Rubenerd

The Escapist himself sent a really nice message about the latest Rubenerd Show and Overnightscape adventures in New York and New Jersey :)

What a treat! (it’s Halloween season, get it?)

Just finished listening to the series of shows with Frank, Manny and Denise as they show off parts of the NYC/NJ area to Ruben and Clara.

It was great to listen and follow along on Google Earth all the places they visited. I particularly loved the stops in Frank’s childhood neighborhood, The Devil Tree, Chimney Rock/Buttermilk Falls and the visit to Mitsuwa for the clash of Eastern US meets Western Pacific culture. Following along on Google Earth and deciphering all the subtle clues from the audio descriptions provided by everyone really does add an additional dimension to the istening experience - lots of fun indeed!

Pausing him there for a second, that’s really cool! I loved that we got off the beaten track and saw stuff that only true locals of NJ would have known about, and been able to relay appreciation for.

And the geotracking thing is wild, makes me want to try another audio journey again!

Looking forward to some day hearing Frank and Denise’s visit to Singapore or Sydney as the favor is returned by Ruben and Clara showing them their part of the world. I just love these experiences albeit from a third party and distant perspective.

Hummmmm… after listening to these episodes, including the “Local Adventure” episode with Manny and Roel, I’m thinking about a new episode of Escapist Radio again. Time to reignite imaginations once again but I need to find just the riiiiiight topic.

And for “Rubenerd”… Vostro still sucks!

Cheers to all!

I’m glad the fun and adventure we got from these episodes came through, thanks. Looking back on it now, I still can’t believe it happened. It’s cliché, but it felt like a dream.

And I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say its your duty to start Escapist Radio again.

A colleague of mine talked about how he’d tried to get into blogging, but every time he wrote a few posts he’d end up deleting the whole site out of frustration of what he wrote. Clara has said the same thing.

I can empathise. I’ve tried blogging in other places as well, and they’ve always either puttered out, or I’ve deleted them and imported them into here.

I’m not really sure what made Rubenerd different; it’s probably inertia mixed with nostalgia at this stage. Unlike other blogs I’ve ever started, this one also doesn’t have a fixed topic, so I’m free to talk about anything I’m interested in.

If there’s advise somewhere in here, it’s just to slog it out, and know that you’ll never be satisfied with the first stuff you write. I wouldn’t say most of the stuff I write here is good, but those first couple of years were particularly bad!

I think it’s more important now more than ever that people have an independent place for their thoughts. Facebook, or Twitter, or Medium are not entitled to your ideas, and they don’t own them.

Okay, where do I start?

There are two questions here: what to use, and how to write. The former is way simpler to answer.

If you’re more technically proficient, I’d give Jekyll a try. Static site generation is wonderful. I use Hugo for its unique ability to crunch thousands of posts without blinking, but the liquid templating engine in Jekyll is the nicest I’ve ever used.

If you want a hosted CMS, give Anchor a try. It’s very clean and simple, though I wish it supported Postgres instead.

If you’re smarter and just want a blog without messing with templating engines and maintaining a web stack, Tumblr works shockingly well with its text post type, and you can point your own domain at it. WordPress.com comes in a close second, but I’ve moved off its self-hosted option precisely because I didn’t use half the features.

As for how to write, blog about what you’re interested in. It sounds reductive to the point of d’uh, but it’s true. As soon as you start writing about things you feel you should write about, or you’re too embarrassed to, you’ll never get that spark.

For example, I avoided talking about anime here for years because I was afraid of being tarred a weeaboo, and that some of the screenshots or character designs may be considered a little risqué. Now, I literally don’t care, and it’s awesome.

(I still find it amazing that people whinge about modesty, in the same breath as they talk about how their violent new first person shooter is awesome. Skin is okay as long as its covered in gore).

If you struggle for topics, keep a notebook or text file of things you see or think of over the course of a day. Almost everything I blog or podcast about comes from these lists.

And finally, don’t worry about what so-called blog experts say, including me. Blog on your own terms and schedule. Just don’t use lightbox popups :).

If you use Dropbox, you would have got this email today.

Hi Ruben,

We’re always looking to improve the Dropbox sharing experience.

Uh oh.

The Public folder was the first sharing method we introduced, and since then, we’ve built even better ways for you to share securely and work together with your team.

Yeah, that Public folder idea was great. You could futz around with the newer share links they introduced, but the Public folder just made it so easy.

As a result, we’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Basic users will be able to use the Public folder until March 15, 2017. After that date the files in your Public folder will become private, and links to these files will be deactivated.

And there it is.

There was a brief period when Rubenerd was hosted on Github Pages, with Dropbox as a poor-man’s CDN for media assets. It worked really well, before I decided I was probably abusing the system a bit, and went back to a cloud instance.

And therein lies the rub. Chances are there were people using the Public folder for hosting stuff, or bulk sharing. Someone internally in Dropbox must have realised generating individual links would make these activities much harder, if not stomping out the practice altogether. Is it altogether, or all together?

Unfortunately, it also renders Dropbox much less useful.

(It’s also worth repeating that if you don't control your own encryption keys, you should consider all of Dropbox a Public folder).

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TGIF. I couldn’t help but notice I hadn’t posted about Shielder for a few days. This needs to be rectified, and what better way than by referencing an event I’m almost a full four months too late for.

Event Duration : August 11, 2016 19:00 ~ August 31, 2016 13:59 JST
Event Title : It’s Summer! It’s the Beach! It’s Adventure! FGO 2016
Summer Chaldea Summer Memories ~White Beach of Solace~

It’s like Quantum of Solace, but with Type Moon girls and gritty shoes over situations. Like many of my jokes, that sounded better in my head.

The promotional video was laden (unsurprisingly) with bouncy fanservice and Saberface frolics.

It also included the limited Kiyohime Lancer servant who, judging from her actions and expressions, has only just comprehended the permeability of sand. There something rather profound there, if you’re not profound.

But as a Shielder fan, I was not prepared for the ending.

Rubenerd got some impromtu feedback from a work colleague today:

Damn this blog is detailed

Glaringly absent was recognition of the writer’s handsomeness. The writer of Rubenerd, not the writer of that review.

It’s never a good sign when your comments about a review are longer than the review, other than maybe Robert Christgau, who I only learned about after his review of a Michael Franks album.

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