Keri Hēnare's Writing

Being Myself, Out Loud

Keri Hēnare — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 04:00:00 GMT

I originally posted the following message to Facebook on 9 November 2022:

Exactly 11 years and 3 months ago to this day, I finally contacted a counsellor to make an appointment. I was really not doing well. It was impacting my career and my quality of life. I was missing meetings because I couldn’t even get out of bed.

I was diagnosed with PTSD and Depression as the result of a manipulative and violent relationship. I’ve continued to see the same counsellor on and off ever since. And slowly, I made progress. Not just to undo the damage, but to keep finding my best self.

Today, I had what I believe to be my last ever counselling session.

For the first time ever, I feel like I know myself completely. I am a pansexual, non-binary human with ADHD & Autism. And, I am very happy with who I am.

Today, I’m celebrating myself and my progress 🥳

Posting that was a huge deal for me. I didn’t know how people would react, and I was scared of losing people I love. Sometimes, it still scares me that I opened a door I can never close again. People may have changed their opinion of me in ways I’m still not aware of. But most people I’ve interacted with since have responded really well. If I lost anyone, I haven’t noticed. I think being open and vulnerable helps people trust you.

I only began to understand how my brain works in my 30s, although I’d always had suspicions. I’ve understood my sexuality since the start of high school (shout-out to Miss Fitzpatrick for giving us the spectrum talk). I don’t regret coming out, but I do regret not coming out earlier. It was a different time, and my life would have been harder in many ways. But it’s easier to love yourself when you’re not pretending to be someone else.

Guess Who's Back

Keri Hēnare — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Do you ever think to yourself, “That’s perfect blog material. If only I had a blog”? Maybe once upon a time. But probably not recently.

In August of 2003, I registered henare.co.nz, my own quarter-acre plot on the World Wide Web. It contained a basic intro message in a box. That bordered, rounded box required 21 elements, including eight individual images. Today, that would take one element.

After nine months of gestation, I published my first blog post on Google’s Blogger platform. In the beginning, I wrote for myself. I wanted to get thoughts out of my head and keep a journal I could look back on.

In 2007, social media was on the rise. What had started as small, interconnected communities of passionate nerds was exploding into the mainstream. For me, blogging changed. Short posts no longer felt substantial enough. Every post started to feel like it needed to be a full-length article.

After a while, I wrote less and less. In 2015, I wrote what would be my last post for over a decade. I’ve started several drafts since, but never finished one. I’ve rebuilt this website many times, always without an accompanying post. In hindsight, undiagnosed ADHD played a large part. But mostly, I got too concerned about how others might judge me for what I wrote.

I’ve missed blogging. I want to get back to writing for myself. This website is mine, and it’s personal.

Today, on my 41st birthday, I’m ending the drought with this post and a new version of the website. It’s still a work in progress. So am I.

The NZ Flag Referendum is flawed

Keri Hēnare — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 01:39:00 GMT

The referendum to decide on New Zealand’s next flag has been advertised as “your chance to decide”, but how much decision making power do we really have? The public were able to submit entries and will get to vote on which flag will be the final choice to challenge our existing flag. However, the flags in the shortlist have introduced a flaw that will skew the outcome of the referendum and weaken our ability to choose.

The referendum to choose the challenger flag will use the PV (Preferential Voting) format. This means that you will rank the flags in your preferred order by marking them with the numbers 1 - 4. Votes are then calculated in rounds. After each round the flag with the lowest votes will be eliminated and its votes will be re-allocated to the next preferred flag. Flags keep getting eliminated until 1 flag has more than half the votes and is declared the winner.

If a referendum is fair, each candidate should have an equal chance to succeed. You should be able to simulate thousands of test referenda with thousands of random votes each and end up with an even number of wins for each candidate.

Flag A	Flag B	Flag C	Flag D
25.00%	25.00%	25.00%	25.00%

However, if two candidates are almost identical, such as Flag A and Flag B, we can expect that a voter’s preference for each flag will be similar. A voter will still prefer one flag to the other, but will like/dislike them a similar amount compared to the other two flags. Flag A and Flag B are likely to be paired together as favourites, as least favourites, or right in the middle. This behaviour skews the outcome in favour of Flag C and Flag D.

Flag A	Flag B	Flag C	Flag D
16.67%	16.67%	33.33%	33.33%

When two flags are almost identical, they have a lower chance of being successful than the remaining two flags. This is because when voters pair the flags together, the flags are either put into 1 of 2 arrangements of advantage or 1 of 4 arrangements of disadvantage. This shows that a referendum containing two almost identical flag options is flawed from the start.

There has been a lot of controversy over the lack of variation in the flags that make up our referendum options. The shortlist contains two almost identical silver fern & Southern Cross flags (with colour variations), another silver fern flag, and a koru (a curled silver fern) flag.

It seems clear that either the panel didn’t take into consideration how their selection would be affected by the PV format, or that they intentionally introduced a selection that would have a weighted outcome under PV. Personally, I’m inclined to believe the former.

Regardless of how we’ve reached this point, the government should not proceed with the flag referendum until one of the identical silver fern designs is replaced by an alternate and drastically different design. This will make for a better process and a fair outcome for all.

Update

I’ve received feedback on Twitter that this logic should be followed through to the next level. That if Flag A and Flag B are essentially the same, they should be treated as a single candidate which shares the probabilities of both.

Flag A + Flag B	Flag C	Flag D
33.33%	33.33%	33.33%

You can certainly run with this line of thinking and argue that this brings us back to a point where all options are equal. And you’d be right. However, as you may have already guessed, it introduces a whole new problem: We now only have three candidates.

John Key has argued that the law was written for the referendum to include 4 flag candidates and that the law will not be changed. This brings a conclusion that we really only have 3 flag candidates and one of the identical silver fern designs must still be replaced with a true 4th candidate.

Yet Another Rebuild

Keri Hēnare — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 21:30:00 GMT

In a couple of months this blog will have been running for a decade. The website started as just a mechanism to throw my thoughts into the ether. Over the years however, as I’ve pushed myself as a web developer, it’s become a more of a sandbox for experimentation.

The blog started off on the hosted Blogger platform but I quickly wanted more control and customisation. Wordpress gave me that control and before long I was a Wordpress wiz.

As I moved into a career as a backend developer, the once empowering Wordpress started to feel restrictive and annoying. It was hard to keep it up to date while making sure that it didn’t get out of sync with my code repository. The more I understood about good code, the more than I understood that Wordpress was not good code.

Eventually I gave up on Wordpress and wrote my own basic blogging application in symfony. This custom solution gave me everything I needed and nothing that I didn’t. My initial experiments with HTML and CSS had evolved into full stack experimentation. I was designer, Frontend developer, backend developer and sysadmin all in one. I experimented greatly with each of these roles and learned a lot.

Yesterday I launched another complete rebuild. I have been experimenting with NodeJS for several years but this is my first Node website running in production. I have again written a basic, custom blogging platform. It’s great to finally be able to put years of Node experimentation into practice.

Celebrate Marriage

Keri Hēnare — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 17:15:00 GMT

It’s been ten months since the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill became law in New Zealand. Bob McCoskrie, still outraged at the idea of loving couples being joined in marriage, has resigned as a marriage celebrant in protest. So I’ve decided to fill his spot.

Same-sex marriages started six months ago and since then hundreds of gay New Zealanders have been able to share in the institution of marriage and be protected by the same laws that heterosexuals have enjoyed for so long. The world did not end and marriage was not destroyed. All that happened was that marriage was made stronger.

Bob McCoskrie clearly isn’t happy at the general lack of armageddon and has used the day of Auckland’s Big Gay Out to announce that he has resigned as a state-sanctioned Marriage Celebrant.

Bob claims that he was aware of other celebrants who had adopted the same stance but the New Zealand Herald has reported that this does not seem to be the case. He says that he cannot perform marriages because he does not believe in a definition of marriage that allows people of the same gender to marry.

I once said that I would not get married until New Zealand supported a definition of marriage based on love and commitment instead of gender. The law passed in April, I proposed in June and we’ll be married early next year.

At the time of the marriage equality debate I thought about the fact that there would be so many new couples wanting to get married. I thought that perhaps I could become a celebrant and officiate over some of those couples when they would be turned away by people like Bob McCoskrie.

Life got busy and I forgot about becoming a celebrant. It was always in the back of my mind but the only wedding I’ve really been focused on is my own. That was until this past weekend when I got a couple of reminders.

First, while attending a friend’s wedding I was impressed by the first-time celebrant who had registered for the purpose of marrying these mutual friends. This rekindled my thoughts of becoming a marriage celebrant.

The second reminder was Bob McCoskrie’s own announcement. If he had resigned because he believes that marriage has been weakened then I should fill that gap, because I believe that marriage has been strengthened.

I’m now beginning the process of filling out forms and gathering letters to support my application.

I say “We do!”

Leaving Vend

Keri Hēnare — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:38:00 GMT

Since I joined Vend a little over two years ago our team has grown from a few desks in a corner to four offices across the globe. Over that time the industry has exploded, bringing lots of competition (and a few clones) but also validating Vend’s existence. I have loved working at Vend, but sadly my time to move on has arrived.

From the first moment that I saw Vend, it has been a product that I have strongly believed in and the last two years have only strengthened that belief. Vend has a great product but more than that, Vaughan has built a company with ethics and personality in its DNA. There’s an official policy that states “Don’t be a dick” which epitomises Vend culture. Vend hires not only good employees, but good people. The Vend team are a family of wonderful, intelligent and extremely talented people who are focused on making the lives of retailers better.

As employee number ten, it has been a privilege to see Vend grow to now around 90 (it’s hard to keep track). We have offices in Auckland, San Francisco, Melbourne and Toronto. There are happy Vend customers in almost every country on the planet, from a sports store in Iceland to a clothing store in Nigeria.

I would love to stay at Vend for the foreseeable future, however obligations require me to be elsewhere. A start-up that I’ve been involved with for four years has now grown to the size where it needs my full-time attention.

From February, I’ll be the sole developer supporting a busy online retailer (more info in a future blog post). Vend on the other hand has an awesome Engineering team of around two dozen. It was a hard decision to leave Vend but it was clear where I was needed most.

If you feel like replacing me or you just want to be part of a great team, have a chat with Kirsti or visit the Vend Careers page.

I’m grateful for the time I’ve had at Vend, the people I’ve met, the things I’ve learnt and the chance to be part of a team who are doing amazing things on a daily basis.

I will miss being at Vend, but I’ll always be a Vender.

The Adoption Misconception

Keri Hēnare — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:45:00 GMT

We have only two days to wait until New Zealand’s 50th Parliament passes Louisa Wall’s Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill into law. Those opposing the bill know the likely outcome of the third reading and are getting increasingly desperate to stop the bill. Family First have tried to play the “think of the children” card, however, the reality is that their stance puts children at risk.

This post is not intended to discuss the effectiveness of same-sexed parenting, but to identify an existing threat to the well-being of adopted children and how the bill will solve that problem.

It’s safe to say that Family First don’t want homosexuals raising children and that they are opposed to the aspect of the bill that will allow gay couples to adopt children. And while it’s true that currently gay couples cannot adopt children, Family First seem to have missed the fact that gay individuals already can adopt.

Currently, if a gay couple wish to adopt a child, only one of the prospective parents can apply. Once they have successfully adopted the child, the second parent can also become the child’s legal guardian. As current laws stand, a child can have two adoptive gay parents. The problem that exists is that the process of adding the second parent creates a limbo period that needlessly threatens the child’s well-being.

The second parent can only be added as the partner of the parent who adopted the child. This process was designed to allow new partners to become a legal guardian of a child and thus there is a requirement that both parties have raised the child together for at least a year. The duration of a couple’s relationship prior to raising the child is not taken into consideration.

The child who has found two loving parents can have the legal protection of only one parent for at least a year. Furthermore, should the first parent die during the year, the child is left parentless.

Imagine a scenario where a child requires hospitalisation while the first parent is away or dead. The child would be denied the right to be comforted and cared for by the person who in every sense is their parent, except for the legal guardianship which they cannot yet apply for. Such a scenario is the daily fear of families in this limbo situation. Louisa Wall’s bill would provide protection to these children and to these families where protection currently does not exist.

If you really want to think of the children, ignore Family First’s unscientific fear-mongering and look at the facts. The Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill allows a couple to adopt a child as a cohesive family without dragging the child through legal limbo. This bill provides new legal safety to children. To deny the bill is to deny children of that safety.

Why spaces are clearly superior

Keri Hēnare — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:30:00 GMT

If you follow me on twitter you’ll probably know I’m very opinionated and more than happy to discuss (some would say argue or troll) my opinions. I indent with spaces, Lea Verou indents with tabs. Lea has blogged about her reasons why she thinks that tabs are superior. I’m going to provide my opposing opinion and then tell you why neither of our opinions should really matter anyway.

Whitespace shouldn’t matter

There’s really no excuse not to be using at least basic build tools. There are so many great tools like SASS, LESS, Yui-Compressor, Google Closure Compiler, etc. Your first intention should be to write code that is easy to maintain, by both yourself and others. Then you can convert to a format that is better for machines. If you can’t use build tools the gzipped difference between spaces and tabs will be insignificant anyway.

Tabs can be personalised

The width of a tab character can be adjusted per editor. This may sound like a major advantage but the reality is that it means that you can’t use tabs for alignment. You have to mix tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment. If tabs are used for an alignment, personalisation throws alignment out. Needing to use a different strategy for indentation and alignment is a hack.

Tabs are easy to select

It’s true, tabs are easy to select. But you have to ask yourself, why would you need to? Assume for some reason you want to select all indents and double them or convert them to spaces. That would mean you’re probably just trying to force somebody else’s code to fit your preference. Maybe it’s time to give up on that personal preference.

There’s a better way

As I said, I’m very opinionated and not only do I have an opinion about why I prefer spaces over tabs, I have also historically had an opinion about how many spaces to use as well as a bunch of other formatting preferences. But I invalidated my own opinions and (grudgingly) gave up my personal preferences for the greater good. The greater good. (Film reference bonus points)

Everybody has different preferences but we all have to work together as part of teams and as part of larger communities. We all have egos that must be put aside for the common good. Whitespace is but one of many aspects of code formatting that we each have a preference for but in order to effectively collaborate, we need to ignore these preferences and follow a common standard.

Standardisation

I am but one cog in the Vend development machine. Battles over preferred formatting could seize this machine but instead we lubricate it with common standards. Nobody wastes their time trying to understand each others formatting or worse yet, reformatting code to their own preference.

You could try to create a “team standard” but there are several down sides to this approach. Firstly, there’s that ugly argument when you first try to create your standard. Then those who didn’t get their own way feel resentment towards those who did. When switching between work projects and external/personal projects you potentially have to switch between two different standards. Your standard probably won’t match that over any open source project that you want to contribute to. And if you hire somebody new, you need to teach them (or force upon them) your team’s unique way of doing things.

Instead, go and find industry standards that others are most likely to follow. We expect our browsers to follow standards and render the result of our code in a consistent and expectable way. We should hold ourselves to the same level and do our best to write code in a consistent and expectable format.

End proprietary formatting

If your programming language has a common format and you’re writing code in your own preferred format, then you are using proprietary formatting. You are the Internet Explorer of the formatting wars and your indentation preference is ActiveX. Give up your ego and embrace your community.

Example formats

Brand Loyalty & Customer Appreciation

Keri Hēnare — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 10:49:00 GMT

When I was 15, I worked the Christmas rush at my Uncle’s seafood factory and earned enough money to buy my first mobile phone. This purchase started a relationship with Vodafone which has now spanned almost half of my life. Recently I’ve begun to examine my relationship with Vodafone and in general, the relationship between brands and loyal customers.

If you have no interest in the finer details of my relationship with Vodafone, feel free to skip ahead to my phone call. Or, if you just want the insightful part you can go straight to the bit about relationships.

Vodafone & I

Over the last 12 years I have owned 9 phones, had two prepaid numbers and 4 postpaid contracts, all with Vodafone. I worked as a Harvey Norman salesman for almost 4 years and sold countless Vodafone phones and contract connections. I got my original iPhone on the iPhone 80 plan, it was far more than I needed but allowed for a good handset subsidy. When the contract period ended I kept the plan knowing that I could downgrade at any time.

When the iPhone 4S was released I went to buy one outright but the salesman was insistent on a plan. Knowing that I could cancel at any time and just pay out the subsidy, I decided to give the salesman some commission. So why, when I had been saved part of the handset cost, was I so upset at the suggestion that I should pay back the subsidy to cancel?

Let’s jump back a step and look at why such a loyal Vodafone customer would want to leave in the first place. I’ve known for a long time that my contract gave me far more than I required. I rarely make phone calls, most of my friends are on iMessage and most of my phone usage is at home or work, both locations having WiFi. I decided to stop wasting money and downgrade to a plan that would better suit me.

In August, I used:

50 minutes of calls (including BestMate calls)
186 text messages (including BestMate messages)
982MB of data [1]
1 BestMate

However, I pay for:

300 minutes of calls
2500 text messages
250MB of data
3 BestMates

[1] A trip to Wellington massively increased my data requirements for the month, but it still would be nice to have more than enough data each month in case of such an occasion.

The Vodafone Smart $45 plan would probably suit my normal needs, but in the interest of being well informed, I decided to look at alternatives to Vodafone. Telecom plans are a lot better than they used to be, but still a bit expensive so I ruled them out. I found a perfect fit in 2Degrees'$ 39 plan (220 minutes, 2500 messages and 1100MB of data). Now better informed, it was time to talk about my options with Vodafone.

The phone call

I rang Vodafone’s call centre to get an idea of cost for either downgrading or canceling. I spoke to a lady who was polite, friendly and followed procedure perfectly. I was told that it would cost me $160 to downgrade. The very suggestion that I should pay to downgrade offended me so I asked for a cancellation fee and was told$ 550. Somehow, I found myself feeling hurt and betrayed.

The current Vodafone plans don’t suit me but the 2Degrees ones do. I could easily pay the termination fee and switch networks. Vodafone had every right to ask that I repay the handset subsidy. Everything made rational, logical sense but still I was hurt. What had offended me?

Suddenly it struck me. Vodafone’s big crime was that they treated me like I was normal. Over the 12 years of loyal patronage, I had developed a sense of relationship. I had spent all this time being a good customer, often paying far more than necessary and I expected this big corporation to see me as loyal friend and to reciprocate in kind.

Relationships

It’s easy to see the relationship between a brand and its customers as purely transactional, but that’s not the way to create long-lasting engagement. These relationships should be carefully cultivated and maintained like any other human relationship. Your customers should think of your brand as a friend, one whom they would happily introduce to others. This can be achieved by following a few simple rules:

Be trustworthy

Trust is the cornerstone of any relationship. If trust is broken, the relationship will suffer major damage. Your customers will doubt your brand and you will face an uphill battle in any attempt to sell to them. But if you strengthen trust, your customers will embrace your brand with open arms. Be transparent, admit your faults and never deceive your customers.

Keep in touch

Nobody appreciates that “friend” who never makes an effort to communicate until they suddenly need something. Keep regular contact with your customers. Let them know what’s happening in your world, what new products or services are available. Ask your customers for feedback. In this age of social media it is easier than ever to engage directly with your customers. Don’t just aggregate news feeds into your Twitter, Facebook, etc but give your accounts a personality that reflects your brand.

Be friendly

Every public/customer facing staff member is a salesperson for your brand. Just like those in a dedicated sales role, all of your staff should look to foster the brand’s relationships by being friendly and approachable. All one-to-one communication with customers should feel personal. When answering a phone call, something as simple as asking how the customer’s day is going can make a huge difference and set the tone for the rest of the call.

Reward loyalty

Just like any other relationship, not all are equal. It is easy to track how long a customer has been with your brand and how profitable the relationship has been. Expose such information to all staff, even if it’s only in an abstracted form. This allows staff to get an idea of what the relationship means to both the customer and your brand. The more beneficial a relationship is, the more time and resource you can justify to maintain it.

Your customers and you

Customers are emotionally driven, even when they’re not aware of it. No matter how affordable or superior your product/service is, the most important aspect to gaining and retaining customers is how they feel about their relationship with your brand. It is up to you whether you foster this relationship or risk it ending.

Redefining Marriage

Keri Hēnare — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 10:59:00 GMT

Today, Louisa Wall’s Marriage Equality bill will face its first vote in parliament. A vote that is expected to pass. But there is still a lot of opposition. These opponents, in an attempt to not be perceived as bigoted, claim that they are not against gay marriage but are instead against the redefinition of marriage.

As mentioned in my previous post, marriage has been redefined many times over the course of human history. Divorce, inter-religious marriage and inter-racial marriage have all been legal or illegal at various points. Society is constantly changing and the laws change with us.

There is evidence of same-sex marriages in ancient Rome, Greece and China. The current law does not allow for same sex marriages. Until 1986, homosexuality itself was against the law in New Zealand. A sexual expression of love between two consenting adults, was a crime. These laws in their various forms originate about 200 A.D. during the creation of the Catholic church in Rome when marriage was redefined to specifically exclude anything other than one man and one woman.

It is claimed that Marriage Equality is the doorway to polygamy and under-aged marriage. The bill allows for neither thing. Polygamy isn’t allowed in New Zealand law not for moral reasons, but for practical ones. Marriage provides legal advantages and polygamy would give an unfair advantage. Under-aged marriage is banned in order to protect a child until they are ready to fully comprehend such a commitment. With the Marriage Equality bill, same-sex couples would get no advantage under law and no protection would be removed.

Seven years ago, Civil Unions were introduced to New Zealand as a way to protect the legal rights of same-sex couples. It is argued that due to the presence of Civil Unions, Marriage Equality is unnecessary. This reminds me of the Civil Rights movement in the U.S.A., where a black person could drink water as long as it wasn’t from a white-only fountain. They could ride the bus as long as they didn’t sit in the white-only section. Same sex couples can be bound in the eyes of the law, but only if they don’t use heterosexual-only marriage.

More than allowing same-sex marriage, Marriage Equality is about one law for all New Zealanders. Currently, we have two identical laws except for the fact that one kind of discriminates and the other does not. I say “kind of discriminates” because existing New Zealand marriage laws don’t actually state that marriage is between a man and a woman. At the time that our marriage laws were written, homosexuality was illegal. Thus the courts decided that although no specific mention of gender is made, it is assumed that same-sex marriages were not covered.

Opponents want to have marriage both ways, they want it to be both a religious issue and a legal issue but it just can’t work that way. If an issue of religion, it has no place in law and the existing marriage laws should be revoked in favour of a universal civil union law. If an issue of law, it must not discriminate based on race, religion or sexual-orientation. The expression of love and commitment between two consenting adults should not be a crime.

Today’s first vote is likely to pass and I hope that such support will carry through until this bill becomes law. We will redefine marriage to be about love and commitment instead of one penis and one vagina. This is what New Zealand deserves.

Protect Marriage

Keri Hēnare — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 08:17:00 GMT

I wrote the below article on the “Protect Marriage NZ” Facebook page but they disabled the ability for other users to write on their wall and thus destroyed my post. I’m re-posting it here for all to see.

It is almost certainly true that marriage did first originate within religion as did many aspects of human society. Over time, marriage has had many different laws. People of different faiths were not allowed to marry. People of different races were not allowed to marry. Up until relatively recent history, a marriage could only be ended with death. These laws have all been changed in the interests of equality and human rights.

Personally, I believe that the bible does not teach that same sex marriage is wrong. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I know the only references to homosexuality are Leviticus 18 and 20. I’m not a fan of Leviticus but if people are going to live by it, they should live by all of its rules and not treat it as a pick’n’mix. Which means no clothes of linen and wool mix (19), no shaving (19), no touching of a female during and for a week after her period (15), no tattoos (19), etc. These days most men shave specifically for their weddings. It’s actually possible to break all 4 of those rules that I just mentioned in a modern Christian wedding.

Even if you don’t agree, there are other religions and even other forms of Christianity that certainly do. You would not try to stop any heterosexual couple from marrying because they have different religious beliefs so why would you do it to any other couple. Under current law, a man and a woman, both of no religious belief or affiliation, can marry. There isn’t a requirement for religion to be a part of their union so why should the rules of any specific religion apply in any other marriage?

Some claim that marriage is about procreation. What does this say about those who are infertile or choose not to have children? Should those people also be denied the right to marry? Is marriage really about nothing more than one penis and one vagina? Or is it about love and commitment?

Others go further and claim that homosexuality is unnatural and should be stopped. But nature shows us that homosexuality is completely natural and actually quite common. Being gay isn’t a lifestyle choice, it’s a part of who someone is. You can try to make them feel bad about who they are and punish them for feeling love, but you can’t change it.

When the Civil Union Act was passed there were claims that it would lead to all sorts of evil but the only thing it has bought is happiness to thousands of loving and committed couples. The Marriage Equality bill would have the same effect. Similar laws have already been passed in Argentina, Norway, Canada, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands, South Africa, Iceland, Sweden and in several USA states (Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont), and there has been no negative effect in any of those areas. (See: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/what-has-happened-since-new-york-state-legalized-g )

I’m straight and one day I’d like to get married. But while there is no equality in marriage laws, I could never bring myself to do it. How could I be happy getting married with the knowledge that other couples who are just as loving and committed could not do the same. Restricting marriage to heterosexual couples doesn’t protect marriage, it weakens it.

I’ve covered a lot of points, but none of them really matter. There’s only one issue and it’s about what’s right. Nobody will stop you from marrying because of their religious beliefs and it’s not right for you to stop somebody else from marrying because of yours.

The times they are a-changin

Keri Hēnare — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 01:22:00 GMT

After more than three great years, this will be my last week with Pixel Fusion. I have accepted a position as a Senior Developer at Vend.

In May 2008, Craig at Pixel Fusion took a chance on me when I had no commercial experience. Just years of hobby experimentation and a passion for the web. Since then I have learnt more than I could have ever imagined. I have had the chance to work with some incredibly talented individuals and on some exciting client projects. Pixel Fusion has some exciting times ahead and I wish Craig and the team the best of luck.

Leaving Pixel Fusion was incredibly hard, but joining Vend was a no-brainer. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be able to pour your heart and soul into a single product. From the first moment that I saw Vend, it has been a product that I have strongly believed in and I’m excited to be a part of it’s on-going development.

Multiple Personalities

Keri Hēnare — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:11:00 GMT

It’s a well known fact that I’m rather shite at keeping this blog up to date. I often have had a lot to say but the content never felt like it was the right fit for what I wanted to achieve with this site. A while ago I came up with an idea to create multiple blogs, each dedicated to different topics that I want to talk about. Although it has actually been running for a few weeks now, I would like to formally announce the first of these new blogs, Arbitrary.

Arbitrary is my place to rant about politics, current events and pretty much anything which doesn’t have a better place to go. This is election year and I feel like I’m going to have a lot to say in the lead-up to November. I don’t really care if anyone reads Arbitrary or if anyone disagrees with what I have to say, it’s all about me just getting things out of my head. If you don’t like the content of Arbitrary, then you’re welcome to go anywhere else on the internet but there, I won’t be offended.

I also plan to launch a couple of other blogs and to get back into using this one, although far more casually.

An Electoral System for New Zealand

Keri Hēnare — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:42:00 GMT

As I have previously mentioned, I don’t believe that any of the alternatives on offer in this year’s referendum are better than MMP. However, I would like to propose an alternative Electoral System: Proportional Representation. Please keep in mind that this is intended as an initial discussion piece that could evolve into something more solid.

Proportional Representation, as the name suggests is a system to accurately represent the voters choices in the same proportions that the votes are cast. In other words, if a party gets 50% of the votes then they get 50% of the seats in parliament.

The system would employ a form of Single Transferable Vote to reduce the number of wasted votes. Each voter would select the party that they wish to vote for as well as two alternatives in case the first vote would otherwise be wasted. Seats in parliament would directly reflect the percentage of votes received. There would be no threshold, if you have enough votes for at least one whole seat, then you’re in.

Seats in Parliament would be a 90/30 split of electorate MPs to list MPs. How individual MPs are chosen is where things get a little bit complicated. Each electorate would be scored out of 100 based on two factors: percentage of voter turnout and the percentage of votes received by party that receives the most votes in the electorate. Eg: Voter turnout in the electorate is 75% and the party with the most votes is Party A with 40%, the score calculation is 100 × 0.75 × 0.4 = 30. This Representation Score gives us an indication of how well the party with the most votes represents the electorate as a whole.

Electorates are then ordered by their Representation Scores, from highest to lowest. Moving down the list, the MP for the party with the most votes is assigned a seat in parliament. If a party runs out of seats, then the candidate with the second highest number of votes will be assigned the seat. If this candidate’s party has also run out of seats then it would move to the candidate with the third highest number of votes and so on. Once all 90 electorate seats have been assigned, the remaining 30 list seats would be assigned according to each party list.

The fact that the MP with the most votes might not necessarily win the seat is probably a shocking concept but this is likely to happen in only a small number of electorates and, because of the ordering by Representation Scores, it would happen only in seats with a combination of low voter turnout and where the vote is heavily split. Remember that under most other systems, the winner usually has less than 50% of the votes anyway.

The resulting parliament would be one that better represents all of New Zealand. The bigger parties would probably have more electorate seats and less list seats. The smaller parties would probably have mostly list seats, because geography is not a limitation of Proportional Representation.

Before anybody complains that this method wouldn’t reduce the number of MPs in parliament or remove the Maori seats, no method in the referendum does either. This is merely a proposed alternative, offered with the same criteria as the existing ones. However, I do believe that Proportional Representation would allow for the removal of dedicated Maori seats as it already ensures fair representation of Maori.

Electoral Systems

Keri Hēnare — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 00:38:00 GMT

This year, alongside the general election there will be a referendum on the future of MMP and the selection of a potential competitor, should we decide that replacing MMP is an option. I want to look at the different options for electoral system that we have available.

I am going to try to be as objective as possible here but I should start off by establishing what my own opinion is. I do not believe that any of the systems on offer in the upcoming referendum are the best possible electoral system for New Zealand and in a future blog post I will reveal my own suggestion. Out of the options that we are currently offered, my choice would be MMP.

Democracy is about the voice of the people, about the public choosing who we want to lead us. Therefore, the more accurately that parliament reflects the peoples choice the better. Election proportional accuracy (or more specifically, disproportionality) is measured using the Gallagher index, the lower the score the better.

Mixed Member Proportional has been the electoral system in New Zealand since 1994 and will remain in use for at least another 3 years. MMP takes electorate elected MPs and offsets them with List MPs. Of all the options on offer, MMP is the most proportional and therefore the most fair for all voters. The Gallagher index of New Zealand’s 2005 election was only 1.11%.

First Past the Post was New Zealand’s electoral system for all general elections held from 1853 to 1993. With FPP you only vote for your electorate and government is dictated by the winners of the electorates. FPP is the least proportional system with the average Gallagher index of all New Zealand FPP elections 1946 - 1993 being 11.10%. I think that what scares people most about this referendum is the prospect of returning to FPP.

Preferential Voting is a slightly improved version of FPP, but not by much. Like FPP, parliament is the result of electorate winners however, instead of it being a simple process of voting, you order candidates based on preference. Within each electorate more people should be happy due to the weighted selection process, but it does not solve any of the problems of FPP on the nationwide level.

Supplementary Member is kind of like a mixture of FPP and MMP. In most ways, SM looks like MMP but the looks are deceiving. Unlike MMP, electorate seats aren’t taken into consideration and only your party vote influences the list MPs. Some of the positive points of MMP are swapped for the negative points of FPP but the problems of neither system are solved.

Single Transferable Vote is the most promising alternative to MMP (although still not as good as MMP). Like FPP, STV would be all about electorate voting except instead of smaller electorates each with a single winner there would be larger electorates with multiple winners. STV would increase proportional representation over MMP on a per electorate basis but ultimately would still be less representative nationally.

Of all systems on offer, I believe that MMP is the best option for New Zealand although there potentially are other options which won’t be on offer in the referendum. MMP allows for a greater proportional representation for all New Zealanders meaning that we all get a fairer say in how the country is governed.

Is Piracy Theft?

Keri Hēnare — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 13:31:00 GMT

We’ve all seen the ads that run before movies, at least those of us who still pay to see them. “You wouldn’t steal a car. You wouldn’t steal a handbag. You wouldn’t steal a movie.” And that’s what they would have you believe, that copyright infringement is exactly the same as theft. Not like theft, but the same as theft. Some (who themselves listen to pirated K-pop) even try to tell us that assault on copyright is the same as assault on a human being.

The funny thing about these ads is that only the people who aren’t pirating actually see them. Your reward for paying to legitimately see a movie, or for purchasing it on DVD, is that you are forced to sit through this crap. Meanwhile, those watching pirated versions get a copy with the ad removed. Seems to be a case of preaching to the choir.

Digital piracy is covered by copyright law and not by theft laws because it’s copyright infringement, not theft. I’m surprised at how so many people get caught up in the gain aspect of piracy. They feel cheated that somebody could get something for free. Because they think that’s what theft is, somebody getting something that they haven’t earned. So piracy must be the same as theft right?

But that’s not how I see theft; Theft is about loss. If someone stole my car, I wouldn’t care that they had gained a car, I would care that I had lost a car. Likewise, I feel that piracy should not be about whether or not somebody has gained a movie but whether or not somebody has lost a ticket sale or DVD purchase. If I could copy my car and give it to someone else while keeping one for myself, I’d do it.

I’m not saying that piracy is justified or that I agree with it. I’m just trying to point out that there is a campaign out there to distort the public view of piracy in order to justify absurd law changes… Some of which get pushed through under urgency.

This attitude towards piracy benefits only two groups of people: lawyers and publishers. In a recent lawsuit against Limewire, the RIAA were seeking damages of up to [US $75 Trillion](https://web.archive.org/web/20110624004802/http://www.pcworld.com/article/223431/riaa_thinks_limewire_owes_75_trillion_in_damages.html) (about NZ$ 92 Trillion). If that sounds like an absurdly large amount of money, that’s because it is. The GDP of all of the USA is only $14.12 Trillion. In other words, the RIAA wanted more money than the whole of the USA makes in half a decade. These are clearly not reasonable people.

Some talk of piracy as if it’s the armageddon but the only thing piracy will bring an end to, is old, out-dated business models. The hypothetical piracy apocalypse actually happened in South Korea and the world still kept spinning. Yes, some business didn’t keep up and fell behind, but the rest evolved and became stronger as a result. Piracy in China actually created a massive surge of sales of South Korean music. Studies have proven that those who commit the most digital piracy also purchase the most legitimate music and movies. Piracy is an amazing form of advertising.

The most effective weapon against music piracy hasn’t been the government or the RIAA, it’s been iTunes. iTunes has made music convenient and reasonable priced. Services like Napster and Limewire were successful not just because they gave access to free music but because they gave easy access to music. The public no longer had to drive to the store and buy an entire expensive CD just for the one song that they wanted, they could just download it from their computer. Similarly, in the USA there is now Netflix which allows you to stream movies and TV for a low monthly price. Services like Netflix and iTunes have been so successful that they now account for more data usage in the USA then all illegal file sharing services combined. Sadly, we can’t yet get Netflix in New Zealand.

The answer to evolving technology isn’t just new laws but also new business models. Government’s can’t create laws that infringe on the rights of the people, just to appease outdated monopolies and foreign lobby groups. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement, not theft and a consequence of internet termination is a far greater punishment than is deserved.

Why so Urgent?

Keri Hēnare — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:35:00 GMT

The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill is a flawed piece of legislature but a big part of the public outcry wasn’t just the bill itself but also the way in which it was passed. It made the public aware of the ongoing abuse of parliament’s urgency laws as well as the fact that politicians pass laws with little understanding of what the laws mean.

When Labour tried to pass the bill in it’s original form there was a huge public outcry. It’s of no great surprise that when it was National’s turn to pass the revised bill, it was slipped through using parliament’s urgency provision. The government claims that it was just a coincidence and that they were merely trying to catch up on time lost because of the Canterbury Earthquake. I don’t think that it was coincidence that the one law that was assured a large public opposition was passed under urgency. Urgency stopped the public from having a chance to object and it sped the bill through before the UN could release a paper which says that internet termination breaches human rights.

Using urgency, the government was able to pass the bill in a single sitting, removing the time between readings of the amendment. The government would like you to believe that urgency only extends sitting hours but the reality is that it allows a law change in a single day. National passed 17 law changes under urgency in the first two years of this term, one law every 6 weeks and most of them seem to have been unpopular. I believe that the misuse of urgency spits in the face of democracy.

It wasn’t just the urgency the upset so many, but, while watching the “debate” live via Parliament TV, we all got the impression that almost nobody knew anything about the topic. New Plymouth MP Jonathan Young compared the internet to Terminator’s Skynet and another MP claimed that all file sharing was illegal. Clare Curran tried to pretend that Labour was against internet termination, while still backing the law. Melissa Lee actually gave a massive speech in-favour of copyright infringement. Most of these people were on the select committee and most still knew almost nothing. It was all incredibly maddening and surreal.

I would like to point out two people who really brought their A-game to parliament that night. Firstly, Labour MP Jacinda Ardern who when faced with an unpopular law change via urgency, actively engaged with the public in real time via email and social media. As parliament charged ahead at full speed, Jacinda gave us all a voice that even haste could not stop. Second, but definitely not of a lower capacity was Greens MP Gareth Hughes. Gareth was the only MP who seemed to completely understand the law, it’s flaws and their potential ramifications. He spoke so well that in the middle of the third reading he inspired me to do something that I have never done before, donate to a political party.

This law change proved two things to me: That we must pass laws restricting the use of urgency to when it is truly needed and so that it will not be abused, and that we must watch our politicians closely to make sure that they do not pass laws blindly and without knowledge of the relevant subject matter.

Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill

Keri Hēnare — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:34:00 GMT

The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill was passed with a large parliamentary majority but also with a big outcry from the public. I’ve written about copyright infringement and now I want to write about the law that has stirred up so much discussion.

Some believe that the bill makes file sharing illegal but this isn’t true. National MP Tau Henare stated that he had done some file sharing, but wouldn’t anymore because it’s now illegal. What the bill does is give copyright owners (and the representatives of copyright owners) the ability to pursue those that they believe have infringed on their copyrighted material via online file sharing. It also protects the identities of end users. The bill doesn’t make file sharing illegal and it doesn’t make BitTorrent illegal. It doesn’t make file sharing of copyrighted material illegal because it always was illegal.

To give credit where credit is due, for the most part the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill is a good piece of law. In it’s original form the law was terrible, worse than terrible, it was idiotic. The bill was so badly written that you could be pursued for copyright infringement just by visiting a site that contains any content or images that are covered by copyright, something that we all do constantly while using the internet each day. Ex-Labour MP Judith Tizard seemed hell bent on passing the law in it’s original form and we should all be grateful that it didn’t happen. There are however still three very big issues with the current bill.

Firstly, the bill allows for the termination of a users internet access. To some this may seem like a fitting punishment for crimes but to others, internet access has become a human right. Using the internet you can commit many crimes; You can threaten someones life, encourage violence, distribute child pornography, commit fraud and so many other crimes that most would consider to be much worse than copyright infringement. None of these crimes carry a penalty of internet termination. The United Nations recently released a report in which internet access was concluded to be a human right. The internet not only allows us to watch videos of sneezing pandas, but also to communicate with others and voice our political opinions.

The second issue with the bill is that it makes a single person responsible for an IP address, the account holder. This means that you are responsible for the activities of anyone using your internet connection, with or without your permission. If your flatmate downloads something, you are responsible. If someone hacks your wireless connection, you are responsible. Again, I find this strange as your aren’t held responsible for any other crime committed via your internet connection. Additionally, tests have proven that it is possible to make it look like an IP address is downloading content that it isn’t. You can trick clients into sending data to a different address. In one test, users were able to make it look like a network enabled printer was downloading pirated films. In the US a judge recently ruled that an IP address is not a user due to a previous case where a man was incorrectly accused of child pornography because someone else was piggybacking off of his internet connection.

Lastly, this law assumes that you are guilty unless you challenge the accusation. Since when did New Zealand law carry a policy of guilty until proven innocent?

The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill is a step in the right direction however it is far from being solid and violates the rights of New Zealanders. The bill should not have been rushed through but instead given the time and further public consultation to iron out these rather large and important problems.

Tomorrow, When the War Began

Keri Hēnare — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:02:00 GMT

When I was twelve I picked up a book, not because I had any interest in reading it but because I was forced to read something (good old SSR). The book was Tomorrow, When the War Began and it instantly became the favourite book of my youth. I hit the library the same week a took out every book in the series that had been released so far. Since then, I have read every book in the Tomorrow series and it’s spin off The Ellie Chronicles.

Now, a “Tomorrow, When the War Began” film is about to be released. I’m now twice the age I was when I first met these characters and I’m very interested to see how the movie will turn out.

Transmit 4

Keri Hēnare — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:12:00 GMT

As a rule, we only deploy websites from Subversion and this is something that we made company policy long ago. However, there are times when we are limited to FTP access and for these occasions it’s good to have a decent FTP client. Panic’s Transmit has, for a long time, set the standard for FTP clients on Mac OS X.

It’s been five years since Panic released Transmit 3 and the software has definitely held it’s ground. However, success hasn’t made Panic complacent, they’ve just released Transmit 4 and it’s packed full of improvements. The UI has been completely re-imagined and all your favourite functionality has been made cleaner and more streamline. Transmit now features Amazon S3 support and even allows you to send commands over SSH.

The two biggest changes in Transmit are the speed and the new Disk feature. As far as FTP clients go, Transmit is fast. Panic claims that Transmit 4 is up to 25 times faster than Transmit 3 when it comes to downloads. I haven’t benchmarked it myself but there is definitely a noticeable difference when it comes to browsing. The Transmit Disk feature allows you to mount any of your favourites in Finder. Even without Transmit running you can drag files straight onto the Disk an it’ll be uploaded.

For existing Transmit users this upgrade is a “must have”. For all other OS X users, if you need an FTP client, give Transmit a go. More detail available on the Transmit page.