An introduction to smart TVs for a complete novice

Earlier in December, we decided to put a TV into our guest room. One catch: there is no aerial there, so initially we thought, ‘We have some great DVDs, let’s plug in the DVD player.’ But it didn’t quite feel right. We’ve stayed at enough places with smart TVs, including some running the Android TV […]

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When reverse image search services allege you’ve stolen work

I think these are going to get more frequent. We received another copyright claim, accusing us of publishing a photograph without authorization. They wanted around €500, part of that for the licence, and part of that for running it since 2009. This one, from a German company, was easier to deal with than an American […]

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You can’t even mention Mastodon in Twitter private messaging

It was pretty unsurprising to see Mastodon links blocked on Twitter. If you consider that its owner is a petulant manchild, then everything makes sense. But I was surprised that this censorship extended to private messages. This from Tweetdeck as I advised a friend:     Note the links aren’t even live—they’re just text mentions. […]

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For the web, the glass is half full

Manu Schwendener/Unsplash   I like what Robin Sloan had to say in his blog post, ‘A Year of New Avenues’. It’s typeset in Filosofia, which is another great reason to read it. I’ve often said the trends of a new decade, or century, don’t emerge on the dot. You’ve got to get a few years […]

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Are there a lot Gmail users who get their address wrong, more than any other service?

Kurt and I have very different brains, if you read this thread that I jumped in on. I am sure he is right on how things should work. Get me talking about spacing and spelling, and I’d be in the same boat. Or the use of the word billion. I have my ideas on all […]

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Google’s advertising business is a negligence lawsuit waiting to be actioned

Apparently the New Zealand government says Big Tech will pay a ‘fair price’ for local news content under new legislation. Forget the newcomers like Stuff and The New Zealand Herald. The Fairfax Press, as the former was, was still running ‘The internet is scary’ stories at the turn of the century. What will Big Tech […]

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Keybase: one failure after another

Because I locked my Twitter, Keybase was unable to find its usual proof there. It told me to link a new one from their ‘app’. I’d love to, folks, but you don’t let me see anything.     That’s Keybase. I can’t see anything in the window, and I can’t move the window. I have […]

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Avira dishonours paid subscription, blames it on the customer

I see Avira has downgraded me to their free version despite my being paid up. As far as I can tell, this has been the case for months, and I remember Tweeting them back when Twitter was a thing. I can’t log in at all, and it keeps showing a ‘Get Prime’ button to force […]

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Autocade reaches 30 million page views

I was hoping we’d crack 30 million page views by the end of November, but it’s taken an extra week or so to get to this milestone at Autocade. The stats’ counter shows 2,375,730; added to the last recorded total of 27,647,011 before the server upgrade and a new MediaWiki installation, and we’re comfortably in […]

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Tesla to a typeface designer, and a big missed target

Now that the quartet has been launched, it’s evident that Tesla’s naming strategy is all wrong. This is what they should be called.     On a related note:     Since I haven’t seen the March 15 video now circulating on OnlyKlans, I mean, Twitter, I can’t use the DIA reporting form. But those […]

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