Rubenerd

I've known about this site for a while now, but I thought I'd post here just for fun :D.

If you've never seen this site before you're missing out on one of the funniest damned sites on the net. It lists true facts about Chuck Norris. And you'd better damned well agree with all of them or Chuck Norris will have your arse.

My favourites are still: "Guns don't kill people, Chuck Norris kills people!" and "Chuck Norris uses 10 by 4 plywood panels as toilet paper".

In case you've forgotton, Chuck Norris was Walker Texas Ranger.

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According to Channel News Asia Singapore, the space shuttle Atlantis has safely returned back to earth. Did they ever figure out what that foreign object that was floating around the shuttle was? Something to do with those blasted heat tiles again? Seriously what has those heat tile re-entry blocks ever done for anyone? Don't answer that.

NASA really needs to replace these contraptions. Personally I'd be more interested in seeing a collaboration between the ESA, NASA, JAXA, the Russians and the Chinese to reflect the borderless nature of space, but fat chance!

esa, nasa, jaxa, cna, channel news asia, atlantis, space shuttle, space shuttle atlantis, space shuttle program, old space shuttles, space, rubenerd blog, ruben schade, ruben, schade

If you've been browsing the Rubenerd Blog in the last hour or so you'd notice things are looking a bit different. Now before you roll your eyes and think "here he goes changing things again!" let me explain.

The problem with the old skin was that looked okay on the surface, but the underlying theme was hacked to bits and painfully difficult to upgrade. So to make my life easier I've changed the underlying skin to Sandbox and separated my custom changes from the theme so upgrades are MUCH faster and easier.

Due to the fact I'm working on this as we speak for the rest of this weekend there may some quirks; don't worry this isn't the final version!

If you notice anything fishy or stuffed up, I'd appreciate any feedback.

Cheers and thanks for your patience!
Ruben

sandbox, wordpress, wordpress themes, wordpress skins, lightweight wordpress themes, lightweight, plaintext.org, plaintext, maintenance

If you've ever tried running OpenOffice.org on your Mac with X11 I don't need to tell you how slow and inelegent a solution it was; not to mention the fact it didn't use Aqua so it looked butt ugly.

Fortunately NeoOffice now has an Aqua version!

NeoOffice is a fully-featured set of office applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and drawing programs) for Mac OS X. Based on the OpenOffice.org office suite, NeoOffice has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office.

As the description says it's based on OpenOffice.org, but because it runs as an Aqua application it's noticably zippier and looks like my other Mac programs. The program is a Universal Binary for you other Intel Mac owners out there, and it's free, so what are you waiting for?

Maybe I should have been a P.R. spokesperson.

You can read all about it and download your free copy at the NeoOffice website.

neooffice, neooffice j, openoffice, openoffice.org, mac, mac os, mac os x, apple, office productivity, microsoft office alternative, iwork alternative, rubenerd blog, ruben schade, ruben, schade

Just finished watching a National Geographic documentary on cable (Crash Scene Investigation) about the Hinton Train Collision in Canada in 1986, just 2 months before I was born. Very scary to think in our "modern" times with all our technology these catastrophic mistakes still happen.

The Hinton train collision was a railway accident that occurred on February 8, 1986. Twenty-three people were killed in a collision between a Canadian National Railway freight train and a VIA Rail passenger train. It was the most lethal Canadian rail disaster since the Dugald accident of 1947.

Just like the documentary, the Wikipedia article on the disaster is eye opening. TrainWeb also has information regarding the individual locomotives involved.

There are events which can shatter the foundations of your life. Shatter the foundations of your life, through no fault of your own. But life goes on. There is tomorrow, and you can recover.

– Survivor

Update — written on 22nd April 2010

I had no idea when I wrote this documentary review in 2006 that it'd turn out to be something I'd continue researching and talking to people about for years afterwards. I wrote a followup post in 2007 where I discuss it in more detail (The Hinton Train Disaster revisited), and I'm in the process of writing up another one.

Thank you to everyone for your comments and emails, it's clear to me this disaster has had a profound effect on so many people that continues to be felt. Having just prematurely lost my mum to cancer I feel as though I can partly relate to your loss now, though I still don't pretend to understand what the experience must have been like.

I hope to travel to Canada one day, my dad says it's the most breathtakingly beautiful place on Earth with some of the friendliest people.

hinton train disaster, canada, 1986, canadian railways, canadian national railway, rubenerd blog, ruben schade, ruben, schade

I was trying to download the latest monthy version of Solaris Express from the Sun website, but it kept disconnecting. According to the site, if you have download troubles you can grab yourself a free copy of the Sun Download Manager.

Sun Download Manager is a small Java application that makes downloading large software packages from the Sun Download Center fast, easy, and more reliable than ever before.

Features include:

• Built-in file verification system works with Sun Download Center (SDLC).
• Supports resumable downloading.
• Cross-platform, cross-browser support.
• Free of charge.

I was very impressed with this programme on Mac OS X. It's less than 165 kilobytes in size, and a great way to organise not only Sun downloads but other stuff too. Definelty worth a sticky beak if you're interested in a very lightweight download manager for Solaris (really!), Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.

Sun Download Centre: Sun Download Manager

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Oh boy I hate my life.

Click image for larger view, from my Flickr photo gallery

So I'm sitting here watching television with my parents here in KL. We've got cable here which is refeshing after coping with public access television in Australia (okay, it's only Channel 10 that I have an issue with, but you get the idea).

One problem though, my mum just channel surfed and skipped what looked liked a fascinating documentary about how they built the Petronas Twin Towers here in KL, and a show about the composition of comets and how our solar system formed, to instead watching a show about sea horses.

I guess you can't win them all :(.

parents

Well there you go, now I can go Westfield shopping in Europe and Canada haha :).

Australian shopping centre owner Westfield Group says it wants to acquire malls in Canada and western Europe.

The world’s largest listed shopping centre owner plans to continuing buying centres in its existing markets but would also like to expand into new markets.

“We have a watching brief over western Europe in particular,” Westfield group chief financial officer Peter Allen told the Merrill Lynch Australia investment conference in New York.

“Canada is a market we’d certainly love to get involved in, and there’s some smaller markets in Asia.”

Westfield’s property portfolio comprises 120 shopping centres in Australia, the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand, worth $56.8 billion.

Adelaide Advertiser: Westfield eyes Canada, Europe

westfield, westfield shopping, australian business, australia, canada, europe, rubenerd blog, ruben schade, ruben, schade

Well it took a long time, but I'm now safely typing away this from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I can't believe how much it has changed even since I was here in the mid year university break.

My mixer board and audio equipment are still in transit, but I've been told by Baggage Masters that they should be in Singapore tomorrow, so early next week my dad and I will drive the 300km's down there to pick it up. Ergo the Rubenerd Show should be resuming next week.

Now that I have a (stable) internet connection too you should see some regular postings now on the Rubenerd Blog now too.

Cheers!
Ruben

malaysia, kuala lumpur, rubenerd show, rubenerd blog, ruben schade