Nerd-dom and seafood

Sun, 29 May 2005 21:58:52 GMT

"I've reached new heights of Nerd-dom," I proudly announced to my 12-year old daughter and her friends. They all laughed at me for saying such a thing, not foreseeing yet that nerdiness reaps large benefits after the high school nerd-penalties are paid. But I was undeterred. "I've managed to image the Seafood Watch wallet card issued by the Monterey Bay Aquarium (availabe in pdf) and upload it to my digital camera for display!"

I became aware of the Seafood Watch after reading the eye-opening Song for the Blue Ocean by Carl Safina, which lays out the magnitude of the challenges facing our oceans and fisheries. The book is part adventure, part science, part business, and full always of humanity and the stories of those in contact with the ocean in various capacities. The parts about salmon running the American River before Fulsom Dam was built (to which we owe our lake view) really brought home how broadly these issues affect us. This message was reinforced by a visit last year to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has a relatively new deep-sea tank with bluefin tuna (to which a large portion of Blue Ocean is devoted), and an informational video with a cameo by Carl Safina himself.

My daughter and her friends didn't understand the myriad benefits, which I will proceed to enumerate in possibly far too much detail:

I save a few grams on my wallet weight and thickness.
I save a few grams of paper and ink (and the chemical processes that go into making it).
I save the publisher the cost of printing this information, while keeping all the benefits that the information dissemination provides.
I demonstrate the multi-purpose nature of any sufficiently capable digital device with a usable display.

The last point is really why I get nerd points. The Casio EX-Z750 2.5" display is large enough to be used for a lot of interesting purposes besides framing or previewing a snapshot. It's at least 3 times the area of my cell phone's display. An intuitive UI makes navigating, and zooming in on the Seafood Watch text to a readable size, a breeze. I already have plans to turn Geocaching pages into images so I can carry my camera as a guidebook instead of my laptop.

So I have to add a final benefit:

5. I have a reason to interest other nerds (through this blog) in the important work Seafood Watch does to raise the visibility of the degradation of a vital resource. Check them out!

Design by Committee: Organizations

Nerd-dom and seafood