Dorries votes mapped with Google Fusion Tables

14 May 2011

With the help of my colleague Steve who provided me the geo data for all of the constituencies, and the Public Whip site to get all the vote details, and Google Fusion Tables to do the mapping, here’s a map of how everyone voted on Dorries’ abstinence teaching for girls sex education bill on its first reading. Blue pins are YES votes, green pins are NO votes, small yellow dots were absent. Small blue dots voted YES and NO (both). You can click them to see the name of the MP and the constituency.

I might update this to show email replys people have got from their MPs if I get chance!

Stop Dorries’ abstinence for girls sex education bill.

How I did it:

I took the data from Public Whip and copy-pasted it into an excel spreadsheet.
Then I duplicated the vote column and did a find-replace on votes to convert them to numbers – absent = -1, no = 0, aye = 1, both = 2, just in the duplicate column.
Then Steve used the TheyWorkForYou API to get the geo data for each constituency and converted it to .csv.
I copied the constituency geo data across to the Public Whip voting data spreadsheet.
Then I uploaded it to Google Fusion Tables and made it public, you can see that here (click the > button to see more columns).
Choose Vizualize > Map > Configure styles
Set styles as follows – use four buckets and set the figures so all the different voting options fall into a different bucket:
Grab the embed code and whack it into your website or blog post! Kaboom!

Facebook updates its ad complaint options to include ‘against my views’

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Feminism

12 May 2011

I’ve been reporting weight loss product and diet ads on Facebook for a while, as being ‘offensive’. To do this you hover your mouse over the ad so the ‘x’ appears in the top right corner of the ad. Click that and you get a series of options so you can tell Facebook why you’re removing the ad. Today I was reporting another diet ad and noticed their options have increased, so you can now report an ad for being ‘sexually explicit’ and for being ‘against my views’. Brilliant! (The ‘against my views’ option).

If you’re doing the same join the Facebook page – Ban Weightloss Product Ads and share your stories.

Stop #Dorries’ abstinence for girls sex education bill

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Feminism

7 May 2011

Nadine Dorries, Conservative MP, who has voted against equal gay rights in the past, has just successfully proposed a bill to teach GIRLS (specifically) the ‘benefits’ of abstinence from ‘sexual activity’! Who’s up for starting a big campaign against this dangerous heteronormative sexist anti-sex bill before its second reading in parliament?

Join the Facebook Page Stop Dorries’ abstinence for girls sex education bill

Check how your MP voted

Email your MP with the following points (alter tone depending on whether they already voted for or against or were absent but email either way to make sure! MAKE SURE YOU CHANGE THE TEXT OR THE EMAIL WILL BE BLOCKED):

Dear [Your MP],

On 4 May 2011 Nadine Dorries proposed a bill to require that sex education in schools should include content promoting abstinence to teenage girls.

While sex education already mentions the option of abstinence, this Bill would require active promotion of abstinence to girls, with no such requirement of the education provided to boys.

There is no logic in promoting abstinence to girls specifically – it is sexist. There is also no evidence that promoting abstinence in sex education reduces teenage pregnancies.

The wording of the bill is also ideological – it is not demanding abstinence from heterosexual sexual intercourse but from all sexual activity. This is dangerous as teenage girls may be taught that masturbation or other sexual activity is also wrong.

I call on you to vote against this archaic ideological bill on its second reading on Friday 20 January 2012.

Please respond letting me know your voting intentions regarding this bill.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

________________

View the debate on They Work For You

(Mostly) digital art A-Z

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Art

15 April 2011

I like lists. Here’s another set of my delicious links, this time art related. To reiterate, I don’t usually save the really obvious stuff to delicious, or the really easy to find stuff. This is a mixture of digital art, new media curation and illustration. Lots of it I discovered whilst doing my MA in Digital Media as I did my dissertation on curating new media art. Please recommend others in the comments!

/Seconds – online publishing project initiated and edited by Derek Horton and Peter Lewis, designed by Graham Hibbert and supported by an international editorial and advisory board of academics, artists and curators.1800-recycling – a recycling blog, with art
241543903 – Flickr meme where people take photos of their head in a freezer and tag it with the number 241543903
391.org – 391 was first published by the poet and artist Francis Picabia in 1917 and was a bridge between the Zürich dadaists, French surrealists, Marcel Duchamp and others. 391.org continues to experiment but with the use of multi/digital/’new’-media. Part of the DADA movement
391.org Access Points – Squat (word of mouth) – very cool digital art project by 391.org
Art Threat – online publication devoted to political art and cultural policy
babel remix runran – remixed lo-fi multimedia art
bio-bak.nl – coolest 4-direction user interface experience to explore this graphic designer’s work
Candy Chang – a public installation artist, designer, urban planner, and co-founder of Civic Center who likes to make cities more comfortable for people
CONT3XT.NET – curating new media art blog
Depthcore – digital art & media collective
Design Observer – online design magazine
Directors’ Notes – a blog and interview & video podcast dedicated to independent filmmaking
Draw Me Something – blog by artist Patrick Hruby
Explodingdog – awesome artist who draws things on request
Frank Stockton – awesome illustrator
Furtherfield – net art magazine – “Our mission is to co-create extraordinary art that connects with contemporary audiences providing innovative, engaging and inclusive digital and physical spaces for appreciating and participating in practices in art, technology and social change.”
Gaping Void – funny daily cartoons
Glitch browser – now defunct but archived interesting new media art project
Google Art – art based on Google search
hello° – a French illustrator based in Brighton, UK
Infinite Flickr project
Inviva – Institute of International Visual Arts
k a t e m o r o s s – illustrator
Learn something every day – daily facts doodled
Liber Amoris – my mate Tash draws cool stuff
Multi – the journal of plurality and diversity in design, a digital peer-reviewed, open access journal that serves the international design community.
Nu.art – the site I built to archive the art show I curated for my MA in Digital Media
Okido – science and arts magazine for kids
PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN – pixel video art
Public Curating – new media art blog
Rhizome – digital art. “Rhizome is dedicated to the creation, presentation, preservation, and critique of emerging artistic practices that engage technology.”
Stanza – an expert in arts technology, CCTV, online networks, touch screens, environmental sensors, and interactive artworks
Sterf – video art
Studio XX – Montreal based feminist digital art centre
tagr.tv – digital || art || media || hub
Tara McPherson – one of my favourite rock artists
THE JOHNNY CASH PROJECT – “Working with a single image as a template, and using a custom drawing tool, you’ll create a unique and personal portrait of Johnny. Your work will then be combined with art from participants around the world, and integrated into a collective whole: a music video for “Ain’t No Grave”, rising from a sea of one-of-a-kind portraits.”
the thing is… – A magazine of cultural commentary and creative writing
twistori – twitter stories live streamed around emotions (I love this one)
Vi.sualize.us – popular pictures – a social bookmarking site for pictures
We Feel Fine – similar to twistori, data visualisation of different emotions online – you can split this up by demographic of users too. This is one of my favourite ever sites. I first discovered it in 2008
We <3 it – image and video social bookmarking
Workbook Project – open creative collaborative network
YouTube Play – Developed by YouTube and the Guggenheim museum showcasing online video practitioners