...needs more ketchup

shinyblackchevy: beau-friend: tankgirls: I before E except when you run a feisty heist on a weird...

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 14:56:47 -0600

beau-friend:

tankgirls:

I before E

except when you run a feisty heist on a weird beige foreign neighbour

#and caffeine-strung atheists reinventing protein at their leisure #plebeians may deign to forfeit #either that or seize the language and reinvent it

fuck the english language

…yes plz

chandeluresinsicily: JACK BLACK IS LITERALLY LEADING AN ENTIRE...

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 17:41:21 -0600

chandeluresinsicily:

JACK BLACK IS LITERALLY LEADING AN ENTIRE ARMY OF PO COSTUMES HOW IS THIS PICTURE NOT ALL OVER TUMBLR

neuromorphogenesis: Trick yourself into an out-of-body...

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 09:12:31 -0600

neuromorphogenesis:

Trick yourself into an out-of-body experience

Your mind isn’t as firmly anchored in your body as you think. Time for some sleight of hand

CLOSE your eyes and ask yourself: where am I? Not geographically, but existentially. Most of the time, we would say that we are inside our bodies. After all, we peer out at the world from a unique, first-person perspective within our heads – and we take it for granted.

We wouldn’t be so sanguine if we knew that this feeling of inhabiting a body is something the brain is constantly constructing. But the fact that we live inside our bodies doesn’t mean that our sense of self is confined to its borders – as these next examples show.

Sleight of (rubber) hand

By staging experiments that manipulate the senses, we can explore how the brain draws – and redraws – the contours of where our selves reside.

One of the simplest ways to see this in action is via an experiment that’s now part of neuroscience folklore: the rubber hand illusion. The set up is simple: a person’s hand is hidden from their view by a screen while a rubber hand is placed on the table in front of them. By stroking their hand while they see the rubber hand being stroked, you can make them feel that the fake hand is theirs (see diagram).

Why does this happen? The brain integrates various senses to create aspects of our bodily self. In the rubber hand illusion, the brain is processing touch, vision and proprioception – the internal sense of the relative location of our body parts. Given the conflicting information, the brain resolves it by taking ownership of the rubber hand.

The implication is that the boundaries of the self sketched out by the brain can easily expand to include a foreign object. And the self’s peculiar meanderings outside the body don’t end there.

Trading places

Ever wish you had someone else’s body? The brain can make it happen. To show how, Henrik Ehrsson at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues transported people out of their own bodies and into a life-size mannequin.

The mannequin had cameras for eyes, and whatever it was “seeing” was fed into a head-mounted display worn by a volunteer. In this case, the mannequin’s gaze was pointed down at its abdomen. When the researchers stroked the abdomens of both the volunteer and the mannequin at the same time, many identified with the mannequin’s body as if it was their own.

In 2011, the team repeated the experiment, but this time while monitoring the brain activity of volunteers lying in an fMRI scanner. They found that activity in certain areas of the frontal and parietal lobes correlated with the changing sense of body ownership.

So what’s happening? Studies of macaque monkeys show us that these brain regions contain neurons that integrate vision, touch and proprioception. Ehrsson thinks that in the human brain such neurons fire only when there are synchronous touches and visual sensations in the immediate space around the body, suggesting that they play a role in constructing our sense of body ownership. Mess with the information the brain receives, and you can mess with this feeling of body ownership.

Yet while Ehrsson’s study manipulated body ownership, the person “inside” the mannequin still had a first-person perspective – their self was still located within a body, even if it wasn’t their own. Could it be possible to wander somewhere where there is no body at all?

Into thin air

Your self even can be tricked into hovering in mid-air outside the body. In 2011, Olaf Blanke at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne and colleagues asked volunteers to lie on their backs and via a headset watch a video of a person of similar appearance being stroked on the back. Meanwhile, a robotic arm installed within the bed stroked the volunteer’s back in the same way.

The experience that people described was significantly more immersive than simply watching a movie of someone else’s body. Volunteers felt they were floating above their own body, and a few experienced a particularly strange effect. Despite the fact that they were all lying facing upwards, some felt they were floating face down so they could watch their own back (see “Leaving the body”). “I was looking at my own body from above,” said one participant. “The perception of being apart from my own body was a bit weak but still there.”

“That was for us really exciting, because it gets really close to the classical out-of-body experience of looking down at your own body,” says team member Bigna Lenggenhager, now at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Further support came by repeating the experiment inside an MRI scanner, which showed a brain region called the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) behaving differently when people said they were drifting outside their bodies. This ties in neatly with previous studies of brain lesions in people who reported out-of-body experiences, which also implicated the TPJ.

The TPJ shares a common trait with other brain regions that researchers believe are associated with body illusions: it helps to integrate visual, tactile and proprioceptive senses with the signals from the inner ear that give us our sense of balance and spatial orientation. This provides more evidence that the brain’s ability to integrate various sensory stimuli plays a key role in locating the self in the body.

According to philosopher Thomas Metzinger of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, understanding how the brain performs this trick is the first step to understanding how the brain puts together our autobiographical self – the sense we have of ourselves as entities that exist from a remembered past to an imagined future. “These experiments are very telling, because they manipulate low-level dimensions of the self: self-location and self-identification,” he says. The feeling of owning and being in a body is perhaps the most basic facet of self-consciousness, and so could be the foundation on which more complex aspects of the self are built. The body, it seems, begets the self.

"As a doctor, let me tell you what self-love does: It improves your hearing, your eyesight, lowers..."

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 10:14:53 -0700

“As a doctor, let me tell you what self-love does:
It improves your hearing, your eyesight, lowers your blood pressure, increases pulmonary function, cardiac output, and helps wiring the musculature. So, if we had a rampant epidemic of self-love then our healthcare costs would go down dramatically. So, this isn’t just some little frou-frou new age notion, oh love yourself honey. This is hardcore science.”

- Dr. Christiane Northrop

Hungry for Change

(via fightingformyfuture)

Characters from Finnish Folklore Recreated by Seniors

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:34:01 -0700

Characters from Finnish Folklore Recreated by Seniors

BRAIN FREEZE. …lol

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 10:22:45 -0700

BRAIN FREEZE. …lol

matthwcrawley: #this is why they made you live under the stairs...

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:53:53 -0700

matthwcrawley:

#this is why they made you live under the stairs for 10 years.

or is that the CAUSE of this problem…

jojoworksout: Mr. Barthes: To deliberately believe in...

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:47:25 -0700

jojoworksout:

Mr. Barthes: To deliberately believe in lies while knowing they’re false.
Examples of this in everyday life.

Adam Hills destroys Joan Rivers for her Adele comments. Even...

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 09:50:41 -0700

Adam Hills destroys Joan Rivers for her Adele comments.

Even Larry is like (2nd pannel) OMG SHE JUST WENT THERE„„ sad head-shake. looking down, why are you talking joan?

I know thats her thing, cutting remarks and shit… but that one was lame. LAAAAMMMMEEE.

We read and write poetry because we are members of the human...

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 16:59:53 -0700

We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

albinwonderland: dcwomenkickingass: Fan-made Wonder Woman...

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 13:17:36 -0700

albinwonderland:

dcwomenkickingass:

Fan-made Wonder Woman Trailer Gives A Glimpse at Cinematic Amazon Who Channels Rambo

Since the chances of Wonder Woman appearing anywhere except comics and games seems unlikely at the moment, here’s a fan made trailer for a movie that we know won’t get made.

Created and conceived by film creator Jesse V. Johnson it features a Wonder Woman who hits, punches, kicks and machine guns a bunch of Nazis.

It’s fun even it does boil Wonder Woman down to one woman army a la Rambo. Still it’s nice to think someone believes a Wonder Woman movie could be awesome. Also avoid the comments at the source; they only help reinforce what I wrote this morning.

HOLY SHIT WHY CAN’T THIS BE REAL LIFE

oh dear lord. oh my.

carpedamethyst: saulepleurant: \ How can someone like you...

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 10:02:20 -0700

carpedamethyst:

saulepleurant:

\

How can someone like you when you don’t even like you? Hmm….

sometimes others teach you.

College Graduates Are The New Debt Slaves

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:32:10 -0700

College Graduates Are The New Debt Slaves:

missturdle:

With the average cost of attending college in America at $120,000, a family of four should expect their children’s college to cost more than a home. Yet, optimism about the value of education provided justification for students to borrow $42 billion from the US this year. And many of them will end up as student-loan debt slaves.

With the estimated cost of attending a four year state college in America at $120,000, the average family of four should expect their children’s college to cost more than buying a home. Even though only 24% of Americans believe college is affordable, 97% still believe getting a college degree is financially important to improve your life. This optimism regarding the value of education has provided the justification for 60% of the 20 million students in college last year to borrow $42 billion from the United States government this year to stay in school. But with the reward for a college degree falling and default rates sky-rocketing, many students and their parents will end up as the student loan debt slaves.

College tuitions since 1986 have risen by a breath taking 498%, compared to 115% for general price inflation. The main driver for this hyper-inflation was the dramatic expansion of the Federal Stafford Loans since 1992, following Congress’ elimination of requirement that government-backed student loans be subject to parental income restrictions. The most enticing aspect of these sub-prime loans is that repayment is deferred while a student is enrolled as at least a half-time student, then are subject to a grace period for six months after the student leaves school either by graduating, dropping below half-time enrollment, or withdraws. The sudden access to billions of dollars in “free money” allowed highly unionized colleges to dramatically increase tuition rates without fear of driving away financially strapped under-graduates.

For students graduating this year with a four year degree, college sounded like a good financial investment when they first enrolled in 2008. At that time, the median annual earnings of young adults with bachelor’s degrees was $46,000, versus only $30,000 for those with high school diplomas or equivalencies. This means that on average, the bachelor’s degree salary beat a high school diploma by 53%. But average salary means that half of graduates make more than $46,000 and half make less. Eliminate engineering, economics and accounting degrees, the starting salary drops below $42,000. Graduate with an education, sociology or creative arts degree and the starting salary drops below to $36,000.

In 1970, when the overall unemployment rate was 4.9 percent, unemployment among college graduates was negligible, at 1.2 percent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that with the current national unemployment rate of 7.9%, unemployment for college graduates is substantially better at 3.7%. But many college graduates over the Great Recession have been forced to “trade down” to take $9 an hour starting jobs at Wal-Mart, FedEx and Starbucks.

Hahaha non-profits arts and cultural student so :(

itswalky: So anyway, this guy who thinks evolution is a...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 18:34:49 -0700

itswalky:

So anyway, this guy who thinks evolution is a craaaazy idea considers Neil DeGrasse-Tyson his personal hero.

It’s kind of like not believing in basketball but idolizing Michael Jordan.

(Which isn’t an entirely fair comparison. I think there’s more proof evolution exists than there’s proof basketball exists.)

AS SOON AS SOMEONE SAYS monkeys into humans LOLZ i cant take them seriously. ever.

A L B: Kristen Stewart: smiling is not an obligation, professional or...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:59:13 -0700

A L B: Kristen Stewart: smiling is not an obligation, professional or...:

Kristen Stewart: smiling is not an obligation, professional or otherwise

”She stands out on the red carpet because she does not smile broadly or pose; she usually looks slightly uncomfortable. Of her red-carpet experience,Stewart said:
People say that I’m miserable all the time.…

humansofnewyork: I am a street photographer in New York City....

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:54:39 -0700

humansofnewyork:

I am a street photographer in New York City. Several months ago, I was approached by a representative of DKNY who asked to purchase 300 of my photos to hang in their store windows “around the world.” They offered me $15,000. A friend in the industry told me that $50 per photo was not nearly enough to receive from a company with hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. So I asked for more money. They said “no.”

Today, a fan sent me a photo from a DKNY store in Bangkok. The window is full of my photos. These photos were used without my knowledge, and without compensation.

I don’t want any money. But please REBLOG this post if you think that DKNY should donate $100,000 on my behalf to the YMCA in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. That donation would sure help a lot of deserving kids go to summer camp. I’ll let you guys know if it happens.

damn

"give your daughters difficult names. give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue...."

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:34:58 -0700

“give your daughters difficult names. give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. my name makes you want to tell me the truth. my name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right.”

- warsan shire. (via warsanshire)

8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:55:29 -0700

Student-Loan Debt.

Psychopathologizing and Medicating Noncompliance.

Schools That Educate for Compliance and Not for Democracy.

“No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top.”

Shaming Young People Who Take Education—But Not Their Schooling—Seriously.

The Normalization of Surveillance.

Television.

Fundamentalist Religion and Fundamentalist Consumerism.

Read More

This is wonderfully accurate.

touchmeordont: Always reblog

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:29:39 -0700

touchmeordont:

Always reblog

commanderbishoujo: Xena shits on every man you ever loved: the...

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:26:31 -0700

commanderbishoujo:

Xena shits on every man you ever loved: the series