With the new season of Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei nearly upon us, I decided I’d pop into my Facebook group (I’m still an admin) to see what had been happening. I’ve been there a few times this week and I have discovered some of the site’s latest features. Groups: these now have […]
Tag: Facebook
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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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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May is always quieter for blogging—and we get to 4,200 models on Autocade
Again, proof that each 100th vehicle on Autocade isn’t planned: the 4,200th is the second-generation Mazda Premacy, or Mazda 5 in some markets, a compact MPV that débuted 15 years ago. If it were planned, something more significant would have appeared. I know MPVs aren’t sexy but they remain one of the most practical […]
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The first world problems of the cellphone (lockdown edition)
This Pukerua Bay Tardis was the last thing I shot before the cellphone’s camera and gallery failed First world problems: the cellphone. Right now my partner and I have half a phone each, so between us, we have one phone. She can receive calls on hers but no one can hear her answer. Mine […]
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Live from Level 3
Finally, a podcast (or is it a blogcast, since it’s on my blog?) where I’m not “reacting” to something that Olivia St Redfern has put on her Leisure Lounge series. Here are some musings about where we’re at, now we are at Level 3. Some of my friends, especially my Natcoll students from 1999–2000, […]
Facebook exploits COVID-19 for profit, and viral thoughts
A lot of the world’s population has come together in the fight against COVID-19. Except Facebook, of course, who is exploiting the virus for profit. Facebook has done well in the first quarter of 2020 with positive earnings. Freedom From Facebook & Google co-chairs Sarah Miller and David Segal note (the links are theirs): ‘Facebook […]
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Even the web is forgetting our history
Hernán Piñera/Creative Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0 My friend Richard MacManus wrote a great blog post in February on the passing of Clive James, and made this poignant observation: ‘Because far from preserving our culture, the Web is at best forgetting it and at worst erasing it. As it turns out, a website is much more vulnerable […]
Facebook still can’t get the basics right
For a guy who gave up updating his own Facebook in 2017, and uses it just for work stuff, I’m still amazed at how many bugs I come across. Two days ago: discovered that you can’t post links. The ‘Publish’ button is greyed out. Yesterday: I wanted to tag one of our writers […]
Is Facebook lying to customers about who has seen their ads?
Not withstanding that I can’t edit my advertising preferences on Facebook—they took that ability away from me and a small group of users some time ago (and, like Twitter, they are dead wrong about what those preferences are)—I see they now lie about what ads I’ve seen and clicked on. I can categorically say […]
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