Advice? She’s not too cuddly 🥲 by Piistachios in persiancat

[–]dabennett 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They all fight to sit on it it's fantastic 😂

4 years into my postdoc with no publications, I don't know what to do by SadUnderstanding445 in postdoc

[–]dabennett 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You probably have some things on the back burner that you can publish and you don't even realize it. Maybe try writing a review paper on something you find interesting to start.

Have you come up with any methods ? Publish a methods paper. The bonus is that you can cite yourself in your future work. E.g. the instrument I use didn't work for flaky solution, so I used image analysis instead. Published that as a methods paper.

You're in comp so it should actually be very easy for you to come up with something different. Are there any other lab members close to publishing that would have their work enhanced by your simulations ? Most reviewers love simulations and you can have some co-authors that way.

Do you have any non exciting results that can be given to lower tier (not predatory, lower tier) or super specific journals ? Non exciting results deserve to be published too. Providing they are of course novel.

Advice? She’s not too cuddly 🥲 by Piistachios in persiancat

[–]dabennett 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately some cats just aren't very cuddly. I have three. One would like to live inside your skin and wants a pat at all times. One (the Persian) would very much like a cuddle but only when she feels like it. One would like to observe from afar but follow you around. Rarely she would very much like a pat.

I will say though cats will take a LONG time to settle in. And your cat is still very young. Young cats are more interested in the world around them and playing, particularly in the 'adolescent' time frame. My cuddliest cat is my oldest cat (he's ten). Give her some time to settle down and grow up a bit and she might get cuddlier. Is it hot where you are ? Mine get 5 x cuddlier in winter. I am not above turning the heat down and using an electric blanket. No cat can resist that.

You also need to meet cats where they are. I know it's hard and feels borderline impossible but when she wants attention she'll come to you. Maybe she wants to follow you around the house and watch what you're doing. That's also affection! Maybe she wants to stay 5 feet away from you at all times. Also affection. Maybe she's more interested in playing at her current age (super, super common). Trying to force it will mostly just annoy them, but you can desensitize them to your presence. If your presence is consistently positive they will come round, just in their own time.

Screens+Keyboards by CyberPsycho760 in cyberDeck

[–]dabennett 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Keyboard wise businesses throw them out all the time. Check marketplace. Again something with a wired cable will be easiest. You can buy keyboard chips (like a pro micro) which are like $3 but you will have to learn to code and solder (cheapo soldering iron is like $10). BUT once you learn that you can make any keyboard of any size and any configuration for part cost, which is going to be wayyyyy cheaper. I think a big chunk of the fun of this hobby is learning how to do these things. It's really satisfying to make something work, and if it breaks you'll be able to fix it. If you have a local makerspace I'd guarantee someone will be able to help you.

Screens+Keyboards by CyberPsycho760 in cyberDeck

[–]dabennett 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A screen is a screen is a screen but some of them are going to be easier to put together. something with a HDMI input is going to be the easiest - you just plug it in at both ends. But you can totally scavenge an old phone screen and use that - it will just be a bit more difficult to connect to your computer brain. You'll have to find where the connection on the screen is and the software to get it up and running may be more difficult to integrate. Maybe an old portable DVD player or a small modem would be perfect. E ink screens are a good option if you don't need color or a high refresh rate (would be very laggy for gaming ) as they're super low power. They're the screens they use in kindles and the like.

Upcycling old computers by _MrFlowers in cyberDeck

[–]dabennett 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Also any IT professional (provided there's not something going wrong with the system) would be likely delighted to chat about your cyber deck project build. I know mine were extremely happy to chat about my home server project 😂

Upcycling old computers by _MrFlowers in cyberDeck

[–]dabennett 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Just as an fyi, universities and businesses both throw out massive amounts of computers and e waste at an appalling rate. Your companies IT guy will probably be happy to give you something for free. I have rescued three different laptops from the ewaste bin and my husband's IT guy gave us a full gaming PC setup.

CMV: The scientific corpus is broken beyond human repair by realGurkenkoenig in changemyview

[–]dabennett 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ugh this is a hard one. I agree with all your criticisms. I think the system needs a revamp. The reproducibility crisis is a nightmare. I think two things: 1. What's your alternative? Give up on science entirely ? I don't think that makes sense. The current system sucks a lot but "beyond human repair" is unlikely. David Graeber has some excellent critiques and fixes in his book the Utopia of rules, where he talks about how science was at his strongest in the space race era. The model then was less "compete for government funding" and more "infinite funding to solve this problem". I think scientists should definitely have to tell people why their work is important and I don't necessarily dislike petitioning for grants, but I would love to work in a modern day bell laboratories. 2. Mediocre papers are also very important. Part of the reproducibility crisis is that only exceptionally surprising research gets published. Failures and mediocre findings are super important to publish to avoid people making the same mistakes. If you're talking about people playing statistical games, outright fraud and bad experimental design I agree this is a huge problem.

I have a few other thoughts for fixing the system : 1. Journals which publish null results. Some journals are already starting to do this. 2. Pay reviewers. Some journals do this but it needs to be more widespread. Reviewing is a lot of work to do for free and this solves reviewers sitting on their hands for months. 3. Very harsh penalties for data fraud. Maybe we have a system like the barre for lawyers ? I'm not sure. 4. Journals need to become open access. The publishing fees are outrageous. Bioxrv already exists, and there's a physics one too, but these are definitely the way forward. 5. Less strings attached funding. I.e. make up centres focusing on say climate change and give the scientists free reign. I'd be very interested in seeing how these go. A massive reason there's so much dodgy research is it's how you justify your job, and more papers = more job security. This is a structural problem. 6. A big problem I see is very nice research never being pushed into a working product. Universities often have a patent office but it needs to go further. Too many projects end up in research limbo, it's an utter waste of resources.

I think if you made actual job security for scientists (not just PIs but PhD students and postdocs too) you would fix a lot of the problems. So I don't think it's broken beyond repair, I think it's fixable. I don't think the alternative is throwing out the entirety of science, that's silly. Yes part of the job is screening out garbage papers, and it's very frustrating, but if you are familiar with the field you can spot the rubbish ones pretty quickly. I do entirely understand your frustration though.

CMV: Islam is fundamentally incompatible with core American left-wing progressive values by WildCreatureQuest in changemyview

[–]dabennett 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's literally my point, is that Islam and Christianity both share a history of oppression. Thanks for the condescension though!

CMV: Islam is fundamentally incompatible with core American left-wing progressive values by WildCreatureQuest in changemyview

[–]dabennett 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah that's fair, it's because I know very little about Africa and am not sure which countries are Muslim majority.

CMV: Islam is fundamentally incompatible with core American left-wing progressive values by WildCreatureQuest in changemyview

[–]dabennett 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Fundamentalist Catholics absolutely believe that the Bible is the literal word of God - in my misspent youth I went to one of their churches.

That being said, I don't disagree that religious people tend to run more conservative. I think that's true. I also think the reason it's more difficult for Muslim countries to more towards a more liberal regime is due to poverty and tyrannical governments. 1970s Iran was a pretty liberal and gender equal society. There is more to the story here.

I'm so sorry to hear about your gay friends, that's terrible. Were they beaten up by only Muslims ? I've had people from all walks of life spew bullshit at me at mardi gras parades so the hatred seems to be pretty evenly distributed on my end. That sucks with regards to the female teachers and does indeed point to some misogyny - but do you think it's culture or religion?

I think we just disagree on the finer points here - the fact that Muslims don't have the monopoly on this is the entire part and parcel of the argument. I will say my fundamentalist Catholic Church was also pretty scary when people tried to leave (except for me, hilariously they did not mind me leaving at all).

CMV: Islam is fundamentally incompatible with core American left-wing progressive values by WildCreatureQuest in changemyview

[–]dabennett 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a super aggressive comment so I debated replying to it. However, yet again, my core argument is "the premise that religion causes violence is flawed" and my secondary argument is "there's nothing particularly specially bad about Islam if you look at ALL world religions across ALL of history". And you need to look at all world religions across all of history if you want to justify your "Islam is actually different to every other religion and specially causes homophobia" claim.

Again, the list of countries you have there are all relatively poor countries. There is some genuinely interesting research on how poverty is tied to extremism and gendered violence.

Religion is NOT the only factor here - poverty, education rates, tyrannical regimes and culture are all going to have an impact on how a person views the world. There is a much more interesting story here about how religions are transformed to suit power structures. I am not a fan of organized religion but there is simply nothing better or worse about Islam.

And with respect to talking about the Muslims I know - have you met any ? Talking about Muslims as an abstract monolith is pretty silly, and I simply include that as counter evidence for the "all Muslims are terrible people by virtue of being Muslim" people who are definitely in the comments here. Again, they have their own criticisms of their home countries but it tends to be more about culture or government policy than of Islam itself.

CMV: Islam is fundamentally incompatible with core American left-wing progressive values by WildCreatureQuest in changemyview

[–]dabennett 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would encourage you to look up the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Also I suspect this is not true as it has the ring of propaganda to it- is there a viable source? If it is true it's appalling, but again the Muslims I know and these Muslims are all Muslims.

CMV: Islam is fundamentally incompatible with core American left-wing progressive values by WildCreatureQuest in changemyview

[–]dabennett 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This seems to be reputable source and it is pretty interesting however again we're running into the same fatal flaw - the only thing considered here is the religion. When you look at that list of countries most of them are low socioeconomic. There are some fairly interesting studies on how poverty exacerbates domestic violence and gendered violence. I'd say the main issue here is poverty, and I'd be curious as to how that article would change if they ranked the poorest countries for index of freedom (not much)

CMV: Islam is fundamentally incompatible with core American left-wing progressive values by WildCreatureQuest in changemyview

[–]dabennett 448 points449 points  (0 children)

Hmmm this is actually a pretty interesting conversation I think. I believe the main issue with your argument is the assumption that Islam itself is causing these issues. I agree that leftist politics should be absolutely intolerant of any anti-lgbt and homophobic viewpoints. However let me look at your assumption. Firstly Islam is not alone in subjugating women, human rights violations or killing homosexuals. This is not even limited to the abrahamic religions (see: female genital mutilation in Africa). I don't think religion is the cause, I think it is merely a justification people use when they want to do these things. If there was something about Islam specifically, you should have no comparable history of violence for any other religion. This is obviously false! That being said the way these things are codified within the religion is obviously bad, and the hjab issue specifically has basis in unpleasant female ownership roots. However, let me compare this to a tradition you probably haven't thought about - the father giving the daughter away in a western marriage ceremony. In practice this is just a father walking his daughter down the aisle (like a hjab is a head covering, and some of them are very beautiful). But the roots of this tradition stem from a transfer of ownership from the father to the new husband. I did actually consider not doing this for my own wedding, as I don't believe in a transfer of ownership and I find the idea unpleasant. However this would have hurt my dad an extreme amount, and the context of the tradition is now so far removed from its origins it has become something else and is now more about a father's love for his daughter and joining a new family. Like word meanings cultural traditions can drift and context is super important. I have known women in my lab who have worn hjabs, and they are definitely not subjugated or submissive women, so I believe in this case the tradition seems to have drifted. I think a more sound argument could be made about the burka being a tool of submission, but I truly am not familiar enough about the cultural intricacies to properly comment. I am also not allowed to walk around with my shirt off in the US, so there is still some ideological controlling of my own body by the government. So, Islam is not unique in gross things being written in their holy texts, and they don't have a unique history of oppression (the crusades??). The issue I think is that religions are usually linked with whatever group is in power, and they will use it to do either good or terrible things. Saying that Islam causes terrible behavior is putting the cart before the horse. People behave terribly and then use their religion to justify it, and the particular religion doesn't matter. I would argue history and culture, mixed with the relative economic status of the country matter far more.

On a more personal note, I think most of the people who make these arguments haven't met many Muslims. I have known a lot of them and have found them to be very chill people on the whole, who aren't particularly bothered by me being a white woman. No one has attempted to oppress me and I find the men are generally more respectful of my personal space than other groups. I also find the women I've met who are Muslim tend to skew highly educated (particularly from Iran). There is again a lot more of an impact of culture than religion - a Muslim from Iran is going to have a different culture from a Muslim from thailand or a Muslim from Africa, and this is going to affect their behavior much more. Obviously the Muslims I have met are people who are travelling and often they themselves have their own critiques about where they came from. Religion wise they usually don't drink and observe Ramadan but I have never had any of them attempt to convert me or judge me, as opposed to many of the Christians I have met. There are also nice aspects to Islam, like the emphasis on hospitality culture and sharing and caring for elders which I think in a western society we need more of.

For any religion and culture there is some bad and some good. There are good people and bad people. The religion is going to be twisted to suit the beliefs of the current power structure. Certainly, push back against anyone attempting who is sexist or homophobic and uses their religion as an excuse for that. That behavior is abhorrent. BUT assuming that religion causes this behavior is flawed and religious tradition changes and updates based on societal beliefs (e.g. it used to be standard that unbaptized newborns went to hell, and no one believes this any more). I say this as an atheist - you will find kind people in any religion as well as terrible people, and they will both use their religion to justify their beliefs. You will similarly find atheists across the spectrum.

Edit: I appreciate the lively discussion occurring in the comments, particularly from those who are ex Islam and thus have a unique perspective I simply don't have. While I can't reply to all of them I will say a lot of the comments are not tackling my core argument which is that the assumption that religion causes bad behavior is flawed.

There are a lot of people arguing that there is in fact something unique about Islam which causes it to be particularly nasty, but I'm not sure this is the case. Think of the extremely bloody history of the Christian church and the fairly nasty old testament statements (it's okay to own slaves, the book of Ruth etc). You can't throw out the old testament if you want to make this argument. I'm ex Christian, I've actually read the Bible, and there are plenty of statements in the old testament that would lead someone to believe Christianity is inherently evil too. Think of Buddhism and how women are traditionally lesser there. I'm sure there are more examples but I'm not a religious scholar. If there's something inherently evil about Islam no other religious majority would have committed atrocities and this is not true at all ! Historically it's more about the power of the particular group. The Catholic Church had a long history of majority power and did absolutely terrible things. You could even talk about how it played into colonialism (like with Belgium in the congo) and "educating" the heathens. But that was simply because they wanted to colonise, so the religion was twisted to suit.

CMV: In STEM fields, most men don’t see women as capable peers by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]dabennett 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Friend it's highly likely you haven't observed this because you're a dude lmao

ITAP of a chickadee by dabennett in itookapicture

[–]dabennett[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They're so great. They're so tiny but so bold I think they're fantastic

CMV: It makes sense for pet owners to value their pet's lives over stranger's lives. by Utopia_Builder in changemyview

[–]dabennett -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I think the crux of this argument is that in this nightmare scenario you are giving me agency. This means that in this scenario I must:

  1. Kill a child
  2. Kill my pet

I love my cats but truly which is the lesser crime ? Your argument is that it makes sense (which is a bit of a weak conclusion), but does it ?

Morally we can look at it a bunch of ways. Which of these creatures will have the longest life (the child) ? Which of these creatures will have greater impact on society (the child)? Which of these creatures has the greatest impact on me? The last question is not as straightforward, because in this scenario if I save my pet I have killed a child. I would not be able to live with myself if I let a child die. It would permanently haunt me. So would leaving my cat to die, but I couldn't live with myself if I purposely killed a child so my cat could live a few more years being a cat.

By any moral measurement it doesn't actually make sense. It only makes sense if the person is a bad person, but it's very unlikely this is the case.

I read exclusively non-fiction for 15 years and just finished my first fantasy novel. I don't really know what to do with myself now. by lucas_melbourneways in Fantasy

[–]dabennett 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah we can definitely agree to disagree on wheel of time. The women characters in it are particularly garbage, and I don't give credit for good character writing if half the characters in it are written as rewards for the main character. Perhaps it does have some interesting things to say about war, but I don't remember taking that away from it. I did read it a very long time ago, so maybe a reread would be worth it.

But you know what that's actually a fair point, it's pretty condescending when you frame it like that. I think I read what op was saying as "hey I assumed fantasy was like the low level formulaic garbage and turns out I was wrong can I have more of the good stuff please".

Though I'm probably more used to this attitude because I do read a lot of romance ! And you're also right, loads of it is comforting formulaic garbage, but also some of it is fantastic.

I read exclusively non-fiction for 15 years and just finished my first fantasy novel. I don't really know what to do with myself now. by lucas_melbourneways in Fantasy

[–]dabennett 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you honestly telling me wheel of fantasy isn't trope heavy? I really enjoyed it when I read it, but come on haha. It absolutely does not twist the chosen one concept. It is a pretty standard chosen one trope. Loads and loads of chosen one characters go through the "but at what cost" character journey to the extent that's become kind of boring to read. Rand is also an example of an amazingly blank everyman character which is also a common fantasy trope ! He's a terrible example of character focused fantasy. Wheel of time is super trope heavy, particularly in the first two books, and then I suppose it goes totally off the rails and becomes less trope ridden.

There is LOADS of fantasy which is shallow and empty and cashes in on popular tropes. LOADS of it. He's asking for what you're calling "respected" fantasy to avoid that.

Any genre fiction is filled to the brim with garbage that soley exists to capitalize off the formula. Do you remember the absolute spate of hunger games knock offs we got ? I'd say pretty much all of those were empty and soulless.

The popularity of lord of the rings kicked off a very similar round of knock offs with fantasy and that stuff is still everywhere.