By Ruben(nerd) Schade, a UTS university student and IT guy in Sydney and Singapore. c.2004
Observing a minute's silence for those affected by the horrible Japanese Tsunami last year. And a second minute for Douglas Adams on what would be his birthday. From Stephen Fry, who could almost be speaking for the victims as much as Douglas:
Happy 60th Douglas Noel Adams. 11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001. As revered, admired, [..] needed & missed as ever #DouglasAdams60th
Graphic by ShingetsuXMangetsu.
While delightfully tempting, given he was an atheist like me it seems rather silly on the tenth anniversary of his passing to wish Douglas Adams all the best up there with the falling whales, bowls of petunias and sleek starships in the shapes of running shoes. Instead I'll simply pay my respects to quite possibly the world's most entertaining, hilarious, imaginative, intelligent and friendly authors, and to be thankful for all the works he created that continue to fill my life and the lives of so many others with joy. 101010.
My beautiful late mum was the one who introduced me to Adams' work. If we needed any further proof karma is bunk, it's that both left us too soon.
Goodbye Singapore, you were a pretty, nice, safe, clean bubble to grow up in with great food, friends and experiences; but after 13 years we have to move on. I arrived at you as a nervous little primary school kid who loved pizza and left as a nervous computer professional who loves late night prata and sushi washed down with a teh tarik and green tea, though perhaps not at the same time.
You spoiled me with your public transport, safe streets, ultra fast internet and your friendly, talkative taxi drivers who always guessed I was from the UK. I'll miss The Morning Express; hearing meteorologists predicting 24-33 degree weather with afternoon showers every single day; nights with Brian Richmond; debating with shop keepers at Sim Lim Square over the merits of AMD versus Intel; the best airport and national airline in the world; the three different currency design changes that kept us all on our toes; exclaiming aiyo and wah lah; the street directories that proudly proclaim they come with a free map; the smiles from cute baristas who I never worked up the guts to ask out; the customs officials that repeatedly treated me with more respect than the ones from my native country; the year long warm weather that made it so much easier to wake up in the morning; the proximity to amazingly diverse places like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam that made my school excursions and camps that much more amazing; Dr Tan and the tireless nurses and staff at the medical oncology ward at Gleneagles Hospital; and finally the experience of growing up somewhere different.
My family moved to Singapore in the mid 1990s, now finally we're being transferred back to Sydney where I was allegedly born, though I have poor memory of such an event ;). My sister and I studied part time in Adelaide but went back to SG for holidays, now we're studying at UTS in Sydney, across the street from a family friend of all people!
I've wondered for ages what sort of person I would have turned out to be had we stayed in Australia. I probably would have been satisfied with Aus and had no qualms with settling down somewhere, probably Sydney where it all started. Now the thought of sitting still and living in the same place for more than a few years terrifies me for more reasons that I could be bothered to talk about, or that you could care to read!
A "base" back in Singapore would be nice for our general stuff we don't want to be lugging around in moves all the time (like photo albums, my late mum's posessions and so on). I've always wanted to live in Hong Kong for a while, seems like the next logical progression from Singapore ;).
I can't believe I almost missed this, today was Geek Pride Day!
Geek Pride Day is an initiative which claims the right of every person to be a nerd or a geek. It has been celebrated on May 25 since 2006, celebrating the premiere of the first Star Wars movie in 1977.
It shares the same day as two other science-fiction fan 'holidays' - Towel Day, for fans of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy by Douglas Adams, and the Glorious 25th of May, for fans of Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
According to that now infamous venn diagram showing the relationship between nerds, geeks and dweebs I'm a dweeb owing to the fact I'm socially inept. Still, Geek Pride Day is for all of us!
I didn't carry a towel all day with me, but I did use one on several occasions and by pure coincidence I was listening to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe from Audible while traversing the MRT! I also spent much of the day transfixed on a cloud computing keynote by the CEO of SalesForce.com with their announcement of Cloud2 and Chatter, and I rewatched an anime series from 2008 because Minori is awesome!
I would say more, but I fear I'd be in violation of the Temporal Prime Directive.
Having just spent the last few days talking about my own social anxiety, awkwardness and questions about my point in life, the universe, everything and 42, I thought I'd stop being so inwardly focused and address someone else's post discussing similar issues. We're a confederacy of introverts here aren't we? :).
WARNING: This is one of the longest posts I've ever done out of over 2,700 2,570 of them (whoops!). You've been warned.
I'll start with a maddening rhetorical question, maddening if only because I hate rhetorical questions personally, and I can never spell rhetorical. Who do you think is the greatest, nicest, most intelligent person on the internet? If your answer is Ruben Schade, nobody likes a suck up, so stop it. The answer is a person who, if you're not a wheathead or even know what a wheathead is, you've probably never heard of.
I first met Jim Kloss when I perfected my bicycle powered trans conductive reverse warp drive which allowed me to travel backwards in time for brief moments. I landed in a small park in Ohio in the 1980s and saw a business man through a window frantically typing code into a blinking computer. His eyes were bloodshot which suggested he'd either been staring at that screen for an extended period of time, or management at the company he was working for had needlessly frustrated him with empty rhetoric (there's that word again) and bureaucratic nonsense, or most likely a combination of the two. I approached the window, but before I could get close enough to say hello and to see what he was doing, a gigantic guard dog lept out from nowhere and clamped his jaw onto my left leg. That little stunt trapped me in 1980s Ohio for weeks because my leg was too sore to start up the bicycle powered trans conductive reverse warp drive to get home. True story.
The second time I met Jim was another accident, it was towards the end of 2004 and I had found out about this term called New Time Radio by Frank Nora, a friendly, nerdy prolific internet radio show producer who talked about all sorts of cool, weird, unconventional stuff. Through that I learned about podcasting which led me to download iPodder and subscribe to this Whole Wheat Radio comedy audio magazine which from the sound of it was clips from a guy's rants on an internet radio station.
I'd been used to sending fan mail to people and never getting replies, which was why I was so thrilled that I got a response from Jim within a day of messaging him the first time. I was so taken aback I decided to investigate further, and within a year I'd bought a dozen CDs through his website and had even got my dad listening.
This post isn't about Jim's Whole Wheat Radio independent music venture, it's about Jim himself. Over the years I'd come to trust Jim and consider him a friend because in a world of internet stars so engrossed by their own fame they consider themselves demi gods of the online realm worthy of worship, Jim has always been modest and underplayed his own significance and awesomeness, to use the technical terms.
Perhaps as a result of this instant rapport for some reason I started emailing him with problems I was facing and asking for advice. Both our mums (sorry Jim, moms!) passed on at around the same time, and in a very selfish way it was great to talk to someone with similar interests and focus during that time. If he ever resented these messages, he never let it show and always took them with gentle good humour and refreshingly candid advice. Much as Laura Douglass was better than the school psychiatrist, Jim has been better than any councillor I've seen. No doubt his modest nature will cause him to dismiss such claims as ridiculous, but unless he hacks my blog (and given it's WordPress it'd probably be simple for a PHP wizard like him to do!) the claim is there and there's nothing he can do about it!
Anyway I belabour all this pointless crap because after hearing our problems for so long he finally reached out to us a couple of days ago in a wiki entry. I could describe its contents, but best to let the man speak for himself:
...by comparison, Zettai Ryouiki is a recent anime fandom term used to describe female characters who wear super long socks with...
Well that was clearly the wrong quote. Let me try again.
I'm in the midst of a mid-life identity crisis. I hope it doesn't include hot flashes.
Examples colliding and breeding in my skull cavity for days/weeks/months include: brief/detailed; funny/serious; personal/business; brain/soul; technical/simple; political/neutered; controversial/Boy Scout; semi-infinite self-created possibilities; Jim; feelings; family; etc;
He then goes on to detail his dissolution with Big Mouths who obsessively detail their lives without ever coming to any profound realisations while sparking anger and frustration with other Big Mouths who disagree. Of course my summary does no justice to his words, so stop being lazy and read it. Don't worry, my page will still be here when you're done :).
Reminiscent of my recent post inspired by Monnie and EdibleHat, Jim then discusses a few points about himself that if you don't like, you can shove it!
I'm just going to come right out and say it, no matter how sappy it sounds. You are an awesome person Jim and I believe I speak for many people when I say we've been privelidged to have you in our lives. If you do decide to make changes, I hope you do them because you want to, and not because you're feeling pressured by anybody else or anything else. We will be staying tuned, and will support you in any decisions you make.
And if you're ever in Singapore or Adelaide there's a manhug, coffee, a grilled cheese sandwich and a philosopical discussion about telling Sh*t from Shinola waiting for you, choose whatever from that list you deem appropriate :)
Peace, health and happiness my friend,
~ Ruben
We're all zippy little bags of energy - electrons excited enough to energize as light for a few milliseconds on life's CRT. I know. I get it. We're equally unimportant and hilariously grandiose in our overblown sense of self-importance within the Universes. I know, I know. I really get that.
I would have hoped my life would be on an LCD by now. Perhaps LCDs would help shield us from burnout. Get it? Burn in? CRTs? Sounded witty in my head. I'm hungry, wish I had a DVD spinning stomach.
I got a blog comment from Monnie on my recent South Aussie elections post which led me to her cupcakes blog, which led me to her other blog where she talks about an idea she got from @edible_hat about goals for 2010. Whew, that was a long and needlessly convoluted sentence.
Anyway we're already almost 3 months into the new year, but I figured I'd try this myself, only instead of coming up with my own goals I would shamelessly rip off some of their goals instead. Recycling reduces resource use, you see. And because I'm a nerd I have to start counting from 0.
A really good idea, and one I've already started implementing. I spent much of my holiday back in Singapore getting rid of computer stuff I don't need and scanning documents to shred. Last check I'd got rid of over 70,000 pages which is a fair number of boxes worth, as well as several large packing boxes of old computer keyboards, cables and CRT monitors.
In an admission that would make any Buddhist happy, I really need to get over my attachment to objects, before they really start controlling my life. I won't throw away my first computer though :).
My aim is to finish the year with less stuff than I started with for the first time, and to base my purchasing decisions as much on necessity and the space such things take up instead of just price.
As you're all already bored of reading here, I'm a terribly shy and socially awkward person in real life and that needs to change, firstly by worrying less about what people think about me. People like Monnie and Edible_Hat are awesome enough that they could coast on it, but for me I'd need to work on it some more.
Being self conscious is such a crushing emotion to overcome when I leave the house each morning. Not sure how one goes about fixing that though, maybe getting a haircut?
I'd already started doing this to a certain degree with my scanning, but the way he phrased this idea is simply brilliant. To take it literally, I've been using a tiny SQLite3 database for my personal stuff for a long time, what'd be great is to scan even more stuff and collate it all with timestamps and subjects in a database too. Because I essentially live in two places this means I could carry more stuff with me virtually!
Been looking at Bento for the Mac which looks perfect, but I'm doing just fine with SQLite3 and my crappy but usable Python interface for it. Should create a nice little ncurses app for it :).
This really resonated with me. I've been studying on and off for family and personal reasons since 2005 and I really need to finish. If that involves transferring because the current university I'm attending has been inflexible and cruel then I need to get my arse into gear and do that.
I managed to build several machines from parts while I was in Singapore, but instead of a file server I have them all doing Folding@Home to find cures for diseases. It's too late for my mum, but I figure I don't have a medical degree so someone handy around a computer this is my way of helping others. What's cool is I can use DynDNS and remotely connect to these machines through SSH from here in Adelaide and check on their progress!
I added this here because it's proof I actually managed to do something on this list!
I tried Vietnamese last week for the first time (in Kuala Lumpur of all places). I'd love to learn how to cook that, it's so fresh, healthy and tasty! I can cook all kinds of German stuff but that's my practical limit. Must be the genes :).
I don't want to equate my own personal and family struggles with Monnie's, but that stated goal is simply awesome! Again putting it into practise might be tough, but I'm going to try. I'm a computer nerd who doesn't like getting drunk, going to nightclubs and spends too much time in coffee shops working on puzzles late at night while chilling to some jazzy Michael Franks. I watch anime. I'm an atheist. I like grilled cheese sandwiches. Take THAT world!
Okay, throwing one in that I came up with :). I'd been feeling so disconnected with all the places I've been in most of my life because I've never been anywhere long enough to have roots. Singapore has been the only exception because I spent my teenage years there and my dad's still there. It's where I had my first crush. It's where I had my first job. It's where I went to high school. It's where I fell down the stairs and broke my first laptop.
Still, I'd like to be able to have the guts just to pick up and go to Munich and learn German, or Toronto, or Dublin, or Seoul and learn Korean, or Hong Kong and learn Cantonese, or Kyoto and learn Japanese for a few years. Or acknowledge that I'm in love with Singapore and that I should go back there in my own right instead of on a green card attached to my dad.
Australia is a nice place with friendly people, but I'm really only an Aussie on my passport and with a few of my mannerisms. Studying here is good, but I don't see my future here. Actually just acknowledging that has made me feel good, maybe I can move on after all.
What about you, how many of your 2010 goals have you messed up already?
People ask me why I spend such a disproportionate amount of my time blogging when it costs more money than I receive in donations and is a fairly introverted activity. Short, sweet comments like that and people commenting on posts here are the reason why. That's all :).
Remember a few days ago I finally caved into TWiT pressure and got an Audible account? Well I finished my first book already and just posted my first review! I think a new addiction may be brewing.
I could review the book specifically, but we're all already aware The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the best (if not the best) books ever written, so I'll save my review space for the audio book narration.
As soon as I saw Stephen Fry was narrating perhaps the greatest book ever written I hastily purchased it before realising there was an unabridged version for the same price! My initial buyer's remorse evaporated as fast as a humanoid out of a Vogon airlock though when I started to listen; despite being abridged by 30 minutes or so it was still an absolute delight and a pleasure to listen to. Steven made all of Douglas' (Douglii?) characters come to life in his usual imitable style and the pacing was perfect.
This was the first book I purchased with my brand new Audible account, and I reckon one couldn't get a better introduction to the service than this audio book. Jolly good show! Now if you'd excuse me, I'm off to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
As I said on Friday, I got the Audible Gold account using the coupon code from MacBreak Weekly that entitles you to a monthly book instead of the Platinum code from TWiT that gives you two books a month because I just wanted to trial the service first. Given I chewed through a book that was supposed to last me a month in less than three days, perhaps I should upgrade already :).
I've already got a ton of books in my wish list including every single other book from the Hitchhikers "Trilogy" along with every Wodehouse and a stack of non fiction. Is it possible to share you wish lists and library?
When a certain subset of students (alliteration is awesome) finish their exams for a semester they celebrate by intoxicating themselves with certain fermented beverages, while other more socially awkward loser types such as myself sit back and write a blog post about how they're investigating signing up for Audible.com, then like a child on Christmas Eve because they're too excited to wait they go ahead and register for it before they've finished said investigation.
As I said previously I've been listening to Leo Laporte rave on about Audible even before they started sponsoring his TWiTTY shows, so I figure having been a listener since 2005 I may as well see what all the fuss is about. As he aptly points out it's a natural progression from listening to podcasts (sorry Leo, netcasts!) to listening to audio books.
If you listen to This Week in Tech you get a coupon code to try the Audible Platinum account which entitles you to two free books, followed by recurring payments and two more books each month. I opted instead for the MacBreak Weekly coupon code which entitled me to one free book, followed by $14 for another book each month.
My choice of free book that I've been so thoroughly enjoying is perhaps a predictable one, though the absurdity of the first paragraph of this nonsensical post that perhaps could have been expressed by just saying "I got Audible!" illustrates the profound effect this tome has already started having on my mind. If for some inexplicable reason you can't see the image above, it's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. When I saw it was read by none other than Stephen Fry, I felt as though I had almost no say in the matter, and what say I did have was insignificant enough as to be drowned out by my squeal of delight upon discovering it.
If you'll indulge my Ducky from NCIS urges for a moment, this reminds me of my mum who literally filled bookshelves not with paperbacks but boxes of cassettes and later CDs. As I walked to the Boatdeck Café this evening for a cup of tea and some programming (I have wild Friday nights) I started listening and Stephen Fry is brilliant. It seems my mum's genes are alive and well :).
To be fair Audible has been fun but there are a couple of negatives. Perhaps the most annoying so far is the DRM which entailed me dragging the downloaded audio book file into iTunes and then "authorising" myself by logging it, bringing back dark memories of the early days of iTunes music purchasing when I realised I'd formatted my Mac too many times and "ran out" of authorisations because I hadn't taken the care to "unauthorise" each time. Still if it becomes bothersome I suppose I can burn an audio CD to back it up if in case something goes awry.
For a complete newbie like me it also wasn't obvious how to actually get the audiobook onto my iPhone after I'd downloaded it: there wasn't an Audiobook tab in the management screen for the device. Turns out you need to drag the book over manually as you would a song, but once it's on the iPhone it appears under the Audiobooks section, and it even tells you how many minutes you've got remaining and remembers where you left off.
The Audible website itself also isn't quite as seamless and easy to use as I would have liked initially, but exploring it for a few hours I've got used to it. For one I was disappointed a technology category wasn't listed in their main sidebar, but it turns out they do stock them and you can access them by clicking "More".
I'm liking Audible so far, I just worry that perhaps I signed up for the Gold account with the MacBreak code when I should have used the TWiT code and gone Platinum. I'm already a quarter of the way through my first book and it's supposed to last me a month :). My wishlist is already full of a ton of tech, science and history books and a few novels too.
Alas that's the problem with living so close to where I study, I don't have any commute time! I imagine it'll come in really handy though for when I'm cleaning or going through stacks of old emails. That reminds me, I haven't finished that blog post about email either. There just aren't enough hours in the day :).
If you're an Audible user, what books have you listened to recently? Any recommendations?