#humanities

A Podcast is in the works! 

Here is a list of topics to cover, please let me know if there is anything else you’d like to know! It does not have to be exclusive to archaeology, and can also generalize education/ grad school/ etc.

Feel free to contribute any other ideas as well! Or if you are interested in joining in on the production! I’ve started a community of mostly archaeology friends on Discord,let me know if you’d like to hang out!

-What is Archaeology? So you wanna be an archaeologist? 

-Different types of Archaeology, Different  Professions in Archaeology 

-Undergraduate Degrees in Anthropology and Archaeology 

-Networking through your undergrad degree 

-Grant and Scholarship applications 

-Time Management of coursework 

-Pros and Cons of a masters degree in Anthropology/Archaeology 

-Grad School Applications for Masters Degrees (US vs. UK) 

-Favorite things about our time in UK Masters degree 

-Jobs in Archaeology outside of Academia 

-C.V. for Humanities degrees and Academic Job searching 

-Research in Archaeology between degrees 

-Networking after and during your degree 

-Ph.D. in Archaeology/Anthropology? Pros and Cons -Ph.D. Applications  

-Choosing your program 

-After Ph.D

madamebibliothecarius:

making a post because I see a lot of “if you don’t understand a concept, note taking, studying” stuff but i’m well into an English lit degree and it’s not so much understanding a concept, or taking exams as much as it is dividing your time to read 700 pages in a week and writing essays, I’m writing this so I follow my own advice

• reading will take longer than you think it will, schedule accordingly
• even if you read fast, reading will, and should take longer than when you’re reading for fun. you’re analyzing bb
• write in your books
• no one will care i promise. underline patterns, highlight writing idiosyncrasies
• if you’re reading theory, read out loud
• idk if this is an adhd thing, but I cannot read a giant hunk of critical theory. it’s like i’ve suddenly become illiterate. reading out loud helps a lot.
• you don’t need to understand every reference of obscure writers in the 1800s
• the hardest writing to read is when a famous author rattles off a bunch of names of authors you’ve never read. ignore them. 
• try finding an audiobook of the book you’re reading to listen to while reading
• once again, reading comprehension can be difficult if you just stare at the page like me. a lot of old books have audiobooks available on youtube for free, plus you can speed it up. listening to it helps hammer it in. (libraries typically have audiobook sources as well)
• google words you don’t know
• and whip em out at parties to look smart and accomplished
• every professor is different when grading essays, especially for different kinds of essays
• forget everything you learned in high school about essays. none of it is true. in fact, forget everything you learned about essays every time you take a new class. every professor has their own made up rules. figure out what your prof wants, don’t take bad feedback personally. 
• read something you want to read in between
• when you’re constantly reading stuff you’re forced to read, even if you enjoy it (and you won’t always) it can be hard to remember why you love books in the first place. read some wonderfully stupid YA novel and that’ll get you back on track
• YOU ARE SMART. 
• GOD, reading stuff you don’t understand over and over with professors telling you you’re analysis is wrong, sometimes it makes you feel DUMB. I PROMISE YOU ARE NOT. just because you’re not a tenured professor doesn’t make your analysis wrong, and it doesn’t make that professor right. and you’re in school for a reason! if you knew about it then you wouldn’t be in school. 
• I cannot stress this enough: TALK TO YOUR CLASSMATES
• Discussions are literally the most important part of this entire degree. Zoom University is made even more difficult in this respect, but  reach out! My survey of Irish lit class has no discussions and I’m sad because I want to know what other people think about Oscar Wilde ok? but I found someone who happened to be in that class, and now we chat about it all the time. It makes the class a lot easier to get through. 

There’s so much misinformation around when it comes to Anarchism. This post is to clear some popular myths and to destigmatize anarchy.

Anarchism means chaos

This is probably the most popular myth because people always associate anarchy with chaos. What is chaos, but a situation where anyone can coerce anyone else as much as they can get away with! Chaos is when everyone acts like a state…

View On WordPress

afutureworththinkingabout:

I’m Not Afraid of AI Overlords— I’m Afraid of Whoever’s Training Them To Think That Way

by Damien P. Williams

I want to let you in on a secret: According to Silicon Valley’s AI’s, I’m not human.

Well, maybe they think I’m human, but they don’t think I’m me. Or, if they think I’m me and that I’m human, they think I don’t deserve expensive medical care. Or that I pose a higher risk of criminal recidivism. Or that my fidgeting behaviours or culturally-perpetuated shame about my living situation or my race mean I’m more likely to be cheating on a test. Or that I want to see morally repugnant posts that my friends have commented on to call morally repugnant. Or that I shouldn’t be given a home loan or a job interview or the benefits I need to stay alive.

Now, to be clear, “AI” is a misnomer, for several reasons, but we don’t have time, here, to really dig into all the thorny discussion of values and beliefs about what it means to think, or to be a mind— especially because we need to take our time talking about why values and beliefs matter to conversations about “AI,” at all. So instead of “AI,” let’s talk specifically about algorithms, and machine learning.

Machine Learning (ML) is the name for a set of techniques for systematically reinforcing patterns, expectations, and desired outcomes in various computer systems. These techniques allow those systems to make sought after predictions based on the datasets they’re trained on. ML systems learn the patterns in these datasets and then extrapolate them to model a range of statistical likelihoods of future outcomes.

Algorithms are sets of instructions which, when run, perform functions such as searching, matching, sorting, and feeding the outputs of any of those processes back in on themselves, so that a system can learn from and refine itself. This feedback loop is what allows algorithmic machine learning systems to provide carefully curated search responses or newsfeed arrangements or facial recognition results to consumers like me and you and your friends and family and the police and the military. And while there are many different types of algorithms which can be used for the above purposes, they all remain sets of encoded instructions to perform a function.

And so, in these systems’ defense, it’s no surprise that they think the way they do: That’s exactly how we’ve told them to think.

[Image of Michael Emerson as Harold Finch, in season 2, episode 1 of the show Person of Interest, “The Contingency.” His face is framed by a box of dashed yellow lines, the words “Admin” to the top right, and “Day 1” in the lower right corner.]

---

Read the rest of I’m Not Afraid of AI Overlords— I’m Afraid of Whoever’s Training Them To Think That WayatA Future Worth Thinking About