Rubenerd

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40:03 – The only other Rubenerd material posted on this weird day, spam as art for computers, having your own email address, towers of AOL trial CDs, fragility of memory, 1990s IT magazine nostalgia, work fatigue, why ISO dates are so damn good, time speeding up as we age, school holidays, introversion, events that only happen every four years, knowing someone born on the 29th of February, the Lunar New Year, and a proposal for a global public holiday.

Recorded in Sydney, Australia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Attribution: Ruben Schade.

Released February 2016 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.

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.

03:08:11 – An awesome array of presentations and contributions!! Shambles!! Ruben!! Frank!! Jimbo!! Chad!! Mike!! Clara!! 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.

Fastmail does a great job with most spam, but every now and then a piece makes it through the cracks. And they’re almost always wonderful.

Dear Sir/Madam

I say old bean, how are you?

We are Venture Capital Firm specializing in Growth Capital Investments/Loan, We giving out long term loan (Maximum of 20 years period) at the rate of 2% interest rate to small and big time projects/businesses, We offer from the range of $100,000 US dollars to $100 million US dollars.

I regrettably must point out that commas are not full stops. If one requires a longer pause, one can employ the semicolon on the row of keys immediately above the comma you’re rather enamoured with.

I’m also far more interested in borrowing billions from someone of your stature, $100 million hardly cuts it my good man. With my IT salary, I wish to purchase a yacht of a similar size or greater to this fine vessel taken by Spaceaero2 in the Kurushima Strait. Ideally the island as well, that is a handsome lighthouse just itching to be converted into a loft studio apartment.

But I digress, you were saying something absurd?

With one year defer for re-payment for project and business establishment. This measure is in line with the IMF/World bank financial reforms on the support and growth of the financial world. We give out Personal, and Business loans, to individuals, companies, financing of Governmental project etc.

Government project, old bean? Just one?

For project assistance and execution. We also provide quick, and easy short term small loans. If you are interested in this offer kindly get back to us for further information and advice.on this mail : adam.middleton2@aol.com

Ah, I see you’ve taken my full stop advice to heart, though one is concerned you’re use of them now is too liberal. Though, how can one argue with a reputable gentleman offering millions in unsecured loans who employs an AOL email address?

Best Regard
adam.middleton

The final chance for a swing, but it was a miss! Do try again, I’m sure you’ve got grammar in you somewhere.

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.

02:21:06 – Clara!! Shambles!! Frank!! Doc!! Chad!! Ruben!! Three TV Shows each, give or take a few!! PQ Ribber hosts!!

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

Clara and I have a fig problem. They’re everywhere in our apartment, and the situation is only getting worse. The first step towards overcoming an addiction is admitting it, right?

Having showed me this fig in LINE yesterday, Clara clarified that we don’t have a fig addiction though, we have a Saber fig addiction. Or whatever Type/Moon are calling her in whichever series and body she manifests in.

Alter were always my favourite fig manufacturer, and they seem to be hitting them out of the ballpark even more lately. I don’t play baseball, but the analogy seemed apt. Give Saber that costume, pose and level of detail, and… damn it, I had a budget this month.

Jimbo and others have asked me what I think of the surveillance in Windows 10, and whether its worth holding off upgrading to preserve privacy. In a nutshell, while reporters have likely sensationalised the story, there are still legitimate concerns about what Microsoft is collecting, how they are, and why the built-in mechanisms for opting out of tracking are ineffective in their stated purpose.

Which is why I was relieved to see someone tackle it with Wireshark, the network traffic sniffing tool. Writing for ZDNet, Simon Bisson commented:

“Without unencrypting the telemetry packets Microsoft receives, we’re not going to know exactly what data it receives.”

Therein lies the rub.

Of those packets only 182 contained data, with 134KB transferred to Microsoft. In two hours there were only 1586 packets, with 382 containing data, and 262KB of data transferred. [..]

“But they’re small and relatively infrequent, so are unlikely to be packed with your personal data.

With respect, this is specious. There’s no reason to believe size will protect you from having personally-identifiable information transmitted. 262KB represents a significant chunk of text, and exponentially more when compressed.

So what did I learn? With free tools and a spreadsheet, it’s easy to get a clear picture of what network traffic is going through a machine.

What the traffic contains is another story.

I’m glad with the amount of media attention this is garnering. There needs to be serious pushback against this kind of data collection to let companies know such actions aren’t acceptable. And don’t for a moment think this is isolated to Redmond, as much as my anti-Microsoft teenage-self would like to think. That-was a lot-of-hyphens.

We should applaud journalists who use technical tools to support arguments, but caution is key. At best, they could be accused of drawing premature conclusions from incomplete data. At worst, deliberate obfuscation.

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.

02:20:13 – A look at Pennies From Heaven from a metaphorical as well as cinematic points of view and some Car Talk, on top!! Ruben!! Frank!! Doc!! Chad!! All this and your ears!!

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

My heart (and ears) belong firmly in the Overnightscape Underground, but I’m also been a 5by5 fan for many years.

There are a few reasons for this, and all of them are Dan Benjamin. Bad Denjamin. Of all the commercial podcasters I’ve listened to, Dan is easily the one I enjoy listening to the most. His interests, voice, sense of humour and good nature are all highly endearing, and they come across in his shows. He’s also an excellent co-host who brings out the best in whomever he’s talking to.

Not long after I started listening in 2011, things began to change. In 2012, The Talk Show abruptly left the network for Mule Radio. Dan took the news like a gentleman, and spent a 5by5 Specials episode asking if they could still be friends.

Mike Hurley came into the fold with his programming, but after a year he split to start Relay.fm. Since then, many of the highest profile shows on 5by5 left to join Relay, many under the thin pretence that they “finished” on 5by5 only to be resurrected on Relay under different names. This senpai noticed.

A common theme is the desire to “try something new” which requires independence. Marco claimed in a 2013 post that he wanted to have absolute control and that he “[didn’t] think we need what other people’s podcast networks provide.” While ATP is still his baby, he now hosts several programmes on Relay.fm.

All the hosts claim to be thankful for the financial and technical assistance and experience they gained from the 5by5 experience. Regardless of intent, the inescapable corollary is they left the network as soon as they’d milked it for experience. To an outsider looking in, it came across as poor form.

Which is why I still source my shows from Onsug and 5by5.

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10:55 – I found my first attempt at rebooting the Rubenerd Show from January 2013! Topics included time stamp counters, audible tangents, tea, being back in Sydney, and torched coffee shops. Two years later, the show restarted for good with an episode that didn't abruptly end with a door opening.

Recorded in Sydney, Australia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Attribution: Ruben Schade.

Released February 2016 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.

Podcast: Play in new window · Download

01:08:50 – With inside, within side? Haunted lifts, loud “bark blowers” as an alternative to silo lift things, age is “just a number!”, the three states of apartment building locks and USB plugs, pleasant rain sounds, tragedy of the commons, live brewing coffee and caffeinated adventures, building a gaming machine (AMD versus Intel, the GTX 970 and GTX 980, the i5-6400, the FX-8350, Athlon nostalgia, PCPartPicker.com), congrats to Frank Edward Nora for his full time job, being stalked by a dancing guy in OfficeWorks, and feedback from Jimbo and Chad Bowers regarding fronts falling off.

Recorded in Sydney, Australia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Attribution: Ruben Schade.

Released February 2016 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.