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10:00 – Trying to fathom timezones, FreeBSD, Macworld speculation (Apple iPhone, larger displays, iLife & iWork 2007), Microsoft at CES (reaction versus innovation), a Rubenerd Rant (what's the point of a game console?) and MBA light bulbs!
Recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. Attribution: Ruben Schade.
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10:00 – Housekeeping (new site up, Asia-Pacific network cables), Indonesian disasters (dissapearing aeroplanes, sinking ferries), owning your own country (news story, are countries even still relevant anymore!?) and Weiler's Law on slack impossibility!
Recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. Attribution: Ruben Schade.
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10:00 – New mic cables, Rubenerd Forum (MannyTheMailMan), motivational speakers, working for Discovery Channel, catching up (Dr. Karl in Aus Crap & Stuff, Overnightscape, Whole Wheat Radio) and Ruben being a professional… amateur!
Recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. Attribution: Ruben Schade.
I've talked about and reviewed Michael Franks many times on the Rubenerd Show, but have never written anything about him. This is my attempt to do this amazing artist justice in the blog medium. Hope he would approve!
Michael Franks is an American jazz artist who sings songs with a great sense of humour and refreshingly interesting lyrics. If you have never heard of Michael Franks, you are missing out on hearing the greatest singer/songwriter of all time.
My family's frank obsession with Michael Franks (I thought the wording was clever!) started with my mum in the early 1980s. As the story goes, she was called over to a friend's house one afternoon after being told about an intriguing artist who sang, amonst other things, about cold toes and finding the perfect shampoo!
Since then, Michael Franks has quite literally been a family institution of the Schade family! Out of Michael's whopping 19 albums we have 8 on original records and the rest on CDs and purchased copies as MP3s on iTunes. I've personally got 1.8GB of Michael Franks music on my computer right now as I type this!
I really don't know much about music; I can't play an instrument, I can read scores and as I find when trying to articulate the sensation of drinking wine, I certainly don't know any of the fancy language people use to describe it, but what I do know is what I like, and I like Michael Franks' music.
My mum and I agree that whilst the tunes themselves are smooth and a pleasure to listen to in their own right, it is the lyrics in his work that really set him apart from any other artist. My mum says amongst other things it would probably be impossible to win an argument with someone like Michael Franks who obviously has such an extrodinary grasp of literature!
The wide and varying styles of his music are incredible, and really show off his versatility as an artist. His music ranges from the more up beat style in When Sly Calls, to the jazzy Monks New Tune and Sanpaku, to fun electronics in Now That Your Joystick's Broke, to the suave and sophisticated Alone At Night and Tiger in the Rain, the latter album by the same name still my favourite.
You can find out more about Michael Franks at his official website at MichaelFranks.com, his article on Wikipedia, on iTunes (do a search for Michael Franks), the aptly named Michael Franks Yahoo! Group and even his own CafePress store.
And now if you'd excuse me, I'm flying south for some snorkelling and sleep. Just leave your message when you hear the beep. :D
After a few days of testing I've applied the new layout of the Rubenerd Blog over to the Show. There are still a few quirks I'm ironing out, but I assumed it would be a work in progress.
Cheers :)
This episode was pulled from the Internet Archive because they disputed the cover art for the episode. I'll upload this again in the future, sorry about that.
The Rudebox (part 4) and pile driving episode!
Corn chips, debut ratings of Robbie Williams's Rudebox, structural integrity of Rudebox houses (pile driving, giant cracks in Rubenerd studio walls!), rudebox beverage review (Dilmah Oolong tea), funny pointless product labels and Ruben's sister doing Rudebox!
Download MP3 ⬇ 10:00 minutes, 4.6MiB
You can also stream it and view its Internet Archive.
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10:00 – Borderline obsession with Rudebox, Jean Luc Picard, rudebox palindromes, the lyrics to Rudebox, Rubenerd Forum topics (mannythemailman's Christmas wishes, surrealist on Amiga 500 gaming) and Ruben doing Rudebox again, again!
Recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. Attribution: Ruben Schade.
Coming to you live from the San Francisco Coffee House in Mid Valley Mega Mall in Kuala Lumpur! Drumroll please…
After millions of hours of blood, sweat and tiers (thanks for that line James ;) ) the updated 2007 Rubenerd Blog skin has finally been rolled out. I'll be mirroring the same design onto the Rubenerd Show site soon too, but I thought I'd field test it here first.
The biggest challenge when updating this design? Internet Explorer! I got the design down pat and working in Gecko and WebKit without modification, but loading it up in good old IE6 broke more of the page than I thought would have been possible! Internet Explorer 7 was marginally better, but with so many people still running their XP machines without updates we'll probably have to continue writing out IE6 CSS hacks for a long time to come.
Steven Colbert from the Colbert Report and Jimbob Kloss from Whole Wheat Radio both say that people who have blogs and podcasts that simply talk about their blogs and podcasts are no good. If you agree, then please disregard this post ;).
rubenerd blog,
internet explorer,
internet exploror 6,
jimbob kloss,
whole wheat radio,
steven colbert,
css,
css hacks
This episode was pulled from the Internet Archive because they disputed the cover art for the episode. I'll upload this again in the future, sorry about that.
The rudebox forum catchup (part 2) episode!
Stuffing up rudebox episode numbers again, slow Asia-Pacific rudebox internet, music review (Robbie Williams in general), Rubenerd Forum topics (is the United States bankrupt? Rudebox?), and Ruben doing Rudebox again!
Download MP3 ⬇ 10:00 minutes, 4.6MiB
You can also stream it and view its Internet Archive page.
This episode was pulled from the Internet Archive because they disputed the cover art for the episode. I'll upload this again in the future, sorry about that.
The Rudebox forum catchup (part 1) episode!
Scientists versus Rudebox engineers, Rudebox new year's resolutions, work building up like Rudebox, Rubenerd Forum topics (overheating MacBook Pro's, the MadPlayer episode!), music review (Robbie William's Rudebox) and Ruben doing Rudebox!
Download MP3 ⬇ 10:00 minutes, 4.6MiB
You can also stream it and view its Internet Archive page.
