Business as usual at Wikipedia

I know Wikipedia is full of fiction, so what’s one more?    I know, you’re thinking: why don’t you stop moaning and go and fix it if it’s such a big deal?    First up, for once I actually did try, as I thought the deletion of a sentence would be easy enough. But the […]

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Autocade gets to 18,000,000 in record time

Above: Autocade’s latest entry, the first-generation Nissan Stagea. It’s Boxing Day here, but Christmas Day in a lot of places. And Autocade is about to hit 18,000,000 page views, in record time (under 7,000 to go at the time of writing, which it will comfortably hit within hours). Not a bad Christmas present in terms […]

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Wide of the mark

Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, e.g.:    Anyone alive during this period will be wondering, ‘Where’s Altavista?’    Just on visitor numbers, as opposed to visits per month, they were doing 19 million daily in 1996, 80 million daily in 1997. Goodness knows how many searches we were doing per day. Yet […]

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Healthy jump in Autocade traffic for home-page entries

Some interesting traffic patterns at Autocade. At the time of writing, two models have been added: the Audi A2 and the Daimler DE36. They’ve netted 5 and 2 views respectively, which is what you’d expect for new pages.    The last significant updates, when models were added, took place on December 13. The last model […]

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Breaking Hart’s

Usually, all our publications use Hart’s Rules. It’s well understood, enough compositors know it, and it’s a credible enough style guide for us to point at and use as a defence. There are some departures, which so far few have complained to me about.    1. Citation style. The OUP publishes The British Year Book […]

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The return of borders?

Nadia has done it for ages, but I noticed Glamour did it for a while in 2018, and Wheels has stuck with it for its “new look”. What’s the deal with bordered covers?    I still prefer them bled, especially as I remember the difficulties of doing them back in the old days, and print […]

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Victor Billot on the 2019 UK General Election

I often find myself in accord with my friend Victor Billot. His piece on the UK General Election can be found here. And yes, Britain, this is how many of us looking in see it—like Victor I have dual nationality (indeed, my British passport is my only current one, having been a little busy to […]

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The “fortress America” approach to the internet fuels piracy

There are websites such as CBS News in the US that no longer let us here in New Zealand view them. US Auto Trader is another one. It’s a damned shame, because I feel it’s a stab at the heart of what made the internet great—the fact that we could be in touch with each […]

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That’s not Blofeld, it’s Brofeld

I really had hoped that for the next Bond, we wouldn’t see ‘Brofeld’.    I’ve never had a problem with M being a woman or Q being a nerd, but ignoring Fleming’s entire background for Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the Daniel Craig movies, and supplanting him into the Franz Oberhauser family as a foster brother […]

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Thank you, Twitter whānau

When Twitter is awesome. Thank you, everyone, tēnā rawa atu koutou. Wellington Twitter. Our friend @jackyan's Dad is extremely unwell in hospital so please can you send him good wishes and strength.Jack, we are all with you through this trying time, but still hoping for a miracle.Arohanui to you and Amanda ❤ — Beckie (@FitKiwi) […]

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