Why AWS is terrible for most businesses

I know, if you search, you’re bound to find an opinion that matches yours, and pretty quickly, too. Bhagwad Park (in either Ontario or Florida—I assume one of the addresses on his site hasn’t been updated) happens to agree with me about AWS, except he breaks things down far better, being an expert on web […]

Read More… from Why AWS is terrible for most businesses



We need great design and brands—now more than ever

A group of red game counters gathered together to the left, and a lone black one on the right.

It is disturbing to think that design, which you’d instinctively think is an evergreen profession with constant demand, isn’t capturing young people the way it did for me. In New Zealand at least, educators are telling me there’s less demand for graphic design courses. If people are enrolling, they’re often in-house crews in big companies […]

Read More… from We need great design and brands—now more than ever



Substantial drop in site: results at Mojeek; is Ecosia now Google?

I’m told by Mojeek that this should not happen but it has. In October 2023, it had 3,103 results for a site: search for the original Autocade website, beating Google at 2,910 and Bing at 2,170. Mojeek is meant to build on its index but earlier this year, it dropped into the 700s. Currently site:autocade.net […]

Read More… from Substantial drop in site: results at Mojeek; is Ecosia now Google?



Tariffs won’t make the Big Two great again

2020 Ford Fusion Titanium Hybrid in metallic copper.

From me on Autocade World: President Donald J. Trump has been talking about tariffs for a very long time, even as a businessman back in the ’80s. Back then he lamented that the US was being hard done by Japan, with all the Japanese cars and VCRs that Americans were buying, and yet the reverse […]

Read More… from Tariffs won’t make the Big Two great again



Common-sense economics

I haven’t commented on US politics much lately, primarily because there are others who do it far better. If you want excellent insight without being weighed down in detail, read what Richard Murphy in the UK has to say on, say, US tariffs, or the madness of austerity economics. His blog Funding the Future has […]

Read More… from Common-sense economics



License from us, not from US

A Lucire KSA spread with a copy of Lucire KSA underneath it.

Anti-American sentiment harming sales of your licensed fashion magazine? We have a solution for that. We still provide US coverage but without being US-owned. But, importantly, we recognize that there are great fashion, beauty, lifestyle and travel stories the world over.   I have had to think a lot about whether our country-of-origin effect is […]

Read More… from License from us, not from US



“AI” bots drive Wikipedia traffic up 50 per cent—as we already witnessed in 2023

Another thing I experienced before others: “AI” scraping causing a substantial increase in bandwidth, notably at Autocade in 2023. In Wikipedia’s case, this happened last year, as the “AI” bots sent their bandwidth up 50 per cent. Casey Newton writes:   Post by @caseynewton View on Mastodon The bots steal, do not give attribution, and […]

Read More… from “AI” bots drive Wikipedia traffic up 50 per cent—as we already witnessed in 2023



Get your brand right and make it famous

There’s a lot of where advertising, marketing and tech have gone wrong on this blog, so what’s the right thing to do when you’re trying to sell your product? There’s the basic stuff we need to answer. We want people to buy our product, to solve a certain need, and they will do so because […]

Read More… from Get your brand right and make it famous



Ad tech is suspect

Got to love the irrepressible Bob Hoffman. In his March 23 newsletter, he notes that Adlook studied target segments from popular data providers, and asked the people in those segments about themselves. I won’t spoil Bob’s entire list but the top two are: 47 per cent of the people who the data said were women […]

Read More… from Ad tech is suspect



No matter how bad you had it, someone had it worse

Two things: I did say “AI” programs would ultimately make up false stories about us all. And what happened to me in 2024 was not as bad as what happened to Arve Hjalmar Holmen in Norway. There are still a few disinformation stories left about me—about four more where companies who would normally enforce their […]

Read More… from No matter how bad you had it, someone had it worse