#ITS A FUNNY JOKE. but there is no scientific basis for it to my knowledge so it must die 😔

[apollos-boyfriend]

the urge to make a basic otubbo bee joke vs the knowledge that it’d be inaccurate as it only really applies to hive bees and not solitary bees and i refuse to contribute to bee misinformation

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Boing Boing Charitable Giving Guide 2017 /Pls RT!

Here's a guide to the charities the Boingers support in our own annual giving. Please add the causes and charities you give to in the forums!

The Tor Project The Tor anonymity and privacy tools are vital to resistance struggles around the world, a cooperative network that provides a high degree of security from scrutiny for people who have reasons to fear the powers that be. From our early hominid ancestors until about ten years ago, humans didn't leave behind an exhaust-trail of personally identifying information as they navigated the world -- Tor restores that balance. —CD

Planned Parenthood Because we deserve health care, including reproductive, gender, and sexual health care. Because access to birth control and safe abortion is a human right. Because Trump's regime wants to destroy all of this. —XJ

Software Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy does the important, boring, esoteric work of keeping the internet from tearing itself to pieces, playing host organization to free software projects like Git, Selenium and Samba (to name just three). The Conservancy keeps these projects legally sound and gives them a scaffold to hang their institutional structures on them. Without the Conservancy, the software you love and depend on would be in dire peril

Electronic Frontier Foundation I have been proudly associated with EFF for a decade an a half now and have watched, half-awed, as it grew from a scrappy, brilliant little organization to a powerhouse of enormous scale and power. Every cause, every fight enumerated on this page and in your life and mine will be lost or won on the internet. EFF is the best hope we have of keeping that internet free, fair and open. —CD, MF

Creative Commons Creative Commons is best known as a tool for sharing-friendly artists, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Since the beginning, and all over the world, CC has provided governments, agencies, research and scholarly institutions and NGOs with the tools to easily share across borders and the bewildering array of copyright laws. We can't beat trumpism without collaboration tools, and that includes legal tools. —CD

Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia) For 15 years, Wikipedia has been figuring out how to negotiate truth among diverse and even warring points of view. It's not always pretty and it's not always nice, but no one's yet found a better way to let ideas bash against each other until something everyone agrees upon emerges. It's not pretty, but compared to our democracy, it's a beauty queen. —CD

Human Rights Data Analysis Group For more than twenty-five years, the team at the [Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG)](https://hrdag.org/) has held perpetrators of mass violence accountable. They are a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that applies rigorous science to the analysis of human rights violations around the world. They provide unbiased, scientific results that contribute to accurate quantitative arguments. HRDAG's analysis brings clarity to the often confused narratives of human rights violence and support the movement for justice. One of their bigger projects for 2018 examines the growing use of machine-learning techniques in the US criminal justice system. At best, these methods reproduce existing biases in data. More often, machine learning amplifies the biases in the data and thereby exacerbates criminal justice strategies that disproportionately affect marginalized populations. Currently, they are working with partners at the San Francisco Public Defender's office and the New York Legal Aid Society to evaluate risk assessment tools being used in those cities. They are also analyzing how current bail practices may disproportionately disadvantage marginalized populations, in particular, lower-income defendants. Other ongoing HRDAG projects include research on mass violence in Syria, Colombia, Mexico, and more.

Institute for the Future There are no facts about the future, only fictions. As we've learned in this election, nothing is certain about tomorrow. But even as our attention is captured by the present, we can begin to write the story to come. A place to start is the Institute for the Future's Future for Good fellowship.  Institute for the Future, where Mark and David are researchers, is a 50-year-old nonprofit that helps the public think about the future to make better decisions in the present. The Fellowship directly supports inspiring social innovators who are working to make tomorrow a better place. You can help too. Make a donation of $100 and you’ll receive IFTF Distinguished Fellow Bob Johansen's new book "The New Leadership Literacies: Thriving in a Future of Extreme Disruption and Distributed Everything." -DP & MF

The National Wildlife Federation National Wildlife Federation is a voice for wildlife, dedicated to protecting wildlife and habitat and inspiring the future generation of conservationists. Now's the time: the shortlist for our new Secretary of the Interior is reportedly Sarah Palin and Forrest Lucas, an "advocate of trophy hunting and puppy mills ... who never met a case of animal exploitation he wouldn’t defend." — RB

The Marine Mammal Center When seals, sea lion, or many other sea going pals need help, if they get lucky, they may be taken to The Marine Mammal Center, a veterinary hospital just for them. Thousands of heartbreakingly cute, but very wild, animals are rescued, rehabilitated and released on an annual basis. I'm a volunteer. In addition to the hundreds of highly trained volunteers that make the hospital run, the center always needs cash for fish and medicine.   —JW

The Southern Poverty Law Center & the Anti-Defamation League The Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defemation League fight hate, teach tolerance, and help secure justice, and fair treatment for all. "There is no 'them' and 'us.' There is only us." --Greg Boyle —JW

Facing History and Ourselves Facing History and Ourselves is an international educational group that helps young people study issues around racism, antisemitism, and prejudice in history, from the Holocaust to today's immigrant experiences to the killing fields of Cambodia. Their aim is to teach young people "to think critically, to empathize, to recognize moral choices, to make their voices heard, we put in their hands the possibility--and the responsibility--to do the serious work demanded of us all as citizens." —DP

Free Software Foundation/Defective By Design The Free Software Foundation's principled litigation, license creation and campaigning is fierce, uncompromising and has changed the world. You interact with code that they made possible a million times a day, and they never stop working to make sure that the code stays free.  —CD

Free Software Foundation Europe Software has eaten the world, and software freedom is increasingly synonymous with human freedom. In Europe, far-right parties and authoritarians are inheriting a constellation of gadgets and devices that are "defective by design," built to allow corporations spy on and control their owners -- and those thugs are contemplating how they can use those companies' extraordinary powers to put whole populations under their thumbs. Free software in Europe, free software everywhere! —CD

The Internet Archive: In an era where the control of information has been weaponized, the Internet Archive's mission -- universal access to all human knowledge -- is a revolutionary manifesto. The Archive isn't screwing around: they're siting a copy of their data in Canada to resist trumpian grabs and spying and redecentralizing the internet to save us all from tyranny.  —CD

Open Rights Group While we were all fighting about Brexit, Theresa May's Tory government passed the most intrusive surveillance bill in the history of modern democracies. It's a longstanding joke that the gnomes of Westminster Village think that Nineteen Eighty-Four was a manual for statecraft, but the joke is getting less funny by the second. ORG is a decade old: spunky, going though a timely growth spurt, and badly needed. —CD

Amnesty International I just looked up Amnesty's founding principles and found tears rolling down my cheeks: "Only when the last prisoner of conscience has been freed, when the last torture chamber has been closed, when the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a reality for the world’s people, will our work be done." These values need our support more than ever. —CD

ACLU On November 9, 2016 ACLU changed its homepage to a picture of Trump superimposed with the words SEE YOU IN COURT. ACLU's deep bench of kick-ass lawyers has been lately augmented by a much-needed group of freedom-fighting technologists, welded into the fighting force we'll need for the next four years and beyond: from voter suppression to free speech, the ACLU is key to the fight.  —CD, MF

Liberty With the UK plunging into surveillance dystopia where human rights are an afterthought and racial profiling is becoming official doctrine, it needs Liberty, an organisation with 80+ years' track record fighting for human rights in many incarnations of the British project. The Tories ran on a platform of repealing the Human Rights Act: when the government is officially anti "human rights," you need someone like Liberty to take the "pro" side. —CD

826 National Born in San Francisco’s Mission District in the back room of a pirate supply store, 826 National teaches young people the art and magic of creative writing through classes, DIY publishing projects, in-school programs, and drop-in tutoring at seven centers around the US. And it’s all free for the kids. Help open more 826 locations around the country! —DP

Fight for the Future Some of the Internet's savviest, hard-working-est activists. Fight for the Future is in all the Internet fights, kicking ass on Net Neutrality -- a fight that's back on in 2017, thanks Trump -- mass surveillance and justice for Chelsea Manning. -CD

Demand Progress Aaron Swartz co-founded Demand Progress, and as you'd expect from that history, they're relentless in reinventing the activist playbook for the 21st century. -CD

MySociety Software in the public interest -- it's a damned good idea. MySociety produces software like Pledgebank ("I will risk arrest by refusing to register for a UK ID card if 100,000 other Britons will also do it") and TheyWorkForYou (every word and deed by every Member of Parliament). It's plumbing for activists and community organizers. —CD

https://boingboing.net/2017/12/10/charitable-giving-guide-2017.html

[ukesasuke]

#2

Week 1: 8 Jan - 12 Jan

Not much happened this week. It was uneventful and boring. 

A few highlights worth mentioning though:

PSY 111

Dr Eugene said that most psychological text is WEIRD. As in, a lot of it comes from WEIRD countries. 

W - Western E - Educated I - Industrialized R - Rich D - Democratic

It reminded me of Mr Alex in CAP class. Whenever he constantly threw around the word “ethnocentric”, I had to keep reminding myself not to take everything at face value as much as I always do (but I have to thank Ms Winnie for that).

Dr Eugene also enlightened us on the purpose of psychology. Or at least the goals of psychology: 

Describe - To seek and identify patterns in human behavior and to categorize them into data that makes sense. 

Explain - To be able to utilize said data in order to make sense of a person’s behavior.

Predict - To be able to use the patterns identified and foresee an outcome based on its sequence. 

Control - To be able to intervene or nurture according to what is “best”. 

Typing that last part out reminds me of the notion of “egocentricism” and it’s role in prescription. Dr Goh had already told us that we had responsibilities as graduates (if we ever were to graduate). The piece of paper we get at the end of three years of studying symbolizes specialized skill and ability in an ever-growing field. Especially a scientific one that is in no ways non-controversial. The study and facts are the same, but the way we utilize those facts, the way we perceive and evaluate those facts, it all points to our own worldviews and understanding of the subject. As a person, there may even be a sort of political agenda in the decisions we make, as everyone sort of has a set or list of needs and wants in their lives. It’s fine when it’s a decision that only affects oneself, but when one gets certification to deal with people at their weakest, it is easy to misuse that authority. 

People will trust us with their lives, to an extent, purely on the basis that we passed a set of tests. Two graduates that get similar test scores may have completely differing views on the subject and that will affect how they treat people. Two graduates with similar test scores may make different decisions and it really does depend on who you get put with because with psychology in its ambiguity, there are too many angles to look at things and neither are correct or wrong. It all depends on what is “best”. It all depends on whose “best”. Truly, knowledge =/= wisdom. 

PSY 113

I like Dr Ditto. He’s funny. My seniors have never had a class with him before since he’s a new lecturer, but so far I think he’s fun. He makes lots of jokes but he’s also sort of scary. He’s a little bit like Amri, my old choir conductor. I must learn how to keep him happy. 

He showed us some of his scholarly article titles though, and quite a few of them relate to adolescents and motivation. I will make it a point to go through them and hopefully ask him about them. 

Nevertheless, PSY 113 seems like another one of those difficult subjects to pass. It’s like a mixture of SSK and CTS. Both of which, my GPA is not very fond of. I can see myself scoring badly already. 

MPU 3213

Ms Tong seems nice, but she also seems like a “No Bullshit” type. She also makes jokes but I can see her getting very scary. MPU 3213 also seems like a very scary subject. 

The main project in MPU 3213 is to fund-raise for a cause/charity. It seems fun, until it comes to the fund-raising part. I don’t know how to ask for sponsorships or how to sell things so I can see myself dying part way. What’s more, I’m going to get separated from the big gang so I think I’m gonna die. 

Eh. 

MPU 3223 

 TITAS seems... eh. 

Not like I can make much out of it. I don’t think my lecturer even likes the subject. I’ll have to present in BM and I’m not very excited for that, but there no essays, so that’s good I guess??