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Ruben Schade (taking break)

@rubenerd@bsd.network

Hi 👋 I’m a human, blogger, technical writer, IaaS engineer, weeb traveller, urbanist, third-culture kid, profile list enumerator, and retro computator in Sydney, Australia, formerly Singapore. He/them. Friend. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Runs #NetBSD, #FreeBSD, #illumos. Slings #Xen and #QEMU at work. Co-host of #BSDNow!

I am bad at replying; sorry.

0 Followers

662 Following

30 Posts

Joined December 23, 2018

Weblog:

https://rubenerd.com

Lunchbox:

https://codeberg.org/rubenerd/lunchbox

Lands:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eora

Wiki:

https://www.sasara.moe/wiki/

Posts

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · May 25, 2026

Pardon the French, but fuck I love #NetBSD. Had a long train ride home, so SSH’d into my Shonen Jump box at home, then into my old Solaris box, then my Pentium 1. It all still works, and it’s wonderful. Wanted to try something, built a little chroot, done. It’s all so predictable and consistent and wonderful. And… increasingly rare.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · May 22, 2026

Replying to @oxy@social.bsdlab.au

@oxy@social.bsdlab.au That's good to know! Love the Noctua browns in my rigs. When I eventually move off AM4 and LGA1151 I might need to ping them about mounting kits.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · May 22, 2026

The SilverStone FLP02 retro beige case has 3 positions for its upper drive sleds, but only ships with 2. On a whim I emailed and asked if I could buy another one. Within 24 hours they arranged shipment for one, for USD 6. SilverStone are awesome!

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · May 17, 2026

Bagels aren’t stale doughnuts. Doughnuts are under-ripe bagels.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · May 03, 2026

A non-essential tool I use has changed their login process to be far more complicated.

I've mitigated this by making my account login much less secure. Bravo, claps all around!

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · May 03, 2026

Okay, onto the first call of the day. Stay fabulous everyone 👋

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · May 03, 2026

Replying to @tubsta@social.bsdlab.au

@tubsta@social.bsdlab.au @joel@gts.tumfatig.net Interested to read more about your experience. I've been on Fedora since forever, but yeah, RH doesn't instil confidence.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · May 03, 2026

Morning waves to Monday people in this and similar timezones 👋 . What an awkward sentence.

I'm on my first double espresso of the day. Feels like I'll need it, based on The Calendar.

Update: This espresso is delicious! Wow! What a difference starting the day right makes.

#tzag

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Apr 28, 2026

The new Commodore announced the 64C Ultimate, and I'm happy for a whole multitude of reasons, some of which I awkwardly wrote about here. tl;dr: The 64C was my favourite 64, and something something optimism. https://www.rubenerd.au/commodore-releases-the-64c-ultimate/

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Apr 28, 2026

Generative "AI" is like plutonium and PII. There are *extremely* limited cases where its use is appropriate, and misuse carries severe issues. We're far enough along in this bubble where pleading ignorance also doesn't fly.

The way in which people are speed-running Fuck Around and Find Out when it comes to this stuff shouldn't keep surprising me, yet here we are!

--
PII: Personally identifiable information. You can't have a data leak with data you don't hold.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Apr 22, 2026

Equinix will now only deal with you directly if you have $50K (IIRC) in additional spend, otherwise they're palming you off to a distibutor. And the one they've chosen in Australia is... not ideal.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Apr 22, 2026

Replying to @dexter@bsd.network

@dexter@bsd.network And oksh! :')

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Apr 17, 2026

Two rude emails last night, but got a comment from a gentleman saying he'd retired many years ago, and that he drinks his tea while reading my blog every morning.

This image of a father figure in a dressing gown on his porch in the rural US reading my silly words on his iPad just... fills me with more joy than I care to admit.

(Also, hey look, imposter syndrome! I must have tricked him somehow into reading my stuff).

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Apr 16, 2026

Replying to @wezm@mastodon.decentralised.social

@wezm @isagalaev It used to really get to me when I lived in Singapore, which doesn't have traditional seasons at all. A lot of those ostensibly in the "Northern Hemisphere" are similar.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Apr 16, 2026

Replying to @wezm@mastodon.decentralised.social

@wezm THIS! How hard would it be to say Q2 2026, or May 2026?

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Apr 13, 2026

ZFS helped remove a bunch of code for a client! Only high level, but got his permission to share this morning.

https://www.rubenerd.au/zfs-removing-code/

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Apr 10, 2026

Seeing more European governments announcing plans to switch to Linux over sovereignty concerns.

Curious what distros they'll end up choosing. The news articles and government press releases don't usually say.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Apr 01, 2026

Replying to @psa@masto.ai

@psa @82mhz Thanks for the recommendation mate, I really appreciate it :)

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Mar 28, 2026

I’ve decided to spend more time talking about and sharing things that are awesome.

FreeBSD is especially awesome for storage and hypervisors.

NetBSD is especially awesome for anything old and small, but can still grow with you.

Xen is especially awesome as a Linux hypervisor.

Tribblix is an awesome illumos OS, not just for those nostalgic for Solaris tooling.

OM System (ne. Olympus) still make especially awesome fun cameras.

Coffee is especially awesome for taste and alertness.

FLAC, turns out, is especially awesome when your ears have been fixed up.

This is a non-exhaustive list.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Mar 18, 2026

Replying to @Natasha_Jay__dup_31065@tech.lgbt

@Natasha_Jay@tech.lgbt I only just saw this reposted on my timeline, and it put a grin on my face. Thank you :')

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Mar 07, 2026

Replying to @rubenerd@bsd.network

All discrimination makes no sense, but racism is also offensive for being so damn lazy. Ooooooooh this person looks different from me ooooooooh I can’t handle this ooooooooh! Wankers.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Mar 07, 2026

Only times I’ve “experienced” racism is second hand, via people I’ve walked with. Today, an older white woman had a rant as she walked past Clara, saying she was “Chinese” as though it were a pejorative. I stopped and called her out for it, and she mumbled and slunk away, because of course she was too cowardly to face someone about it.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Mar 01, 2026

Replying to @wpeckham@social.linux.pizza

@wpeckham@social.linux.pizza Thanks William :). For what it's worth, your considered insights have been among the highlights of my time here as well, which has been hugely appreciated.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Feb 08, 2026

Replying to @tragivictoria@mastodon.catgirl.cloud

@tragivictoria@mastodon.catgirl.cloud @frederic@gts.raspi0.blog @greenpeace@mastodon.social Yup, perfect example of whataboutism. It's what you do when you don't have any other argument.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Feb 08, 2026

I know I've been mentioning @davidgerard@circumstances.run here a lot recently, but his stuff has been super useful. Pivot to AI comes out every weekday, and succinctly summarises the latest AI guff. Each episode covers one topic, which also makes them easy to share. @PivotToAI@www.youtube.com

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Feb 07, 2026

Replying to @swelljoe@mas.to

@swelljoe@mas.to @exchgr@mastodon.world

Good developers will write good code faster

The evidence doesn't really support this.

https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Jun 09, 2025

Replying to @declan@social.chinwag.org

@declan@social.chinwag.org Epic!! Marking in the calendar :)

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · May 06, 2025

Replying to @gnome@floss.social

@gnome@floss.social https://tech.lgbt/@Kye/114444095090005550

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Sep 13, 2024

Replying to @ostyn@mastodon.social

@ostyn@mastodon.social @robotspacer@xoxo.zone Yeah, and I don’t blame anyone for doing so! Notification fatigue is real.

Ruben Schade (taking break) @rubenerd@bsd.network · Jul 16, 2023

Replying to @HamonWry__dup_5645@mastodon.world

@HamonWry@mastodon.world Agreed. I didn’t realise how much I’d internalised snark and sarcasm until I took a break from there. Once you have a taste of people being earnest, it’s hard to look back.

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