Rubenerd

It's an entire new blog post series here on the Rubenerd Blog! Every couple of weeks I'll be posting about two or more songs in my Exaile or iTunes playlists that share the same name. Much like my Fun Facts and Grilled Cheese Sandwich Observation Lessons these are going to be riveting, hard hitting, and as Richard Quest would say: profitable! I can tell you're all quivering with excitement!

Today's inaugural Rubenerd Different Songs With The Same Name is In a Little While by Art Garfunkel in 1979 and Uncle Kracker in 2002. Only slightly different ;-).

I've always really loved that Art Garfunkel cover, my parents had the vinyl and even decorated their kitchen with the same kind of crockery I've been told!

They tell me this is the place to be
All these beautiful people,
And nothing to see!

*cliche record scratch*

In a little while I’ll be on my way!
So hold on baby for just one more day!

Monnie over at Vanilla Silence recently wrote a detailed blog post about her holidays that were otherwise fabulous save for a nasty bout of hayfever, so I decided I should talk about my flu thingy too.

COUGH! SNEEZE! SO HOT! SPLUTTER! COUGH! SO COLD! SNEEZE! BIRD! SNEEZE! WORD!

I was going somewhere with this!

After postponing going to the doctor for several days because doctors scare the heck out of me, I finally went this morning. Turns out what I thought was just hayfever or a common cold was the flu and a respiratory infection. I've got stuff to take for it now and I'm breathing easier already, though I still have to take it easier over the next few days. When I have assignments due and a family crisis, of course!

My mum put up with these symptoms when she was having cancer treatment for over 12 years. 12 F*CKING YEARS. Even now I still don't know how she did it.

So Facebook has made a bunch of changes, presumably as a result of buying out and killing FriendFeed, which has resulted in trillions of users forming a group demanding they change back, which has made headlines in traditional media outlets, and that Facebook management will ignore. People will learn to live with the downgraded site, and will continue to use it because it's where all their friends are, and Facebook management will continue to give out data to third parties to perform data mining without assurances of privacy while cackling "fools!" all the way to the bank.

In other news, grilled cheese sandwiches are best made with bread instead of soggy cardboard, an ejector seat works best when there's an opening in the cockpit roof, and The Bird is The Word!

At this point the only reason I keep my Facebook account open is for people to contact me who still use it. Despite Facebook's envy of the service the two are not broadly equivalent, but most of the people I care about are on Twitter now anyway.

I know you all love my pointless milestone posts, so here's one celebrating a new achievement here on the Rubenerd Blog: the publishing of my 2222nd post! Not only is that number greater than 2221, but the same digit is repeated four times! The next time this will happen is 3333 which is 1111 posts away from now, wonder what it'll be about? What am I talking about, it'll probably be about the fact I reached 3333 posts, which not only would be an achievement because that number is greater than 3332, but the same digit is repeated four times!

The photo of the four 2's above holds some significance beyond merely being a companion image to a pointless blog post because it was taken from a Malaysian Geocities site which will cease to exist by the time I wake up tomorrow morning. It's a crying shame that one of the most prolific and iconic websites of the 1990s ended in this way (The end of an era: no more GeoCities); I still want to know why Yahoo couldn't just freeze current accounts and serve the site as a form of museum instead of wiping it out. I read somewhere a while ago another group of people were mirroring GeoCities but they shouldn't have had to.

As of tomorrow, nobody will be looking at this map of KL anymore either.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

Something to wake you up if you're having trouble doing so, from The Wikipedias this time.

ATM vendors NCR Corporation and Diebold Incorporated have both adopted Microsoft Windows XP as their migration path from OS/2.

Diebold Incorporated initially shipped XP Embedded Edition exclusively, but following extensive pressure from customer banks to support a common OS, switched to XP Professional to match their primary competitor NCR Corporation

Personally I'd rather hear people say ATM Machine and PIN Number a million times each than use one with Windows on it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it doesn't make it any less blood chillingly scary. It's also worrying that banks were complicit in and actually pressured ATM hardware manufacturers to adopt these operating systems; these are the institutions that are responsible for looking after our money.

It also doesn't make much sense, how many solid, reliable and secure embedded OSs are there and they're running a consumer operating system? That's like installing Vista on a car's onboard computer!

Links shared from del.icio.us today:

Desktop Wallpapers · Gallery · Computers · Windows XP Titanic | 1024×768

(categories: funny windows windowsxp desktops wallpapers)

Titanic Model, Belfast City Hall, Belfast, Northern Ireland

Wow, that model is amazing!

(categories: titanic oceanliners models history)

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

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

Much like my friend Frank Nora, I'm a logo nerd, so when news like this appears I pownce on it. Oh great, that failed website has stuffed up my spelling. Big news: The ANZ Bank is in the process of changing their logo.

I first heard about it on Twitter and was directed to an article on the Brisbane Times website (New brand, logo to cost ANZ $15m) which hilariously didn't contain a single image of it! Fortunately a Google Image search showed me what the fuss was about.

I like it when companies refresh their logos while still retaining a certain familiarity and elements from their previous one, and at least this ANZ one keeps the same striped, bold letters. I'm also relieved beyond belief that their new logo widget didn't become another over-designed, complicated, ugly, bubblegum, already dated looking Web 2.0 logos that Aussie companies such as Woolworths have fallen victim to (New Woolies logo looks icky and Web 2.0).

I hesitate to say I like it, but I applaud them for keeping things simple.