Ole Ted Stilts /general-aspect @oletedstilts@mastodon.social
Anarchist-communist. Appalachian. Linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, and more. Constantly learning and growing.
Long posts and swearing, but I'm friendly!
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One fun thing I discovered about Visual Chatbot: no matter what the photo is of, it will always report there are at least a couple giraffes.
It learned from answers that humans gave, and apparently nobody ever asked "how many giraffes are there?" when the answer was zero.
The elementary school by my house is flying a rainbow flag and a trans pride flag and I just
I'm okay
The kids are gonna be okay
the great thing about mastodon isn't that people don't try to make witty remarks about popular toots, it's that the popular toots are all "snoozlen't: hhnnngddy the cruncy dirgus" and there just Is No Witty Response To That
added my pronouns to my profile metadata, realized i didnt have them anywhere else bc i kinda didnt care but figured they might be important to some
I had a bad habit of not deleting anything, so here's something I made one time
I see it all the time and now you have to, too
The hell is this bullshit, MIT?
"Policing Is an Information Business"
by Ingrid Burrington
very well documented article, with relevance way beyond the immediate local scale
https://urbanomnibus.net/2018/06/policing-is-an-information-business/
LB
also not to miss, related to the same article:
"A Non-Exhaustive Taxonomy of Tools of Data-Driven Policing"
https://urbanomnibus.net/2018/06/non-exhaustive-taxonomy-tools-data-driven-policing/
and
"The CompStat Evangelist Consultant World Tour"
https://urbanomnibus.net/2018/06/the-compstat-evangelist-consultant-world-tour/
indo-european languages dominate in the eyes and ears of the west, but arabic and mandarin give them hard runs at their money globally
despite this, indo-european languages constitute 2/3 of the official languages of the united nations due to colonialism and imperialism of the past
but dont let this erase linguistic diversity, its one of our greatest treasures and something that needs protected and expanded upon
if youre in an area with the language spoken nearby, youll also likely find classes on it, so hawaiian for instance becomes an option in hawaii, or various indigenous american languages in the continental mainland from navajo to cherokee and beyond in the united states and others in canada and central and south america
the options are actually greater than the reasons to not be learning them, particularly as a linguist, as this list is far from comprehensive
youll likely find they prefer natlangs though, so only the sign languages prevail above
however, within just europe, there is basque, finnish, hungarian, estonian, sami, maltese, turkish, abkhaz, and more
those are just spoken languages, you could arguably push back with dead languages like etruscan and sumerian
if youre concerned about a school offering something, youll likely find arabic, hebrew, japanese, mandarin, and swahili offered fairly widely, sometimes more
i was surprised to find some linguistics programs required study of a non-indo-european language
theres actually a lot hidden in plain sight: american sign language (or any sign language for that matter), esperanto (and many other conlangs, this might seem debatable, but esperanto grammar is technically a priori and includes some structures foreign to indo-european), klingon/na'vi/quenya/dothraki (this list of artlangs can go on, if only to differentiate from above)
Noëlle the 8-Bit🏳️🌈🎄
It bears remembering that the sentiment that "if you do nothing, you're complicit" betrays certain unexamined privileges.
Before you express that sentiment, go down the list of things you believe constitute "doing something". Then imagine a reason why a person might not be ABLE to do that thing.
I think you'll discover that "doing something" often requires certain privileges in life, and that "doing nothing" does not, in fact, imply condonement or complicity.
Is anybody else learning #AmericanSignLanguage around here? I'm sure we have #Deaf or #HardOfHearing people who know it, but would it be super duper boring for you if there were folks on that tag with learning or practice?
(NB: I'm aware that capitalization matters with d/Deaf and HoH, but I try to make a habit of using CamelCase for hashtags, which is why they are formatted that way.)
the hill i will die on: CWs Show more
ive been a happier person ever since i came to mastodon, and part of that is bc of CWs, but also bc the timeline is better
the timeline being better isnt just me moderating who i follow, but also that there is a larger number of likeminded folks tryna find a better place and build a better community
CWs arent hurting that or my happiness
psa: don't post screenshots of wifi lists from your phone / computer on the internet unless you're okay with people knowing where you are
that list of nearby wifi names can be used to pinpoint you with scary accuracy sometimes
id like to get back into posting linguistics and philosophy stuff at places like here, but i sometimes wonder if the majority of it wouldnt be better on a blog
