“AI” is drivel

08.04.2024/03.14

This is from Perplexity, showing how convincingly these bots with their large language models spit out utter drivel: And not everyone will have the actual knowledge to call them out on it: “AI” is only useful when you already know the answer, because it does get it wrong and you need […]

Eudora users, welcome Aurora: finally, a modern, secure, Unicode-friendly successor

27.03.2024/02.37

We have lift-off. For those of us who have been waiting for a successor to Eudora 7.1.0.9 from 2006, our patience has been rewarded. Some years ago, I had heard of a project called Hermes, and they have now delivered an alpha version called Hermes Aurora that does everything they promised. Back when Hermes was […]

I’m blocking Threads

26.03.2024/09.02

I decided to block threads.net from my Mastodon account, which really doesn’t do much if there are determined bad actors, but it’s a small initial step to keep Meta in its place. Just as I never linked my YouTube account to Google back when I used those legacy 2000s websites, I really don’t need to […]

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Semrush, your users used your tool, then created misinformation. How did this even come about?

22.03.2024/10.14

It seemed right to quiz Semrush about the misinformation that is being posted out there, allegedly because of its program. I’ve yet to receive a reply, but I really need to understand why. How did my name even wind up in their system alongside Google and SEO? I emailed them, telling them what I could […]

When anti-capitalists love billionaires

29.11.2023/12.20

Ka wehi ta ratou kaupapa here, ko hiahia kōrero te reo Māori ahau. People are waking up to how bad Google has become, if posts on Mastodon are any indication. What’s disappointing are the replies, usually saying they have switched to Duck Duck Go because it’s so much better, and others saying Kagi is […]

I have business for the photo bots, but they don’t want it

25.11.2023/10.07

We received a few more automated notices from Copytrack last month, and as usual we were able to show them the licences. However, this one involved one of our editors, and I had to waste her time looking for documentation from a decade ago. There are some other legal issues relating to their methods, which […]

Cloudflare’s unpredictable blocks could come in handy

05.11.2023/02.08

A few weeks ago, I removed Design Taxi from our links’ list because I received this: so I assumed the site had gone or had made a decision to block certain people or countries. But it turns out that it hasn’t and I now have egg on my face. I’ve no idea why […]

Testing Mojeek, Google and Bing on a site: search again: November ’23 update

01.11.2023/11.10

It has been a long time since I looked at how the three main occidental search engines—Mojeek, Google and Bing—were performing with a site: search and whether they could pick up dynamic pages. As I did in April, I’m trying it with site:lucire.com, which has both static and dynamic content. Mojeek is fairly consistent, but […]

NPR leaving OnlyKlans: six months on, they barely felt a thing

25.10.2023/08.36

How interesting to read in Nieman Reports that six months on, NPR has barely felt a thing after leaving OnlyKlans, the site formerly known as Twitter. NPR told its staff that its traffic has dropped by ‘a single percentage point’, according to Nieman Reports, and before that, traffic from OnlyKlans made up less than two […]

Can’t connect to Wellywifi? You’re not the only one

02.09.2023/04.10

Above: Trying to log into Wellywifi. If you get the second screen, you’re already doing well. Despite being the person who successfully pushed for our city’s free wifi programme in 2009–10, I note the irony of being the only person (according to Wellington City Libraries staff I have spoken to) who cannot connect to […]