Jessie Slater @subbasegirl@qoto.org

I hope you’re following the work David Wengrow and team are doing on the ancient Ukrainian city of Nebelivka. Fully the size of medieval London by *3200BC*, comprised “of self-governing districts…with assemblies for decision making,” Nebelivka is forcing us to rewrite the history of cities, and to question especially the standard narrative of primordial state formation. The state just isn’t as central to our experience as we were taught it was. #anarchism #municipalism #urbanism #archaeology

Topped that last one. This is more even with lots of detail.
#eclipse #lunareclipse #bloodmoon #astrophotography

Too often, I hear people say that if you have a chronic mental health challenge, you shouldn’t go to grad school. This doesn’t have to be true. The key is to choose a supportive program and mentor and proactively manage your condition. You belong and can be successful.

#MentalHealthMatters #mentoring #graduatestudent #mastodon #research #academia #phdlife #phdchat

This explainer is just so well written

From Chris Stringer and Lucile Crete, a new paper mapping interaction between #Neanderthal people and Homo sapiens.
#Archaeology #HumanOrigins https://paleoanthropology.org/ojs/index.php/paleo/article/view/130/775

From the archaeologist's field #sketchbook:

These depictions of leaping #foxes from the 10th millennium BCE site of #GobekliTepe (Turkey) take up a key role in our understanding of Pre-Pottery #Neolithic #iconography.

These are indeed not simply depictions of animals - apparently these are meant *hunting* animals. Hunters among hunters?

When depression says you're all alone, know there are people who care about you.

When depression says you don't deserve healing, know that you are worth it.

When depression says you're the only one, know that you're surrounded by millions.

Depression lies.

#MentalHealthMatters #mentoring #graduatestudent #introduction #mastodon #failure #research #academia #phdlife

This is a really insightful interview with @Gargron, the founder of Mastodon. His main disagreement with the bird app is around contrasting ideas of free speech. There’s a “strange dichotomy,” he says, that makes Mastodon what it is: on the one hand, more decentralized, more democratic, and, on the other—and perhaps paradoxically, if you’re used to the capitalist, top-down model of social media—safer. Worth reading if you want to understand the ethics/philosophy behind this platform we’ve all chosen to use.

https://time.com/6229230/mastodon-eugen-rochko-interview/

We're hiring a senior editor at Scientific American to help run our opinion, commentary & analysis coverage. Thanks for applying or recommending the job to people you think would be good candidates. https://careers.springernature.com/job/New-York-Senior-Opinion-Editor%2C-Scientific-American/866115301/

Twitter was really useful for finding people to write about. I’d often stumble across incredible stories of discovery, innovation and leadership. I hope #ScienceMastodon can be the same. If you come across extraordinary, inspirational #WomenInSTEM / researchers from other historically excluded groups, please let me know! #TwitterMigration

Twitter was free because we were the product of a marketing service.

Mastodon is free software but someone will have to pay the bill for the servers. When the server admins come asking for help, don't be offended and be ready to chip in

1. at the top of your notifications column, there is an icon with three horizontal lines/sliders. Click on it.
2. It will expand into a menu where you can turn off "play sound" for each type of notification.
3. Scroll down for more notification types, turning off as you go.
4. Enjoy blissful silence without having to mute the whole tab.

A number of people have asked what I could have done better. In particular, I should have set the first post in the thread to public and the rest of the posts as unlisted.

Here's a fantastic explainer from @djnavarro via @flodebarre:
https://blog.djnavarro.net/posts/2022-11-03_what-i-know-about-mastodon/#how-can-i-make-threads

(It's worth reading the entire thing. I learned a ton.)

TL;DR: That #LEGO "#GreatPyramid of #Giza" model everybody's talking about really is as great as they say. And it comes with lots of little details which make you want to read up on the current state of research in #Egyptology. 😉

This is the megathread from twitter about #Kindred

https://twitter.com/LeMoustier/status/1296747859186978817

Then one day Rupert Murdoch buys the zoo. Aussie that he is, he loves emus—so he doubles the herd, and brings in a mob* of wallabies as well. As a cost-saving measure, fires all the emu keepers. He accuses us of hating emus.

He stops selling chocolate-covered frozen bananas.

*Mob. A mob of wallabies. That’s the technical collective noun, not a slur.

Imagine that my friends and I like to meet at the zoo to discuss Kant.

But every time we settle in for a good conversation about transcendental idealism, a modest-sided herd of inebriated emus arrive, playing vuvuzelas and waving placards about how we should be tried at The Hague for reading Leibniz, reading Hegel, not reading Hegel, whatever.

You cannot run an arbitrary search on Mastodon — in plain English: you cannot search for a specific expression in toots

Why? It's because allowing it would open the gate of harassment. It's not a bug, it's a conscious design decision.

How to find content then? Use hashtags instead! Including in your own toots — to make them easily discoverable. You can also browse the local and federated timelines.

#HowToMast

Tiny Handy Newbie Mastodon Vocabulary List 🐘:

INSTANCE 🖥️​
The server/place where your account is hosted. They are independent and managed by different people. They have different rules. The name of it is what is following your handle/username here.

TOOT ​
This is just a post. Like a post on Twitter is called a tweet. On #Mastodon it is called a toot.

CW ⚠️​
Content Warning. This is an important feature here. You can get more details on it on this toot: https://infosec.exchange/@Em0nM4stodon/109282181601490676

FEDIVERSE 🌍​
This is the WHOLE UNIVERSE from which Mastodon is a small part of. Mastodon is one of the social media that connects to the Fediverse, but there are also others like Friendica and Pixelfed. It is also sometimes called simply Fedi.

You can read some great #FediTips and explanations on here 👉 https://fedi.tips/mastodon-and-the-fediverse-beginners-start-here/