Rubenerd

Based on past experience and recent travels.

1. It was introduced way too late. Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong got their contactless smart card systems in the early 2000s, the latter of which was even originally designed for use in Sydney.

2. It’s slow. Really, painfully, slow. When you tap an EZ-Link, or an Octopus, or an ICOCA, it registers instantly. It means you don’t slow down when you walk through the gates, you just tap and keep walking. The Opal card forces everyone to stop, tap, and walk again, so queues for gates become insane.

3. Did I mention it’s really, really slow? This cannot be overstated.

4. Trips are still way too expensive. Though to be fair, everything in Australia is.

Points two and three are also advantages of Amex. Their contactless cards often register and approve transactions nearly instantly, much faster than MasterCard or Visa.

I haven’t done any Friday fanmail in a while. This one was a gem.

Looking for a way to get thousands of FRESH email addresses? All of them for corporate executives, influential journalists, and powerful opinion makers?

If they’re not hyperglobal thinkfluencers, I’m not interested.

These people could kick your product or service through the goal posts! Your sales would increase exponentially over night.

They know misuse of “kick off” is a pet peeve of mine, now they’re just goading me.

And you can do it ALL with this little tool. It cruises through bios and social media sites grabbing publicly listed emails.

I read that as BIOS, and got all excited.

Backlengrabdledableadamblockrockinbeats! 1997.

We’re always reminded on Twitter and the like that we don’t elect our leaders, as the Americans or French do. Kevin07, and The Turnbull Coalition Team election symbols, were just that. It’s technically correct, assuming you don’t follow people’s thought processes. It’s also irrelevant.

We vote for local members in Australia, who are often members of a party. Parties who can form a parliamentary majority, either absolutely or in coalition, nominate a leader who becomes Prime Minister. So technically, only those in the PM’s own seat voted directly for them.

Except, the reality isn’t black and white. People do tend to vote along party lines; and a vote cast for a certain party is an endorsement for that party’s leader. You wouldn’t vote for the local member of a party you don’t want to govern, and who’s leader you don’t want PM.

When I voted against our current PM and party, I did so by putting my local Coalition members last, even though some of his policies weren’t as bad to me. The merits of voting like this are, again, irrelevant.

So people do technically vote for the PM; they do it by proxy. Claiming people don’t, as some sort of political point score in a debate on a larger issue, counts for barely more than a thought-terminating cliché.

The only exception is a PM leaving office during their term; but the same happens in Presidential systems where we’re told people do vote for their leaders. So, again, irrelevant.

The view from Victoria Peak made it the best blog café in the world, but I reckon this has to be the best park bench blog view in the world!

We’re not as far up this time, but typing away from the ninth floor of the lush new Namba Parks in Osaka, Japan. You can’t see much of the skyline in this terrible shot, but it’s pretty impressive.

The vending machine coffee is decent, too.

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45:18 – With apologies to Michael Franks, we didn't spend Christmas in Kyoto, but we did explore the hallowed grounds of the Kyoto Animation gift shop and studios (the greatest anime production house ever, obviously), then down to the market that inspired Tamako Market, the Imperial Palace, and an equally impressive convenience store. Other topics include railfans at JR crossings, cicadas, fog and monsoons, Disney, pretty anime boys, Yahoo and Infoseek, and getting lost at Kyoto station. Sounds from the Osaka-Kyoto Shinkansen, and the Kyoto Municipal Subway.

Recorded in Kyoto, Japan. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Attribution: Ruben Schade.

Released July 2017 on The Overnightscape Underground, an Internet talk radio channel focusing on a freeform monologue style, with diverse and fascinating hosts.

Subscribe with iTunes, Pocket Casts, Overcast or add this feed to your podcast client.

Reading about Australia’s latest political fallout from overseas has made it seem almost unreal. Like when I read about the Labor spills from Singapore. I wouldn’t be as self absorbed as to assume that big things go down back home when I’m in Asia, but wow.

Several standing MPs have now resigned, including Scott Ludlam, over their dual or previous citizenships. What’s been glaringly absent from this political mouth-frothing, postulating and wringing of hands is the existence of section 44 itself.

The idea someone can’t hold public office while being a citizen (former or otherwise) of another nation is as stupid as the law preventing Americans born overseas from being President.

The only justification I’ve ever heard that has any whiff of a pretence of being reasonable is that you can’t serve one country while also having interests elsewhere. The jingoistic version pits you against the country you have dual citizenship with in some tortured mental exercise where you’re so devoid of moral conviction you’d drop the country you’re representing for the other one at the first sign of trouble, or leak secrets from one to the other.

Both are so easily dismissed, they’re almost not worth bothering with. For one, citizenship is not allegiance. You can be beholden to foreign powers just as easily with money, family or other influences. And not being a citizen elsewhere hasn’t stopped people in the past from being conscientious deserters or otherwise.

I’ll be the first to admit that while I’m not a Singaporean citizen, and I don’t agree with all their government does, I feel as strong a bond with that land and its people as Australia. In some aspects, I feel more. Under current laws, that wouldn’t preclude me from serving in Australian Parliament, or any of the thousands of other third-culture kids. Appreciate that for a second.

I’ve long maintained countries are increasingly antiquated and meaningless, given our larger global challenges that care not for your birth place. These silly laws are just more examples of holdovers from a previous time that bare even less relevance now.

This shouldn’t be construed as an excuse of those who’ve fallen fowl of these laws, on either side of the isle. But maybe this should be a wake-up call of another sort. Given the global trend towards populist nationalism though, that seems unlikely.

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01:03:56 – Join Ruben as he ventures through the otaku and tech mecca of the Kansai region in Den Den Town, then with Ruben and Clara during the Tenjin Matsuri by the Okawa, intersperced with the sounds of the Osaka subway. Topics include Japanese cicadas, travel, ubiquitous speakers, vending machines, cute mascots, summer festival food, and much more! Recorded Tuesday 25th July 2017. More to come.

Recorded in Osaka, Japan. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Attribution: Ruben Schade.

Released July 2017 on The Overnightscape Underground, an Internet talk radio channel focusing on a freeform monologue style, with diverse and fascinating hosts.

Subscribe with iTunes, Pocket Casts, Overcast or add this feed to your podcast client.

Osaka’s free WiFi service isn’t everywhere, but it’s in enough places to be really useful. It also works with my personal VPN, which they even encourage:

In order for you to access Internet quickly and conveniently, this service does not use security measure such as WEP key, which one usually needs to configure for client terminals when connecting to a wireless LAN router,. For those who prefer secure connection, we recommend using VPN (Virtual Private Network) or the paid public hotspots services.

If you understand the nature of this service as described above, please click “I agreed” to use this service on your own risk prior to use. You must agree to this statement to use this service.

Many (if not most) WiFi hotspots are glorified data harvesting honeypots, so to have a service warn you like this is interesting, and welcomed.

Speaking of pointless, self-referential blog posts, this is a quick one coming from the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Namba, Osaka!

I grew up going to the Coffee Bean in Singapore, often with my partner in crime Felix Tanjono. Their bottomless morning black coffees single-handedly got us through our year 12 exams. Okay, maybe a stretch, they got us through 98% of it. They’re an institution there and in KL; they were in Southeast Asia before Starbucks.

In the context of Rubenerd though, their outlets hold even more significance. When we lived in KL for a couple of years, our TMNet ADSL was so atrocious I’d often hitch a ride with my dad into KLCC and sit at the Coffee Bean at the base of the Petronas Twin Towers. Their WiFi in the centre of town, and their stimulating beverages, were far superior to home.

I coveted the end power point seat near the back window; once I’d set up there I could type for hours. If you read a blog post from 2006 to 07 about FreeBSD or Suzumiya Haruhi, chances are they were written from that spot.

But it hasn’t been all roses. That KLCC branch is now – of all things – a Harley Davidson clothing store. Elsewhere, the chain has been dropping off the face of the Earth. When Clara and I were in Manhattan we just missed their entire east coast closure. In Hong Kong, the few branches were closed.

Fortunately, they’re still in Japan, and I’m writing this as we speak now. I’d long since moved to black coffee, but I’m having an Ultimate Ice Blended just like we used to as a kid.

[TMNet ADSL was so atrocious]: