queeroctopus:

neoptolemos:

Will someone explain to me why the word “stupid” is considered ableist? Because this seriously baffles me.

“Stupid” has been used by the medical community and the community at large to describe people with developmental disorders. My boyfriend was mocked by teachers and called “stupid” because he’s dyslexic. My doctor told my mother I was “stupid” because of various aspects of my autism. “Stupid” has been used to justify locking people like me in asylums, in basements. “Stupid” has been used to disavow testimony given by people like me. My grandmother is what is still medically classified in some places as “retarded” and as a child, was abused by various people in various ways, and when she spoke about it, nobody believed her because she was “stupid”. The eugenics movement is against us “stupid” people even existing, and I consider anyone who believes in always aborting Down Syndrome fetuses as part of this, by the way.

Intelligence is not a measure of character. Intelligence, in many ways, is also subjective. I cannot remember names or act in the usual social way. I cannot hold a pen My boyfriend cannot spell or pronounce things well. My autistic cousin Joe has been taught most of his life how to tie his shoes and he still cannot. Yet, we are all smart in various ways. My partner has a wide array of knowledge, as do I. And Joe is bloody smart for his age.

Insult someone by calling them ignorant, deliberately ill-informed, pig-headed, stubborn. Do not insult intelligence levels. Ignorance is a choice, intelligence… well, it just isn’t. Your capacity to learn, and your access to learning materials, aren’t always under your control, and have nothing to do with your character.

thenewenlightenmentage:

Damn, this Periodic Table is Beautiful

Say hello to your new desktop background.

In May 1949, LIFE Magazine published a stunning series of images to accompany an issue dedicated largely to The Atom. You can check out the feature in its entirety here, but the reimagination of the periodic table of elements as a colorful spiral is easily one of the most striking graphics of the lot. [Click here to see it in hi-res]

Here in its entirety is the caption that accompanied the original graphic:

The irregular spiral above is a systematic arrangement of the 92 natural elements, the four new elements so far created by man and eight more elements which is theoretically possible to create. It is called the periodic table of the elements. The sequence begins with hydrogen (at the center of the spiral), which is the first and simplest element. Under its name appears its chemical symbol (left), its atomic weight (right) and a larger numeral which gives the total number of electrons in its atom. It is on the basis of this number that the elements are arranged in sequence: after hydrogen, with its single electron, come helium with two, lithium with three, beryllium with four and so on around the spiral.

The colors and construction of the table express another kind of relationship among the elements: the repetition, at regular intervals, of the chemical properties of the first few. Characteristics are thus repeated periodically in the progression form the simplest to the most complex. The table is so organized that elements whose chemistry is almost identical are grouped together in blocks of connected by solid arrows (all the inert gases–helium, neon, etc.–fall in the single gray block at the left). Broken arrows relate groups of elements which are similar in most respects but differ in a few of their properties. All related elements are given different shades of the same color. The key to this similarity among elements is found in the arrangement rather than the number of the electrons in their atoms. Only the electrons in the outer shell affect an atom’s chemical nature. Therefore all elements whose atoms have identical outer shells are chemically related, regardless of the total umber of electrons which each of them may possess. For example, lithium, sodium and the other elements in the red segment at left all have one electron in their outer shells and are therefore similar though they differ in the total number of their electrons. Each complete circuit of the table starts with one of these elements and ends with an element in the adjacent gray segment whose atom’s outer shell is complete.

This table, like all attempts to reduce the basic phenomena of nature to a simple pattern, falls somewhat short of its objective. For one thing, there are variations in the sequence of elements which do not fit readily into its graphic form. For another, it is not so much a simplification as an orderly presentation which specifies the relationship between elements but leaves much about them to be explained… Yet in expressing this relationship the table reveals the extraordinary symmetry and order which underlie the universe.

More beautiful science art from LIFE Magazine.

latentpower:

awkwardsituationist:

cambridge university students were asked on campus why they needed feminism. here are 60 answers. click the link for over about 600 more.

This is amazing

british things, our british things

I thought that there were many

british things, our british things

it seems there’s hardly any

everyoneisgay:

Dear Gaybeans,

We came across this advice given by a Tumblr user named datebynumbers, and we thought that it was incredibly beautiful. Today, in lieu of advice from us, we’d like to share this with you all. Enjoy. xx K&D

—

“He’s gone now. I gave him a second chance and he still chose…

2headedsnake:

street art by Awer

ferrisie:

allthingslinguistic:

Morphological Typology (illustrations from SpecGram)

Descriptions adapted from The Lingua File: 

Analytic languages: also known as isolating languages because they’re composed of isolated, or free, morphemes. Free morphemes can be words on their own, such as cat or happy. Languages that are purely analytic in structure don’t use any prefixes or suffixes, ever. However, it’s rare to find a language that is purely analytic or synthetic since most languages have characteristics of both. Morphological typology is like a spectrum in which languages fit in somewhere from analytic to polysynthetic (a subtype of synthetic languages we’ll get to in a moment).

Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese are good examples of analytic languages. […] English, on the other hand, is one of the most analytic Indo-European languages, but is still usually classified as a synthetic language. […]

Types of synthetic language (i.e. languages that have prefixes/suffixes): 

Agglutinating Languages:With these languages, morphemes within words are usually clearly recognizable in a way that makes it easy to tell where the morpheme boundaries are. Their affixes usually only have a single meaning. Turkish,Korean, Hungarian, Japanese, and Finnish are all in this group.

Fusional Languages: Similar to agglutinating languages, except that the morpheme boundaries are much more difficult to discern. Affixes are often fused with the stems, and can have multiple meanings. A prime example of a fusional language is Spanish, especially when it comes to verbs. In the wordhablo ”I speak”, the -o morpheme tells us that we’re dealing with a subject that is singular, first person, and in the present tense. It’s difficult to find a morpheme that means “speak”, however, since habl- is not a morpheme. Fusional languages can be tricky!

Polysynthetic Languages: These languages are undoubtedly some of the most difficult to learn. They often have verbs that can express the entirety of a typical sentence in English, which they do by incorporating nouns into verbs forms. For example, the Sora language of India has one word that means “I will catch a tiger”. Many Native American languages are polysynthetic.

This FASCINATES me.

mymodernmet:

Street art illusions by Strøk

Stenciled mural featuring overhead images of photorealistic pedestrians and their shadows on a wall in Porsgrunn, Norway.

hammpix:

For those of you who don’t understand archaeology, I have made a diagram.