Rubenerd

I'm starting to realise the real issue with cloud computing is not one of security or whether we trust the likes of Google to [Mostly] Do No Evil, but whether under pressure the companies running such services will feel compelled to part with our information like the information parters they are. That last bit was fairly superfluous.

Beautiful cloudy landscape art by KONDO on Pixiv. I wish I could draw!

Closing stuff

In December last year I stopped using Gmail for anything serious. There were a combination of reasons, ranging from my desire to use PGP in most of my communications, to getting frustrated at the relatively slow speeds Gmail offered when using it with a desktop email client, to wanting to use my own domain and really zippy servers with Net Solutions that I already use to host dozens of my sites and projects. Yes, I'm aware all these problems could be technically overcome or tolerated if I just sucked it up. Fair enough, but I had my reasons.

I also deleted my Facebook account, partly because I was fed up with the antics of a few people, but also that I felt what little value I derived from it (PR speak for "how much fun I had using it") was eclipsed by my distaste for what they were using my data for.

I have no problem with using sites like Twitter, Gowalla, 4sq and Wikipedia precisely because I'm under no illusions of privacy. They're designed to allow us to broadcast our lives.

I got stuck in a silo on a school excursion to a farm

This latest American federal subpoena targeted at Twitter for Wikileaks' supporter accounts exposes a real threat with using cloud computing applications. By having large numbers of users in one silo, sweeping and legally questionable requests can be made to access this information.

Twitter were good online citizens for letting us know they were being asked for information, but it leads to the inevitable question: how many other online services were compelled to divulge information about their clients' data, and how many remained completely silent about doing so?

I was only a kid, and that farm was big

Of course this isn't negating the real possibility that a police officer couldn't kick down your door and demand to take your computer systems to access information you have stored locally instead of the cloud, or for a court to do the same, but we're kidding ourselves if we think that would scale to the same numbers as easily as it would be to just commit to some serious ninja data mining on a server farm somewhere. For one thing, there'd be far fewer doors and much less kicking, which would mean more time for doughnuts.

Mmm, doughnuts. My favourites are the ones you buy at mum and dad bakeries in Australia. Nobody in Singapore does a good doughnut, not even those expensive Japanese bakery places.

I also think we're kidding ourselves if we think we can get away with not living in the cloud entirely, but for communications such as email and social networks I don't feel compelled to use any more, at least I ultimately get a say what happens to my data. At least then when I'm forced to give access to my laptop to a security official at an Australian airport, I can only blame myself for all the stuff they find, such as my detailed plans for a coffee cup that leaks hot drinks on people's hands so you have a chance to escape while they treat their burns. Genius, I tell you!

Can you tell me how to make one?

Sure! Just drop a mug onto the floor just hard enough for cracks to form, but not have it break. Wait, why am I telling you this? You didn't read any of this. None of it.

Quote from The Beehive:

Our leading bankers looted the state, plunged the world into deep recession, and cost us 8 million jobs. And now many of them stand by with sharpened knives and enhanced bonuses – also most willing to suggest how the salaries and jobs of others can be further cut. Think about the morality of that one.

No doubt on my mind, my American friends were robbed blind. And its happening around the world. I suppose they suspect the middle class are still too preoccupied fighting amongst themselves over who's a conservative or a progressive or any other convenient label to put up a fight against the real enemies here. And they're right.

Heck, I've got into enough trouble just saying I'm an atheist humanist greenie liberal with libertarian leanings. That's a lot of words.

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

R19 from Bardwell Park to Wynyard

This story could potentially be bigger than The Gap's ill fated new logo that looked like a blue version of PricewaterhouseCoopers or however you spell it. Waterhouse sounds like a company that fixes dodgy roofs.

Photo from the Starbucks weblog, under the "Available for Download" sidebar heading.

Disclaimer

First of all, to get it out of the way because I've heard it all before every time I mention Starbucks on Twitter, Gowalla and Foursquare.

Starbucks is a heartless megacorportaion, their coffee is terrible, and Ruben Schade is not only a stupid sucker and a pawn, he's also not politically correct saying he likes spending time there having caramel macchiatos. He's a poser and a fool, and spending just as much time at a local family run coffee shop in his neighbourhood does nothing to clear his super evil conscience. He should go to the Starbucks CEO and offer him sexual favours in exchange for his servitude, and just move to Seattle to pretend he's Frasier like all those other stupid people who think Starbucks is a relaxing, nice place to have a cup of coffee and get a little work done. They're all just so arrogant imposing themselves on others with their holier than thou attitude and their cups with paper sleeves. Why don't they just accept that different people like different things already?

Yeah yeah, whatever. Moving on.

This Is The New Sh*t

I don't listen to Marilyn Manson at all and think his music is terrible, but I have respect for him. Like Lady Gaga, or that guy who's always playing that weird guitar at Central.

I had no idea but the current Starbucks logo has been in use since 1992 when they had their IPO. I know this because I read their press release, and if information is in a press release, it must be true.

The updated logo isn't really new per sé, they've merely removed the phrase "Starbucks Coffee" from the name, expanded the mermaid woodcut and changed the colour to match the aforementioned name that was once there. From their weblog post Bringing the Siren to Life, second paragraph:

From the start, we wanted to recognize and honor the important equities of the iconic Starbucks logo. So we broke down the four main parts of the mark – color, shape, typeface and the Siren. After hundreds of explorations, we found the answer in simplicity. Removing the words from the mark, bringing in the green, and taking the Siren out of her ring. For forty years she’s represented coffee, and now she is the star.

So that's my problem, I'm trapped in a green ring that says "Ruben Schade"! Maybe if I took myself out of that ring and painted myself green I'd be more dynamic and synergistic. Yes, apparently synergistic is a word. facepalm

Thoughts

I'm of two minds about this. First, to paraphrase Einstein, I'm generally not a fan of change simply for the sake of change unless there's something meaningful derived from it. This updated logo doesn't really seem to do this, at least to me as a non-graphics designer. The typeface and stars and colour balance in the current logo are just brilliant.

Perhaps wrapping the logo in "Starbucks Coffee" was part of an elaborate, two decade long scheme to get us to associate their logo with those words, much like Nike had their name next to the swoosh for a while before removing it, or Apple Computer having their retro typeface "a" as part of the bitten part of the logo and pple proceeding it, then having no lettering at all.

Its the Illuminati, or something

Of course conspiracy theorists no doubt will claim the removal of the term Coffee from the Starbucks logo is akin to Kentucky Fried Chicken changing their name to KFC because their stock was so heavily genetically modified that they couldn't legally be called chickens any more. Oh you didn't hear about that? Yeah, its all true! Its not because its so fatty I always feel green afterwards, its for THAT reason I don't eat it!

You see, Starbucks doesn't sell coffee, they sell coffee flavoured floor sweepings, and all those pesky truth in advertising laws would have meant a drastic logo change anyway, so they may as well disguise their products true origins as well as save themselves the hassle of adding all those extra words to the logo which is already big enough. I mean, only a Venti cup could fit a real description in the logo rather than just Starbucks Coffee.

Con Clus Ions

I dunno, on the one hand I'm pleased they're retaining the main part of the logo, but call me a cranky old man who drinks terrible coffee or any other insult you care to throw at me, but I like the current one better. And to prove it, I'm having a drink from their branch in Wynyard now as I speak. Or type, or whatever this is. Near the station of the same name.

Hey, at least they're not pulling an Adelaide in Sydney :O.

I got quite a rude shock recently to discover the archive page wasn't working! if you've been using WordPress for a long time and suddenly a custom page of yours is rendering blank, maybe this might come in handy.

Explanation sounds like an expired "planation"

When I first started using WordPress in 2005 I created a custom page template for the archive page, because I didn't like the way WordPress didn't (and still doesn't!) have a basic index feature.

The problem is, you can't call the WordPress API within a regular post or page because WordPress (for good reason) sanitises any code. The workaround is to create a custom page template in your theme that displays what you want, then selecting it from the "template" drop down box for the page you want to change in the WP admin interface.

For example, I had nicearchive.php in my theme folder which called the code to render the list of posts. It was called Nice Archive List, and I had it selected as a template for my Archive page which was otherwise blank.

I remember doing this for my archive page five years ago, but I'd noticed starting around WordPress 2.x that the template drop down menu didn't reference anything for the archive page. I didn't really care, because it still worked. Somehow!

Smite and solution to being smite-ed

Maybe it was the latest WordPress update that did it, but suddenly the archive page stopped working and instead rendered a blank, generic page. Obviously the voodoo association between page and the custom page template file was finally severed.

Going into the custom template file for that page I noticed it didn't have any template header code at all.

<?php /*
Template Name: Nice Archive List
*/ ?>

After adding this to the page template file, I was able to go to the archive page in the WP admin screen and choose the template from the template drop down box. Now the page renders properly again.

This raises several questions! First, how did the template work before without those necessary lines? Did older versions of WordPress handle page templates differently? Did the animators of K-On expect otaku to obsess over Mugi's eyebrows to the extent they did, or did it catch them off guard? If so, they're smart for using it as a plot device later XD. I haven't got around to reading the manga.Mi

Sitting here on this overcast and freezing summer [sic] afternoon in Sydney, a song came on random on my Exaile playlist. While that wasn't an unusual occurrence by any stretch of the imagination, the eerie song that played reminded me of two Sch* characters, and one of them wasn't even me.

Integral

If you’ve done nothing wrong,
You’ve got nothing to fear;
If you’ve something to hide,
You shouldn’t even be here;
You’ve had your chance,
Now we’ve got the mandate;
If you’ve changed your mind,
I’m afraid it’s too late;
We’re concerned,
You’re a threat;
You’re not integral,
To the project.

Initially I thought of what Eric Schmidt said in 2006 with regards to our privacy, and what Bruce Schnieir said so beautifully in response, but hearing it back again it sounds a lot like Facebook. Or 1984, same diff. I don't use Gmail any more.

Money money money… no wait, that’s ABBA

Ironically, Facebook also just allegedly got a huge investment from Goldman Sachs, one of the numerous banking firms owned by the American taxpayer. No wait, bailed out by the American taxpayer.

Appreciate that for a second: the America taxpayer is funding Facebook. I suppose that's better than using all the money gleaned from the middle class to pay ludicrously high bonuses to executives who pulled off one of the most high profile heists in history. Compared to them, those Facebook guys are kittens. Nah, kittens still have claws. Do they?

I predict Goldman Sachs will come to appreciate their huge investment and returns on said as much as Newscorp did on their MySpace acquisition. Wait sorry, their "My_____ " acquisition, or however else you're supposed to render their new logo in Unicode glory. Glad to see big banks being more responsible ;).

Of course the irony hasn't been lost on me that I'm poking fun at a logo when I myself have a terrible one, but I don't have millions of dollars. Well, technically I do, but I'm not supposed to tell anyone about it otherwise the tax guys will come knocking asking why I haven't paid anything on it, and more importantly how many illegal things I did to get it. Hey, international waters aren't bound by the Berne Convention! Wait, are they?

You know what, you didn't read any of this. Except that Pet Shop Boys song, they're awesome. And I'm not ashamed to admit that. Yes, I took that photo above from when they went to Singapore in 2007.

Playing Baker Street on a loop. One of my favourite songs of all time, heard it since before I started school. Great lyrics. Even went to Baker Street when we were in London. RIP.

So I made the mistake this evening of clicking on a link someone sent me to the Sydney Morning Herald website. Hey look, 0% interest on credit cards!

Credit cards are thicker than business cards

Under the heading of Compare and Save in the footer area of most articles on the SMH website, there's a heading encouraging us to check out 0% interest payments as a solution to our Christmas woes. There are so many things wrong with that, but I'll leave the other ethical and philosophical discussions to other fine weblog author folks ;).

Balance transfers
Recover from Christmas with credit – 0%!
Compare all Credit Cards

Upon clicking said link you're presented with a page at SMH Money that includes a series of credit cards based on their balance transfers. Sure enough, as advertised there is a credit card advertised by The World's Local Bank that carries a 0% balance transfer rate.

Damn these guys are good!

Well, it almost carries a 0% balance transfer rate. Turns out its only good for six months, which the initial advertisement didn't mention, not even with one of those dodgy asterisks followed by footer print that's barely readable or in a language non-financial folk can understand.

But it gets better! After that six month period, the interest skyrockets to a whopping 21.99%, which is higher than any of the other cards on the SMH site. Also higher than all but one of the cards is its general interest rate of 17%. Owies.

I wrote a long-winded post about Citibank's dodgy late night advertising on balance transfers back in 2008 (Misleading late night Citibank commercials). Suffice to say, I consider it a form of predatory lending. All that enticing, low rate, limited time balance transfer rates do is lock people into even higher rates of interest in the future.

If I could say it with a straight face…

… I'd say it's below the Sydney Morning Herald's standards of journalistic integrity to place such false advertising on their pages. Journalistic integrity, you know, that stuff they and their colleagues at other print publications are always accusing us online interweb folks of not having! I guess I'm not pretending to be a journalist with such ethics here, I'm just a developer who rambles on incessantly about things he thinks he knows or that he has an opinion on. Like how pouring custard on a grilled cheese sandwich is an interesting if thoroughly disgusting idea.

I haven't lived back in Australia to know the finer points of the law here regarding false and/or misleading advertising, and I suspect I've only pointed out one of a litany of examples you've all seen on a regular basis and got used to, but it still kinda pisses me off. Banks suck, and media companies that promote them are willing accessories to misleading the public.

One of my New Year resolutions was to do more with people's feedback here, so here I go making good on that promise! I got an email this morning from a reader wanting to know how to mount floppy disk images in VirtualBox virtual machines.

Le steps

VirtualBox has support for floppy disk images, but unlike optical and hard drives its associated controller isn't enabled in new VMs by default. Fortunately, that's easy enough to fix.

1. From the VirtualBox GUI, choose the VM you want to modify and hit Settings
2. Choose the Storage tab
3. Under the Storage Tree, click the second icon with a green plus and choose
   "Add Floppy Controller"

Now when you start that VM, there will be a floppy disk icon in the status bar which you can right click and mount floppy disk images with, without all those horrible noises and slow speeds of REAL floppy disks! Its magic, I tell you ^___^.

In the default open dialog box it will only let you choose standard RAW/img files, but I've been able to also use vfd files without problems.