I’m surprised that people are surprised that this is where Facebook is going. In the words of my friend Richard MacManus, in reference to this interview with Mark Zuckerberg in The Verge: ‘Mark Zuckerberg basically just confirmed that your feeds will soon be full of AI-generated content. Another reason the fediverse needs to exist: so […]
Read More… from “AI”? Facebook’s bot city has already been around for a decade
It does seem the sun is setting, after 25 years, on Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei on RTL. Last week, the network released three episodes from 8.15 p.m., and to heck with the low ratings of the last episode which would be far too late for younger viewers. They’re doing the same this […]
Read More… from Is the sun setting on Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei?
Some visiting Australian friends have said that they are finding New Zealand politics as interesting as their own, although I don’t think this was meant as a compliment. Those of us in New Zealand had a few days of House of Cards-lite intrigue, in that it was stirred up by a conservative whip, in an […]
Read More… from Don’t group Chinese New Zealanders into one faceless bunch
Many years ago, I was locked out of Facebook for 69 hours. It was completely a Facebook database problem, but in those days, they just locked you out without any explanation. It happened on a Friday. I believed I would not get back in till Facebook staff got back to work on Monday—and I was […]
The stunning original: the Range Rover Evoque. There has been a lot of ongoing press about Landwind’s copy of the Range Rover Evoque (a road test of the Evoque comes next week in Lucire, incidentally), one of my favourite Sloane Ranger SUVs. There’s no way Landwind would have come up with the design independently, and, […]
I’ve gone into the reasons I support ’net neutrality elsewhere, but it was nice to hear about this on the wireless: even though we still don’t know the specifics, as the FCC has kept this to itself for now. (We do know that Google has written a letter to the FCC, and that ‘an entire […]
Read More… from FCC rules in favour of ’net neutrality (at least we think it has)
Found on my wall today. While it’s over three months old, the responses from Prof Reza Aslan of the University of California Riverside address a lot of the comments that have surfaced post-Charlie Hebdo head-on—which shows that we continue to go round and round the same arguments and not making an awful lot of progress. […]
Read More… from Time for a rewatch: Reza Aslan interviewed on CNN about Muslim violence
For the last few years, I’ve looked back at the events of the year in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. (In fact, in 2009, I looked back at the decade.) Tumblr’s the place I look at these days for these summaries, since it tends to have my random thoughts, ones complemented by very little critical thinking. They […]
During the six hours wasted with Ubuntu today (13 would no longer upgrade, so I removed it and decided to start afresh with 14—big mistake, since it would not let me use the same hard drive), I had to open up my five-year-old Windows Vista laptop and upgrade my Firefox. After all, what were the […]
Read More… from What to do when Firefox for Windows Vista displays no text
I’m one of the few living in the occident who watched President Putin’s end-of-year press conference (all right, I listened to a good part of it while working). While the live translations coming through were distracting, it was better than not knowing what he was saying. It was a rare thing, to see a president […]
Read More… from Vladimir Putin’s end-of-year conference: not as ‘crazy’ as The Independent makes out