Rubénerd!

Whole Wheat Radio and its mission of providing a grassroots, all-volunteer, donation supported website and webcast that competently and without mainstream advertising supports independent musicians and their craft is currently offline.

Having just checked this morning, the Whole Wheat Radio webcast and wiki are offline, with a message from its founder Jim Kloss. For those not familiar with the site this post might not make much sense, if I had more time I'd delve into what WWR is all about, for now consider this an "in" thing.

So here's what happened, I think

I've largely avoided Facebook for the last year or so because to me the site represents all that is wrong with my generation (The Zuck) and it depresses me, but I logged into it again this morning to find out what was going on.

I'm not entirely sure how all this went down, but as I understand from his explanation on the site, some listeners of the station formed a seperate Facebook group for wheatheads to converse that was outside the channel Jim had set up for the site. As a result, conversations and collaboration were occuring outside the official site which, as a collaborative wiki, has a dramatic effect on the effectiveness of the platform. Whole Wheat Radio only works if there are people collaborating and helping out on the site itself, and; to be blunt; a seperate group leeches off this.

From a personal perspective, I had no idea about this new group but, as Jim so rightly observes, I was added to it automatically. Having visited it, I noticed a link to "Leave the group" despite never agreeing to join it. If this is an issue with Facebook, there are grave ramifications. (UPDATE: Apparently it is, and I missed it. What I get for not being in the loop with the tech media for the last month).

Thinking out loud

I've always so deeply appreciated all the work and effort Jim has put into maintaining such an open, advertisement free and honest site over the years when many others in his position would have long ago sold out. It takes conviction and a well placed moral compass to do this.

As a result, I felt it was my obligation... no scratch that, it implies I was forced to... I felt compelled to help out. Sometimes I didn't agree with Jim's approach to the site, for example I was nervous when he deeply integrated Facebook and essentially began hosting discussions with them instead of on the local wiki; but I figured he had solid reasons for doing so, and I respected all the work he put into it that I had no problem whatsoever accomodating.

If you're reading this Jim, I deeply hope that whatever has happened and wherever your life is taking you right now, I hope you figure things out and are comfortable again soon. Above all else, I respect your position and admire your convictions. A lesser person would have let this (and other issues over the years) slide, taking the integrity and honesty of the site down with them.

*manhug*

That reminds me!

I was going to delete my current Facebook account and start fresh. All my previous records would still be there forever, but at least with a new account with a fake name (I'm think Ruben GrilledCheeseSandwich or something) then my contributions to their hive mind would be less valuable from now on. Plus, I'll only be adding friends like Jim to it instead of everyone I've ever met. More on that later.

The heading reads like the opening line of a terrible blues song.

You know that feeling you get when you realise something and your heart stops beating for a second? Or when you go to make a grilled cheese sandwich and you realise you don't have a cast iron frypan OR the right cheese? Argh!

This morning while casually checking my alpine email (sounds like I have imap servers in the Alps or something) I got a message from the Whole Wheat Radio servers:

Dear Ruben,
I am already aware my last name sounds like a furry animal that eats coffee fruit. You will not get any money from me in exchange for your silence on this, and shame on you for attempting it.
~ Derek Sivers

That's clearly the wrong message.

Dear Ruben Schade,
The WWR page User talk:Ruben Schade was changed or deleted on 05:30, May 20, 2010 by EJ On Duty.

I was made aware recently that accounts on WWR are deleted if there is no activity in a predetermined period of time (a month, is it?) but I was sure I'd logged in recently. Anyway I got the idea that my account was deleted, and along with that all the artists and songs I'd tagged and rated over the years! I nearly sprayed my overpriced Starbucks coffee all over my ThinkPad.

Fortunately my account wasn't deleted, just my old user page. PHEW! Turn the fire alarms off! Stand down red alert!

It's a really good idea

It turns out the reason why this happened is because Jim has implemented a new policy on the WWR wiki that demands people buy twelve new CDs from CD-Baby with WWR referral codes a month, otherwise electric shocks are sent from your computer's keyboard the next time you use it and send you into a cardiac arrest. Only when you've taken out your credit card and shown it to your webcam along with a signed statement that you'll buy CDs will the shocks stop and a sense of normality return.

I have two problems with this. Firstly, if you're convulsing on the floor, how are you supposed to buy CDs? Secondly, what if people are cheapskates and spend all their money on expensive Starbucks coffee that they spray on their laptops which necessitate replacing keyboards? Hey, that's the solution! Spray coffee on your keyboard and it'll disable the WWR personal doomsday device!

Jim is not impressed

It turns out the reason why this happened is because Jim has implemented a new policy on the WWR wiki that demands people use their real names. I've been using the name Rubenerd since I was a little kid because at the time I thought it was a really clever contraction (or portmanteau, or whatever it is) and even lent the terrible name to my site here, but I think using proper names is a great idea.

• It makes the site look more professional
• it encourages people to be more honest and friendly
• if people don't like it they could always call themselves James Bond or Chuck Peddle. Hey, that's cool, I could change my name to Chuck Peddle. "Jim Kloss, why can't I edit wiki pages on my KIM1 or PET?!"

I think I'll stop now.

Longer time readers of my blog here would have read my lamentations about the fall of really high quality personal blogs and the rise of homogeneous, interchangeable blog networks with hundreds of writers, so when I find an amazing personal blog I have to share it!

The Reinvigorated Programmer is written by Mike Taylor, an intensely fascinating 41 year old developer and palaeontologist, what a combination! He has a real flair for writing and an obvious passion for what he does which makes his posts even more enjoyable to read; as opposed to the posts I write here which are usually quite terrible. Admit it! :)

The bottom line here is that writing is an art. You can hack your way through to producing tolerable text without being an artist, just as an uninspired programmer can bash his way through to wiring together an uninspired web application. But just as it takes a Ken Thompson to invent and write UNIX, and a Dennis Ritchie to invent C and write the initial compiler, so it takes a Brian Kernighan to write The C Programming Language.

And it takes Mike Taylor to write The Reinvigorated Programmer. :) His blog covers programming ranging from classic and fully working BASIC applications for the Commodore VIC-20/VC-20 to C, Perl, Java and Ruby along with some of his other interests including (but not limited to) Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the latest Doctor Who. That reminds me, I need to check that out. I really liked Tennant, but people say the Eleventh Doctor is pretty good too.

As I've said about Jim Kloss, the lead developer and guru over at Whole Wheat Radio, if I turned out to be even half as interesting, intelligent and friendly as people like Mike Taylor I know my life would be set. People like Bill Gates and Larry Ellison aren't my heroes and idols, they're people like Mike.

By the way, the photo above is of Mike and his three sons sitting in front of... a whale skull. Amazing!

Trying out some of these new Whole Wheat Radio share link artist widgets, what an awesome idea!

As Jim discussed this morning, you can click the WWR Widgets link in the Listener console for the currently playing artist, or you can click the Get WWR widgets link under More Information on any artist's page. The links in this paragraph link to John Gorka as an example.

This is a fantastic idea because with a few clicks I can now share what I'm listening to or what I just rated highly in a REALLY EASY way, which is the key. Make something easy, and people will use it. Previously I could have talked about an artist, but it would have involved downloading the picture off the WWR servers, uploading it here, then transcribing parts of their artist page, the upshot being I didn't do it as often.

Not only that, but the referral fees will pile up until one day I can cash out and buy his old cabin in Alaska!

Amongst my biggest current concerns is figuring out which one I like the best, and that Jim may have given control freaks like me too much power over what I can do!

The only technical point I would make is for W3C freaks like me, the generated code for these widgets we copy and paste from the WWR site don't validate as XHTML because the ampersands in the URL aren't escaped and a alt="" isn't declared, which means any page we put them on doesn't validate. This can be fixed in post by changing all the "&" characters to "&" and adding our own alt="" no biggie :).

Now if you'd excuse me, I'm off to grab a cup of coffee down the road, presumably while still humming this John Gorka tune I can't get out of my head! Will be back in an hour, when I assume I'll be posting more widgets :D

Spiff: Is it cool if I swear?
Jim: Yeah, we encourage it!
Spiff: Really?! Man I love this f*cking place!

A heads up in case you've forgotten, the Melissa Mitchell and Spiff house concert at Whole Wheat Radio will be starting 20:00 Alaska time, which translates to 13:00 Singapore and 15:30 Aussie Central Daylight Whatsit.

Recently I wanted to ask my dad if he'd got his new bicycle frame yet, but I didn't want to confuse him into thinking I was talking about his motorbike -- which he also owns but needs some repairs -- so I asked about his acoustic bike. Allegedly he's still telling his friends about his dopey son :D.

Anyway I'm frantically off down the road to get a cup of coffee before it starts!

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.

Meeting is only two chars away from Greeting

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.

It's trust, stupid!

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!

Getting off track are we Ruben?

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 :).

Setting things straight

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 a human being"

You are a human being Jim, with your own opinions and thoughts and your own abilities that you are damned good at. People who dispute these are not worth your time and energy. I know it's pointless advice that's easier said than done, but it sounded profound in my head.

"I am a big mouth"

That may be the case, but you know things and have been around the block enough times to have formed opinions grounded in these apparently trivial things called reality, common sense and fact that others are willing to dismiss because they're an anonymous guy behind a computer, or a political pundit who got where they are by selling out, sucking up and using sound bytes. In other words, you're a person someone like me can genuinly look up to. Appreciate for a moment how rare that is.

"I am painfully shy, insecure and thin-skinned. I am incredibly gregarious, pompous and proud. It all depends on mood, situation and sunspots"

No wait, I'm the one who's all those things! If you figure out how to overcome the shyness, let me know, but whatever you do don't change any of the other things.

"I reserve the right to change this agreement at any time."

Damn straight. Personally I wish to continue our association, but if others don't, their loss not ours.

"Keep your sense of humor."

(Damn straight)^1024.

If this post were a circle, it'd have no end.
How terrifying.

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

Final thoughts

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.

So I'd just woken up after a terrible night's sleep and was making coffee when I tuned into The Whole Wheat Radios on my Mac, and within 20 minutes none other than Jim Kloss came online and started chatting on the mic on air with all of us! He talked about a discussion he'd had with Marian Call about Twitter recently, the music that was coming up (in his own classic and imitable style), along with the progress he was making with his nuclear wheat powered ioniser that can bend space time. Unfortunately so far he can only beam one person at a time with his voice activated command processor, but it's a work in progress.

He also asked a few questions which come to think of it I didn't answer in the collaboration page chat thingy. To answer them here, Elke and I are in Adelaide until November, and while not technically correct in German, when my dad's family immigrated to Australia they started pronouncing our last name as "Shade" for English speakers, so es ist gut so :).

As for the image above, this was a photo I took of Jim Kloss himself mowing the perfect green lawns that adorn the surroundings of the Wheat Palace where the independent music Whole Wheat Radio headquarters are located. You can tell it's not an extremely crappy Photoshop job because I actually did it in The Gimp. I'd be hilarious if I could write and deliver good jokes.

I don't know why, but whenever I'm on Whole Wheat Radio and see this photo of Karen Collins, I always do a double take because out of the corner of my eye she looks like she's brandishing a gun! In this case it's even funnier because with this latest concert announcement on every page, Jim is in her firing line of sight :-)

And people say I don't write anything constructive on this blog... sheesh.

"I wholeheartedly endorse this product, decision, service, building or idea."

UPDATE: Yes, this was an April Fools joke!

Given Last.fm's recent commercialisation where they now force listeners from outside the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany to pay a subscription fee to listen to what was previously free music, it has got me thinking about independent singer songwriters. If they release their content for free in the hopes you'll love their material and subsequently attend their concerts and buy their music... you know, promotion... then what right does Last.fm have to charge people to hear it?

Therefore Jim Kloss has decided to fight fire with fire, and has asked me to relay the following information. He has decided to inform the community through Google Reader that Whole Wheat Radio, the bastion of independent music online will soon become become a commercial paid site.

This would be achieved through phases in order not to alienate existing users and the artists who bought into the notion that they're music was being sent to a non profit website that was designed to promote them and their cause instead of generate large volumes of cash for it's proprietors and investors.

These are suggestions interim steps for Whole Wheat Radio's commercialisation:

1. Remove any references to the Core Mission and make the chat page the main page for the site. This will allow WWR to leverage the power of social networking of the community, which is our key demographic and the largest potential source of revenue. Changing the Core Mission isn't revisionist history because we don't call it that.

2. Every user page on the WWR wiki will be donned with a large, non-removable box indicating what compulsory paid subscription rate they've chosen. This will help to guilt trip and shame people into paying more.

3. Make about 200px of room above the content for each page for banner advertisements. Each advertisement could be delivered by Google AdSense which would intelligently pick up on the text of the individual wiki page and return advertisements that are relevant and interesting to all Whole Wheat Radio listeners. For doing so, Jim Kloss would receive 0.1% of the profits from Google as a referral.

4. Monatise the audio streams themselves to deliver content that will enrich listeners lives and enhance their audio experience. Plugging into Google AdSense, the EJs will be programmed to to download the lyrics to the currently playing song from the song's wiki page and read five to ten text advertisements after each song. Because these advertisements are relevant to the songs, listeners will appreciate them.

5. Start generating profits from the artists themselves. By banning user generated playlists and shows artists could compete for airtime by using an auction system plugged into the master WWR donation PayPal account of which PayPal would take a 92% cut of as a service fee. By rigging the auction system, Jim could still choose what songs are played but give the impression the music is being legitimately chosen by the artists.

6. Once WWR has generated large sums of cash, Jim Kloss will insure and subsequently burn down the Wheat Palace and move the WWR headquarters to Los Angeles, California to be closer to the commercial music companies.

7. Jim will then abuse his position as a trusted friend of the independent musicians to start advising them to sign with one of the major record labels and subsequently become a part of the RIAA. The record labels and the RIAA have consistently shown through their fair and reasonable music monopoly that lawsuits and their own compelling products can also generate revenue above and beyond traditional, old fashioned promotional avenues like independent music websites. As a bonus, WWR would get a commission from these record labels.

8. Once Jim Kloss has become a social networking guru, he will advise people of such by appending social-networking-guru to every profile page on every website and will proceed to charge people $10,000 per speaking appearance.

9. At this point WWR will become a publicly traded company with the stated purpose of generating enough capital to expanding their operations, when in fact they're really setting themselves up to be bought. Once majority control is relinquished, WWR will be purchased by News Corporation or Microsoft for a substantial profit and Jim Kloss will retire to a tropical island in the Caribbean or South Pacific, secure in the knowledge that his website and actions have helped independent musicians around the world.

The Whole Wheat Radio board of directors wishes to advise that your reading of this blog post constitutes a silent, legally binding agreement in which you agree with everything that has been said to the extent that if you're asked to provide testimony in a court of law you will be obligated to say as much.

Hummer outside the Boatdeck Cafe yesterday

Yesterday I noticed on Google Reader that Jim Kloss approved of my tweet regarding a Hummer which had parked just outside the Boatdeck Cafe I was having a coffee of all things in:

@toddtyrtle I saw a Hummer parked here in Adelaide this morning. First time I've ever felt the need to put a rude sticker on a car.

Well in the spirit of this message, here's that Hummer taken with my iPhone yesterday. Granted at least it's the smallest model I think, but it still looks like a monster compared to the little Toyota sedan next to it.

I'm not even going that far, I'm learning how to ride a motor scooter so I can zip around town on a Piaggio when I miss the bus or train here and waiting 45 minutes for the next one isn't feasible.

My dad says a 100cc model up is safer than a 50cc despite my insistence I don't need anything powerful at all, because he says with the extra power you can avoid messy situations.

The Aussie Piaggio website

The Aussie Piaggio website is pretty spiffy, you can check out all their models and even the licence requirements for each state! I've been told by friends here that depending on how you look at it, South Australia is either one of the best states to learn to drive and ride or one of the worst because they're much stricter. I'm leaning towards the former.

I love how I can go so far off topic that I start talking about scooters when I take a photo of a Hummer. Do either even have anything to do with the internet or computer software?