kyidyl

[kyidyl]

If you're American you probably like...should. just so you don't end up stranded at home or needing to get somewhere and are unable to do so...

"have you learned how to drive yet" i have the spirit of friendship in my heart. the joy of lifes little things in my soul. the whimsy of magic. the beautiful enjoyment of nature. the answer is no though

[kyidyl]

Mary said, "Now…who in the world thought this carpet was a good idea in this hotel. We are staying at the Ameristar in Kansas City. When the elevator door opened we seriously thought it was a crime scene."

[kyidyl]

You are 100% correct. One of the reasons we don't have enough drs in under served areas and in lower wage fields (like family medicine and general practice) is because they can't pay off their med school debt. It's actually a fairly significant contributer to the Dr shortage in the US. And that's a problem that will continue to get worse.

“The donation is meant to attract ‘talented and diverse’ students, who otherwise might not have the opportunity to pursue a medical education, the school said in the release. ‘It will enable generations of healthcare leaders who will advance the boundaries of research and care, free from the burden of crushing loan indebtedness.’l

[kyidyl]

Posted for the beauty and eloquence of this comment:

[kyidyl]

Hey, I have an undergrad degree in anth and a masters in bio archaeology (since you asked for relevant skills/knowledge ). The source of that habit is, indeed, the artists themselves. We don't really have a lot of genetic information about hair texture of Neanderthals (information about a person's phenotype is generally difficult to obtain from their genotype.), so it's artist interpretation. I imagine that it's based somewhat in the idea that Europeans were dirty until colonization (which wasn't true, because people don't actually enjoy being dirty and every society had ways of cleaning.), or possibly the idea that a lack of shampoo or other detergents ment that they weren't clean. Kennis & Kennis do produce basically the best reconstructions out there, but they're artists not scientists. And there are quite a few of their sculptures where I'd consider the hair more unkempt than matted (like Cheddar Man.), but that example is matted and it's very well known. There are also ones where the hair is pulled back and not unkempt (Neolithic woman Lisar, for example, has her hair tied up in a bit of leather.). Anyway, the basis of that decision is artistic not scientific. Like even if you knew what texture hair someone had, you'd have no idea how they wore it unless you had cultural examples, and we don't for Neanderthals. It's kind of similar to how they depict them with facial hair and even tho they were presumably capable of growing it, we don't know if they would have chosen to do that or not. Anyway, I think they're just going off the assumption that they didn't have hair brushes and filling in the gaps with artistic license.

But I also would like to push back on the idea that it's used as shorthand for the idea that they "weren't really people yet". The work of these artists is very popular even among scientists specifically because of the depictions of them as people who had emotions rather than as objects of study. Scientists are aware that Neanderthals really weren't that far off from humans and were sophisticated, and so we like things that show that rather than portraying them as dumb, lifeless cave-dwellers. The way Kennis & Kennis choose to depict Neanderthals and other ancient hominins gives them more life and emotion than any other reconstructions out there. It makes them more like people, not less, and despite their flaws are far better than any previous reconstructions.

i have a question for uhhhhh idk maybe anthropologists?

something that fills me with wonder beyond words are realistic models of ancient humans and our relatives. I’m well and truly obsessed.

i recently had the great pleasure of seeing perhaps my favorite neanderthal model of all, “neanderthal father and child” by kennis & kennis:

however, what always confuses and even disappoints me on even the most beautiful reconstructions I’ve seen, including this one, is the matted hair.

the hair is almost always matted. not tangled, as perhaps might happen to a child in a day of play, but truly “would have to cut it and start fresh” matted. the kind of matting that takes months of neglect to develop.

this troubles me because we of course know that matting poses health risks. to name a few—insect infestations, scalp sores which can become infected, and even mold growth.

Keeping hair clean and untangled isn’t just an aesthetic choice or luxury, it’s a medical necessity.

it’s for this reason that grooming practices feature so heavily in the social bonding of so many animals today. not just in primates, but in birds, cats, and more.

so it’s difficult for me to imagine that Neanderthals and indeed early humans would have walked around with matted hair, or to imagine at least matting would be the norm.

around the world, regardless of hair texture and ethnic heritage, humans of countless cultures use various braiding techniques as protective styles, to this day.

And we know that Neanderthals could twist cord. And of course that humans have been braiding hair for thousands of years.

so I again, I cannot imagine that our ancestors and relatives would have been walking around with their hair matted to the scalp.

even without protective styles, surely finger combing and detangling would have been common practice?

Am I missing something here? It seems like this is just an oversight & even stereotype that has become commonplace in this specific genre of scientific art. seems like a very reductive idea of the “dirty caveman” which has made its way into even modern scientific models.

[kyidyl]

It’s so frustrating to see the post about chronic fatigue and dysautonomia regarding my struggle with long Covid going around, with extremely bitter and presumptuous tags like “lol! welcome to being disabled! you didnt care about us before!”

I really get the sentiment there. The bitterness. The rage that able-bodied people didn’t listen to you until they were disabled themselves. After they threw you under the bus during the pandemic and didn’t care what happened to you until they were you. The emotional conflict between welcoming newly disabled people into the fight  for accessible and equitable care and the resentment that they never fought for you.

Do you know how I understand that?

Because I was already disabled before covid! I have had a physical and a developmental disability since birth.

I’ve gotten some extremely nasty comments on my post about how Covid has further disabled me, from members of the very community I have belong to since the day I was born. It’s so disheartening. It costs you literally nothing to not presume to know a person’s three decades of health history.

Idk. Again, I understand the bitterness, because I’ve experienced it myself. But it’s misplaced, and some of y’all are extremely quick to judge and mean-hearted!!

[kyidyl]

Yeah, there's Vyvanse shortages all over the place here, too. They SAY it's to curtail illegal usage, but all it does is hurt ppl with ADHD. Like we have this problem with all our stimulant meds, but it seems to be worst with that one. But that's what happens when your patent laws for drugs are really, really stupid. >.<

the usa shouldn’t be the political and economic focal point of the entire fucking planet, actually

[kyidyl]

[kyidyl]

how can ppl say cats are heartless tbh

[kyidyl]

Pigeon attempts to court falcon

[kyidyl]

I really think Rasputin lucked out, in that being remembered by history as some species of giant unkillable sex wizard is something most of us can only fruitlessly aspire to.

[kyidyl]

“Oh you had a plague? Come back to us when you had a World War, brand new unconventional weapons, and a new international order.”

[kyidyl]

On the topic of English people being shitheads towards Welsh people - This fucking dude today on AITA

[kyidyl]

Turns out you mostly have the Chinese govt and their heavy-handed censorship to blame. I wanted to upload the entire tiktok, but it won't let me do that on a reblog, so here's a link to Xiran Jay Zhao talking about it: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8KYVSfk/

She literally had to censor mentions of Taiwan *in the tiktok*, probably bc TikTok is a Chinese owned platform.

I am still making sense of what happened with the Hugos. Mostly I just feel very sad and despondent.

It would have been beautiful if a Chinese worldcon had actually celebrated Chinese science fiction/fantasy, and it's unspeakably awful that this was not allowed to happen. We are all poorer.

#hugo #hugo awards

[kyidyl]

I love this so much

[kyidyl]

The only retail job I miss is being the cashier at a local Hardware Store in a small town surrounded by other small towns, because I was essentially a high fantasy GuildMaster.

I worked there three summers in a row, and every laborer from every nearby town would come there for whatever supplies they needed, and man could they gossip like there was an Olympic medal for it.

At 8 AM, every morning, every plumber, roofer, electrician, and landscaper in the county was at the door waiting for me to unlock it, and they’d come back throughout the day.

I knew every tradesman in a 30 miles radius, and I knew too much about everyone in town because of, like I said, the tradesman gossip. It’s shocking that people basically tune out an entire person in their living room and say whatever they want, because they don’t see the guy fixing their light fixture as real somehow.

Then your average citizens, the townsfolk, would come in to ask for labor recommendations. The cashier at the local hardware store is a god among yelp reviews.

A woman needs her roof repaired. A man wants central air installed in his 100 year old house. Someone needs to break into a safe they inherited without the combination.

And I would make recommendations. I’d take down names and information so when a plumber I liked walked in an hour later, I could say, “come here, I have a job for you” like I needed them to clear a village of Redcaps.

There is no difference between your local mom-and-pop hardware employee and Greed Karga sending the Mandalorian on bounty hunting jobs.

If Geralt of Rivia walked in, I could have found him something to do.

I believe all plumbers dual-wield drain snakes and arcane magic, because you’d be surprised how often Liches come up in septic tank repairs.

You can belong to a monster hunters’ guild and a welders’ union, if you have the time. Always good to diversify your portfolio.

[kyidyl]