one of the best academic paper titles

for those who don't speak academia: "according to our MRI machine, dead fish can recognise human emotions. this suggests we probably should look at the results of our MRI machine a bit more carefully"

I hope everyone realises how incredibly important this dead fish study is. This was SO fucking important.

I still don’t understand

So basically, in the psych and social science fields, researchers would (I don't know if they still do this, I've been out of science for awhile) sling around MRIs like microbiolosts sling around metagenomic analyses. MRIs can measure a lot but people would use them to measure 'activity' in the brain which is like... it's basically the machine doing a fuckload of statistics on brain images of your blood vessels while you do or think about stuff. So you throw a dude in the machine and take a scan, then give him a piece of chocolate cake and throw him back in and the pleasure centres light up. Bam! Eating chocolate makes you happy, proven with MRI! Simple!

These tests get used for all kinds of stuff, and they get used by a lot of people who don't actually know what they're doing, how to interpret the data, or whether there's any real link between what they're measuring and what they're claiming. It's why you see shit going around like "men think of women as objects because when they look at a woman, the same part of their brain is active as when they look at a tool!" and "if you play Mozart for your baby for twenty minutes then their imagination improves, we imaged the brain to prove it!" and "we found where God is in the brain! Christians have more brain activity in this region than atheists!"

There are numerous problems with this kind of science, but the most pressing issue is the validity of the scans themselves. As I said, there's a fair bit of stats to turn an MRI image into 'brain activity', and then you do even more stats on that to get your results. Bennett et. al.'s work ran one of these sorts of experiments, with one difference -- they used a dead salmon instead of living human subjects. And they got positive results. The same sort of experiment, the same methodology, the same results that people were bandying about as positive results. According to the methodology in common use, dead salmon can distinguish human facial expressions. Meaning one of two things:

I cannot overstate just how many papers were completely fucking destroyed by this experiment. Entire careers of particularly lazy scientists were built on these sorts of experiments. A decent chunk of modern experimental neuropsychology was resting on it. Which shows that science is like everything else -- the best advances are motivated by spite.

Golf Courses ARE Being Converted

The Solarpunk "fantasy" that so many of us tout as a dream vision, converting golf courses into ecological wonderlands, is being implemented across the USA according to this NYT article!

The article covers courses in Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Colorado, and New York that are being bought and turned into habitat and hiking trails.

The article goes more into detail about how sand traps are being turned into sand boxes for kids, endangered local species are being planted, rocks for owl habitat are being installed, and that as these courses become wilder, they are creating more areas for biodiversity to thrive.

Most of the courses in transition are being bought by Local Land Trusts. Apparently the supply of golf courses in the USA is way over the demand, and many have been shut down since the early 2000s. While many are bought up and paved over, land Trusts have been able to buy several and turn them into what the communities want: public areas for people and wildlife. It does make a point to say that not every hold course location lends itself well to habitat for animals (but that doesn't mean it wouldn't make great housing!)

So lets be excited by the fact that people we don't even know about are working on the solutions we love to see! Turning a private space that needs thousands of gallons of water and fertilizer into an ecologically oriented public space is the future I want to see! I can say when I used to work in water conservation, we were getting a lot of clients that were golf courses that were interested in cutting their resource input, and they ended up planting a lot of natives! So even the golf courses that still operate could be making an effort.

So what I'd encourage you to do is see if there's any land or community trusts in your area, and see if you can get involved! Maybe even look into how to start one in your community! Through land trusts it's not always golf course conversions, but community gardens, solar fields, disaster adaptation, or low cost housing! (Here's a link to the first locator I found, but that doesn't mean if something isn't on here it doesn't exist in your area, do some digging!)

i hate it when i cant even write a poem about something because its too obvious. like in the airbnb i was at i guess it used to be a kids room cause you could see the imprint of one little glow in the dark star that had been missed and painted over in landlord white. like that's a poem already what's the point

you get it. you get the themes. i dont have time to do it justice. just look at it its on the ceiling

these exchanges and this fiddling about for the collective to appreciate in passing is, to me, true artistic spirit. I don't know what the past was truly like to live, but in my heart i know that humans have always been... like this

funniest thing about living in the uk is there's like 3 transmasc healthcare specialists for the entire country so whenever you meet a trans guy who's had surgery you can be like "which one did you go for?" the same way you'd ask someone if they prefer butter or margarine on their toast. second funniest thing about living in the uk is we have a town called cockermouth and it's in cumbria.

can't even imagine what a working day must look like for one of those specialists. i like to picture him coming in and there's a row of transmascs lined up in front of him and he just raises his scalpel and cuts off all their tits with one sweep of his arm like a samurai

tags from @calamitys-child were too good to be lost

Ankh-Morpork Dashboard Simulator

happy 40th anniversary everyone 🥳🥳

🌅peach-bi-street

who’s that watchman who’s kinda skrunkly

🐀↺riverrat Follow

helen. 

HELEN. ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT NOBBY NOBBS.

🌅↺peach-bi-street

oh yeah

#are you gonna look at me and tell me that im WRONG?

24 notes

🪙official-c.m.o.t.☑️☑️Sponsored with Blaze

C.M.O.T. Dibbler’s Escape The Room!!!!!

Newly opened in the Street of Cunning Artificers is an experience unlike any you’ve had before! Enter a room filled with secrets and mysteries which you must solve in order to escape! Great place to bring a date! Compete with other visitors for the fastest time to solve the room!

Show this ad at the front desk for a special deal of only one dollar per person, and that’s cuttin’ me own throat!!!

Dibbler Enterprises does not take any responsibility for any maiming, hot oil, buckets of snakes, or any other hazards guests may encounter in their visit.

#smallbusiness #ankhmorpork #ankhblr #deals

590 notes

🚹humantwitter Follow

4,981 notes

💌postal-service-top Follow

saw the postmaster today in his stupid gold suit. hes so hot

🌚↺lesbianbaker

i don’t get why people say this he’s the most average looking guy ever. his WIFE however

#you know that post that’s like ur at a lesbian bar and a hot older woman is smoking #and ur like. ‘can yuo put that out on me’ #yeah

120 notes

🥁evenmoremendeddrum Follow

do you guys think the patrician has a secret blog

🛤️↺makeyefret Follow

No, but I bet his secretary is on studyblr

🐶↺wufflesgirl Follow

are you kidding me the patrician is definitely on tumblr. brb committing treason so i can compliment his shoelaces

🥁↺evenmoremendeddrum Follow

peer-reviewed tags

#lord vetinari if ur reading this is legally a joke #wear an owl pin if ur one of us

🏚️↺ankhmorporkheritageposts Follow

Ankh-Morpork Heritage Post

1,074,228 notes

trainhoe-deactivated19890205

hot take but i kind of think the guild of assassins and thieves are problematic. like one of them you could ruin someone’s life and the other one you’re literally KILLING people. i know rich people are delusional but i can’t believe they literally think the best school for their kids is murder college.

🐲essential-dragons Follow

assassins got them

20,391 notes

this is the representation nepo babies deserve

I think it's important to know, there's an older picture of David signing stuff, with his father-in-law WHO WAS THE FIFTH DOCTOR, holding a very similar sign behind David's back. I don't have the pic, but you can probably find it if you look a bit.

An Egyptian man taking a selfie with a 2000 years old Roman era portrait of an Egyptian man.

The best They Might Be Giants joke ever is in Terry Pratchett's "Soul Music," which features a band called We're Certainly Dwarfs.

Cast Tony Hawk as Moist Von Lipwig

well it took me about 2 seconds to reblog this

“Holy shit! I followed this person back in the day on LiveJournal!”

-an actual thing I said about a tumblr interaction in 2023.

Tumblr :

time of year i remind every cane user to get an ice pick so you dont fall and die

almost biffed it in a fucking parking lot so time for me to repeat this. if you are a cane user in the northern hemisphere its time to get an ice spike coming in the mail BEFORE the ice forms.

I feel like there’s needs to be, like, handbook for authors who post on Ao3 for effective metatext.

By metatext I mean like tagging, summary, and authors notes (especially initial authors notes at the beginning of a fic). The means by which we communicate to our readers what they’re getting into.

Because we kind of all have to learn it by osmosis and there are conventions but nobody’s really taught them at the start, so there’s inconsistencies and misunderstandings or people just not knowing things through no fault of their own.

This ends up breeding frustration and confusion and in the worst cases resentment, hurt, and aggression.

I’m severely tempted to make such a handbook and get it circulating.

I think it would do fandom a lot of good.

Good news, I’m writing it

Update:

I’m at 9680 words, roughly 16 pages single spaced, with two or three sections to go.

Update:

First draft done. 11,100 words, 29 pages with formatting

The final draft is getting cleaned up right now. I’ll probably be figuring out how to post it tomorrow.

On which note, anybody know the best way to make a PDF available online?

Okay it is done!

Go here for the PDF, or here to view the whole document as a tumblr post.

I recommend the PDF.

Related note: the post length limit on tumblr is apparently more than 13,000 words.

Worth a read; even as a long-time fandom veteran I encountered things I didn’t know were in use, like the “& Related Fandoms” tags.

it’s up on ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30986561

okay. listen. if you ever find yourself falling into a new ideological circle, pay attention. if you notice that you’re among people who define themselves as part of an “in-group” with a pre-prepared human “enemy” to constantly rail against—if everyone fantasizes about the mental state of these loathsome monsters, if they participate in witch hunts or (perhaps worse) poke bears and court harassment on purpose to comfort each other over—get the fuck out. you haven’t been enlightened to some grand conspiracy, there are no evil “enemies” or “degenerates” trying to rip apart the fabric of society, and you do not have the moral duty to “enlighten” anyone to whatever you think the “truth” is. it’s neither safe nor normal to spend hours of your day fighting with strangers on the internet

a lot of people wear this shit like a badge of honor, but it’s also not normal to hide your “in-group” status as a form of martyrdom, relishing when the “enemy” slips up around you. it’s comforting in the moment, but in the long run, you’re alienating yourself from the world outside of your bubble. the more you alienate yourself, the more vulnerable and lonely you become, and the harder it is to reject the comfort of belonging to the “in-group”

i’m writing this from the perspective of someone who grew up in a cesspool of awful, cult-like rural churches—which is its own situation—but i see similar shit happening in online communities all the time, both within and 800 miles outside of my own ideological principles. yes, every toxicass radfem i block seems to be trapped in a version of this vicious cycle, but i also see it happening in random queer circles and niche fandom communities. no one is immune, not even me. i’ve watched people fall into this shit and never make it out. be careful

i thought my laptop was on its last leg because it was running at six billion degrees and using 100% disk space at all times and then i turned off shadows and some other windows effects and it was immediately cured. i just did the same to my roommate's computer and its performance issues were also immediately cured. okay. i guess.

so i guess if you have creaky freezy windows 10/11 try searching "advanced system settings", go to performance settings, and uncheck "show shadows under windows" and anything else you don't want. hope that helps someone else.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaa

it takes courage to be kind. it takes effort to be kind. no, it does not cost $0 to be kind. Kindness is a choice. Sometimes, a hard one. But people still make it and that's what keeps the world going.

Anyway if you see this you have to reblog and tag with a delight from ur day -- even the littlest thing counts

I don't want this to be contraversial but people should not be obligated to make morally uplifting work

not into "Hay's Code two but with the good morals this time I promise"

people should be allowed to make art that glorifies and celebrates the immoral

sometimes you need to give up committing to the bit when someone genuinely can’t tell if it’s a bit or not and is getting distressed about it :/ sorry

sometimes all u need to do is take one second to say "(yeah this is a bit)" if someone is genuinely asking because they genuinely can't tell, and then you can continue with the bit. i just feel like refusing to acknowledge someone saying "i cant tell if youre joking or not" and you just continue, or even say, "im not joking" then you're not being very funny, you're just being kind of mean, i think.

obviously there is nuance to this and if you know someone really well sometimes going in harder on the bit will make them get that it's a bit and that's fine if you know them. but just be mindful, yknow? not everyone can pick up on stuff like that, and pushing harder on a bit by saying "im serious" when someone asks if you're joking or not can be harmful in some situations.