I haven’t watched it through yet, but a vtuber playing one of my favourite games of all time!? It was a salve to a troubled mind. The downside to mostly following streamers from Hololive is that getting permissions can be trickier for a large agency (at least, from what I’ve been … | Continue reading
(I wanted to take a break from writing about tech today, so here’s something random that’s been on my mind! Or I suppose, in my mind, given how microplastics are now a thing. Thanks for reading). You know when you’re a little kid and full of a million questions? My parents kept a … | Continue reading
Last Saturday I made the mistake of asking Linux people not to tell those who need Windows to use Linux, and answered the most popular replies. I thought it was innocuous, but at the time of writing, it has over a hundred (visible) comments, five hundred reposts, and a thousand l … | Continue reading
Last Saturday I made the mistake of asking Linux people not to tell those who need Windows to use Linux, and answered the most popular replies. I thought it was innocuous, but at the time of writing, it has over a hundred (visible) comments, five hundred reposts, and a thousand l … | Continue reading
A post by jbauer on Mastodon about zebra crossings made me evaluate how I cross the street too. Like with many juristictions, zebra crossings in Australia require cars to stop to let you cross. At least, in theory. They’re popular around schools, or long blocks where the nearest … | Continue reading
In no particular order: Is a phrase with four words. Mmm, that’s quality humour. There were a few elements not showing up properly in dark mode on single pages. You might need to force a refresh to get the most recent CSS. Some Dublin Core metadata wasn’t quite correct. I didn’t … | Continue reading
We’re well into the wrong decade for these Antipixel-style 80x15 website buttons. But they’re delightful, and I’ve started including them in my blog theme and their own page again. We have a few different ones for the various BSD operating systems, but there wasn’t one for ZFS. S … | Continue reading
Hi! My name is Ruben Schade, and I’m a solution architect for an indie cloud company who mostly runs Linux, but tries to use FreeBSD and NetBSD where he can. This is my story. LAW AND ORDER DUN DUN The post Yesterday I saw the news that Microsoft will be including ads in an upcom … | Continue reading
I subscribe to a couple of “channel” focused IT publications in Australia, because I work at a company that only deals B2B. I didn’t realise until I started working there that “channel” referred to such an arrangement; I thought it was a passage of water permitting the traversal … | Continue reading
I resisted making another account for two decades, but the time finally came. I couldn’t believe how much was the same as I remember. The Tiki Tack Tombola! There’s plenty of blame to go around here, but the bulk of it goes to my sister. She has the second-oldest active account o … | Continue reading
This put a smile on my face this morning: Note: - Though this is not an automated email, (i.e., to ensure that we do not contact you again for this matter), please send a blank mail to it with NO as Subject. Not automated! This post wasn’t written by me as I drink coffee either! … | Continue reading
He would buy the best; But never something new. By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2024-04-12. | Continue reading
I’ve never heard of Claynel before, but they’ve already manufactured some impressive figs, including Clara’s favourite Hololive JP character Kanata, and the legendary Takina and Chisato duo from Lycrois Recoil. This rendition of Ryza from her namesake Atelier franchise is adorabl … | Continue reading
Here are some footpath-related observations I’ve made recently (or sidewalk for my North American friends), that have caused me considerable concern. The first is a farewell to an Australia Post and Express Post mailing box, which sat on the side of this footpath for decades befo … | Continue reading
It’s funny that I field almost as many sysadmin questions about Minecraft than I do BSDs thesedays. Even Minecraft on BSD! This post addresses the most common question after running Minecraft on FreeBSD, and on NetBSD. I’ll assume here that you have a functional server, and know … | Continue reading
Miku Expo 2024 has launched in North America, with sell out concerts featuring everyone’s favourite virtual idol. On the good side, we have hatahiro’s art for the event which is fscking spectacular! She’s clearly a manga-inspired character, but the Gotham-style landscape and the … | Continue reading
Nicholas Jordan and his taste testing team of taste testers tasted and tested various Australian instant coffees. Taste test! Their results confirmed what Clara and I have long suspected, and were equally surprised about: Aldi instant is shockingly decent, especially for the pric … | Continue reading
I’m not sure if this is a side-effect of using my own VPNs and a bunch of privacy and security extensions, or that FreeBSD/Firefox is unusual enough to raise eyebrows. But I’ve been triggering these checks constantly, at least half a dozen times a day. I’ve decided my time is wor … | Continue reading
The subject of smartphone frustration and dependence has become an unintentional theme here of late. Whether my work and personal phones are the root cause, or exacerbating existing anxiety, I’ve decided I’d rather not have them in the bedroom before I sleep. I now reach for a bo … | Continue reading
I picked up the ZOTAC RTX 3070 Twin Edge graphics card right at the peak of blockchain scams, back when we were stuck at home and few cards were in stock. I paid way too much for it in retrospect, but the joy and entertainment it’s provided over these last couple of years are als … | Continue reading
I just created an account, and got a welcome email. Cool! Hi there, Thanks for trying Kagi! To get the most out of your trial, consider: Kagi is a little different from other search engines. Get familiar with our unique features with this Quick Start. I’m sold so far. Your Kagi s … | Continue reading
It’s Music Monday time! Each and every etc, I something here for stuff. Today we have one of Rodriguez’s best songs from his seminal 1970 album Cold Fact. It still blows me away that this talented American singer/songwriter was huge in South Africa and Australia, but relatively o … | Continue reading
I’ll admit, I use retrocomputers in exceeding boring ways. Everyone I watch and read restores these machines as a means to play games, and it’s kind of assumed everyone does. I mostly use them to tinker and explore how legacy word processors, spreadsheets, databases, and Pascal e … | Continue reading
Dynmap is one of those plugins that feels integral to Minecraft once you start using it. I’ve joked with Clara that I spend as much time cataloguing, mapping, and exploring our Dynmap than I do playing the host game itself, which perhaps says more about me than I care to admit. T … | Continue reading
New Zealand’s new attire… New (Zealand, attire)? Damn my compulsive need to factorise all the things. I saw a few outlets reporting on this, so I went to the source: Gymnastics NZ Regulations – All Codes [..] Athletes may choose to wear gymnastics shorts or leggings over their le … | Continue reading
Daylight Savings (do we capitalise that?) ended across south-east Australia early this morning, so it’s now 05:16 and I’m wide awake. Specifically, awake enough to know you won’t be getting back to sleep. I tended to find that I’d go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier during sc … | Continue reading
I haven’t done a book review here in years. Today we’re looking at this beautiful collection collated and written by historian Eric Sauder in 2015 that arrived from the UK: Does the slotted balcony table and plant look at all like I’m sitting at her first class Verandah Café? Pro … | Continue reading
From their latest Hardware News recap of the week. By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2024-04-05. | Continue reading
Self-driving cars are one of those technologies that flew under my LIDAR (thank you) until I started seeing their social effects. I’d previously lumped them in with hyperloops, cryptocurrency, and generative AI as mediocre tech in search of problems. Or at least, gullible investo … | Continue reading
I’ve had a good run with memory cards and USB keys, given their reputation for flakiness relative to other storage tech. It worries me how many MicroSD cards are running boot volumes on single-board computers and routers around the world, quietly grinding down their wear-levellin … | Continue reading
By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2024-04-04. | Continue reading
This is the penultimate post in my Melbourne 2024 series! Today we have the results of a small trip Clara and I took the day before we flew back to Sydney. I haven’t had telephoto capability for a long time, so thought it would be fun to capture some small details on various buil … | Continue reading
I had a dream a few nights ago in which an ice cream vendor asked me which SAS backplane I needed. Before I had time to answer, he’d already connected the cone to a 2U server somehow, and the ice cream starting shorting things and blowing up circuits, which I then had to explain … | Continue reading
We’re coming to the end of my Melbourne travel posts, which may be a feature depending on what you originally came to this weird blog for! This post talks less about a specific experience, and more a general observation having spent a week wandering around. I’ve been to Melbourne … | Continue reading
These replies are apropos(1) of nothing in particular. Yes, that’ll do! What do you expect, you don’t live in the dessert [sic]. The weather forecast clearly stated rain, are you a smooth brain? It’s your own fault for not preparing, bringing an umbrella, losing your umbrella, us … | Continue reading
Intercity travellers to Melbourne might talk about the coffee and views, but the real reason transport nerds like me go back there is to explore the world’s largest tram system, known in other parts of the world as light rail, trolleys, street cars, anything but bus. Because buse … | Continue reading
I haven’t seen this many spooked infosec engineers since Spectre. I was on leave when the news broke, but many of the same lessons the industry didn’t take to heart during the OpenSSL debacle have resurfaced. Namely, the security risks posed by: Small, overworked, underpaid, unde … | Continue reading
This is a correction on my part regarding a train of thought I started last year. For some background, I’ve noticed that as I use my smartphone less, uninstall certain social media applications, turned off notifications, and become more deliberate about when I let it into my life … | Continue reading
Clara and I went to the Melbourne Botanic Gardens last week, but we didn’t get to the Fern Gully in time. But over the weekend we went back to wander, and we did find it this time. This is easily my favourite part of the park, and it even has a bench where you can sit and have a … | Continue reading
I’ll admit, it feels a bit weird saying happy in relation to a day that shouldn’t need to exist. This isn’t an event like Mothers Day where we lavish attention on people we think deserve it, it’s so trans people are seen. Still, I hope my trans friends had a nice day yesterday, a … | Continue reading
Clara and I didn’t go out of our way to find great coffee around Melbourne, but we kept stumbling across it! Here were a small selection of our favourites, in no specific order. Miyama We found this Japanese-inspired coffee shop while looking for something else on the top floor o … | Continue reading
The last few times Clara and I have been on trips I’ve copied our Minecraft server to one of our laptops, and shared the address with the other machine. It works, but we always run tight on memory. I also need excuses to deploy and tinker with new things like… someone who doesn’t … | Continue reading
Clara and I went to the Melbourne SkyDeck atop the Eureka Tower a few nights ago. It was a lot of fun! So we decided to see what it was like during the day. In short: very hazy from a bit of fog and bushfire smoke in the distance. It was eerie, like we were looking at the city th … | Continue reading
I got this email from LinkedIn Australia; maybe you got something similar: My name is $PERSON and I’m a Senior Editor at LinkedIn News Australia. I often get in touch with professionals who can add informed perspectives on news and trends. Burnout is increasingly an issue among w … | Continue reading
I’ve been fascinated with ocean liners and early twentieth century history since I was in primary school, as I’ve posted again multiple times recently. Clara and I had penciled in a day to wander the Melbourne Museum, but when we heard there was a Titanic exhibit!? Get out of her … | Continue reading
Today I got to share a bit of my childhood with Clara! I was born in Sydney, but my family moved to Melbourne before my first birthday, so I remember none of it. My parents intended to live in Melbourne permanently, so they bought a house for the cost of a sandwich in a new devel … | Continue reading
Notice anything? Their name isn’t on the cover! I was 15 when I realised they’re called The Beatles because it has the word Beat in it. It also took me reading Wikipedia to realise it was their first album that doesn’t mention their name anywhere on the front. I’m still coming to … | Continue reading
The Melbourne Botanic Gardens are Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens just south of the Melbourne CBD, hence the name. Sometimes I worry the stuff I write here is too clever… but then I raise something completely pointless like this. Clara hadn’t been before, and I’d never seen it late i … | Continue reading