Rubenerd

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe, in a post series pointlessly documenting every train I took.

R13 from Central to Bardwell Park

Cleanliness: Good

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe, in a post series pointlessly documenting every train I took.

R13 from Bardwell Park to City Circle

Cleanliness: Good

Neal from the Into Your Head and Over Your Head shows on his first experience with photocopiers:

@Rubenerd No but he once let me photocopy a drawing of a cat on office equipment after hours. Don’t tell the newspapers. #

@Rubenerd That was back in the early eighties. Photocopying was like going to the moon back then. Especially if you were six years old. #

Granted my first experience with photocopying stuff at my dad's office was in the mid nineties, but as he was I was captivated by this almost magic machine that could take a picture and make tons of identical copies of it! I also liked how smooth and glossy the toner felt compared to the crappy colour dot matrix ink from our Fujitsu printer at home ;).

Ten years later I was in high school and using the library's photocopier to reproduce chapers from borrowed books to put in my so-called "Photocopy Folder of Ruben's Interests". By which I mean I cleared the rights for copyright in advance. Yeah, that's it.

Links shared from del.icio.us today:

Forrst is a community for developers and designers – Forrst

Seems like a good idea, even if the site design is another cliche bubblegum web 2.0 thing.

(categories: design code programming web)

Amazon.com: The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power (9780312601867): Geoffrey Dunn: Books

"The Lies of Sarah Palin is a journalistic tour de force that vividly reveals the Queen of the Tea Party movement as a vengeful and manipulative empress without clothes. This is the definitive book on Sarah Palin."

(categories: politics books unitedstates)

Lobotomo Software: MoofMenu

"Fan Control adjusts the minimum fan speed depending on the current CPU temperature. For safety, it leaves the original automatic fan speed control intact."

(categories: mac osx software macbook apple)

Safebooru – Anime picture search engine! – kitsu chiri

Epic art, go the colour! :D

(categories: sayonara-zetsubou-sensei anime art)

How to differentiate your Asian languages. on Twitpic

Cute, though knew it already ;)

(categories: language twitter)

Express buses: Is there a "Megabus effect?" | The Economist

"The problem, as Businessweek's Ben Austen decribes it, is that express buses have so changed "the way Americans—especially the young—travel" that "they may help kill plans for new railroads."

(categories: news travel railfan railways hsr)

Intel shows off more of its MeeGo Tablet UI, still needs lots of work — Engadget

Hope this goes somewhere, interface looks gorgeous and QML would be too much fun.

(categories: news tablets intel meego qml qt)

Haley Barbour doesn't care about born children – War Room – Salon.com

"Mississippi leads the nation in almost everything that a state doesn't want to lead the nation in. Mississippi is the poorest state in the union, with the highest poverty rate and the lowest quality of life. And the state government is ineffective and oblivious when it isn't just plain corrupt."

(categories: news unitedstates politics)

Greens fear return to temporary visas – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

"Asylum seekers who commit criminal offences in detention are likely to be denied permanent visas in a move opponents say is a return to the temporary protection visas of the Howard government."

(categories: news australia humanrights johnhoward)

Remember one year ago to the day when HootSuite changed their framed "social bar" to be opt-in? Alas, some people on Twitter still prefer sharing links that use the bar and render target pages inside a frame. To be blunt: I'm surprised anyone, anyone likes these!

Make them entirely "opt-in" for you by grabbing GreaseMonkey and this script by Swaroop Hegde. No more social bar ^_^.

This originally appeared on the Annexe, back when I recorded daily puzzles.

According to the internal WordPress database, this entry has an ID of 8555, which you can verify by going to //rubenerd.com/?p=8555.

I mentioned to my sister Elke hat 8555 sounded like a fake Singaporean television phone number. Get it? 555 because 555 is 555, and 8 because 8 is just so gosh darn lucky in Chinese cultures. Hey Moses Lim, better call Lucky Plaza tailor at 8555-UHYEAH!

Her response, from her Tumblr feed.

The draconian three strikes bill we were all hoping wouldn't pass… did. The full text of this bill can be found on the New Zealand Government's Legislation website. For the sake of brevity, I'll be commenting on Clarice Africa's FutureGov article. Pardon my rage!

Could the timing be any more blatant?

A bill that puts in place a three-notice regime to deter illegal file sharing has just been passed in Parliament.

And along with it a further erosion of New Zealand sovereignty to the United States and its media cartels.

The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill repeals Section 92A of the Copyright Act and replaces it with a new process to deal with online copyright infringements, said Commerce Minister Simon Power in an official statement.

In other words, a New Zealand law has been replaced with a faulty international one that would make Nicolas Sarkozy proud.

The bill includes a power for a district court to suspend an internet account for up to six months, in appropriate circumstances. However, this element of the legislation will not be brought into force unless the notice process and the remedies by the Copyright Tribunal are ineffective.

Fortunately we can take a small measure of comfort from the fact it defines the suspension in terms of an "internet account", so the alleged offender could just use internet somewhere else. While representing a substantial threat to civil liberties in New Zealand, ultimately its unenforceable and worthess.

The three-notice regime involves ISPs sending warning notices to their customers informing them they may have infringed copyright. The legislation also extends the jurisdiction of the Copyright Tribunal so it provides an efficient, low-cost process to hear illegal file-sharing claims. The tribunal will be able to make awards of up to $15,000 based on damage sustained by the copyright owner.

They "may" have infringed copyright. I suppose the presumption of innocence until proven guilty and due process aren't "efficient" nor "low cost".

Sam Power-To-The-Media-Cartels

Clarice Africa now quotes communications minister Steven Power, or Stanley Power, or whatever his name his:

"Online copyright infringement has been damaging for the creative industry, which has experienced significant declines in revenue as file sharing has become more prevalent.

Evidence of damage and causation please.

"This legislation will discourage illegal file sharing and provide more effective measures to help our creative industries enforce their copyright" he said.

Evidence of potential alleged effectiveness please.

Power added that the regime will be effective starting on the 1st of September 2011.

As well as the threat to New Zealand's sovereignty and the appalling trampling of the rights of our friends across the Tasman with funny accents, frankly the timing is disgusting as well. Using a national tragedy to distract people and push through such a draconian law is despicable. In the context of where the bill was past this quote from my grandfather seems partifucularly apt: if you played a roll in passing this bill, may the bees of a thousand hives nest in your armpits.

Photo of Bowen House, the Beehive and Parliament in Wellington by Midnighttonight on Wikimedia Commons.