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Knowledge - Blog Posts
Skip Google for Research
As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse. It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms
As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable. As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.
Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.
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Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.
www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.
www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free
'Sometimes the scariest answers are the scarier questions.'
-Abraham Lincoln, age 12, 1942
So true... children are full of gifts but we're taught to neglect and forget them in order to fit in this "ideal" world.
From a teen to the adults (And others)
Forcing people do do things is wrong. It doesn't matter the person or the cercumstances. Its wrong. My own parents somehow don't understand that. People have their triggers, their dislikes, certain things that bother us more than the person standing beside us. Some people aren't afraid to jump head first, some are. Example, a couple years ago I went to this.... Swimming area? A natural pool where people would swim and hang out at. You would climb the slope up to a drop, where then, you would jump. When I got up though, it was muddy and slippery, I was going to do it even when I slipped. The people down below started trying to encourage me. Despite the good intentions, it didn't help. I got overwhelmed, I turned back around thoroughly embarrassed. My father getting onto me for it wasn't exactly helping either. The people had good intentione, I wasn't mad at them. Like my parents, they try and break me out of my shell all the time. Its the way those people do things though. Shoving people into it or getting hostile about their preferences and fears doesn't help. Be patient, see if they work themselves up to doing whatever it is. See if they ask you for help. If they do, be easy and understanding about it. Remember, people have borders, pushing those until they break or build higher is not the things you want to do. This isn't just to parents, but also to my age group. For anyone and everyone. Its an important piece of knowledge for life, for friends, siblings, communitys, even strangers. Don't try and pull them out of it. Reassure them, let them know they aren't alone. Separated from others in their struggles. Hated for something they try and 'fix' even when people can't see it. That they aren't broken or shoved away because of it. At least that you won't treat them that way, even if others do. Now, this isn't just for people to recognize but for the people that read this and know that it's for them. That somebody knows and others will as well.
I hope enough people see this, for enough people to be affected by what I just shared.
Reblog this if you agree or want to help.
@panromanticturtle
@leafiles
Pigeons are doves. They are rock doves, and I wonder if we began to call them that if people would hesitate to hate them, as doves have that history as messengers of peace. It is true that in my neighborhood nobody hates the mourning doves, dusky and elegant with wings that squeak as if they flap on rusty hinges. They roost on the wires like little Audrey Hepburns, while the pigeons troll the ground, tough and fat, some of them look like they should be smoking cigarettes. They look poor and banged up, like they could kick the mourning doves’ asses but are wise to the divide-and-conquer tactics we use on one another, so they coo wearily at the mourning doves and waddle forth in search of scavenged delights. What you may not know is when you call a pigeon “a rat with wings” you have given it a compliment. The only thing a rat lacks is a pair of wings to lift it, so you have named the pigeon perfectly. When you say to me, “I hate pigeons,” I want to ask you who else you hate. It makes me suspicious.
I once met a girl who was so proud to have hit such a bird on her bicycle, I swear, I thought that it was me she hit. I felt her handlebars in my stomach and now it is your job to feel it also. The pigeons are birds, they are doves. They are the nature of the city and the ones who no one loves. When people say they hate pigeons, I want to ask them if they hate themselves, too. Does it prick the well of your loathing? Do they make you feel dirty and ashamed? Are you embarrassed about how little or how much you have, for how you have had to hustle? Being dirty is not a problem for the pigeon. You can ask it, “How do you feel about having the city coating your feathers, having the streets gunked up in the crease of your eye?” and the pigeon would say, “Not a problem.” You will now stop blaming the pigeon. It is not the pigeon’s fault. The pigeon was once a dove, and then we built our filthy empire up around it, came to hate it for simply thriving in the midst our decay, came to hate it for not dying. The pigeon is your ally. They are chameleons, gray as the concrete they troll for scraps, at night they huddle and sing like cats. Their necks are glistening, iridescent as an oil-slick rainbow, they mate for life, and they fly.
Michelle Tea, Against Memoir. [emphasis mine]
Wade Watts, from the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and also the movie based on the book, is a super nerd. And to prove it I'll make the bold claim that his knowledge on James Halliday is almost or maybe even equal to MatPat's knowledge of FNAF. Just throwing it out there.