2026-04-01 06:20:26
Technically it was yesterday, but it’s still the 31st of March in some timezones, so I’ll slide this post in on a technicality!
To all my beautiful trans friends: I see you, and I’m proud. You’re the current punching bag of dullards desperate for distractions, and yet you persevere and remain true to yourselves.
You are the kindest people I’ve ever met. Thank you for being a part of my life.
By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2026-04-01.
2026-03-31 11:15:25
Last week I talked about personally-identifiable information (PII) in the context of a data breach. It reminded me of the three questions I always ask in relation to PII:
Do I need this PII? It’s impossible to leak data you don’t hold.
Is my collection, holding, and processing of this PII legal and responsible? This includes requests to have said data removed.
Am I transparent about what PII I have collected?
These should be simple to answer. If you run a business and they aren’t, congratulations, you’ve won the Liability Prize! Most people will ignore it. Problem for you is, some of us don’t.
By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2026-03-31.
2026-03-31 07:21:00
I am in Australia, and once posted from Singapore and Malaysia. My location is written on every post on this site, and every entry in the RSS feed. I use a redundant U in words like colour. I substitute Z with S where I can. I even employ international units of measurement like kilometres, Celsius, and megabytes.
How this basic geographic fact continues to elude people who send me comments is fascinating, and admittedly a bit frustrating.
For reference, I have highlighted Australia in teal below, and the United States in blue. Notice they’re not the same place:
I trust this post will be ignored. But in the words of famed Australian philosopher Martin Luther King: I have a dream, mate.
By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2026-03-31.
2026-03-31 05:09:31
I’m thinking it’s time to host something else, but I haven’t decided yet; hence the Betteridge-adjacent title.
Since 2018 I’ve been on the BSD Network, run by some of the kindest, hardest working people in the BSD community. When I suggested to Linux fans that some people need to run Windows (irrespective of whether they want to), they handled the ensuing explosion of vitriol and traffic with grace and professionalism. I’ve learned that Mastodon instances are only as good as their admins, and they’re the best.
But I’ve also decided I want ultimate control of my own data. I self-host almost everything upon which my family and I depend, so it makes sense.
The question then becomes: which one? I’ve run Mastodon, but it’s a lot of moving parts for what would end up hosting 1-5 people. I ran GoToSocial for a small family and friend circle behind a VPN, and it worked great. There’s also SNAC. As long as I can import my follow/following lists, I should be happy.
Feel free to send me a comment with any other projects I should test.
By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2026-03-31.
2026-03-30 06:11:14
Clara and I love Hi-Fi gear. We have a quartz locked, linear tracking, direct drive turntable. We have a 1980s amplifier we love for its warmer, “more comfy” sound. We have a cassette deck with Dolby C, and badly want to try Dolby S one day. We have a five CD disc changer that spins open a massive drawer. We have a LaserDisc player. I have dedicated Sony, Panasonic, and Tangara portable music players for cassettes, MiniDiscs, and SD cards. I dream of reel-to-reel tape machines, and owning a DCC player one day. I’ve even recently begun uplifting our library to FLAC, and wondering if we should get a better DAC for playing digital files on our setup.
Admittedly, we also spend a not insignificant amount of our time when we go to Japan exploring HARD·OFF stores, specifically to chase down weird and wonderful pieces of audio kit.
So it may come as a surprise to learn I’m not a self-described audiophile. I’m not an expert at this stuff, nor do I think anyone should follow what I do. It’s the same as having a ThinkPad with with Arc and a desktop 3070 doesn’t qualify me as a gamer, or a metal conical-burr grinder and ever-increasing collection of coffee making kit doesn’t qualify me as a coffee expert. I know enough to be dangerous, as I’m fond of saying.
Sure, audio quality matters to me; that’s why we use Type II and Metal tapes! But it’s admittedly a secondary interest compared to enthusiasm I have for electronic history, and learning how mechanical and electronic devices work. Granted, streaming platforms pay their artists a pittance, remove songs from your playlists at a whim, and churn out slop, but physical media is also fun in its own right.
This might seem like a weird distinction to draw, but I think it’s important to… disclose? Some audio people will happily spend $400 on a cable you could get for $5, and that I’m willing to spend maybe $25 on. My priorities lie elsewhere, and my wallet would rather budget for an obscure tape format than the best possible cables for a hypothetical 5.1 speaker setup.
I suppose this is as much a PSA as anything else. Don’t read me for advice on the best possible audio quality setup, if that already weren’t obvious! I approach audio tech the same way as retro tech: as a form of entertainment in its own right that’s fun to explore and learn from. If I end up with something that sounds great, so much the better.
By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2026-03-30.
2026-03-30 05:21:04
Speaking of anniversaries, the Ever Given wedged itself into our minds and culture five years ago. From Wikipedia:
The Suez Canal was blocked for six days from 23 to 29 March 2021 by the Ever Given, a container ship that had run aground in the canal. The 400-metre-long, 224,000-ton, 20,000 TEU vessel was buffeted by strong winds on the morning of 23 March, and ended up wedged across the waterway with its bow and stern stuck on opposite canal banks, blocking all traffic until it could be freed
At the time I shared images from Garrett Dash Nelson’s fun Ever Given Everywhere site, which let you insert the famed ship into other places. Here it was in Singapore and Sydney:
Anyway, happy anniversary to those who celebrate.
By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2026-03-30.
