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10:00 – Follow up to the Zune episode (clunky, buggy software, what the iPod has and nobody else does), print screen on a Mac keyboard, Microsoft software I don't hate (Excel, Flight Simulator, Age of Empires) and CNN reporters dissing the Zune designers!
Recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. Attribution: Ruben Schade.
I use the wireless network at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at KLCC (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) quite regularly while sipping away at the greatest beverage in the universe (I'll give you three guesses, it's not tea, and the last two guesses don't count).
I came home though and when I was looking through my browser history for… um… let's call it a page on how to be a better person… yeah that works… and I found the address of the login page that the browser on this machine automatically comes up with when you connect to the wireless network. I clicked on it and you can still access it!
So if you want to pretend you're in a Malaysian WiFi hotspot, get yourself a nice tall cup of coffee or (teh tarik works too!), change your desktop to a picture of Taman KLCC, and surf over to the AirZed wireless page!
This service brought to you by Rubenerd Ministry of Pretending You're Somewhere Else, not affiliated with the Rubenerd Ministry of Broken Power Cables or the Ministry of Silly Walks.
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12:00 – Ruben takes a satirical look at the Zune (Microsoft's jealous take on the iPod), real world versus geekdom, shooting PlaysForSure partners, Chris Feurgeson from the Late Late Show, why it's good for iPod users and Steve Ballmer on recklessness!
Recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. Attribution: Ruben Schade.
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10:00 – Ruben's evil laziness-induced long hair, weird city state address thingys, Ruben's MadPlayer's Renaissance, going with my mum to the hospital, stupid pharmacy ticket machines, Scottish/German family history and Douglas Adams on nerds!
Recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. Attribution: Ruben Schade.
While reading the ultra conservative, right wing, "everyone is evil except us!" World View Weekend website; as I’ve been linked to far too many ytimes; I came across one article that took my interest given the fact that I'm doing economics at university and because economics in general fascinates me:
Understanding Tax Cuts:
A Must Read For Children, Adults, Journalist and Absolutely for Liberals
From what I've read on their site, they classify me as a "liberal" so I followed their advice and read the article! What initially struck me about this article was not so much how one sided or biased it was (I was expecting this given the site I was reading it on!) but how much fundamental economic knowledge it was lacking, well at least from my perspective.
The article goes into detail explaining how taxing rich people doesn't work and that it is the rich that deserve the tax breaks the most because they reap more benefits from it. Where the logic behind this argument came from is beyond me, but it was evident even in one person's respose to the article as well; unfortuately it seems the misinformation spread just as the author wanted!
My rebuttal:
I mean no offense sir/madam, but from what I can see your post lacks fundamental economic understanding. To answer your first question sir/madam, Australia is a secular country, so we don't make the distinction between a "liberal" or "conservative" university, we pride our society and institutions as being "fair and balanced" ;).
You say that "the highest paying people get the most benefit with tax cuts." which implies you prefer a "flat tax system". I'm afraid sir/madam this is classic Circular Logic.
Keynesian theory (ie: fiscal policy) stipulates that demand and supply are variables, and that taxation (a form of mixed-economic government intervention) is one branch of factors that can affect the equilibrium of supply and demand.
Now let's take this into account sir/madam and examine a "flat tax system" as the alternative to this "evil" variable one that apparently taxes rich people too much. If every person for example is taxed at 10%, that 10% in strict dollar terms is much more difficult for a person in a lower tax bracket to pay because they have less gross income. A 10% cut in their income for this person may mean less disposable income to buy food.
By contrast, for a person in a higher tax bracket, 10% in dollar terms is far greater, but the impact on the person paying the tax is substantially less. For this person sir/madam, a 10% cut in their income may mean less money to put towards their holiday to Kyoto.
Therefore we can see that a flat tax system is discriminatory. A variable tax system (which taxes more in % terms the more you earn) is fairer and more balanced because it affects people in the same way regardless of their income level. The problem sir/madam with a variable tax system can happen though when people in higher tax brackets are taxed too much and the incentive to work harder and earn more diminishes.
Granted there needs to be a balance between incentive and the collective ability of people in different brackets to pay taxes, but to outrightly say that a tiered or variable tax system is bad and that rich people just get taxed too much is dangerous.
Cheers :).
economics,
flat tax,
variable tax,
tiered tax,
incentive,
discrimination,
secular,
keynesian theory,
keynes
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10:00 – Ruben reviews Michael Franks's 2003 CD: Watching the Snow! Songs reviewed are Island Christmas, The Way We Celebrate New Year's, Christmas In Kyoto and I Bought You A Plastic Star (For Your Aluminium Tree), and British actors on being famous!
Recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. Attribution: Ruben Schade.
I was looking for Christmas related picturisation (picturisation?) and came across something I didn't expect… the Mistletow steamer!
The Mistletoe was a wood hulled side wheel steam ship built in Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1872. She was 152.6 feet long had a 26.7 feet beam, displaced 362 gross tons, 147 net tons and was powered by a 370 horsepower engine.
The Mistletoe was originally a lighthouse tender; her official number was 222226. Her job of transporting supplies to lighthouses was eventually taken over by faster vessels, and the Mistletoe was sold to be used in the fishing excursion business.
She was apparently lost in a fire and sank off a few k's from the East Rockaway Inlet.
I'm fascinated by steamers and ocean liners; I remember watching Titanic the movie (look Jack, I'm flying!) and picking out all the inaccuracies in the technical ship design and dress of the period ;).
I'm in the process of putting the holiday photos and decorations up on the Rubenerd Show and Rubenerd Blog. :D. Both pictures are of Christmas in Singapore.
If you load the pages and can't tell the difference, try holding down shift and click reload to force a page redraw.
The picture to the right is my mum's cancer doctor, Hematologist and Oncologist in Singapore Dr Tan (of Gleneagles Hospital and Medical Centre) who I dressed up in a very well drawn and detailed fake Santa costume as you can tell ;).
Ruben picks apart the useless spam he receives from the spamming spammers who spam him with their spammingly spammish spam. For all the spam he has picked apart, visit the spam category… sounds like a Monty Python routine.
Greetings!!!
A Genuine Univers1ty Degree 1n 4-6 weeks!
Have you ever thought that the only thing stopipng you from a great job and better pay was a few letters behind you name?
Well now you can get them!BA BSc MA MSc MBA PhD
Within 4-6 weeks!
No Study Rqeuired!
100% Verifiable!These are real, genuine degrees that include Bachelors, Masters, MB Aand Doctorate Degrees. They are fully verifiable and certified transcripts are also available.
Just call then umber below.
You?ll thank me later?
The problem with these kinds of messages is not so much the fact that they're obviously fake and a scam, but in the way they're presented. They could net so many more "clients" if, oh I don't know, did a grammer and spell check, maybe make it look a touch more formal… why do they intentionally make their messages look rubbish? :D.
I guess the more unbelievable they are, the less people they're going to draw into their scams, which can only be a good thing! Shows though that the people doing these mass mailings are either pretty thick… or script-kiddyish. Is kiddyish a word?
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10:00 – Exploding Yakult probiotic containers, Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills, Christmas decorations (on Rubenerd Show), and Rubenerd Blog, Atheists celebrating Christmas (Tim Li, it happens!), the Servage Christmas Competition, and Elke throwing Yakult!
Recorded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Licence for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. Attribution: Ruben Schade.
