Rubenerd

I haven't posted about Twitter here for over a day, so I feel as though I'm obligated to again. It's certainly not as ground breaking as what Twitter is currently being used for to give people in Iran a voice worldwide, but it's up there. Well okay, it really isn't.

A couple of weeks ago while going through my email I was notified that @Womanwithbite was following me on Twitter. I noticed she was from Adelaide and I loved her username so I reciprocated! I figured I follow a ton of people worldwide but not that many people locally.

In hindsight I wish I hadn't. After a few days of reading rude messages to politicians and helping to let them know that Twitter people can't be relied upon for reasoned discussion, I gave up and unfollowed her. Well okay and she was also saying a lot of silly things and I'm allergic to people who distort facts! For those not well versed in Aussie politics, the Liberal Party is the broadly conservative party.

Unfollowing @Womanwithbite. All I get from her is poorly worded [whinging], swearing and Liberal Party propaganda. Moving on.

1:36 PM Jun 14th from TweetDeck

Granted I guess I could have been a bit more civil myself (and spelling whinging correctly would have also helped!), but I like to think my response to her tweets was better than her reply:

@Rubenerd Unfollowing this clown,Rubenerd. He has,without a doubt,the most boring,inane tweets of anyone I follow. Vacuuming? Care factor- 0

2:59 PM Jun 14th from web in reply to Rubenerd

I had to hand it to her, at least she did reply! I was hoping for something better though.

I give @WomanwithBite’s rebuttal a 2/5. Was hilarious, but too predictable and lacking the bite her username implies. And I’m dusting now :)

3:06 PM Jun 14th from TweetDeck

What blew me away though was all the support I got from a whole heap of people who responded. Frank Nora (@rampler) from The Rampler and a very close friend tweeted my favourite ones!

@Rubenerd wow, she doesn’t like vacuuming tweets? she’s no fun!!

3:09 PM Jun 14th from web in reply to Rubenerd

@WomanwithBite I hear you are a fan of vacuuming. here is a recording of me vacuuming my living room, hope you enjoy it http://is.gd/11Gj1

3:38 PM Jun 14th from web in reply to WomanwithBite

And MannyTheMailman (@mtmm), one of the friendliest people on Twitter asked a good question!

@Rubenerd What circus do you preform with. (-: As per @Womanwithbite s tweet.

3:23 PM Jun 14th from web

Whichever circus it is, they don't pay me enough :)

What I find interesting is that despite using Twitter since the beginning of 2007, I've only had flareups like this a couple of times. The discourse and conversations are still far more civilised than on CNET News.com!

I've been in such a mad rush doing things since coming back to Singapore I haven't really blogged about it or talked about it here. I will attempt to correct this.

If you don't know the history, I was born in Australia and am an Australian citizen but grew up and spent most of my school years in Singapore. I'm now studying in Adelaide but I return to Singapore during the longer study breaks because I consider it home… I think!

Singapore and Adelaide are both fantastic places to live, but they couldn't be more different. Well okay compared to say, Addis Abbaba they are very much alike, but now we're just being pedantic. Pedantic sounds like a luxury brand of grilled cheese sandwich irons.

For one, Adelaide is much more laid back. I'm sitting here typing on my Armada M300 at the Starbucks at the Orchard Parade Hotel in Singapore and it's 22:30, and they'll be open for a while yet! Orchard Road is full of people at this time of night, there are cars everywhere, all the shops are still open. In fact I think there are more people down here just before midnight than there are people here during the day!

Then there are the differences in the cities themselves. Most of Singapore is huge high-rise buildings that are in a state of flux, being torn down when they're 20 years old to be replaced with even taller things. Adelaide is much smaller and has a built up CBD that almost never changes with many beautiful old buildings, along with a fairly restrained suburbia. I love the bustle of Singapore, but Adelaide provides a nice break sometimes :).

What I love though is that I've established enough of a base in both that people recognise me in coffee shops and remember my usual order even if I haven't been there for a few months!

When I fly out of Singapore or Adelaide I feel as though my life there is being paused, and when I land in the other my life is resuming there after a several month long pause. It's like suspended animation.

Despite life sending my family and I plenty of sour lemons over the years, I'm extraordinarily lucky to live this lifestyle. I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Links shared from del.icio.us today:

ZFS Delegated Administration :

(categories: zfs mac filesystems blog)

My Geek Project » ZFS

(categories: zfs mac filesystems blog)

AlBlue's Weblog: zfs

(categories: zfs mac filesystems blog)

what consumes me, bud caddell » how to be happy in business – venn diagram

(categories: funny true business life design)

ZFS – MacOS Forge

(categories: filesystems zfs mac macports)

I know there are a lot of people who hate Twitter with such a rabid passion I'm surprised I'm not seeing more people wearing those "Twitter Fail" shirts. For every site that talks about positive uses for Twitter there are at least half a dozen discussing how useless or nonsensical it is, or how they don't "get it". For people complaining at what they perceive as the embracement of mediocrity, such excessive negative coverage is also quite… mediocre. If you don't get it, don't use it, it's very simple!

But we're getting sidetracked. I've been really thankful for Twitter over the last few days for following the current turmoil over in Iran. As you can see from the screenshot above, I have TweetDeck configured to show the latest news regarding #IranElection. By putting it on an external monitor plugged into my MacBook Pro it's like having a live wire service on my desk.

If you haven't been following the news, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed victory in the 2009 presidential election despite claims of corruption in the process. Supporters of the primary opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi have been staging protests with violent results. Of course none of this is new, when my father visited Iran back in 2003 he said the water was already starting to bubble, but the situation is reaching critical.

What's surprising though I've been told is how comparatively little the mainstream media is covering these events compared to services such as Twitter. We have BBC World and CNN International on cable here in Singapore which we rarely watch but their coverage is spotty at best. Stories such as these on CNET are even suggesting the domestic American CNN is barely covering the events at all:

Twitterverse slams CNN’s Iran absence
The network that became famous by having reporters on the ground as bombs fell on Baghdad in 1991 missed the boat on the Iranian riots, and Twitter users noticed.
(Posted in Webware by Daniel Terdiman)

I've been following @ChangeforIran who @ev has confirmed is reporting from Iran. The #IranElection, khamenei and #CNNFail hashtags and terms are also worth watching.

On my first day back in Singapore I went with my dad to catch the final day of the PC Show 2009 at Suntec. According to this article by ChannelNewsAsia over 1 million people went to the event over the four days it was run. Battling the ridiculous crowds I can believe it!

Of all the three floors we only made it through the first one, but I was able to pick up another external 1TB FireWire 400 drive for SG$124. I have an identical drive and would love to get a RAID setup with ZFS on both.

What I didn't expect to get though was a tough external hard drive carrying case for SG$45. It has a tough outside shell which protects the fragile spinning whatnot inside from sudden impacts and a second compartment for all the required power and data cables. I have far too much data I need to constantly fly between Adelaide and Singapore with on several large drives so this bag is perfect!

Reposted from OliYoung on Twitter.

I preface this by saying I cannot possibly begin relate to nor understand the stress new parents are under, and I also relay my understanding that children may need specialised medical care in different places.

With those points out of the way, having spent the better part of my day in an enclosed space for six hours with four constanty screaming infants I pose the question: who would take their infants on a long haul flight? Perhaps I'm missing something, but to me it seems a bit selfish. The cold hard truth is infants do not belong on aeroplanes, just as I don't belong in the play room outside Ikea furniture stores.

There are people like me who are tying to get work done on laptops; there are nervous, highly strung flyers like my sister and there are those trying to sleep on planes. I think I can confidently speak for the jetsetting public that we're all perfectly fine having children sharing the plane with us as long as they are old enough (or quiet enough) not to be disruptive.

As with other social issues I don't think the answer here is to legislate bans on parents taking children of a certain age (or average decible output!) onto long flights, as much as I'm temped to lobby for it! I think instead parents should be responsible and determine for themselves when their children are ready to fly, instead of just assuming a cabin full of people will be accomodating.

I emphasise again my intention here is not to be mean spirited, but people, I fly a lot, and if this uninterrupted streak of flights where I have to tolerate the shrieks, wails, tantrums and screams of infants doesn't end, I might start screaming in the cabin too!

Sincerely,
- Ruben

Links shared from del.icio.us today:

Yellow Corporation.

(categories: adelaide cabs transport)

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei Parody Art « Kitsune’s Thoughts

(categories: anime blogs funny)

Podcast: Play in new window · Download

03:18 – This could very well be the greatest episode of the Rubenerd Show of all time. Even though Into Your Head has a spiffy new layout, it just can't compete with the quality and intelligent discourse of this episode.

Recorded in Adelaide, Australia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. Attribution: Ruben Schade.

What a quaint way to refer to email :-D