Rubenerd

Last month I rediscovered, then re-rediscovered RedKid’s fabulous sign generator site. I thought of a couple more:

Thank you.

Firefox showed this when opening a new tab:

The internet — and lots of other things you care about — are on the ballot this November. Are you registered? Check here.

Sounds serious, I’d better check.

The things we all care about — including the health and future of the open web — depend on engaged citizens like you to be a voter. Left. right, or center. Blue, red, or green. Whatever your flavor, it’s your right to decide the direction of your community, state and country.

Country for sure. Pity it’s regarding the US, where I don’t reside or having voting rights.

I appreciate the message and cause. But online community writers and maintainers, please consider not everyone may be from the country you are. At a minimum, cite where your article is aimed. Or at best, make material available and relevant for everyone, it’s all of our responsibility to ensure a healthy web.

As I wrote on the Rubenerd Annexe in December 2013:

I’m back.

That was inspired. Hey, how are you? I’m doing okay, am still battling sickness and some difficult life circumstances, decisions, and people. But while the respite from Twitter has been welcome, I can’t not blog, or avoid the use of double negatives.

Speaking of coming back, I was communiting into work this morning, like a gentleman, and the train was all but empty. It was surreal. I can only assume the previous train was running late, so it absorbed all the people. Either way, it was wonderful to leave a train without people stepping on my toes, whacking me with an umbrella, or sneezing on grab poles.

There’s a larger metaphor there that someone with sufficient mental acuity could extricate from this rambling post. I was just happy to have a calm commute, absorbed in my Kindle and beautiful morning sunshine.

(For those too old or young to get the title reference, it was an Eminem song when I was in high school. I didn’t like his music, but owing to my last name I’d always stand when people asked where the real Slim Schadey was).

The Overnightscape Central is a fun weekly podcast hosted by the illustrious PQ Ribber. Hosts and listeners of The Overnightscape Underground participate in a topic each week, and you’re welcome to join.

03:04:14 – Rubenerd!! Dave in Kentucky!! Doc Sleaze!! Chad Bowers!! Frank Edward Nora!! Five Fabulous Hosts talk about The Radio!! PQ Ribber is your host!

You can view this episode on the Underground, listen to it here, and subscribe with this feed in your podcast client.

Via Clara, if you attempt to do anything against Facebook, such as attempt to circumnavigate paywalls:

javascript:window.location="https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u="+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href);

You’ll get this in your browser console:

 .d8888b.  888                       888    
d88P  Y88b 888                       888    
Y88b.      888                       888    This is a browser feature intended for 
 "Y888b.   888888  .d88b.  88888b.   888    developers. If someone told you to copy 
    "Y88b. 888    d88""88b 888 "88b  888    and paste something here to enable a 
      "888 888    888  888 888  888  Y8P    Facebook feature or "hack" someone's 
Y88b  d88P Y88b.  Y88..88P 888 d88P         account, it is a scam and will give them 
 "Y8888P"   "Y888  "Y88P"  88888P"   888    access to your Facebook account.
                           888              
                           888              
                           888

Interesting.

Australia’s recent economic growth is encouraging, but its fuelled by something worrying. Greg Jerico’s recent Guardian article:

Such [economic growth] improvement would generally reflect a strong growth in household income. After all, that is a 3% increase in real terms, so you would think it means incomes are rising solidly. But what the figures reveal is that the increase in spending by households is coming from them reducing the amount they are saving.

Employers have absolutely no reason to be complaining about wages at the moment or whining about losing international competitiveness – especially with company profits over the past two years rising by 28%.

People only spend their savings when they feel they don’t have a choice. Which also leads to high credit card and personal loan debt.

Savings are supposed to be for weathering storms, but if it’s being regularly spent now to offset wages not keeping up with prices, it signals something wrong with the economy. Well, if you think the economy is there to serve people, not vica versa.

The smashed avocado debacle last year highlighted the patronising, dismissive tone many of the financially stable have for those on lower incomes. Granted, financial literaly isn’t where it should be, in large part because we’re taught quadratic equations in high school instead. I don’t buy the conspiracy theory that we’re kept in the dark to prop up the financial industry, but it’s tempting!

But back on point, if people are working themselves to the bone, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect them to want to blow off a bit of steam. A holiday or break from the rat race may in fact be the only thing keeping them sane.

There’s also our guarenteed 9.5% superannuation savings from our employers, somewhat equivilent to the Singaporean CPF. But even that can’t be relied upon, as the current mob want that going into further housing market inflation. It’s also routinely stolen or deferred by employers who either use it as a bank, or hope their employees aren’t checking.

I say all of this as someone who has no debt, has automatic savings and investments, salary sacrifices extra to super, and uses credit cards as nothing more than point-generating machines. You shouldn’t need to add such a disclaimer, but not doing so relegates you to the bludgers and leaners camp for the smashed avo economists.

I just posted this to Twitter:

Basically did already, but taking a blogging and Twitter sabbatical for a while. Need time to sort out some life things. Catch you all on the other side. #boom.

There are certain questionable design decisions out there, but there’s an entire other class that make you try and picture the meeting where people signed off on it. Here are some examples.

• Pavement tiles that become slippery when wet.

• Pavement tiles that crack under the weight of a passing pigeon.

• Pavement tiles that look worse than what they replaced.

That was a lot about pavement tiles. Moving on:

• Leaving an API call or feature as preview or beta when you know most of your customers use it.

• Senior high school uniform shirts that go translucent at the first sign of precipitation, for use in the tropics. Admittedly less of a problem for my gender at the time.

• The Microsoft Surface Pro something that has a gap between the screen and keyboard when folded closed.

• Door handles that fail in a locked position.

• Apple’s mouse that charges with a bottom-mounted cable.

• CSS and JavaScript, and every layer that’s slathered on top to attempt a PulseAudio-style fix.

• Marketing bagels without holes, as I witnessed a cafe in North Sydney do in the last few months. The bagels themselves without holes, not the marketing. The only hole in the marketing was the communicator’s logic.

• Coffee machines with frames you can scald yourself on. Or any other appliance for that matter. I’d point my finger at them, but it can’t hear me over the sound of being scalded.

The last few weeks have been, to use some colourful language, balls. It started being locked in my bathroom, then work and personal stuff continued to slide into the veritable abyss. I feel like Homer Simpson bouncing down that gorge, only to fall down it again after being rescued.

But all it took this weekend was to get in touch with people with far larger problems to bring myself back to earth a bit. For all the mudslinging and negativity in my life right now, it pales in comparison to what it could be.

Father’s day yesterday, despite the interruptions, was also pretty great!

My mum imparted several words of wisdom before moving off this mortal coil. Always leave the last button on a blazer undone. Gotten isn’t a word. And half-rhymes aren’t rhymes, and have no business being in songs.

In this post, we’ll explore some recent(ish) examples that employ half-rhymes in a chorus, which therefore repeats the cringe many times!

Foster the People’s Pumped Up Kicks, famous for holding the Guinness record for longest song sung through a crappy telephone:

All the other kids;
With their pumped up kicks. ♫

Stitches by Shawn Mendes:

I’m without your kisses;
I’ll be needing stitches. ♫

And We Are Young by Fun:

So let’s set the world on fire.
We can burn brighter;
Than the sun ♫

I’m still painfully sad she’s not around, but at least she avoided these lyrical monstrosities.