ceoln @ceoln@social.cleverlibre.org

What's even the point of getting a PhD in the middle of a pandemic if you're *not* going to make a plague doctor mask and wander around campus wearing it along with your regalia?

Cheers to all of my fellow plague doctors from the class of 2021 or 2020!

As foretold by @cwebber ( https://octodon.social/@cwebber/107475000512669706 )

I had some trouble with Maddow's suggestion that Democrats should elect more Baptist ministers. How about Democrats elect more secular humanists? Christianity is not necessary to motivate social justice work.

#humanism #politics #SocialJustice #media

https://www.atheistrev.com/2023/01/christian-faith-is-not-necessary-to.html

I don't have any followers here, but:

Here's a story from me today about the state-of-play at Texas' three unionized newspapers -- with the big news being that the Fort Worth NewsGuild has ratified the only union contract at a Texas newspaper, following a 24-day labor strike: https://www.texasobserver.org/striking-does-work-fort-worth-journalists-win-only-newspaper-union-contract-in-texas/

These are gentle amendments to my pragmatic (some would say progressive) economist colleagues, that we resist framing the market as an apotheosis but rather as a historically-contingent, culturally-embedded approach to the distribution of resources and political power, one that circularly defines what it seeks to achieve

Where is everyone?

#autistic @actuallyautistic #blackmastodon @BlackMastodon
Please reply if you are in this micro-community I feel like I haven't seen anyone.

I wish more people did these. It's fun to learn odd little things:

First job. - Stop
Current job - Sending
Dream Job - Your
Favorite food- Potential
Favorite dog - Passwords
Favorite footwear- Or
Favorite Candy bar - Memorable
Favorite Ice Cream - Data
Your Vehicle colour - To
Favorite Holiday - People
Night owl/earlybird - Who
Favorite day - Collect
Tattoos - This
Favorite colour- For
Do you like vegetables - Social
Do you wear glasses - Engineering.

I've written a series of articles about the ports and countries that we visited on a recent #VikingCruises trip from Athens to Venice. Here is the first one - our adventures around Athens. https://www.backyardimage.com/exploring-athens-before-our-viking-cruise/ #Athens #cruise #Viking #AYearForArt

Mesa near Los Alamos, NM, showing off in the late afternoon sun.

Original at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/24159469125

#photography

Following up on our recent conversations about the perceived paucity of ideas in brain research (https://neuromatch.social/@NicoleCRust/109557289393362842), I wondered, what's the ratio of Facts:Ideas? Is it 1000:1 or more like 2:1?

My very rough estimate is that it's ~10:1. How did I get that number? I would expect that both facts and ideas would be enriched but well represented in a graduate level textbook like Principles of Neural Science. To estimate the ratio, I randomly sampled some pages, and counted what I regard to be facts & ideas. I then computed the ratio 10:1 based on averages, and I extrapolated to totals based pages in the book. I estimate that PNS contains a total of ~19K facts and ~1800 ideas about the nervous system.

Example ideas:
Schizophrenia follows from a combination of genetic and environmental factors; current in a neuron can be modeled with an equivalent circuit; the percept of depth is computed from binocular rivalry; the taste of umami is due to a unique type of receptor on the tongue ...

Example facts (for the last idea):
The umami taste receptor is subunit T1R1+T1R3; In mice, the complex can interact with all L-amino acids; In humans, the complex it interacts with glutamate; taste cells with the receptor are concentrated in the fungiform papillae; mice without the receptor can't taste umami ...

#SecondLife updates:

2023 #SL viewer release summaries week #1 - https://wp.me/pxezy-x4W - #SecondLife

GOLD SF is open for submissions! GOLD SF is an imprint of Goldsmiths Press aimed at publishing new voices in intersectional feminist #ScienceFiction.

Please look here for more information about the imprint, and a link to download proposal guidelines as well as more details of what we're currently looking for. We are open for submissions until mid-February.

https://www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-press/submissions/

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Call for info - primarily for BlackMastodon, but also for anyone in a historically underrepresented group who finds themselves frequently needing to educate those in overrepresented groups. On behalf of the Hachyderm mods: we see you, we want to help. Proposal:

* What: Curated, attributed list of work including people to follow, hashtags, and other resources
* Location: our user documentation
* Goal: create a resource for people to see / reference, rather than have the same conversation 50x.

🫶

Fun anecdote from Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land (p. 233), a railroad legend from c. 1910.

“Besides icebergs, glaciers, and shifting sandbars, there was the notorious Copper River wind. It howled out of the canyon, and it swept with a fury across the delta. Railroad legend has it that a heavy chain was fastened at the entrance to the Flag Point Bridge at Mile 27. If the chain stuck straight out in the wind, engineers didn't dare to take their trains across the bridge.”

#akwx #alaska #weather

What does "trust, but verify" mean?

Red Kites are back out looking for some food. These magnificent birds regularly fly over the garden looking for carrion.

#nature #NaturePhotography #birds #Wildlife #naturecommunity #BirdOfPrey #photography #BirdsOfMastodon

good morning and welcome to 2023

My first #Patreon update of the New Year is here, and I'm making it public!

Learn the holy origins of The Shadow of Golgotha's blood-drinking Noblesse rulers!

(Plus a few comments on the #OGL.)

https://www.patreon.com/posts/shadow-of-acts-77010625

#ttrpg #OSR #DnD

Hi Mastodon! I built a random comic generator that makes horrible comics about therapy. It's NSFW and, well .. horrible. If you generate a good one, post it in the comments.
https://theoatmeal.com/therapist