Rubenerd

I know I promised in a previous post that I would be discussing our recent trip to Sydney here and on my show. So now for something completely different: Nokia is buying Trolltech!

Trolltech is the trendy Norwegian company responsible for the Qt toolkit which is what my favourite desktop environment KDE is built upon, as well as other well known applications such as Google Earth and Skype. However the buyout probably had more to do with their efforts to use Qt on mobile phones. Nokia interested in mobile phones? Who would have thought?

Nokia claims they have purchased Trolltech to "accelerate it's software strategy" by "facilitating application development for multiple platforms and devices" which is PR speak for "we wanted a new platform to write applications on and it was easier to buy one than create one ourselves " right? ;)

This deal has left me with a lot of questions. Will they keep the non-commercial version of Qt licenced under the GPL indefinitely? Will Nokia close the next release? If so, what will happen to KDE? Will the Harmony project have to be started again? Will Nokia be as committed to open source and free software as Trolltech was? Will being part of a larger company with different business goals inevitably hurt Trolltech and Qt? What will happen to the Green Phone?

Trolltech bought by Nokia, MySQL bought by Sun Microsystems… what is the world [of free and open source software] coming to?

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

Evolution has been tested, and continues to be. Every time we dig up a fossil, it could disprove the evolution model. Every time we look at a genome, it could disprove the evolution model. If Evolutionary Theory were fatally flawed, all sorts of things could show that. But nothing has.

Ec5618 YouTube comment

It's been just under a fortnight now since my sister, dad and I came back from our Sydney trip. Obviously the main reason for going was for mummy's funeral, but we tried to do other things while we were there too.

I've taken stacks of photos and haven't really organised any of them very well but I'm taking some time tomorrow to filter through them and get some up here and on my Flickr profile. I could shoehorn all of them onto one post, but for your sanity and mine I'll be splitting them up.

I hate posts without any pictures. Here's a photo I took of the legendary Oak and Hungry Jacks rest stop sign on the highway between Sydney and Taree.

I'll also be doing another Rubenerd Show early this week, not sure if I should talk about mum or whether I've already said enough here. Either way, I have some cool stories and funny stuff to share, as I hope I always do! Cheers.

It's amazing how much work, studies and other assorted whatnot accumulates when you disconnect yourself from the internets [sic].

Case in point: silly, unauthorised, supposed erection assisting or lottery winning, mismatched, bulk emails! When I returned from my family's trip to Sydney for mummy's funeral, this was the screen I was welcomed with:

The problem is, I used to be able to just hit the Clear button with Akismet, but lately it's been generating so many false positives I have to comb through the pages to make sure legitimate comments haven't been filtered out by accident. Of course I usually check comments every day so combing through a few dozen is no problem, but letting it accumulate like this is a real nightmare!

So just to let people know, if you've posted a comment and it hasn't been approved yet, you can understand why it might take a while.

So much spam… so little time…
I can't stand dry posts with just text you see!

I used to be under the impression that spambots just posted to everything they could get their hands on, but it seems they're drawn to certain articles. Some of them clearly don't make sense, especially the ones which attempt to hijack articles where I've talked about spam!

So just for interest's sake (hope Mr. Interest is okay with me using him in this example) here are a microscopic selection of posts which seem to attract the most spam messages, with the titles copied verbatim.

20 Years Old Tomorrow

kidney disease symptons, manta equador, in karaoke odessa show tx, the villege, hollins univeristy, on line poker 7stud lo… uncertain Edmonton magic Bendix.regime aeronautic …

Credit Spam!

patin couffin, glamis dunes, lenguaje iconico, amalia carrara, joyland amusment park, making mirror telescope, dance robot, atv honda lowest motorcycle price, train calling all angels lyric, auto design nation shield usa, ach florida payment processing, xm satellite radio rating, bank cd mutual rate washington, bank cd mutual rate washington, conferencing phone service, dj hawaii wedding, addiction recovery trauma, adipex diet effects pill side, caroline beil, people doing stupid stuff, people doing stupid stuff, 3d home architect home design deluxe, book exodus moses, battery computer laptop notebook portable, cheap cheapest computer laptop notebook, goodnites pull ups, aol jason whitlock

Review of Cranky Geeks 081

Having a good credit history is crucial for anyone desiring a credit. Your credit history is based on credit reports that are meant to provide information on the borrower’s reliability. I have good credit history and I was approved for a great credit card offer at…

Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam…

That's one thing I guess spam will always be: entertainment delivered right to my comments pages!

On Saturday the 29th of December 2007 some of our closest friends and dear family from all across Australia congregated at Woronora in Sydney, Australia for my mummy's funeral. It was a beautiful service with lots of flowers, plenty of her favourite music playing and some sweet and heartfelt tributes from Ted and Margaret, my dad Rainer, Sharon, Megan and Lynn.

I can't think of a single moment in my life where I have cried more or felt so much grief, but I also laughed and remembered all the great times we had together and enjoyed talking to so many people, some of whom I hadn't seen in over a decade, about mummy and her incredible life.

I've already thanked everyone I could see while I was there, but I wanted for the record to make a note of it here. Thank you to everyone who attended, thank you to all the people in my fabulous family for helping to organise the celebration and thank you to all my friends from school and university, to my teachers (well, most of my teachers!) and to everyone here on my website and on Twitter for all your love, help and support during these long, trying 12 years. I couldn't have done it without you guys.

I love you mummy.

In case you couldn't make it to the funeral service, you can download the photo and PDF versions of the handout below. Unlike all the other original material in posts on this site, these are not released under a Creative Commons licence; the Schade and Ross families retain all copyrights.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

In most multi-party parliamentary systems, the prime minister has much less power than the president in a system like in the US. (no veto!) On top of that, the prime minister can only pick from elected officials to create his cabinet, not his Yale friends and business buddies, making them far more accountable.

Also, that one party with 33% doesn’t hold all the power, the entire parliament holds the power. Yes, the party that creates the cabinet has more opportunity to introduce bills, but it takes a majority vote of parliament to pass them.

Lastly, Australia uses “Preference Voting”. To translate that to real US terms: you can safely vote for Nader without by doing do increasing the Repugnicans’ chances to win the election.

The Rubenerd Show is on hiatus until further notice. I'll be fighting a lot of bad thoughts and demons for the next few months. Thank you everyone for your support.

NOTE: I frantically typed up this post only a few hours after the dreadful event, so please give due consideration.

so as you can imagine it's not exactly one of my more well thought out or weblog posts.

FOR DEBRA ANNE SCHADE. MY MUMMY.

I’m spewing whatever comes to mind first, sorry if this doesn’t make much sense. I'm als typing this not writing because computers have been my life and they're my comfort zone.

This evening my beautiful mummy, a person who never hurt anyone and who was the centre of my life died. My dad walked in this evening to find her lying in bed cold and not moving. Because the chemo makes her so weak she spend most of her life lying in bed so when I saw her last lying there last I thought I should let her sleep. I missed my last chance to say goodbye.

She has chemotherapy for over 12 years in 3 different countries and she always said that all she wanted was just to be normal even if just for a week. She was a brilliant artist, painter and she couldn’t do any of it. She was either in pain or asleep. i was 8 when she got sick so I have almost no memories of her at all when she was well. None.

Where do I go from here I don’t know. I’m an atheist, I don't believe in God or Heaven and I know I’ll never see her again. What I can say though is that no matter what happens shes out of pain now and I really hope that there is a chance she can see me now. I’m only 21, she’ll never see my graduate from university, marry (yeah as if anyone would want a dork like me) and she’ll never get any of the things I promised her.

I feel awful, all I can think about is what I’m going to miss out on, I can’t think about her. I am such a self absorbed arsehole, why am I worried about me? My beautiful mum is dead and the only thing I can do is look to the future and all I’ll miss. I’m a terrible terrible person.

I can’t think what else to say. All I can think of is that she was the most warm, beautiful, funny, artistic, caring, compassionate, determined, and nice person and I feel so privelidged to have had her as a mum. She was too good for me. I’m sorry it’s very cliche but thats exactly how I feel.

I tried to go to every hospital appointment she had in oncology in Brisbane, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and some of the best memories I have are playing Yiftico with her. She beats me every time of course.

Now all I can think about are questions, I can’t live in this house anymore where are we going to go, how will I live without her because I’m such a fucking mummys boy, who will I confide in, why am I so self absorbed and all I can think about is what is going to happen to me, my sister.

My grandparents outlived my mum. There’s something wrong with that, its a terrible thing to say but I cant reconcile this. She was only 52, there are people living beyond 100 all the time, but because of our fallibility (yeah great intelligent design) she was chosen out of everyone to be infected with this shit. It couldn't even wait till my sister and I were adults. Thats a terrible thing to say, i hate myself.

She was only telling me a few weeks ago that she wanted Spirit in the Sky played at her funeral. I imagined a time in the future when we were all old and grey and she had been cured and she had painted and played music and did all the things she said she’d do when she got better. Going back to Scotland

The chemotherapy she had to live with for all this time was getting worse and the side effects were not bordering extreme, they had surpassed it completely. She could barely lift her arms, her throat no no I’m not going to remember her like that. No more. She’s not in pain anymore.

The last conversation my dad, sister and I had as a family was downstairs where we were discussing moving the christmas tree upstairs to her room so she could celebrate. She always said that she couldn't do anything a mum could do but the one thing she could do was be a supporter and someone I could talk to for anything.

I know she can’t read this, spirits and faerie tales and heaven and so forth, but if there is the smallest chance that somehow she can see me right now I want you to know I love you and I am so thankful for all you have ever done for me. You didn’t have one brain cell left, and you weren’t a bad mummy, a bad mummy is someone who doesn’t care about her children, mistreats them or abuses them. You were always there for me, you did everything I ever wanted you to to, and whether you knew or not, you were the best possible mummy I could have ever had and I love you. I love you so much. And I know you loved me too and did everything you could for me. I just wish I was saying this too you decades from now after we had been together for longer. I love you mummy.

She was even more than a mummy though. I lost my best friend.

I appreciate all the help you guys have given me over the years. The police and doctors have arrived and I can barely see the screen through my tears so I’ll just be submitting now. My mum believed, so for her I will say God Bless You Mummy, I hope you have finally found happiness at least more than you ever had in this life. I love you.

.

Actually there's no conspiracy here, but I did do a uncharacteristically thought out and half serious (okay, maybe a quarter serious!) episode of the Rubenerd Show and I needed a image to go with it that looked mysterious and evil.

I don't think it worked, but you've got to love Photo Booth!