Rubénerd Blog :)

Screenshot from Google Reader yesterday afternoon

Another quick but very warm thank you to everyone who’s been sending me emails and messages on Twitter and Google Reader regarding my latest and worst ever personal health problems. I’d emphasise though that given family history and what others have gone through, I’m relieved I can say that this has been the worst instead of something far more sinister. Did that make sense?

My symptoms are getting better; the lethargy and constant tiredness still exists but I can already feel the pain in my joins ebbing and I can feel myself becoming more alert; or as my dad says "more full of lerts". I had one really scary incident this afternoon when I coughed up enough blood out of the blue to scare the living daylights out of everyone, but fortunately a frantic phone call to my GP established that it was a "benign" result of the new medication trying to cure me of this nasty throat infection and that while that amount of blood was unusual wasn’t it unexpected.

Phew! One thinks I would have been warned of this potential side effect in advance though! Sheesh!

I still need to eat most foods in liquid form, am on several different antibiotics, cough medicines and other riff raff, and my temperature is still uncomfortably high after now two weeks of separate but overlapping problems, but today was easier than yesterday and fortunately I’ve largely been spared crushing headaches which has meant I’ve been able to still stay huddled at my computer and buried in books. I’ve been sitting up in bed and reading a lot. I mean, reading a lot.

I am starting to get sick of feeling sick though, I haven’t been able to work on finishing any of the pet projects I started over these holidays (using Haskell in X11, RubyCGI, WxPython, making Linux more BSD-ish, implementing some Whole Wheat Radio and uni intranet wiki ideas). Guess I should be really thankful this happened over the holidays instead of during a semester of studying, that would have been just awful!

Now if you’d excuse me I’m off to grab a glass of warm water and some more P.G. Wodehouse. If there’s any other author who can make you feel as good and happy even when you feel like crap, I don’t want to know. Well okay I admit I’ve been reading Mark Twain, Ogden Nash, Jeremy Clarkson, John Grisham and even an Alan Alda tome too ^_^. No Bill Kurtis though, because I’m not Bill Kurtis.

Lots of book reviews coming out when I’m back to 100% it seems!

I know one of the so called golden rules of blogging is that for no reason whatsoever should you ever create a blog post that merely describes why you haven’t created blog posts for a specified period of time. Bullhonkey.

Turns out the medication and treatment to deal with my bout of food poisoning last week fixed the problem, but in my weakened state I contracted something else entirely. After feeling like I was starting to get better, in the last 48 hours my throat has been so sore all I’ve been able to eat is strained luke warm broth, multivitamins and water; the doc gave me some steroid treatment to ease the inflammation and another type of antibiotic to bring it under control.

I’ve jokingly said I’m just like my good buddy Felix Tanjono and am always tired, but with this weird thing I’ve been even more tired than usual, probably because I haven’t really been sleeping or eating well.

I have lots of great ideas for blog topics swimming around my head, but it’s been somewhat of an ordeal typing out just this one! I’ll see you all when I’m back on Earth again as it were. Thanks ^_^.

Thank you to all you fabulous folks for your supportive words on Twitter, Google Reader, in email and in the comment fields here. I’ve still got a dreadful head cold and a high temperature today, but I don’t feel like I’m going to be sick and I feel SO much better! I mean 10,000% better!

I know I said this before, but in a selfish way this really makes me appreciate what my beautiful late mum went through… for over a decade. And she said she wasn’t a strong person, biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard!

Off to the GP now for some follow-up. Funny how we never figured out what food it was I ate that made me this sick. I guess we’ll never know. I’m not Bill Kurtis though.

Well isn’t that just great, I think I might have food poisoning. I could list the symptoms, but they’re not pretty and I think some of the worst I’ve ever had. I’m sitting upright and sipping water slowly so I’m doing a bit better now.

I’m confused though, according to Wikipedia you’re not supposed to eat acidic or fatty food, but on About.com they list Apple as something good. I trust Wikipedia and About.com on computer software and such, but perhaps this is case where I give them a pass!

I’ll be waddling down to the GPs office soon, fortunately Shaw House is close to our place. I don’t think I could survive a taxi or motorbike trip! In the meantime I’ll attempt to occupy myself by working on my W3C compliance… if I busy myself it puts it out of my head. Fortunately I don’t have a headache.

My mum had these symptoms from her chemotherapy for… 12 years. I’ve had this less than 12 hours and I’m already winging on blog posts. Mustn’t have got that gene.

UPDATE: Doc says it’s food poisoning, bummer. Fortunately he said I did all the right things. Will be going back on Monday for another checkup. This is called fun!

Jimmy Wales motivational poster by Autistic Psycho on Flickr

Ever since Wikipedia and its earlier incarnations started, there has been controversy in the academic community as to the reliability of its articles and whether or not it’s appropriate to cite in assignments, much as every new medium throughout history has been questioned by those using the previous ones. Sure Wikipedia has its fair share of factual inaccuracies resulting from mistakes (and malice), but then again studies like this show that competing encyclopædic works aren’t exactly gold standards themselves.

The University of South Australia (where I study for half the year) has an official policy regarding Wikipedia that states if you cite it as a reference, marks will be deducted.

ASIDE: I’ve been told this is not true, it is not de jure "official policy", though it is de facto.

I’m not sure whether it’s because socially I’m a quiet person so I feel as though I need other outlets to be rebellious, but because of this policy I include Wikipedia as a reference in every research assignment I do. With each citation I refer the reader to a page in the appendix corroborating each fact I gleaned from the Wikipedia page with further references to prove the authenticity of the facts and claims, along with an explanation.

Could I just include the references I used to corroborate the Wikipedia page I cited instead of citing Wikipedia in the first place? Of course I could, but that’s not the point. The point is to address what I see as the unfair negative bias the education community seems to have with user generated content. I figure for every hundred people who read my Wikipedia appendix explanations, perhaps one or two will take to heart what I’ve said and start taking it more seriously. I guess I’m still young and naive in that way, even though I’m not Bill Kurtis.

Have I ever lost marks for doing this? Only once out of tens of assignments, and that one penalty was later rescinded on appeal. I reckon that’s a pretty good record.

LEGAL NOTICE: My electronic solicitor has advised me to disclose that I cannot and will not be held responsible for those who decide to follow my advice and fail an important assignment! By reading this message, you agree with this. Arigato, arigato gozaimasu.

I feel as though I could start a blog dedicated to the science of sleep — I sure talk about it enough here. Perhaps this topic is worthy of a new category even?

This morning I’m having the exact opposite problem to what I normally have: I’m too awake. Last night I went to sleep around 20:00 which is extraordinary early for me, but it unfortunately had the same result it always has: it made me bolt out of bed around 03:00 ready to start a new day! It’s 03:40 already and I’ve had a shower, a bite to eat and tacked a small programming problem that’s been gnawing at me for the last few days, and I’m still wide awake.

The ironic thing is, for most of my life I’m tired. Virtually any time of day, if you give me a comfortable pillow to rest my head on, I will doze off. The only time of the day I have trouble sleeping is… late at night. It’s as if I’m a nocturnal creature by nature and trying to force a sleeping pattern that’s the opposite to that is unnatural and doesn’t work. Some people my age are nocturnal because with all the booze filled partying late at night they’ve conditioned themselves for it, but for me it seemed to happen organically with all my regular day-to-day tasks.

I’d say other than deciding what to do when I finish university and whether I’ll finish all my studies in Adelaide after all, figuring out how to sleep properly is currently the biggest problem I’m facing. Nobody should feel tired 100% of the time during the day and only a low percentage at night… at least I don’t think they should.

I’m going to figure out how to sleep one of these nights if I have to stay awake all night to do it! I’m not Bill Kurtis.

My dad would agree with this. By luisrivera on Flickr.

While I’m holidaying back at my dad’s place in Singapore I’ve thought I’ve been having some pretty bad nights again, but it’s nothing compared to what he’s going through. He’s designing a new manufacturing plant in Woodlands and suffice to say the disagreements between the designers, engineers and managers are all being funnelled through to him. You’d have to have a darn thick skin to cope with stuff like that.

After going to bed at a ridiculous hour having only arrived back from the plant a few hours ago, it’s almost time for him to wake up again… at 5am. I’ve managed to drag myself out of my comfortable bed to see him off and to tell him to break a leg, but here I am barely able to keep my eyes open after sleeping for six hours. Luxury!

Here’s hoping he can finish earlier today and we can grab a bite to eat afterwards. I’m not Bill Kurtis.

Garfield has the right idea… again…

Another night, another case of insomnia. In this case it’s 03:00 and I’m still not only wide awake, but clearly possessing the energy needed in order to not only climb out of bed, but to sit myself in front of a computer, take that inital blast of blazing light as I turn the monitor on, and start typing a blog post.

It’s funny that more often than not for me I don’t have trouble sleeping when I have a huge problem or obstacle to overcome in life, but rather when I have hundreds of smaller problems. They seem to build up exponentially at times to the point where I can be propped up in bed and my thoughts are running together faster than a relay team. Sorry for the crappy comparison, but you try to be witty at 03:04.

Why has my bank said the rent has been paid but my landlord says it hasn’t? Why hasn’t that package from Japan arrived yet? Do I want to live permanently here or back in Australia? Would super capacitors run hotter and therefore need more cooling than a traditional battery? Why am I always so nervous? How could there be plants at the centre of the earth according to the "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" movie if there’s no sunlight? Where are my keys? Should I give up on this long hair experiment and have it all cut off when it’s taken over 4 years to get this far? Is OpenBSD really that much slower than FreeBSD and NetBSD in real life even if benchmarks say that is in certain circumstances? Why do I still expect to see mummy at some point?

Is that it? I hope so. Why do I want to learn German, Dutch, Swedish and Japanese of all things? German makes sense, my dad and half my family are, and Dutch might be somewhat similar to German, but why Swedish and Japanese? Why does mess accumulate so fast? If the bed frame I’m sleeping on broke at an angle, would I slide off the bed, crash through the window behind me and fall 7 floors? Does my medical insurance cover falling out of my bed… from 7 floors up? Why do I worry about worrying as much as I worry about the problems themselves? Who decided that toothpaste should be minty in flavour and that mints are fresh? Why do I worry about not having too much of a social life if I prefer that lifestyle? Why is concentrating on your breathing in order to drown out distractions so simple in principal but so hard to actually do?

Can you order home delivered sleep? You know what, that generated too many negative images, had I been more awake I would have been alert to that before I had typed it. I would have also realised that I could have just as easily used the backspace key and deleted that line instead of trying to explain why normally I wouldn’t have written such stuff here.

Not sure if this is helping me sleep or not. Perhaps I should dust off an old copy of Learning Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 and read it. Ah no, alas with me boredom doesn’t make me tired, it just makes me feel bored. Perhaps a silly anime series? Nah, I don’t have the energy to laugh, and I’d have to read subtitles. Quick walk around the block? Nah, I’m too tired. Aha, problem solved.

I will get the hang of this sleeping business eventually, I might lose some sleep over trying to figure it out though.

Taken outside my bedroom window here in Singapore before I ventured out for a coffee this evening.

Good evening ladies, gentleman and everyone else. It is a positively gorgeous warm evening outside here in Singapore; it has been overcast all day so the temperature is a pleasant 25 instead of being much warmer, plus I love overcast days anyway. I never really knew why I did prefer them, perhaps growing up in the tropics made me appreciate the lower glare and temperatures clouds bring.

I’m going to make more than a few people scoff by saying this, but I’m drinking a Toffee Nut Latte at the Starbucks down in the Orchard Parade Hotel, just across the street from Forum for those who don’t know. Aka the building with the sun logo and the giant Toys R Us or however you spell that. Singaporean shops tend to leave their Christmas decorations and whatnot up quite late, sometimes even into the new year. Chinese New Year of course is the biggest event of the year here.

ASIDE: I’ve always wondered why companies targeting kids always have to spell their name incorrectly on purpose in a vein attempt to look juvenile or young. I’ve also always wondered what kind of effect these brands have on the abilities of kids to spell properly if every box they get a toy in has words spelled incorrectly.

This whole Christmas season knocked more wind out of my sails than I thought it would given my beautiful late mum’s passing around the same time. It’s a cruel coincidence that we associate what is normally a happy family time of year with my mum’s short life, though I guess in the grand scheme of things it wouldn’t make much difference when she left us.

Onto happier topics though, I did get three amazing Christmas presents from my dad this year which just like a little kid I can’t wait to talk about here and on the Rubenerd Show. Given the above reason I’ve found it really difficult to maintain the jovial attitude I wait to have before I write blog posts recently, but I’m hoping that topic (aka presents!) will be a great ice breaker.

For my Malaysian friends, I’ll be flying to KL (Kuala Lumpur for those of you not from here!) on Thursday of this week so if you want to meet up for a coffee and chat I’d love to catch up. KL is so ridiculously close to Singapore I regret not going there more!

Anyway it’s almost midnight and the Starbucks staff have started shuffling chairs around, my cue to go perhaps?

Enjoy the rest of your 2008 folks :)

Sent from my iPhone

While checking my Facebook inbox, I noticed that Todd in Toronto from the Talking Stick show had invited me to install the Political Compass application. These days I prefer not to add anything else to my Facebook profile, but I discovered that they have a general website too.

The Political Compass asks you six quick pages of questions with four options ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree for each. The questions range from religious freedom, economic structure, governance, the environment and social issues. Once you’ve answered the questions it plots where you stand on their Political Compass which addresses the problem of the flat left-right scale only including economic views. Instead of left and right for extreme communism and extreme capitalism, they also include a top and bottom for authoritarian to libertarian. From their test page:

That deals with economics, but the social dimension is also important in politics. That’s the one that the mere left-right scale doesn’t adequately address. So we’ve added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.

According to the Political Compass, I am in the left wing libertarian quadrant. My Economic Left/Right score is -3.38 (mildly left wing), my Social Libertarian/Authoritarian score is -6.05 (mid range libertarian).

I answered that companies sometimes need regulation to stay honest; religion isn’t required for morals and should be kept out of government; education and healthcare should be free for all; unemployment assistance should be provided but that the government should be stricter about requirements; laws introduced to combat terrorism have gone too far; and that what consenting adults do in the bedroom and in weddings is no business of the state. I answered that free trade is generally a good thing but that companies should be held accountable when they’re caught abusing people in developing countries; that patriotism is largely irrelevant these days; and that racism and sexism are fundamentally wrong.

The only thing that disappointed me about the questions was that there weren’t enough about the environment. For example, I would have loved to answer that new public transport lines are more important than new express ways; that old buildings should be preserved; that high speed rail is more desirable than new airports; that tax breaks should be given to businesses that are environmentally concious; and so forth. I wonder how my position on the compass would change if these were taken into consideration? I suspect it would make me marginally less libertarian.

The folks at Whole Wheat Radio have really been the only people I’ve discussed politics with in any great detail… I hope I did okay! I’m thinking I might do this test every year or so because as a younger person I tend to change my mind about things a lot. For example in high school economics I had a teacher who was 110% for free trade, and while I think it’s still a good idea I feel as though I’m more realistic about it now, and understand some of the shortcomings.

If you’ve taken the test too, feel free to post the scores you got too! We could have a Rubenerd Blog political compass with the views of several people shown on the one graph :)