Rubenerd

In protest over the fact some vocal Wikipedians don't like links to Whole Wheat Radio, I will be linking to it with every mention in the following post.

Below is my response to the rapidly unfolding saga that is Whole Wheat Radio on Wikipedia. In a nutshell, a few vocal users on Wikipedia are claiming that linking to the non-commercial and collaborative Whole Wheat Radio website on independent artists' pages is not appropriate, despite their acceptance of the fully commercial, advertisement-laden MySpace.

Not that it will make any difference, I'm pretty sure they've made up their minds.

I think it’s a perfect example of cognitive dissonance that a link to the commercial MySpace website is somehow deemed appropriate when Whole Wheat Radio isn’t. I love Wikipedia and use it everyday but I fear this continued dismissal sets a dangerous precedent. Using the “spam” defense is also very telling. Let it be known that some Wikipedians feel commercial sites are more important and noteworthy than collaborative, non commercial sites. It’s not hypocrisy per se, but you can definitely see it creeping up.

For what it’s worth, Danny Schmidt is also an extremely talented singer/songwriter who also happens to value independent distribution not commercial. As I’ve said above, I worry that we again are using “commercial” success as an indication of notability.

–rubenerd (talk) 10:02, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Did you notice that? I linked to Whole Wheat Radio! The sky is falling!

The Holden Commodore Omega, photo by User:OSX. Can we afford to have everyone driving such huge cars?

I know I only wrote about this issue last week (Reduced profits of auto companies a good thing?) but the headlines keep cropping up in Google Reader and I have to expand on my ideas again.

Today's two articles are about General Motors and their failing bottom line: to put it bluntly they're simply struggling with sharply reduced demand. Adelaide Now lets us know that Holden (GM's Australian subsidiary) is cutting back production again. Time magazine asks whether or not General Motors is worth saving.

As with other car companies, General Motors has a disproportionally greater responsibility over other companies to help us in our global effort to protect our environment, and so far their [lack of] fulfillment of their environmental obligations has been laughable. Due to a loophole in American law which does not impose more stringent fuel efficiency standards on light trucks and SUVs because they're not "cars", the Big Three fell asleep behind their corporate wheels and didn't do anything while companies like Honda and Toyota have worked to improve efficiency and create hybrid technologies. They are certainly a long way from being perfect, but at least they're driving in the right direction.

The German InterCityExpress (ICE) by Sebastian Terfloth

I think General Motors should be given financial assistance, but only on the proviso that they wake up and starting taking the environment seriously: such funding should go towards developing more fuel efficient cars and researching alternative fuels, NOT towards restyling the bodywork on their current petrol-guzzlers for a new year range. They should also be supervised, and be encouraged to take seriously some brilliant, practical and unconventional ideas.

Such funding however should also be complimented by much larger government funding grants for the serious construction of public transport; this doesn't just apply to the United States. And I mean serious. Our planet cannot afford any more cars. It couldn't afford any more cars 20 years ago.

Only with a concerted and long term plan to improve public transport systems around the world will we see any change. We need to fundamentally rethink the way we get around this planet.

Two of the big Aussie banks on an appropriately overcast Adelaide morning, by Dodge 76

Is it just me or does anyone else long for the days when we were just experiencing a "credit crunch" and banks around the world were figuring out how to work around it because they didn't think at the time that they'd be getting a trillion dollar free lunch to make up for their incompetence?

Here in Australia our banks are in good shape, out of the top ten most profitable banks around the world four are Australian and the world's most "sustainable" bank is Westpac. Still even our government here has now created a guarantee for all deposits in banks, credit unions, building societies and other such financial institutions. I'm with a credit union and trust their operation, but I can't help but think the promise that they can't fail might cause our banks here to become a tad cocky and lax. I mean, what's the point of maintaining fiscal prudence and good judgement if you know that the government will bail you out anyway? Reputation will be damaged? Ha!

I went with a credit union in Australia simply because they treat you like a human. The branch of the Australian Central Credit Union (the largest credit union in the state of South Australia… oh you'd better believe it!) I opened my account at has squishy sofa chairs next to low tables which you sit at when meeting a teller; and there are almost never any queues at all, and if there is it's never more than two or three people. Compare that to the banks I've had experience with here where four out of the five teller booths are often closed and the lines extend out the door, down the street and into idling buses and trams which can't leave because there's a line of queued people across the road… I forgot where I was going with this.

Photo of a now vacated DBS branch on Orchard Road, next to Wheelock Place. From my Singapore night Flickr gallery.

Then there was the case of DBS (the Development Bank of Singapore) which owns POSB (the Post Office Savings Bank) which I've had an account with since I was 12. Fun story, I'll have to talk about it here at some point. Anyway, DBS branches in Singapore are generally staffed with friendly people but the queues have only been increasing because they keep closing branches. When they closed their branch next to Wheelock Place where the Borders is, an Apple shop is and where it's next to a Starbucks, at just down the road from where our apartment building is, I thought the world was coming to an end. Perhaps I should read some Fun Facts from my Late Show Fun Facts book from the American Federal Bureau of Miscellaneous Information to cheer me up.

DAVID LETTERMAN LATE SHOW FUN FACT: Did you know that Apple has spent over $200 million developing a wooden iPod for the Amish?

My point is, why have credit unions figured out how to work with customers while banks haven't? Is it as soon as you have shareholders you have to start thinking about them instead of your customers? As usual I think I just answered my own question.

I've been ordering a lot of items off the intertubes over the last month: a Moleskine book, a university textbook I was able to get at half price compared to the book shop here, Girls for Dummies (is there such a thing?), but all these pale in comparison to the shipment I received today from Amazon.com which included a book for my sister and my very own copy of Late Show Fun Facts!

Now dear reader you may be asking yourself why someone like me would spend over twenty dollars in shipping for two hard cover books, and the answer may shock you. Unfortunately as far as I know, books by David Letterman are unavailable at bookshops in Australia. I tried the Borders in Rundle Mall, Angus and Robertson, Dymocks, the Pancake House on Hindley Street, nothing!

The brach of the American Borders book chain and the gigantic Japanese Kinokuniya in Takashimaya in Singapore claimed the book was available, but was perennially out of stock. Interesting considering the Late Show with David Letterman isn't shown on any free-to-air or cable TV station in Singapore! My theory is so many people from Singapore (I guess I could count myself in here too) study in Australia and the US where Dave is shown every late night when university students would be up, he's developed a cult following. There's a Fun Fact for you right there!

Screenshot of the Late Show from my TV tuner running in the background at 1/2 size. A little Letterman :)

The Late Show with David Letterman previously aired on Channel Nine here in Australia but he was generally axed from the late night lineup whenever there was a show they had to run long, or if there was a special on something else. Not only that, but the episodes tended to be played completely out of order, and generally weeks out of date. Since Network Ten picked it up, they run the latest episode from the US which aired the previous night (given the timezone difference) at 23:15.

Now if only Aussie bookstores started stocking Dave's works, and if Network Ten didn't play advertisements at all so we could hear Paul Schaffer and his fabulous CBS orchestra I'd be an even happier guy!

In the meantime I'll be carrying my copy of Fun Facts from the American Federal Bureau of Miscellaneous Information everywhere and will be reading them to everyone. And I mean everyone. Except maybe the train and bus drivers, they probably shouldn't be distracted. I mean, I know they'd be fascinated to know that only six people live in Wyoming, or that the smallest bunch of bananas ever recorded was one banana, but I also value my life. And my copy of Fun Facts.

Procurement of said book

If you live in Australia or another part of Asia your best bet to get a copy of Fun Facts is from the Japanese Amazon website because the shipping is a fraction of the price… of course I only found that out AFTER I bought mine from the American Amazon site. Fun Fact! If you're in the UK they also stock it.

And of course don't forget: Edison was not only the inventor of the lightbulb, but he was also the first person to change a lightbulb! You read it here first! Unless you have a copy of David Letterman's Late Show Fun Facts.

That of course is my fabulously ridiculous father in Singapore. :-)

Photo from my Mawson Lakes Flickr gallery

I find it ironic that the more I am interested in a subject or am personally moved by something, it's actually harder to write about because I just don't know where to begin. This post is a prime example of this; here we are two sentences in and I haven't addressed any of the things I wanted to say. This third sentence is even less useful.

The problem is, particularly in the last few years (and definitely since December of last year) on the whole I've been pretty blue. My mood equilibrium — to abuse an economic term — seems to have settled far lower on the life-happiness chart than where I would like it to. Unfortunately unlike economics I can't adjust said equilibrium by adjusting my own monetary and fiscal policy, I can just make ridiculous comparisons :).

Over this weekend though I seemed to have rediscovered the solution to feeling better about yourself, and about the world. Doing what you're passionate about, and to hell with whatever anyone else thinks.

My own solution? Programming! By turning off the internet connection, turning off my mobile phone, setting my laptop up in the kitchen where my sister also studies, and just… programming. In this case I could have worked on improving my C++ or PHP skills, but instead I continued my own project on studying Squeak (a modern, sleek Smalltalk implementation) and the Smalltalk influenced Objective C and Ruby languages. I'm fascinated by how these languages are structured and how they work, along with the theory behind their implementations. They're such a pleasure to write code in. As the WordPress page said at one point: Code is poetry.

My other solution? Podcasting! I recorded Rubenerd Show 256 recently, and I spent probably half of it laughing! I didn't care that I didn't stay on topic, or that I was nowhere near as good or interesting as Todd Tyrtle or Jim Kloss or Frank Nora… I just recorded it and had lots of fun!

My third solution? Cue the groans! I watched another cheesy anime series! Yes, I admit it, I like watching anime where the socially-awkward but nice guy gets the girl in the end instead of the socially-confident but not nice guy, and if it's set in a futuristic world so much the better. Personally, I wouldn't say I'm socially-awkward, but this morning I opened a door for a women as I walked into the supermarket and she glared at me. And she hasn't been the first to react in this way! I don't understand what I'm doing wrong, but there you have it!

My fourth solution? Nature photography… ah yes, you'd better believe it!

I guess sometimes I worry that my interests are so self-sustaining and largely introverted in nature, and that one of my best and closest friends in the world is gone. Sometimes I think we all just need a reminder that we should take time out occasionally and do something we're really good at. I know some of you might have had an impure thought after reading that sentence, to which I say…

Sent from my iPhone.

For those of us who were disappointed that the Electronic Frontiers Australia chairman Dale Clapperton's recent breakfast television appearance was valuable but too short, yesterday he appeared on The Spoonman on Triple M and was able to go into much more detail and discuss the real dangers of the federal government's plan to filter and censor the internet, especially poignant given our recent salute to those who died protecting freedoms on Remembrance Day.

Candidly, we really need someone like Dale in charge of communications and the internet in this country and not Senator Conroy.

There's an audio link to the show on the latest post of the No Internet Censorship for Australia blog. The transcript of part one of the show with Dale Clapperton is available from Hoyden About Town.

I got quite a shock this afternoon when going through my server records. For the month of October 2008 I was getting hundreds of hits from Elgato.com, but I couldn't figure out why. As it turns out, my review of the Elgato EyeTV digital TV tuner stick was featured on Elgato's Media Coverage page alongside the likes of the The Age (an Australian newspaper), MacLife, MacWorld and PC Magazine!

This could be the highest profile mention of my blog and logo since I linked to it myself (ahem) on Whole Wheat Radio. This has made my weekend :-)

Welcome to your forth grilled cheese sandwich observation lesson. If you missed our first lesson, second lesson or third lesson, feel free to refer back to them before proceeding. And 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 counseling.

Photo by from Voyager 2 on 1989.08.24, from Wikimedia Commons

In light of Barack Obama's historic presidential election victory, it's easy to forget other elections have been going on around the world recently, such as in New Zealand. Given my interest in Whole Wheat Radio, the fact I bumped into a couple of people from Alaska in one particular coffee shop in Singapore quite regularly, the fact my dad is interested in Canada next door (thought I'd throw that in), and the fact our neighbours across the street in our rented house in Australia are from Alaska, I've also been watching the Alaskan State Senate elections. Whew, that was a long sentence.

I don't pretend to know the details and inner workings of Alaskan politics, but I know enough about incumbent (or should I say "incompetent") Ted Stevens to know that if he was reelected it would be a crying shame. According to Wikipedia, if he did win he would also be the first convicted felon to be elected to the United States senate.

According to Republican pollster David Dittman in a Huffington Post article (can we trust him?), it looks as though Democrat Mark Begich will take the senate seat:

Alaska-based GOP pollster David Dittman, who worked for Sen. Ted Stevens during this year’s primary race, believes Democratic challenger Mark Begich is all but certain to expand his current razor-thin lead and snatch the seat.

"I don’t think Stevens can come back," Dittman said, noting that he thinks the remaining trove of uncounted ballots will help Begich “increase his lead."

After trying to find other sources of information on this from sites ranging from Swamp Politics to Mark Crispin Miller’s News From Underground, they all seem to be pointing to one Alaskan Daily News article:

Begich takes lead in latest vote count
SENATE RACE: Anchorage mayor swings from 3,000-vote deficit to 814-vote advantage.
By SEAN COCKERHAM and KYLE HOPKINS
(08/11/13 01:20:41)

Mark Begich made a dramatic comeback Wednesday to overtake 40-year incumbent Ted Stevens for the lead in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race.

Begich, who was losing after election night, now leads Stevens by 814 votes — 132,196 to 131,382 — with the state still to count roughly 40,000 more ballots over the next week.

The state Division of Elections tallied about 60,000 absentee, early and questioned ballots from around the state on Wednesday. The ballots broke heavily in the Democrat’s favor, erasing the 3,000-vote lead the Republican Stevens held after election night Nov. 4.

Here's hoping Alaska makes the right choice, just as the United States on the whole did last week. I'm being pessimistic in advance again, but I'd love to have that overturned.