Rubenerd

At Bernie Lewis home loans, we’re standing by to help, including Saturdays and Sundays.

Because that’s what being available seven days a week, means to us.

Yes, generally a five day working week plus Saturday and Sunday means seven days to us too. I guess it's just their own way in their advertising of showing that as a real estate finance broker they know their arithmetic. Alienates less people that listing the first three thousand digits of Euler's number.

What I want to know is, do they claim to be open all month, including the first week? Because that's what being open four weeks means to me!

You may recall my decision on Sunday to create a PayPal button on the site here to allow people to buy me a AU$4.00 cup of coffee if they like what I've written here.

The response has been amazing, in less than 24 hours I've had a full work week's cup of coffee bought for me! Ironically while these people would have done that because they like what I write here, in this case I'm completely at a loss for words. It really does restore your faith in humanity :-).

The generous people who have bought me coffee so far:

• Jim Kloss
• Manny the Mailman
• Roel Weijer
• Rainer Schade
• Jerry Novak
• Mary Wallace
• Harvie Krumpet
• Sue Heins
• Peter Dale
• Eddie Murray

Thank you so much everyone! :-)

In a previous post I discussed Apple's new designs for the MacBook and MacBook Pro and how I'm absolutely head over heals in love with the new designs. Despite the obvious advance in their manufacturing process, graphics performance in the Pro and other refinements, their decision to only ship glossy screens has caused a veritable uproar.

If you’re a young women around my age, or a bit older or younger, who society perhaps considers quiet, who enjoys coffee, jazz, anime and/or computers, and who prefers enjoying a glass of wine to bingeing overpriced novelty spirits or beer, don’t think my "love" for these designs is a be-all, end-all situation. :-).

It's my belief though that the removal of the FireWire port entirely from the consumer MacBook machine is even more of a mistake, and could potentially embarrass Apple more than anything else they've ever done.

Firstly we have to put this decision into context. Apple has made no secret of their about-face displeasure with the FireWire 400 port; despite my original iMac, iMac DV and iBook G3 all purchased before 2002 having the ports, the iPod long since stopped support for the port in favour of USB 2.0. This despite the fact FireWire was actually created and marketed by Apple in the first place!

New MacBook homepage from my iPhone this afternoon

We must also remember that Apple has a history of being ahead of the rest of the industry when it comes to shedding legacy ports and components from their computers: the venerable floppy drive, parallel ports, serial ports and waffle irons for example. These ports and devices were on the low end of their respective product lines and could easily be replicated with USB adaptors, and because of USB's higher bandwidth capabilities, little to no performance loss would be incurred as a result.

Actually, all of the new HD camcorders of the past few years use USB 2

Steve Jobs in response to the FireWire 400 MacBook controversy

By comparison, FireWire 400 is not a low end port, the architecture cannot be easily replicated with USB adaptors, and even if it could there would be a performance hit because despite FireWire 400's marginally slower transfer speed on paper, it clearly outperforms USB 2.0 in sustained data transfers. This is why many large external hard drives and camcorders use FireWire, despite Mr Jobs' assertion above.

What's troubling from a publicity standpoint here is the potential mess Apple could find itself in with regards to consumer video. Each Mac they ship proudly comes bundled with iLife which includes iMovie and iDVD; clearly they want consumers to be able to create and edit video. How many buyers of MacBooks will take their shiny new computers home only to realise the camcorder which may or may not have cost them a small fortune isn't even supported by the computer that advertises itself as video friendly? I'd hesitate to say a class action lawsuit would result, but as companies operating in the Internet age know by now (or if they don't they're doomed) is that word of mouth recommendations and complaints can make or break purchasing decisions.

I haven't even addressed the issue regarding Target Disk Mode and what a headache it will be for tech support workers to diagnose and repair problems on these new machines. Suffice to say, I think not including FireWire in the latest MacBook, something which even my iBook G3 from 2002 even has, is a huge mistake. I guess we'll wait and see.

As a disclaimer, I'm a MacBook Pro user because I so desperately need the extra screen real estate and graphics performance, and the latest MacBook Pro retains it's backwards compatible FireWire 800 port, so I'm certainly not complaining simply because I'm afraid I won't have support for my own devices.

For those who don't use Twitter, the online microblog and simple social networking site, whenever someone starts following your messages because they think you're interesting, you receive an email from Twitter letting you know. Checking who my new followers are has become an unexpectedly happy part of my generally dull morning routine.

Despite my love for Twitter, one feature has been missing the entire time: a notification when a person breaks off and stops following you; arguably I think these notifications would be even more interesting to watch simply so that I could establish my own "revulsion" rate as it were!

Enter Qwitter. Once you've signed up to their service they notify you whenever a person loses interest in you and stops following your messages.

For example, since signing up I've been notified that Marian Call and Shaun Martin have stopped following me. I'm still following you guys if you change your minds… :-(

2008.10.22 UPDATE: Jotoole4 is no longer following me on Twitter either.

The prime minister will be answering questions about the current financial crisis on Channel 7 at 18:30. If you're in Australia, don't forget to tune in. There will be no moderator or filtering we're being told.

For the longest time I've resisted putting a donate button or a tip jar on any of my sites because I feel there are so many more legitimate and worthwhile causes out there that people should be donating money to. While this is still definitely true, I decided this morning to finally give it a small shot, but instead of just asking people for a handout or for huge sums of money, I thought I'd put a bit more thought into it.

So here's the deal, if you've enjoyed reading some of the material I've typed up here on this blog whatsit, feel free to click the "Buy Ruben a Coffee :-)" image on the right hand side of any page on the Rubenerd Blog site. If you buy me a cup of coffee using PayPal, that's less money I need to transfer from my bank account to pay online bills such as hosting, which in turn I'll be able to use to buy myself a cup of coffee instead!

With all the studying and working I'm frantically doing to catch up after taking a longer break than I had originally planned for family reasons, the time I spend on this blog as well as my internet talk radio show is a pleasant distraction and a great thing to do. If I've created something that others find interesting and useful, I feel I've also managed to at least accomplish something meaningful and worthwhile :-).

If you would like to donate more than AU$4.00, might I suggest Whole Wheat Radio, the World Food Programme or the National Cancer Centre of Singapore whom my family are forever indebted to for their service. They deserve money more than I do. Thank you.

Along with computing (operating systems, programming languages, graphics editing), economics, history (ancient Japan and classical Europe in particular), jazz and coffee, another interest I've had since I was a kid is commercial aviation. I guess the logical reason for that would be that given we lived in so many places before I even became a teenager, I had flown in my fair share of aeroplanes. Actually, then again… since when are hobbies logical!?

Glancing up at my official post count on this beautiful warm Saturday afternoon at the Boatdeck Cafe coffee shop in Mawson Lakes with a lake coincidently just outside the window, I noticed I just past post 880. If you're a commercial aviation enthusiast too, you'll know where this post is headed! Get it… headed? Where this post is headed? Oh come on, that was a quality joke.

Delta Convair 880 photo by Art Brett on Airliners.net taken in 1971

Yes people, I just passed the post with the same number as the Convair 880. From what I can remember, the Convair 880 was an early generation jet airliner that was introduced around the same time as the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC-8. The origin of its name, and its primary selling point, was its above average 880 feet per second speed which was achieved by using engines adapted from military aircraft. While it seated less people than either the 707 or the DC-8, it was viewed by pilots as being more nimble and easier to handle especially in rough weather.

Unfortunately the niche market for the type was much smaller than Convair anticipated and was largely viewed as a commercial failure. This despite Convair's later build option for extra revenue generating seating in the form of bolted on deck chairs on the wings which were later deemed a safety hazard. Seems snorkels don't really deliver as much oxygen at several thousand metres above sea level as they do in a pool.

One of the distinctive features of the 880 from an observers perspective were it's water injected engines that noticeably smoked up on takeoff and during the initial few minutes of flight. One can imagine looking at pictures of them in action how loud (and expensive!) these birds must have been!

Just looking up the Wikipedia article on the 880 it looks as though I got my facts right; sometimes I surprise even myself. According to Wikipedia the primary customers of the 880 were Alaska, Cathay Pacific, Delta, Japan, KLM, Northeast, Swissair, TWA and VIASA.

As usual, Airliners.net has the best archive of Convair 880 photos online.

ASIDE: Dedicated to my beautiful late mum Debra Ross who’s peaceful, united dream for the world inspired my own.

What I thought I'd do in this post is discuss a concept that some have extremely heartfelt opposition to but which I see would not only be a positive step for the world to take and a natural evolution in our political development, but one which I think should and indeed has to be done given the situation we find ourselves in right now. I'm talking of course about the concept of a world government.

I was going to attempt to explain what a world government would be, but I questioned the necessity of this task given Wikipedia as usual has a far more salient definition:

World government is the concept of a political body that would make, interpret and enforce international law. Inherent to the concept of a world government is the idea that nations would be required to pool or surrender sovereignty over some areas.

In effect, a world government would add another level of administration above the existing national governments or provide coordination over areas national governments are not capable of adequately addressing as independent polities.

The Coalition for Democratic World Government

In a nutshell, a world government would assume responsibilities currently controlled by nations today for the purpose of working on issues that affects everyone on this planet.

Let that sentence sink in. Read it again. Print it out backwards on A3 paper, stick it to your forehead and look at yourself in the mirror.

The fact is never before in our human history have we had so much at stake and so many issues that affect every single one of us, regardless of where we live. The environment, global climate change, erratic and artificial currency and foreign exchange markets, the exploitation of children, crippling and failing international financial systems, uneven natural resource allocation and distribution, territorial disputes, heartfelt and deadly religious differences… there are too many to list. The point is none of these issues can be resolved by only looking within our own borders.

We have to face the fact that the classical and romantic, yet primitive and primal concept of a "country" where "my people get this land and your people get that land" is not only an antiquated, outdated and creaky system but one that in today's world is fundamentally flawed and broken. You need look no further than inventions like the internet that span the globe or the ridiculous and childish argument being fought over who "owns" lunar real estate to see this.

Now there are those on the one hand who claim that a world government is bad because such a system has never been proven to work before; that it weakens the power countries have over their own domestic affairs; and of course there are the small but vocal minority who claim such an intergovernmental organisation is a sign of a new world order so the illuminati can force everyone to wear matching tracksuits and eat the same kind of grilled cheese sandwiches. One can only think a few hundred years ago of the people using the exact same arguments against the formation of the United States, or a hundred years ago against the federating of states in Canada and Australia. It's funny how people who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, isn't it?

The United Earth Embassy on Vulcan, from the Star Trek franchise

It's high time governments around the world grew up and admit that largely working isolated from each other is not solving our problems, and to surrender some basic and fundamental powers to an independent world government that can oversee, mediate and act on issues that affect everyone and that is in all our interests. Human rights and dignity. Resources. The environment. Information systems. The global economy.

As a third culture kid who has grown up in several countries, holds two passports, a green card for one country and a permanent residency pass for another, who considers nowhere home and who has little desire to own a house because he would be stuck in one place, this is probably easier for me to do, but I encourage you to try it. We need to stop being patriotic towards human invented flags and political borders, and start feeling pride for being Humans and feel pride for our exceedingly beautiful, sacred and precious microscopic orb in this unfathomably gargantuan solar system, galaxy, universe and multiverse.

Because some people might not want to acknowledge it, but our actions now affect everyone. And these cute little country political games we played in the 19th century just aren't going to cut it in the 21st. We need a world government, and we need it now.

Rubenerd Blog Related Links

• New quality of life rankings, why I’m skeptical. (2008.10.15)
• 3/700ths of a Wall Street bailout will feed every child (2008.10.01)
• I believe in the United Nations Charter (2008.08.22)
• The Church of the New World Order! (2008.08.20)
• You Heard Me! Don’t Shut Down the UN! (2006.10.30)

External Related Links

• Coalition for Democratic World Government
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• The United Nations
• Queen’s Heaven for Everyone on Last.fm
• John Lennon’s Imagine on Last.fm

Come hoooooooooooooooooome…
Come hoooooooooooooooooome…
It's supper time!

Thank you, thank you very much.