About me (according to libraries)

I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that I have a US Library of Congress entry, as a published author, though if I am reading it correctly, it relates to my 2010 mayoral campaign. Following the links there, I arrived at a Virtual International Authority File but the data there seem to relate to my Wikipedia […]

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Lucire at 25: how things have changed

The below was originally posted in Lucire. We have made it to 25 years of age there, and rather than reinvent the wheel, this little piece—as well as the one I uploaded yesterday hours after we turned exactly 25—reflect how I feel upon reaching this milestone.   Olivia Macklin, photographed by Josh Fogel, make-up by […]

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We should challenge monopolists, not do business with them at the exclusion of ethical parties

Search engine Mojeek is doing no wrong in my book. Here’s its CEO Colin Hayhurst being interviewed by The New Era’s Jeffrey Peel, making complete sense, which is not something I can say about anyone speaking for Big Tech. We should be shunning monopolists if we truly value progress and innovation, or even a proper, […]

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Type coverage—in 2012

I’m not sure why I didn’t spot these back in 2012. This was very high praise from Cre8d Design, on ‘What is New Zealand’s iconic font?’ So nice to see JY Décennie in there. Still on type, the fifth Congreso Internacional de Tipografía in Valencia cites yours truly. Como consecuencia de todos estos cambios, surgen […]

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Forget the 2010s and 2020s, Bing’s results are firmly in the 2000s now

Immediately after blogging about Bing being able to pick up an article from 2022, Microsoft’s collapsing search engine has reverted back to being the Wayback Machine. There was just over a week of it living in the 2020s, but it seems it’s too much for them. It’s back to, well, Bing Vista, for want of […]

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Bing actually indexes a page from 2022—Microsoft must be in shock

This is a miracle. Bing actually indexed and showed something from Lucire from 2022. Of course, since it’s incapable of remembering what it had shown in its results earlier, the story was repeated twice on subsequent pages. Since I began my tests earlier this year (and finding out yet another area that tech companies brag […]

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China in 2022: speak Cantonese, get banned from social media

If you think some of us were being uppity about New Zealand Chinese Language Week, how’s this for a real-life report? Speak Cantonese, get banned from a social media platform. That’s what’s happening in China right now. And I had already mentioned schoolchildren being told off for using their reo. The Google Translate translation is […]

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Startpage isn’t what I thought it was—but then Google does the opposite to what you think

Startpage says it licenses Google’s results but gives us privacy. So, if you want Google-level, Google-biased results, but don’t want their tracking, you use Startpage. Um, no. Let’s just take a random search for a screenwriter I once mentioned on this blog:     It’s quite a bit slower than Google, too. The results are […]

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Windows 11 22H2 arrives; now for the usual post-upgrade tweaks

Windows 11 22H2 arrived for me yesterday, and the first order of business, as always, was to sort out the typography. This earlier post is roughly right: make the registry hacks, then change the properties of the fonts in C:\Windows\WinSXS (namely by giving them administrator access) before deleting them. However, I needed one extra step […]

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New Zealand Chinese Language Week reviewed—in Cantonese

My friend Bevan was going to make a podcast in Cantonese for New Zealand Chinese Language Week, and I decided I would record a few tidbits—except it wound up being something far longer and a podcast episode in its own right. So here it is, all 13-plus minutes of it. If this isn’t your language, […]

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