Showing posts with label us. Show all posts
Showing posts with label us. Show all posts
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
whichfish.org
whichfish.org is a website I've just launched that helps you easily tell which fish are sustainable to eat. Why? Well...
This picture terrifies me. In 1900, we can see huge tracts of ocean where there are massive numbers of fish. In 2000, the map is empty apart from a small leftover smudge clinging to the American coast.
There are no longer plenty more fish in the sea.
Where there once were swarms of fish so abundant we could catch them with simple nets, we are using ever more sophisticated equipment to locate and catch what little is left of them. Once innumerable fish like cod have been reduced to a few isolated stocks and majestic creatures like bluefin tuna are nearly extinct.
At the same time, a lot of the fish we pull out of the sea is thrown straight back in or ground into fishmeal, simply because there is no demand for them. They don't taste bad, they're just not the fish we're used to eating.
The thing to do, of course, is to eat more sustainable kinds of fish. We know this. But that knowledge alone doesn't help much when you're standing in the fish aisle in the supermarket and need to buy dinner now.
There are some very good sources on what fish to eat, like the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Marine Conservation Society. Both have done a huge amount of work collecting and assessing data on sustainability.
I have combined their data, and data from other sources, and turned it into an intentionally simple web page that just tells you which fish are OK to eat. You can view it on your mobile and download it for offline viewing as well. It can help you make a quick decision on what's for dinner.
Give it a spin. It should display well on most mobile phones, and if you have an iPhone or similar, you can also download the site for offline use, so you don't need a signal to be able to use it.
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Julian Assange and Rape-Rape
This may be a rather controversial post, so I will have an extremely short temper with anyone who does not actually read what it says on the page. In that spirit, this comes with three disclaimers:
Disclaimer 1: I think Wikileaks' actions are excellent and necessary. The Iraq and Afghanistan war logs show that we cannot trust governments to do what is right in the absence of transparency. They will abuse our trust to cover up killing journalists, spying on the UN, and letting outlawed munitions into the country. I look forward to further leaks, especially to the ones promised early next year featuring the deeds of a major US bank. And they make me hopeful that individuals can in fact challenge those who consider themselves beyond human accountability.
Disclaimer 2: Julian Assange does not equal Wikileaks. One can fall while the other survives. If Assange were to blink out of existence tomorrow morning, the leaks would continue. If he were assassinated, as some US politicians who should really know better have suggested, the leaks would happen a lot faster, courtesy of the infamous insurance file. And if it turns out that Assange is actually a horrible person, this does not invalidate what Wikileaks has done. They are not the same.
Disclaimer 3: Assange has just been arrested in the UK to be extradited to Sweden on charges of rape. (Having walked into a police station of his own accord with the intent to fight the extradition to Sweden, mind). He says that the allegations are false and orchestrated by the US. The two women who have accused him say otherwise. Swedish prosecutors are acting in a strange manner by refusing to actually communicate with him.
It's possible that Assange is right, and that the charges are bogus and a result of US pressure on Sweden. But it's also possible that Assange is in fact guilty of rape. I don't want that to be the case, but we can't just dismiss that possibility because we don't like it.
Now, assuming the charges are genuine:
What exactly is he accused of? Most news sources just recount the unhelpful official arrest warrant. But according to Feministe, his actual deed is this: "in one case, condom use was negotiated for and Assange agreed to wear a condom but didn't, and the woman didn't realize it until after they had sex; in the second case, it sounds like the condom broke and the woman told Assange to stop, which he did not".
At this point, I'm going to make a cruel comparison using a made-up summary:
"Well-travelled man, his work beloved by many, is accused of rape. Supporters rush to side, saying 'it was not really rape, those who say otherwise have ulterior motives'."
When Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland last year, his supporters rushed to his side, voicing their anger that such a great man would be so unfairly hounded. When challenged, they would tend to downplay Polanski's crime. Whoopi Goldberg infamously explained on TV that Polanski's sexual assault of a thirteen year old was not "rape-rape": not actual, proper rape.
Many people now say that what Assange is accused of is not rape but simply a bit of naughtiness, not a very nice thing to do, but not enough to warrant arrest. Sometimes this is because the crucial fact that he did not stop when told to is omitted by many reports, but others simply don't see what he did as rape. "Rape", to many people, is half-human monsters lurking near bus stops waiting to assault total strangers, not a "disagreement in the bedroom".
But if we actually want to clearly define rape, we end up with something like "sexual intercourse without consent". Polanski is definitely guilty of this. So is Assange, according to the women he slept with in Sweden. It makes me wince to see people who were baying for Polanski's blood now refuse to entertain the idea that Assange may be guilty of rape.
As a Swiss, it also makes me extremely angry to see a Swiss bank close Assange's account on a technicality, given that the Swiss government, having nabbed Polanski, ended up releasing him again, on a technicality. It seems such technicalities always crop up whenever there is sufficient political pressure.
But here's the thing: It is possible for Julian Assange to be both a crusader for openness and a rapist. After all, Polanski is both an accomplished director and a rapist.
Famous people are never entirely good or entirely evil. All human beings have flaws and contradictions. Assange can be a maven on political freedoms and a dunce on sexual ones. He can have a sophisticated moral compass in politics and still think "I don't like wearing condoms, and I'm not going to be told otherwise".
This does not excuse his actions. We can't simply offset a person's good deeds against their bad ones and judge them on the result. It may be that the right thing to happen is for Assange to go to prison for rape and for Wikileaks to continue leaking state secrets. After all, they are not the same thing.
We must evaluate Wikileaks' actions on their own merits and not confuse them with those of its figurehead.
Disclaimer 1: I think Wikileaks' actions are excellent and necessary. The Iraq and Afghanistan war logs show that we cannot trust governments to do what is right in the absence of transparency. They will abuse our trust to cover up killing journalists, spying on the UN, and letting outlawed munitions into the country. I look forward to further leaks, especially to the ones promised early next year featuring the deeds of a major US bank. And they make me hopeful that individuals can in fact challenge those who consider themselves beyond human accountability.
Disclaimer 2: Julian Assange does not equal Wikileaks. One can fall while the other survives. If Assange were to blink out of existence tomorrow morning, the leaks would continue. If he were assassinated, as some US politicians who should really know better have suggested, the leaks would happen a lot faster, courtesy of the infamous insurance file. And if it turns out that Assange is actually a horrible person, this does not invalidate what Wikileaks has done. They are not the same.
Disclaimer 3: Assange has just been arrested in the UK to be extradited to Sweden on charges of rape. (Having walked into a police station of his own accord with the intent to fight the extradition to Sweden, mind). He says that the allegations are false and orchestrated by the US. The two women who have accused him say otherwise. Swedish prosecutors are acting in a strange manner by refusing to actually communicate with him.
It's possible that Assange is right, and that the charges are bogus and a result of US pressure on Sweden. But it's also possible that Assange is in fact guilty of rape. I don't want that to be the case, but we can't just dismiss that possibility because we don't like it.
Now, assuming the charges are genuine:
What exactly is he accused of? Most news sources just recount the unhelpful official arrest warrant. But according to Feministe, his actual deed is this: "in one case, condom use was negotiated for and Assange agreed to wear a condom but didn't, and the woman didn't realize it until after they had sex; in the second case, it sounds like the condom broke and the woman told Assange to stop, which he did not".
At this point, I'm going to make a cruel comparison using a made-up summary:
"Well-travelled man, his work beloved by many, is accused of rape. Supporters rush to side, saying 'it was not really rape, those who say otherwise have ulterior motives'."
When Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland last year, his supporters rushed to his side, voicing their anger that such a great man would be so unfairly hounded. When challenged, they would tend to downplay Polanski's crime. Whoopi Goldberg infamously explained on TV that Polanski's sexual assault of a thirteen year old was not "rape-rape": not actual, proper rape.
Many people now say that what Assange is accused of is not rape but simply a bit of naughtiness, not a very nice thing to do, but not enough to warrant arrest. Sometimes this is because the crucial fact that he did not stop when told to is omitted by many reports, but others simply don't see what he did as rape. "Rape", to many people, is half-human monsters lurking near bus stops waiting to assault total strangers, not a "disagreement in the bedroom".
But if we actually want to clearly define rape, we end up with something like "sexual intercourse without consent". Polanski is definitely guilty of this. So is Assange, according to the women he slept with in Sweden. It makes me wince to see people who were baying for Polanski's blood now refuse to entertain the idea that Assange may be guilty of rape.
As a Swiss, it also makes me extremely angry to see a Swiss bank close Assange's account on a technicality, given that the Swiss government, having nabbed Polanski, ended up releasing him again, on a technicality. It seems such technicalities always crop up whenever there is sufficient political pressure.
But here's the thing: It is possible for Julian Assange to be both a crusader for openness and a rapist. After all, Polanski is both an accomplished director and a rapist.
Famous people are never entirely good or entirely evil. All human beings have flaws and contradictions. Assange can be a maven on political freedoms and a dunce on sexual ones. He can have a sophisticated moral compass in politics and still think "I don't like wearing condoms, and I'm not going to be told otherwise".
This does not excuse his actions. We can't simply offset a person's good deeds against their bad ones and judge them on the result. It may be that the right thing to happen is for Assange to go to prison for rape and for Wikileaks to continue leaking state secrets. After all, they are not the same thing.
We must evaluate Wikileaks' actions on their own merits and not confuse them with those of its figurehead.
Monday, 8 February 2010
On the pointless embrace of mandatory flowers
In less than a week's time it will be Valentine's day, that most manufactured of holidays, when we are asked to buy flowers and chocolate and dinners for our partners - mostly by the people selling flowers and chocolate and dinners.
But to put it bluntly, if your partner doesn't know you love them by now, you've got bigger problems. And any romantic gesture done on the 14th is diminished: did you buy those flowers out of love, or out of habit? Isn't it frankly demeaning to be told how to conduct our love lives by a bunch of advertisers?
So how about, this Valentine's day, use the money you'd spend on dinner and flowers to donate to the Red Cross to help in Haiti.
Of course, the difficulty with saying "I don't want to do anything for Valentine's day" is that neither side wants to make the first step. So to help matters, avail yourself of this handy and to-the-point e-card:
I love you. I know you love me.
Don't get me anything for Valentine's day, help the people in Haiti and donate to the Red Cross instead.
Use the following convenient form to send it:
(Forward this via twitter and
and 
reddit and 
delicious and and and and to free more people from the pointless embrace of mandatory flowers.)
But to put it bluntly, if your partner doesn't know you love them by now, you've got bigger problems. And any romantic gesture done on the 14th is diminished: did you buy those flowers out of love, or out of habit? Isn't it frankly demeaning to be told how to conduct our love lives by a bunch of advertisers?
So how about, this Valentine's day, use the money you'd spend on dinner and flowers to donate to the Red Cross to help in Haiti.
Of course, the difficulty with saying "I don't want to do anything for Valentine's day" is that neither side wants to make the first step. So to help matters, avail yourself of this handy and to-the-point e-card:
I love you. I know you love me.
Don't get me anything for Valentine's day, help the people in Haiti and donate to the Red Cross instead.
Use the following convenient form to send it:
(Forward this via twitter and
and reddit and delicious and and and and to free more people from the pointless embrace of mandatory flowers.)Sunday, 6 September 2009
That sickly smell
I use a software package called Poser 7 to make character portraits for the game I'm developing. I bought it about a year ago, having played around with the demo briefly.
I also have a copy of Poser 3 floating around, and in some respects, the program's quality is much improved: the monochrome-terracotta skin of the Poser 3 figure models has been replaced by a much more believable texture, and the rendering engine has been upgraded to a proper ray-tracer.
But there are certain issues. A lot of the newer systems integrate very badly into the program's core functionality. For example, while I can edit the shape and colour of a figure's face, the changed colour does not get applied to the rest of the body, making the feature semi-useless.
Adding clothes is hit-and-miss, with a lot of the pre-supplied clothes 3D models being impossible to fit onto the figures properly: the figure's flesh often extends further out than the cloth, leaving random patches of nakedness. In one case this is even visible in the thumbnail picture of that clothes model.
But the most distressing thing about the program is the amount of sexism that it manages to contain:
By default, Poser 7 comes with a male and a female figure (3D model) called "Simon" and "Sydney" respectively. Simon comes in two major variations: naked, and clothed in jeans and T-shirt. Sydney comes in one variation only: naked.
Let me repeat that: the male figure gets a version with clothes on by default. The female one doesn't. Of course, in both cases, the naked figures can then be clothed by adding clothes to them, but why this asymmetry? What if I just want a quick 3D render of a clothed woman? I can do it if it's a man.
This ridiculousness is compounded by some other things:
Simon comes without genitals by default. This is perhaps not so surprising. Sydney doesn't have nipples by default. The figure's breasts are just nipple-less flesh-coloured domes. You have to load in an alternate texture to get the nipples. So here we have sexism intermixing with a tiring shame about the human body.
The default set of clothes models supplied with the program is rather interesting as well. Simon's and Sydney's wardrobes are similar in some parts (tennis shoes, sandals, jeans) - but while Simon has a suit, Sydney has a form-fitting leather jacket and high-heeled leather boots. The two tops in Sydney's wardrobe are an incredibly tight fit as well. In short, Simon can dress casual or business, Sydney can dress casual-sexy or leather-sexy.
Then there's the websites you can buy more figure models at, which heavily feature scantily clad women along with invitations to, er, buy them...
I don't think I will.
To be frank, I don't have any suggestions for you here beyond boycotting software that has that sickly smell of sexism about it - but I am badgering the distributors of Poser, trying to get some sort of statement out of them. If that happens, I will post it here.
I also have a copy of Poser 3 floating around, and in some respects, the program's quality is much improved: the monochrome-terracotta skin of the Poser 3 figure models has been replaced by a much more believable texture, and the rendering engine has been upgraded to a proper ray-tracer.
But there are certain issues. A lot of the newer systems integrate very badly into the program's core functionality. For example, while I can edit the shape and colour of a figure's face, the changed colour does not get applied to the rest of the body, making the feature semi-useless.
Adding clothes is hit-and-miss, with a lot of the pre-supplied clothes 3D models being impossible to fit onto the figures properly: the figure's flesh often extends further out than the cloth, leaving random patches of nakedness. In one case this is even visible in the thumbnail picture of that clothes model.
But the most distressing thing about the program is the amount of sexism that it manages to contain:
By default, Poser 7 comes with a male and a female figure (3D model) called "Simon" and "Sydney" respectively. Simon comes in two major variations: naked, and clothed in jeans and T-shirt. Sydney comes in one variation only: naked.
Let me repeat that: the male figure gets a version with clothes on by default. The female one doesn't. Of course, in both cases, the naked figures can then be clothed by adding clothes to them, but why this asymmetry? What if I just want a quick 3D render of a clothed woman? I can do it if it's a man.
This ridiculousness is compounded by some other things:
Simon comes without genitals by default. This is perhaps not so surprising. Sydney doesn't have nipples by default. The figure's breasts are just nipple-less flesh-coloured domes. You have to load in an alternate texture to get the nipples. So here we have sexism intermixing with a tiring shame about the human body.
The default set of clothes models supplied with the program is rather interesting as well. Simon's and Sydney's wardrobes are similar in some parts (tennis shoes, sandals, jeans) - but while Simon has a suit, Sydney has a form-fitting leather jacket and high-heeled leather boots. The two tops in Sydney's wardrobe are an incredibly tight fit as well. In short, Simon can dress casual or business, Sydney can dress casual-sexy or leather-sexy.
Then there's the websites you can buy more figure models at, which heavily feature scantily clad women along with invitations to, er, buy them...
I don't think I will.
To be frank, I don't have any suggestions for you here beyond boycotting software that has that sickly smell of sexism about it - but I am badgering the distributors of Poser, trying to get some sort of statement out of them. If that happens, I will post it here.
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Women, men, games, cleavage
Beyond my friends' journals, the two kinds of blogs I mostly read are ones about programming and ones about politics. Typically, their content does not overlap, but the other day there was a rare exception: Both Coding Horror and Sociological Images pointed out the hilarious-yet-depressing evolution of the ads for a browser-based game called "Evony".
Starting out with a fairly generic man-in-armor-with-sword, the ad switched to showing a series of women with increasingly more cleavage - until the final ad, which is literally just cleavage. Any mention of what kind of game this is supposed to advertise has long fallen by the wayside. If I had to take a guess from the way the ad looks, I would go for strip poker, not a "Civilization"-esque empire building game.
The makers of the ads probably noticed a correlation between the amount of cleavage and the proportion of viewers who clicked on the ad - but in the process, they have outed themselves as troglodytes.
(In case you would like to see confirmation that these ads are indeed out on the web, as of the time of this writing, going to livejournal.com is likely to do the trick.)
Sadly, they are hardly alone. Large chunks of the video game industry understand themselves as a hetero-men-only club. The line between game mags and lad mags is frequently quite blurred, for example at IGN.com, who have a "Babe of the day" section. Then there are the ubiquitous "Booth Babes" found at trade shows, a tradition of scantily clad women to be ogled by the (assumedly) all-male crowds. The few games which actually feature female main characters often treat them as mostly eye candy. And on the rare occasions where this isn't the case, certain people complain and wield photoshop.
Still, there are games developers out there who remember that women are people, not eye candy. Spiderweb Games is pretty good on that score. And then there's PopCap Games' Plants vs Zombies, who decided to have their own special take on the Evony ads:
Hence:
For example, I sent the following letter to LiveJournal:
Dear LiveJournal team,
I have noticed that you are showing ads for the web-based game "Evony" on your site. From their cleavage-centric appearance one would guess that they advertise porn, or perhaps strip poker, though apparently they advertise a strategy game.
Certainly, the ad's creators feel the need to insult their potential customers by assuming that the sight of breasts will make us play their game. Given that (according to your stats) some 55.3% of your readership is female, and given that the majority of your male readership (myself included) probably doesn't want to be subjected to these ads either, do you really think it's appropriate to run them?
As you may be aware, there has been quite a backlash against these ads in a number of online communities, and your display of them does taint you by association. Livejournal hosts a large number of different communities, many of whom will feel less than welcome as long as you are showing these ads.
I certainly don't feel welcome.
I look forward to hearing from you on this important matter.
I encourage you to send a similar letter, perhaps based on this one - but be sure to make it different enough so that it doesn't look to them as if someone just pasted the same thing a dozen times using different names.
Equally, I encourage you to send a letter to Evony. Now, given that they are still running these ads, it's likely that they are rubbing their little hands with glee at all the publicity the Internet outrage has produced. Try to make it clear to them that insulting their potential customers isn't going to work in the long run.
But if you only send one letter, go for the LJ one, or a letter to another site that's showing the ads. I think we have more of a chance shaming them into not showing the ads than Evony, who have already outed themselves as slimebags.
Starting out with a fairly generic man-in-armor-with-sword, the ad switched to showing a series of women with increasingly more cleavage - until the final ad, which is literally just cleavage. Any mention of what kind of game this is supposed to advertise has long fallen by the wayside. If I had to take a guess from the way the ad looks, I would go for strip poker, not a "Civilization"-esque empire building game.
The makers of the ads probably noticed a correlation between the amount of cleavage and the proportion of viewers who clicked on the ad - but in the process, they have outed themselves as troglodytes.
(In case you would like to see confirmation that these ads are indeed out on the web, as of the time of this writing, going to livejournal.com is likely to do the trick.)
Sadly, they are hardly alone. Large chunks of the video game industry understand themselves as a hetero-men-only club. The line between game mags and lad mags is frequently quite blurred, for example at IGN.com, who have a "Babe of the day" section. Then there are the ubiquitous "Booth Babes" found at trade shows, a tradition of scantily clad women to be ogled by the (assumedly) all-male crowds. The few games which actually feature female main characters often treat them as mostly eye candy. And on the rare occasions where this isn't the case, certain people complain and wield photoshop.
Still, there are games developers out there who remember that women are people, not eye candy. Spiderweb Games is pretty good on that score. And then there's PopCap Games' Plants vs Zombies, who decided to have their own special take on the Evony ads:
Hence:
- Vote with your wallet. Don't play or buy games with sexist content or advertising - or at least consider the alternatives. There are plenty of online empire-building games that don't feel the need to insult their potential customers with the assumption they'll be swayed by boobies. If you like building things, you might also like FreeCiv - and you can typically buy a copy of Sim City 2000 or Alpha Centauri for a pittance.
- Write Angry Letters: To game mags that think casual sexism is OK, to game developers who think the same, and to websites who allow said ads to be run.
For example, I sent the following letter to LiveJournal:
Dear LiveJournal team,
I have noticed that you are showing ads for the web-based game "Evony" on your site. From their cleavage-centric appearance one would guess that they advertise porn, or perhaps strip poker, though apparently they advertise a strategy game.
Certainly, the ad's creators feel the need to insult their potential customers by assuming that the sight of breasts will make us play their game. Given that (according to your stats) some 55.3% of your readership is female, and given that the majority of your male readership (myself included) probably doesn't want to be subjected to these ads either, do you really think it's appropriate to run them?
As you may be aware, there has been quite a backlash against these ads in a number of online communities, and your display of them does taint you by association. Livejournal hosts a large number of different communities, many of whom will feel less than welcome as long as you are showing these ads.
I certainly don't feel welcome.
I look forward to hearing from you on this important matter.
I encourage you to send a similar letter, perhaps based on this one - but be sure to make it different enough so that it doesn't look to them as if someone just pasted the same thing a dozen times using different names.
Equally, I encourage you to send a letter to Evony. Now, given that they are still running these ads, it's likely that they are rubbing their little hands with glee at all the publicity the Internet outrage has produced. Try to make it clear to them that insulting their potential customers isn't going to work in the long run.
But if you only send one letter, go for the LJ one, or a letter to another site that's showing the ads. I think we have more of a chance shaming them into not showing the ads than Evony, who have already outed themselves as slimebags.
Friday, 5 June 2009
Un-freedom of Information
What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people? Read the language of the bill; it doesn't even hide the fact that its only objective is to empower the President to conceal evidence of war crimes.
— Glenn Greenwald
The ACLU is currently trying to get the US government to release certain photographs allegedly depicting abuse of Guantanamo Bay detainees.
President Obama initially supported the release of the photographs, but has now changed his position, citing national security concerns. Which is perhaps questionable but within the provisions of how the Freedom of Information Act works.
But not content with this, the Senate has now voted to introduce new law, the "Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009". The law allows the Secretary of Defence to quash the disclosure of any photographs of US detainees taken between 9/11 and January 2009. It effectively guts the FOIA when it comes to photographs of US prisoners.
Why are those photographs so important? Simply put, if photographs of torture become public, then the torturers' crimes become visible and provable - and preventable. Make no mistake - waterboarding is torture, waterboarding was used at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, and there are plenty of suggestions that even worse happened.
The law was tacked onto the end of a spending bill, which so far has failed to pass the House of Representatives, thanks to a number of Democrats refusing to vote for it. Of course, said representatives are now being put under pressure to support their bill.
What can you do? Well, it obviously helps to be a US citizen for this one.
Even if you're not, please spread the word about this by social-bookmarking, linking to, or forwarding this blog post or this article.
If you are a US citizen, you can do the following:
— Glenn Greenwald
The ACLU is currently trying to get the US government to release certain photographs allegedly depicting abuse of Guantanamo Bay detainees.
President Obama initially supported the release of the photographs, but has now changed his position, citing national security concerns. Which is perhaps questionable but within the provisions of how the Freedom of Information Act works.
But not content with this, the Senate has now voted to introduce new law, the "Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009". The law allows the Secretary of Defence to quash the disclosure of any photographs of US detainees taken between 9/11 and January 2009. It effectively guts the FOIA when it comes to photographs of US prisoners.
Why are those photographs so important? Simply put, if photographs of torture become public, then the torturers' crimes become visible and provable - and preventable. Make no mistake - waterboarding is torture, waterboarding was used at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, and there are plenty of suggestions that even worse happened.
The law was tacked onto the end of a spending bill, which so far has failed to pass the House of Representatives, thanks to a number of Democrats refusing to vote for it. Of course, said representatives are now being put under pressure to support their bill.
What can you do? Well, it obviously helps to be a US citizen for this one.
Even if you're not, please spread the word about this by social-bookmarking, linking to, or forwarding this blog post or this article.
If you are a US citizen, you can do the following:
- Call the 18 Democrat representatives currently opposing the bill and tell them to keep opposing it.
- Use this handy contact form to remind the Obama administration of their promises of change and transparency.
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