Vodafone fail

Vodafone need to disable logging to the page. They're leaking information (hostname, port, that they're using weblogic). I don't know if that's exploitable... but even if it isn't yet, it might be sometime.

I was going to add credit so my BestMates rate wouldn't expire. Maybe I'll just let it expire if they won't let me pay for it. This has happened before. I also pay for Sol's and her sister's prepay accounts and I had a similar problem with trying to pay once before.

Huh, I gave up on posting to their forums since it requires logging in. And when I tried to "contact by email", after I typed in the message (just a link to her and some short text suggesting they turn off logging to the page) and gave them my email address, the next page was a registration page. I'm already registered. I don't want to register again. I don't want to login. Damn. I think it might be time to switch to 2-degrees. And if I do, we'll switch as a family.

The other time this happened (weblogic errors on the top-up page) I called the 777 support number and was confronted with a call tree. I don't like call trees. When I pressed zero though, I was informed that talking to an operator would be pay-per-minute. I'm even more averse to paying for support. So I cancelled the call immediately.

Aha, I could probably click on the "Top-up online now" link and prepay with no problems. But that requires registering the credit card with them. I don't want to do that either. I'm a Luddite in many ways. I want to type in the card info everytime. It probably doesn't help security any, but I feel better about Vodafone (or any other company that uses my credit card) having one less place it stores my credit card info. It's bad enough that they actually take the credit card information instead of having the credit card company and not storing the credit card information locally.

[Update]
top-up does finally succeed a few hours later. But this isn't about eventually topping-up (if I forget to try on the same day, BestMates *will* expire and then I might cancel it because I don't really need it anymore), it's about that logging error. Don't log to the browser in production pages.

Timmy takes pictures

An album of pictures Timmy has taken. There are more, I'll add as I find them, moving backward through our on-disk archive of pictures

Waiting in Acapulco

Sol thought out loud that it would be nice to bring the children to Disneyland. And then she said it's too bad we couldn't go to the one in California, or the one in Florida since I wouldn't go with them.

I was being too linear (and insensitive) when I replied that they could go to Disneyland and I'd wait for them in Acapulco. As much as I'd love to visit the U.S. and see friends and beloved, I won't do it. Until the U.S. pays reparations to Iraq (and preferably Afghanistan) for the deaths it's caused, I will leave the U.S. alone with its iniquity and wait (probably beyond death) for it to receive what it deserves. And as a practical matter, the U.S. never pays reparations, because it can do no wrogn. And anyone who says otherwise gets shot.

There is also the simple (and perhaps irrational and innumerate [because I'm an inconsequential little fish and it's not like anyone would actually care what I think, but I ignore the statistics and worry anyway]) fear that if I do visit the U.S., if anyone at immigration or customs googles my name they might find their way to this blog and subject me to a cavity search and other indignities. And frankly, if I'm on my way to american gaol (no matter how temporary, even if it's only a small holding cell at an airport), I'm going to fight until somebody dies (and the firepower curve being what it is, that's probably me). So I'm just not going to the U.S. I've got children to raise to manhood, and my children are dearer to me than anyone in the U.S.

But sol wasn't serious. American Disneyland isn't a big deal. And maybe the kids won't grow up wanting to go there anyway. For preference, I'd rather we visit, e.g.,

The Okinawa Aquarium

or maybe travel through India, Nepal, Bhutan. We'd love to go through Morocco, maybe Egypt (I'd rather not visit Israel until the Palestinians have a state). Spain, France, Italy, Greece would be good (but I'm just dreaming online here, I don't know that we'd be able to afford those :-).

I bet the whole family would love to visit Acapulco :-). Even if, after so many years in New Zealand, my intestinal flora will no longer be strong enough to fight off Montezuma's revenge.

We're certainly going to visit only a small fraction of those places. But visiting any at all will be the fulfillment of dreams I never thought could be fulfilled, just two years ago.

Diving at CamiguinAction in Jun 2007

Sol and I (and Timmy) went to Cagayan de Oro and Camiguin in June 2007. This was for Timmy's baptism, and also a vacation.

Vacation pictures are at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31726&id=1134594770&l=8201db0079

Without a sense of irony

Israel is forcing arabs out of their homes, homes they've occupied for decades, to make way for new apartments for jews only

This is Israeli apartheid. Halfway to fulfilling my prediction that eventually they're going to have to kill off all the arabs. For now, all they're doing is killing a few thousand here, a few thousand there, keeping a few tens of thousands of arabs in jail and torturing a few thousand of them.

Personally, I won't have anything to do with anything Israeli. I won't buy their products, I won't go there, and I'll do all I can to convince people who want to make the pilgrimage not to do it. That won't do much good, people who want to do the pilgrimage will go anyway, regardless of the evil they support which they willfully misunderstand, but I'll say it anyway.

Are there Israelis they are creating? No doubt, maybe even a large majority. But that doesn't matter. A complete boycott is what I'm for. No exceptions. The arabs are going to be starved of food, space, life and hope anyway, regardless of how well we discriminate between good and bad Israeli products.

This is America

http://www.democrats.com/node/19855

Return on assets

This is the second article I've seen recently strongly suggesting that bank performance should be measured on return on assets rather than return on equity.

I don't understand finance and accounting enough to know what's what, but it sounds good :-).

pulpified

Dilawar was chained by his wrists to the ceiling of his cell for four days and brutally beaten by Army interrogators on his legs for hours on end to the point where he could no longer bend them. He died on Dec. 10, 2002.

Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, an Air Force medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Dilawar, said Dilawar’s leg was pummeled so badly that the” tissue was falling apart and had basically been pulpified.”

....

In fact, as the New York Times reported in May 2005, when Dilawar was murdered, “most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.”

American foreign policy. Not merely ugly; actively evil.

One week off

Sol and I are taking the week off from work. This is mostly to recover from stress. We'd like to drive around the Wellington area too, if the weather is good. Options are Kapiti, the Wairarapa (unlikely, since John is still small), parts of the Hutt valley.

We'll probably mostly just be resting at home though. I've been sick since Monday with a sore throat and tonsillitis, and some flu-like symptoms. The tonsillitis is finally almost gone (should be gone tomorrow). I'm still exhausted, despite the weekend, so the week off is going to be great for recharging.

I've got some code I'd like to work on (will benefit work, but not something we could bill to a client), and there are some things I'd love to do for work with no pressure to enter them in my timesheet :-). I'll only be working/playing online around 4 hours a day though, probably. I've got to be better about taking care of John since Sol does such a heroic job taking care of him when I'm not around, and still she's able to work 4 hours a week. I don't know how she does it, frankly. And we're all very lucky that she's so much more healthy and sturdy than I am.

This is Israel

This is Israel

Yes, but

What are "Perks" and "Choke"?

I'm too uncaring to look it up though. This post entirely rhetorical.

I don't know what a hipster is either. And I think I might care less. But I'm not sure. I'd know for sure... if I knew what a hipster was. Probably some sort of dumb-ass.

Timmy and John

Recent videos of John and Timmy, pasted together without any editing at all :-).

Timmy loves this

I saw a video of the Do Re Mi song, with dancing performed at the Antwerp central station. I showed it to Timmy and he loves it. He wants it played over and over :-).

For men this means no bachelor party, tuxedo, strippers or Best Man.

On Shrink Talk there's a section that says "3) There is far too much emphasis on 'weddings' as opposed to 'marriages.'".

As hit happens, I had no bachelor party, no tux, no strippers and no Best Man. And I liked it that way :-).

Sol is driving

Sol passed her practical driving test last Wednesday. Before that, she got a perfect score in the theory test. I'm very proud that she passed her practical test on the first try. Not everyone does, in NZ, and she wasn't an experienced driver when she came to NZ. In the Philippines she learned just enough to get a license, and then she didn't use her license for years.

She took a lot of driving lessons here though (expensive, but worthwhile), and she practiced with a good friend as her supervisor, and every day with her sister, when her sister was here.

Since she can now drive legally, she went shopping with Timmy twice last week, and she's gone to pick him up at daycare today. I just bought a carseat for John, too. So starting tomorrow, she'll be picking up Timmy at school and I'll no longer need to leave work early to pick Timmy up. Unfortunately, this will entail some disruption in John's sleep schedule. She needs to get him into his car seat and he'll accompany her to pick up Timmy. That'll take a week or two of adjustment, but I'm sure it'll all work out.

I'm relieved that I'll finally be able to spend more time at the office. I *do* work at home after bringing Timmy home from daycare, but this is no time to seem to be slacking at work. And while no one at work has said that, New Zealand work culture being so supportive of family I'm very glad we moved here, I'd rather head off any such thoughts than deal with them when they come up.

forgot to take out the garbage

Monday is garbage collection day here and I forgot to take out the garbage. So we've got last week's garbage sitting in the back.

I didn't take out the garbage because I was exhausted and went to sleep at the same time as I was putting Timmy to sleep on Sunday night. I was up much of the night anyway, making sure he was Ok, so I didn't wake up early on Monday. The garbage truck goes by close to noon, so I could have put the garbage out. But I was very busy chasing Timmy around and trying to get some work done, and I just completely forgot that it was garbage day. I hadn't even checked my email or SMS messages over the weekend, so I missed paying the rent on Saturday. That's no big deal, it's due on Monday, and I sent it in on Monday afternoon, but I almost missed a whole day there.

It's all Timmy's fault :-). He's had a fever since thursday. No vomiting or diarrhea this time (well, wet stool that runs out of his diaper, but only once or twice a day). Last week I had two all-nighters trying to get some critical work done. I finally got it deployed on the weekend. But with the all-nighters, and the bad sleep because of Timmy being uncomfortable at night and having to take his paracetamol at the right time, and comforting him when he's uncomfortable but can't take his paracetamol yet, well, things got hectic.

I brought him to the doctor on Sunday, but they all do the same thing here. On the first visit to the doctor (typically 2-3 days after the first fever), they'll prescribe paracetamol and send him home for observation and have him seen by his GP two days later. That's fine, since it's often a virus that'll go away by itself after a few days. If it's something that antibiotics can handle, they don't prescribe the antibiotics because usually it'll go away in 5 or 6 days anyway, and they're minimizing the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

So it's all very reasonable, but it sure is putting me under quite a bit of pressure. I take sick leave when I'm sick and when Sol is sick, and when either of the kids is sick. I don't want to be taking that much sick leave since it could put my job in danger. Well, not really, Catalyst IT is a really great place to work and they're understanding about family and personal problems. But I do take my work seriously and in the current economic climate I want to be optimizing my chances of doing well until the recovery. Sick days don't help, and *5* sick days because the doctors won't prescribe antibiotics or take blood tests to see if it's something antibiotics would help, are a big problem.

Timmy has been very needy too, wanting to be carried all the time. That's normal, given the fever and body aches he must be having. But carrying him *does* take a toll on an older father :-).

We've got his doctor's appointment tomorrow. I hope he's given a clean bill of health so he can go to school on Thursday and I can go to work.

On another note: I've been leaving work early and working a few hours at home this last few weeks so that I can pick up Timmy at school. Sol is taking driving lessons and will be taking her practical driving exam next Wednesday. I hope she passes on the first try. If not, well, I hope she passes on the *second* try. When she passes her driving exam, she'll be able to pick up Timmy in the car and I won't need to leave work early. I actually *like* leaving early and picking him up and working two or three hours at home, but again, I need to be doing as well as possible at work, and while Catalyst is, again, understanding about the need to leave early, I'd rather not rely on that but instead build an image for being reliable and *being*present*at*work*.

facebook slow

I have a facebook account. I don't do much with it. It's really just a placeholder so that people can contact me if they know enough to find me. I don't make it easy for people who don't know my secret nick (i.e., the one I'm posting this under on blogger) since my real name doesn't appear there at all.

So facebook isn't important. I'm resisting posting pictures there mainly because I'm comfortable with photobucket and blogger, and partly because I don't care enough to figure out how to do things on facebook.

Today though, I'm trying to add a friend and comment on a picture of me that someone else posted, and it's taking forever. Well, it's been thirty minutes and the facebook tab is still going.

Likely it's some batch job running around now (noon New Zealand time). Of course facebook is optimized for read (with some massive caching). And writes are going to be many times slower than reads anyway. But there must be some batch updates running. There's no reason adding a friend or commenting on a pic would take more than an hour to complete :-). Well, it's been 30 minutes so far. If it's not done in an hour I'll give up and maybe try again another time. If I remember.

(Hola mylene, *of*course* i'll remember :-).

John Laughing

John Christian is growing very quickly. He sleeps really well at night as well as in the daytime. He eats a lot, and he's very alert and observant now.

He's also very ticklish. Got it from me, I think.

Still

Charles Krauthammer, still the asshole he ever was

Tummy bug

Timmy started daycare on Monday. He loves it there. On Wednesday night though he didn't have a good appetite, he had liquid diarrhea and vomited out both his dinner and his bedtime milk. Since these were different occasions, he had four baths and changes of pajamas that night (the first one was the regular bath and change for bedtime).

I've taken Thursday and Friday off to stay home with Timmy. I take care of Timmy and Sol takes care of John. We don't swap because we want to have Timmy get rid of whatever the bug was and we want to avoid having John get the bug. So there'll be no cross-kissing or hugging until at least tomorrow (Saturday). Timmy will go back to daycare on Monday.

Timmy is slowly recovering. He hasn't had any further diarrhea or vomiting, but he's not as active as usual. Some of that is because he's eating less and avoiding his milk. We convince him to have some milk anyway, but he's down to about a third of his normal milk intake. Some of that is just him avoiding the milk because he associates it with the vomiting. A few more days of lower milk intake with no vomiting should see him let go of the association.

As it happens, Sol's mother and sister were due to leave for Manila on Thursday morning. So the vomiting and diarrhea came at just the wrogn time for them, when they were already working through the idea of missing Timmy and John. There was no slack in their visas though, since both visas were to expire today.

We hope to see Sol's sister back in a month or two, and perhaps her mother in 9 months or so.

Hmmm, my stomach is a bit unstable too. Not to the point of diarrhea or vomiting though, so I might have a touch of what Timmy has, but my body is fighting it off.