social.mjd.id.au
Ruben
Ruben friendica
Quite an exhausting week. I lost a friend to cancer a week ago and started a new job.

I began the week wanting to get on my bike and keep on pedaling to the horizon. There seemed no point in striving at work when a life could be so easily snuffed out.

Today though I turned a corner. I think this new job can improve a lot of people's wellbeing. Life isn't quite so shit.
Ruben
Ruben friendica


:) thanks Joe T for making this..
Ruben
Ruben friendica
I've been really enjoying @neauoire posts over on my SDF account, I cannot seem to sub from here. Anyhow I thought you'd like this dreamboat....
https://merveilles.town/@neauoire/104830091680924012 @Matthew Davidson

no, really it's a dreamboat. Why don't we have canals in Australia? It's flat enough. Hmm, water may be the missing ingredient.
@neauoire @Matthew Davidson
Matthew Davidson
Matthew Davidson friendica
@Ruben It's just a # account; you should be able to sub. Did you include the secret bonus 'r' in your name?

I have to quit this mad addiction to canal porn. Honestly this morning I closed my eyes and saw big broad leafy trees drifting past either side of me.
#Mastodon @Ruben
Ruben
Ruben friendica
Oh, I can't remember. I'm getting old and lazy with my tech these days. I'll try again when I have some more time and energy.
Ruben
Ruben friendica

The little things

I am beset by little things at the moment. After giving up on listening to that damn aax file (for now) I decided to listen to David Graeber talking about debt, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b054pn4v but there is no RSS feed, I have to listen via the website. Fuck. I mean, I know I am behind the times with my olden ways but... Fuck. I live in the Australian Outback, when I leave the cold blue radiation sphere of my wifi I'm in the golden brown of the dreaming. There is no streaming in the dreaming. I suppose I will have to resort to letting my brain have freeform thoughts. It's not so bad.
8 comments - Show more
Andy C
Andy C mastodon (AP)
Seriously, back to the original complaint, while there's no RSS feed, it appears to be a podcast.

Try a pod catcher so you can download and listen offline while you go walk/cycle about in the outback finding yourself.

We know podcasts have made it to Australia as you co-hosted the most popular one - Sawtell.
Matthew Davidson
Matthew Davidson friendica
@Andy C If there's no # (or #, etc.) feed, it's not a # (which means the # podcast is no longer a podcast; just a bunch of files on archive.org). Being so very old, I know not these "pod catchers" of which you speak. Are you saying the # uses a publicly documented, freely implementable syndication format/protocol, but that it's just not #? If not, we have to use daisy chains of stuff like youtube-dl to achieve what Cory Doctorow calls "adversarial interoperability". https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability #
#RSS #Atom #podcast #Sawtell #BBC #freetard @Andy C
Ruben
Ruben friendica

Rainbow Tables

So I bought Jon Day's 2nd book, 'Homing' and have enjoyed the first three chapters. Due to my eyes getting older and crappier and my hours for reading generally occurring in the petite dawn I have not finished it. I couldn't find an epub version to read on my phone. So, being grateful to Jon for writing his first absolutely lovely book musing on his personal bicycle history and culture I bought the Audible book. And so began the spiral of doom.

Audible comes in the DRM'd format 'aax'. So that obviously needed fixing before i could listen. I cloned https://github.com/inAudible-NG/tables.git but struggled to ffprobe the SHA1 out of downloaded aax file. Then found it was because I was attempting to do so on the copy of the file not the original. That was an hour wasted. Next up, the rainbow tables. The linux version on github repo just plain does not work the audible hash is not implemented. So I install Wine to run the windows version. Feck me, now Wine is downloading an entire planet to my unstable debian. So, like an eejat, I let it. Out of time. I have to go to work...
Ruben
Ruben friendica
And now I've b0rked my laptop. It's probably been a year since I backed anything up. Sigh.
Ruben
Ruben friendica
My own fault. For some reason i went with LVM on the last install. Trying to recover that stuff is impossible. #
#letitgo
Ruben
Ruben friendica
But my middle school English teacher said not to...

"You can start a sentence with and, but, because, so or however."

How to write in plain English

http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/how-to-write-in-plain-english.html?
Ruben
Ruben friendica

Lap Turtle

I think our turtle is a lap turtle. Hank as she is affectionately known clamours to be released from her 6ft tank when I get home from work. Then follows me around the kitchen dangerously trying to climb on my feet. Finally I sit down and Hank circles several times before clambering up my legs and as she falls I catch her and put her on my lap. Finally she settles. So, I'm typing this with a cold turtle on my lap.
Ruben
Ruben friendica
Whichever way you look at it, Winsome Sultana is an awesome name
11 comments - Show more
Andy C
Andy C mastodon (AP)
Sorry - who was 'Winsome Sultana' ? Did she really exist ?
Ruben
Ruben friendica
@Andy C
I'd attach a picture from The Barrier Daily Truth obituaries but @mjd's strange fiendica thing only allows images of less than about 23 bytes ... but only if uploaded using a laundry mangle
Andy C
Andy C mastodon (AP)
Now I am researching local papers in the Outback that almost closed. Thanks

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/apr/16/coronavirus-closed-a-broken-hill-newspaper-but-the-community-fought-to-save-it
Ruben
Ruben friendica
@Andy C
It's a nice little paper. In an eccentrically local way.
Andy C
Andy C mastodon (AP)
Of course, 'winsome' is defined as 'attractive or appealing in a fresh, innocent way'. Which is nice.

Particularly when you append 'Sultana'.
Matthew Davidson
Matthew Davidson friendica
@Andy C
@Ruben has been getting to know his new neighbours. Even the long-dead ones. It's a smaller town than he's used to, so he's had to make do. He's the only person I know whose Dunbar's number obeys Moore's law.
@Andy C @Ruben
Ruben
Ruben friendica
Yesterday's apocalypse weather has subsided. Which is nice
Ruben
Ruben friendica
John Hirst "The Distinctiveness of Australian Democracy*" – Parliament of Australia

"Australians are suspicious of persons in authority, but towards impersonal authority they are very obedient."

https://www.aph.gov.au/sitecore/content/Home/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/pops/pop42/hirst
Ruben
Ruben friendica

750k dead

We just passed 750,00 deaths caused by the coronavirus. An appalling number which is quickly catching up with a similar number of suicides in 2017. Recent events in my life have left me wondering what the suicide rates for 2020 will be. Anecdotally I am aware of a several suicides related directly to the Australian bushfires and the shuttering covid economy. To take ones own life is just awful and leaves recurring scars to ripple out. Like a second law of thermodynamics concerning not energy but pain.



We all ultimately die, this chart spells it out, notice how many of those deaths are avoidable. That won't change, we live to take risks and will always find new and entertaining ways to exit life. Don't let life get you down (Mrs Brown) and remember this is just a moment in our constantly changing lives (apologies to Eric Idle and John Du Prez).
Andy C reshared this.
Ruben
Ruben friendica

Drongo and Butcher rulez

"The Rajah of Lake Tyers was disqualified for using a knife and fork. The final showed a win for Butcher who polished off 11 pies and Drongo a close second with 10."
https://meandmybigmouth.com.au/great-australian-pie/
Matthew Davidson
Matthew Davidson friendica
I don't have many ambitions, but being recognised for "performing amazing feats of pedestrianism" would be rather fine. I've never run the route, but I have pub crawled from Parramatta to the city. I didn't know it was 18 miles, but it certainly hurts the next day, for multiple reasons. Parramatta Road is not typically considered a hiking trail, and there are several lengthy barren stretches between rest stations. The microbrewery pub at Flemington Markets was lovely - well, after working one's way through the menu from wheat lager to chocolate porter it certainly appeared so. In the shadow of a new toll motorway and Olympic stadium, lined with boarded up shops, tattoo parlours, and old working pubs sighing their last, Parramatta Road twenty years ago was a collapsed vein of an addict to the deadly drug prosperity. I wonder what it's like now.
Ruben
Ruben friendica
@Matthew Davidson
"Parramatta Road... a collapsed vein" of a prosperity addict, you are Sydney's finest exiled poet, kudos to you.
Ruben
Ruben friendica

The future looks bright


One day I hope to evolve....
Ruben
Ruben friendica
"In the past, the way the independent-minded protected themselves was to congregate in a handful of places — first in courts, and later in universities — where they could to some extent make their own rules. Places where people work with ideas tend to have customs protecting free inquiry"

The Four Quadrants of Conformism

http://paulgraham.com/conformism.html?
Ruben
Ruben friendica
I have become astoundingly # of late. I blame the cold weather. Mind you when it gets hot I will also blame the weather.
#lazy
Ruben
Ruben friendica

Property AU

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/newsradio/property-faces-30-declines/12488234
Crashing house prices... what's not to love?
Matthew Davidson
Matthew Davidson friendica
The crashing houses are good fun, too. Provided they belong to rich people. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/21/australia/australia-coastal-erosion-homes-intl-hnk-scli/index.html # #
#climate #schadenfreude
Ruben
Ruben friendica

life is for the birds

Ruben
Ruben friendica
Dog howling for a walk as I left to ride with H to school. Everyone wants me to do something...
Ruben
Ruben friendica

LynkedOn or whatever it's supposed to be called....

I finally succumbed to clicking a LinkedIn spam email. What is it about lInkeDin which seems to attract all the dickheads? After all ... um ... I am on it ...

Perhaps I should rephrase that, after all everyone is 'on' liNkediN whether they sign up or not (like Facebook). Horrible platform. It's the cretins who feel they have to post stuff on it that I am judging. Oh, and I am judging, especially you Snotty Swindler. I don't care about your incredible success. You are actually not a very nice person and your 'mutual connections' are equally foul. That'll teach me to go clicking on grubby links.
Andy C
Andy C mastodon (AP)
Left it behind years ago. Populated mainly by narcissists and brainless head hunters.
Ruben
Ruben friendica
2020-07-17 07:12:30
Better than installing pokies: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/15/cornish-pub-installs-an-electr.html
Ruben
Ruben friendica
The crocs are taking over...
Ruben
Ruben friendica
For my own sanity I just withdrew from postgrad oncology. Goodbye Uni, hello bicycle....
Ruben
Ruben friendica
in my excitement, I rode 50k to Silverton and back and popped some spokes on my back wheel. Dammit
Ruben
Ruben friendica

Machine

H [age 10] asked what those two machines on the wall were for?



... I must be old.
Ruben
Ruben friendica
Met up with Anthony from back on the coast. I took him on a tour of Broken Hills' dumps. I'd make great tour guide, "...and here on your left is the area used in times gone by to leave unwanted oil cans, truly remarkable..."
Ruben
Ruben friendica
Semester begins with a flurry of emails which I can barely bring myself to even look at. 462 unread discussion posts! It's only been open for one day. Don't these people have lives? I am already inundated with instructions to log in and install, to engage and attend Web Conferences. I hate it all. I had forgotten with how much passion I hate it. Fuck Online Education and all who sail with it. This has nothing to do with 'Higher Learning' it is just corporate hoops to jump for higher pay.
Ruben
Ruben friendica
@Matthew Davidson
Switch your mates - Powershop

Thinking about making the switch to Powershop? Switching power companies doesn’t have to be a drag. In fact, once you make the move to a greener power company, you’ll find it’s one of the best moves you’ve ever made.

Get $$$ off your energy bills by switching to Powershop using my unique link: https://secure.powershop.com.au/r/rubenh-hiSWFeP?p=556
@Matthew Davidson
Ruben
Ruben friendica
We ran out of gas heating last week and I am wearing all my clothes. It's been quite nippy out here: http://wttr.in/Broken+Hill
Matthew Davidson
Matthew Davidson friendica
@Ruben I just got a punishing electricity bill - probably an estimated meter reading based on this time last year (i.e. the previous tenant). Who do you get to move your electrons about? Anything must be better than #.
#EnergyAustralia @Ruben
Ruben
Ruben friendica
@Matthew Davidson
PowerShop I pay in advance in dribs and drabs using their app. It's less of a shock...
Ruben
Ruben friendica
Getting funny looks from colleagues in the tea room. It's my business if I want to chow down cold semolina for morning tea. It's a delicacy in some parts of the world.
Ruben
Ruben friendica

Social Networking before the internet?

Ruben
Ruben friendica

titular title

Set title, wtf is this.... 2010?
Ruben
Ruben friendica
Looks like I can't follow @Andy C from here...
@Andy C
8 comments - Show more
Matthew Davidson
Matthew Davidson friendica
@Ruben Got a little bit more misanthropy, which frankly I didn't need. Also an SMS from # saying divorce papers for me to sign are in the post. As long as everything remains cordial and I only need provide signatures, that's a considerable win - for both players. Not counting chickens, but that may be a personal best as far as my limited experience with gambling is concerned.
#ex-DLW @Ruben
Ruben
Ruben friendica
@Matthew Davidson
Frankly, any attempt to quietly have a drink alone in the shopping mall/gambling parlours of Sawtell is going to result in misery. They lace their beverages with essence of sadness.
Ruben
Ruben friendica
@Andy C @Matthew Davidson
@Andy C @Matthew Davidson
Ruben
Ruben friendica
@Matthew Davidson I'm a bit slow. I just figured out that when anyone attempts to follow this account I have to 'authorise' them. That is one rule too many. Can I switch it off?
Matthew Davidson
Matthew Davidson friendica
@Ruben Aha! Settings > Account Settings > Advanced account types > Account types > Personal Page subtypes.
@Ruben
Ruben
Ruben friendica
@Matthew Davidson
I'm not even going there on my phone
Matthew Davidson
Matthew Davidson friendica
@Ruben I was at the Sydney Linux Users Group meeting where Jeff Waugh demonstrated the nearly-ready GNOME 2. Among the key features were the elimination of the rats' maze of settings like the ability to define how many pixels apart you wanted the icons on your desktop. # appears yet to go through this process.
#Friendica @Ruben
Andy C
Andy C mastodon (AP)
I presume so but I don't have a Friendica account.
Ruben
Ruben friendica
Made me lol
Ruben
Ruben friendica
Had a delightful day. It's been cold so I put on my grown up trousers and started work on my shed. A day of screwing together bits of wood and sawing planks. When it got dark I lit a fire in the backyard and we cooked sausages on sticks. the fire is dying now and I'm nursing a glass of whiskey.
Matthew Davidson
Matthew Davidson friendica
Goodness me. If, at some point in the future, I'm rushed to hospital in desperate need of a testosterone transplant because the last few strands of hair on my head simply refuse to fall out, I shall rise weakly from my stretcher and hoarsely whisper "Fetch my chum @Ruben from Broken Hill. He's positively brimming with the stuff."
@Ruben
Ruben
Ruben friendica
@Matthew Davidson
Inadvertantly channelling Hemingway there, don't worry it's all a front. I made sure my electric blanket was on when I went to bed and was thoroughly intimidated by the bearded chap at the timber yard.
Ruben
Ruben friendica
This friendica thing might look like a dog's breakfast but it seems to integrate fine here in #
#fedilab
Ruben
Ruben friendica
2020-07-02 10:23:55
So… F-bomb Freddy has discovered that he's got himself evicted. Which is to say that he's under the impression that the tenants of 20 other units quite unreasonably got him evicted. He was out on his balcony earlier - like the lead in a Shakespeare tragedy, albeit with a uniquely limited vocabulary - to declare that he didn't care, as he was planning to move out anyway. To alternative digs where apparently all his female neighbours will be queuing up to offer him oral sex.

Funny. I've been searching the local real estate listings, and I think I would have noticed that one. Sounds rather bothersome, to be honest. Before long I'd be hoping that the next knock on the door was the Jehovah's Witnesses.

He also swore to burn the place to the ground. So mixed messages there. A simple man moved by errant passions. Now feeling he has nothing to lose. #
#Aloha
Ruben
Ruben friendica
This is a bit different...
3 comments - Show more
Ruben
Ruben friendica
I wonder if it'll take off?
Ruben
Ruben friendica
We could give it a go, I suppose
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