Orange Bikini

Trump vs Clinton

2016-05-04T05:25:00.000-07:00

After the pre-elections in Indiana it appears as if the US American voters will have to choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton for their next president.

If this materializes, it is going to an intelligence test for the Americans. It's that simple. The results will say more about those who voted for the winner than about the winning candidate. The next few months will become very interesting.

The "Bathroom Bill": How North Carolina does it's best to discriminate against LGBTQ persons

2016-03-31T20:56:00.002-07:00

North Carolina has just passed a law, House Bill 2 (HB 2, aka the "Bathroom Bill"), which requires transgender persons to use the bathroom of the gender they had assigned to them at birth. Now it is illegal for them using the bathroom of the gender they identify as.

To understand the impact on transgender people it is worthwhile reading the transcript of or watch an interview with Payton McGarry and others (part 1 and part 2).

To mention just one privacy problem: Would a police officer be allowed to demand from someone to drop their pants just to determine whether a person is allowed to use a particular bathroom? Or how male does a male have to look like, so that they are allowed to use the male bath room? If a female appears too masculine to a police office, would the police office be allowed to strip search that person to find out whether they just broke the law as the leave the female bathroom?

Why hasn't this whole issue been solved by simply introducing unisex bathrooms already (done by many organizations)? Imagine we would introduce separate bathrooms for different skin color. That wouldn't be acceptable. So since we don't discriminate based on skin color (or shoe size or ...), why would we want to discriminate based on gender or gender identity?

Passports and other official documents could just show an 'x' if we prefer to not state as identifying with a particular gender. Some more advanced countries already allow for that.

Why is this whole matter such a big deal? Are people who support legislation such as in North Carolina just afraid of the LGBTQ community? Or perhaps they are just scared of themselves. Or perhaps they are just too scare to use reason (ie their brains). It takes a lot of courage to realize that you could be wrong and need to change your opinion. And no, I don't think it has anything to do with faith. All reasonable faiths, including and in particular Christian faith, tell you to love thy neighbor (e.g. Matthew 22, 39) in one form or another.

Leaving faith aside and looking at the more practical side: When I use a bathroom I honestly don't care what someone else, who happens to use a different stall, has in their pants. It's none of my business (pun intended!).

Let's hope that the lawsuit in a US federal court against North Carolina is successful and this new ridiculous law is declared unconstitutional. It is encouraging to read that North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper stated that the new law is a "national embarrassment" and that the state's lawyers will not defend it. So there is hope. The ACLU is supporting the lawsuit against North Carolina as well.

4shared.com does not enforce HTTPs for login: Security Issue!

2014-06-14T16:22:00.002-07:00

Perhaps you, too, received and email from 4Shared in the last few days. Some time ago I created an accoun there for downloading a driver, if I remember correctly. The title of their email sounded promising saying "Your data is safe and secured - Heartbleed update".

The problem is: Your data is NOT safe and secured with them at the moment.

As of writing 15 June 2014, Firefox is clearly showing that the login page at 4shared.com is not enforcing HTTPs:

The tragedy is that by the looks of it all pages of the site can be accesses without HTTPs enforced. This means that all traffic from and to the site can be easily read by anyone with a tool that can read network traffic and with access to the same network to which the user is connected, e.g. a public wifi hotspot.

While it is good news that they try to proactively address security relevant topics, it is shocking to see that they suggest to their users a non-encrypted connection to log in and to change their password.

Here is a workaround if you depend on this site: specifically enter the URL with "https://www.4shared.com" instead of "http://www.4shared.com". Note that the URL start with https (including the 's'!) instead of just 'http'.

Let's hope they fix this soon. Technically, that shouldn't be a major issue.

Comparison With Adolf Hitler?

2012-06-26T18:50:00.001-07:00

This article raised my attention: “Outrage over MP’s Nats-as-Hitler comment”.

I am utterly shocked by Ms Woods comparison of the National Party with Adolf Hitler.

While I understand that as a member of the Labour Party Ms Woods doesn't necessarily share the political views of the Nats, her comparison is completely inappropriate. Comparing a group of people, even if it is the political opponent, with the biggest mass murder in history is simply unacceptable. This also belittles the sacrifices of the millions of people who have suffered from the suppression by the Hitler regime and even more the millions of people who were murdered at an industrial scale. How could she possibly believe, even in the moment of a heated debate, that this would be acceptable?

In the meantime Ms Woods has apologized through her Twitter feed (see screen shot below). While this was a necessary step, I do not believe that it is sufficient.

We are of German descent and have been living in New Zealand since 2004. We pay taxes, we vote, and we are members of local clubs. We engage in the community to give back to the community the welcome and support we have received. But.... each of our three kids have been called Nazi at least once since we arrived. Ms Woods’ comparison of the Nats with Hitler is just another contribution to the mindset that is the breeding ground for this simple minded racism. I'm sure this is not what the Labour Party stands for.

I think a public apology to the members of the National party would be in order. I don't think a 140 character tweed is enough. This matter is a huge disappointment for a politician and certainly does not help to convince a lot of people giving Labor their vote next time.

E-Trade’s Web Site Down?

2012-04-21T16:06:00.001-07:00

As of 10:59 pm on April 21, 2012 (UTC) the site of E-Trade doesn’t appear to be reachable. I tested this from multiple locations and in each case it reported that the destination network is unreachable. See screen shot:

I would have loved to provide feedback to E-Trade themselves. Unfortunately, the feedback form is not reachable either.

Update: Tried again at 11:08 pm on April 21, 2012 (UTC) and it’s available again.

LED Flashlight May Not Be Broken Even If You Think It Is

2012-03-12T03:00:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I though that my LED torch (flash light) was already broken. I spent quite some money on it and it was the perfect size and had the right features so I was very disappointed.

It has a push button switch at it’s bottom covered under a rubber lid. It started with this switch not being functional occasionally. The light remained off. Then after a while if I just pushed the button often enough it would work again. Over time I had to push the button even more often to make it work until today it stopped working completely.

I was really disappointed and decided to do some research on the internet about LED flashlights. I was looking for a replacement and thought that this time I would do better and find reviews first and go after main brands.

One would think – and that was what I thought – that a flashlight is nothing more than a case, a battery, a switch and light bulb which is replaced by an LED these days. What could go wrong?

Then it dawned on me as I read more information about the technical innovation that some of the brands are putting into their models. Here is the key point. One of the main features is that the brightness does not change over time. That means there has to be some additional electronics in the flashlight to keep the voltage constant for the LED. This works nicely as long as the battery has a minimum voltage. As the battery approaches the end of its life the voltage decreases by a few tenth of a volt. That’s sufficient for the electronic circuit to no longer be able to keep up the brightness. It switches off completely as it never reaches the necessary minimum voltage.

In my case it worked again once in a while as the battery recovered from not using it. Today however it had reached the point that the batter didn’t recover sufficiently. The flashlight remained dark.

After I replaced the battery with a new one all was good and it now works again like a charm. I had almost thrown it in the garbage bin. Fortunately I didn’t. So in case you observe the same just try a new battery before you throw away your LED flashlight. It might not be broken after all.

US House Passes Budget Proposal

2011-07-29T17:18:00.000-07:00

Finally, after weeks of discussions, the US house of representatives passed a bill to increase the debt ceiling and the cut some expenses, BBC reports. Whether any of this is sufficient or whether the expense cuts happen in the right places is an important question.

Problem is that this is not the end of it. The bill has to go through the senate where the democrats have the majority. It is guaranteed to be blocked there, continuing the impasse.

This issue conceivably has a negative impact on sentiment as with increasing uncertainty or doubt people become more risk averse. For example they invest less or delay decisions. The US economy grew at 1.3 percent in the second quarter well below the forecasts. As a result the share markets went down by about 1 percent in the early trading hours.

There is no guarantee that both are connected. Not knowing whether the US government can continue to pay its bills certainly does not help. With all those powerful people in the house and the senate it is puzzling to see that they don’t act with more responsibility to their people, their economy and the rest of the world. (Although the latter is probably a naïve expectation.)

An Article?

2011-06-29T13:01:00.001-07:00

Today I checked out the business section of the New Zealand Herald online. One article caught my interest. Deborah Hill Cone is a business columnist with the NZ Herald and I believe today she wrote about some business people who screwed up recently.

Article? I’m not sure whether I should feel more sorry about that accumulation of words or about my wasted time that I spend on reading it and that I won’t get back.

Don’t believe me. Check out the link and judge for yourself. However, be aware that you invest your time on your own risk.

Chicken and Egg

2011-06-18T15:31:00.001-07:00

Just found an article at The New York Times saying that because Al Qaeda’s network in Afghanistan has been severely damaged withdrawing American troops could be accelerated.

This article appears to create the perception that as a result of the damage to Al Qaeda’s network the troops can be reduced faster. I believe the opposite is more likely.

As a result of the desire to reduce troops faster a good reason for that was needed. And since the details and effectiveness of covert operations with drones and special forces are not know the public will not be able to evaluate or confirm whether any of those operations really damaged Al Qaeda’s network. Don’t get me wrong. In all likelihood the operations caused damage. How much and whether this is sufficient justification to accelerate the reduction of troops is a different question.

The timely coincidence with a few other things are also interesting. Firstly the United States have to figure out how to get their federal spending under control. The budget is entirely out of control. So reducing troops in Afghanistan is certainly a way to contribute to a reduction of the budget deficit as well.

Secondly, Osama Bin Laden is dead. Why are there still troops in Afghanistan?

Thirdly, Osama Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan. How effective is the war on terror in Afghanistan?

And finally, Barrack Obama has come under pressure with the air war in Libya. Good news from a different part of the world will help to distract from that.

So in this context I’m not entirely sure whether the new findings allow an acceleration or whether a good reason had to be found to justify the already decided faster reduction of troops.

In the end it probably doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that there is a perspective that things are improving. If the situation in Afghanistan has improved so that military presence can be reduce then that in general is good news.

"Green" New Zealand

2011-06-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

The other day I gave my son a ride to his field hockey game. Just as we drove down our road a car pulled out a drive way. For the rest of the way to the stadium that car was in front of us. My son told me that he knew the car. It was one of his team mates.

So I thought that comes in handy. Why not do car sharing next time to save time, gas, money and reduce the carbon footprint. When I spoke to the other kid's dad, he told that he doesn't "mind burning fuel".

Is that what people think makes New Zealand "Green"?

Dallas Mavs Win NBA Championship

2011-06-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

Finally a German player who won the NBA title with his team the Dallas Mavericks. Fantastic! Congratulations, Dirk!

A Desaster at the Start

2011-02-25T00:31:00.000-08:00

For this new blog I was hoping to catch a positive note. However, it doesn't always work that way. Instead this week a devastating earth quake hit Christchurch in New Zealand. My thoughts are with those who lost their lives, their families and their friends. This is a tough time and if you want to help please consider a donation for the Red Cross New Zealand.