CleverBlogName

One of the more annoying arguments that I have noticed creeping into the arguments of vaccine deniers, as their arguments based on the fraudulent junk science produced by a shill for a law firm are being more widely understood as disreputable nonsense, is the notion of choice; choice is, apparently, an irrefutable, unassailable right; one may not over-ride the choices of parents who wish to expose their children to disease.

This one really gets on my tits.

My minor objection, one which is commonly voiced with regard to this line of argument, is that because vaccination relies to herd immunity to function effectively across a population this is a choice which is not self-contained. It’s an argument that ought to be treated with the contempt we’d hold for someone arguing they ought to be able to drive drunk because they’re only risking their own life—unless they only drive on private roads, that’s simply untrue. Even the most fervent libertarians usually recognise that the right to swing your fist ends at my nose; the right to kill your kids with whooping cough likewise ends at my daughter’s respiratory tract.

Which leads me into the second, less commonly articulated, but, to my mind, more important point. Children are, in fact “someone else.” We do not allow parents to decide not to educate their children, or to beat them, or hire them out as prostitutes. If parents claim this is undue interference in their rights we say, well, tough luck—because my right as a parent ends at my daughter’s nose. I may not starve her, beat her, or deprive her of an education. Why should I be allowed to prevent her from receiving provably valuable medical treatments?

Crane on the Dock

Autumn has begun to feel like autumn; for the first month or so we enjoyed a late summer of cool (but not cold), crisp, brilliantly clear days; that particular spell of the closing of summer and the opening of the colder season which is perhaps my favourite time of year.

That is rounding to a close now; the weather is closing in with early nights, pitch black by the time I trek home from work; enlivened by the lights of the harbour, perhaps, but during the working week the only glimpses of sun are those of a morning walk or time snatched from the office during the day; not yet, though, closing me in the suffocating period where the day is black when leaving the house as well as when arriving back at it.

Red Leaves of Autumn

There are pronounced pleasures, though; the ducks at the Botanic Gardens have not grown fat, as they do in Spring, on the offerings of the people rushing to offer bread to ducklings; they’re eager to enjoy the ministrations of a small girl and her gifts, and my heart soars as my spring enjoys her autumn.

Foggy Autumn Morning

With autumn comes thick fog, rolling in from the sea over Rongotai and up Hataitai.

To elaborate on my earlier comments: when a movie starts with a montage of one character’s life which runs through a lost pregnancy (or possibly news of infertility, it’s hard to tell), a lifelong regret at not having fulfilled a dream, the death of one of the principal character’s wife and then plunges into him going to court and being committed to elderly care with the resultant loss of his home, I find myself thinking a number of things; high amongst them are “No wonder Ada wanted to re-watch this with me so she could ask questions about what’s going on after seeing it at her creche’s movie day”, and “What the hell? Did her creche really think this was a great movie for three year olds?”

(And yes, I know a three year old is probably missing/glossing over a bunch of stuff in Up that I might find disturbing or distressing; the fact she wanted to re-watch it with me so she could ask questions rather suggested she noticed something was up, though.)

I can also add that when there’s the scene where Fredrickson sets the chairs back in the house, the most poignant question you can be asked is, “Daddy, why is he putting the chairs back up and sitting in them?”, because getting “Because he misses his wife” out is something of a challenge at that point.

Is it a good movie? Absolutely. But definitely one that may require a bunch of talking through with a small.

(On the other hand it’s less disturbing than Ice Age, which Ada doesn’t, unlike Ice Age 2, want to watch again.)

“Shall we if there’s good music on the radio?”

“No. I want Nightwish.”

“I see. Which Nightwish song do you want?”

“The one where he is running away because they think he has done something wrong.”

Daddy’s little metalhead.

Also, Up. Ada likes it. I found it verging on the harrowing. Good, you understand, but, my, that’s a pile of emotive in a kid’s movie.

I don’t watch that much TV any more, although we’ve been getting into the habit of sitting down in front of Country Calendar after dinner on a Saturday; tonight I flicked on the news and was reminded why.

Apparently, the TV tells me, there are serious concerns about the Commonwealth Games being in India after a couple of (small) bombs went off outside an IPL match. Local coverage was wall-to-wall interviews; should we be getting Kiwi players home? Should we abandon the Commonwealth Games?

This is the point where I started yelling rude words at the magic box, which is never a good idea with small ears ready to seize on them for future use, but I am afraid it was that or collapse in an apoplectic fit.

You will remember, of course, how New Zealand didn’t send sporting teams to the UK when the IRA were merrily blowing up bits of Britain. Or how we seriously mulled over whether the United States should ever hold a major sporting event when their domestic terrorists started blowing people up at an Olympic Games. We didn’t stop sending teams to South Africa even when their white government was telling everyone about those terrible ANC terrorists.

Horseshit. We’re happy to have sporting events in harm’s way. We have been for decades. The only “problem” here is that the people running security are brown instead of white.

Last night I was taking my brother-in-law and niece home from my sister-in-law’s wedding; there was a spirited disagreement between cousin, and the adults about whose house was closer to the wedding venue; when all other arguments failed, the trump card for the five year old was:

Mummy says our house is closest and Mummy is younger than you and old people lose their memory and forget things so I’m right.

The wedding was a great afternoon, and Ada was a complete darling as a flower girl, alongside her cousin; they led their aunt down the aisle perfectly. She capered about during the vows, earning her the kind of stern finger-wagging only a five year old can give a younger relative; her response was to hold the finger and dance about some more, fortunately without whacking the bride or bridesmaids.

The Wellington Aero Club had an open day on Saturday. For a little girl who spent happy hours poking around racing cars in Te Papa a few months ago who likes to go to the airport to watch the planes, and her daddy, this seems pretty much like a heaven-sent afternoon, and that’s how it turned out.

As well as the pictured cockpit sessions in the pictured CT-4E and CJ6 Nanchang, Ada got chances to hop into the pilot’s seat of a Sounds Air Cessna Caravan, although we missed out on the Trojan when the owner needed a bio break.

While I attempted to explain the Trojan and Corsair’s features for aircraft carriers—the Corsair had it’s wings up—I don’t think Ada really grasped the idea of planes that land and take off boats.

The only real disappointments of the day were the tiny two-seat plane, whose owners shut up shop just as we arrived to have a look (I suspect Ada may have been so wedded to it because it looked, well, child-sized), and missing out on a chance to go up for a flight in the Catalina, which had run out of seat allocations by the time I asked. She was, however, a little trooper about it; she was really upset, but avoided any kind of tantrum. I need to make it up to her with a trip on a plane when I can afford it.

One not-so-minor irk, though: a few women earlier in the day had heard my plan and suggested that the whole business was about Daddy using Ada as an excuse to do something. Yes, yes, I know it’s a standard cultural trope that men only do things with their kids to have an excuse to buy things for themselves, and that little girls can’t possibly be interested in aircraft. It’s a bullshit sexist trope, too.

So I became acquainted with the “Blue Ring of Death” on my old (and Maire’s current) K850i; the phone doesn’t power on, with the screen staying black, the blue ring on the camera coming hard on, and the keyboard lighting up.

Not a thrilling sight.

A little Googling took my to an initially rather unpromising discussion which explained that:

• The K850 is notoriously unreliable and BRODs under all manner of circumstances and firmware revisions.
• The Sony-Ericsson Updater tool can’t fix the problem.
• Sony themselves can’t, either, and will typically take your phone and fail to fix it.
• There are a number of payware unlocking/reflashing tools that can.

The last was rather irritating. Not because I begrudge the people who developed Davinci or the other such tools, but because this is a perfect example of an anti-feature: like most mobile phones, the K850 is so locked down that when it blackscreens and becomes unusable, not only can I not fix it, neither can Sony, and I need to spend extra money to buy a third-party tool to rescue it.

Fortunately a little more reading about the place provided my salvation: the A2 Uploader, which works with a variety of Sony-Ericsson phones, including the K850i; and TopSony for the images needed to make it work. Download the latest firmware, reflash the filesystem, and then upload the customisation files and lo! The phone works (sans all the on-phone data, but you do make backups, right?).

So, phone restored for free. Hell, A2 Uploader will letme rip the obnoxious Vodaphone branding (useless menu and button items) out of my C903). Win, right?

Well, in one sense, yes. In another, though, not really. This whole thing is a parade of antifeatures:

• SE (and other phone manufacturers) don’t want anyone developing other tools to work with their phones, and go out of their way to make it difficult for third parties to help me, the phone owner, customise the phone I own.
• SE don’t want to allow me to up or downgrade to avoid buggy firmware that makes the phone crap itself. I can only get firmware and filesystem images from third parties of questionable legality.
• I can’t customise my phone to get rid of crapware (Facebooks apps and other rubbish).

Ada with her OLPC

So, I didn’t get to writing anything for Lovelace day proper. This is probably because I was busy writing about Jean Reno for French class (il est pas rasé). Homework first, people. Although I guess if I was less stupified by poor sleep this week I would have thought to write about a famous woman and combined my homework with an educational exercise re: Lovelace day.

So, I don’t have that. I do, however, have this; a picture of Ada playing with her loaner OLPC, which provides her with many hours of entertainment and budding computer literacy.