Rubenerd Blog

Category archive for media

Because archives are so much easier than having just hundreds of posts on the home page. I learned that the hard way.

Spring wildflower photos in Mawson Lakes

2008.10.07 – 16.11

When I woke up this morning (sounds like an introduction to a blues song) and pulled my curtains back, I couldn’t help but notice the dark, overcast sky. I love overcast skies; my theory as to why I do relates to my time living in South-East Asia and how an overcast sky there lowers the tropical temperature and sun glare substantially. Or perhaps my judgement has always been clouded over. Oh come on, that was a quality joke.

Anyway there is definitely something mystical and mysterious about overcast days. There’s something about a thick, white and grey wooly blanket covering the sky and affecting how we see everything around us that is something special. Given Adelaide is the driest state capital city in Australia we get very little rainfall, so an overcast day here is a big deal.

Rather than sit locked up at home programming or working on a new blog post, I decided at 07:14am to venture outside with my trusty FujiFilm S9600 bridge camera and take some photos. To my surprise and delight it’s spring, I had completely forgotten. What was supposed to be a photographic expedition to take pictures of the sky with the Mawson Lakes park in the foreground turned into a trip to take photos of wildflowers.

Just as I harbour a love for Glenn Miller, the Rat Pack, Jazz, Big Band and folk music in contrast to a darker, lesser known obsession with 1980s era soft, psychedelic electronica that I try my best to conceal; I’m as equally contrasty (I’m pretty sure that’s not a word) when it comes to plants and gardening. I am a huge fan of Japanese gardens with their clean lines and minimalistic zen approach, but I also love colourful wildflowers which grow with little regard to homosapien gardening rules. Some people even go so far as to consider them weeds. I don’t care, they’re pretty.

I took over 300 photos this morning, the best two dozen or so I uploaded onto my Flickr profile under an aptly-titled set called Mawson Lakes Spring Wildflowers if you want to check them out; a select few are shown below. I used manual focus for most of the shots so I could feel as though I was doing more of the work than the camera, so therefore if the shot came out great it was because of me and not an auto focus! Not only that, but the auto focus on the S9600 really has trouble with macro settings.

Enjoy, and if you live in the Southern Hemisphere, a belated welcome to Spring :-).

By Ruben Schade | Also posted in australia, photos | Comments (1)

Andy The Code Kaufman Geass Quiz Kaufman

2008.10.05 – 02.08

The Andy Kaufman, the self professed living comedian who supposedly faked his death sometime between 1912 and 2041 has a series of questions on his website, surprisingly titled AndyKaufmanLives.com.

It took me less than 5 minutes to finish it with what I 110% guarantee are all the SUPERIOR as well as CORRECT answers that were all figured out after months of laborious research. Now it’s just a matter of claiming my prize. Prize is spelt with a "z" right? To help me explain the salience in my answers (salience?), I’m going to employ some folks from Code Geass. The people from Clannad were getting fed up with my ramblings.

ASIDE:I believe it’s related to Santa Clause, Christ and grilled cheese sandwiches as part of a mission to expose covered briefcases that walk away from 70s era bubble walls. Slovakia is on the damned moon people, wake up from your coffee and smell the astroturf! It’s not hard to glance, pretend, expose or sauté mushrooms, all you need is a beginning, a middle and an end-faced bromide concentrate that doesn’t exist, but wishes it did. Damn it wishes it did. Like Baked Alberta. Wait, that was the wrong state.

I could be wrong though, I mean, there’s a first time for everything right?

Man on the Moon

WE WANT THE TRUTH, BAG THE TRUTH MY FATHER SAID, LOADED
He’s very creative, yes I am the babish bagman team oarswomen
Do impressions maybe some bean macaroni
He plans these things he takes over and helps absorb
Mr. Kaufman gets his own naughty Sabbath

Andy Kaufman Revealed

THE DEPTH OF THE CONSPIRACY WAS WITH WAG MACE
I said I was going to look for a walker but ran oat to the bowls
To Andy everything was theater and this was just more rock posture
It was Wednesday May 16 1984 and I had grey hose
Work them up get them angry stomping their feet ablaze, less faceless

Abel Raises Cain

SHORTLY AFTER HAM MADNESS, MY FABRIC DIED OF A HEART ATTACK
Taste it and say that’s Kapsiki not babka
Because this idea was so absurd at the time it sparked an Icelandic Ianthina
At this time I think we shoold talk about cannabis-resin
Traffic had come to a halt because a bull and a cow with heptic sap

The Book of Illusions

SUCH A BRILLIANT BOOK MR. ZIMMER YOU HAVE THE ROBOT TO KISS THE RAIL SMILE
Oh martin Claire says don’t be Calippic
I woold like to meet Hector Mann but how can I be sure he is alive to the baba
After those first hectic minutes there was a sabayon of cake
There is an irrefutable logic to Claire’s statement: Maglip kills his falafel

Bubba Ho-Tep

MR. KENNEDY ASK NOT WHAT YOUR ROAD HACK CAN DO FAN
It’s time for that laelia toast abbey
Big damn bugs alright the size of my fist the size of a peanut butter and banana sandwich man what do I care?
Well well well if it isn’t my favorite pachisi hat, and you!
What kind of life he had you know his kids his gaddingly hip losers

Lost in the Funhouse

WITH THE HELP OF MARTY KLEIN AND THE TALE OF OATEN ABACUS
George Shapiro and Howard West had sold him to the aberrant baked-potato cabaret
George quickly started selling Foreign Man with nagging sausage
Tony Clifton was his name although nobody in New York km/h or hPa
The movie was shot at Sambo’s and there was no Saigon

Eddie and the Cruisers

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU HAD THE TAPES DOC TWO MA JAWS TWO MA
I want something great I want something nobody’s else does bakery
In the morning they told me Eddie was gone they hadn’t found his ball
When you’re hot you’re hot where you been hiding yourself with Moe
Can I help you guys yeah tell Tony Eddie and the cruisers ass hats

The Rampler #23 through #30

(FROM #23) WHO’S ANDY KAUFMAN A LOT OF TRIP WIRES JUST HAVE NO IDEA
(FROM #24) So you don’t think we’re in some kind of a tabour shoe
(FROM #25) What is this thing called I always see this stupid thing in tacky shells patterns
(FROM #26) The chance that it’s the real andy kaufman is pachinko kool or law
(FROM #27) People just naturally walk at different speeds so they are not like really next to Y2K

Thank you everyone. Questions, comments and suggestions are welcome and will be answered in the reverse order received, so make sure you collate your questions, comments and suggestions in advance so you all know who should post in what order.

By Ruben Schade | Also posted in funny, podcasting | Comments (0)

9rules is not a manufacturer of luxury tape measures

2008.09.28 – 16.47

Yesterday during one of my much enjoyed and looked forward to weekend coffee breaks with my MacBook Pro at the Boatdeck Cafe in Mawson Lakes, I posted a verbose, long winded, fun and largely ridiculous post discussing ways in which bloggers can help to maintain a regular post schedule.

ASIDE: I’m still holding out that if I mention the name of their establishment in almost every post I make, they’ll eventually start sponsoring this blog and my podcast. Flawless logic right? If they can’t afford to pay me, I’d just as happily accept a few free cups a day. Whatya say guys?

9rules leaf logo What I wasn’t expecting was a comment from none other than Mike Rundle not of our beloved Rundle Mall I discussed a few weeks ago, but of the selective 9rules blog community in the States. Who would have thunk it?

As it turns out, he was responding to an off the cuff remark I made under the "Caching Solution" heading:

To appear as though you’re more reliable to website alliances like 9rules that value regularity over quality, people write several posts a day, but release them over a period of days.

Mike was quick to correct my misapprehension:

At 9rules we value over quality over quantity any day of the week, and especially when we’re looking at blogs that want to join. If somebody split entries up over a few days just to look like they’re posting more frequently then we’d see right through that.

We’d much rather see a 9r member post great articles once a week or so then lesser quality articles every few days.

As someone who:

discusses his primary interest in computer software and lifestyle on his blog
posts only on a semi-regular basis
does it just as a hobby
enjoys grilled cheese sandwiches
isn’t even living in the same country as the time zone reported on the site half the time
posts as many multifarious, random posts as on-topic posts

… I would certainly never quality for 9rules or any other such site. It doesn’t bother me though because I’m clearly not what they’re looking for. Besides, it works both ways: I’m certainly not changing what I like to do to conform to another system!

I did appreciate Mike’s comment though and replied with a comment that looks quite like this one. Word for word almost, it’s uncanny.

Thanks for your comment Mike.

Rest assured I was mentioning your site very much tongue in cheek! That said, lets just say I know that on the basis of regularity (to say nothing of quality, and only talking about specific subjects) I certainly wouldn’t qualify, and I was making light of it.

I guess being a member of the "Ruben Schade" blogging network is enough work as is, right?

You can find 9rules (surprising thought it may seem) at http://9rules.com/. For what it’s worth, I did manage to find Dan Lockton’s fascinating sustainable architecture website through them, even if he’s no longer a member.

My very sophisticated blogging system! Photo from my Flickr account

By Ruben Schade | Also posted in podcasting, weblog | Comments (1)

At least Australian banks are weathering crisis just fine

2008.09.25 – 16.34

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in New York, 25th Septemter 2008
Photo from The Australian

With all the gloom and doom reports coming from across the Pacific in the United States with regards to the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and the string of unavoidable but nonetheless nauseating bailouts we’ve all heard about by now, it’s good to know that our own banking system and financial institutions in Australia are weathering the storm just fine. According to the Business section of The Australian paper and a recent report from the Reserve Bank, we’re actually in a relatively sound position:

“[Australia's] banking system is soundly capitalised, it has only limited exposure to sub-prime related assets, and it continues to record strong profitability and has low levels of problem loans,” it said.

The mostly upbeat report came a day after the International Monetary Fund issued a similar glowing assessment of Australia’s economy, fiscal settings and the resilience of its banks.

The RBA indicated that it, like many others, has been surprised by the extent of the financial crisis now sweeping global markets, but Australia’s banks were set to ride out the worst of it thanks to strong loan books and limited offshore exposures.

Unfortunately as I had suspected the global distrust and fear of banks is having an impact on Australian banks despite solid domestic performance. It’s another example of panic eclipsing common sense and actually doing research into companies you’re sinking money into.

For all the talk of lax regulations in the United States causing problems, I can’t help but think it has to do more with greed and general slackness. Again from the article:

[...] the central bank highlighted a few areas of the financial system hurt by the global turmoil.

“Australian Bank share prices are down considerably and banks’ funding costs have increased significantly,” the RBA said.

Bank bad debt provisioning has risen, but the ratio of banks’ problem loans to total assets remains below the average since the mid-1990s, “a period of unusually low credit losses”, it said.

In line with its recent comments on the economy, the central bank said that household balance sheets were entering a period of consolidation due to tighter financial conditions, but households were still drawing benefits from low unemployment rates and solid incomes growth.

Some stress signals are emerging for the mortgage belt, although these are minor compared to those in the United States.

This of course prompted the relaxing of interest rates from 7.25% to 7.00% earlier this month.

And to end this post, as if I needed an excuse to show something cool from my iPhone, here’s a screenshot of the Stocks application showing common indexes:

iPhone Stocks application

By Ruben Schade | Also posted in australia, economics, sport | Comments (0)

It’s a personal pineapple

2008.09.24 – 21.14

Screenshot from Life

By Ruben Schade | Also posted in quotes, television | Comments (0)

Ourmedia has deleted me!

2008.09.12 – 17.15

This issue has been resolved by the folks at Ourmedia. It did turn out to be a technical problem. I would like to thank them for their quick reply and action, I appreciate it.

Back in early 2005 when I started recording the Rubenerd Show, I discovered through an early show from IT Conversations a website called Ourmedia created by JD Lasica and Marc Canter. Essentially it was a service for free and independent media that you could upload your material onto with the guarantee that it would stay there.

All in all Rubenerd Shows 014 to 066 were uploaded to Ourmedia and were accessible from my generously provided profile page at http://ourmedia.org/user/38566/. In doing so I was able to tag shows, group them together and share them with other people in the system and through external links. I made friends. I discovered other people and materials. It was lots of fun. Unfortunately when I realised that I was going to do many more Rubenerd Shows than I had originally anticipated, I decided to revert back to my own servers because I just didn’t feel right using so much of their bandwidth, and it would only increase as I uploaded more stuff.

With the Overnightscape Rampler spinoff show in full swing, I thought I had finally figured out a less selfish way of using Ourmedia by uploading material I had recorded raw for others to listen to, but more importantly to resample and edit as people see fit in the spirit of Creative Commons and the Free Art Licence.

Ourmedia saying Rubenerd doesn’t exist

Well here we are three years later from when I registered, and I’ve learned the hard way never to trust third parties again with my content! My profile page now redirects to a search page. I was given no warning whatsoever, and the page that replaced mine doesn’t even reference me in any way. Doing a search on Ourmedia for "Ruben Schade" and "Rubenerd" return no results.

The creepy thing is part of the reason I stopped using it was because I felt uncomfortable having so much of my content on a server I didn’t control. Ourmedia had so much potential, and I had a great way to use it. I’m hoping this is a technical glitch and not a deletion!

Update

I just checked, and I can still access my Ourmedia Blog, but when you click the Rubenerd producer link, you are redirected to the empty search page. Perhaps this is a technical glitch? It’s strange because as far as I can tell no other user has been affected, I can navigate hundreds of profiles without a problem.

My page listing the content I’ve uploaded is also available, but none of the links work.

By Ruben Schade | Also posted in podcasting | Comments (0)

Doing my bit to advertise Wheatstalk 2008!

2008.09.12 – 11.20

In case you haven’t checked out Whole Wheat Radio for a while, Wheatstalk 2008 is starting! Spread the word

Relevant Links

By Ruben Schade | Also posted in music | Comments (0)

Sunrise, Spring and September musingS

2008.09.01 – 10.00

As I sit here at the Boatdeck Cafe I can’t help but remember that I ordered a tea instead of a coffee to start the week off right, however I forgot that tea doesn’t have the same effect on my brain as coffee when it comes to producing disjointed rambling weblog posts that have little real content or value, perhaps other than to assure you dear reader that you are a more interesting person than I, or at the least can express yourself with wittier prose. If after reading other Rubenerd Blog "rambling posts" this post seems bland by comparison, especially if you compare it, I apologise and advise you to microwave your left shoe for a few minutes to get your fill of random, pointless observable fun.

ASIDE: Please don’t put your shoe in the microwave. Okay you can put your shoe in the microwave, but if anyone catches you, don’t mention me or this website. I don’t want to get involved or be associated with your podiatric sado-masacism.

It’s the first of September, and you know what that means? Yes, that’s right, it means that the last number in reverse order ISO dates changes back to a 01, specifically 2008.09.01. Sometimes I’m so exciting it’s just hard to contain myself.

Pointless number adventures aside for a moment (I’m sorry I know you all love them), the first of September is important because here in the Southern Hemisphere it’s officially the first day of spring, which means winter is over! According to an ABC news report I watched last week, it has been one of Adelaide’s coldest winters on record, and as you all know if it’s on television, it has to be true!

Unfortunately it sure doesn’t feel like spring right now, the weather outside is dark and overcast and the wind is strong and chilly. How misleading to call this weather spring when clearly it’s colder than a refrigerator out here, though decidedly less tasty. People in Alaska have absolutely no idea what we’re going through; Canadians, Europeans and Japanese would be equally clueless.

Thanks to our fantastic new digital USB TV tuner that could, we watched the morning Sunrise show on Channel 7 and saw how our current home compared to others around the country. I guess Adelaide doesn’t look as dreary as Melbourne this morning, though decidedly less warm and bright as Sydney and Brisbane!

Having lived in all four of these cites at some point in my life, I can say with confidence that Adelaide has sure felt the coldest out of the four so far. Perhaps it’s because I’m in my early 20s now compared to when I was 0-9 when I lived in those places, and my poor, frail old bones just can’t take it as well as they used to. Again, nobody could possibly imagine what I’m going through right now, because nobody knows… the trouble I’ve seen… nobody knows… my bones.

Getting back to Sunrise though, I think it’s hilarious how sometimes I’m really in the mood for listening to the banter on morning television, and sometimes I wake up early and am so irritated to see their happy faces I want to punch the television… which would be a shame because my television is my computer screen. I guess punching an LCD would hurt a lot less than punching a Cathode Ray Tube though: for starters an LCD isn’t even solid material anyway right? So I’d be okay, right?

So it’s the beginning of spring, let’s hope it starts feeling like it is soon! For what it’s worth, my MacBook Pro is still performing whisper quietly after I replaced the fan on the right hand side: I’m thinking come summer I’ll need it.

And now if you’d excuse me, I have to figure out why our real estate agent claims our latest rent payment didn’t go through when I have a printed statement from my credit union clearly showing otherwise; I have to get a replacement Medicare card because my old one started to crack along the magnetic strip; I need to get a new Proof of Age card because my address has changed; and finally I need to get in contact with the doctors and medical insurance companies in Malaysia and Singapore to get more details the university here is requesting. Perhaps I will order that coffee after all!

Spring has sprung,
The grass has riz;
I wonders where
My 8 port surged protected powerboard is

By Ruben Schade | Also posted in australia, television | Comments (0)

Category archive for media

Spring wildflower photos in Mawson Lakes