Rubénerd!

Solo advertisement on a tram, by Ian Green

My sister Elke refused to buy Solo (an Aussie brand of lemon soft drink) at the supermarket yesterday because she says she hates it. Instead, she chose to purchase a 2 litre bottle of... Lift Lemon?

In related news, oat porridge tastes fantastic, but muesli made from oats and fruit tastes repulsive. You read it here first!

That's a big hot dog! Why did I put this here?

Elliot C. Back clued me onto a NSA test which required people to finish a list of incomplete sentences. Looked like some fun, so here I go:

1. I always wanted to be as artistic as my mum
2. I can't stop programming, living and drinking coffee
3. If my father would only take me on more of his business trips!
4. People think of me as an introvert who likes coffee
5. I suffer most from a lack of coffee
6. What upsets me most is decaf coffee
7. Most men can't pick the difference between nail polishes, including me
8. My family treats me like a 24 technical support hotline!
9. My greatest worry is that I worry too much
10. Some members of the opposite sex don't understand "nerd" is cute
11. Most women are more accepting of bear hugs
12. I regret that my Deutsch still isn't very strong
13. The main thing in life is coffee, computers and comedy!
14. Secretly I like Barry White music
15. If my mother would only still be alive
16. I don't like people who assume I paid the Asian girl walking next to me!
17. I wish I could forget the time I fell down two flights of stairs
18. When troubled I watch Japanese television shows
19. It bothers me that I worry too much
20. What angers me most is when people don't laugh during my standup acts!

Welcome to your second grilled cheese sandwich observation lesson. If you missed our first lesson, feel free to refer back to it before proceeding. And as usual, feel free to take notes.

As far as I know this is not a grilled cheese sandwich, and quite frankly it concerns me that you think it is. Please seek counseling.

Photo by Micov on Wikipedia

Welcome to your first grilled cheese sandwich observation lesson. Feel free to take notes.

As far as I know this is not a grilled cheese sandwich, and quite frankly it concerns me that you think it is. Please seek counseling.

Photo by Northeast Indiana

I'm typing this post in Vim because Vim is infinitely sexier than GNU Emacs. I'm sorry you may not agree, but that doesn't make your point of view any less incorrect. Vim also wasn't named after a CRT budget Apple computer... uh, yeah.

With my latest move back to Adelaide for the next semester imminent, with assignments due and with a work project needing to be finished... all before Monday... I figure now is as good a time as any to sit down with a fresh cup of coffee that will no doubt at this time of night give me insomnia again in a few hours, and discuss something utterly pointless, trivial and serve just to trumpet my own frustrations which very few people would actually care about.

This is a picture of an IKEA chair. Probably make of wood.

My current favourite word again is "svelte". No, I'm not describing my favourite word as svelte, I'm saying that my favourite word itself is the word "svelte". Clear as mud, right?

According to the English Wiktionary, the dictionary sister site to the English Wikipedia with a logo that's somewhat less interesting and certainly not as visually dimensional (it's missing one entirely, to be accurate) the word svelte was originally derived from the Italian "svelto" which means "stretched out". In English we've adapted the word to mean "Attractively thin; gracefully slender" which is "Used mainly as a compliment, whereas words like thin and skinny could be used in negative connotations.".

Now bear with me. With the latest trends in consumer electronics emphasising smaller, more lightweight, more efficient, more portable... words such as cute, sleek and stylish are used in reviews and by people more often than... something that is used very often. A "nerd getting the nice girl" anime plotline? Excuses by apologists to dismiss criticism of Windows Vista? Lindsay Lohan's breathaliser?

ASIDE: The next computer that tells me one more time that I'm spelling emphasising and breathaliser wrong is going to be kicked black and blue. Those colours aren't really my favourite but they convey the message I'm trying to conceptualise.

This is a great post so far, isn't it?

For example, take a look at this fair and impartial statistical comparison of the occurrence of the adjectives I just listed according to this particular website which searches other websites by using some form of backend engine, or "search engine" to use the current lingo. I added an unrelated phrase to be the scientific control.

That's right; a word which is able to condense three separate terms into one is used at best 4.14% of the time, and at worst 0.59% on the intertubes. Not one single intertube, every single one. Curiously, it is more commonly used than "Grilled Cheese Sandwich" which is interesting considering Yahoo (a competing search engine) claims it is their number one query. I base that on absolutely nothing, but that's okay because I've heard from some American friends of mine that some people over there are paid to do it, so it must be a legitimate way to pake a moint. Sorry, make a point.

Funny, it doesn't LOOK like a grilled cheese maker...

This is a serious problem. Not only is the repetitious use of those words very repetitive, but also turns articles about up and coming technological devices which deserve far more interesting language and thought, into dull boilerplate derived yawnfests that read virtually the same every single time. It's also exceedingly repetitive.

There's also a technological price to be paid every time those three words are used instead of such a an efficient words as svelte. What absolutely astonishes me is that people are so concerned about the role peer to peer software, streaming vidoes and internet telephony...

ASIDE: Telephony to me always sounded like a word for a telephone system and network that unsuspecting people use and end up getting royally ripped off on. In other words, every telephone any of us will ever use.

It could also mean than the phone itself is phoney and actually serves another purpose. Why, the fax machine for example is just a waffle iron with a phone attached right? Why not a device that looks like a phone, but is actually a shoe? Wait, I got that the wrong way around. I'd better start getting smart.

...being targeted as the reasons why the intertubes are slowing down for so many people, nobody is bothering to discuss or investigate the role inefficient language is having on traffic and available bandwidth. Useless weblog posts that are largely fluff and add nothing valuable to internet discourse as a whole are also to blame for lots of wasted bandwidth, not to mention time.

You know who never had bandwidth problems? MacGyver. I don't have a picture of him handy though, so here's a picture of a couple of cops on Segways.

So the next time you see an iPhone (that the owner managed to activate, zing!), or a new portable GPS device for your motor scooter, or a titanium cheese grater complete with leather case and gold plated handles, consider using the word which this post has been all about, instead of a combination of less efficient - and far more common - words. I forget now what the word I was advocating the use of is exactly, but I'm sure it will come to me when I'm thinking about something else.

For example, I was searching for my denture adhesive this afternoon. I don't wear dentures and have therefore never needed to buy denture adhesive, so searching for it was proving to be exceedingly difficult and largely fruitless. However while performing said search I was able to locate my long lost... wait now I forget what it was I found. Svelte! That's the word I was trying to think of above! Works every time. Unlike this ridiculous post that should never have been created, and for it's existance I sincerely apologise.

Ruben, I didn't understand a word of what you posted

I'll be elaborating more on what I mean by this on the Rubenerd Show, stay tuned. Get it? Stay tuned? It's an internet radio show? A podcast? Stay... tuned? Hey, I thought it was funny.

For some reason, I've always found it harder than most people to suspend disbelief in stories, games and the like. If I read, hear or see something that's impossible, stupid or unreasonable... it frustrates the hell out of me.

Suspension of disbelief refers to the willingness of a person to accept as true the premises of a work of fiction, even if they are fantastic or impossible.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief

Case in point, I was browsing a game website to see if anyone had more information about Knetwalk when I saw a screenshot from one of those now infamous Dead or Alive games:

I ask you this right now: why on Earth is she wearing a denim bra, with pockets sewn on it? It makes absolutely... no... friggen... sense! I've heard from so many girls about how uncomfortable these contraptions are, so why would you make one out of denim? And put pockets on it? What could you put in those pockets? A mobile phone? An Objective-C Pocket Reference book? I think not!

The suspension of disbelief that I'm apparently supposed to have with this game (ridiculously over-the-top buff men and tiny adolescent girls fighting on equal terms in ridiculous locations with gravity defying moves and super human injury sustaining abilities) is tenuous and irreconcilable enough in my mind as it is even without this blatant pandering to obsessive game players!

And here's another example from the same game: why would someone in supposedly frigid weather be wearing a heavy, wooly jacket... with a miniskirt? What's next, are we to believe in summer she walks down a boardwalk in a t-shirt and snow pants? Snow pants!?

It's cold, good thing I'm rugged up all over!

This makes absolutely... no... sense! Rarely is the question asked: when did computer games become so ridiculous? And I'm absolutely positive there are far more examples than this!

And while we're talking about O'Reilly Pocket Reference books; don't get me wrong I think they're the greatest thing to happen to the computer reference book world and I can claim to own no less than 14 such tomes; but since when is a book which measures 18 by 11 centimetres pocket sized?

A Pocket Reference?

The Rubenerd Blog, always presenting important facts and issues relevant to consumer technology and computer software.

The conspiracy theory episode!

I would post a description, but it would just be a conspiracy! Warning: heavy ironic and satirical undertones!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 35:27, 20.3MiB

You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

I miss watching David Letterman :(

Well here it is past 1am here in Singapore and I have to get up early to go to the hospital again tomorrow so I should be going to sleep now right?

Right?

Anyway despite my best intentions of keeping this blog a strictly professional endeavour and keeping personal stuff down (hasn't worked out so far!), I couldn't resist doing this. I was looking at Julee's blog on my Bloglines account and couldn't help noticing she had done one of those "Top 10 things you don't know about me".

So while it's really early in the morning and not having slept for two nights therefore my judgement is more lax, here are 10 things you may not know about me... in perfectly formatted, W3C XHTML 1.1 Strict compliant markup of course!

1. I'm an introverted person. I need my "me" time!
2. I love walking early in the morning before the humidity sets in
3. I don't drink much alcohol.
4. My mum admits to dropping me on my head when I was a baby
5. I've only dated East Asian girls... at present!
6. My middle name was derived from a close family friend, and a Jazz musician
7. Mirrors in the dark scare the living crap out of me.
8. I like watching TV shows and Anime where the nerdy guy gets the girl in the end. Come to think of it I can't name any Anime where the nerdy guy doesn't. Oh dear, the truth comes out.
9. I love British comedy and British dry wit and sarcasm... and attempt to emulate it as often as possible with excellent results. Really.
10. I know how to write my name in Japanese Katakana, but not in Chinese characters, despite the fact I live in Singapore!

I'm an Aussie by birth and given both of our countries were once British we still have those Union Jack thingys on our flags.

Apparently the redesigned New Zealand flag though still retains the Union Jack, but includes something 100% Pure New Zealand!:

Okay okay, I'm an Aussie and I couldn't help myself :D.