Rubenerd

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

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

M24 from Bardwell Park to Museum

When I want to comment on news stories but they're not worth dedicating an entire post to, I'll be collating them into a nonsensically titled Rubenerd News Network post! Today we have Brazilian cable cars, huge baby bonuses, and IT spending.

Cable cars over Rio’s Favelas

Wired 2011.11.28: There’s nowhere for public transit to go [in the slums of Rio de Janeiro]. Nowhere, that is, but up.

The government says that 152 gondolas will carry 30,000 people a day along a 2.1-mile route over the neighborhood, transforming the hour-and-a-half trudge to a nearby commuter rail station into a 16-minute sky ride.

The Wired article also explains the real impetus for construction: the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics aren't all that far away. I suppose its more realistic to expect this than money being used to actually help people living in poverty stricken neighbourhoods.

Quick poll on Channel NewsAsia

Channel NewsAsia 2011.03.07: A straw poll showed more women will be convinced to have a child if given a baby-bonus carrot of $500,000 per child, said an MP. Should Singapore adopt the idea?

So far 45% voted yes, 22% said it'd be too expensive, and 33% said money can't solve Singapore's fertility problem. I'd put myself in the latter; if I were a woman I'd want societal concerns addressed rather than just being told I can be bought off. I'd also worry about pushy husbands demanding their wives have kids for cash, that's a bit icky.

IT spending up in 2010

Channel Register 2011.03.06: The IT sector turned in its best growth since 2007, according to the analysts at IDC. That's good news, and the news kept getting better as 2010 went on. Maybe 2011 won't be so bad if the world settles down a little politically.

I disagree. When people are nervous, governments hand out more lucrative defence contracts, and enterprise IT companies are there to eat the pork. "We've always been at war with Eastasia."

Not sure whether I'll keep doing these news posts, but fun for an experiment :).

After all my recent tweets on Optus’s patchy service in Earlwood, it was interesting to see the Sydney Morning Herald’s report on mobile phone data speeds around Sydney. I can confirm… some of it!

Hope the song was tasteful

The study tested the average time it takes for different phone networks to deliver a "three minute, three megabyte" song in various locations around Sydney. They "used iPhone 4 handsets provided by each of the networks for its research, and conducted multiple tests at each location."

The Sydney Morning Herald online editorial staff didn’t deem it necessary to transcribe the tabular data from the crudely uploaded image in their article, but I spent five seconds putting it through my OCR software and came up with this:

Location	Telstra	Optus	Vodafone	3
Sydney CBD	9	8	21	23
North Sydney	6	13	13	48
Manly	6	4	10	55
Artamon	9	8	10	85
Epping	6	22	22	54
Parramatta	16	13	35	24
Baulkham Hills	29	15	22	57
Blacktown	6	90	8	111
Penrith	6	20	22	59
Liverpool	27	176	7	139
Bankstown	22	5	32	240
Ashfield	4	5	n/a	199
Newtown	5	24	19	164
Randwick	5	7	16	127

As an Optus customer, I can personally vouch for its above average rankings in the CBD. As long as I don’t stray too far from the centre of Sydney, I get full 2G reception on my Palm Centro, full 3G reception on my iPhone 4 and surprisingly zippy data speeds even when the latter is being used as a tethered modem.

Unfortunately, this table also serves to demonstrate how spotty their coverage can be even just a few dozen kilometres from the centre of the largest city in Australia. For someone who’s used to being in Singapore where I can get a full 3G signal in a lift shaft, this is quite jarring!

Jarring? I thought they used Pringles cantennas

Get it… jarring? Cans? Jars? See, not only was that joke terrible in its own right, but that photo I included above depicts Pringles cans that are of insufficient length (that’s what SHE said) to create a long range cantenna, rendering my joke even less entertaining. But I digress.

Case in point with regards to spotty Pringles, I mean coverage: our suburb of Earlwood. Despite the surrounding Kingsgrove and Bardwell Park areas getting fairly average coverage, 3G data speeds are painfully slow, dropped calls are a regular occurrence, and at times both my Centro and iPhone 4 find it difficult to even locate a network signal!

A spokewomen for Optus who goes by the name of Simone Bergholcs was upbeat about the findings from this survey:

"Our overall network investment positions Optus as the only carrier capable of challenging the incumbent telco’s network on both coverage and speed," a spokeswoman [for Optus], Simone Bergholcs, said.

I already said her name was Simone Bergholics, geez.

I would encourage her company to look at the study as as proof that while they’re in an enviable position compared to their competition, they still have a lot of work to do! Australia’s internet and phone networks are pretty poor compared to much of the developed (and even some of the developing) world, so its not as if saying you’re better or as good as… crap… doesn’t magically make you good. It makes you comparatively good. Like a boss. Or a can of Pringles.

I hope their SingTel masters use some of the profits they’re generating to improve their subsidiary’s network. Just saying!

On an unrelated note, I’m hungry.

Links shared from del.icio.us today:

Enhanced DOSKEY.com — with auto-completion Paul Houle 6/29/2009

"This program is an enhanced, drop-in replacement for DOSKEY.COM"

Is it okay to want that Hawaiian shirt? Yumekui Merry #07: "Dreams, Swimsuits and the Colour of the Sea".

For those of you who read my blog primarily for my other topics, the idea of the obligatory beach episode may seem foreign and strange, let alone anime in general. Pull up a comfy chair and allow me to sew the seeds of understanding during this break I have from uni and family document scanning.

Since the dawn of recent time, animators have weaved into their narratives at least one or more episodes that are set on the beach or surrounds, either in the context of a day trip or a short holiday. In anime fandom lexicon, these episodes are referred to as a series' obligatory beach episode, and depending on your perception they're either endemic of the "declining quality of anime", something to tolerate, or one of the greatest things ever invented. I'll let you decide for yourself which it is.

Needless to say, the invention of such an episode format was designed specifically to give animators a free pass to dress their characters up (or down, as it were) in swimsuits and have them frolic around in an idyllic setting. They also spawn an entire subset of merchandise sales and official art in magazines, and as you can see above it doesn't take them very long! Money money money, must be funny…

Essentially, one can think of these as the anime equivalent of certain travel shows that always have their suspiciously attractive guide showing you around the coral reefs of Mauritius in speedos or a bikini, while their less attractive colleague shows you the best rest-stop grub in New Jersey or something. But I digress.

Fortunately, despite the predisposition of such episodes in general to have plots so thin you could pass alpha radiation through them, Yumekui Merry at least had a side story that wasn't burdened with having to explain the beach premise, and enough character development did happen. Well, kinda.

First of all, we learned that despite her efforts Merry is struggling in her role as one of the wait staff owing to her memory which clearly isn't that much better than mine! Honestly I have the same problem she has, give me five things to remember and in less than a minute I'll either have them confused or completely forgotten.

During this time, its suggested they take a break and go to the beach, which Isono's dad wholeheartedly supports. Of course he does :P

For some reason the entire writing club and the mysterious transfer student Chizuru ends up joining Yumeji, Merry, Isano and her dad at the beach. They all know each other now?

Ironically enough, most of the episode's obligatory fanservice is provided by Mei Hoshino, the writing club president (left in the screecap above) who only a few episodes ago was portrayed as a bashful and super shy bookworm. Allegedly sea air instills confidence and volleyball athletic ability… maybe I need to try this!

No, Merry isn't acting sheepish because I'm pointing out further plot holes in her story, she just poked fun at Yumeji for not being able to swim… only to admit she can't either. Awww ;).

Does it count as Inception when you're watching a television show about a television show? I know this is about dream daemons not Inception, but its a valid question.

The Power Rangers-ish action show that Yumeji has been watching in the previous episodes of this show (wow, my brain is already starting to melt trying to explain this) started filming an episode on the beach, which clearly he was excited about! I never watched Power Rangers I'll be honest, but there were plenty of people in my school who did, and dressed up as them ;).

Another person who was excited to see them was a young boy who turns out to be a vessel for a dream daemon himself. His youthful excitement at meeting and getting an autograph from one of his favourite television characters is quickly destroyed after he enters a daydream and has his dream daemon Delga killed by another dream daemon called Mistelteinn who we've seen before, and no doubt we'll see again.

Upon returning to the real world, his eyes are lifeless and his enthusiasm for what excited him only moments before is gone, which supports what previous episodes have told us about what happens to former vessels who lose their dream dameons, and also affirms Merry's unique position as a dream daemon who doesn't need a vessel. Having [stupidly!] read the manga I now know why… but that's for the future ;)

Basically everything else that happened was regular obligitory beach episode fare. Bikini tops are pulled off "by accident", the gang engage in that blindfolded watermellon hitting game whatsit that I used to play in Singapore with Stephen Fugiwara and our friends from school… hi if you're reading this!

Finally Merry's self doubt about whether or not what she's doing is the right thing destroying other dream damons comes into play again, but with an overly cliche but otherwise beautiful sunset with lots of pretty colours as the backdrop, Yumeji reassures her. Awwww :)

And therein was the Yumekui Merry Obligitory Beach Episode. Can we get back to the real world now, please? I suppose in a series about dreams, the "real world" is a relative term, but still. The Bird is The Word.

Oh and I couldn't resist, this screenshot just had to be included because of Merry's facial expression. In the anime she's nervous about the clothes other people are wearing compared to her, but I like to think of it instead that she just stepped on one of those pointy shells. OUCH! XD.
Here at Rubenerd.com we strive for professionalism.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

paperbackmountain:

georgiosmichaels:

Genreswap- Star Trek as a romantic comedy

“Do yourself a favour. Put aside logic. Do what feels right.”

(People had better love and adore this and reblog it in the millions because it was so difficult to do and hate my photo editor!)

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

-reuel:

p sherman. 42 wallaby way, sydney :D