The descent of Instagram

29.04.2019/07.48

The descent of software seems to be a common theme among some companies. You get good ones, like Adobe and Fontlab, where (generally) successive versions tend to improve on those gone before. Then you get bad ones, like Facebook, which make things worse with each iteration. Facebook Timeline launched to much fanfare at the […]

A very humble 3,800th entry on Autocade

28.04.2019/12.00

We almost never plan which car winds up being the x hundredth model entered into Autocade, and here’s proof. The humble, boxy Mazda Demio (DY) was the 3,800th entry in Autocade. It makes a nice change from all the SUVs that have found their way on to the database in recent months, even if […]

Spoiler alert: The Avengers’ endgame

24.04.2019/09.13

I’m hearing the young people talk about this lately. But we already know how The Avengers ends. Then they come back with some new cast members years later. John Steed (Patrick Macnee) and Tara King (Linda Thorson) on board a rocket. You may also like Not quite a remake, but similar Is your favourite […]

Tumblr is now where Verizon’s corporate agenda rule

/08.16

How quickly an opinion can change. I have been on Tumblr for 12 years, signing up in 2007, with my first post in January 2008. For most of that time I have sung its praises, saying it was one of the good guys in amongst all the Big Tech platforms (Google, Facebook) that […]

CSR is already woven into Māori leadership

23.04.2019/10.01

I was fascinated to read a New Zealand Herald story on the Māori asset base, though it wasn’t the financial part that hit me. What was more significant were the principles behind Māori businesses. About 15 years ago, when chatting to a woman representing a Māori winery, I said that she had an amazing […]

Tumblr is dead, long live NewTumbl

/10.00

Postscripts: click here to read why I’m considering ceasing to post on NewTumbl, in November 2020. Click here to read about NewTumbl’s encouraging response in December 2020. And, just over a week later, how the site really has become too puritanical for its own good. Tumblr is dead, long live NewTumbl. I […]

More Facebook lies in its ad preferences’ manager?

21.04.2019/12.06

As I’ve often said, it’s wise to keep an eye on your Facebook ad preferences’ page. Even if you’ve opted out of Facebook targeting, Facebook will still keep compiling information on you. I see no other purpose for this other than to target you with advertising, contrary to what you expect. Facebook also tells […]

EU copyright: as far as we’re concerned, link away

13.04.2019/13.45

European Union—www.europarl.europa.eu/downloadcentre/en/visual-identity, Public Domain; link I’m reading more about this EU copyright directive that was voted in last month. Without doing a full analysis, I can say that we won’t go after anyone who links to our publications. We presently don’t care if you use a brief snippet of our content and link […]

Navigating the Julian Assange arrest

12.04.2019/14.14

I find it disturbing that some of the talking heads here we’ve seen are giving the Julian Assange story the same bias that much of the US mainstream media are. To me, it’s dangerous territory: it either shows that our media wish to be complicit with Anglo-American interests, that they do little more than repeat […]

When the writers don’t check the Cobra 11 universe

10.04.2019/13.03

This is how big an Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei nerd I am. Three years ago (April 7, 2016), we were introduced to Daniel Roesner as Paul Renner in ‘Cobra, übernehmen Sie’. There is a flashback scene dated April 7, 1996 when Paul and Semir meet for the first time, with Paul as […]