You can’t bank on the Wales (or, why I closed our Westpac account)

At some point as a young man, my Dad worked at a bank. He had a formal understanding of finance—despite his schooling being interrupted by the Sino–Japanese War and then by the communist revolution, he managed to get himself a qualification in economics, and had some time working for a bank.    I was taught […]

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When not having something drives creativity

I hadn’t expected this reply Tweet to get so many likes, probably a record for me. I knew my parents couldn’t afford The Lettering Book, so I went without, which forced me to create my own typeface designs. Later I became the first digital typeface designer in this country. — Jack Yan 甄爵恩 (@jackyan) July […]

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Have we stopped innovating in online publishing?

For a while, we’ve been thinking about how best to facelift the Lucire website templates, to bring them into the 2020s. The current look is many years old (I’ve a feeling it was 2016 when we last looked at it), which in internet terms puts this once-cutting edge site into old-school territory.    But what’s […]

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Back on RNZ’s The Panel: on Hong Kong’s new national security legislation

Public domain/Pxhere What a pleasure it was to be back on The Panel on Radio New Zealand National today, my first appearance in a decade. That last time was about the Wellywood sign and how I had involved the Hollywood Sign Trust. I’ve done a couple of interviews since then on RNZ (thank you to […]

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Switching to a Chinese OS solves another Instagram bug

Whaddya know? Uploading an Instagram video with an Android 7-based phone is fine if it’s on a Chinese OS and not a western one.    This was a bug I wrote about nearly two years ago, and I wasn’t alone. Others had difficulties with their Android 7 phones with getting Instagram videos to play smoothly: […]

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After 18 months, some progress on the Meizu M6 Note

That was an interesting day in cellphone land. I collected the Meizu M6 Note from PB last Friday and switched it on for the first time in the small hours of Tuesday.    I originally wasn’t pleased. I had paid NZ$80 for a warranty repair (there is provision under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 in […]

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Crunching the COVID-19 numbers for June 15

I hadn’t done one of these for a long time: take the number of COVID-19 cases and divide them by tests done. For most countries, the percentage is trending down, though there has been little movement in Sweden. I hadn’t included Brazil, Russia and India before, but as they are in the top part of […]

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Why I don’t find the Asiatic characters on Little Britain and Come Fly with Me racist

BBC I have a problem with blackface and yellowface, generally when there are more than capable actors who could have taken the role, but I make exceptions in some situations.    Take, for example, the news that Little Britain and Come Fly with Me are being removed from streaming services because of what are now […]

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Catfished on Facebook? That’s OK, too, they’re there to provide the tools

I don’t particularly have it in for Google and Facebook. I’m only pointing out the obvious: if you say your policy is x, or your product is y, then don’t deliver us z. Put it into non-electronic terms: if you sell me a car and I put it into first gear, and it instead reverses, […]

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The ‘A’ (Aotearoa) Team

Now that Aotearoa New Zealand has lifted our COVID-19 restrictions after getting rid of the virus on our shores, other than keeping our border closed, I Tweeted: Last time I felt this much part of a national team was when celebrities sang ‘Sailing Away’ to the tune of ‘Pokarekare Ana’. #COVID19 — Jack Yan 甄爵恩 […]

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