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The Persuader
My personal blog, started in 2006. No paid or guest posts, no link sales.
Archive for March 2022
31.03.2022
Whatâs been quite fascinating with having the stats reset on Autocade is getting a fresh perspective on what its most popular pages are. When a website has been going for 14 years, and the stats have never been refreshed, it doesnât give you the most up-to-date picture. You know historically what was most popular, but what about in the last year? Unless you really kept an eye on the rates of change, you wouldnât know.
Hereâs how things looked on the old site before the move (March 17). Itâs a corner of the âPopular pagesâ page:

Itâs a pity I didnât take more screenshots on subsequent days, but I had been watching the models linked from the home page occupy the top slots for the last week. That only seemed logical: both readers and search engine spiders were hitting them more. Hereâs how things looked on March 23, with Autocade at its new home after a couple of days:

But here we are today, a week later:

Youâre beginning to see the earlier highly trafficked pages reassert themselves.
For a long time, the Nissan Bluebird (910) page led the table, before being overtaken by the Toyota Corolla (E120). Now it seems the Renault MĂ©gane II, Ford Fiesta Mk VII, Ford Taunus 80, and the Peugeot 206+ and 207 are leading the way. I see a few other top pages make their way up: Opel Astra J (which isnât that old a page), and the Holden Commodore (VE), ChryslerâSimca 1307 range, and Ford Cortina Mk III (which are old pages, from the first years of Autocade).
I assume these pages have been somewhat grandfathered by the search engines. Itâs a relief to know that the transition to the new box has been relatively seamless for the search engines not to notice.
Tags: 2022, Autocade, JY&A Media, publishing, server, technology Posted in cars, internet, New Zealand, publishing, technology | No Comments »
28.03.2022
Now we are on the new server, here are March 2022âs imagesâaides-mĂ©moires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.
Tags: 1960s, 1965, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2016, 2022, Abercrombie & Fitch, actress, advertisement, Aston Martin, Australia, BL, BMC, car, celebrity, CitroĂ«n, design, employment, fashion, film, Ford, France, humour, Instagram, James Bond, Lucire, Lucire KSA, magazine, marketing, Mini, music, Nissan, photography, PSA, publishing, Renault, sexism, South Africa, TV, Twitter, typography, UK, USA Posted in cars, culture, design, France, gallery, humour, marketing, media, publishing, TV, typography, UK, USA | No Comments »
28.03.2022
There are a few experiments going on here now that this blog is on the new server. Massive thanks to my friend who has been working tirelessly to get us on to the new box and into the 2020s.
First, thereâs a post counter, though as itâs freshly installed, it doesnât show a true count. There is a way to get the data out of Yuzo Related Posts into the counterâeven though thatâs not entirely accurate, either, it would be nice to show the record counts I had back in 2016 on the two posts revealing Facebookâs highly questionable âmalware scannerâ.

Secondly, we havenât found a good related post plug-in to replace Yuzo. Youâll see two sets of related posts here. The second is by another company who claims their software will pick up the first image in each post in the event that I have not set up a featured image or thumbnail; as you can see, it doesnât do what it says on the tin.
Some of you will have seen a bunch of links from this blog sent out via social media as the new installation became live, and I apologize for those.
Please bear with us while we work through it all. The related post plug-in issue has been the big one: there are many, but they either donât do as they claimed, or they have terrible design. Even Wordpressâs native one cannot do the simple task of taking the first image from a post, which Yuzo does with ease.
Recently a friend recommended a Google service to me, and of course I responded that I would never touch anything of theirs, at least not willingly. The following isnât addressed to him, but the many who have taken exception to my justified concerns about the company, and about Facebook, and their regular privacy breaches and apparent lack of ethics.
In short: I donât get you.
And I try to have empathy.
When I make my arguments, they arenât pulled out of the ether. I try to back up what Iâve said. When I make an attack in social media, or even in media, thereâs a wealth of reasons, many of which have been detailed on this blog.
Of course there are always opposing viewpoints, so itâs fine if you state your case. And of course itâs fine if you point out faults in my argument.
But to point the âtut tutâ finger at me and imply that I either shouldnât or Iâm mistaken, without backing yourselves up?
So where are you coming from?
In the absence of any supporting argument, there are only a handful of potential conclusions.
1. Youâre corrupt or you like corruption. You donât mind that these companies work outside the law, never do as they claim, invade peopleâs privacy, and place society in jeopardy.
2. You love the establishment and you donât like people rocking the boat. It doesnât matter what they do, theyâre the establishment. Theyâre above us, and thatâs fine.
3. You donât accept othersâ viewpoints, or youâre unable to grasp them due to your own limitations.
4. Youâre blind to whatâs been happening or you choose to turn a blind eye.
Iâve heard this bullshit my entire life.
When I did my first case at 22, representing myself, suing someone over an unpaid bill, I heard similar things.
âMaybe thereâs a reason he hasnât paid you.â
âThey never signed a contract, so no contract exists.â
As far as I can tell, they were a variant of those four, since one of the defendants was the president of a political party.
I won the case since I was in the right, and a bunch of con artists didnât get away with their grift.
The tightwad paid on the last possible day. I was at the District Court with a warrant of arrest for the registrar to sign when he advised me that the money had been paid in that morning.
I did this case in the wake of my motherâs passing.
It amazed me that there were people who assumed I was in the wrong in the setting of a law student versus an establishment white guy.
Their defence was full of contradictions because they never had any truth backing it up.
I also learned just because Simpson Grierson represented them that no one should be scared of big-name law firms. Later on, as I served as an expert witness in many cases, that belief became more cemented.
Equally, no one should put any weight on what Mark Zuckerberg says since history keeps showing that he never means it; and we should believe Google will try one on, trying to snoop wherever they can, because history shows that they will.
Ancient history with Google? Here’s what its CEO said, as quoted in CNBC, in February. People lap this up without question (apart from the likes of Bob Hoffman, who has his eyes open, and a few others). How many people on this planet again? It wasn’t even this populated in Soylent Green (which supposedly takes place in 2022, if you’re looking at the cinematic version).

Tags: 1990s, 1994, 1995, 2016, 2022, Big Tech, corruption, Facebook, friends, Google, history, Labour, law, server, technology, Wordpress Posted in business, internet, New Zealand, politics, technology, Wellington | No Comments »
25.03.2022

The Suzuki Swift: one of the saving graces on New Zealand’s top 10 list.
At the Opel relaunch briefing yesterday, I was shocked to find that these were New Zealandâs top selling vehicles for 2021. I knew about the first two, but had always assumed a Toyota Corolla would follow, plus some regular cars. From this, I gather the rest of New Zealand thinks the opposite to me. I personally believe petrol is expensive.
1. Ford Ranger
2. Toyota Hilux
3. Mitsubishi Triton
4. Mitsubishi ASX (RVR on the home market)
5. Toyota RAV4
6. Mitsubishi Outlander (presumably the outgoing one)
7. Mazda CX-5
8. Nissan Navara
9. Suzuki Swift
10. Kia Stonic
Not a very discerning lot, are we? We say we care about the environment yet enough of us have helped fuel the second biggest contributor to the carbon emissionsâ rise in the last 10 years: the crossover or SUV.
And Iâve driven those RVRs. Why are people buying, in 2021, a vehicle that feels like a taller, larger Colt from the 2000s?
I have no issue with those of you who really need an SUV or ute. But for those who pose, you arenât helping yourself or your planet. And even if you bought some electrified variant, I thought it was universally understood (certainly for any of us alive during the 1970s fuel crises and those who observed the aerodynamic trend of the 1980s) that tall bodies and big frontal areas would consume more energy.
Tags: 2021, Aotearoa, car, car industry, environment, Ford, fuel economy, Mitsubishi, New Zealand, Suzuki, Toyota Posted in cars, culture, New Zealand | No Comments »
17.03.2022

At just past its 14th birthday, Autocade will return on a new server, with a new Mediawiki installation.
Because Mediawiki got rid of the stats with v. 1.25, sadly they werenât imported into the new version that weâre running. Weâre going to start the count from 0, though of course right before the changeover Iâll take note of where we got to.
For those sick of me commemorating every millionth page view, you might get your wish, because of the extra arithmetic thatâs going to be involved.
Iâd like to thank my friend for doing all this work anonymously behind the scenes. Unlike 2000, websites are far more complex things, and just customizing the look took me a few days. You can imagine how much more complex it was to import a PHP database and hooking up the site to Plesk.
What we have is an Autocade that looks familiarâlike Lucireâs website redesign last year I tried to keep everything as close as possibleâbut there are minor tweaks that go with the newer software.
Certain pages did not make the transition, namely the âAboutâ and community portal, so these had to be added manually from the original. But as far as I can tell, all the cars are there, and thatâs the reason that almost all of you visit. You can see how it all works very soon.
I imagine this blog will be nextâand then I will likely get back to updating it at the usual pace. Though as my experience with social media demonstrates, it’s remarkably easy to break a habit!
Tags: 2022, Autocade, computing, JY&A Media, Mediawiki, publishing, redesign, technology Posted in cars, design, internet, media, publishing, technology | No Comments »
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