#paper versus plastic

[scottguy]

There were two kinds of caps. The fancier plastic type above - some of which came in circles of six. But, the most common were paper caps. They were a long roll of red paper another 1/4 inch wide with a little bump of gunpowder in the center of each cap. Each roll had about 25 shots. A box of caps had about four rolls that were perforated between rolls. You'd tear one roll off to install it in your cap gun.

The cap gun had a mechanism to both feed a new part of the roll up and draw and release the hammer so it would fire with each trigger pull.

Cap guns had a satisfyingly loud bang.

One type of toy gun would allow you to "fan" the gun by repeatedly hitting the hammer with the flat of your hand like cowboys did in the movies to kill lots of bad guys.

Woah do u have a license to carry that

[pinknatural]

After googling “what to take to a stranger’s birthday party” and reading the top five articles thoroughly, the first two more than once, Castiel has determined that he should either bring candles, wine, or baked goods. 

A candle seems like a good, safe option, but the Walmart candle aisle is overwhelming. How is he supposed to know if Anna’s-friend-Dean likes oaky, woodsy smells versus lavender-linen smells? Castiel likes the one that smells like a waxy apple pie, but who’s to say that opinion is shared? What if he prefers pine, or something called Deep Twilight Mist? Castiel removes the lid for Deep Twilight Mist and smells the cream-colored wax curiously. It smells like the perfume Hael used to spray everywhere when she was eleven. He puts it back on the shelf. 

There’s a candle that smells like cupcakes. It is a birthday party, so perhaps he would like that. Castiel puts it in the blue plastic basket dangling from his arm, then puts it back on the shelf, tilting it so the label is facing perfectly outward. Maybe Anna’s-friend-Dean doesn��t like candles at all. 

Wine. Everyone likes wine. Well, unless Anna’s-friend-Dean is one of those guys who thinks wine is too feminine. Or if he doesn’t drink at all. Or if he drinks too much. Or, perhaps even worse, if he’s some kind of wine connoisseur and will mock Castiel for buying reasonably-priced wine from Walmart and then blacklist Castiel so thoroughly that he will never find a friend in this town. 

Wine and candles are too complex. But everyone likes baked goods. 

Castiel is stopped in the middle of the road, turn signal blinking to indicate that he would like to turn left into his apartment complex, when he realizes that Anna’s-friend-Dean could be diabetic. But the party is at a restaurant that specializes in hamburgers, so probably not. Hopefully not. All Castiel has to do is successfully implement chocolate chip cookies and then melt into the walls at the party. Be pleasant enough company that next time someone has a large event they allow Anna to invite him again. Go to enough social functions that he can claim to have friends and get Anna off his back. Live quietly, working at the Gas-N-Sip and writing papers about the science of Theology and perhaps even going to the library and reading secular fiction.

Castiel has no expectations of finding actual friendship at Anna’s-friend-Dean’s birthday party. Or ever, really. If he ever gets lonely, he can get a cat.

Anna thinks that Castiel and Dean will get along very well. Castiel thinks that living outside of their mother’s influence has made Anna believe in fairytales. Anna has known Castiel his entire life. She knows full well that he has never gotten along very well with anyone. 

Castiel cracks an egg over the batter. Maybe this whole baking thing will impress Anna so much that she’ll stop bothering him about making friends. 

Who knows, maybe these cookies will unlock something else to add to Castiel’s quiet life. He quite likes the idea of baking.

--

The firefighter is very beautiful. Maybe even the most beautiful person Castiel has ever seen, besides models on the sides of buildings who look so perfect they’re fake.

“You the guy who started the fire?” the beautiful firefighter asks. He puts his hands in his pockets. Castiel’s cheeks burn. Not from any fire. 

“They were just burnt cookies,” he says. “I didn’t know they would set off the smoke alarm.” In the entire building. The other firefighters are by the doors, writing things down, talking to other residents of Castiel’s building. How come the beautiful firefighter was the one who had to talk to Castiel? He sneaks a peek at the man’s arms, but they’re sadly covered by his coat. 

“You burned the cookies on purpose, then?” the firefighter raises an eyebrow. 

“Of course I didn’t,” Castiel says. The firefighter has green eyes and freckles splashed across his nose. Castiel wants him to take off his helmet so he can see what his hair looks like. 

“Right,” the firefighter says. 

“Am I in trouble?” Castiel asks. 

“No,” the firefighter says. He winks. Castiel feels his heart literally skip a beat. “Not a crime to burn cookies. Losing out on the cookies is punishment enough.”

“They weren’t for me,” Castiel says. “They were for a birthday party. Tonight.” For some reason, he wants the firefighter to know that he has a social life. Never mind if the social life was enforced upon him by his older sister.

“A birthday party? Today? Who’s hosting? I gotta fight for my honor.”

Castiel is baffled. What honor? What fight?

“What?”

“Everyone will come,” the firefighter says. He makes a pose, as if he’s flexing. “To see me and this other guy fight to see who’s the Supreme Birthday Boy.” He stretches one arm out, pointing it to the sky, then he opens his fist. “Pow! It’ll be me, of course.” He turns to look back at Castiel. His mouth is very pink. Castiel wishes he understood what words were coming out of it. 

“It’s my birthday, too,” the firefighter says after a moment, when Castiel doesn’t react.

“Oh,” Castiel says. “Why didn’t you just say that?”

“I dunno. Trying to be funny, I guess.”

“Oh,” Castiel says again. Behind the firefighter, he sees that the other residents of his apartment building are filing back inside. For some reason, despite the January chill, Castiel doesn’t want to go back in. Not yet. 

“You know, usually this is the part where people say happy birthday,” the firefighter says. 

“Happy birthday,” Castiel repeats. 

“Thanks!” the firefighter beams. “So do you think I should crash your friend’s party tonight?”

“No,” Castiel says, alarmed at the thought. A firefighter, and probably a bunch of other firefighters, crashing Castiel’s opportunity to stand beside the wall, holding a cup of sprite? When Castiel shows up with store-bought baked goods? And this beautiful firefighter will point right at him and say that Castiel invited them and then Anna’s-friend-Dean will hate him forever, and probably Anna will too? “Also, he’s not my friend.”

“He’s not? Then why are you going to his party?”

“He’s my sister’s friend,” Castiel explains. “I’ve never met him. She thinks I need to leave the house more.” Too late, Castiel remembers that he was supposed to pretend he had a flourishing social life. Oops. 

“Wait,” the firefighter says. His eyes sparkle. “Are you Anna’s brother? Cas-something?”

“Castiel,” he says, with the patience of someone who has had to explain his name a million times. He narrows his eyes. “How did you know that?”

“Dude,” the firefighter says, laughing. “I’m Dean.”

Anna’s-friend-Dean is a beautiful firefighter, with green eyes and freckles? Anna’s-friend-Dean is the Supreme Birthday Boy? Anna’s-friend-Dean probably has very muscular arms, under his uniform?

“Oh,” Castiel says. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” the firefighter says. 

“Winchester! Wrap it up!” one of the firemen calls from the truck. Castiel realizes that all the firefighters are about to leave, and everyone from his building is already back inside. When did that happen?

“Be there in a minute!” Dean hollers over his shoulder. When he looks back at Castiel, he grins almost shyly. “You were gonna make me cookies?”

“Yes, I--I thought it would be an appropriate thing to bring.” Castiel wonders again if Dean could be diabetic. Or perhaps allergic to something in chocolate chip cookies. Are chocolate chips made in a peanut-free facility? Maybe Castiel should’ve bought wine, after all.

“Hell yeah,” Dean says. “Whoever said that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach was dead-fuckin’-on. But, uh.”

“But?” Castiel is sure, suddenly, that Dean is about to reject him and tell him not to come to his birthday party after all. Which would be a shame, because all of a sudden Castiel wanted to go.

“My favorite dessert is pie,” Dean says like a confession. 

“Oh,” Castiel says, eyes widening. Maybe he can swing by the bakery--maybe he can look up a bakery, and then swing by it--on the way to the party. Assuming he’s still going. 

“And, uh, not to toot my own horn, but I make a pretty mean one. I actually made myself a birthday pie, and I was gonna eat it alone, but maybe…I mean…”

“Yes?” Castiel asks. Dean is slightly taller than him, so he tilts his head back to meet his eyes. Dean swallows. Castiel watches his adam’s apple bob.

“Well, I could swing by after my shift is done,” Dean says. “Bring it with me. We could share. Before we go to the Roadhouse, I mean. If you want.”

“I want,” Castiel says before he can think about it. He snaps his mouth shut. Dean brightens. 

“Great,” he says. “I’ll be back. After my shift.”

“When does it end?” Castiel asks. Dean looks at his watch. He grins at Castiel, tongue poking between his teeth.

“Twenty minutes,” he says. 

“Okay,” Castiel says. “I will you soon, then.”

“Yep,” Dean says. “Gimme about an hour, okay? And then we’ll have pie.” 

“Okay,” Castiel says. Dean turns to head back to the firetruck. “What kind of pie?” Cas calls after him. Dean turns. 

“Apple!” he calls. Castiel stands outside, in the January chill without his coat, for a long while after the truck leaves. What a strange man, making his own birthday pie. What a lovely man, sharing it with a stranger. Supreme Birthday Boy, indeed.

--

When Dean returns, in a soft flannel shirt with sleeves rolled up, revealing his magnificent forearms, his hair a spiky mess that Castiel wants to run his fingers through, he has, as promised, an apple pie. And Castiel has a present for him. 

When Dean opens it, he laughs until he almost cries. He lights it right away, and the lingering aroma of burnt chocolate chip cookies is chased away by the apple pie candle from Walmart, a bright, steady little flame flickering between them.

(ao3)

[theboxfort]

I was thinking about the concept of object "gore". Not like, flesh and blood gore, but like, "gore" based on the material of that object. Tattered fabric, scrap metal, spilled juice, shattered glass, etc.

When you think of it as a cartoony thing, yeah, it's funny! Like seeing Lightbulb/OJ from II shattering, Woody burning to death, etc etc, it's just a silly lil' gag! But imagine it from the perspective of an Object.

First off, how would objects react to "gore"? I mean, it's rather hard to differentiate between shredded fabric from a random shirt versus one from an Actual Sentient Object.

Imagine seeing a crime scene, a bedroom, completely torn apart. Cuts and slashes, an assortment of fabric and stuffing scattered everywhere. How do you tell torn blankets apart from the deceased Pillow?

Imagine being an electronic Object, walking in a lab/warehouse/factory, and seeing bits and pieces of wires, metal, chips, and plastic shells strewn around the place. Other Objects might not think much about it, it's just random scraps. But to the poor electronic Object, they might as well just be a pig in a slaughterhouse.

What's even more horrifying is the thought of seeing materials where they don't belong. Fallen leaves, twigs, and wooden splinters in a forest? That's normal! Seeing those in the living room? Unless you had a door open during a storm, that's definitely not normal. Doesn't help that you haven't seen your best friend Oak in a while. Could this be what's left of them?

What about ways to deal with the bodies? To hide an Object's body, you could just. "Modify" them. Wood? Carve them into something else. Paper? Tear them apart and just the wind scatter the remains! Plastic? Reuse, reduce, recycle. There's no blood to worry about!

Anyways, the thing that lead me to this entire idea in the first place is splatter movies (aka, those movies with a TON of gore). How would it work in an Object setting? For humans, you can just easily paint something red and call it a day, but Objects don't have that (unless they do in your setting, then uh. Ignore this).

Would they just throw a bunch of scraps into the scene and call it a day (like how most splatter movies tend to have WAYYYY more blood than what a normal human being should have)? Or would there be a more universal symbol of The Body?

Anyways, that's all I have in my mind ✌

[trivialbob]

My wife is really getting into the care and maintenance of our Crokinole board. She likes buying accessories for the game too. What good is a hobby if you don't buy gear and accessories for it?

She has a call out to someone about making a custom, heavy duty, lined tote bag to carry the board when we go to the brewery. The person sews boat sails and covers and would use the same material for this bag.

That container of powdered shuffle board wax should last us years. That didn't stop her from buying a "special" brush and tiny dustpan to sweep up the stuff. The little scoop has a hollow handle with openings on each ends, allowing her to pour excess wax back into the large bottle.

When I questioned the necessity and cost of a little paintbrush with a Crokinole logo painted on it and a plastic scoop versus a piece of paper, she explained that "It's for recycling, Bob. You know how much you like recycling and reusing things."

In other words, Bob, shut up.

[longlistshort]

“After Storm in the Fen”, 2024, Oil on canvas

"Squall Lines", 2024, Oil on canvas

For Rachel MacFarlane’s exhibition, Coming Events Cast Their Light Before Them, at Hollis Taggart, she has painted several dreamlike landscapes based on her travels to places impacted by climate events. She first creates maquettes from her observations (three are on view) and then uses them as the basis for the paintings.

From the press release-

At its core, MacFarlane’s work is about lamenting the loss of specific landscapes through creating and depicting new worlds where humans are no longer the protagonists. MacFarlane spends much of her time immersed in unique geographical environments – often ones that have been heavily impacted by climate change-related weather events. While working on her newest body of work, MacFarlane spent extensive time in places ranging from the Adirondacks to Wolfe’s Neck Woods State Park in Maine, and from Prince Edward Island right after it had been hit by Hurricane Fiona to Clearwater, Manitoba during unprecedented flooding. As has always been her practice, MacFarlane does not document while she travels, instead preferring to absorb the atmosphere of a place and spend time really immersed in its sights and sounds. Upon returning to her studio, MacFarlane transforms her observations into three-dimensional maquettes created out of paper, paint, and plastic.

As MacFarlane describes it, a lot of play takes place at her collage table, as she manufactures new spaces based loosely on the spirit of specific ones, drawing on a myriad of influences from theatre and architecture to the world-building of science fiction literature and movies. The paintings in this show were specifically influenced by MacFarlane’s research into the Augsburg Book of Miracles, a manuscript depicting celestial and weather phenomena made in Augsburg, Germany in the sixteenth century. MacFarlane was moved and inspired by how these anonymous illustrators centuries before her were also dedicated to tracking warning signs in the landscape and to recording them in creative ways.

While she describes the model-building as a distancing method, it is also one that creates intimacy, as the scale shift to a shallow box model leads to the creation of a miniature world we can literally hold in our hands versus the enormity of the environment. After MacFarlane distills the memory of a place into an object, she further transforms it into its final form on the canvas, using bold colors and thick brushwork that highlights the painterliness and artifice of her landscapes. As art critic Barry Schwabsky notes in the catalogue essay, these multiple translations and transformations allow MacFarlane to “operate with and against flatness and depth, illusion and physicality, naturalness and theatricality… Her work gives pleasure but also warns that with all these unavoidable antitheses, the choice of one pole or the other would be hopeless, and we have to learn to live with the tensions between them.”

This exhibition closes 5/25/24.

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 32, 2024

In and Out of Criticality? State-Dependent Scaling in the Rat Visual Cortex. Castro, D. M., Feliciano, T., de Vasconcelos, N. A. P., Soares-Cunha, C., Coimbra, B., Rodrigues, A. J., … Copelli, M. (2024). PRX Life, 2(2), 023008.

An event-termination cue causes perceived time to dilate. Choe, S., & Kwon, O.-S. (2024). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 31(2), 659–669.

Stimulus-dependent differences in cortical versus subcortical contributions to visual detection in mice. Cone, J. J., Mitchell, A. O., Parker, R. K., & Maunsell, J. H. R. (2024). Current Biology, 34(9), 1940-1952.e5.

Sexually dimorphic control of affective state processing and empathic behaviors. Fang, S., Luo, Z., Wei, Z., Qin, Y., Zheng, J., Zhang, H., … Li, B. (2024). Neuron, 112(9), 1498-1517.e8.

Post-retrieval stress impairs subsequent memory depending on hippocampal memory trace reinstatement during reactivation. Heinbockel, H., Wagner, A. D., & Schwabe, L. (2024). Science Advances, 10(18).

An effect that counts: Temporally contiguous action effect enhances motor performance. Karsh, N., Ahmad, Z., Erez, F., & Hadad, B.-S. (2024). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 31(2), 897–905.

Learning enhances representations of taste-guided decisions in the mouse gustatory insular cortex. Kogan, J. F., & Fontanini, A. (2024). Current Biology, 34(9), 1880-1892.e5.

Babbling opens the sensory phase for imitative vocal learning. Leitão, A., & Gahr, M. (2024). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(18), e2312323121.

Information flow between motor cortex and striatum reverses during skill learning. Lemke, S. M., Celotto, M., Maffulli, R., Ganguly, K., & Panzeri, S. (2024). Current Biology, 34(9), 1831-1843.e7.

Statistically inferred neuronal connections in subsampled neural networks strongly correlate with spike train covariances. Liang, T., & Brinkman, B. A. W. (2024). Physical Review E, 109(4), 044404.

Pre-acquired Functional Connectivity Predicts Choice Inconsistency. Madar, A., Kurtz-David, V., Hakim, A., Levy, D. J., & Tavor, I. (2024). Journal of Neuroscience, 44(18), e0453232024.

Alpha-band sensory entrainment improves audiovisual temporal acuity. Marsicano, G., Bertini, C., & Ronconi, L. (2024). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 31(2), 874–885.

Excitability mediates allocation of pre-configured ensembles to a hippocampal engram supporting contextual conditioned threat in mice. Mocle, A. J., Ramsaran, A. I., Jacob, A. D., Rashid, A. J., Luchetti, A., Tran, L. M., … Josselyn, S. A. (2024). Neuron, 112(9), 1487-1497.e6.

Incidentally encoded temporal associations produce priming in implicit memory. Mundorf, A. M. D., Uitvlugt, M. G., & Healey, M. K. (2024). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 31(2), 761–771.

Intrinsic and Synaptic Contributions to Repetitive Spiking in Dentate Granule Cells. Shu, W.-C., & Jackson, M. B. (2024). Journal of Neuroscience, 44(18), e0716232024.

Dynamic prediction of goal location by coordinated representation of prefrontal-hippocampal theta sequences. Wang, Y., Wang, X., Wang, L., Zheng, L., Meng, S., Zhu, N., … Ming, D. (2024). Current Biology, 34(9), 1866-1879.e6.

Calibrating Bayesian Decoders of Neural Spiking Activity. Wei 魏赣超, G., Tajik Mansouri زینب تاجیک منصوری, Z., Wang 王晓婧, X., & Stevenson, I. H. (2024). Journal of Neuroscience, 44(18), e2158232024.

Attribute amnesia as a product of experience-dependent encoding. Yan, N., & Anderson, B. A. (2024). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 31(2), 772–780.

A common format for representing spatial location in visual and motor working memory. Yousif, S. R., Forrence, A. D., & McDougle, S. D. (2024). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 31(2), 697–707.

Unified control of temporal and spatial scales of sensorimotor behavior through neuromodulation of short-term synaptic plasticity. Zhou, S., & Buonomano, D. V. (2024). Science Advances, 10(18).

[venacoeurva]

kind of obsessed with your lineart it looks so cool and strong and waaaaah do you have any advice for how to get better at lining stuff

Glad you like it, I love doing it :]

And I find what really helps if finding a comfortable pen for you (or sleeve/grip if you're limited with styluses like on IOS devices) and tips (if digital), which will also help with avoiding strain and positioning your hand/fingers/tablet weirdly. If you draw digitally and use a tablet with an EMR pen, usually those can be swapped out with other more ergonomic ones with no issue. For example, I like using a Wacom One pen with metal replacement nibs with my s6 lite when I draw on it, way more comfortable and easy to control. If you want to find good options for those, a lot of Reddit threads on them exist. Also, matte/paperlike screen protectors feel great and pretty cheap nowadays, but do eat plastic and rubber tab pen tips.

For actual drawing stuff, I find pulling the lines versus pushing really helps with smoothness, especially with the lines going where you actually want them to go, and finding a comfortable pressure curve (if you use pressure settings, if not perhaps edit velocity and tilt settings if your program has those if drawing digitally) and stabilizer help a ton. The pull vs. push might vary by handedness, though, since lefties "push" lines and letters on paper when writing when righties "pull" their letters and lines along paper, y'know? So that might vary per person and their sense of comfort and what feels right.

Also, if you're someone who finds it hard to line sketches because the lineart just doesn't look like the sketch, gaussian blur the sketches a bit. It might help kill the perfectionist in your brain for those pieces. Studying how other artists do lineart and where and why they use different weights and level of detail definitely can't hurt either.

[macclownn]

um just had a kitkat for the first time in years and their new "recyclable" packaging is...... plastic. with a foil inside. ie not recyclable unless you take it to select stores (which literally no one does bcus if you care enough about the environment to do that you probably aren't buying from nestle to begin with). versus the paper/foil packaging they used to have. which is easily recyclable at home. i'm 🙃🙃🙃.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

New criteria to determine whether shear bands are beneficial or harmful to crystalline materials

Shear band formation is not typically a good sign in a material—the bands often appear before a material fractures or fails. But materials science and engineering researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have found that shear bands aren't always a negative; under the right conditions, they can improve the ductility, or the plasticity, of a material.

Led by Izabela Szlufarska, a professor of materials science and engineering at UW–Madison, the researchers published details of their work in the journal Nature Materials.

Using a combination of experimental characterization and simulations, the team identified potential strategies for encouraging shear bands. This could lead to new ways of increasing the toughness of a wide array of materials.

"In a previous paper, we demonstrated that shear bands in a material called samarium cobalt could actually be beneficial," says Szlufarska. "That led to the questions, "When do shear bands form?" and "When do they support plasticity versus fracture? When do you want to avoid them and when do you want to promote them?'"

Read more.

[elysiumwaits]

Poem: Paper Pajamas

Paper Pajamas

We talk about the news The weather How many hours there are in a hold That Tokyo Drift was the best in the series But Hobbs & Shaw can hold its own.

Critter tells stories of Kentucky, 1979. Fourteen years old Biker bars, Hell's Angels, and Outlaws All the women that he would never really love And all the men he never could.

Clay's little girls are at home, waiting Weekend dad Forever proud of recitals he's never invited to Anger issues he hates with everything he has, But never more than he hates himself. There's hot chocolate but no spoons, Bright-eyed students Hosting groups about stress and skills for "coping" Ready to change our lives with inspirational quotes and haldol Sympathize, but unable to empathize

(Walk a mile in our grippy socks, then see how far personality tests get you)

Some of us fight and scream, "I'd rather be dead." Disrespect is subjective, but abuse isn't "You can't change the world," we whisper, tired. They smile and say, "So change yourself instead."

There's a benzo-hazy truth, though Survival versus living The world needs a wake-up call, too Face accountability and addictions and Adderall and Admit its darkest secrets to a doctor on a telehealth monitor

Humanity should color with dry markers, Wear non-slip socks Have to ask for a golf pencil And talk about planets and galaxies and stars that go dark Brilliant, shining, temporary moments too close to the Sun

Tell the moon that it needs to settle down The Big Bang? Wasn't as bad as it thinks That it needs to fit itself into the orbit that Earth made for it After it kindly broke the moon in the first place

Earth should have a seat at a plastic table Bolted to the floor With Mars and Pluto Talk and tell stories and leave behind what it can't really spare Pieces of stardust glittering on the stark tile floor.

[lixprocesslog]

Love =>< Love is a piece with repurposed materials

Materials

Sheet of plastic +- A3 which used to be in a photo frame: Imprint Love Love in pink

Another sheet with orange and red flowers which was already wrinkled

Cardboard pieces of a coolblue box

Paper tea bags

a piece of cord

charcoal

a receipt

gel medium

black paint

water

a wood burn stamp

glue

Meaning

It's a piece meant to represent struggle, tears , uneven playfield, rage, depression… and cheekiness, hidden meaning, layers in the literal and figurative sense.

It mostly represents my own journey of liberty, freedom to do as you please, freedom to express emotions, freedom to be, freedom to love or not love, to make our own choices. As simple as these seem, mentally I have had limited freedoms, limited by beliefs, stereotypes, ideals and roles that are imposed.

The struggle is portrayed in the ripping of the paper and chaotically placing it all over the artwork. It could also be perceived in the piece of cord. It has light and black parts representing illness or mental illness versus life that falls lightly. Even the burning of the edges of the thin paper represents struggle and internal pain. The darkness represents the heaviness of feelings. In this piece the darkness is clearly portrayed and not hidden to show it to the world. It’s not sugar coated, actually quite the opposite as the canvas is sprinkled with salt. Salt is known to keep safe, and is sprinkled to protect the subject of the feelings of further harm. The uneven structure of the cardboard is highlighted in black charcoal to better show it. This piece is all about telling, showing, not hiding. Yet the layers and black do conceal some of the work. It represents the freedom to feel and to heal. In our society, feeling bad feelings is not yet widely accepted, it is deemed uncomfortable for the other person to see you struggle with ‘bad feelings’. There are no bad feelings. Once felt they melt away so hiding them has no use but to keep someone else comforted. The colors in this work are familiar to those who know. Soft pink, orange and red are significant markers of the freedom to love. They also give the piece a soft feminine vibe amongst the harsh black and still abundant white and cream. The teabags represent cheekiness. The yellow gives them a happy touch. Some of the words are still readable. "Partagez ce avec", "for everyone", enjoy", "rgy". Of course they also represent what's wrong with our world, our history and what contributes to our mental health. The wealthy enjoy their tea while it's harvested with a tremendous amount of labor and shipped across the world in containers. Our comfort is created by the work of others. Our luxury is someone else’s misery. To reinforce that, the label of the shipped box is visible. Postmen are also known to work on a killing schedule while other people enjoy having their goods delivered to their doorstep. The handwritten receipt is reminiscent of old times, but also reinforces that message that money is everywhere. The receipt might also signify deception. Nowadays all receipts are typed out, to keep track of sales for government taxes. Is this a sign of tax fraud? Who is hit the hardest by tax fraud? The other workers who miss out on benefits because of it? Or the ones inning taxes? Are honest people at a disadvantage because of it? One thing is certain, we are all at a disadvantage when the ones with big incomes don't pay taxes. Wealth is distributed unevenly, people aren’t able to afford a comfortable living anymore. Were we ever? Are we too dangerous to the ruling power when we could? Actual freedoms seem to disappear worldwide. Mental freedoms become more important? Love is one of those, love comes in many forms. Friends, lovers, community, pets (weird way to handle animals, they are caged and not there in free will, even though I have a cat). Pets signify or need to control everything as humans. We are afraid of how unhinged things would be if they roam freely. Same goes for humans, the ruling class is afraid of how free we would be and how we wouldnt give a fuck about them and they would lose control.

This work is subconsciously influenced by the collage classes in my painting class, the unhinged tv show I saw yesterday wie zoekt die wint, and the abstract work of some of my painting friends and coworkers/ co-artists like Lluis salvador sanchez, Han coussement, Joke derycke and examples in the painting classes. And probably more given the subconscious part.

The title love =>< love could be a reference to the love is love queer slogan. But the >< signs also imply a clash. I interpret this in a way that hetero love is portrayed everywhere but once there’s a drop of queer love visible, it is a problem for some, and the abundant love all of a sudden needs to shrink.

[exemind]

Junk Removal Company Versus Dumpster Rental?

With the old year gone and another president and year in front of us, right now is an ideal opportunity to sort out your home and dispose of the junk jumbling your valuable space. It's exceptionally fulfilling and compensating to clean up the flotsam and jetsam which might be waiting in your loft, yard, storm cellar, carport, and so forth. There are multiple approaches to removing your junk. 1) Rent a dumpster 2) Hire a local waste removal company to haul off your junk.

Renting a dumpster for seven days usually cost about $250 - $400 for a 30 or 40 yard holder. The dumpster company will drop off the tremendous holder on your yard or carport. This might appear to be perfect with the exception of you have an unattractive holder so that all could see for the week as well as take the risk of breaking and demolishing your costly substantial carport. In addition, you need to give your time and hard work to convey and drag all your junk yourself to fill the dumpster. Likewise, you need to address the full cost for the size dumpster you buy, in any case if you fill the dumpster altogether or not.

The better decision for junk removal and hauling is to hire an eco-accommodating junk removal company to accomplish practically everything. They will give you a via phone estimate of your work preceding showing up. At the point when they show up with their container truck, you essentially show them the waste you need discarded and their group will load your junk in their truck and haul it away. Most junk removal companies charge by the volume and weight and the truck space it takes for your junk. An entire 14 foot box truck can fit on normal around a one vehicle carport brimming with junk.

One more benefit of hiring a legitimate waste removal company is that they recycle what they can, i.e., old furniture, machines, salvaged materials, development garbage, paper, plastics, and so on. They likewise realize which recycling focuses acknowledge items for recycling and which ones don't, i.e., paint tires, batteries, hazardous material, and so on. Most junk companies will haul away most anything, however, because they are charged extra for some disposals, may charge somewhat extra for disposal of peril type materials.

[the-girl-with-the-glass-heart]

Shout out to all my fellow ND people who constantly feel burnt out cause all their hyperfixations/special interests keep getting called out for being problematic in some way.

Ofc it's very important to point put problematic media, criticisim is the only way things can improve and it's good for people to know the people they support is problematic, alot of people don't wanna support terfs on accident. Problematic media can also really harm people irl by contributing to stereotypes and funding racist organizations so it's good we are learning about this, you should totally take time to listen and educate yourself.... But also hnnnnggg it gets so fucking exhausting sometimes!

you hyperfixate on one thing and then bam you find out it's got a problematic history and you feel like complete shit for liking it in the first place. It's even worse if your community has been actively hurt by the people behind the hyperfixation, like if you're trans and love harry potter or jewish and love disney.

There's no solution, we can't just not talk about this stuff, it's just super fucking exhausting to deal with and really sucks tbh. It certainly does not help that ND people often aren't on the same wavelength as NT's so then they get onto us for not immediately understanding their long af callout post filled with words that once meant something important but now have been reduced to mushy paste.

I think the best thing we can do is just remember that you're not a bad person for growing attached to this media, especially if it's something from your childhood you just now realized was problematic. Special interests and hyperfixations are a necessity for us, alot of the time it's the thing that reminds us to keep living, as long you know it's wrong and you are trying your best you are okay.

You also don't have to listen to NT people trying to shame you into giving up your hyperfixation, especially if they aren't the minority being affected and you are. You do what you can when you can.

With all that being said though, there are still ways around supporting problematic creators that you shpukd try, ad blocker, piracy, buying merchandise from independent creators. All of it would be really helpful. I still understand thought if you are unable to do these things, not everyone will be able to.

It's just like with plastic straws versus paper straws, you know plastic harms the environment but you can't help it if the paper straw gives you sensory issues so you can't use them. Your hyperfixations are a necessity to keep you comfortable.

[trivialbob]

Recently I did an online Target order.

Instead of making a shopping list on paper, I used Target's web site to put items in the online basket. I planned to read the list on my phone as I shopped as Sam Walton intended -- in person inside a big box.

Because I simply could click "place order" I decided to try the pick up option. I chose this method over delivery because it feels weird to me having UPS or FedEx deliver paper towels and tissues. I tried the shipping a few years ago. Liquid items were wrapped and zip tied in extra plastic bags. There was tape applied over caps. It seemed like a tremendous waste of resources. And, despite the crying children, I do like to walk around and browse the store.

Shortly after placing my order an email arrived, telling me two items were not available. No problem. But guess what I ordered that was available: Pizza Flavored Goldfish Crackers.

In an earlier visit to Target I didn't find pizza flavored Goldfish on the shelf. I suspect this time, after placing the online order, someone recognized my household has some sort of frequent flyer account due to how much my wife spends.

I think she has the Target Bright Red Card. It's like AmEx's Platinum Card, but for Target. Most shoppers just have the Target Dull Red Card, to get that 5% discount.

My guess is the store has a special secure room for high value products. Target makes sure these items, like the always hard to find pizza Goldfish crackers, are available to Bright Red Card households.

The next morning the order was ready for pickup. When I arrived a friendly and quick employee checked a bar code on my phone. "Oh, this is for Sheila's house!"

He promptly brought out my merchandise. After I verified the pizza Goldfish were there I felt safe assuming everything else was accounted for. Then I put everything in my car and came back. I needed more things but didn't want to go through the store with items I already paid for, lest they tell me at the exit I didn't pay for everything.

I completed my second round of shopping. Target had been out of the four-pack of facial tissues. I simply got a six-pack instead. That is a good reason right there why I will stick to selecting my own items versus using with the Internet.

[denimbex1986]

'Boppenheimer. Oppenbarbie. Whatever you’re calling the double-bill of the century, wherein Christopher Nolan’s scorching epic Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s kitsch masterpiece Barbie are both released on Friday 21 July, you have to admit that the cultural moment is fast amounting to more than the sum of its parts.

After sustained giggling on social media about the incongruously shared release date – are you team Pink or team Black? Is it better to see Barbie or Oppenheimer first (obviously it goes Oppenheimer, then Barbie for dessert, are you mad)? – it turns out that, for many filmophiles, the idea of watching one right after the other was more than just a joke. Sometimes art imitates life – and sometimes, as with the Boppenheimer memes, life imitates art.

Following the announcement from AMC that 20,000 people have already secured tickets for both of the summer’s biggest blockbusters on the same day, it seems that the British public is not just ready but begging for the emotional whiplash that only chain-smoking Cillian Murphy and Saccarine-sweet Margot Robbie can deliver. I for one can hardly wait; and after the few years we’ve had, is it any wonder that this most atonal of chords – ultimate desolation versus peppy plastic – is resonating so profoundly?

In a simpler time, the distinctions between Barbie and Oppenheimer – their aesthetics, their world views – would have made such audience overlap unthinkable. But this is the UK in 2023, where nothing is straightforward – least of all anything so complicated as feelings. I can’t be the only one yo-yoing between elation and devastation depending on what headline I’m looking at. On one hand, we’re post-pandemic, but mid-cost of living crisis on the other; we’re 13 years into a Tory government and knee-deep in Brexit, but at least Trump’s gone; this month delivered the two hottest days of the planet on record, but, you know, at least it’s summer…?

As you can see, it’s hard to know where to let your emotional dial rest; there’s plenty to be downcast about, and yet, after being locked inside for two years, a distinct sense that life’s too short to waste it crying. Faced with such a stark binary, what’s a girl to do? A middle ground feels impossible – instead, may I interest you in, um, everything at once?

First up, a hedonist sugar-rush of blaring pink, Barbie promises a bingo-board of zeitgeisty Gen-Z nihilism and brilliant shoes. When I was teenager, there was nothing less cool than the hyper-femininity Barbie embodied; the highest (and looking back, the most back-handed) compliment me and my classmates could be paid was “you’re not like other girls”. While we’ve got plenty of room left to grow, recent years have seen that sentiment shift. From 2022’s TikTok bimbo-core moment, celebrating superficial glossiness and its power to paper over a niggling sense of powerlessness, to the long overdue reappraisal of history’s most underestimated it-girls, unapologetic pink was having a moment even before the Barbie film was announced last year. Perhaps softness, femininity, even – whisper it – pink itself, isn’t so bad after all? And when the world’s on fire, what’s the harm in enjoying something sparkly?

On the polar-opposite end of the spectrum is Oppenheimer. At three hours long, Christopher Nolan’s harrowing marathon promises anything but escapism, instead scrutinising the origins of the atomic bomb and mining the conscience of the man who helped to develop it. We’re talking darkest-heart-of-humanity, greatest-tragedies-of-all-time, we’re talking devastation and depravity, the kind of misguided hubris that changes the world for the worse. I expect to exit Oppenheimer with a renewed hopelessness, a heavy heart, and the kind of malaise that only a late lunch with loads of wine can assuage – which is perfect, because cocktails are at 6, and we’re all wearing gingham.

What I’m saying re world-ending catastrophes is, good to keep one’s eye in. I’m also saying that there’s no harm – scratch that, there is essential soul-salving good – in seeking joy and frivolity during life’s darkest moments. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, that’s a seesaw we’re all increasingly familiar with: life is both beautiful and horrifying, people are both awful and extraordinarily generous, and I’m going to see both Oppenheimer and Barbie on 22 July.

See you at the afters for electrolytes and candyfloss, in that order.'

[compneuropapers]

Interesting Papers for Week 28, 2024

Hierarchical control over foraging behavior by anterior cingulate cortex. Alejandro, R. J., & Holroyd, C. B. (2024). Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 160, 105623.

Dissociable encoding of motivated behavior by parallel thalamo-striatal projections. Beas, S., Khan, I., Gao, C., Loewinger, G., Macdonald, E., Bashford, A., … Penzo, M. A. (2024). Current Biology, 34(7), 1549-1560.e3.

Active reinforcement learning versus action bias and hysteresis: control with a mixture of experts and nonexperts. Colas, J. T., O’Doherty, J. P., & Grafton, S. T. (2024). PLOS Computational Biology, 20(3), e1011950.

Alignment of brain embeddings and artificial contextual embeddings in natural language points to common geometric patterns. Goldstein, A., Grinstein-Dabush, A., Schain, M., Wang, H., Hong, Z., Aubrey, B., … Hasson, U. (2024). Nature Communications, 15, 2768.

Optimal reaching subject to computational and physical constraints reveals structure of the sensorimotor control system. Greene, P., Bastian, A. J., Schieber, M. H., & Sarma, S. V. (2024). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(14), e2319313121.

Maturation of cortical input to dorsal raphe nucleus increases behavioral persistence in mice. Gutierrez-Castellanos, N., Sarra, D., Godinho, B. S., & Mainen, Z. F. (2024). eLife, 13, e93485.

Antipsychotic drugs selectively decorrelate long-range interactions in deep cortical layers. Heindorf, M., & Keller, G. B. (2024). eLife, 12, e86805.4.

Perceptual learning changes the amplitude not the shape of the temporal window of visual processing. Lin, L., Ruan, X., Liu, R., Zhu, J., Zhang, W., Lu, Z.-L., … Hou, F. (2024). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 50(4), 523–534.

Learning leaves a memory trace in motor cortex. Losey, D. M., Hennig, J. A., Oby, E. R., Golub, M. D., Sadtler, P. T., Quick, K. M., … Chase, S. M. (2024). Current Biology, 34(7), 1519-1531.e4.

A role of frontal association cortex in long‐term object recognition memory of objects with complex features in rats. Masmudi‐Martín, M., López‐Aranda, M. F., Navarro‐Lobato, I., & Khan, Z. U. (2024). European Journal of Neuroscience, 59(7), 1743–1752.

Predictive coding networks for temporal prediction. Millidge, B., Tang, M., Osanlouy, M., Harper, N. S., & Bogacz, R. (2024). PLOS Computational Biology, 20(4), e1011183.

Unravelling the multisensory learning advantage: Different patterns of within and across frequency-specific interactions drive uni- and multisensory neuroplasticity. Paraskevopoulos, E., Anagnostopoulou, A., Chalas, N., Karagianni, M., & Bamidis, P. (2024). NeuroImage, 291, 120582.

Collective sensing in electric fish. Pedraja, F., & Sawtell, N. B. (2024). Nature, 628(8006), 139–144.

Stochastic attractor models of visual working memory. Penny, W. (2024). PLOS ONE, 19(4), e0301039.

Brain mechanism of foraging: Reward-dependent synaptic plasticity versus neural integration of values. Pereira-Obilinovic, U., Hou, H., Svoboda, K., & Wang, X.-J. (2024). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(14), e2318521121.

Space as a scaffold for rotational generalisation of abstract concepts. Pesnot Lerousseau, J., & Summerfield, C. (2024). eLife, 13, e93636.3.

A midbrain GABAergic circuit constrains wakefulness in a mouse model of stress. Ren, S., Zhang, C., Yue, F., Tang, J., Zhang, W., Zheng, Y., … Hu, Z. (2024). Nature Communications, 15, 2722.

A machine‐learning tool to identify bistable states from calcium imaging data. Varma, A., Udupa, S., Sengupta, M., Ghosh, P. K., & Thirumalai, V. (2024). Journal of Physiology, 602(7), 1243–1271.

Ocular surface information seen from the somatosensory thalamus and cortex. Velasco, E., Zaforas, M., Acosta, M. C., Gallar, J., & Aguilar, J. (2024). Journal of Physiology, 602(7), 1405–1426.

Causal functional maps of brain rhythms in working memory. Wischnewski, M., Berger, T. A., Opitz, A., & Alekseichuk, I. (2024). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(14), e2318528121.