#maule region

[wikipediapictures]

Loncomilla River

“Chile, Linares, Loncomilla River. Sifon Bridge and, next to it, the new bridge under construction.” - via Wikimedia Commons (original description translated from Spanish using Google Translate)

[maulfucker]

Made a sort of ref for a my version of his tattoos + cybernetics

[postcard-from-the-past]

View of Maule, Mantois region of France

French vintage postcard, mailed in 1948 to Paris

[providencehq]

YOU WRANGLE COWS????? do tell me more

Sometimes but always unofficially! It's part of my job only so I can to certain sites and get data/measurements/etc. Cattle get into areas of certain allotments or fenced regions (usually a spring) and you have to round them up and them out to do whatever it is you need to do. It's all on foot since that the only way our crew can do it, no horses or roping if that's what you're thinking (I'm shit at roping and even worse at on horseback.) Wrangling is sorta a catch all term for getting up and moving cattle along.

The only reason I do it often is because it's the only way to get to certain sites I need to be able to do my job. I'm something along the lines of an ecosystem/habitat health monitoring tech along with a bunch of other duties. We just mess with cattle to get them to move out of the way so we actively get our data and be out of there. Also because I am an ecologist/scientist through and through and I don't talk about my work except on instagram, have some photos of my boring field sites aka no identifiable landmarks to get an idea where I work at. I

[lilypucks]

me if i was a little slug

this thing!! has been bouncing around in my notebooks and stuff for so long i'm happy to have finally digitalized its design and explained it in a way i'm pretty happy with

notes on abilities and stuff r under the cut since i didn't manage to fit those in the actual image

the lilypuck is predictably semiaquatic, with a breath time slightly longer than rivulet's though she isn't as fast

spear damage is around the same as survivor's, also has a maul ability that deals a consistent .85 damage (very handy) (i'm glad mauling is a thing i like being able to bite things in rw)

skittish and not combat oriented, though it'll hold its own against threats if left with no choice or if that's the easier option

especially vulnerable to explosives and avoids those

the lilypuck on her head is indeed alive as if it were still rooted in water; alongside providing a slight glow it acts almost as a partial masks and has a chance to deflect spears that hit it (though it's a small area/pretty unlikely) and immediately falls off and closes up upon death (something like an elite scavenger mask + the behavior of lilypucks when picked up)

can canonically hear all region/threat music (like the vibe/memories associated with an area cause brain signals that register as musical? or smth it doesn't rlly hear the music Out Loud more like pulsing in the back of their mind)

wawa

[vague-humanoid]

The public can’t believe anything Virginia Prison officials tell them. Lies about dog attacks. In an August 1st, 2021, article about two lawsuits filed by Virginia prisoners who had been mauled by prison attack dogs, a spokesman for the Virginia Prison System was cited as saying, “K9 units are used solely for purposes of detecting drugs and other contraband, not for attacking or intimidating prisoners.” This quote came from the article by Keith Sanders titled, “Virginia Prison Guards Dogs Attacked Prisoners with Dogs,” from Prison Legal News, August 1, 2021. An outright lie.

In contradiction of this claim that dogs aren’t used to intimidate, Rick White, past warden of Virginia’s Notorious Red Onion State Prison, was quoted in a 2023 Insider Report on uses of dogs in US prisons, as stating that dogs are, in fact, used frequently in Virginia prisons for “presence,” or, “in other words, the implied violence of their growls and bared teeth is sufficient to frighten people into compliance.” So dogs are definitely used to terrorize Virginia prisoners. They’re also used, no less often, to attack them. In total contradiction of the denied use of dogs to attack Virginia prisoners, the same Insider Report, “…was able to document 271 dog attacks in Virginia State Prisons from 2017 to 2022 through court filings and incident reports.” This is from the Insider Report dated July 23rd, 2023, by Hannah Beckler titled, “Patrol dogs are terrorizing and mauling prisoners inside the United [States].”

Why is indeed would Virginia officials’ lie about using attack dogs? Well, exposing the practice has many implications, including the hidden history of widespread uses of dogs to hunt, terrorize, maul and kill Black people in slavery, including in Virginia. This practice was one of the main outbreaks that motivated the slavery abolitionist movement. The barbarian use of dogs to maul humans was recognized even then, prompting British officials who used dogs in this manner against slaves in Jamaica, to do exactly what Virginia officials are doing now. They lied. As one article noted, “Their public defense insisted that dogs primarily intimidated rather than attacked.” That quote came from the article by Tyler Perry titled, “Slave Hounds and Abolition,” from the publication Past and Present, number 246, February 2020.

Indeed, the practice was criminalized and punished by execution when the same slave hounds were used by the Confederates against White Union soldiers. It’s because this practice is inherently barbaric and was recognized to be so as far back as 200 years ago, during the era of slavery, and has a racist history which continues, that Virginia officials have lied about it, trying to hide it from the public. Which brings me to another campaign of lies projected by them to the public, a lying documentary.

This came with the airing of a December, 2016 HBO documentary titled, “Solitary Inside Red Onion State Prison,” which can be seen on YouTube. This documentary was used to whitewash the abuses within the prison and its image. The program has never been shown to Virginia prisoners, and with good reason. It was a cover up. Through considerable maneuvering, I was able to watch it however, and immediately recognized it as lying propaganda meant to clean up Red Onion’s sordid image.

The film began with two dogs, two guards, one Black, one White, escorting a handcuffed White prisoner to a solitary confinement cell. This was the first lie. I was confined at Red Onion for 14 years, from when it first opened in 1998 until 2012 and several times since then, up to present. The prison, which is located on a mountain in a rural region of the state, has never had more than three Black guards on the entire otherwise White staff, who come from segregated White communities that have no prior contact with urban Blacks. And its prisoner population has always been almost totally Black.

This racial dynamic has always been behind the prison’s notorious history of extreme racist abuses of its prisoners. This is the dynamic of history: These fabricated and opening images were meant to hide and continue throughout the documentary with the interviews of prisoners at Red Onion. Four were White, one was Black. Again, a dishonest representation of the actual demographic makeup of the prison’s population. One of the interviewed White prisoners, Dennis Webb, whom I’ve known for decades and am in the block with as I write this, revealed to me that he and others were given free television by Red Onion’s administrators for doing the interviews.

These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.

[gallusrostromegalus]

What kind of wildlife is around in the Spirit World/Realm? The show had riding boars and river fish that I can remember, and if they grow things then the right kinds of little bees and gnats must be Around, but Just Those don't make for a full healthy environment, right?

We don't see a lot of animals in canon because animals are rarely a problem that shinigami have to deal with but some notes:

Thylacalines are not extinct in the spirit world! Actually, it's kind of a problem- Thylacalines will ONLY reincarnate as Thylacalines, and since there are none on earth, the entire peak population of them lives in the southern Rukongai. This is a problem unique to Thylacalines, as most extinct animals will reincarnate as other extant animals or humans or whatever, but nope. Not these assholes. Furthermore, killing a thylacaline in spirit world just makes it respawn elsewhere in the spirit world, as it was and with it's memory intact and those motherfuckers hold GRUDGES. They're also not native to any of the places the human souls in Soul society come from so nobody has a damn clue what they're doing here. Well, they know what they're doing- Mostly eating anything that will fit in their mouths and occasionally mauling people who don't respect their personal space- but why they're doing that HERE is unclear.

The Migratory Bird Act of Year 1066 was established shortly after the Seki-Seki stone wall and spirit barrier surrounding the Seireitei was established, and within the week, catastrophic numbers of birds died flying into the invisible barrier. The act was actually spearheaded by Yamamoto, who was immensely distraught by the unintentional carnage, and had to actually threaten the Central 46 with bodily harm to get them to legally change the Kido spell on the barrier to only block Sapient Souls and let the birds come and go as they please. It was a landmark legal case that established the soul society's remarkably robust environmental protections, and the Central 46's policy of isolation from the Shinigami, which would prove disastrously fatal to the organization almost 1,000 years later.

Many creatures we have on earth exist in Spirit world, but at massive Scale and varying degrees of intelligence. The Nago Boar was a wild boar of average porcine intelligence, but spectacular scale- 15 feet tall at the shoulder and many tons in weight. It was an infamous monster that made the Nago region borderline uninhabitable from it's rampages. It was one of the rare animals that became the problem for the Shinigami, who tried in vain to kill the beast for the better part of two centuries but unlike a Hollow who acts on instinct and has a very breakable mask, the boar was quite cunning and ended up with three zanpaktou lodged in it's cranium to no ill effect before the Gotei-13 decided to just pay the remaining farmers to leave in 1219. It was slain by a hired swordsman protecting a geological survey in 1308, and the battle was immortalized in the Epic Multi-scene Screen Painting "The Slaying of The Nago Boar" by Minami Zasso, who was working as a surveyor and illustrator when he witnessed the event firsthand. The swordsman in the painting is unnamed, but there is a persistent rumor that the distinctive facial scar of the unnamed swordsman matches that of Eleventh Division Captain Zaraki Kenpachi, but that would mean the man is at least 700, more likely over 1000 years old! Surely not!

The Eleventh Division has another peculiar association with an animal of ridiculous scale. In 1272, the annual "Ranking Day" tournament (in which the members of the 11th division and anyone bold enough to take part would battle for ranked positions in the division- including the right to be captain) took place outside the Seireitei in a relatively isolated area of the rukongai because 1271's Ranking Day had turned into an outright riot that destroyed part of the city. The commotion and blooshed attracted the attention of a supernaturally large Monitor Lizard, who joined the fray without hesitation, and devoured the 4th Kenpachi. Having met the requirements of "Defeat the standing captian in combat in front of 200 witnesses", and because nobody was brave enough to remove the captain's haori from where the lizard had become entangled in it, Tokagero Kenpachi was named the 5th captain of the 11th division. Tokagero Kenpachi remained captain of the 11th division for an astounding 234 years, the longest reign of any Kenpachi, and via highly suggestive hissing and occasionally eating people she disagreed with, lead several important reforms within the division like "Pants Required" and "No showing up to work drunk" and "instituting the first 5-day work week and successful labor strike in Soul Society" though that last one was mostly the work of her long-suffering lieutenant, but her apparent taste for strikebreakers certainly helped the cause. Tokagero Kenpachi was lost in the infamous Tonsure Riots of 1606 when she vanished down an open manhole cover and into the sewers. No body was ever recovered, and her wherabouts remain unknown to this day.

[karmaphone]

I want to take a moment of your time to preach the good word of The Long Dark. 'Liz,' you say, 'you talk about The Long Dark all the time.' That's true! As my favorite game, it's bound to be the one I talk about the most. But it is, and I do not say this lightly, absolutely incredible.

First off, let me say that this is technically a survival horror game. There are sudden flashing sequences that can trigger epilepsy and elements like graphic animal death, creeping horrors of starvation thirst temperature etc., and seeing frozen corpses around you knowing at some point you will become one of them. However: this game has an incredible range and you can set it to supremely easy (like I do) to the point where you can genuinely forget it's not just Survive In The Frozen Woods Simulator. You can adjust the settings to get the playthrough style you want, anywhere from scenic exploration of the many enormous regions and pensive hunting to heart-racing fights against bears and wolves stalking you across the map and wondering if you'll make it to shelter before freezing to death every time you leave.

This game is gorgeous. Many people are initially put off by the simpler style, but seeing a few sunrises & auroras and getting lost in blizzards a couple times usually changes their minds. Fluffy pastels and sweeping deep purples and grays make twilight absolutely beautiful and the green and pinks of auroras are stunning, especially if you happen to catch some blue. Go catch an aurora coming into Forsaken Airfield or from the top of Timberwolf Mountain and tell me I'm wrong.

You like foraging? We got foraging! Not only can you cook with ingredients and animals that you find, you can also cook up medicines and stat buffs. There are recipes hidden around that you have to work to be able to cook.

There are of course a multitude of clothes that you can find and repair, but you can also make your own out of animal hides! #Canadian Wilderness Dressup Divas 2k24

You want calm exploration? We got that too! Take a trip around the different regions to pay respect to all the gravesites if you like, or try to find the hundreds of cairns scattered around. Vague hints that point to secret stashes and the previous lives of people on the island? We got that too, pictures and notes and journals oh my.

You want hard missions? We got an immortal glowing bear that stalks you across maps for that. We got run-from-the-top-of-one-region-to-the-bottom-of-another-without-getting-mauled-by-bears-or-wolves-or-moose challenges. We got a-blizzard-is-coming-so-you-gotta-stock-up-on-enough-supplies-to-outlast-it challenges. Zone of contamination and blackrock mine are. there. Don't even get me started on the faithful cartographer achievement, in which you fill out your map in every named place in the game.

You want storyline? We got storyline! Good luck!

[mikasasrippedtoenail]

The Plight of Indian Widows

A woman's dignity is not her own possession. Her life is at the mercy of men around her. She is a commodity to be owned and sold first by her father then her husband. Her entire existence is tied to her servitude to those around her. After giving so much to the world, there is little life left inside of her. Yet, the world still demands her forfeit of this little life after the death of her husband. In India, a woman was expected to burn herself alive in the holy pyre of her husband's body as a show of loyalty in a practice called Sati that was outlawed in 1929(yet it is still rampant today in many rural parts of India).

With her husband no more, she must have no reason to live.Widowhood is the harbringer of acute discrimination for women in South Asia. Widows are ostracized by society and shunned by their family to live a destitute life in "Vidhwa Ashrams". Even the shadow of a widow was believed to inflict depredation and brought. They are called witches and man-eaters. They are forbidden from wearing anything but white clothes and are expected to practice strict abstinence. Widows in Afghanistan are called besarparast, meaning "household without a head". It is customary for a woman to shave off her head to appear undesirable. Her sexuality is confined, her needs and wants must die alongside her husband. Widow remarriage-although legal- is deeply stigmatized as a grave sin.

Widows are not considered to be a part of society. They can neither celebrate festivals nor travel without a religious purpose. In some extreme cases, they are made to drink the bathwater of their husbands’ dead bodies and have unprotected sex to "cleanse themselves of the sin of causing their husbands" death. Young widows also fall prey to the leering eyes of men. Child brides especially are prone to fall victim to manipulation by people around them. Men consider that since marriage has taken away her "innocence", she can now be sexually exploited.

Barring a few states, married women cannot inherit their husband's property. This lack of financial stability is the root cause of their exploitation. Most husbands leave their wives penniless. What little savings he might have had are spent on funeral rites. Relatives do not want to support her financially, considering her children and herself as excess baggage. Her parents also close the doors on her face for it is often said - "only a woman's dead body should come out of her husband's house."

This new found vulnerability makes her an easy prey for prostitution. A primary form of survival for widows is to sell their body through pimps. However, in most ashrams, they are forced to perform sexual favours by the heads of the ashram to gain money. The heads use their political power to silence the widows from raising their voice against this rape. With nowhere else to go, this cycle continues. The widows who get pregnant from this rape are "mauled by quacks for a painfully searing abortion and If that’s not done, then they would have an extra mouth to feed and an extra pair of hands to beg."

As of today, India is the abode of 42 million widows-a social class that is woefully exploited. Widows are often forced to dedicate the remaining parts of their lives to their religion. They must have no desires or wants except singing the God's praise. Widowhood for most women marks the death of their happines and social life. Although with changing times the attitude towards widows is turning positive, it is the bitter truth that the condition of widows from orthodox regions live a terrible life.

Laws protecting women are scarce- let alone widows. In India, widows are considered to be the class 1 heirs of ancestral properties. However, most of them are uneducated and unaware of the laws surrounding them. They are easily manipulated by relatives to give up their rights to the property. As for self acquired property, most men do not mention the name of their wives in their wills. After 2005, women alive on december, 2005 have a right over their father's ancestral property alongside their brothers. One must not forget that women inheriting property is still not socially acceptable in India and women who recieve property are few and far between.

To uplift widows, one must make them aware of the rights around them. Government and local NGOs should work together to organize awareness campaigns on the rights of widows. Women without capital left behind by their husbands should get a monthly stipend. "Vidhwa Ashrams" should be heavily regulated. More so, the social stigma shrouding widows must be removed. Treatment of women belonging to marginalized communities are a reflection of how dire the situation of women's rights are in India. Opening women owned women only shelters is the prime solution for the upliftment of women.

[pokemonshelterstories]

Ughhhhh... I live up near Anvil Town in Unova, and my neighbor is a very sweet old lady, but she's been feeding the local Ursaring donuts for the past year, despite everyone telling her off for it, and now there's been a fatality.

Another member of our community was recently mauled in his backyard by one of the Ursaring, since not only has the population kind of exploded because of poor management policy in the area, but they've lost their fear of humans. I've even heard a cull is scheduled because of this incident.

My neighbor is still leaving food out for them, though. Do you have any suggestions on how to convince her to stop, or should I call the Rangers and/or the police?

Sincerely,

Frustrated in the Forest

that is....insane, sorry. i'm trying to wrap my head around why your neighbor is feeding wild ursaring, especially when there's been a fatality.

this is definitely something to report to your local rangers, especially since in most regions intentionally feeding wild pokemon (with the exception of bird feeders) is illegal. this is a law designed to keep both people and pokemon safe. unfortunately, if those ursaring are accustomed to getting food, they're going to keep coming back. they have an incredible sense of smell, too, so even if you aren't leaving out food, they'll absolutely come onto your property too to dig for any roots or nuts/berries buried by other wild pokemon. that's obviously not safe for you/your pokemon, and it puts them at risk of being euthanized, as you've already noted.

normally, i'd say you could try talking to her yourself before calling in the rangers. given that people have already been hurt, though, this is severe enough that you should let professionals handle talking to her.

[mariacallous]

There is no shortage of misery in the Middle East today. As the region marked the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, Israel mourned the murder of around 1,200 Israelis and worried about the fate of the remaining 100 hostages held by Hamas. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in the subsequent war, hundreds of thousands are currently homeless, and much of Gaza lies in ruins. Lebanon, too, is now devolving into a war zone.

Often overlooked amid all this misery is Iran, which is also having a terrible, horrible, very bad year. But unlike most of the other actors here, it has only itself to blame.

Consider where Iran was strategically on Oct. 6, 2023. The United States, torn between competing demands for its military forces, was looking to reduce its military presence in the Middle East. That brought Iran closer than ever to achieving one of its long-term goals: ridding the region of U.S. influence. Israel, meanwhile, was tearing itself apart at home over controversial judicial reforms. Iran had suffered a strategic blow a few years prior with the passage of the Abraham Accords, which promoted Israel-Arab ties, but Tehran had arguably countered this in part by forging closer military ties to Moscow. True, Iran remained under significant sanctions, but the Biden administration unfroze some $6 billion in Iranian funds in exchange for freeing American prisoners.

Now consider where Iran is just a year later. Hamas, an Iranian proxy, has been decimated. Israel has shown that it can reach into a VIP guest house in Tehran to kill Hamas’s leaders. Hezbollah, the crown jewel of Iran’s proxy network, has been mauled to the point where Iran needs to strike Israel on the group’s behalf, rather than vice versa. Israel’s fractured political spectrum doesn’t agree on much, but it is united when it comes to making Iran pay for its missile attacks on the country. The Abraham Accords—which normalized Israel’s relationship with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—are strained but remain intact, and Saudi-Israeli normalization remains possible in the longer term, even if it is not in the cards right now. In fact, despite the violence, it is easier to fly to Tel Aviv from Dubai than from many European cities. And the U.S. military is once again surging into the region. Further Western sanctions relief—in this geopolitical climate—is currently off the table.

While Israel faces strategic problems of its own, at least Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can argue that he did not start this war. By contrast, it is an open question to what extent Iran’s leaders helped plan the Oct. 7 attack and set the region aflame in the process. Even if Iran was merely caught up in one of its proxies going rogue, it certainly did have a direct role in the missile barrages against Israel and, by extension, the retaliatory strikes that followed.

Perhaps the silver lining for Iran here is that it could have been worse. Tehran’s missile attacks—in April and again in October—failed to kill Israelis or cause significant damage. Had they done that, Israel’s retaliation would likely have been significantly more robust.

But this gets to the crux: Iran’s tolerance for risk is growing. Firing hundreds of ballistic missiles at a militarily superior adversary is a dangerous game. Firing them while repeatedly calling for the annihilation of a likely nuclear-armed, militarily superior, superpower-backed state with a right-wing government inclined to hit back hard is a potentially suicidal gamble.

That’s not the only thing Iran has done over the past year that was so risky that it could have threatened the regime’s stability itself, had it not been for Tehran’s incompetence. Iran reportedly tried to kill former U.S. President Donald Trump and other former senior Trump administration officials in retaliation for the killing of Iranian Quds Force leader Qassem Suleimani. Thankfully, those plots were foiled. But the attempt itself was a huge risk, especially given that Trump is a current candidate for the presidency and known for holding grievances. Indeed, after being briefed about the attempted assassination, Trump threatened to “blow [Iran’s] largest cities and the country itself to smithereens” if he gets back to the White House and Iran tried a similar ploy.

But whereas trying to assassinate a former—and potentially future—U.S. president on American soil is a gutsy move, imagine what would happen if such a plot actually succeeds. Republicans—many of whom are already pretty hawkish on Iran—would likely be calling for blood. Democrats would not likely let the killing of a former U.S. president go unpunished. Indeed, if one thing could upend the post-Iraq, post-Afghanistan received wisdom of eschewing regime change in the Middle East, killing a former president could be it. In short, if the Iranian regime survives this war, it will be thanks to luck and its own incompetence.

Of course, from the Iranian perspective, its actions—or at least its missile strikes—were driven by strategic necessities to reestablish deterrence after a series of Israeli and U.S. affronts to its sovereignty, such as striking Iranian diplomatic facilities in Syria and killing Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders. But there is little evidence that Iranian actions are having any deterrent effect whatsoever. If anything, Israeli leaders are talking even more openly than before about regime change in Tehran and even more adamantly about destroying the Iranian nuclear program.

Strategically, the wisest option for Iran right now would be to retreat to the shadows, rebuild its proxy network, and fight another day. After all, it will take time to rebuild Hamas and Hezbollah into the formidable fighting forces they once were. At the same time, Israel’s ties to its Arab neighbors and the West are already frayed, thanks to the bloodshed of the Gaza campaign and the Netanyahu administration’s unwillingness to commit to any sort of Palestinian state—a win, if a Pyrrhic one, for Iran. Pulling back also leaves open the prospect of some sort of future deal with the West over the medium term—which Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says he wants and even Trump says he’s open to supporting.

That is not, however, what Iran seems intent on doing. Whether it’s because of Iranian domestic politics, concerns about losing face on the international stage, or simply a desire for revenge, the regime looks intent on doubling down. In a rare Friday prayer speech, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—with a rifle by his side in case anyone missed the point—praised the Oct. 7 massacre and promised that Iran “won’t back down. Israel won’t last long.”

Iran’s seeming unwillingness to reverse course has important implications for the United States and the West’s approach to Iran. It raises the question of whether threatening Iran with further costs will be sufficient to force a change in direction. The United States and its European partners can sanction Iran all they want; Israel could bomb Iranian oil fields. But it may not change Iranian behavior.

If deterrence by punishment won’t work, then the United States and the West will need to resort to deterrence by denial—destroying Iran’s ability to attack Israel and aid its proxies. That would be hard to do, since it requires destroying significant chunks of Iran’s military capabilities rather than simply threatening to inflict pain. But if the Iranian regime seems intent on escalating, then the United States and its allies may have no other choice.

And if that happens, while this year may have been a terrible one for Iran, next year might be even worse.

[marroniere]

The best idea for a Star Wars reality show would be The Real Househusbands of Dathomir. The first season starts right after the events of Ahsoka. Captain Enoch and Pellaeon compete for Thrawn's attention, in the "I-did-more-for-the-Empire-the-blue-man-is-mine" kind of way. Then Eli Vanto arrives from the Unknown Regions, and the competition gets even more heated. The Nightsisters just want all those men to calm down so that Thrawn can conquer the galaxy already. Someone must try to hex someone. Not once.

Then we could just add Anakin's Force ghost because hey it's Dathomir, it's rich with the Force, and Thrawn needs someone to have fights with too, and all the Imperials are too busy fighting over him.

At the end of the season, Maul should return. Resurrected again and tired of all the drama. He just wants his real estate (the Nightsister fortress) back, so the gang has to unite against him.

Then the Chiss come to take Thrawn home. So they have to unite with Maul because Eli got caught up in the Thrawn-is-mine drama, and Maul still wants his fortress back.

P.S. Fifty percent of the time Thrawn is completely oblivious to all the fighting that takes place around him, and fifty percent of the time we suspect that he orchestrated it deliberately.

[postcard-from-the-past]

Street scene in Maule, Yveline region of France

French vintage postcard

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 2, 2025

A geometrical solution underlies general neural principle for serial ordering. Di Antonio, G., Raglio, S., & Mattia, M. (2024). Nature Communications, 15, 8238.

Beyond Neyman–Pearson: E-values enable hypothesis testing with a data-driven alpha. Grünwald, P. D. (2024). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(39), e2302098121.

Prefrontal and lateral entorhinal neurons co-dependently learn item–outcome rules. Jun, H., Lee, J. Y., Bleza, N. R., Ichii, A., Donohue, J. D., & Igarashi, K. M. (2024). Nature, 633(8031), 864–871.

Human brain state dynamics are highly reproducible and associated with neural and behavioral features. Lee, K., Ji, J. L., Fonteneau, C., Berkovitch, L., Rahmati, M., Pan, L., … Anticevic, A. (2024). PLOS Biology, 22(9), e3002808.

Distinct ventral hippocampal inhibitory microcircuits regulating anxiety and fear behaviors. Li, K., Koukoutselos, K., Sakaguchi, M., & Ciocchi, S. (2024). Nature Communications, 15, 8228.

Characterizing the dynamics, reactivity and controllability of moods in depression with a Kalman filter. Malamud, J., Guloksuz, S., van Winkel, R., Delespaul, P., De Hert, M. A. F., Derom, C., … Huys, Q. J. M. (2024). PLOS Computational Biology, 20(9), e1012457.

The homogenous hippocampus: How hippocampal cells process available and potential goals. McNaughton, N., & Bannerman, D. (2024). Progress in Neurobiology, 240, 102653.

Decision uncertainty as a context for motor memory. Ogasa, K., Yokoi, A., Okazawa, G., Nishigaki, M., Hirashima, M., & Hagura, N. (2024). Nature Human Behaviour, 8(9), 1738–1751.

Maintenance and transformation of representational formats during working memory prioritization. Pacheco-Estefan, D., Fellner, M.-C., Kunz, L., Zhang, H., Reinacher, P., Roy, C., … Axmacher, N. (2024). Nature Communications, 15, 8234.

Dense and Persistent Odor Representations in the Olfactory Bulb of Awake Mice. Pirhayati, D., Smith, C. L., Kroeger, R., Navlakha, S., Pfaffinger, P., Reimer, J., … Moss, E. H. (2024). Journal of Neuroscience, 44(39), e0116242024.

Contrastive learning explains the emergence and function of visual category-selective regions. Prince, J. S., Alvarez, G. A., & Konkle, T. (2024). Science Advances, 10(39).

Independent operations of appetitive and aversive conditioning systems lead to simultaneous production of conflicting memories in an insect. Rahman, S., Terao, K., Hashimoto, K., & Mizunami, M. (2024). Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 291(2031).

Effects of visual diet on colour discrimination and preference. Skelton, A. E., Maule, J., Floyd, S., Wozniak, B., Majid, A., Bosten, J. M., & Franklin, A. (2024). Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 291(2031).

Neural network architecture of a mammalian brain. Swanson, L. W., Hahn, J. D., & Sporns, O. (2024). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(39), e2413422121.

Saccadic “inhibition” unveils the late influence of image content on oculomotor programming. Taylor, R., Buonocore, A., & Fracasso, A. (2024). Experimental Brain Research, 242(10), 2281–2294.

Mental programming of spatial sequences in working memory in the macaque frontal cortex. Tian, Z., Chen, J., Zhang, C., Min, B., Xu, B., & Wang, L. (2024). Science, 385(6716).

Humans flexibly integrate social information despite interindividual differences in reward. Witt, A., Toyokawa, W., Lala, K. N., Gaissmaier, W., & Wu, C. M. (2024). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(39), e2404928121.

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[cafeleningrad]

just watched Nosferatu [Spoilers ahead! Press "J" on the keyboars if you want to skip]

Honestly, I seriously don't mind the mustache. The entire wardrobe and hair is a well researched visual hint that Orlock is indeed centuries too old to be alive. His attire is one of Hungarian (depends on which time he died exactly, the Hungarians and Romanians war fighting bitterly over exactly these regions) counts from the 16th century.

Speaking of which: Nice nod to the original Nosferatu! The script writer, Henrik Galeen, tried to avoid full-on copyright infringement of "Dracula", so he switched the setting from Romania to Hungary. So Orlock was a Hungarian count in the Kaparta region which was then by 1838 Romanian.

I don't know why the Orthodox monastry scene made me so happy but it was some extra attention spent on an Orthdox setting.

They even had a schema-nun!

I already hard what... takes are going around. However I really appreciate Mr. Eggers for digging into the variety that the folkloric and the literary Vampire represents.

Gosh, I hope the Anglosphere will shut up one day how the only vampire could only ever be about "sexuality". That Mormon-sexfantasy teenage book really screwed the anglos literary more than expected. (That or you have a rip-off alien variant the Mr.President can maul down like earnest-hardworking G.I.'Murican he is. Gosh, I hate the 2010s US Vampire.)

Eggers went more into the fantastical than his previous more grounded period dramas. Still, I really like the way he depicted the relationship Friedrich and Thomas had with woman in their lives respectively. The Biedermeier era in post-Vienna-Congress Germany was a horrible time and place to be a woman. Except for Frantz, all them have trouble and even are unwilling to listen to Ellen. At least until Thomas himself is subject to Orlock's violence.

Still, even though Friedrich could've been an easy stand-in for the cartoonish upper middle class Biedermeier guy with burgeois home and values, it's deeply lovely to see how earnestly he loves the women in his life. Not as property of part of the Biedermeier family but for themselves. He's genuinely affectionate to Anna, and will listen to her persuasion for Ellen's sake. They're sexual desire is very much mutual, so is their will to have children. Friedrich loves his daughters in the same way. He will ease the worries and stay with Clara and Louise when they're scared. Not only to be the fun dad to scare away monsters but also when they're genuinely worried he holds them close. The death of his wife, and daughters lets his grief spiral into necrophilia. Not merely out of madness but because them not living is the end of his life. I don't know, maybe it's a general lack of genuine love between men and women (romatic or not) depicted on screen making me gush so much. Or I think Eggers really nailed the sentiment how all the destruction Orlock harbrings, are deeply tragic as Orlock can just consume but not share, even less so love.

Another really lovely nod to the original "Nosferatu": In 1922, the setting of Wisborg was filmed in the Hanseatic city of Wismar in Northern-East-Germany. In 1838 the city would've been under Swedish siege. Eggers could've chosen any Hanseatic city but he payed tribute to the original movie's setting. So even the city soldier's uniforms are period and place place appropriately Swedish.

Next to me sat an entire row of gorgeous goth girls who swooned at every cat appearing on screen. Rightfully so. At the end of the movie they discussed that their lover should kiss them when become a gorgeous goth girl corpse. Semmelweis úr, please don't turn in your grave, it's just an aesthetic fantasy. (I helped my brother preapre for his pathology exam one hour before the movie... Please don't touch corpses with your bare skin.)

Of course, Eggers' brand has become thorough research. Yet it isn't out of vanity but out of genuine love, so the world is enriched with the little details, the micro-organisms that make the movie live.

Babelsberg era scare shadow! There's the famous Babelsberg scare shadow tribute! Robert, I love you for this!

2024 wasn't such a honourable horror year for Bill Skarsgård. This year bodes well for him though! (I always forget that he actually doesn't like horror.)

I really would like to know it Eggers bothered Skarsgard with Sweden-in-Wismar history facts.

Hollering at the credits when "adapted writings of "Dracula"" appeared. Florence Stoker's ghost shall not be wakened, it seems. ("Dracula" is in public domain nowdays any way, so one might as well be transparent about the ordeal.)