Rubenerd

Greenthings and salmonations,

If you've been redirected to this blog post expecting to find the Rubenerd Forum, I decided to close it because it seemed to be just a magnet for spambots alas. Now that the Rubenerd Show and Blog are hosted here on software that support comments, you can leave feedback on the individual shows themselves which I reckon makes more sense anyway.

If you'd like to take a trip down memory lane, you can download a completely self contained archive of the forum I downloaded with HTTrack before taking it offline.
Windows is the only major OS that doesn't support bzip2 out of the box, but 7zip can make light work of it, and it's free.

(Update 2009: The file no longer exists. I should probably host it again at some point).

Thank you so much for your support! Peace, health and happiness,
Ruben

For an introverted guy, I could think of plenty of worse places to work than the deck of an German ICE train, or any other HST. Looks comfy. For what it's worth I did put in many hours of Train Simulator years ago. Thank heavens I'm not a loser… right?

Tim O'Reilly and Richard Stallman, by RedMonk. Great picture!

Personally I don't think either term is ideal. Despite the Free Software Foundation repeatedly telling us "Free Software" refers to liberty and freedom not price, I doubt the typical English use of the word will ever change. "Open Source" as advocated by the Open Source Initiative also isn't ideal given it simply describes the ability of users to view code without mentioning how such code could be used.

I avoid confusion and this debate like many others by simply calling it free and open source software. I do admit I love both movements and value their importance, but frankly we all need to stop this infighting and come up with an all encompassing term.

I guess though one could say one of the points of FLOSS is the ability to fork or create new software when other solutions are licenced too restrictively or don't serve their purpose well, and that this includes terms as well. Who's to say even if we did come up with a term we all agreed upon that we'd agree on it in perpetually?

I'm off to connect to my FreeBSD machine through OpenSSH on my Arch Linux sub-notebook, this argument is making my head hurt!

This article from the BBC makes a valid point, many export driven economies in Asia shouldn't expect to develop further by relying on this model indefinitely, at some point domestic demand needs to pick up.

What bothers me about this article and with so many economists and analysts in general though is the assumption that GDP growth automatically equals less poverty. It doesn't. Economic growth measured by GDP per capita is not the be all, end all solution to lowering income inequality and raising average standards of living, and it never has been.

Every country (and in many cases different regions of the same country) has different circumstances and the same economic policies for one won't solve the issues of another. But only attempting to address GDP growth on paper (many provinces of China are infamous for inflating their growth figures) for any of them won't address the specific issue of poverty.

Clipmarked from BBC News:

Asian governments must cut reliance on export-driven growth and spend more to cut poverty, Asian Development Bank (ADB) finance officials have said.

Countries must restructure to focus on domestic demand as they grapple with economic chaos, the banks’ annual meeting in Indonesia was told.

The downturn is set to keep tens of millions of people trapped in poverty.

“Already there are signs that domestic consumption is remaining strong in Asia and may well lead the way out of this downturn.”

The ADB is predicting growth of 3.4% in Asia for 2009 compared with more than 9% in 2007.

As you might remember a few months ago I switched from FreeBSD to Arch Linux on my 2002-era Compaq Armada M300 sub-notebook which I use for downloading torrents and as a coffee shop computer. Since then I might have figured out how to get my wireless card working on FreeBSD after all, but that's for another post.

One thing I have really noticed using the GNU Project's userland tools on Linux instead of FreeBSD's userland tools on FreeBSD is while the GNU tools generally have more features, the difference in the quality of the bundled documentation, specifically manual pages (Wikipedia) is huge. There's absolutely no comparison, FreeBSD's manual pages are more comprehensive, complete and better written.

As a FreeBSD user who has been spoilt silly and has come to expect this level of documentation, to use GNU/Linux has been somewhat of a shock. Often manual pages for the GNU userland tools contain a blunt dictionary style description of what the tool does, followed by a skeleton explanation of each of the options and a reference to a URL.

For example, check out the first screen of the manual page for the ls command for Linux and FreeBSD respectively, before the options are presented. Given Mac OS X's BSD underpinnings the man page for ls is the same too.

GNU/Linux

NAME
ls – list directory contents

SYNOPSIS
ls [OPTION]…. [FILE]…

DESCRIPTION
List information about the FILEs (the current directory by default). Sort entries alphabetically if one of the -cftuvSUX nor –sort.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

FreeBSD (and Mac OS X)

NAME
ls — list directory contents

SYNOPSIS
ls [-ABCFGHLPRSTW@abcdefghiklmnopqrstuwx1] [file …]

DESCRIPTION
For each operand that names a file of a type other than directory, ls displays its name as well as any requested, associated information. For each operand that names a file of type directory, ls displays the names of files contained within that directory, as well as any requested, associated information.

If no operands are given, the contents of the current directory are displayed. If more than one operand is given, non-directory operands are displayed first; directory and non-directory operands are sorted separately and in lexicographical order.

The following options are available:

What I've since learned is the GNU project eschews manual pages for Texinfo pages which you access with a separate command. According to the Wikipedia page on the subject, Texinfo pages are designed as tutorials as well as general references, meaning they're more like books and less like traditional help files.

While I understand the merits of this approach, I still think this shunning of manpages or the lowering of their development priority is a bit short sighted. Even if the benefits of Texinfo pages are real, I don't see why one should be developed at the expense of the other.

I guess to be fair, this is something I'd get used to eventually if I switched to GNU/Linux as my primary OS.

I've been doing far too many of these LivingSocial lists, I fear I may be fuelling an addiction for which I will soon develop such a dependency that I'll start dreaming about lists to create. Oh, too late, I have been.

This list piqued my interest given it deals with negatives rather than positives: Five things that terrify me! I'd say they're mostly in order this time:

1. Windows Vista
2. An Empty Coffee Cup (almost went with Cold Coffee)
3. Lighting Stoves (manually lighting gas flames… argh!)
4. Religion (they didn’t have Abrahamic specifically, bummer)
5. Did you get me my Cheese Whiz Boy?

It's a fresh new May month already, isn't that crazy? We're almost half way through 2009! Get it? She's Mai… from Mai HiME! Get it? Get it? Hey, I thought it was funny. Get it?

Yes I know this is a shameless reproduction of I post I wrote exactly one year ago to this day. It's called recycling folks, last time I checked everyone thinks that's a good idea… right? Or am I getting that confused with "reusing"?

Come to think of it, what's the difference between "reuse" and "recycle" anyway? Is one using something again in the same condition and the other deals with re-manufacturing something from existing materials? If that's the case, why not call it "reremanufacture"? Rolls off the tongue much easier doesn't it? Does it?

I'll stop now.

Oh come on, eight lessons? Now we're just getting silly people. Welcome to your eighth grilled cheese sandwich observation lesson. As usual, feel free to take notes.

As far as I know this is not a grilled cheese sandwich, and quite frankly it concerns me that you think it is. Please seek counselling.

ASIDE: I have been advised by my solicitors to disclose that while this information has been deemed accurate by most gastronomes, it should not be taken as sound legal advice when attempting to identify grilled cheese sandwiches in criminal and civil cases. If you do attempt to use such advice in legal proceedings, as far as you know this series of posts was created by Neal O’Carroll and not me. Thank you ever so much.

Previous lessons

• Lesson seven on 2009.04.05
• Lesson six on 2009.03.27
• Lesson five on 2008.12.07
• Lesson four on 2008.11.14
• Lesson three on 2008.11.04
• Lesson two on 2008.08.21
• Lesson one on 2008.08.12

One of the great things about living in Adelaide from a lifestyle point of view compared to most other Aussie cities is it's relatively small and urban sprawl hasn't taken hold to the extent it has in Sydney and Melbourne for example. What this means is any trip via the CBD is easy to plan, especially on public transport. It also helps that the Adelaide Metro has unified timetables and signage for trains, trams, buses and jaffles, a huge relief if you're from Melbourne where each bus company does their own thing!

Despite being smaller though, Adelaide's public transport system is still far too complex in my opinion. Back in Singapore you can pick up a TransitLink guide book which is slightly larger than a stack of playing cards and in it each bus route is clearly defined with fare stops and frequency that don't change. In Adelaide each set of bus routes has it's own foldout broadsheet guide with a dizzying array of tables containing detailed times, stops and exceptions, all of which change depending on the time of day, what day it is, whether there's a full moon and so on. If you rely on puplic transport you rapidly accumulate these foldout broadsheet things, and nine times out of ten the information is inaccurate anyway!

Adelaide has just over 1 million people, Singapore has over 4.5 million, yet if you were to look at their public transport information you'd swear it was the other way around!

Traffic and trams on North Terrace in Adelaide by Bill Drury

As more people become aware of the impact they're having on the planet or just don't want to have to deal with the costs and hassle of owning cars, an efficient and predictable public transport system becomes even more important. I see all this needless complexity and shake my head because I see the potential for the government to spend the same amount of money but provide better service. If it were simpler, more people would use it.

This afternoon my sister and I went to the HarbourTown shopping centre at Westbeach which meant we had to take the 132 from the city. We waited in line at the bus stop and caught it, only to be told halfway the service stopped there because it was the 132B. Sure enough when I figured out how to unfold the huge guide for the 13X buses, ONLY at the time we boarded was the scheduled bus the 132B. Then after a certain time and after a certain part of the way along the route the number changes to something else entirely! I took responsibility for not reading the bus number properly and received deserved head smacks from my sister, but it still begs the question why different bus numbers are needed at different times and why some have to have letters after them. Sheesh!

Wait, the bus stops here?! Ah crap!

I'd still feel guilty owning a car at this point because I can live without one and the last thing the world needs is another single guy in a rich country burning petrol because they're too lazy to walk or research public transport, but experiences like this do really test my patience!

I've been typing this at a coffee shop on my iTelephone, but now it's time for us to leave. I hope we don't accidentally board the bus which despite it's number goes to The Ocean because between 18:00 and 18:15 it travels west not east.

Photo of the Swedish Riksdag by User:BillC on Wikipedia

I'd just like to take this opportunity here on my humble blog to congratulate the Government of the Kingdom of Sweden for overwhelmingly passing a resolution allowing same sex marriage! This is a huge step forward for LGBT rights and yet another sign that Sweden and her people get their progressive and forward thinking reputation for a reason. Their government even has an official human rights website.

Sweden now joins the ranks of other enlightened countries such as The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa and Norway, as well as the US states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa and Vermont.

Flags of the European Union and Sweden, from the Swedish EU Presidency site

On a somewhat related note, Sweden's government website is also the best designed government site I've seen! ^_^