Meriblog: Meri Williams’ Weblog

Warning: This is a little heavy, a little morbid and definitely not the healthy tech fare that you might be accustomed to on this blog.

Found this excellent article on prison rape when following one of Jason’s links to an article about condemned prisoners last meals. The latter is interesting, particularly some insight on how your last meal on earth can be budgeted into something resembling a badly done McDonalds burger. The former is downright disturbing and makes a number of salient points, particularly about how society doesn’t seem to regard prison rape as anything out of the ordinary and nowhere near as taboo as “normal” rape.

I started to think about how death penalties and prison rape really are connected these days. With the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, particularly amongst those with lower education levels (statistically more likely to end up in jail, however bad that is), there are many sentences which these days amount to death sentences. My cousin got done for drunk driving in South Africa a few months ago — he managed to escape a custodial sentence, but afterwards his lawyer basically said to him “I hope that knocked some sense into you — if you’d been sent to prison you’d have been raped within 5 minutes and you’d have HIV now … for what, a few beers?”

Good point. Downright horrifying thought, but a good point. There was a similar storyline on ER a couple of weeks ago, when a young Hispanic man had been sent to prison for breaking into his stepfather’s house when he locked him out. He’d been repeatedly gang raped and his HIV had already developed into AIDS.

It amazes me that this is not a political issue. That more people have not realised that sending someone to jail on a minor charge, to somewhere with overcrowding and sexual abuse, basically amounts to the death penalty. In fact, with the length of time so many seem to spend on death row in those places it is still legal, many of those condemned to death probably live _longer_ than those send in on a misdemeanour and infected.

Perhaps this isn’t a political issue because prisoners don’t vote. But I think it should be. If we’re sending people to their deaths for minor crimes, how much respect for human rights can we be showing?

I have finally given in and installed Jay Allen’s MT-Blacklist. The installation was painless and I have to agree with Elly and KC that it’s a great tool. I know that apparently it will be superseded by MT 3.0, but the spamming was annoying me enough that I thought I should install it anyway. I’m not sold on this new-fangled typekey idea anyway.

Hopefully this will now mean that I get more time to blog. But I wouldn’t count on it. Incidentally, a side effect of Google seeing all and never forgetting is that not only your own life is immortalized, but also references to others in your life. Which, presumably, is why despite finding the site using my name, a certain old “acquaintance” spent a while searching for her own name or possible references to her last week. Looking through the logs it amused me greatly. I’d serve up the search queries, except that it would return results next time she stops by
So for now I’ll leave you with some random search strings that have brought people to this site in the last month:

* importance of training
* bootable distros
* outsourcing and effect on programmers
* design by committee
* firefox icon
* linux cd-bootable
* meaning of gay persecution
* software usability cartoon
* apple case mods
* bootable distros
* cd bootable linux
* cthulhu chick track
* dorkspotter
* effect of outsourcing programmers
* for someone who did research on gay rights
* interesting things
* language barrier and outsourcing
* meri fanfic
* microsoft employ

I love how random this is. And, for the record, Micro$oft don’t employ me and probably never will

• Micro$oft’s positioning doc against OpenOffice — looks like they’re worried
• MS screwed up on search — ya think?!? Nice that he admits it though
• The time has come — sad really
• Let’s boost mosquito immune systems to help them kill off the parasites that transmit malaria to us. All sounds a bit Lilo and Stitch to me
• Kansas Senate defeats gay marriage ban — as Simon notes, perhaps Kansas’ bible belt reputation is losing foundation
• Comedy article about Bush’s nicknaming habits — nice to see a touch of The Onion in the NYT

• He-man might be coming back!! — do you think they’ll also bring back She-ra and that horrendous pink outfit?
• Gimp 2.0 is out — think I might need to load this up and see how it compares to Photoshop. But if I edit an image using Gimp, is it still photoshopped or is it now gimped?
• 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School. Great article, even for a non-architect like myself … still loads to reapply here to any sort of creative work. via Paranoidfish
• Way, way detailed analysis of Wesley from Buffy/Angel — interesting read, but talk about obsessive
• Beyonce for US Vice President!! — great idea. And I thought that it would be a software fault that got the election results mixed up with the latest MTV poll! via kottke

• Then I get back to work — great philosophy to have around the despair of weird browser behaviour and work-arounds
• Methodist church embroiled in gayness now too [NYT: Free reg req] as lesbian minister is found not guilty of violating church law. Hell, she should move to Belgium, you can claim God doesn’t exist there and get away with it!
• Enough suggestion that antidepressants can make things worse that regulators are insisting on warnings[NYT: Free reg req]. The number of children who might be adversely affected is particularly disturbing
• The man who withheld ID [NYT: Free reg req] — interesting discussion around the real meaning of name and of course the privacy angle will likely be picked up online pretty sharpish
• Dress made completely from umbrellas — lots of effort, but it does look pretty! via BoingBoing
• High street coffee shops DON’T SELL COFFEE — quality rant, via Kryogenix
• Post It covered office as well as egg covered office (scroll down to the bottom), both via BoingBoing
• Wooden mice that have been featured everywhere so zero attribution factor, I’m afraid
• Banksy is fantastic — London graffitti artist with an amazing site. So far the one linked is my favourite, but there is a positive wealth of entertainment to be had here
• 213 Things Skippy Is No Longer Allowed to do in the US Army — received this via email a while ago .. it’s hilarious. Glad it’s found its way aroudn the web now! Out of the loop, via Simon
• Sun aims for 3D Linux desktop — could be very interesting, if they get it right
• Labour rebels strike again
• Major investigation into bullying has just received rather a lot of funding. Could be quite interesting to see the results, particularly given the recent investigations into army recruit deaths in the South East
• Perhaps we should be sending multivit aid to many of the countries receiving more sophisticated medication programmes etc. Not to replace the needed funding for TB drugs, for instance (because Lucy would kill me!), but rather to help new generations start healthier. At the same time, the US focuses on building roads, not walkways, so perhaps they need some guidance around a healthier populace as well

Right off I’ll just admit that I know nothing about what I’m about to talk about. I’m sure there are loads of books on the subject of naming products, using acronyms, etc and I haven’t read any of them. On the way home on my motorbike last night, though, I was thinking about model numbers and tyre descriptions and my mind sort of meandered down this path. So there, disclaimer completed.

Lots of products, software, techniques and various other things are named precisely for the purpose of having a good acronym. An easy to pronounce and remember, catchy acronym. Sometimes though if the acronym is too easy to pronounce and remember, then all that is remembered is the acronym. I find this at work a lot … people refer to things knowledgeably via the acronym, but if pressed actually can’t tell you what it stands for. Not to say that they don’t know what they’re talking about, just they can’t remember what the letters actually mean.

On the other hand, really great acronyms are easier to write, but never lose their meaning or the knowledge of the lengthened version. The particular example I was thinking of last night were related to the movies recently made of Tolkien’s classics …. if I write LOTR or ROTK, do you read that as “lot-R” or “Lord of the Rings”? “rot-k” or “Return of the King”?

I suppose the other side of this story is that sometimes people don’t actually care about the lengthened meaning — I’ve seen a number of acronyms that were blatantly invented to fit a cool sounding name. Of course now I can’t remember any of them but I know they’re out there.

So what do people think? Can you remember some examples of acronyms where you always read the acronym as the full name? Or the reverse? And where are all the examples of the made up acronyms to fit cool names that I could remember yesterday but not now?!?

• Creepy Cat With Hands movie [warning: movie file] via Neil Gaiman
• Rules of Argument — definitely quite a good set of rules. Doesn’t particularly account for the troll factor though. via 0xDECAFBAD
• Fantastic illustration of the trolling point above, via 0xDECAFBAD
• Ninjas, pirates, elves and dwarfs … and their views of each other, via Paranoid Fish

I read Mark Pilgrim for his tech commentary. I am, after all, a techie and a geek at heart. Geeks are a diverse bunch … our love/hate relationship with technology is one of the few things that we all have (OK and experience of bullying appears quite a common one too). I would never expect to hold the same political views as many of the geeks that I really respect.

It feels really good, though, when something dear to your heart receives supported from an unexpected quarter:

I am strongly in favor of allowing heterosexuals to continue to marry. I don?t believe, as some people do, that only homosexuals are capable of loving, committed relationships. I know, 50% divorce rate, blah blah. That doesn?t mean people should be denied the opportunity solely based on their sexual orientation. It?s not like being heterosexual is a choice. Source

Mark isn’t the only one. Aaron quite vocally exhibited his support. Simon has done on more than one occasion, even more special to me because we are friends in the Real World ™. People like this who have little or no vested interest in this issue, still showing their support … well, it makes me hope that perhaps we will be able to overcome the discrimination somehow. And that I’ll get to marry the girl I love sometime soon. When it is possible, all you guys, you’re invited.

UPDATE: I’ll add Phil to the list as well

I’m on a course today, so haven’t found a massive amount to link to, other than:

• Comedy Slashdot story about the sheer gullibility of minor officials. Even though Google knows everything doesn’t mean that googling always returns truth
• This man is the definition of bored, but bored in a cool way. He worked out how to create flow diagrams with nothing but HTML/CSS. I am so scared. via the newly redesigned Kryogenix.org

• This binary watch is one of the geekiest things I’ve ever seen. No, really. via 0xDECAFBAD
• HP taking Linux to the desktop in a much bigger way than they had previously. Will be interesting to see if this takes off .. and in which offices first. You can imagine the cost savings might be very attractive to smaller companies… (via Slashdot)
• Linux for gaming — some good points about how you could realistically spread Linux much faster if we just aimed it at the gaming market. After all, it’s what the consoles run on!
• Keri Smith guestblogs for Margaret Cho and reckons that gays should be pushing for Separate And More Than Equal Special Civil Unions which will give us extra rights and stuff. So that way we eventually might get equality, since pushing for marriage seems to have made civil unions altogether more acceptable/likely/possible.
• Mail server buffy slays all evil daemons — haven’t gotten to read this yet, but thought the tagline alone deserved blogging. via 0xDECAFBAD

Those who develop applications should have to support them. If YOU were going to have to deal with people getting confused by your stupid user interface, with the techno-illiterate misunderstanding every icon in your toolbar, with the training of users who feel that using a computer requires no effort on their part (and if they have to expend any effort whatsoever then the software/computer is broken!), then I think you would be significantly more circumspect when making “design” decisions.

Sorry, that first paragraph comes across fairly rant-like. It’s been a long day and whilst few of these issues have reared their ugly heads today, they are things I have had to contend with before. My housemates and I were pondering this at the weekend though. Amongst us we had a number of views … from the usability-centred one that people should be able to “just use” a computer interface (i.e. that they should be intuitive), all the way through to the view that people don’t expect to be able to fly a plane without training … so why do they think they should be able to use a computer without putting any effort in?

Although there is definitely some onus on the user — and personally I think it would be great if people took more of a responsibility for how well they can use a computer — I still think there is a definite need for developers to be aware of their user’s needs. And nothing highlights those needs better than having to support users who are attempting to work your application, website or even use a piece of equipment.

I think perhaps this is one of the key differences between the professional and the open source world. Because in open source your code and your interfaces are there for everyone to see, there is much more incentive to do a good job — to program elegantly, to help users to make the best use of what you produce. To an extent this is aided by the relatively smaller size of more open source application (granted, there are massive ones too, but most open source developers start out with an itch … and produce something small that is often ripped to pieces on the first iteration. They seem to learn from this), but even small applications in the business world will have the testing and the support completely separated from the development.

I realise that a lot of people don’t like doing support work. A lot of developers seem to think that it is beneath them. But I think an awful lot of them would learn a great deal and become much better developers if they actually had to deal with the results of their design and implementation decisions.

• Usability 101 — I have looked at the entire thing yet, but this looks both a quality usage of Flash and a useful resource, via UsabilityWorks.org
• No to sex doesn’t mean no to STDs — I really hope that those who will only fund abstinence programs in countries where HIV/AIDS is the biggest threat will take note of this; via 0xDECAFBAD
• GM shows the music industry — OK, so the fact he’s rich beyond belief does mean this isn’t quite as big a gesture, but you can’t fault him for that; via 0xDECAFBAD
• Code is Food — a great analogy from PhotoMatt. I will steal it and use it for my own means in future ;-). via Paul
• Introspection is enemy of blogging — so glad I’m not the only one with this problem, not that I’ve overcome it of course! (via Paul)
• Magnetic black gothic socialist thinking putty!! via BoingBoing

Thank to Si for his fantastic show referrer bookmarklet, which now means some people might get more consistent and correct credit for the links I leach from them!

• Radio vox populi is possibly one of the coolest things I have seen in a while. Strangely I am currently reading a book about the Internet where the author explains his passion for the new phenomenon mostly in terms of the older ham radio movement. I got to the creator’s post via kottke
• Coffee can be good for you. Honest, guv. via MezzoBlue, but I’m sure I saw this on /. too
• Replicating marriage rights isn’t that easy — there’s lots of red tape and the really important things just won’t be covered by a contract, via Richard
• Interesting diagram which concises describes how news travels across the blogosphere, as well as how it connects to other sources of information, via BoingBoing
• In a marriage of traditional news sources and blogs, I heard about this baby-sitting, house guarding robot on the news in the gym this morning and then came in to find that BoingBoing had linked to it too. Since it seems a bit strange for the BBC to have picked up, I wonder if they’re following BoingBoing now?!?
• An absolute gem in Si’s latest article :: IE7 .. a package to make IE behave as it ought in the CSS realm
• Strange, I didn’t think it was THAT heavy via /.
• Barriers to adoption for desktop Linux reducing — apparently significantly over the last year. Again this is /.
• And finally : Where’s My Gay Apocalypse?. If you read one thing about the gay marriage debate, please make it this … warning: might make you splutter or LOL, so possibly not the best idea to start reading it in the middle of an open-plan office like I did….

Found this book lurking on the shelves in the CompSci area of our university library and thought I’d read it just to see if it was interesting. As a child, like many of the people described in the book, I had a fascination with codes, code-breaking, the old lemon juice and matches approach to hiding and finding messages. That interest waned as I got more interested in other things … writing, coding, etc. Until this book.

Steven Levy’s Crypto is a fantastic tale, immersing you in both the events in the history of the crypto movement (and the cypherpunks) and the personalities involved. He really seems concerned with telling a story, but along the way you learn massive amounts about the various agencies and organisations involved, along with the algorithms and other tech advances that brought crypto to the masses.

I got a much better understanding of various aspects of encoding, decoding and general computer security from this, as well as a sense of wonder at the things going on in the background whenever I use a computer. I was also entertained for many train journeys and evenings — I would recommend this book to anyone from the coder who wants a better understanding of the algorithms being used in secure applications to those with just a passing interest in how these new-fangled computer thingeys are changing our society. Crypto meets a variety of needs in an interesting and captivating way.

[Note: The picture is nicked from the Amazon page that it links to, where you can buy the book]

Most of today’s blogmarks were derived from 0xDECAFBAD, Slashdot and some other places that I can’t remember. The one downside of tabs is that I can’t easily find out where I got there from once I’ve closed the original referring tab. Anyone got a really easy way to do this?

• Friends and Enemies exhibition — quite an interesting take on things. And quite hard to tell which is which…
• Some quality comedy tips on how to spot a fake programmer
• Very interesting Justice’s perspective on the separation of church and state … quality anecdotes and well worth reading to the end, especially the notes!
• As usual, children teach us the true value of new tech — extraordinary 4 year old and her use of the internet, provided it’s not a spoof anyway
• Tell me again this isn’t a civil rights issue and it’s about preserving something, not destroying
• Some people’s view of utopia — but I’m still struggling to imagine Picard delivering Whedon-style dialogue … could be very interesting. Is also pretty much guaranteed to be Elmyra’s worst nightmare
• Although I agree with many of the ideas in this article (The State Should Get Out of the Marriage Business), I can’t imagine the American public’s reaction to their marriages no longer being legally recognized
• Portland joins the party, via A Whole Lotta Nothing
• Perhaps we should assimilate them
• Interesting, but fairly impractical, concept car from Volvo women’s focus team — doubt the RAC or AA would be overjoyed about the bonnet feature!
• Apparently the latest rash of viri and worms may be evidence of a gang war. What I want to know is how long it will be before the virus starts spray-painting your desktop with graffiti. If this happens, I’m really sorry, I was just trying to be funny
• This could have implications for court cases in the longer term, in terms of testimony that someone sounded like they were in busy public location x when in fact they were standing over the body of the victim they had just stabbed to death. [Note: it’s eminently possible I’ve been watching too many crime/medical dramas recently, resulting in this example. ER, Wire in the Blood and The Bill were all good this week, so shoot me ;-P ]

I haven’t been around for a while. In the Real World (TM) things have been manically busy, with work, sorting out place to live next academic year, helping people sort their lives out and somehow fitting in time with the Important People in my life. I haven’t disappeared from the net completely, but significant amounts of my time recently have been spent reading about the American gay marriages events, the surrounding controversy, legalities and social implications. A lot of people have opinions about this and it’s been interesting (and I mean that as in both interesting enraging and interesting encouraging) to watch the debate.

What occurred to me recently though is that people aren’t actually arguing about the root cause of their disagreement. Whether you believe that marriage should be extended to gay people doesn’t depend on whether or not you think it will harm the sanctity of marriage or harm society or whether you think homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of (pick the relevant) god, unnatural, etc etc etc.

The root cause of people’s disagreements over this comes down to there being two groups of people involved in the debate and many people not knowing what group they belong to. The first group believes that your sexuality is a choice … that you are born straight and _choose_ to be gay or bisexual. The other group believes that sexuality is something that is part of you — you are born with the ability to fancy those of the same and/or the opposite sex.

When you look at it through this framework, suddenly it is much clearer why there is so much disparity in people’s views. There are lots of people that contend this is a civil rights issue and (probably more) that believe it is not. This comes back to the beliefs above … if you think that homosexuality is behaviour, of course it isn’t a civil rights issue. These people just need to sort their heads out and start acting like normal human beings. Letting them _marry_ each other will just degrade my privileged position (in being able to marry) and reassure them that they are human beings … which of course they aren’t if they insist on behaving like this.

If, however, you believe (as I do) that attraction to those of the same (and indeed the opposite) sex is something you are born with, then this is a civil rights issue. I can no more change the fact that I am a lesbian than I can the colour of my skin. We have accepted that different colours do not mean people are not human … we just need to get to the point that people understand that sexuality is also not an optional extra.