jirasol: it’s called AAVE, you FUCKTRUCK I hate how people here think that “proper general English” is the only way to speak English and all the others are considered “idiocy” like if language has anything to do with intelligence. I’m not even from the U.S. and I know this better than most of you. Below is a list of all English dialects in North America: American English - Standard American English is the general form Cultural African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) Chicano English New York Latino English Pennsylvania Dutch English Yeshivish Yinglish Regional New England English Boston accent Boston Brahmin accent Hudson Valley English Lake Dialect or Lake Talk Vermont English Inland Northern American English (includes western and central upstate New York) Northeast Pennsylvania English Mid-Atlantic dialects Baltimore dialect Philadelphia dialect Pittsburgh English New York dialect New Jersey English dialects Inland Northern American English (Lower peninsula of Michigan, northern Ohio and Indiana, Chicago, part of eastern Wisconsin and upstate New York) North–Central American English (primarily Minnesota, but also most of Wisconsin, the Upper peninsula of Michigan, and parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa) Yooper dialect (Upper Peninsula of Michigan and some neighboring areas) Midland American English North Midlands English (thin swath from Nebraska to Ohio) St. Louis South Midland (thin swath from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania) Southern English Appalachian English Tidewater accent Virginia Piedmont Virginia TidewaterCoastal Southeastern (Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia area) Cajun English Harkers Island English (North Carolina) Ozark English Southern Highland English Gullah or Geechee Texan Yat dialect (New Orleans) Ocracoke Western English California English Boontling Pacific Northwest English Hawaiian Pidgin

jirasol:

it’s called AAVE, you FUCKTRUCK

I hate how people here think that “proper general English” is the only way to speak English and all the others are considered “idiocy” like if language has anything to do with intelligence. I’m not even from the U.S. and I know this better than most of you.

Below is a list of all English dialects in North America:

American English - Standard American English is the general form

1 month ago
 10998
Source
Via bubonickitten
Posted by ikenbot
# elitism gets slammed
# culture
2 months ago
 830
Source
Via retromantique
Posted by ikenbot
# women
# damsel in distress
# video games
# culture

February 27th is Dominican Independence Day!

Side Note: Mi tierra bella! As it turns out, today, February 27th is independence day or as we call it Dia de Independencia in my home country of the Dominican Republic so I wanted to share this article with you all on a few of the many things that makes today special to us. Coming from a beautiful little pueblo called Villarosa in La Vega, Dominican Republic I was fortunate enough to live through many of the cultural traditions that distinguish this little island and makes me proud to come from there the more I learn about it. The gorgeous mountain rivers I used to visit with family to spend the day in and still do, the dreamy beaches, the amazing food that will have your taste buds clamoring for more, drinking with family and friends on the weekend celebrating life on a weekly basis.

And let’s not forget the awesome “Carnaval” that many folks from around the world come to see, which coincidentally is what my dad is in the business of. He sells the needed fabrics to the teams who go out and dance in the streets of D.R. and show the beautiful colors for the residents of the world to enjoy and I welcome anyone to come see for themselves as it is a definite treat. These are just a few of the aspects that come to mind when I remember my little country and it brings me great honor to share this with you all today.

Article by Paola Marte

Today, the Dominican Republic celebrates its 168 years of Independence! The Dominican Republic, is a country which has, from the beginning fought for its freedom – having been colonized by Spain as well as been invaded by French and Haitian troops, so here we bring you the fascinating history of the Dominican Republic, Dominican Independence Day, as well as Dominican cultures and traditions celebrated on this very special day.

The 27th of February 1844 is the date when Dominican’s obtained their Independence and were finally called the Dominican Republic. After many years of being a Spanish colony and then being occupied by our fellow Haitians, it was in 1844 when our Founding Father, Juan Pablo Duarte, created a secret society named “La Trinitaria” in which, along with other leaders Francisco del Rosario Sánchez and Matías Ramón Mella he fought against the Haitian repression to gain Independence. See below for the full history of Dominican oppression and independence!

Meaning of “Dominican”

The word “Dominican” has a meaning beyond the one of being born in the Dominican Republic… it actually means “God’s sons.” According to our history, this name is given to us after a group of religious educators, who arrived on the island of “La Hispañola” when we were still a Spanish colony.

Colors of the Dominican flag

Our Dominican flag represents our Independence.. the first Dominican flag was designed and created by María Trinidad Sánchez, Sánchez’s aunt, where she included blue, representing God’s blessings over our nation, red representing our liberators’ blood and the white cross symbolizing our Independence as an inheritance from those who fought for our freedom.

Fight for freedom! A short history of the Dominican Republic

After Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, a point when many cultures clashed during the Spanish colonization of “La Hispañola” island, as he called it, the Dominican Republic then became a battle zone where French, Spanish and Haitian troops fought for our land.

Soon after, Spain suddenly became uninterested and left the Dominican Republic – after gold was found in México and other areas in America, but the land was soon invaded by French troops and affected by the Haitian Revolution; events which revolutionized the course of our history. After the reconciliation between slaves and French men, the Spanish troops were defeated by forces led by General Toussaint Louverture, and it was in 1795 when France took over the island, with the abolition of slavery proclaimed by Louverture in Santo Domingo.

When the French forces returned to France after several years, the Haitians then invaded the towns of Santiago and Moca causing not only many deaths, but quite a dislike from residents from the Eastern part of the island, since they were forced to give up their language, culture and beliefs, adapt and become French speaking country.

Of course, the situation wouldn’t last for ever… in 1838 a man named Juan Pablo Duarte who was born in Santo Domingo and founded a secret society named “La Trinitaria” and along with his good friends Matías Ramón Mella and Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, secretly planned on putting an end to Haitian repression. How?

In 1843 they joined a Haitian movement to defeat Boyer (the French leader), after which they were exiled and imprisoned in Puerto Príncipe by the new Haitian President, Charles Riviere-Hérard, since he feared their revolutionary ideas of independence. However after an attack produced by Haitians, Charles definitely needed the help of “La Trinitaria” and they were then released.

Meanwhile, Buenaventura Báez, who was a wood exporter and also Deputy at the Haitian’s National Assembly, was negociating with France a way of establishing French forces in order to protect the Haitian Government from rebels – and since Duarte, Mella and Sánchez knew about this event, on the 27th of February 1844 they immediately declared their Independence from Haiti! You may ask how?…

The canon shot by Matías Ramón Mella on the night of the 27th of February 1844 at the “Puerta del Conde” (now famous for this event) was the official declaration of the Dominican war of Independence, which was supported by Pedro Santana (who became the Dominican Republic’s first President) along with hundreds of his workers and residents from Santo Domingo. To cries of “Dios, Patria y Libertad” (God, Homeland and Freedom), the Dominican flag was raised for the first time at the “Puerta del Conde” and the Haitian forces were confronted – causing the, to retreat and meaning that the Dominicans were finally free!!

Although Haiti tried to invade on several other ocassions, the Dominican Republic maintained its Independence for 17 more years, thanks to Pedro Santana’s bright idea of handing the power back to Spain – but that’s a different story!

Head on over to the rest of the informative article to get some details on Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, Juan Pablo Duarte and Matías Ramón Mella also known as La Trinitaria

As a freebie, here’s a pic from last year of me donning one of the multicolored suits or Diablos they wear as a yearly tradition in the Dominican carnaval:

Happy Dominican Independence Day :D !

2 months ago
 160
Posted by ikenbot
# history
# dominican republic
# culture
# news
# dr
# independence day
# dia de independencia

A message from bluebirdofbitterness


Hey Ken, I read your Alan Moore quote last night and it immediately made me think of male reactions to the Hawkeye Initiative. I'm wondering if you're familiar with it and your thoughts on it?

I love it, the initiative and the reactions are priceless. It’s very telling of the reactions guys have to it because it shows just how sexist our culture is. A lot of dudes are totally fine with women being illustrated and envisioned in these poses and images that tend to be unrealistic with how women really are yet when something like the Hawkeye initiative springs up it’s a different, negative reaction. That alone shows you that a lot of men think of the women as being weak or incapable of being as heroic, so of course it’s a diss or a slap in the face to them when they see this. They want their male heroes portrayed as humanly and heroic and strong as possible yet the women are supposed to be portrayed as perfectly fit swimsuit models all the time? Fuck that.

I hope the coming year brings more initiatives like the Hawkeye one and I’ve already seen a couple of others. I think it’s a great idea to expose the men who think like this and it’s great to do it in a way that’s also informative and teaches a valuable lesson on gender roles that we aren’t often taught by conventional media or even schools.

5 months ago
 28
Posted by ikenbot
# comics
# sexism
# women
# feminism
# patriarchy
# hawkeye initiative
# culture

I can imagine the amount of people who fall for the geek/nerd male thinking they couldn’t possibly be as bad as the macho dudebros that still conjure up ‘make me a sandwich’ jokes or think they have a say in a woman’s or anyone’s business and or freedom of expression. And how wrong they are in thinking misogynists are constrained to one culture. That shit spans across the whole damn spectrum. This culture needs to fucking die, we need something new, all inclusive, respectful, and understanding. Is this really such a hard feat to achieve for a species who’s had many generations of trial and errors? I really do hope it all goes to shit and people get so fed up that we destroy that culture to create something new, something unlike everything else we’ve experienced so that we may never have to psychologically or physically maim others another group deems different. For that to ever be realized we’d obviously have to start boycotting things like tv, hollywood, music, comics, video games and all giant media powerhouses currently feeding our youth and adults all this crap. If we’re so determined to be consumers then at least let us be smart consumers that have a say with their own money, what we think is right and wrong. And who knows, maybe eventually we’ll come around to realizing we never needed the money in the first place to get these things done.

5 months ago
 114
Posted by ikenbot
# personal
# thoughts
# cultural poison
# culture
# comics
# tv
# hollywood
# music
# media
# games
approachingsignificance: How Changing Visual Cues Can Affect Attitudes About Weight Changing negative attitudes about body size might be as simple as changing what you see. When women in England were shown photos of plus-sized women in neutral gray leotards, they became more tolerant. When the women were shown photos of anorexic women, attitudes became more positive there, too. “Showing them thin bodies makes them like thin bodies, more, and showing them fat bodies makes them like fat bodies more,” says Lynda Boothroyd, a psychology researcher at Durham University in England, who led the study. She calls it a “visual diet,” changing what your eyes eat. The researchers also tested photos of women in designer clothes and found the test subjects thought better of the well-dressed women, fat or thin. The glamour effect existed independent of the change in perception caused by repeatedly seeing the leotard-clad women. Not terribly surprising results, but the moral of the story summer up pretty nicely: “Perhaps that’s why we’re so obsessed with thinness, even if most of the people around us are found to be larger. We’re constantly fed images of very slim actresses and models, all beautifully dressed.” 

approachingsignificance:

How Changing Visual Cues Can Affect Attitudes About Weight

Changing negative attitudes about body size might be as simple as changing what you see.

When women in England were shown photos of plus-sized women in neutral gray leotards, they became more tolerant.

When the women were shown photos of anorexic women, attitudes became more positive there, too. “Showing them thin bodies makes them like thin bodies, more, and showing them fat bodies makes them like fat bodies more,” says Lynda Boothroyd, a psychology researcher at Durham University in England, who led the study.

She calls it a “visual diet,” changing what your eyes eat.

The researchers also tested photos of women in designer clothes and found the test subjects thought better of the well-dressed women, fat or thin. The glamour effect existed independent of the change in perception caused by repeatedly seeing the leotard-clad women.

Not terribly surprising results, but the moral of the story summer up pretty nicely: “Perhaps that’s why we’re so obsessed with thinness, even if most of the people around us are found to be larger. We’re constantly fed images of very slim actresses and models, all beautifully dressed.” 

6 months ago
 389
Via approachingsignificance
Posted by ikenbot
# psychology
# education
# culture
# approachingsignificance
curiositycounts: Person to person, wouldn’t it be interesting to see if everyone did this what the spectrum of “achievement” would include? wired: Of all the images that have ever been made, would you be able to select just 100 to represent our species and human achievement? Trevor Paglen’s Last Pictures is a project to do not only that, but also launch those images into geosynchronous orbit around Earth – all so that long after humans are gone, any space-wanderer will be able to fathom what humanity was all about. If that one picture of Carl Sagan and the Dalai Lama discussing science and religion doesn’t make it, I’m calling this a sham.

curiositycounts:

Person to person, wouldn’t it be interesting to see if everyone did this what the spectrum of “achievement” would include?

wired:

Of all the images that have ever been made, would you be able to select just 100 to represent our species and human achievement? Trevor Paglen’s Last Pictures is a project to do not only that, but also launch those images into geosynchronous orbit around Earth – all so that long after humans are gone, any space-wanderer will be able to fathom what humanity was all about.

If that one picture of Carl Sagan and the Dalai Lama discussing science and religion doesn’t make it, I’m calling this a sham.

6 months ago
 355
Source
Via curiositycounts
Posted by ikenbot
# Photography
# Evolution
# People
# Culture
# History
# Science
approachingsignificance: America’s Facebook Generation Is Reading Strong The e-reader haters and the people that disparage e-readers drive me nuts. Sure, this is only one study and has its limitations, but children are reading more than their parents. Attribute a lot of that to the recent surge in adolescent literature, like Harry Potter and similar titles, but also attribute some of that variance to the increased availability of reading devices (including e-readers and a recent surge in the Library Sciences to get children back into the library).  Children never waited in line for hours to get a book when I was growing up. “We found that about 8 in 10 Americans under the age of 30 have read a book in the past year. And that’s compared to about 7 in 10 adults in general, American adults. So, they’re reading — they’re more likely to read, and they’re also a little more likely to be using their library.” “We heard from e-book readers in general [that] they don’t want e-books to replace print books. They see them as part of the same general ecosystem; e-books supplement their general reading habits. And we heard from a lot of younger e-book readers about how e-books just fit into their lives — how they can read when they’re waiting in line for class, or waiting in line for lunch. One reader in particular told us that when he has a book that he loves, he wants to be able to access it in any format. So with the Harry Potter series and the [Song of Ice and Fire] series, he’s actually bought all of those books as print books and as e-books, just because they matter that much to him … “We haven’t seen for younger readers that e-books are massively replacing print books. That might happen in the future, but right now we’re just seeing them sort of as a more convenient supplement.” Also, don’t be pretentious and quit hating e-readers.  Photo by ryancatalani

approachingsignificance:

America’s Facebook Generation Is Reading Strong

The e-reader haters and the people that disparage e-readers drive me nuts. Sure, this is only one study and has its limitations, but children are reading more than their parents. Attribute a lot of that to the recent surge in adolescent literature, like Harry Potter and similar titles, but also attribute some of that variance to the increased availability of reading devices (including e-readers and a recent surge in the Library Sciences to get children back into the library). 

Children never waited in line for hours to get a book when I was growing up.

“We found that about 8 in 10 Americans under the age of 30 have read a book in the past year. And that’s compared to about 7 in 10 adults in general, American adults. So, they’re reading — they’re more likely to read, and they’re also a little more likely to be using their library.”

“We heard from e-book readers in general [that] they don’t want e-books to replace print books. They see them as part of the same general ecosystem; e-books supplement their general reading habits. And we heard from a lot of younger e-book readers about how e-books just fit into their lives — how they can read when they’re waiting in line for class, or waiting in line for lunch. One reader in particular told us that when he has a book that he loves, he wants to be able to access it in any format. So with the Harry Potter series and the [Song of Ice and Fire] series, he’s actually bought all of those books as print books and as e-books, just because they matter that much to him …

“We haven’t seen for younger readers that e-books are massively replacing print books. That might happen in the future, but right now we’re just seeing them sort of as a more convenient supplement.”

Also, don’t be pretentious and quit hating e-readers. 

Photo by ryancatalani

7 months ago
 274
Via approachingsignificance
Posted by ikenbot
# science
# education
# lit
# psychology
# technology
# culture
# approachingsignificance

theatlantic:

In Focus: Robots at Work and Play

Advancements in robotics are continually taking place in the fields of space exploration, health care, public safety, entertainment, defense, and more. These machines — some fully autonomous, some requiring human input — extend our grasp, enhance our capabilities, and travel as our surrogates to places too dangerous for us to go. NASA currently has dozens of robotic missions underway, with satellites now in orbit around our moon and four planets — and two more on the way to Ceres and Pluto. Gathered here are recent images of robotic technology at the beginning of the 21st century. 

See more. [Images: USMC/Sgt. Mallory S. VanderSchans, AP Photo/Yonhap, Park Dong-joo]

7 months ago
 158
Via theatlantic
Posted by ikenbot
# Robot
# Technology
# Astronomy
# Culture
# Military

"We have to stop CONSUMING our culture. We have to CREATE culture. DON’T watch TV, DON’T read magazines, don’t even listen to NPR. Create your OWN roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are — NOW — is the most immediate sector of your universe. And if you’re worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered. You’re giving it all away to ICONS. Icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that, you want to dress like X or have lips like Y… This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion. What is real is you, and your friends, your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And, we are told No, you’re unimportant, you’re peripheral — get a degree, get a job, get a this, get that, and then you’re a player. You don’t even want to play that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world."

Terence McKenna
8 months ago
 1371
Posted by ikenbot
# I dont believe everything he says
# but he makes sense here
# culture
# brainwash
Milky Way Above Easter Island Why were the statues on Easter Island built? No one is sure. What is sure is that over 800 large stone statues exist there. The Easter Island statues, stand, on the average, over twice as tall as a person and have over 200 times as much mass. Few specifics are known about the history or meaning of the unusual statues, but many believe that they were created about 500 years ago in the images of local leaders of a lost civilization. Pictured above, some of the stone giants were illuminated in 2009 under the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Milky Way Above Easter Island

Why were the statues on Easter Island built? No one is sure. What is sure is that over 800 large stone statues exist there.

The Easter Island statues, stand, on the average, over twice as tall as a person and have over 200 times as much mass. Few specifics are known about the history or meaning of the unusual statues, but many believe that they were created about 500 years ago in the images of local leaders of a lost civilization. Pictured above, some of the stone giants were illuminated in 2009 under the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy.

11 months ago
 387
Posted by ikenbot
# Science
# Landscape
# News
# History
# Easter island
# Moais
# Culture
# Society
# Apod
# Night sky
# Stargaze
# Stars
# Milky Way
# Astronomy
1 year ago
 168
Posted by ikenbot
# history
# mayan
# culture
# sky people
# ancient
scinerds: Gelada, Ethiopia An adult male gelada rests in the early morning light after ascending the steep, sleeping cliffs of the Simien Mountains in Ethiopia. This male won his right to mate by successfully deposing the old leader. Now he must defend his harem by tending to his females’ needs and fighting off anxious bachelors waiting for their chance to become harem leader. Photograph by Clay Wilton

scinerds:

Gelada, Ethiopia

An adult male gelada rests in the early morning light after ascending the steep, sleeping cliffs of the Simien Mountains in Ethiopia. This male won his right to mate by successfully deposing the old leader. Now he must defend his harem by tending to his females’ needs and fighting off anxious bachelors waiting for their chance to become harem leader.

Photograph by Clay Wilton

1 year ago
 81
Via scinerds
Posted by ikenbot
# Animals
# Nature
# Culture
# Clans
approachingsignificance: High IQ linked to drug use The “Just Say No” generation was often told by parents and teachers that intelligent people didn’t use drugs.   Turns out, the adults may have been wrong. A new British study finds children with high IQs are more likely to use drugs as adults than people who score low on IQ tests as children.  Researchers discovered men with high childhood IQs were up to two times more likely to use illegal drugs than their lower-scoring counterparts. Girls with high IQs were up to three times more likely to use drugs as adults. “We suspect they may be more open to new experiences and are more sensation seeking.”  Hmmmmm… (via High IQ linked to drug use)

approachingsignificance:

High IQ linked to drug use

The “Just Say No” generation was often told by parents and teachers that intelligent people didn’t use drugs.   Turns out, the adults may have been wrong.

A new British study finds children with high IQs are more likely to use drugs as adults than people who score low on IQ tests as children. 

Researchers discovered men with high childhood IQs were up to two times more likely to use illegal drugs than their lower-scoring counterparts. Girls with high IQs were up to three times more likely to use drugs as adults.

“We suspect they may be more open to new experiences and are more sensation seeking.” 

Hmmmmm…

(via High IQ linked to drug use)

1 year ago
 1441
Via approachingsignificance
Posted by ikenbot
# science
# culture
# education
# psychology
# drugs
# IQ
# research
# news
Moon Statues Let those who tread here, heed the warning. The full Moon rises behind the famous statues of Easter Island in the South Pacific. The statues, called moai by the Polynesians, were carved from volcanic rock by the islanders between 400 and 1500 A.D. By 1500 about 1000 statues had been carved, and 324 erected. The largest is 37 feet tall and weighs 85 tonnes. Carving and erection ceased because of the total deforestation of the island. This was caused partly by use of the island’s trees as rollers and levers for erecting the statues. Deforestation led to soil erosion, starvation, civil war and eventually to the complete collapse of the island’s culture. by David A. Hardy

Moon Statues

Let those who tread here, heed the warning.

The full Moon rises behind the famous statues of Easter Island in the South Pacific. The statues, called moai by the Polynesians, were carved from volcanic rock by the islanders between 400 and 1500 A.D. By 1500 about 1000 statues had been carved, and 324 erected.

The largest is 37 feet tall and weighs 85 tonnes. Carving and erection ceased because of the total deforestation of the island. This was caused partly by use of the island’s trees as rollers and levers for erecting the statues. Deforestation led to soil erosion, starvation, civil war and eventually to the complete collapse of the island’s culture.

by David A. Hardy

1 year ago
 108
Posted by ikenbot
# Science
# Illustration
# Stargaze
# Moon
# Design
# Art
# History
# Stars
# Culture
# Architecture