If you use Zoom, be aware that they’ve decided they’re going to use your input (from both free and paid accounts) to train their new AI tools. And there’s apparently no way to opt out of this. :/

So here are some open source alternatives.

Wow. I plan to tell all my clients who use Zoom this.

A new language database narrows search for the first speakers of Indo-European

Using an improved dataset, a team of linguists and geneticists have updated their model of how we think the Indo-European languages spread.

You can compare their new model with the former Kurgan hypothesis in these two maps:

The Kurgan Hypothesis (previous widely-accepted theory)

The Fertile Crescent Hypothesis (new theory)

The two biggest changes are:

If true, this would date the Indo-European language family to a thousand years older than previous estimates.

It also neatly combines the two previous most prominent hypotheses—the Anatolian hypothesis (claiming that Indo-European originated in Anatolia), and the Kurgan hypothesis (claiming that Indo-European originated in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe). Under this new model, Indo-European originated further south, then spread to each of those two regions at a later date.

Here’s some more coverage from Phys.org:

And you can peruse the open access database yourself here:

Want to learn more about the history of Indo-European? My book rec on this topic is “The horse, the wheel, and language”:

the general population’s education of indigenous american cultures is literally painful like people walk around not knowing that native americans domesticated dogs and turkeys, that many communities had farms that stretched for hundreds of miles, that many communities had completely terraformed their territories, that there were native trade systems stretching across the continent, that there were native metalsmiths before european arrival, that most native people were multilingual etc

also fed up with peoples assumption that sedentary cultures were “more advanced”. like sure, they had technology that hunter gatherer cultures didn’t, but that’s because the hunter gatherer cultures didn’t need those technologies. hunter gatherer cultures have their own ways of doing things, and they do it that way because it works for them. like what if i called you less advanced because you don’t know how to make a serrated arrowhead, and you don’t know how to work a bow drill or an atlatl or a long bow.

Hey, if you’re non-Native/not indigenous like me, I found this book to be helpful. It comes both as the original text for adult audiences and a version for young people that felt kinda like the history textbook I should have had in fourth-sixth grade.

I believe we currently have no evidence for a separate dog domestication event in the Americas, they likely traveled with humans onto the continent BUT what’s arguably even cooler is that Indigenous peoples of Tierra Del Fuego likely domesticated a completely DIFFERENT canid species, the culpeo! They’re called Fuegian dogs and were sadly eradicated by the europeans..

The llama, alpaca, turkey, fuegian dog, guinea pig, and muscovy duck were all domesticated by indigenous americans. In coastal British Columbia shellfish were farmed and harvested in sea gardens made from rocks and are thousands of years old. 

There were also pre-columbian chickens in south america that arrived via trade with polynesians, if you like the blue eggs of the araucana breed you should thank the Mapuche people of Chile!

And that’s not even including the domesticated plants that have become staple ingredients in cuisines across the globe. Potatoes, tomatoes, corn, and chili peppers are all the work of indigenous american agriculture.

I’m not sure what ya’ll consider to be PEAK friendship but this is it, enough with Hollywood trying to show friends only hanging out in each others’ bedrooms and living rooms and crap, hanging out on each others’ stair landings was a sign of TRUE friendship, corporate fools

Even better about this whole scene, they are all so close to each other and there isn’t a hint of discomfort, Emma and Lewis’ legs are touching and they’re thinking nothing of it because they are just buddies and Cleo folding her legs so that there’s more space for Lewis’ and Emma’s legs and just Rikki propping her feet up on the stair in front of her is just so in character, and then just imagine Cleo’s parents trying to walk past them all and stepping over sprawled out limbs and them being so fine with it because, “hey, it’s just teenager things”, dude, I just love the humanity of it and how absolutely close the original cast actually was with each other to make such scenes seem natural

i literally love this scene so much you put my thoughts into words

In case people weren’t aware, there seems to have been a massive issue throughout Patreon. People have had their subscriptions cancelled and many had their payments flagged as fraud with their bank. 150$ of my patronage disappeared, that’s 150$ a month as a disabled artist that took months to build that I’m unsure I’ll ever get back..Gone. It won’t allow me to message anyone whose payments were declined.I also had around 10 people’s payments flagged as fraud, some have had to re-patron. If you’re supporting Patreon creators I advise you look to see if at least the people you remember supporting are still there / that your payments aren’t marked as fraud, especially if you’re supporting for physical rewards you’re expecting. 

if you’re supporting folks on patreon, please take a peek & try to re-pledge if you can! this comes as a surprise to many who cannot afford to be surprised. thanks so much!

Check on your creators, see if you still have access to the comics you want to see!

hmmm

You BEHEAD Marie Antoinette?

you CHOP her head like the GUILLOTINE??

OH OH CHAOS FOR FRANCE! CHAOS FOR FRANCE FOR 1000 YEARS!!!!

Friendly reminder that:

They’re also shooting for 100% renewable plastic sources by 2030! All of the soft plant/leaf elements in sets right now and going forward are made out of bioplastic made from sugarcane, and they’re working on getting the regular hard plastic bricks out of that, too.

They’ve done it, actually! The full bricks are in the prototype stage now, and are expected to be 100% biodegradable without the need for a commercial compost facility. It’s very cool. Right now they’re testing the durability and playability of the bricks and seeing what needs to be revised/reworked on their final model.

So its that easy huh

Of course it is

Actually, this isn’t “easy” and is huge news. You see, Lego is absolutely meticulous about their quality control. Their standards for manufacturing are stupidly high, as are their safety requirements. You know that distinctive “click” when you pop two Lego bricks apart? They engineered that. That sound is so distinctive that it can be used to tell genuine Lego bricks from counterfeits and it’s a sound that would be based on shape and material.

Furthermore, one of the hard requirements for a Lego brick is that it must be compatible with any other Lego brick. If I buy a set today and pull a set from the 1980s? Those bricks would fit together perfectly. This requires a huge amount of precision engineering and controls on manufacturing quality. (I can’t remember the source, but I’ve at least heard that once the brick molds wear to a certain point, they’re pulled from the line and either melted down or turned into construction material for Lego HQ. Point being, no one is getting their hands on a worn Lego mold)

Recycled and non-petroleum plastics are different from other plastic. The chemistry is different. The timing and process to use them is different. This has been a reason why more companies haven’t moved to them, because there’s a drop in quality for material (so they claim).

What Lego just did is completely obliterate that argument. The corporation with some of the strictest quality control requirements for plastic just kicked the basic foundation of the “bad quality” argument out from under it, because if they feel confident enough to guarantee the same experience as using a brick from over 40 years ago, if they are confident enough that they can meet their own metrics at a huge industrial scale….

Nobody else has any excuse.

“Holmes and I sat together in silence all the evening, he engaged with a powerful lens deciphering the remains of the original inscription upon a palimpsest, I deep in a recent treatise upon surgery. Outside the wind howled down Baker Street, while the rain beat fiercely against the windows.“

What is better to sit and read inside with good company, while storm and rain blasts the windows. Love this little passage of domestic bliss.

Such a halcyon space to be in. Silent, with the person you’re so in comfort with that nobody needs to say anything. For hours on end.

working in healthcare has both radicalized me further left and made me like so more frustrated with ideologues for whom the good enough is the enemy of the perfect. Like I truly believe the best solution for most of our health problems is to provide people with universal healthcare, universal housing, and universal basic income. I think anything less than that will be ultimately less effective in noticeably improving the life of the majority of my patients who are most desperately need help. Also these patients need care now and will not live to see the realization of a better, kinder society. If we refuse any partial or compromised improvement, people will unnecessarily suffer and die. But also I think we need uncompromising leftists who take principled stands and drag us further left as a result. But also they are not always good on committees. It's a difficult balancing act, one I've never (and likely will never) fully reconciled within mythm344444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444uiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii sorry the cat jumped on the keyboard but she's right you know, you work as best you can with the world you got while trying to make it better, I think that's what she was trying to type, but when I pressed her on details about that, she dumped ten pounds of cat litter on the floor

The big advantage of uncompromising leftists is that they make radical leftists seem like the compromise position.

(c.f. the big disadvantage of uncompromising rightists)

From my experience what these people actually want is confirmation that their experiences were normal and correct and that it's the world that has gone wrong. That's why confronting them with the fact that actually how they were treated was literally abuse makes them so upset, they don't want to acknowledge that they were (and often still are) victims of people and systems outside their control. They were raised with the mindset that to admit something hurt you was a weakness. They were raised to believe that suffering through hardship silently is a sign of good character and strength. They want to be praised for being so strong, not sympathised with for being so hurt, they just don't know what to do with that massive shift in perspective

The first one is horrifying. I wish I could ask the parent "what will your kid do when they need help?"

Ad blocking in Melbourne

before you see something and recoil at the price, be it handmade items, services, art, whatever. when you see something and you think, "i wouldnt pay more than $15 for that," you seriously have to ask yourself: if i were offered that same $15, would i make this object? would i spend the time to teach myself this skill to get this done, for $15? would i do this service for that same $15? would that be worth my time and effort?

yeah, that handmade necklace is $140. you might only be willing to pay $40 for that same necklace, but would you make it for $40 if someone asked you to?

you want to pay the babysitter fifteen bucks for the three hours she's watching your child. but would you honestly do that for $15? would you go into a stranger's house and change their baby's diaper and care for its needs, for $15?

you think its ridiculous that this artist is charging $30 for an icon commission. would you spend years catching up to their skill level to make that same drawing, start using your skill to make some extra cash, and then spend three hours on a drawing just to get $15?

would you be willing to work for $5 an hour?

no?

then don't be angry when someone else won't.

you don't have buy the service, it's okay if some things aren't within your budget or comfort zone, and it's also okay if the product isn't worth that much money to you. but do not be angry. be glad, because you know of another person out there who isn't being exploited for their time.

goes the same for writers and their services!

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

okay but you thinking it tastes good doesn’t excuse how fucked up the milk industry is or make it okay to support lmao y’all selfish 

World Heritage Post

All milk has lactose, including human milk. If you're lactose intolerant, human milk will still be problematic.

HOLD THE LINE!! KEEP PUSHING!!!!!

Sorry babes but as someone who lived lug around 500 cds they can die. To me lps are at least pretty and pretentious like a fine wine. Cds have no point

the point is cds are sexy as hell. sorry you dont know what sex is.

visual diagram btw ^

@danepopfrippery

The real point is that you OWN a CD. You do NOT own anything digital you purchase.

Google Play stole hundreds of dollars worth of music I paid them for from me by forcing me to upload it to YouTube Music (or lose it entirely) which is behind a subscription paywall, requiring me now to pay more money every month if I want to listen to MY music I PAID for without constant advertising.

You do not own anything digitally purchased. It can be taken back from you at any time and it is fully legal for big corporations to do so for some reason.

CDs can't be taken from you unless they come into your house or car in person to physically pry them out of your cold dead hands.

That's why the resurgence. As funny as that person's reply to you was, it's not in fact because they look sexy. It's because you actually own them.

Look- CDs are your friend. CD-ROMs and CD drives with the capacity to burn? Are your friends with benefits.

Can anyone teach me how to burn Digital only songs into CDs?

i can ask my dad!! i think you need a certain piece of hardware, but i dont think its difficult!

not rn tho hes asleep

I would love that thank you!!

here you go!!

CDs store sound in a lossless format that can reproduce anything the human ear can perceive. The discs themselves store more than a double-sided LP in a small size that doesn't degrade from dust or minor scratches.

Bluntly, CDs are better than LPs in any way that matters

There are 293 different writing systems in the world, according to the World’s Writing Systems project.

According to Britannica, the most widely used writing systems are, in order:

Want to learn more about writing and its history? Check out my curated list of book recommendations on Writing & Writing Systems:

— Justine Bateman on the Destruction of the Film Business (via wilwheaton)

This is absolutely it. All this crap is about nothing but the perceived power that comes with having a big fat paycheck, and (the fear of) losing face.:/