This was already in the air in 2019: Platforms can run their course and to me, Twitter had already jumped the shark by 2019. By then I had had three years on the fediverse, two on Mastodon. Who needed Twitter? And who needs it now? You may also like “AI”? Facebook’s bot city […]
Tag: 2019
One of the lucky ones
The last time I had a proper birthday party—where you invite your friends—was pre-COVID. And my group of friends was, and is, eclectic. Individuals from all walks of life, many of whom are being authentic to themselves. In many cases, they are people who have looked at restrictions placed on them by society or norms […]
The world is waking up to what Meta has been for a long time
I don’t need to say much now that the world is waking up. So what’s new? This was exactly where Facebook was heading in the 2010s. Appeasement depending on which way the wind is blowing. Principles? Look elsewhere. Zuckerberg’s only principle is safeguarding his wealth. I’ve said for years to simply shut it off. If […]
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Google search is worse by design—internal memo
You didn’t imagine it: Google’s search is worse, and that’s by design, according to a document produced in discovery. Dr Jonny L. Saunders of UCLA shared one on their Mastodon earlier today. The internal Google email, from Jerry Dischler to Anil Sabharwal, dated May 3, 2019, expresses a concern over the company missing […]
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Sharkonomics 2 reviewed
I wanted to add a few words to Amazon for Stefan Engeseth’s Sharkonomics 2, but it seems Amazon no longer lets me post reviews. I guess Jeff B.’s rich enough without needing my content. I thought some of the negative ones he got there were a bit rough, given that he’s not proclaiming that […]
John Shaft beats Luke Skywalker hands down
I always had decent pencil cases at kindergarten in Hong Kong and then when I started school in New Zealand. Usually they were car-themed but the pièce de résistance was this one, far nicer than what my classmates in my new home country had. While other kids were into Star Wars and things I […]
Rocketman’s most annoying scene
Originally noted at NewTumbl, this is the sort of stuff that can annoy me in films. This is a scene from Rocketman, where Elton John (Taron Egerton) arrives at the Troubador in Los Angeles in 1970. Car people, spot the problems. If you’re like me, you’re going: Elton’s in a 1978 Lincoln Continental […]
The pathetic snowflakes of Big Tech
We all know what will happen. This is one of two fakes who have sent me a Facebook friend request this week. The first was given the all-clear despite having spam links; and no doubt this will be judged to be perfectly acceptable by Facebook. (In the meantime, a post from Lucire that featured the […]
Putting on the breaks
Being self-employed my whole adult life, I haven’t exactly been let go from actual employment, but there have been some gigs, paid and unpaid, that came to an end without me expecting it. I’ve never been sore about losing them, but I don’t agree with the way they were done. Gig 1. Did […]
Facebook whistleblower gets fired; and a workaround for Meizu Music’s inability to find your SD card
This is a pretty typical story: find fault with Big Tech, try to alert the appropriate people in the firm, get fired. Julia Carrie Wong’s excellent article for The Guardian shows a data scientist, Sophie Zhang, find blatant attempts by governments to abuse Facebook’s platform, misleading their own people, in multiple countries. Of course […]