Rubenerd

Openinternet commonsensification

Thursday 26 May 2011 Internet

"Here is an opportunity to to make your arguments. I trust to the common sense of the Australian public with respect to the classification system."
~ Stephen Conroy, as reported by Renai LeMay for Delimiter.

Mr Conroy has it backwards. He can ask for our opinion, but the fact is he has repeatedly failed to prove the financial and technical feasibility of his filter, to say nothing of the threat it poses to civil liberties. In the words of Christopher Hitchens: "What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof."

Therefore I submit the only common sense thing to do, is scrap it!

Madoka Cheesica

Wednesday 25 May 2011 Annexe

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

Cheese!

#Anime New official Haruhi art!

Wednesday 25 May 2011 Anime

Haven't seen this official art until recently, does it have to do with the upcoming forth volume perhaps? In any event, really gorgeous colours, even if Haruhi herself was ironically my least favourite character in the series ^^;.

The first time Haruhi made a visual appearance on Rubenerd.com was in this screenshot of my FreeBSD 6.1 KDE 3.5 machine. Those were the days!

Links for 2011-05-25

Wednesday 25 May 2011 Internet

Links shared from del.icio.us today:

Sophos Security Topics | Switch to Sophos: Worth it just for their heading: "Why Are You Upgrading to Symantec 11?" ;); (categories: sophos antivirus security mac software)
Why do you blog? | Reasons behind Blogging and why many Fail: I do it for fun, which makes me a "rare breed" apparently! I also do it for keeping track of things; (categories: blogs blogging)
MacSparky – Blog – Dancing with OPML: Interesting post on a complete OPML workflow, desktop and mobile. Really need to start doing this; (categories: howto mac opml)
Metro Lyrics: While My Guitar Gently Weeps: George Harrison was my favourite Beatle :); (categories: beatles music georgeharrison lyrics)
BlueberryMuffin.jpg (JPEG Image, 291×291 pixels): That is one tasty looking stack of blueberry muffins!; (categories: images food)
Sydney Opera House at Night Wallpaper and Photo (High Resolution Download): One of these days when I find my proper tripod in one of the millions of packing boxes, I'm going to attempt shots like this :); (categories: sydney desktops backgrounds australia sydneyoperahouse)
いつもの『Fate』とはちょっと違う『Fate／EXTRA（フェイト／エクストラ）』 – ファミ通.com: I'm an unabashed fan of Type/Moon's art, but a translucent dress? Oh dear.; (categories: typemoon fate fateextra art anime games)
Google Named Most Reputable Company in U.S.: Most reputable to their customers, but not taxpayers.; (categories: google reputation internet business taxhavens)
Breaking News: Flash floods hit Singapore | The Online Citizen: Again?! How much money was spent on those brand new massive water pump systems from The Netherlands?; (categories: singapore floods news)
Freakonomics » Ten Reasons Why I Would Never Donate to a Major Charity (How to Be a Superhero, Part 2): Leaving aside the fact most charities spend more on themselves than people in need, or that religious ones have more strings attached than Mr Squiggle.; (categories: charity freakonomics blogs)
Main Page – Digital Media Asia: Singapore Management university project about digital media in Asia-Pacific. The grammar is a bit off at times, but useful.; (categories: singapore malaysia australia asiapacific wiki web media)

Towel Day 2011

Wednesday 25 May 2011 Thoughts

While delightfully tempting, given he was an atheist like me it seems rather silly on the tenth anniversary of his passing to wish Douglas Adams all the best up there with the falling whales, bowls of petunias and sleek starships in the shapes of running shoes. Instead I'll simply pay my respects to quite possibly the world's most entertaining, hilarious, imaginative, intelligent and friendly authors, and to be thankful for all the works he created that continue to fill my life and the lives of so many others with joy. 101010.

My beautiful late mum was the one who introduced me to Adams' work. If we needed any further proof karma is bunk, it's that both left us too soon.