“There are studies that show that fiction in particular builds empathy—that when you read about characters who don’t look or live like you, you begin to understand them a little bit better. You understand what makes you similar and how vast the differences are, and it helps you to be a little bit more compassionate toward people who are different from you. Right now it seems like—not just in America, but around the world—we need a little more empathy.”
It’s an adorable story about a little “narwhal,” living with a narwhal family under the sea, but take a closer look.
Over the following pages, Kelp struggles to fit in. Kelp is different in so many ways; nothing ever feels fully right. Eventually, by pure chance, Kelp happens to get blown off by a stray ocean current and winds up on the ocean surface, where a remarkable discovery is made.
Um. Wow.
And despite their nervousness…
Hurray! And then the question:
I’m dead. This book killed me. So much perfectness was never to be survived. Kelp, I love you.
(And you, too.)
And yes, I realize that it could just be a lovely story about a narwhal, not a metaphor for anything bigger, but isn’t that the beauty of all the best sorts of books?
Everytime you fill in CAPTCHA you’re helping to digitalize old books and documents. Using CAPTCHA abt 250 books are added to a digital database everyday
Its called RECAPTCHA! The creator of CAPTCHA (Luis von Ahn) realised a lot of time was being wasted with CAPTCHA (worldwide we spend about 500,000 hours doing CAPTCHA every day)
So he wanted to put it to good use
The reason why CAPTCHA uses wonky letters is because computers can’t read them, but we can!
But when trying to automatically digitalise old books and documents this becomes a hindrance because computers often cant read the faded old letters. So the digitalising is done by humans (very costly and time consuming)
Anyway Ahn found out about these a integraded into captcha creating RECAPTCHA.
Everyday about 150 (sorry i meant 150 not 250) old books get digitalized this way. They are currently using it to digitalize the whole archive of The New York Times (since 1851)
So we’re all kinda building a digital library of alexandria this way by using captcha, noice
reCAPTCHA Founded 2007. Overview reCAPTCHA is a free CAPTCHA service
that helps to digitize books, newspapers and old time radio shows.
reCAPTCHA improves the process of digitizing books by sending words that
cannot be read by computers to the Web in the form of CAPTCHAs for
humans to decipher.
how have i never heard of archive.org until today.. it’s an internet library that functions just like a real one, as in you borrow the books for 2 weeks and then they are returned to the archive. you can dl pdfs as well, but you’ll lose access after the 2 week period. it’s all free tho, literally just like a real library. i was searching for a cheap copy of this serial murder book from the 90s for my thesis and i found it for free on here. there’s like.. no gimmick at all? i’m so amazed. i literally just signed up and now i’m reading a super hq scan of this book for free. i love libraries.
ive been reading a book that basically explains how so-called “brain differences” between the genders is the result of gendered socialization and not the cause of it. i honestly expected the book to be very cis-centric but its actually the opposite, the author stresses that testimony from trans ppl is actually indispensable because we’ve, in a sense, “lived both experiences”
more cis feminists should have this mindset
one of the first examples that she uses to introduce her point about how perception by others can shape a person’s performance actually uses a trans woman. it explains that as a certain trans woman became to be seen as a woman more and more frequently, the ppl arond her eventually started viewing her as being ill equipped for tasks that they did not bother her about pre-transition. eventually she even found herself underperforming in these tasks herself.
I knew it was this book before I’d finished reading the first two lines. Honestly this book is indispensible if you want to debunk any gender determinism people claim is science. I can’t recommend it enough.
(Bonus bonus: I am myself a neuroscientist, and the old white men mentioned above – who are not – could not have missed the point harder if they’d actively tried. Which. Maybe?)
Free Graphic Novels (DC, Marvel, Image, etc), Music, TV shows, and music on HOOPLA.
Free music that you can KEEP on FREEGAL
You are PAYING for all this with your tax money – USE THEM. Most likely systems will have all 3 or 2 out of 3, so if you aren’t sure call your local library’s reference/information desk and how you can get set-up or started.
wupacing 