A more honest computing glossary

26.10.2018/08.48

Since (mostly) leaving Facebook, and cutting down on Twitter, I’ve come to realize the extent of how outdated traditional computing definitions have become. To help those who need to get up to speed, I’ve compiled a few technobabble words and translated them into normal English. app: in many cases, an extremely limited web […]

Life inside Google—an ex-Googler airs the dirty laundry

19.10.2018/09.43

In amongst all the political fallout of the National Party this week—what I’m dubbing (and hashtagging) ‘caught in the Rossfire’—was a series (well, over 100) Tweets from Morgan Knutson, a designer who once worked for Google. Unlike most Googlers, especially the cult-like ones who refuse to help when you point out a fault with Google, […]

Don’t group Chinese New Zealanders into one faceless bunch

18.10.2018/22.30

Some visiting Australian friends have said that they are finding New Zealand politics as interesting as their own, although I don’t think this was meant as a compliment. Those of us in New Zealand had a few days of House of Cards-lite intrigue, in that it was stirred up by a conservative whip, in an […]

The Facebook and Twitter purge: you can violate policies by doing nothing

16.10.2018/23.50

I’m not familiar with The Anti-Media, but New Zealand-based lawyer Darius Shahtahmasebi, who contributed to the site, notes that it was caught up in the Facebook and Twitter purge last week. The Anti-Media, he notes, had 2·17 million Facebook followers. ‘Supposedly, Facebook wants you to believe that 2.17 million people voluntarily signed up to […]

Autocade hits 14,000,000 page views, and we start a YouTube channel

13.10.2018/12.07

Above: Behind the scenes of the Škoda Karoq road test for Autocade. I hadn’t kept track of Autocade’s statistics for a while, and was pleasantly surprised to see it had crossed 14,000,000 page views (in fact, it’s on 14,140,072 at the time of writing). Using some basic mathematics, and assuming it hit 13,000,000 on May […]

Facebook’s censorship purge is a joke

/10.39

Facebook has continued its purge of pages and individual accounts, and proudly proclaimed, ‘Today, we’re removing 559 Pages and 251 accounts that have consistently broken our rules against spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior’. Long-time readers of this blog will know why I think this is a massive joke. If I can find 277 […]

Google censors at every level—it’s just what they do

11.10.2018/08.04

As my final post on Google Plus, I posted the Murdoch Press article on how the company exposed user data between 2015 and 2018, choosing not to disclose it publicly for fear of regulatory scrutiny and damage to its reputation. How interesting to note that it has now been removed twice by the powers […]

Google exposed private user data between 2015 and 2018

09.10.2018/11.59

Big Tech isn’t afraid of the law, but it is afraid of bad press that could affect its stock price. The Murdoch Press has, refreshingly, stayed on Google’s case, revealing that there had been another exposure of user data, allowing developers access to private information between 2015 and March 2018. The company sent a […]

Twitter stutters and other Big Tech misadventures

07.10.2018/10.55

I think the signs of a departure from Twitter are all there. Certainly on a cellphone there’s little point to it any more. As of last week, this began happening. If you don’t seesee me on Twitter as often, it’s becausebecause it’sit’s no longer compatible withwith the Swype keyboardkeyboard on my phonephone. I can’tcan’t be […]

The easy-to-spot signs of the social media racist

02.10.2018/11.39

As Twitter (and other social media) descend, what’s been interesting is seeing how many of us Kiwis aren’t being terribly original. No, I don’t exactly mean Dr Don Brash thinking that he can import US-style division into New Zealand wholesale without understanding the underlying forces that helped Donald Trump secure their presidency (in which case […]