Search results for toban

Toban B. sent us a link to these two images illustrating the global spread of Starbucks and McDonalds (put together by Princeton):

UPDATE: Toban offered these great insights in the comment thread:

When I sent this in, I was looking at the images as indicators of who is and isn’t part of certain aspects of ‘globalization.’

While there has been increased homogenization, some people also have exaggerated the extent to which we all are part of One world (which some people call a “global village” — a term that I find downright ridiculous, to be frank.) I think that people talk like the world is all One because they are ignoring most of the world — i.e. the spots on the above maps that don’t have many coloured dots on them. Obviously the ‘North’ ‘Western’ areas also are very different in some respects (e.g. linguistically), but there’s more consistency in those areas of the world in terms of McDonaldization, digitization, and other features of the ‘North’ ‘Western’ ends of ‘globalization’ — that is, the sides of ‘globalization’ that people tend to highlight (whereas people don’t pay much attention to international waste trade dumping grounds, for instance).

If the world is all One, it is One in a way that entails different positions (e.g. as producers vs. consumers), and a lot of inequality (e.g. in terms of where the money is). If (for instance) Columbia is part of some sort of globalization, the place of Latin America is a lot different from France (for instance).

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Toban B. sent us a link to a video that condenses 24 hours of air traffic into a minute and 12 seconds. It’s fascinating to see where planes are going to and coming from on a typical day:

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Toban B. sent in a link to a clip of a 1935 Department of the Interior movie that includes a scene with African American conservation workers. I couldn’t find an embed code, so you have to click over, but the clip clearly illustrates the “happy-go-lucky,” dancing and singing stereotype of Blacks common to the era. The person who posted the clip says,

The racial stereotyping in this clip is appalling, but not surprising for a 1935 production. Hollywood films of that era also portrayed African-Americans purely for laughs. It was a rare film that showed black people as more than two-dimensional, and when they did – as Hattie McDaniel demonstrated in Gone With The Wind – Hollywood was ready to pat itself on the back.

Of course, Spike Lee’s movie “Bamboozled” implied that this type of stereotypical Black-man-as-happy-man-child-entertainer trope is still alive and well. He’s been criticized for his portrayal, of course, but it’s food for thought.

This image, found at International Networks, depicts the globe at night.  The areas bathed in electricity reveal “the global spread of industrialization, as evidenced by the lights of human civilization”:

I think it’s interesting to compare this image with a world population map (link):

At first the two maps seem to overlap pretty nicely, but if you look closely there are plenty of interesting discrepancies, especially in Africa.

Thanks to Toban B. for the link that got me to the graphic that inspired this post.

NEW (Apr. ’10)!  In the comments, Brendon linked to this great image of the Korean peninsula at night that reveals an amazing difference between North and South Korea:

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Toban B. sent us a link to an infographic that included data that put U.S. spending on the military into perspective:

See also this post looking at where our tax dollars go.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Toban B., Elisabeth, and Mark sent us a link to a post at jozjozjoz about the Nikon S630 digital camera. As Joz explains, “As I was taking pictures of my family, it kept asking ‘Did someone blink?’ even though our eyes were always open.”

Apparently the camera perceives “Asian” eyes as closed.

Does anyone know about how cameras are programmed to do things like recognize blinking? Does the program include specific measurements to look for to define an eye as open or closed and then prompt the user with a question about blinking? It would seem that the program doesn’t know how to deal with Asian features, which makes me wonder about the “typical” faces or facial features used to write the program–who was used as the “neutral” model?

Anybody know more about how these types of programs are written and how specifications are chosen to provide the camera a baseline for determining that the face in a photo requires “fixing” of some sort?

UPDATE: Commenter Elizabeth says,

I just got back from vacation with a friend who has this camera (we are three white women) and after every photo,  it asked us, “Did someone blink?”  It became a running joke because the sensor asked this question whether or not there was a person (or blinking person) in the shot.

Several of our other commenters had some info on how face-recognition programs work and what the problem might be, and that a) they generally suck and b) might suck slightly more for some groups than others, but still are overall pretty crappy at this point no matter what.

NEW! Racialicious posted about the Microsoft Natal game, which seems to have some problems recognizing the movements of people with dark skin (and maybe dreadlocks):

Research into the issue resulted in a study concluding that near-infra-red cameras did indeed struggle to read movements from those with darker skin. However, Microsoft has responded to these worries, telling Gamezine that all ethnicities will be able to use the technology.

The post has a really good discussion about race and “neutral” avatars in games, including some in which you have to pay extra to get a non-White character.

Toban B. wrote in with an observation about Facebook avatars. The default avatar is “white” and appears to be male:

In contrast to the individual avatar, Facebook’s illustration of global connection uses orange avatars of both sexes:

“Evidently,” Toban writes, “the orange is supposed to be a sort of compromise skin colour.”

So when Facebook wants to represent global humanity, the avatars are orange and of mixed sex; when Facebook is charged with representing an individual, the avatar is white and male.  This is not random or accidental.  Globally, as Facebook, ironically, reminds us, people are not “white.”  Representing people in this way centers men, Western countries, and whiteness (because there are non-white people in Western countries, too) and marginalizes women, non-Western countries, and non-whites (though one might argue that at least ALL of the avatars aren’t white and male).

UPDATE: I write this update in August of 2010.  Since then it appears that Facebook has added a generic female avatar.  This one was sent in by Amber F. (it’s her mom, Ginger’s, profile):

See our other posts on how whiteness and maleness are the characteristics we attribute to “person,” unless there are reasons to do otherwise, here, here, and here.

Toban B. sent in a link to a set of photos from the 1970s gay rights movement. Given that since the anti-gay-marriage Prop 8 passed in California in November, many people have argued that a) the African American community is particularly homophobic and voted against the bill (so it’s Black people’s fault Prop 8 passed) or b) gay rights organizations have failed to reach out to the African American community and win their support (so it’s elitist gay people’s fault Prop 8 passed), both positions that imply that gay rights and African Americans are at odds, I found this photo from Philadelphia (in 1972) particularly striking as a reminder that African Americans often did and do support gay rights, and the gay rights movement has often actively included them…oh yeah, and also there are gay Black people:

Here’s an image of people picketing the White House in the 1960s in support of legislation to ban discrimination against gays and lesbians in federal employment:

There are also quite a few vintage gay movement images mixed in to this set of photos. Thanks, Toban!