Alan Turing

I only recently discovered that Alan Turing was gay (or, at least, slept with men.) I think I had about five minutes of elation, in which I mentally stood him next to Ada Lovelace in my pantheon of idols with whom I can identify, before I learned the second half of the story: mere years after being chemically castrated as punishment for his homosexuality ‘gross indecency’ Turing committed suicide. He hasn’t budged in my affections– I just relate to him now more personally and more painfully than would be necessary in a more perfect world.

It seems everything conspires to keep bringing him to my attention, though, so have two links, on his life and on the recent British apology for his mistreatment:

Orson Scott Card, meet Alan Turing, from Feminist SF.

For Alan Turing, a real apology for once, from Language Log.

Finally, I leave you with a poem by Matt Harvey, from the BBC Radio.

here’s a toast to Alan Turing
born in harsher, darker times
who thought outside the container
and loved outside the lines
and so the code-breaker was broken
and we’re sorry
yes now the s-word has been spoken
the official conscience woken
– very carefully scripted but at least it’s not encrypted – 
and the story does suggest
a part 2 to the Turing Test:
1. can machines behave like humans?
2. can we?

Disability fail?

So, I was reading this BBC article about an upcoming game/movie franchise that involves humans controlling created human/alien avatars in order to forcibly colonize a planet named Pandora whose native inhabitants, from the sentient Na’vi to the animals and plants, do not want humans there. I thought it was just a little messed up– like, isn’t is usually considered a bad thing to invade somebody’s home…? Are we going to be rooting for the unjustified human takeover? Or is this one of those gams like Shadow of the Colossus where you’re supposed to feel bad about what you’re doing? (And what if people don’t feel bad, or don’t feel bad enough? A lot of people probably don’t see a problem with colonization.)

I thought that encouraging people to casually support murdering people whose land you want was probably going to be the major flaw in the game, but at least there might be a way to do it well (by making it clear that the players are engaged in, shall we say, questionable activity, and having the ending reflect that), but I’m not sure how in the world they’re going to salvage this:

Mr Landau said that Jake Sully changes sides and helps the Na’vi “lead a revolution to force the humans – and avatars – off Pandora”.

The catch, said Mr Landau, is that when Sully is in avatar mode, he is fully mobile; back in human form, he is confined to a wheelchair.

“It’s a moral dilemma that he will have to face.”

It remains to be seen if this moral dilemma from the movie will be replicated in the game.

Okay, so the moral dilemma is…?

Maybe the game-makers think the dilemma is that he thinks helping the Na’vi is the Right Thing, but he might choose to help the humans anyway, because he could control an avatar to get around instead of being stuck in his pitiful wheelchair-bound life. The humans could give him everything he’s dreamed of! They could fix his miserable, worthless life! Because, you know, wheelchair = MISERY.

Oh no. Is he going to choose to follow his principles, and therefore choose to remain in the wheelchair, to teach us a Very Special Lesson about how brave he is to go on with his life as it is despite all his hardships? I hope not.

But wait– he’s siding against the player. Is he going to be evil and bitter, then? What’s the moral dilemma if he’s on the opposite side? Unless he chooses to join the human at the end… indicating that having an avatar body is worth betraying his principles! Dear god, he better not Learn To Hope and forsake his bitter ways if he does.

Augh! Is there any way to have a disabled character with a “moral dilemma” around their ability that isn’t full of stupid tropes and hopelessly centered around able-bodied privilege?? What do you guys think– how might this play out?

Late term abortion provider shot to death in KS

Okay, folks, this is merely a preliminary to something I will blog more extensively on when I have slightly more material to work with.

As it is, Dr. George Tiller was shot to death in the lobby of a church today on his way to worship.

He was the only late-term abortion provider in the state of Kansas, and probably for a radius of a couple hundred miles. I understand that many women came from surrounding states for Dr. Tiller’s services, and that both Dr. Tiller and his clinic were persecuted for providing these health care services to women. They were taken to court numerous times, and Dr. Tiller was just cleared two months ago of the 19 misdemeanor charges most recently brought against him.

Dr. Tiller had been shot and injured once before for providing abortion services.

And yet, no one gets shot in the U.S. for refusing women birth control. No one.

RIP, Dr. Tiller. I hope there is someone as courageous as you to fill your shoes, for the sake of all women in the American Midwest.

Mind The (nonexistent) Gap

In the comments thread to this post, good ol’ Goggler dirtyrose left us a message clearly crying out for a good rant:

The View just did a segment about a study claiming that women are more depressed now than they were in “the good old days” of the 50s (which is a misconception and never existed the way people remember it…). It was some of the most anti-feminist crap I’ve ever heard and I was SHOCKED by it.

Crowfoot responded with the following, just as clearly crying out for a blogaround:

That stat is familiar – I think Shakesville had a post about that? Or was it Tiger Beatdown? In any event, if that statistic is actually true (which I have serious concerns about), do you think that it might be because while we are constantly told we’re all equal and shit, we’re still actually treated like meat-socks and/or children, but we can’t complain about that because we’re all so apparently equal and shit so we must just be over-sensitive. Also, we’re almost all of us working full time and still doing the lion’s share of the housework, so more exhaustion? Maybe?

As a compromise, I provide for your reading pleasure a blogaround of rants:

Tiger Beatdown did, indeed, cover this gem, in a typically hilarious post titled “IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Tales of the Backlash,” which begins thus:

Greetings! Are you aware of how sad – so sad! So prone to bleak despair! – all women now are, due perhaps to progress? Well, we are. Sad, that is! I read a study about it! It was full of SCIENCE. I even wrote about the SCIENCE, for The Guardian’s Comment is Free! Observe.

You may notice that the last word there is a quote; this is because Sady actually wrote at The Guardian but I loved her her Tiger Beatdown intro too much, so I quoted that one. Click either link (or both!) for the full-frontal Sady Awesome.

However, Crowfoot was right about Shakesville, too: SKM covered it in “Mini-Brooks Minds The Happiness Gap” — way to pro-actively steal my title-pun, Shakesville! A salient quote:

Douthat begins by accepting the premise that women’s happiness is falling worldwide. He then moves on to speculate about why that might be. First, he whips out the old high school debate tactic of bringing up the explanation he does not believe in order to shoot it down:

Again, maybe the happiness numbers are being tipped downward by a mounting female workload — the famous “second shift,” in which women continue to do the lion’s share of household chores even as they’re handed more and more workplace responsibility. It’s certainly possible — but as Wolfers and Stevenson point out, recent surveys actually show similar workload patterns for men and women over all.

I have not paid $5 to download the working paper, so I do not know if Wolfers and Stevenson do in fact claim that workloads are equal for men and women, or if their data are convincing. But notice that Douthat breezily dismisses the very concept of a second shift, without feeling the need to argue his point.

Incertus also did a great job for addressing the fact that a “happiness gap” doesn’t obviously stem from feminism as its cause, and in fa, in “Liberated Women Are Sad.”

It does not occur to him that the freedom to be honest and complain is actually a part of that revolution he’s talking about. “Being unpleasant” and “being unattractive” are heavy weaponry when used against a group of people who must make their way in the world by being pleasant and attractive, as opposed to by their intelligence, strength, and hard work. A woman in the 60s who sat down and said, “my life is unfulfilling and I am unhappy,” would have to deal with the consequences of “being that way.” A woman today has less to worry about. It’s even (almost) fully acceptable today (in certain circles) to complain about how motherhood sucks and having children ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. This is a case where freedom equals the ability to mention that you’re unhappy.

Now, Shakesville gave the hat tip to Language Log, a blog that I follow gleefully and which was my first source for this lovely story. “The happiness gap is back” features a collection of links on the topic, as well as the following graph and accompanying question:

And I’ll ask a simple question: What fraction of graphically and statistically literate people think that the right way to describe the data summarized in that graph is “In postfeminist America, men are happier than women”?

My final impression: gee, anti-feminists sure don’t need much to get all riled up, do they? We must be doing something right.

Hey, Christian Fundies Listened To Me!

Well! What interesting timing. Just when eloriane and I were both thinking about same-sex marriage (ok, I was mostly scrunching my eyes shut and spewing), Vermont goes and votes almost unanimously for marriage equality! Okay, maybe 26 – 4 isn’t all that “almost unanimous” mathematically, but hey! It’s not a squeaker And yes, the vote does need to clear the House but it sounds like that’s likely not going to be a problem. w00t! This is awesome news, Vermont!

Of course, being the newshound that I am ,*ahem* I learned of this first from Shakesville, thankyouverymuch Ms. McEwan. I don’t read the news, it seems. I read feminists’ take on the news. Much easier for the blood pressure.

Over at Blurt, the blog of Vermont independent newspaper Seven Days, they bring us  a view of what it was like inside the Senate during the debate and the vote:

Sen. John Campbell (D-Windsor), the key sponsor of the Senate version, tossed aside eight pages of notes to “speak from the heart” in an effort to urge his colleagues to support the bill.

Campbell said marriage needed to be inclusive, and into its fold brought people who were committed to upholding the rights and responsibilities of marriage, as well as the love it takes to make it work.

He took offense at some opponents labeling gays and lesbians “those people.”

“You know who those they people are? They are our policemen. They are our firefighters. They’re teachers; they’re garbagemen; they’re the guy who plows the street,” said Campbell. “They are our children, our sisters, our brothers. That’s what they are. They are human beings and as such and as it’s said in this bill they should be treated equally.”

*sniff* You know, usually when I go to weddings I don’t get emotional. Often there’s this part of me inside that is really hoping that the bride won’t go through with it. “Run!” says the voice in my head. But, the only same-sex marriage I’ve been to is also the only wedding where I cried. Being able to love, openly, and to have that love acknowledged by the community? That means something. Good for you, Vermont senators, for doing the right thing.

Quick hit: synthetic blood from stem cells

So, this is some super-cool science news from the BBC!

UK scientists plan a major research project to see if synthetic human blood can be made from embryonic stem cells.

Led by the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, the three year trial could provide an unlimited supply of blood for emergency transfusions.

…

Scientists have already shown it is possible to take a single stem cell from an early human embryo and encourage it to develop into mature blood cells in the laboratory.

And a US firm called Advanced Cell Technology has managed to produce billions of red blood cells from embryonic blood cells in this way.

The challenge now is to scale up the production and move the science from the lab to the bedside, which will take years.

Professor Turner said: “We should have proof of principle in the next few years, but a realistic treatment is probably five to 10 years away.

“In principle, we could provide an unlimited supply of blood in this way.”

This is especially handy since they can pick out only those embryos with O-type blood to create the stem cells. O is the only safe blood type to use in emergency situation, since it’s the “universal donor” and contains none of the antibodies that some people react to. Unfortunately, only 7% of the population has blood type O, so it’s always in short supply. By creating synthetic blood from stem cells, we can not only be sure to eliminate the risk of blood-borne diseases in transfusions, we can also have unlimited quantities of type O blood on hand for any time we’re unsure of (or don’t have time to check) a patient’s blood type! Hurray!

Well, mostly hurray. Some people aren’t so happy.

However, many groups object to the use of embryonic stem cells on the grounds that it is unethical to destroy embryos in the name of science.

Josephine Quintavalle of the public interest group Comment on Reproductive Ethics said: “Like so many of the claims associated with embryonic stem cells, this is first steps research rather than a cure around the corner, and just as hypothetical as the rest of the claims which try to justify destroying the human embryo for the benefit of mankind.

First, this isn’t in the name of science. I mean, I like science, so I don’t think things done “in the name of science” are less worthwhile just because they’re not focused on practical benefits. It’s just inaccurate in this case. We’re researching this process in the name of saving millions of lives, not in the name of science.

Also, does this make any sense at all as a reasonable way to protest?

“Associating this controversial research with a National Blood Transfusion service may even end up contaminating the feel-good image of blood banks.

“Those who donate blood but who defend the right to life of the human embryo may be reluctant to continue giving their blood.”

Scientists are researching ways to, in ten years, solve the problem of not getting enough O-type blood from voluntary donations. So now, you think blood banks are Evil, so you’re going to stop donating blood. Zuh?? Wouldn’t it be the opposite way around– every ounce of blood you donate is a widdle baby embryo that doesn’t have to be turned into synthetic blood? If you don’t want us to make stem-cell blood, don’t stop donating yours! Form huge crowds of type-O donors and mob those blood banks so we don’t have a reason anymore for synthetic blood! You think these scientists could get any funding if the blood banks were glutted with type O blood? No way! Refusing to donate is only going to increase their support!

But I guess that kind of logical thought is too science-y for this crowd. So go ahead, give the blood banks a miss. We’ll carry on without you. In the name of science!

EU bans the use of ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’ (and sportsmen and statesmen) because it claims they are sexist

Yup, you read that right. EU bans the use of ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’ (and sportsmen and statesmen) because it claims they are sexist (emphasis mine.) Not, because, you know, it’s sexist.

I think I would find the over-the-top outrage a lot funnier if it wasn’t, well, sad.

No, really just read this! (I’ve inserted my own comments, but otherwise this passage is unaltered from the original.)

Instead of using the standard titles, it is asking MEPs to address women by their names.

No! Truly, society shall crumble!

And the rules have not stopped there -

GASP!

they also ban MEPs saying sportsmen and statesmen, advising athletes and political leaders should be used instead.

Man-made is also taboo – it should be artificial or synthetic, firemen is disallowed and air hostesses should be called flight attendants.

Uh… really? That’s it? These seem, uh, pretty obvious to me.

Headmasters and headmistresses must be heads or head teachers, laymen becomes layperson, and manageress or mayoress should be manager or mayor.

Wait, seriously? The words manageress and mayoress actually existed? That’s about as pathetic as millionairess. And people object to eliminating them??

Police officers must be used instead of policeman and policewoman unless the officer’s sex is relevant.

The only problem words that do not fit into the guidelines are waiter and waitress, which means MEPs are at least spared one worry when ordering a coffee.

Thank goodness. I was really concerned about them. Those poor MEPS, and the loss of their mayoresses.

They have reacted with incredulity to the booklet, which has been sent out by the Secretary General of the European Parliament.

Scottish Tory MEP Struan Stevenson described the guidelines as ‘political correctness gone mad’.

Haha, this is my favourite part, this poor guy’s hilariously overwrought rant!

He said: ‘This is frankly ludicrous.

You’re frankly ludicrous, oooh! (Except actually, he kinda is. Keep reading.)

We’ve seen the EU institutions try to ban the bagpipes and dictate the shape of bananas, but now they seem determined to tell us which words we are entitled to use in our own language.

‘Gender-neutrality is really the last straw. The Thought Police are now on the rampage in the European Parliament.

Seriously, guys, it’s like, 1984 or something! Thought Police!!

‘We will soon be told that the use of the words “man” or “woman” has been banned in case it causes offence to those who consider ‘gender neutrality’ an essential part of life.’

Indeed, that slope, it is so slippery! Why, soon, women might ask that we pay them as much as we pay men who do the identical work! The horror!

In all seriousness, I’m excited about this change, and while I’d prefer for people to recognize the inequity and the role language plays in perpetuating it, and choose to alter their language accordingly, well, maybe it’ll work in the other direction, too. At the very least, this is a step in the right direction.

Quick hit: Cleopatra ‘of African descent’

From the BBC, Cleopatra ‘of African descent.’

It was traditionally thought that Mark Anthony’s lover was of Greek descent.

But remains of the queen’s sister Princess Arsinoe, found in Ephesus, Turkey. indicate that her mother had an “African” skeleton.

Really? I always assumed she was African, what with the whole Egyptian thing, and that we only whitewashed her in art because, well, we do that.

I guess last week, that would have made me ill-informed, but hey! Turns out I was right all along.

The “I promise I still blog here!” blogaround

I exercised today, and even though it was only ten minutes at a pleasant walking pace, well, I’m totally wiped out. I’m going to be trying to do the same every day– and even work up to more exercise!– but I might be a bit, well, absent.

So to tide you over, some great links from my RSS feed!

Newspapers and Thinkingthe Unthinkable

“It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem…Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That’s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead.”

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Women & Work

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Quick Hit: It’s Almost as if Fat Tastes Good

The panel – which receives funding from the UK’s Margarine and Spreads Association – suggests that consumers use stronger cheese and low-fat polyunsaturated or mono-unsaturated spreads instead of butter.

I’m reading this whole thing like, “Wait, isn’t the jury still out on butter vs. margarine? And hasn’t everybody heard that at this point? Why does this make no mention of that? OH I SEE.”

That little fun fact also makes this beauty make a whole lot more sense:

Nigella Lawson is criticised for using butter instead of margarine in her egg and bacon pie, with a single serving brimming with 36g of fat.

Yes, clearly butter is the culprit responsible for jacking up the saturated fat content of EGG AND BACON PIE. Remember to flavor your bacon pie with a “heart-healthy spread,” folks!

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Tiger Beatdown: Adventures in Victorian Literature: Kelly Clarkson Version

The song of which I speak, performed by Ms. Clarkson, is entitled “I Do Not Hook Up.” It is a thoughtful examination of sexual politics, and also why boys won’t like you if you consent to have sex with them without extorting some promise of undying love and/or a wedding ring from them first! Let us perform some literary analysis of this groundbreaking piece.

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The Salad Police

I have a very poignant sociological observation for you all, so get ready:

The sight of a fat woman eating a salad makes people lose their minds, and wallow in self-hatred.

This word… I do not think it means what you think it means!

One of my pet peeves is the tendency to talk about “green” behavior without any kind of understanding of scale. As long as we are still driving cars 24/7, it really doesn’t matter if you leave a night-light on in your bathroom. Really. No individual household’s consumption can compare with an average office building, and no office building can compare with an industrial factory, and so on. It doesn’t make sense to attempt a paradigm shift from the bottom. We need to change our biggest overconsumption problems, not our smallest.

Which is why I was ultimately annoyed by Six gadgets that could help green our lives, from the New Scientist. It’s just a little fluff piece gallery of some ideas presented in a recent competition, but it made my headache a lot worse so I feel compelled to share.

Child’s pay

Second prize in the competition – organised by design magazine Core77 and Greener Gadgets conference organisers – went to the Power-Hog, designed by Mathieu Zastawny, Mansour Ourasanah, Tom Dooley, Peter Byar, Elysa Soffer, Mathieu Turpault.

Designed to teach children about the cost of energy, the device controls the power supply to toys. It only lets electricity flow when coins are fed into the piggy bank.

This is really a symbolic action – the Power Hog’s electricity prices don’t match real electricity prices – but it could encourage children to question their energy usage, say the designers.

Yes. Shaming people– children, no less!– into saving inconsequential amounts of electricity.

‘Vampire’ killer

Two short-listed devices tackle the problem of “energy vampires” – electronic devices that use power even in standby mode.

Such equipment, from televisions to hi-fis, can increase an average household’s annual power bill by $100, according to Rachel Turner, the creator of the Standby Monster.

Her approach is to scare users into switching off devices with a pair of sticky-backed lenses that fit over the standby light and turn it into a pair of glowing, sinister eyes.

Why, look! More shaming, connected to even less consequential amounts of electricity! Because your wireless router is evil, and if only you could see how evil, you could end global warming!

Command central

Frog Design’s central kill switch is also designed to tackle energy vampires.

Wireless units called WattBlocks are fitted between the wall sockets and plugs of devices, making it possible to switch them all off in an instant using the master step switch (left).

I have to confess, I don’t really get this one. How is this different from keeping such things plugged into one power strip, and then unplugging that power strip to turn them off? Plus, again, “vampire” machines. Ooh. Scary.

Electricity alerts

Overall winner Tweet-a-Watt takes power management online. Limor Fried of Adafruit Industries and Phillip Torrone of MAKE magazine added a wireless transmitter (left) to a power meter creating a gadget that transmits daily summaries of energy consumption to the user’s Twitter account.

Another short-listed design – Bware by Ariel Drach (right) – promises to do the same thing for water consumption.

Read our recent article explaining how the power of social networks can help individuals change their environmental habits.

Mm, I love the smell of shame in the morning! An article from the BBC on the same event even makes explicit the intentions of the inventors of the Tweet-a-Watt– “The inventors hope it will foster a new attitude among the public and likened it to being praised for weight loss when dieting.” YES. YES IT IS. It is just like the societal monitoring and critiquing of people’s weights. Unfortunately, that kind of social pressure, wherein strangers are invited to judge you, well, it’s…reprehensible.

I mean, I agree that this would work, though probably the way dieting “works”– in initial drop to an unsustainably low level of usage, followed by a slow creep back up one one resumes living one’s life. It might work a little better than that if one started out with bad electricity habits– leaving lights on even when not at home, etc. It just seems a bit unnecessarily intrusive (and, again, shaming!) considering that, well, there’s a limit to how little electricity a person can use, and, again, cars on the road.

Blinding light

A Venetian blind made from flexible solar cells can light up a room without a power supply.

The Blight blinds were designed by Vincent Gerkens, who says that because people adjust Venetian blinds throughout the day to maximise the amount of sunlight they block out, his design catches much of the available sunlight.

When darkness falls, energy collected in a battery is used to power an electroluminescent foil built into the blinds, which lights the room.

Okay, this is actually really cool. The key to making alternative energy sources work is integrating them into our world in enough places that they can actually get enough energy to supply our needs. Wind and solar are currently a tiny percentage of our electricity production, but here’s a way to give some solar panels some sunlight without covering the ground with them!

Note, also, that this isn’t focused on changing consumer behavior so that people reduce use– it’s a way to increase the supply of acceptable electricity. To my mind, any electricity generated by burning coal is too much, and so it’s impossible to solve the problem by reducing use. We have to get creative like this, instead.

Café culture

Office printers consume energy and may even pose a health risk. But the hand-powered RITI Printer, designed by Jeon Hwan Ju, is different.

Power comes from the user, who has to pull the printer head back and forth as the paper is pulled through. Cleverly, the printer also does away with expensive ink cartridges, instead making use of waste coffee.

The printed product definitely smells of coffee – which some evidence suggests could help reverse the effects of sleep deprivation. And there’s no word on how permanent a coffee-printed document is.

And now we’re back to products that I kind of just don’t get. I mean, I love the idea of re-using old coffee grounds, but… why not just transition to a paperless office (or whatever) altogether? And I’m not sure when one could use this… impermanant coffee-scented papers would be inappropriate for most official paperwork, and for books. It could work for receipts, though– it could even work via their favourite method, reducing consumption, since fewer people will be interested in taking a receipt that they have to manually print themselves!

Now, to return to the broader conversation: I don’t want to fall into the “WHAT ABOUT WOMEN IN SAUDI ARABIA” sort of argument that feminists face when they try to talk about comic books– I get that talking about the little things does not preclude talking about the big things, and that it’s important to pay attention on both.  But this seems somehow… not even one of the little things. As if a feminist was trying to complain about women no longer being put on a pedestal. It’s missing the point, somehow, aiming for a goal other than the one that out society needs.

And would you look at that? Even as I try to articulate the problem I have with this obsession with “green,” Scientific American provides me with the perfect rebuttal! Check out Top 10 Myths about Sustainability, with the following excellent opener:

When a word becomes so popular you begin hearing it everywhere, in all sorts of marginally related or even unrelated contexts, it means one of two things. Either the word has devolved into a meaningless cliché, or it has real conceptual heft. “Green” (or, even worse, “going green”) falls squarely into the first category. But “sustainable,” which at first conjures up a similarly vague sense of environmental virtue, actually belongs in the second. True, you hear it applied to everything from cars to agriculture to economics. But that’s because the concept of sustainability is at its heart so simple that it legitimately applies to all these areas and more.

I think a lot of attempts at “going green” are, at best, misguided (the innovations ranted at above, for example), or, at worst, deliberate attempts to make money off of people’s good natures (like with a lot of organic food). But I am a huge believer in the vital importance of sustainability. This article is a great explanation of why. If I link it a second time, will that double your chances of reading it? Because seriously, take a look!