I’ve bought Don Black’s The Sanest Guy in the Room, which is a great read—you know that it’s piqued your interest if you can do 110 pages in a single sitting. There’s more to go, and it’s entertaining learning a bit about the backgrounds to his songs, ‘Born Free’ arguably his best known. (I […]
Tag: language
A brief misadventure into the Chinese internet
When I was a kid and wanted to hit back at someone for being mean to me, my parents would often say that successful people, true leaders, would be 大方, which is roughly akin to saying that one should rise above it. I would say that goes with nations as well: you can tell when […]
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It’s not hard writing clear terms and conditions
We’ve had a ‘Highlights’ section in our T&Cs for a while, but today I thought I’d take another look at them. Without reading them again, I drafted these: • We don’t know anything about you unless you tell us. • When you do tell us stuff (like signing up with your email address) we store […]
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A refreshing piece on diversity in our mainstream media
Two fantastic items in my Tweetstream today, the first from journalist Jehan Casinader, a New Zealander of Sri Lankan heritage, in Stuff. Some highlights: As an ethnic person, you can only enter (and stay in) a predominantly white space – like the media, politics or corporate leadership – if you play by the rules. […]
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The most likely explanation: Google doesn’t like academic reports that harm its interests
TechCrunch/Creative Commons 2·0 I summarized this article to my friends as: ‘How can we trust Big Tech? Google didn’t like hearing the truth from an intelligent woman, so they forced her out.’ And my friend Cathy pointed out it’s a woman of colour. And if you take the basic position that Google lies, just […]
How about a blog gallery here, if NewTumbl puritanically patrols posts?
In relation to this incident on NewTumbl, one moderator has come forth, writing in the comments to a newer post referring to it: I do a lot of rating on here. Which posts are you referring to? By the way w*nk is M, because we know what wank means. Rating on nT is done by […]
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Language lines on NewTumbl
This post was originally posted to NewTumbl. I’m surprised that a clip from a front page of a British tabloid newspaper was ruled M by a moderator here after I made it O. It was critical of British cabinet minister Matt Hancock and made fun of his surname, with two words that rhymed with its […]
More things that don’t work: Google knowledge panels, and typing in te reo Māori in Facebook
A guide to emojis for 2020. Just for clarification: 😷 = happy😷 = angry😷 = laughing😷 = sad#COVID19 #emoji — Jack Yan 甄爵恩 (@jackyan) September 5, 2020 At least Twitter works. Google, as usual, doesn’t. I had a check to see how Lucire was performing in a Google search yesterday and noticed there was […]
The ‘A’ (Aotearoa) Team
Now that Aotearoa New Zealand has lifted our COVID-19 restrictions after getting rid of the virus on our shores, other than keeping our border closed, I Tweeted: Last time I felt this much part of a national team was when celebrities sang ‘Sailing Away’ to the tune of ‘Pokarekare Ana’. #COVID19 — Jack Yan 甄爵恩 […]
Alone again, naturally
Looking back over the years And whatever else that appears, I remember I cried when my mother died Never wishing to hide the tears. And at fifty-nine years old, My father, God rest his soul, Couldn’t understand why the only lass He had ever loved had been taken, Leaving him to start With a heart […]