This is about Sci-Hub. yeah we get it.. gatekeep knowledge and protect the interests of capital…

Listen, this is serious.

Do not use the website called Sci-Hub!

It lets people access scientific articles for free. This is dangerous. It helps the free flow of knowledge and reduces the competitive edge of all the people who worked really hard to have been born into a wealth.

Like, it’s literally a website where you can type in the DOI of an article and read it, without ever having to pay the publisher who exploited the author.

So, again, do not, under any circumstance, use Sci-Hub. I mean, can you imagine a world where knowledge is free and easily accessible to everyone? Even, y'know, poor people?

Libgen also has many books online, including textbooks, searchable by name, author, and ISBN. Can you imagine textbook companies not getting their hard-earned income from poor college students? Here is the link just so you make sure that you never accidentally stumble across this horrible, unethical website.

Oh, and while we’re talking about books, if you’ve managed to stay clear from Libgen, definitely don’t go to zlibrary, where you can also find a lot of textbooks, but unfortunately they’re completely free.

Another inside tip from academia: Those papers in really expensive journals that are effectively inaccessible to anyone not in a university network? Depending on the discipline it’s very likely that same paper is on a “preprint” server somewhere, with no access restrictions.

Like if you want to read basically any physics, math, or CS paper, arXiv.org will have you covered, because everyone uploads their papers there before submitting to a journal (and generally updates it after peer review). I know all of my papers are on there. This is such common practice that journals have it baked into their licensing agreements that authors retain the right to upload their work to these places.

So the next time you get hit with that paywall, you may not even need sci-hub, just click the arxiv link on google scholar instead.

if for some reason none of this works, the old “send a email nicely asking for the paper to the author” is always a good trick. remember most scientists hate the commercialisation of scientific knowledge

Don’t mind me, just gotta share this with my bf so that he knows what websites to avoid

i feel like we as a digital society have forgotten the important rules of the internet

the emotion i just experienced is kind of indescribable

the funniest part of this post to me is that the reblog:like ratio is nearly 1:1. nobody’s just liking everyone who sees this video goes yeah i gotta inflict it on as many people as possible

You know what's wild?

Your body- like, the one you're existing as? Your mind prison?- it's not a wholly independant entity. It's an ecosystem. You're a bog that's self-aware

Imagine if a swamp could telepathically communicate a desire for Chicago style deep dish and then just. Have it

No wonder my stomach hates me, the fish are confused as fuck

"fuck it we ball" is for stress about the future "it is what it is" is for stress about the past and "this too shall pass" is for stress about the present thank you for coming to my TED talk

Shit don’t feel as heavy if you think of it like this idk man

Dealing With Executive Dysfunction - A Masterpost

This is the sacred texts, this is the holy grail.

probably the best advice I've ever got was from my grandpa when I moved from my town and started a university, he told me to leave the house everytime when I start to feel down, just to go to the park, a supermarket, a bookstore, to even drive in a bus or tram, just be around other people because staying at home all the time kills you; and you know he was right

The clouds on this day last summer were *chefs kiss*

do you ever think about how a series of tiny choices like “I guess I’ll watch that show” can like totally and entirely change huge aspects of your life

ok well this blew my mind

This is also true with filmmakers. Western filmmakers pan their cameras mostly left to right and Iranian filmmakers do right to left.

Time seems such a universal concept and then I find out the different ways people perceive everything and remember “it’s all appearances to consciousness”

But the coolest part of that time-direction study, was there didn’t seem to be a consistent pattern to how aboriginal Australians arranged the images, until it was realized that the issue was where the participant was sitting, because they were consistently arranging them East to West.

Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them. 

Until, of course, they showed it to a traditional leatherworker and she took one look at it and said “Oh yeah sure that’s a leather burnisher, you use it to close the pores of leather and work oil into the hide to make it waterproof. Mine looks just the same.” 

“Wait you’re still using the exact same fucking thing 50,000 years later???”

“Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”

It’s just. 

50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job. 

i also like that this is a “ask craftspeople” thing, it reminds me of when art historians were all “the fuck” about someone’s ear “deformity” in a portrait and couldn’t work out what the symbolism was until someone who’d also worked as a piercer was like “uhm, he’s fucked up a piercing there”. interdisciplinary shit also needs to include non-academic approaches because crafts & trades people know shit ok

One of my professors often tells us about a time he, as and Egyptian Archaeologist, came down upon a ring of bricks one brick high. In the middle of a house. He and his fellow researchers could not fpr the life of them figure out what tf it could possibly have been for. Until he decided to as a laborer, who doesnt even speak English, what it was. The guy gestures for my prof to follow him, and shows him the same ring of bricks in a nearby modern house. Said ring is filled with baby chicks, while momma hen is out in the yard having a snack. The chicks can’t get over the single brick, but mom can step right over. Over 2000 years and their still corraling chicks with brick circles. If it aint broke, dont fix it and always ask the locals.

I read something a while back about how pre-columbian Americans had obsidian blades they stored in the rafters of their houses. The archaeologists who discovered them came to the conclusion that the primitive civilizations believed keeping them closer to the sun would keep the blades sharper.

Then a mother looked at their findings and said “yeah, they stored their knives in the rafters to keep them out of reach of the children.”

Omg the ancient child proofing add on tho lol

I remember years ago on a forum (email list, that’s how old) a woman talking about going to a museum, and seeing among the women’s household objects a number of fired clay items referred to as “prayer objects”.  (Apparently this sort of labeling is not uncommon when you have something that every house has and appears to be important, but no-one knows what it is.)  She found a docent and said, “Excuse me, but I think those are drop spindles.”  “Why would you think that, ma’am?”  “Because they look just like the ones my husband makes for me.  See?”  They got all excited, took tons of pictures and video of her spinning with her spindle.  When she was back in the area a few years later, they were still on display, but labeled as drop spindles.

So ancient Roman statues have some really weird hairstyles. Archaeologists just couldn’t figure them out. They didn’t have hairspray or modern hair bands, or elastic at all, but some of these things defied gravity better than Marge Simpson’s beehive.

Eventually they decided, wigs. Must be wigs. Or maybe hats. Definitely not real hair.

A hairdresser comes a long, looks at a few and is like, “Yeah, they’re sewn.”

“Don’t be silly!” the archaeologists cry. “How foolish, sewn hair indeed! LOL!”

So she went away and recreated them on real people using a needle and thread and the mystery of Roman hairstyles was solved.

She now works as a hair archaeologist and I believe she has a YouTube channel now where she recreates forgotten hairstyles, using only what they had available at the time.

Okay, I greatly appreciate the discussion here about the need for interdisciplinary work in academia, and the need to reach outside of academia and talk to specialists when looking at the uses of tools, but somehow people always have to turn this into a “gotcha!” where the stuffy academics get shown up (even though this very thread shows some archeologists reaching out to craftspeople to ask about how tools are used because they recognize the need for that knowledge and expertise).

“A hairdresser comes a long, looks at a few and is like, “Yeah, they’re sewn.”

“Don’t be silly!” the archaeologists cry. “How foolish, sewn hair indeed! LOL!”

So she went away and recreated them on real people using a needle and thread and the mystery of Roman hairstyles was solved.”

Did they? Did they really? The archeologists all laughed at the plucky hairdresser and then she proved her theory by simply recreating the styles?

See, what actually happened is that Janet Stephens (the hairdresser/hair archeologist in this post), who published an article about her theory in The Journal of Roman Archeology in 2008, spent about 6 years of research pursuing her idea that perhaps Roman hairstyles were sewn hair and not wigs. She did both hands-on experimentation sewing the actual hair, and more traditional research reading through a ton of sources. This is coming from an interview done with Stephens herself:

“Lots and lots of reading, poring over exhibition catalogs, back searching the footnotes to the reading and reading some more! It helped that I am fluent in Italian and, in 2006, I took a German for reading class. Working in my spare time, the research took 6 years.”

“I am an independent researcher, but my husband is a professor of Italian at the Johns Hopkins University, so I have library privileges there. We are friendly with colleagues in the Classics/Archaeology department and at the Walters Art Museum. They were kind enough to send me articles and clippings, read drafts and help with some picky Latin, though I try not to impose.”

(Source: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/14729)

Wow, so people in the Classics/Archeology department and at the art museum sent her articles and clippings and HELPED her with her research as opposed to laughing at her in their gentleman’s club! It’s almost like people working the archeology/art history these days aren’t all stuffy old white guys from the 1950’s!

Stephens also presented her work at the Archeological Institute of America Conference, and according to the interview I cited above, it was apparently well received: “It seemed to create a a lot of buzz and people said they enjoyed it. It’s not every conference where you go to the poster session and see “heads on pikestaffs”!”

Like, there’s plenty to be said about the ivory tower and the need for interdisciplinary work, and the racism/sexism etc. that newer researchers are working against, but framing this story as “hairdresser totally shows up the archeologists with her common sense!” is needlessly shitting on the academics involved here (and the humanities in general have been struggling to maintain funding at many universities in the US, they don’t need to be further attacked), as well as greatly over-simplifying and downplaying Janet Stephens’ achievement. I think it’s more respectful to acknowledge the six years of work that she put into the project than to tell the story like she just sewed some hair and then all the archeologists’ monocles popped out.

Flower Dragon Prints // A Woodland Fairy Tale

infinite tea dragon for all your tea needs:)

[prompt: tea, butterfly, wyrm]

kinda following @kmccaigue 's list:)

The curse had been going on so long that we'd pretty solidly determined it went into effect before a certain age (21)

I came out as nonbinary and ace at 18 and a couple of my cousins made a joke that i was now immune and we all had a good laugh and forgot about it. its hard to explain the kind of like.... hopeless-but-amused misery that comes with having a curse this bad in the family for so long. everyone tries to beat it, and everyone knows its not going to work. even the people who dont believe theres a curse (or indeed magic at all) as kids have generally conceded by like 24

like, there was the typical 'you'll find someone someday' that you get as an ace, but it wasnt (completely) an assumption based in aphobia. no one believed it was even possible for me to not be married and a mom and miserable by 21. it would have been like arguing the sky was green.

but i got to 20 and wasn't even dating anyone and started getting side eye, and when i finally got to 21 everyone was so happy for me, it was crazy. my grandma cried.

but everyone assumed i'd just broken it for me (and honestly, it went a long way in unraveling a lot of transphobia in my maternal family - if my gender was enough to break the curse, it must at the minimum be real, right?), and then the next oldest cousin (my sister) almost got got, got all the way to living with and being engaged to a dude who was a fucking nightmare, and then just. woke up one day packed her stuff and walked out. no one could believe it, they thought she go back any day, but she never did.

next was the oldest male cousin, D, and as he approached 21 that was where (i, at least) start to suspect the curse was gone. we were really poor and so our families shared a house for most of my childhood, he's like my brother. I knew him well, and I was certain there was no way he was going to become an abusive husband or father.

and then he didnt! he did get a wife and kid before he turned 21 but he's a huge simp and so so good with his daughter, even with her being autistic which so many parents might have taken as a flaw.

at that point me and all the cousins were chatting about it one day and D pointed out that the only thing that changed between the previous person to get got (my uncle /neg) and everyone who didnt was me. We had something of a back and forth where we tried to figure out if my sister's ex-fiance counted, but we eventually came to the consensus it was curse death throes lmao. and no ones got got since.

(of course if you do want to take a hard line against magic or argue it's confirmation bias, you can, it's not gonna bother me - it's arguably possible that the belief that the curse could be or was broken was what gave my sister and subsequent younger relatives the confidence to leave/break the cycle)

thinking about what is and what isn't allowed in frame with reference ecosystems in prairie restoration

Explanation from OP in the replies

Both Selfish; you each lose 2 points

You Selfish, prev Cooperative; You gain 2 points

You Cooperative, prev Selfish; You lose 1 point

Both Cooperative; You Each gain 1.5 points

(ps make sure to say what you voted)

Making this post long so you have to scroll to see prev's tags.

🍄🌿🍄🌱🍄🌿🍄🌱🍄🌿🍄🌱🍄🌿🍄

You! Have been visited by the gnome of executive function! Reblog to send them along to make sure they visit the next person in need!

🍄🌿🍄🌱🍄🌿🍄🌱🍄🌿🍄🌱🍄🌿🍄