Portrait of a Textile Worker makes one person among millions of unseen workers, visible. Her image was constructed with thirty thousand clothing labels stitched together over two years.
(via creativity/machine)
politics
Political Games
Let’s face it – we live in a world with short attention spans and a large amount of competing demands on our attention. One attempt to create and maintain attention in one of these tragic affairs is the computer game Darfour is Dying.
In the online game the player takes the perspective of the displaced Darfurian. The scary part is that such approached may trivialise the importance and reality of the actual suffering going on.
But lets take a tolerant approach and say that at least people are being reminded that the problem exists. Nomatter the medium – awareness is the most important part.
Free Software and Open Standards
Here are the highlights of the launch day of a project on Free Software and Open Standards. If you happen to be in Amsterdam on Saturday Monday this might be interesting. The people involved are definately worth listening to. For more information and the full program go here.
10:20 – 10:55 Presentation of the SELF project by Wouter Tebbens, SELF project leader
10:55 – 11:10 J.W. Broekema, programme manager OSOSS, â??After Open Source Software and Open Standards there’s Open Contentâ??11:15 – 12:15 Theme I: Strategic implications of Free Software in the Netherlands and in Europe
Keynote by Georg Greve, president of Free Software Foundation Europe
Panel discussion led by Bert Melief (ISOC, M&I) with Paul Klint (CWI), Rob Rapmund (Twijnstra Gudde), Rishab Ghosh (FLOSSworld), Jan Willem Broekema (OSOSS), Joep van Nieuwstadt (Exin)13:00 – 14:00 Theme II: The Open Content Revolution
Keynote by Mathias Klang, lecturer at Göteborg University and project lead of Creative Commons Sweden.
Panel discussion led by Jonas Ã?berg, vice president of the Free Software Foundation Europe, with Kees Stuurman (University of Tilburg), Jo Lahaye (HollandOpen), Ton Roosendaal (Blender), Martijn Verver (VPRO)14:00 â?? 15:00 Theme III: Free Software Curriculum Building
Keynote about the European Master programme on Free Software by David Megias, Open University Catalunya (UOC, Spain)
Panel discussion led by Dessi Pefeva (ISOC.bg) with Peter Sloep (OU.nl/Fontys), Frank Kresin (Waag Society), Marja Verstelle (University of Leiden), Michael van Wetering (KennisNet), Leo Besemer (ECDL), Tom Dousma (SURF)15:20 â?? 16:20 Theme IV: Semantic web, knowledge platforms, collaborative authoring
Keynote on the development of the SELF platform by Nagarjuna G., Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (India)
Panel discussion led by Michiel Leenaars (ISOC.nl) with Frank Benneker (UvA), Rob Peters (Zenc, UvA, HollandOpen), Gabriel Hopmans (Morpheus)
Background: The EC to invest in Free Software promotion and education
The European Commission is directing more and more money to promote the use of Free Software and Open Standards, which is a strategic objective within the IST (Information Society Technologies) Programme. The EC has signed a contract for this purpose with the SELF Consortium, a group of universities and free software advocates in seven countries, including Bulgaria, Argentina and India. The SELF project will receive funding for the startup period (of two years) of about 1 million euro.
A short intro on the SELF project
SELF (Science, Education and Learning in Freedom) is an international project that aims to provide a platform for the collaborative sharing and creation of open educational and training materials about Free Software and Open Standards. First of all, it will provide information, educational and training materials on Free Software and Open Standards presented in different languages and forms.
Secondly, it will offer a platform for the evaluation, adaptation, creation and translation of these materials. The production process of such materials will be based on the organisational model of Wikipedia.
Ending the cold war
Hey â?? remember the cold war? Itâ??s over right? When a war ends it would be nice if the warring factions could pick up all their stuff and move it back to were it belongs. Despite this (obvious?) point the US maintains 480 nuclear weapons in Europe (Germany, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, and Turkey). Formally these are NATO but they are owned and controlled by the US. It would be really nice if the US would take them back home.
The weapons are placed on European soil and if anything goes wrong the damage will be carried by Europeans. They were designed as a deterrent â?? at least that was what we where told the arms race was for. So now that there is no major power to deter (if there ever was a need for nuclear deterrent) please take the crap off our front lawn.
Why not do something really wild and make Europe a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone?
Greenpeace has more information and also a fun video â??Nato Big Brotherâ?? â?? after the video you are asked to vote whom should leave.
The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC) released its report entitled Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms read about the report launch here.
Commission Chairman Dr. Hans Blix presented it [the report] to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the UN Headquarters in New York, and thereafter to the President of the United Nations General Assembly, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, Mr. Jan Eliasson, to whom Dr. Blix expressed his and the Commissionâ??s gratitude to the Swedish Government for having established and assumed the main financial responsibility of the WMDC.
The report calls for (amongst other things) the removal of nuclear arms in Europe.
The report clearly states that the nuclear weapon states are in breach of their Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) commitment to disarm and “no longer seem to take their commitment to nuclear disarmament seriously – even though this was an essential part of the NPT bargain, both at the treaty’s birth in 1968 and when it was extended indefinitely in 1995.”
That’s the kind of thing we have been saying for decades – but which rarely features in the UN Security Council, dominated as it is by the five permanent members, all of whom possess nuclear weapons. Far from disarming, they’re actually upgrading their arsenals.
The report also observes:
While the reaction of most states to the treaty violations was to strengthen and develop the existing treaties and institutions, the US, the sole superpower, has looked more to its own military power for remedies. The US National Security Strategy of 2002 made it clear that the US would feel free to use armed force without authorization of the United Nations Security Council to counter not only an actual or imminent attack involving WMD but also a WMD threat that might be uncertain as to time and place.
Download and read the full report here.
(via Real Peter Forsberg)
Prudent use of DNA
The official position towards the use of DNA in police investigations in Sweden has until quite recently been unanimously positive. This positive stance has occasionally burst out in fits of blind optimism. One such example was when an ex-police chief and a law professor wrote a debate article in one of the main Swedish newspapers arguing (on extremely weak arguments) that everyone in Sweden should be forced to give DNA samples since this would prevent those who had been forced to give DNA samples in the line of police inquiries from being discriminated.
This techno-optimism approach to DNA may however be receiving a few more sober reflective comments. In an article in Dagens Nyheter the head of Swedish homicide investigation Dag Andersson states that the police must be very careful of becoming single minded. In other words DNA is a useful tool but it can also limit the efficiency of the police since they are too busy searching and analysing DNA samples to actually use more traditional â?? and no less efficient methods.
My critique of DNA in police investigations is the danger of over-reliance on technology and the misallocation of resources. Taking masses of DNA samples from a high number of suspects is sloppy work. It promotes laziness and is connected with high costs. These costs could have been better used in preventative measures enacted before the crime took place.
The Swedish Minister of Justice is a big fan of the implementation of high-tech. But in common for all his techno-optimism is that they are high-cost measures designed to be implemented after the fact. This high-cost techno-optimism approach is designed to hide the fact that there is really no plan or initiative to work in a manner to prevent crime.
An additional “side-effect” is also that civil rights are trampled upon with the bad excuse that such trampling is necessary.
Does Bodström dream of high-tech hammers?
The Swedish Minister of Justice Thomas Bodström can without a doubt be placed among the European Ministerâ??s most hostile to civil liberties (older posts about this here & here & here). Besides blogging about it (along with many others) Henrik Sandklef and I wrote a debate article concerning this mans naïve faith in technological solutions to crime. It was published in the newspaper (in Swedish) and the Minister replied â?? well sort ofâ?¦he never actually met our arguments on civil rights violations, but claimed that the police needed tools to do their job (in Swedish).
Yesterday the Chairman of the Swedish Police Union, Björn Ericson, wrote in a debate article (in Swedish) that despite the Ministerâ??s claims that the police force has increased by 1500 policemen the actual numbers show that the number of policemen have decreased by almost 700 since 1997. Ericson wonders whether the 1500 policemen are all working deep undercover since nobody besides the Minister seems to know where they are.
Besides the politics (it is, after all, an election year), Ericson brings up a vital point in his article. Who will watch the tapes, analyse the data and read the log files? Much of the current wisdom concerning police enforcement deals with the importance of visibility. Policemen on the streets. It is not only important that the police patrol but also that they be seen to be patrolling.
Technology costs. The cost of building and maintaining a high-tech police force will create higher costs for the police. This will mean that they will have to make budget choices. Either be visible or spend money on technology. Our Minister has shown his inclination lies in the dream of a technological future â?? but what is missing in this dream?
Implementing the high-tech surveillance society will entail making choices. Simple choices with far reaching effects. The Bodström vision entails moving the police from all types of prevention and focus them on the cure. In the long run prevention is more cost efficient than cure. All the high-tech in the world cannot, will not, prevent crime. The only aspect of use is that high-tech may provide proof in the ensuing court case. And this can only be achieved through the trampling of civil liberties and therefore must only be used as little as possible.
The choices the police are being forced to make will therefore change their purpose. They will not be about the prevention of crime but rather the police will become the servants of the courts, the errand boys of the prosecutor. Despite their handcuffs, handguns and truncheons their primary work will be the collection of data for analysis. This is not unworthy work but it does not prevent the bulk of most crimes.
Technology such as that of bugging (phones and computers), DNA databases and surveillance cameras are all tools. Tools work well to resolve certain problems. With the right tools people became efficient â?? a large part of human development can be studied in the development of certain tools (fire, bronze axes, steam engines, silicon chipsâ?¦) but with the wrong tools the work becomes difficult, if not impossible. Of course you can bang in a nail with a screwdriver â?? but at a cost.
Most violent crimes (Terrorism, Saturday-night brawling, violence and abuse at home) will not be prevented by buying technology. The 9/11 terrorists used their own names â?? it would not have mattered to them if they had been asked to donate DNA. Putting more, and better trained, police on the streets â?? does have an effect on crime.
More patrolling policemen would not have prevented 9/11 â?? there is no way to prevent the determined. More patrolling police will not prevent abuse in homes. This takes an even more costly prevention â?? education and social welfare. But it is a better preventative cure for most other crimes. In addition to this it does not violate the civil rights of law-abiding people in the hope of catching the criminal.
There is a saying: When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Thomas Bodström is busying buying the dream of the big high-tech hammer and no matter how many different problems people attempt to explain to him with this approach all he can see is nails â?? and he cannot wait to pound us down.
Brainstorming: The Politics of File Sharing
Its election year in Sweden and most parties are therefore working hard to show that they have the right stuff. Among the new problems the traditional parties have to face this year also offers up some new surprises like the rise of new political parties. In Sweden since the last election we have seen the rise of both a Feminist Party and a Pirate Party in addition to the attempt of The June List (a Swedish cross-party alliance in the EU Parliament) to become more active in national politics.
One of the issues which has been pushed into the forefront of the political debate is what the position should be on file-sharing.
I have been asked by an established political party to visit them and talk about Copyright, File Sharing, Creative Commons and associated issues. This spans a whole range of items from the technical to the philosophical.
So now I am calling for input â?? instead of just saying the politicians donâ??t get it, participate and help me by brainstorming around the topic: What every politician should understand about filesharing!
Add your comments in Swedish or English…
Politics in Games
Violence and ideologies in games have long been under discussion. On the one side computer game advocates argue that computer games are not the cause of violence while others claim that computer games are harmful. The truth is never as simple as either side would like to claim.
Americas Army is the official US army game and was developed by the US army (beginning in 1999) the goal is to allow players to develop into specialist â??Green Beretâ?? soldiers. The website contains information about US army recruitment centres.
Afkar Media is producing â??al-Qurayshâ??, a real time strategy game that tells the story of the first 100 years of Islam from the viewpoint of four different nations – Bedouins, Arabs, Persians, and Romans. The planned release date is September. Afkar Media hopes the game will help to reverse negative connotations of Islam in the west and evoke new pride among young Muslims. (Christian Science Monitor).
Last year Afkar Media launched the game Under Seige, which was inspired by actual Hizbollah missions. An earlier game on the same theme is Special Force. They write on their website:
â??The game â??Special Forceâ?? is based upon reality, meaning that the game is based on events that took place in a land called Lebanon. Lebanon was invaded by â??Israelâ?? in 1978 & 1982, and was forced to withdrawâ?¦we decided to produce a game that will be educational for our future generations and for all freedom lovers of this worldâ?¦â??
Games such as these are criticised for simply reversing stereotypes while their supporters claim to redress the balance in a genre dominated by western forces defeating Arabs.
Does Civilisation create a â??beat-them-upâ?? â??winner-take-allâ?? view of history? Do Counterstrike and Vice City lead to conflict? And then what do the Sims tell us about ourselves and which values do they re-inforce?
It is interesting to note that all sides seem to argue that â??the otherâ?? is unfairly portraying them as the evil enemy. The question of political propaganda in games is a large unexplored area. Taylorâ??s â??Munitions of the Mindâ?? is an excellent starting point for those wishing to better understand the history and impact of propaganda from a non-game perspective.