from Facebook is full of the usual bollocks, which is no surprise. I wrote on the Lucire website:
Their email states, inter alia, âYou canât attempt to create accounts or access or collect information in unauthorized ways. This includes creating accounts or collecting information in an automated way without our express permission. And based on your accountâs recent activity, our systems have detected behavior that violates one or more of our policies.â
It is nonsense, of course, since thereâs absolutely no proof. Weâve asked Facebook to furnish it to us, including the alleged activity and the IP address that it came from.
What information was allegedly collected? What was automated?
All I can think of is that I have accessed Instagram on the desktop. Oh well, Iâll just stop using it. Or that a couple of the team were online at the same time. With that in mind, fashion editor Sopheak Seng now alone has the keys and thatâs good enough for me. Instagram interaction: down again for the 2021â2 year then.
I havenât posted much on the Facebook issues since there were far more important things to do, namely getting the Lucire template working for the Wordpress (news) section of the site. Now itâs pretty much done, Iâm quite happy with it, though I wish the server load were lighter.
