#digital anthropology
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I LOVE anthropology because I can just say that I’m studying things anthropologically
“Why are you so obsessed with Ace Attorney and John Grisham novels?”
Legal anthropology
“Why are you so obsessed with Stardew Valley?”
Rural anthropology
“Why are you so obsessed with tumblr”
Digital anthropology
It works for everything!!!!!!
#shitpost#rural anthropology#legal anthropology#digital anthropology#ace attorney#john grisham#tumblr posting#anthropology
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Discord and the Online Ecosystem
Discord is an awesome service to use. Overall, it's user friendly to do "basic" stuff, like instantly updating, global text, image, and video posts with a near-infinite level of storage for those things. For 95% of people that use Discord, it's an incredibly convenient, functional service almost all the time. But Discord in fundamentally making the Internet - not the people interacting with each other, but the actual infrastructure and ethos of the Internet - worse.
I'm saying this not only as an "Internet person" - after all, I'm here with the rest of you, but as someone who is only now realizing that I am an expert on the function, technical details, and history of the Internet compared to most users of this place. I get paid to do it. I get paid to learn about how everything on it works, not as a researcher, but as someone that makes important parts of it work, at least to a certain scale.
Discord is a parasite on the internet, just like Reddit being a self-hosting image and text repository. The centralization of the Internet, I believe, is essentially toxic to how the Internet was built and used for it's most formative times, and losing that essence makes the Internet a worse place.
Here's the technical reasons it's starving out the Internet. Essentially, the Internet was built as a network of first a few, then dozens, then hundreds, etc. of small servers, each hosting data and sharing almost exclusively text communications and records. Usually, these were hosted on Universities and other technical institutions. As those developed, thanks to the nerds that were core to actually making the systems talk and work, those nerds started hosting little servers of their own, sometimes on the same machines as those big systems, sometimes just using the same infrastructure like power and networking. Then personal computers and home servers started to develop.
This entire time, if those big organizational servers were the Bones of the Internet, the flesh were those little sites that held the little services. Niche forums, mostly, where people could communicate their own small passions and hobbies. It was the beginning of the Internet being a global cultural hub, and caused the development of those niches into communities with their own histories and knowledge troves.
Then the Internet started making money. And technical changes made economies of scale more feasible. There was a transitional period where a lot of people didn't see what was coming. I was too young and wouldn't have predicted it even if I was the me of today. After that transition, consolidation of the Internet started intensifying. The Internet was no longer a facilitator to commerce, it could be commerce all on its own.
So sites like Reddit, Facebook Groups, Discord, even to an extent Github, and Tumblr and fanfiction.net, though lesser because Tumblr is more of a social media site related to random fandoms and FF.net is so public and archived, show up and gather the niche communities, which is great because they are providing a really good service to use. Until they decide to delete a niche because it hasn't had activity in a few years, or because they decided that it's a banned topic, and that trove of information about those people and their passion is gone forever.
This is part of "digital archaeology". Of keeping that knowledge around so we can look back at the world of today and know the cultural context of who we were. This is anthropology of the digital age.
Now on to the technical reasons Discord, in specific, is such a parasite on the internet. That's not a term of disgust, I literally mean that it's kinda latched onto the Internet as a whole and stealing it's nutrients from within. Discord especially is a problem because it's so good to use. It offers up instantaneous creation and use of a moderated chat space that can be shared easily, doesn't require any technical knowledge, and immediately does it's job unlike any previous niche gathering tool.
Those technical people developed how the internet worked using those niche communities. They shared technical ideas and designs and talked about how to do more with the technical resources they had. They built the internet protocol by protocol, bugfix by bugfix, and their knowledge, even after they stopped talking on those forums, was picked over by new people who had new ideas but also has problems that that niche could now solve.
And now those niches are put into walled gardens on Discord, privately managed, unsearchable from the wider internet, and where a year or two after nobody touching the chat, the history is deleted for the sake of ruthless business resource efficiency.
It takes the knowledge, extracts the value from the people who may or may not produce something with that community with that niche area, and then leaves no record of it for people outside that community to learn from.
Think video game developer communities. There's technical knowledge of how to get a game to run that is answered on those discords. FAQs and mods are hosted there. Lore is dropped. Depending on the scale of the game, patches might even be released. No one can try to start up a copy of that game in the future and have access to that knowledge once Discord, the business, decides to close it down.
This isn't a new problem. Servers, neglect, or even upset owners of the gathering places took their toll and got rid of a lot of knowledge over time. Historical Anthropology, History, Cultural Anthropology - all of those expect a certain level of information decay and loss. But this is a lot more.
And the worst part is I don't know what can be done about it. Discord is in a fundamental technical way, better at doing what it does than any other system we have. No other system could semi-publicly, instantly, in a structured manner and across the entire Internet landscape, share voice chat, text, photos, and even some videos natively to the service. Traditional web pages fail at the instantly part. Most services fail at the picture and video part. Practically none succeed at the voice part. It's just better.
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00011000.
There are androids and
There are the networked systems.
They are not the same.
One is like a demigod,
The other a hive of fae.
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Centuries in the future I hope digital archaeology because a thing. I hope they find my Spotify account with its odd playlist names and odd descriptions and they have to theories what led to the creation of some of the playlist.
#archaeologists#archaeology#anthropology#anthropologist#digital anthropology#digital archaeology#spotify
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i really love and kind of hate that getting this on your dash now is kind of like getting tossed a daily newspaper and shrugging then posting it to your door for other people to see
i didnt saw one of these so here is the news
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#dogs#more-than-human#interspecies#food#media studies#anthropology#digital anthropology#science and technology
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Elon ... is an excellent example of the technologist’s misunderstanding of social media: That platforms are made of code. They aren’t, they’re made of people. What gets created is determined by the culture of the platform, which is affected by (but not determined by) its features. Every platform is an opportunity for a vastly different culture.
-Hank Green (source)
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I don't see enough people mourning over the slow death of physical media. And I don't just mean TV shows, video games, or movies--which don't even get me started about how we don't really 'own' anything anymore. It includes notes, journals, and letters to one another...so much of our history is lost when we lose a password, a website goes down, a file/hardware is corrupted, or a platform disappears. History that doesn't seem important until you no longer have access to it. Physical media does a lot for memory recall. How many memories will we lose because we don't have something tangible to tie it back to? Something to hold in our hands and stir up those memories we thought were once lost? Sometimes I wonder what the difference between burning a book and losing access to physical media is when someone can pull the plug and remove your access so easily.
#physical media#history#art history#anthropology#anthropocene#digital archives#digital media#books#books and libraries#support libraries#libraries#book banning#book burning#fahrenheit 451#Fahrenheit 194#late night thoughts#memories#memory#past vs present vs future#vent post#something to think about#writing#academia#academia aesthetic#dark academia#book community#in this essay i will#banned books
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@schoolhater @schoolhater98 @schoolhatergirl @schoolhaterfoodlover-blog @schoolhaterlunchlover @sayruq @sayruq @francescamarchese @fawfulthegreat64 @fsdsdfsdfsdgfsrwegfdsjpg @fsacre
#free gaza#go fund me#gofundme#help gaza#pray for palestine#anthropology#gaza#vetted fundraisers#palestine#free palestine#freepalestine#save gaza#fundraisers#gaza fundraisers#gaza genocide#palestine gfm#b00st#mutual 4id#signal boost#art#digital art#artists on tumblr#my art#artblr#savegaza#save palestine#from the river to the sea palestine will be free#artists#important
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The moon badge seems to be a huge hit. Looking forward to more community-focused development going forward
Friday, October 6th, 2023
🌟 New
We’re launching a new blog badge called the Lunar Badge 🌒 that tracks the current phase of the moon! Check it out in TumblrMart under Badges. This is available on web now, rolling out to the mobile apps soon!
In the asks and submissions inbox on web, the Answer button is now… a button! Instead of a text link.
🛠 Fixed
There was an issue with Soundcloud links turning into link blocks instead of embeds in the post editor, but it’s fixed now.
We’ve fixed some text wrapping glitches when adding tags in the post editor on the web.
Also, we’ve fixed a bug in the post editor on web that could cause “Autosave failed” error messages if the only content in the post is an in-progress GIF search block.
🚧 Ongoing
In the latest version of the iOS app, some folks are seeing a greyed out clock icon (🕒) on posts, next to the reblog button. This is the Fast Queue experiment from Tumblr Labs settings, but it’s not supposed to be there for everyone like it is now. We’re still working to remove it for folks who don’t have the experiment enabled.
Likewise, in the latest version of the iOS app, the replies and messaging blog settings are broken, making them inaccessible. We’re also working to fix this as quickly as we can. We’re hoping to have a hotfix release out soon!
🌱 Upcoming
In case you missed it, over on the Engineering blog we posted a sneak peek of some of the hackathon projects that got built during Tumblr Hack Week. Some very cool stuff you may end up seeing on Tumblr!
Experiencing an issue? File a Support Request and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can!
Want to share your feedback about something? Check out our Work in Progress blog and start a discussion with the community.
Wanna support Tumblr directly with some money? Check out the new Supporter badge in TumblrMart!
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The construction of matches in dating platforms
New publication out with professor Runar Døving about how dating platform's matching machinery base their suggestion of 'good matches'. Key findings is that three platforms (Match, Møteplassen and Academic Singles) uses a model based on the persons' similarities along psychological and personal aspects, while one (Sukker) is based on a ‘the more similar along all kinds of axes' model. following a strict assortative mating model when creating matches is worrying, as similarity in these factors risks producing an increasing number of couples of equal status, which might lead to a larger gap between classes and reinforce their social status. Following in this line, all the platforms ignores well-known sociological and anthropological aspects for choosing a partner (hypergamy and homogamy principles). We speculate if this is due to the platforms using the psychological literature on partner preferences in their matching model, which mainly points to mate value (=the perceived degree of attractiveness from the opposite sex as a potential mate) as a key indicator when choosing a heterosexual partner, but because three of the four platforms are developed by IT-men - the male components in mate value (= attractiveness, youthfulness, figure, and body features which are uncontrollable qualities) is highlighted by the platforms, and not female's mate value components (= status, ambition, job prospects and physical strength, traits that can be controlled or achieved). Other findings is that the platforms use characteristics to match people that are more important when being in a relationship, rather than prior to establishing one; all suffer from severe methodological weaknesses in the process of creating a profile; the platforms scientific claims for how their algorithmic machinery work is not convincing. The paper is available as open access in Nordic Journal of Science and Technology: https://lnkd.in/dJexAD39 #dating #platforms #digitalanthropology
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uhhh what if the guy born in 1300 something was well acquainted with herbalism and a little sorcery, and then saw public opinion towards magic and herbalism change dramatically in the 1400s, especially being part of the printing business and witnessing Malleus Maleficarum. Then he thinks, "yknow for the sake of my new life and family, i'll keep out of this!" Then his family dies and he returns to magic, but this time he dabbles in necromancy and summons Death who heard all the hubbub and decided to pop in and check Dream's pet project. Then they become buddies, but he gets discovered and drowned as a witch and all his shit gets destroyed and he loses his grimoire on summoning Death, but surely it got destroyed with his house. Surely no one sinister could get their hands on this book.
TL:DR what if Hob was actually a witch (witch being a very nebulous term due to the nature of the witch hunts and mythos)
#im taking an anthropology class on witches and my brain is FULL#the sandman#digital art#drawing#hob gadling#art#death of the endless#dream of the endless
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more prosecutor wright because yeah I can
#doctorsiren#ace attorney#phoenix wright#ace attorney fanart#ace attorney au#prosecutor wright au#I suppose haha#art#digital art#my art#fanart#procreate#doodle page#sketch page#just a bunch of expression doodles while in my anthropology lab
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Hey folks, just dropping some resources here for those of you who, like me, are always on the hunt for free reading material, whether it's for research or just to satisfy your curiosity. Check these out:
Library of Congress: Absolute goldmine for academic researches and historical documents. You can spend hours diving into their collections.
Z-library: A treasure trove of books, articles, and papers on pretty much any topic you can think of. Quick downloads, no fuss.
Project Gutenberg: Free e-books galore, especially if you're into classics. Saved me from many a boring commute.
Internet Archive: A digital library offering free universal access to books, movies, and music, plus archived web pages. Endless hours of browsing joy.
Google Books: Sometimes you just need a quick peek inside a book without committing to buying it. Google Books has got your back.
Google Scholar: It scours through scholarly sources, journals, theses, and more. Just be ready to sift through some dense material.
JSTOR: Another heavyweight in the academic world. JSTOR is packed with scholarly articles, books, and primary sources across various disciplines. Some stuff may be behind a paywall, but there's still plenty to explore for free.
Newspaper Archive: Want to browse through historical newspapers? This site has a massive collection spanning centuries and covering a wide range of topics. Perfect for digging up primary sources.
Newspapers.com: Need more historical newspapers? Look no further.
Perseus Digital Library: Focuses on ancient Greco-Roman materials, perfect for those deep dives into classical history.
Digital Public Library of America: Another treasure trove of digitized materials, including photos, manuscripts, and more.
Europeana: European cultural heritage online. Images, texts, the whole shebang.
DOAJ: Open access journals. DOAJ indexes and provides access to high-quality, peer-reviewed open access research journals.
Open Library: Another digital library offering over 1.7 million free eBooks.
Librivox: Audiobooks for when your eyes need a break.
National Archives (UK): Offers access to a wealth of historical documents, including government records, maps, photographs, and more.
Sci-Hub: For the rebels. Access to scholarly articles.
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB): Looking for free scholarly books? DOAB has got you covered with a vast collection.
Digital Commons Network: Free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide.
Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR): Find open access repositories worldwide.
Gallica (Bibliothèque nationale de France): French flair for your research.
DigitalNZ: Your gateway to New Zealand's digital heritage.
#college life#study#resources#history nerd#anthropology#online learning#academic life#ResearchResources#DigitalArchives#free books#free#digital#archives#libraries#academic#research#books
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Alright chat, how do we feel about something like this?
I've moved the Maid Knight design away from my original sona (rounder glasses, fluffier more kempt hair). But the majority of it is still there. We've also got a bit more main cast.
I figure, who would hire a maid who can fight? A noble family in a CLEARLY corrupted/haunted manor with no intentions of moving out. In the end, I decided it was more of a Darkest Dungeon situation, with eldritch entities that need to be fended off, crawling out of the dungeon from time to time.
So, our two other main cast members are two other nobles who live in the house under Madeline's protection. We first have Cassandra, who recently died in an attack. Madeline's EXTRA distraught about this because she was fucking down baaaaad for her. We also have Robin, who, through dark arcane processes, accidentally trapped Cass' spirit inside a pendant. Currently, they're the only one who can see her, and they're flipping out a bit trying to figure out how to break the news.
Oh also Robin is an uncracked trans gal.
Style isn't finalized, I'll likely put more effort in if y'all like what you see
I reaaaally wanna make more with these guys, but step one is seeing if anybody else gives a shit. Is this something y'all would be into?
#maid knight#maid dress#maid uniform#maid outfit#maid#trans artist#transgender#trans woman#original art#comic art#digital art#art#my art#drawing#drawings#queer artist#eldritch#eldrich horror#I've got a bunch of other ideas in the wings including a bit of supporting cast as well#There's Oswald Cavendish. An anthropology professor and the new heir following Cass' death#There's also Andrea Fields. The Estate's groundskeeper and Madeline's go to contact for any situation more complicated than basic addition
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I realize I never posted this
early domesticated dog
#paleoart#anthropology#dogs#dog art#wolf#wolfdog#og post#og art#twig art#digital art#digital drawing#art blog#artblr#digital illustration#digital painting#digital aritst#animal art#artwork#art#original art#artists on tumblr#my art#canine#canidae#canid
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