ilovetruffle

I dream of owning a bookshelf with a rolling ladder and enough books to fill it | she/her | 24 |

[s-n-arly]

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

[moghedien]

I feel like I need to share this because idk if Europeans are familiar with the presence of Aldi in the US, but at least especially in my area they’ve been growing a lot recently. Like Aldi bought out some local failing grocery chains where I live (Louisiana) and have opened Aldis in all these somewhat rural communities and small towns, which for the record I’m fine with

But as a result of this they are advertising a lot more in my area and also in many cases, the people in these areas have never been confronted with Aldi or any European grocery store. So the ads that Aldi is pushing out to its new US customer base feature a cowboy shopping at Aldi who is explaining to new Aldi customers how Aldi works. Like this cowboy is explaining you gotta put a quarter in the shopping cart and why there are very little name brands. A cowboy is how they want to reach their American customer base. They gave us a cowboy

[meyerlansky]

just. please know. that giffing scenes like that is a fucking nightmare labor of love.

to wit:

bottom's the raw capture, middle's just flat curve correction to make the footage visible, top is the final coloring with /counts seven adjustment layers to add back in Literally Anything But Yellow

every giffer i know does it out of love for the game, but for the record it's not... easy. it's not just slapping the footage in a cap grabber and posting whatever it spits out. "professional" lighting and color grading has only gotten waaay murkier and flatter in the fifteen years i've been giffing on here, so uh. don't repost gifs, please!

[infiniteeight8]

I thought the bottom was a black bar. I didn't even realize that was footage.

Everyone say thank you to your neighbourhood GIF maker! Giffers are so important to the fannish ecosystem, but to so many people the amount of work involved invisible.

[not-freyja]

Can everyone who makes video content do a Deaf bitch a favor? Watch your shit with the captions on and the sound off, and then do another round of editing to fix things including but not limited to:

Captions cover the spot on the screen you put the information I need

The dialogue is captioned but not the song you have playing that the dialogue is responding to

You only captioned the person on the screen, not the person off screen who is also talking

No captioning of critical sound effects (alarms, bells, dogs barking, etc)

Speakers are not labelled at moments where it is not clear on the screen who is talking.

Captions cover the spot on the screen that you put the information I need!

Other d/Deaf people welcome to add.

This post brought to you by the fifth video tutorial I could not follow because the bad, auto-generated captions covered what I was trying to watch today.

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[depsidase]

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

[ralfmaximus]

The note inside a bullet.

B-17 bomber is riddled with German anti-aircraft fire but miraculously survives. Later they discover the explosive shells were all inert; sabotaged by Nazi slaves working in armament factories.

Inside one empty shell is a written note: it's all we can do for you now.

[gothlovingoth]

The most important part of all this is that these small acts of bravery and noncompliance cannot be known as long as the enemy still stands, and might never be known. Just because it doesn’t seem like anyone is doing anything doesn’t mean it’s true. The best malicious compliance or subtle sabotage is the one that’s never detected, but makes ravages nonetheless.

[weshallbekind]

A critical part of any resistance is

Do not post your crimes

Do not brag. Do not look for brownie points. Do not publicly recruit. Keep your mouth shut.

[aqueerkettleofish]

For those who have missed it, a tourist in Hawaii decided it would be fun to chuck a rock (a BIG rock) at a monk seal. He missed, but he was captured on video, and when told it was illegal to interfere with them, said "I'm rich, I can pay the fine."

Is the best part that he got doxxed? No.

Is the best part that he got tracked down by a local and beaten? No.

Arrested on state at federal charges, looking at up to 5 years and 50K? Nope.

The best part is the local city council's reaction.

And the best part of that is the look on the attorney's face.

[ralfmaximus]

More of this please, everywhere.

After the incident, another video went viral showing what appeared to be that man getting a beating. The Maui Police Department said they had no record of any reports of disorderly conduct or assault related to the monk seal incident.

Even the local police are being cool about this.

[pulsingvoid]

i can't do this anymore guys. dostoevsky never wrote this. please. can anyone hear me. if you do proper research the earliest version of this quote is from like a 2010 facebook quote with a magenta flower on it. it's gotten so bad that it's even credited to him on goodreads but nobody can source where he wrote it because he fucking didn't. i can't keep seeing this in your web weaves. dostoevsky the author of crime and punishment did not in fact write "you were destined for me. perhaps as a punishment". that is just simply not true. please nod and tell me you understand

[foggyeyes]

"this quote was attributed to me. perhaps as a punishment." -dostoevsky

[femmefaramir]

older lotr illustrations sometimes depict éowyn wearing ridiculously small armour. apart from the problem general sexualisation of the only female character (who really does anything), there’s another hilarious thought:

éowyn pretended to be dernhelm, a man. to fit in, she must have worn men’s armor. so the armor in the illustrations is normal for rohirrim.

therefore, all the rohirrim rode to war just like that:

[hobbit-hole]

there’s a thundering sound in the distance as the rohirrim ride into war but rather than hoofbeats it’s the collective sound of all their cheeks clapping

[delicatelytoobear]

the artist for this particular piece is Frank Frazetta and to be fair to him this is how he drew the orcs armor 

so the rohirrim comment is probably not that far off

[adhd-trash-mammal]

That’s a man who just straight up had a problem with the concept of wearing pants into battle, and I respect that

[cumaeansibyl]

male or female

hero or villain

sea or land

even in the snow

I guarantee you Frazetta’s Rohirrim were 100% pants-free

[missmollyetc]

Good Old Frank. That man loved bodies and hated clothes so much

[thebyrchentwigges]

[trist-pkmngal]

Frank Frazetta was the reason He-Man was designed like that; the producers conduct a study to see what art appeal the most to children, and Frank’s work came out on top in popularity. So everyone in He-Man is dressed the way they are directly because of Frazetta.

[snugglebunchesofeyes]

That man gave us the gift of warrior thighs and tits for everyone.

[olderthannetfic]

Ah, it has been too long since I have seen the no pants post on my dash. And yes, this is a rare case where it wasn’t some sexist nonsense but an egalitarian No Pants Agenda.

[olderthannetfic]

It’s time for my regular reblog of Gondor Needs No Pants

[netherworldpost]

[pleasuremostcarnal]

[yeomanrand]

I can’t remember now if it was Frank Frazetta and his Mrs. who used their own bodies for character models or if that was Boris and Mrs. Vallejo. Both pairs were ripped, though.

[enki2]

[androdragynous]

[ID: A tweet by TylerAlterman:

"In the middle of a "forcing party" where friends and I are forcing one another to do the things that we've been avoiding.

So far: [bullet list] A passport has been filed for; An inbox has been zero'd; A personal website has been created; & more.

I recommend this format!"]

[anathemaegg]

call that attending an Executive Function

[wheelie-sick]

when people tag posts "unreality" it's a signal to people who struggle with discerning reality that a (likely scary if believed to be true) post is not real even though it's written as if it was. it's also a filter tag so those people can opt out of seeing posts like that entirely. many people who rely on the unreality tag are psychotic and struggle with paranoia alongside (or because of) the struggles discerning what's real. posts that these people interpret to be real can lead to incredible distress and compulsions.

when someone tags your post "#unreality" and you screenshot the tags and say "what are you talking about? this is real" because you consider the post easy to discern as not real and find this joke funny you're actually just causing paranoia for people who now feel like they can't trust the unreality tag. not everyone has the same reality discernment skills as you. what's "obviously" a fictional story to you may not be obvious to other people.

I don't think most people make this joke maliciously. I think most people making this joke don't even realize why the unreality tag exists. anyways, if you've made this joke or have the urge to make this joke then consider not doing that.

[donotusetheinternet-deactivated]

if youve never physically been in the presence of like, a real live wolf, and you probably wont get the chance to, heres some stuff about them you should know

a wolf’s fur is so unbelievably thick that you can get like, your whole hand into it while petting. and then you can keep going

wolves are a lot bigger than you think they are. think about how big you think a wolf is then just like double that

they dont really smell like dog but they DO smell and youre not going to be able to figure out if its a good smell or not

a wolf really wants to lick the inside of your mouth. he will not stop trying to lick the inside of your mouth at any cost, and generally speaking you need to press your lips together kind of tightly when he approaches your face so that he doesnt worm his damn tongue in there to give you what he thinks is an appropriate greeting

a wolf doesnt really want to look at you while you pet him but he wants you to pet him. hes embarrassed

if a grown ass wolf decides to lay down on you, you just have to deal with it and thats your life now

young wolves, much like young dogs, are overwhelmingly goofy and stupid. a teenage wolf will see your very fragile, very human shoulder and go “i can probably step on that with my full weight” and then he will do it

letting a wolf eat out of your hand is actually not remotely frightening, and youll want to do it all day

[sad-gay-potato]

I wanna know who did this research.

[donotusetheinternet-deactivated]

well, i did!

[meinenaffenhosen]

in the interest of science, have tested & can confirm

[catchymemes]

[bl1tzkr136fr1tz-62nd-attempt]

[ymutate]

Filippo Palizzi (Italian painter 1818–1899)

Excavations in Pompeii, 1870

Oil on Canvas

119.5 × 86 cm.

Private Collection

[rabid-transcendentalist]

@anthropologist-on-the-loose get peer-reviewed because your shared experience with the subject of the painting really heightened the emotional impact of this artwork for me ( An impact which was already high tbh. The idea that Pompeii was built by generations, buried by generations, uncovered by generations. What if I just started screaming and never stopped. )

[anthropologist-on-the-loose]

"Built by generations, buried by generations, uncovered by generations" is ruining me, thanks

[throesofincreasingwonder]

Anyway if you want to know if an illustration is AI micro-analyzing it will reveal nothing because AI is constantly advancing to hide known tells and also human art is imperfect and may have mistakes you're blaming on AI because you only want to see nails.

The best way to vet illustrations is to find the source and see if the original artist/poster has things in that same art style; whether or not they post wips, sketches, etc.; or whether they straight up claim or display more obviously AI art. Going over visual art with a fine-toothed comb is almost never going to help you and will result in false positives and therefore false accusations against actual artists.

You have to build your personality around fact checking instead of around doing bad-faith over-analysis. This is the em dash thing all over again and I'm starting to think some of you are just both mean and stupid.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

People really are like "I'm saving art itself by rejecting AI!"

*takes some piece of non-ai art from a new artist still learning their craft and exhaustively points out every single tiny mistake they made, going on about how only a computer would do that and the art is evil soulless garbage, drives the artist away from the communities where they should be receiving support and help and turns them away from digital art before they have a chance to get comfortable and grow*

*screenshots a piece of art from a very competent artist and incorrectly points out a bunch of "mistakes" because they don't understand the piece, drags down the artist's career by starting false rumours about how they use ai*

*accidentally starts harassment campaign against photographers who are pushing the bounds of lighting in photography because good lighting "looks ai" then start harrassing some kid experimenting with making 3d models of anime characters because screenshots of 3d models are "too smooth' and "must be AI"*

*harrasses some random fic writer for using too many m-dashes, something that we all joked about and accepted as common and accepted in fanfic before ai came out and everyone decided that m-dashes mean something was written by AI. Tears their plots apart and nitpicks every sentence and makes them feel like shit in order to prove that the fun story they wrote about characters they love is clearly "soulless garbage" written by ai*

[naamahdarling]

These people don't realize that they're already seeing and reading things that are AI and so perfect they just aren't catching it. Like. You can't always tell. They think they can. They think they're too clever, they're so proud of their ability to be Right About This. To be Discerners and Understanders.

It's like straight people who think they have accurate gaydar, only somefuckinghow even more annoying.

[kiskivmiske]

AFUCKINGMEN

I've been banned and harassed off two platforms due to fake AI allegations, despite linking proof. And you can tell that they aren't doing that with good intentions, because they never, NEVER apologize for slander multiple people often participate in, picking artwork apart.

Instead, they say that you can't blame them. They are a noble knight in shining armor, slaying big bad AI dragon, and dozens, if not hundreds of artists receiving hate and being banned for no reason are just collateral damage.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

They know that bullying people feels good and righteous and they're always on the search for people they can bully and feel like they're good people by doing it. You can't blame them for their "honest mistakes", they had "good intentions". No time to stop and self reflect to find a way to stop that from happening again, that'll get in their way of hunting down the next Target Who It's Good To Bully! That fanart over there has a background with weird perspective and a guy whose foot is at a weird angle, probably done by a robot! Let's go prove how smart we are by noticing!

[spockslash]

Star Trek grandma

[ceruleanteacup]

Betcha Grandma was writing original k/s slashfic decades before you kiddies were born.

[spockslash]

Yes @ceruleanteacup , Grandma was

[space-feminist]

i hope everyone knows that OP wasn’t just saying this generally - she quite literally was the star trek grandma. she passed in 2018, rip to an icon