Business as usual at Wikipedia

27.12.2019/06.52

I know Wikipedia is full of fiction, so what’s one more? I know, you’re thinking: why don’t you stop moaning and go and fix it if it’s such a big deal? First up, for once I actually did try, as I thought the deletion of a sentence would be easy enough. But the […]

The return of borders?

22.12.2019/08.22

Nadia has done it for ages, but I noticed Glamour did it for a while in 2018, and Wheels has stuck with it for its “new look”. What’s the deal with bordered covers? I still prefer them bled, especially as I remember the difficulties of doing them back in the old days, and print […]

Read More… from The return of borders?

The “fortress America” approach to the internet fuels piracy

21.12.2019/13.05

There are websites such as CBS News in the US that no longer let us here in New Zealand view them. US Auto Trader is another one. It’s a damned shame, because I feel it’s a stab at the heart of what made the internet great—the fact that we could be in touch with each […]

Capitalism falls down when it’s rigged

04.12.2019/09.57

Martin Wolf, writing in the Financial Times, touches on a few points that resonate with my readings over the years. He believes capitalism, as a system, is not a bad one, but it is bad when it is ‘rigged’; and that Aristotle was indeed right (as history has since proved) that a sizeable middle […]

Modern masculinity doesn’t involve reinventing the wheel

29.11.2019/13.25

When Douglas Bader recorded in his log book on the aeroplane accident that cost him his legs, he wrote, ‘Bad show’. It was men like Bader, Audie Murphy, Claire Lee Chennault and Douglas MacArthur that my father spoke of as heroes from his childhood. There were plenty more from our own culture but […]

Facebook takes away user control over their own advertising preferences

15.11.2019/06.39

Facebook’s advertising preferences are getting more useless by the day. Even a company as dodgy as Google has managed to keep its preference page working. Over the years I’ve been telling people that they can delete their interests from Facebook if they’re uncomfortable with the targeting, since Facebook gathers these interests even when you […]

Big Tech and advertising: the con is being revealed

13.11.2019/11.13

People are waking up to the fact that online advertising isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Last month, Bob Hoffman’s excellent The Ad Contrarian newsletter noted, ‘I believe the marketing industry has pissed away hundreds of billions of dollars on digital fairy tales and ad fraud over the past 10 years (in fact, […]

The latest round of Facebook lies

26.10.2019/22.18

I believe one of the Democrat-leaning newspapers in the US compiles a list of lies by Donald Trump. I really think we should be doing one for Facebook, as it would make for impressive reading, though it would also take some time to compile. Founder Mark Zuckerberg claimed he talked to media from ‘across […]

Baojun doesn’t scream ‘premium’ and ‘next-gen tech’ to me

10.10.2019/22.41

I have to agree with Yang Jian, managing editor of Automotive News China, that Baojun’s new models ‘obviously’ failed to reverse the brand’s sales’ decline. It is obvious given that the vehicles are priced considerably above the previous ones, and despite its next-gen tech, there’s no real alignment with what Baojun stands for. […]

Who is changing Facebook links to affiliate ones?

14.09.2019/11.40

I know someone else has come across this before, since there’s a page on it here. The very same thing has begun happening on Autocade, whenever the Facebook link is clicked. I’d love to blame Facebook, but I don’t believe it’s them. I’ve contacted Sovrn (formerly Viglinks) as the discussion board participants identify […]