Meta is grabbing your content for its ‘generative AI’—hopefully this opt-out form works

Meta (including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and presumably Whatsapp) is taking user content for its ‘generative AI’. I don’t remember signing up for this, but then I stopped using these sites regularly. Allegedly you can opt out of this. I opted out of ad preference collection there and it made no difference, but in case it […]

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When the oldest looks the freshest

  Here are three Elle covers that I uploaded to last month’s gallery, from 1991, 2007 and 2022. Which looks the most modern? To me, it’s the 1991 US one. The Futura Light type is calm, it all looks rather balanced, and the photograph is well lit and composed. From memory, it was commended by […]

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Putting the search engines through their paces

One more, and I might give the subject a rest. Here I test the search engines for the term Lucire. This paints quite a different picture. Lucire is an established site, dating from 1997, indexed by all major search engines from the start. The word did not exist online till the site began. It does […]

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Spacing in French: figuring out how to punctuate professionally

With the French edition of Lucire KSA now out, we’ve been hard at work on the second issue. The first was typeset by our colleagues in Cairo (with the copy subbed by me), but this time it falls on us, and I had to do a lot of research on French composition.    There are […]

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Nostalgia in Grenoble

Andrea Berlese If you’re around my age with a similar interest in model cars, this mural, Re-collection, by Leon Keer on a block of flats in Grenoble, France, will appeal.    Leon has Tweets with the before and after, and one about the process. ‘Re-Collection’ my latest mural @GStreetartfest Grenoble France, photos before and after […]

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An unusual 4,400th model on Autocade

This was an unusual car to have as the 4,400th on Autocade: the Rosengart Ariette.    I did know the 4,400th was coming up since it wasn’t that long ago that Autocade passed 22 million page views, and I checked the stats. But I like to think this would still have been the motor that […]

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COVID-19 stats’ update, April 16

Don’t worry, I won’t make this too regular, but as I had done some more number-crunching of the available stats during the daytime, I thought I’d share them. I’ve noticed that some countries update their test numbers on a less regular basis, e.g. France, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland, though Worldometers now has updated ones since […]

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COVID-19 infections as a percentage of tests done: April 13 update

I can cite these COVID-19 calculations (infections as a proportion of tests done) with a bit more confidence than the last lot, where many countries’ testing figures had not updated. I see the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has released its total test numbers now, and they show a pretty good result, too.    Compared to […]

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Give me a break

From an Automotive News interview with Yves Bonnefort, CEO of DS.    Um, that’s called a station wagon or estate car, mate. You may also like A couple of days before it became official: thoughts on PSA and FCA linking up GM’s Holden to abandon C and D car segments, delivering them on a silver […]

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A couple of days before it became official: thoughts on PSA and FCA linking up

Companies in FCA’s and PSA’s histories did once produce the Plymouth Horizon, so historically there is some precedent to a trans-Atlantic arrangement—not to mention the type 220 and 179 minivans and the commercial vehicles currently in PSA’s and Fiat’s ranges. This is a few days old, but it’s nice to know that these hurriedly written […]

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