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Human thought tends to function in binaries, but much of the reality we inhabit just doesn’t work that way.
When physics drops the hammer on your galaxy exploration dreams…
Innocuous start, but one can really see how complex a job classifying stuff can be. :)
It is always nice to find a well put together video, and this one titled ‘The Beginning of Everything’ does a wonderful job of laying down the fundamentals of how our universe began.
Physics? On a Monday? Eeek!
From Science Daily:
“Now neuroscientists at the University of Sussex’s Sackler Centre and Brighton and Sussex Medical School have identified the brain network system that causes us to stumble and stall just when we least want to.
MRI
Dr Michiko Yoshie and her colleagues Professor Hugo Critchley, Dr Neil Harrison, and Dr Yoko Nagai were able to pinpoint the brain area that causes the performance mishaps during an experiment using functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging (fMRI).
Previous research has shown that people tend to exert more force when they know they are being watched. For example, pianists unconsciously press keys harder when they play in front of an audience compared to when playing alone.
In the new study, published in Scientific Reports, participants’ brain activity was monitored while carrying out a task that required them to exert a precise amount of force when gripping an object.”
Now, can we apply this to women in who just happen to exist in society? – The Deep Woods certainly thinks so.
“Given the fact that women are constantly watched in our society, and we are constantly REMINDED that we are being watched by people making fun of fat, “ugly”, or gender-nonconforming women, it makes me wonder how many women have messed up important tasks or projects or just day-to-day activities because A PART OF OUR BRAIN is permanently being deactivated?
[…]
Women are constantly held under the microscope- whether we are attractive or unattractive, the gaze of patriarchy never ends.”
Can a parallel be drawn between having an audience, and the male-gaze that is ever present in our society? Looks like another study is in order, but the connection, if proven wouldn’t be particularly surprising.
Hey…heeeeey… JSTOR, Springer, Sage, and Elsevier…frack you and your paywalls.
This is from Sci-Hub’s main page.
“We fight inequality in knowledge access across the world. The scientific knowledge should be available for every person regardless of their income, social status, geographical location and etc.
Our mission is to remove any barrier which impeding the widest possible distribution of knowledge in human society!
We advocate for cancellation of intellectual property, or copyright laws, for scientific and educational resources.
Copyright laws render the operation of most online libraries illegal. Hence many people are deprived from knowledge, while at the same time allowing rightholders to have a huge benefits from this. The copyright fosters increase of both informational and economical inequality.
The Sci-Hub project supports Open Access movement in science. Research should be published in open access, i.e. be free to read.
The Open Access is a new and advanced form of scientific communication, which is going to replace outdated subscription models. We stand against unfair gain that publishers collect by creating limits to knowledge distribution.”
Knowledge, available to the plebs? What is heresy is this??
Of course the fascists are up in arms –
“That’s all well and good for us users, but understandably, the big publishers are pissed off. Last year, a New York court delivered an injunction against Sci-Hub, making its domain unavailable (something Elbakyan dodged by switching to a new location), and the site is also being sued by Elsevier for “irreparable harm” – a case that experts are predicting will win Elsevier around $750 to $150,000 for each pirated article. Even at the lowest estimations, that would quickly add up to millions in damages.
But Elbakyan is not only standing her ground, she’s come out swinging, claiming that it’s Elsevier that have the illegal business model.
“I think Elsevier’s business model is itself illegal,” she told Torrent Freak, referring to article 27 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”.
She also explains that the academic publishing situation is different to the music or film industry, where pirating is ripping off creators. “All papers on their website are written by researchers, and researchers do not receive money from what Elsevier collects. That is very different from the music or movie industry, where creators receive money from each copy sold,” she said.
Elbakyan hopes that the lawsuit will set a precedent, and make it very clear to the scientific world either way who owns their ideas.
“If Elsevier manages to shut down our projects or force them into the darknet, that will demonstrate an important idea: that the public does not have the right to knowledge,” she said. “We have to win over Elsevier and other publishers and show that what these commercial companies are doing is fundamentally wrong.”
To be fair, Elbakyan is somewhat protected by the fact that she’s in Russia and doesn’t have any US assets, so even if Elsevier wins their lawsuit, it’s going to be pretty hard for them to get the money.”
[Sci-Hub]
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
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