I always try to keep the # of add-ons loaded on my Firefox at a minimum. In my many years of being in web development I have found that there are at least 3 essential add-ons that any serious web developer must have.

• Firebug - Live tracing and debugging for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Pearl Crescent Page Saver - Save an image of a web page to a file.
• Web Developer - Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.

Snap Links - Opens multiple links contained in a selected area in new tabs. Get the Firefox 3 compatible version.

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So my free Flickr account is maxed out and I don’t want to pay for a pro subscription so I’m posting on my blog instead. These were taken with my Nikon D80 at different dates using different lenses. Click on the thumbnail to view high resolution version (warning: may get very large!).

Fifty

Night glow

Feast

Vroom vroom

We have room

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Lately this blog has been suffering from MySQL out of memory error messages which got worse as the days went by. Sometimes Is could not post stories, or my sidebar would not load. Other times I could not load the admin area, or my site went down entirely. After doing a bit of tracing and research I was shocked to discover that my wp_options table had almost 2,000 records in it. As I skimmed through the records I saw that majority of it had rss_ to it, which led me to research on Wordpress’ RSS caching mechanism.

So, I did some more digging until I came across lildude’s explanation of Wordpress’ autoload functionality, which defaults to yes, causing it to bloat the $GLOBALS variable with all the crap our lovely plugins dump into the wp_options table. Finally I came across jayrocas’ post on the Wordpress support forums on how his blog database had a bunch of entries whose option_name looked something like “rss_f07b6018d7bc77b2520b5ec4296f3e66_ts”. After reading the community’s response, I decided to delete all 1,325 rows that started with “rss_”. The query I used was:

DELETE FROM `wp_options` WHERE `option_name` LIKE “rss_%”

Like magic, my blog loaded without any more hiccups. Reloading the home page immediately after cleaning up the database results in 8 new “rss_” entries. I can only think of two RSS feeds that my homepage pulls from (Flickr and Last.FM) so I’m not sure where the other 6 is coming from. Looking at the database, it appears that there is a duplicate entry for Flickr and Last.FM, and there is 3 entries with the same option_name hash “rss_89613d9a050aad8af096de3c8dfa83bd_ts” and option_value of “1224690561″. I don’t know what’s causing the duplication, or what the bogus triplicate entry is. I have no intention of doing so. Right now, I’m content with a running blog. I’ll just do a database clean up every now whenever necessary.

I am still trying to see if the CommentLuv plugin had anything to do with bloating my wp_options table. There is a huge chance that it does, but I love this plugin so I will just try to upgrade it when I’m done with this post.

Finally, I also installed the Clean Options plugin, which searches for and removes orphaned entries in the wp_options table. Cool. But is there no select all / remove all option? I can’t imagine having to place a check on all 1.7k rss_ entries when it takes me less than a minute to login to PhpMyAdmin and execute that query I listed above. Will this plugin be of any use? I’ll just keep it installed - just in case.

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Be the best, aim for the best.
Do not settle for anything less.

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One of the most interesting things that happened during my stay in Jacksonville, Florida was when I gave alms to a panhandler / beggar. What made this experience unique was the fact that I am a visitor from a third world country, the Philippines, and there I was giving alms to somebody from the first world. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective, but we are so used to having people from first world countries like the U.S.A, United Kingdom, France and Sweden visit a third world country like the Philippines to perform various forms of charity work that doing so felt unnatural. It felt surreal.

Even in my home country I always try to do my own share of kindness. Some times, this meant giving some street child some spare change. Other times, this meant getting involved in a health mission. Which is why I was shocked when my American friend chided me for what I did. I shouldn’t be giving money to these people. By doing so, I was supporting what they were doing. In a way, I was supporting laziness. There are beggars and panhandlers because there are generous people who give them money.

I was astounded. I did not think twice when I offered to give the panhandler all my big coins, which probably amounted to half a day’s wage for someone in my home country. But there was my friend, who probably enjoys a salary at least 10 times mine, and he was literally telling me to stop throwing my money away.

He was not always like this. When he was still a student, he would generously give alms to every random beggar. That went on until it came to a point when he stopped and realized that he was giving away his parents’ money. Money he did not work for. Money that did not really belong to him. Money that his parents probably wanted him to have and enjoy. Things changed. Now, he would think twice before giving money. If it were a healthy looking guy who was just dressed a little too dirty, he’d do a double take. If it were a mother with a kid, then he would probably consider giving. It all made sense to him and curiously, I found myself unable to disagree.

Money is power. For some people, it also means happiness. However, people are known to live happily without it. According to the dictionary, “the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support” is the definition of poverty. This makes the concept of poverty very interesting. When can a man really say that he is destitute? Is a destitute man really destitute if he has the capacity to survive without it? After all, there was a time when man lived in caves and survived by consuming its surrounding resources.

I have had many chances but ever since I came back to the Philippines, I have yet to give alms to the poor. Yet, I have had no problems giving a 20% tip to the local restaurants or to my hair dresser. I could have given all that money to the street kid who could not even afford a pair of slippers. Maybe I am becoming a cynic. Or maybe I only like giving if I could see where the money went.

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… and you are definitely one if you got offended after reading this post’s headline. The truth is that this is one of the biggest differences between Filipinos and other nationalities. This is one of the things I realized in my latest trip to the U.S.

It is probably a culture thing, this oversensitivity of ours. Just like the U.S., the Philippines is a melting pot of different races. However, they are definitely better at handling criticism. There, you can easily yell at someone to turn the volume of his stereo down because it is way too loud. The other person will accept this objectively and respect your wishes for a quieter environment. In the Philippines on the other hand, you’d think twice before doing such a thing. What if that person gets offended? The paradox here is that by thinking twice we try to “respect” everyone else that we end up loosing respect for ourselves.

So it’s no big wonder to me when I heard news of Filipinos in the UK getting offended by a certain BBC comedy show. I grew up watching a lot of Monty Python, and this doesn’t even come close to how “racist” British humor can get. Ask the French, they should know. Or the Scots. Point is, we Filipinos tend to overreact on the smallest of things. Maybe the 300+ years under the rule of the Spanish, Japanese, and Americans made us more sensitive to these things some how. That, plus the fact that we are still riddled with seemingly uncurable social and domestic problems like corruption, pollution, overpopulation has engraved into our minds the feeling of inferiority. We are, after all, a third world country for almost half a century.

For the curious folk, below is a Youtube snip of the BBC video:

Here is the full ABS-CBN news article:

Filipinos in the United Kingdom condemned a BBC sketch comedy for airing a skit that is considered demeaning to Filipino domestic helpers.

The “Harry and Paul” show, aired over BBC on September 26, showed a Filipino domestic worker in a maid’s uniform dancing provocatively in front of a man in an attempt to seduce him.

According to the two title characters, the Filipina was following the wishes of a neighbor who wanted “their northerner” to “mate” with the “Filipina maid.”

Filipino leaders denounced the comedy act as racist and said it promotes sexual exploitation and demeans the image of Filipino domestic helpers.

Philippine Ambassador Edgardo Espiritu criticized the skit as “gutter humor.” He said the show counters the advocacy of the British government to observe equality for all and respect for human rights.

Filipino organizations have started mapping out plans for a protest action against BBC.

Loline Adelina Reed is leading an e-mail brigade to create awareness among Filipinos worldwide regarding the impact of the program to Filipino domestic workers.

Reed said the BBC should issue a public apology for the skit.

Other Filipinos in the UK said the BBC comedy scene was even worse than the script of an episode of the American TV series “Desperate Housewives”, which questioned the ability of Filipino medical graduates. Danny Buenafe and Mike Duque, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau

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I just registered for Blog Action Day 2008. Last year the topic was on the environment. This year we’re doing poverty. If blogging for a cause is something that interests you, just click on the button at the top of this post to participate!

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I am heading back to Manila, finally.

Got my blog to work correctly, finally. Had to disable all my plugins manually. Found an article which helped me do it through the database.

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Mag-aral maigi. Kung titigil ka sa pag-aaral, manghihinayang ka pagtanda mo dahil hindi mo naranasan ang kakaibang ligayang dulot ng mga araw na walang pasok o suspendido ang klase o absent ang teacher. (Haaay, sarap!).

-Bob Ong

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I’m lazy. So I’ll let my photos tell the story. Ok?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisonuy

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