This week there’s an article about exploring Neandertal langauge in the New Scientist by Dan Dediu, Scott Moisik and I.  It discusses the idea that if Neandertals spoke modern languages, and if there was cultural contact between us and them, then ancient human languages may have been affected by Neandertal language (borrowing, contact effects etc.).  If this happened, then we may be able to detect these effects in today’s languages. The article and a recent blog post explains the idea, but I’ll cover some of the more technical stuff here.

Obviously, this is a very controversial idea:  the time scale is much longer than the usual linguistic reconstruction and we have no direct evidence for Neandertals speaking complex languages.  We’re definitely in for some flack.  So, this post briefly covers what we actually did.

Our EvoLang paper (and a full paper in prep) asks whether one necessary condition for coming anywhere near providing evidence for this idea is true:  Are there difference between current languages that were in contact (outside of Africa) and languages that were not in contact (inside Africa)?  This has been addressed before, for different reasons (Cysouw & Comrie, 2009: pdf), but with a smaller sample of data.

Using data from WALS, we ran a few tests:

1. STRUCTURE analysis:  what is the most likely number of ‘founder’ populations that gives rise to the current diversity we see in African and Eurasian languages?  Do the estimated founder populations align with African and non-African languages?
2. K-means clustering:  does a ‘natural’ statistical division between the world’s languages reflect a division between African and non-African languages? (is it better than chance and better than other continents?  Also run on phonetic data from PHOIBLE and lexical data from the ASJP)
3. Weighted multidimensional scaling: If we compress WALS to a few dimensions, does the first dimension reflect a distinction between African and non-African languages?
4. Phylogenetic reconstruction:  We reconstruct the cultural evolution of present-day language families to see if African and non-African languages have different cultural evolutionary biases (e.g. more likely to move towards or away from particular traits).  We used 3 phylogenies (WALS, Ethnologue, Glottolog), 3 branch length scaling assumptions (Grafen’s method, NNLS and UPGMA) and 3 methods of ancestral state reconstruction (Maximum parsimony, Maximum likelihood (BayesTraits) and Maximum likelihood (APE)).  We searched for features that have opposing biases in African and non-African languages that are bigger than 95% of all comparisons and are robust across all assumptions.
5. Support Vector Machine learning:  We trained a Support Vector Machine (a supervised machine learning algorithm) to tell the difference between African and non-African languages.  We assessed the performance on unseen data, and also extract the most decisive linguistic features for making the distinction.  We estimate the number of features needed to get good results.
6. Binary classification trees: This algorithm finds linguistic features to divide the data into sub-sets in a way that maximises the ease of differentiating African and non-African languages.

The detailed results will appear in our paper, but here’s what we conclude:

• Some of the tests result in positive answers.  For example, the support vector machine analysis could differentiate between African and non-African typologies with 93% accuracy.  However, the algorithm needs at least linguistic 50 variables to make this distinction, so it’s unclear whether it’s picking up on actual differences, or just gaps in the data.
• While some tests passed, our criterion was that ALL of the tests should pass for us to be at all confident of a statistical difference between African and non-African languages.  Some tests fail, so we can’t support this.
• However, most of the problems we ran into were due to a lack of data.  We could get better estimates if we had more typological data of better quality from existing languages.  Another problem was implicational universals  – particular typological variables are correlated because they affect each other (e.g. verb-object order and prepositions/postpositions), causing patterns in the world’s languages that are confounded with geographic areas.
• There’s a bigger question of whether, in theory, we can tell the difference between drift, contact effects, areal effects and language death.  Contact with Neandertals may just be too far into the past, with too many human languages dying in the meantime, to make this distinction possible.

So, our conclusion is that any attempt to reconstruct Neandertal languages will fail with the current data and theory we have.  Not surprising, really.  The interesting thing, for me, is that we actually have methods that can give us quantitative answers about this idea, and the answer might change as we document more languages and develop theories about historical change and contact.  As Chris Knight described our EvoLang presentation, this is one of my “most exciting and least conclusive” studies.

I should probably write erotica or something. I seem to have a natural understanding of pacing and how to build tension. 

Far more than we care to admit, our choice of political candidates is influenced by their appearance—specifically, whether they strike us as attractive and competent. Newly published research finds that, for female politicians, still another factor comes in to play in helping us decide whether they’re worthy of our vote: Whether their looks are unambiguously feminine.

In two studies—one in a lab, another using real-world results—a research team led by Dartmouth College psychologists Jonathan Freeman and Eric Hehman finds female candidates are at a disadvantage if voters need even a fraction of a second longer to determine their gender.

It seems this short-lived confusion triggers emotional discomfort, which leads people to evaluate the candidate less favorably.

“The more feminine a female politician’s face was perceived, the more likely she was to win her election,” said Freeman, who added that this dynamic is especially strong in conservative-leaning areas of the country.

“Electoral success for women may require a delicate balance between retaining associations with traditional femininity and attractiveness, while additionally evoking perceptions of competence, a masculine-associated trait.”

“Larger eyes and rounded figures convey femininity,” the researchers write in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. This research suggests they also produce votes.

The researchers assembled a series of images of political candidates’ faces, each of which was rated by an online panel that judged their attractiveness and perceived competence. For the first study, 31 Dartmouth undergraduates categorized each candidate as male or female as rapidly as possible using a computer mouse. Afterwards, they rated their likelihood to vote for each candidate on a scale of one to six.

The result: They were less likely to vote for women candidates if there was even a tiny amount of hesitancy in assigning their gender. This dynamic was not found for the male politicians.

The second study used the same method of measuring gender ambiguity, but compared it to actual election results. The participants—260 Americans recruited online—completed the same quick-reaction test using the same set of photos.

Their answers were then compared with the results of recent elections in the participants’ home states—specifically, the margins of victory the winning candidates received over their main opponents. Each state’s spot on the liberal/conservative continuum was determined by looking at the results of the five most recent presidential elections.

Mirroring the lab test, the researchers found that women politicians who couldn’t be instantaneously categorized as female received fewer votes. “These effects were independent of other social dimensions previously implicated in political decision-making, such as competence, attractiveness, and familiarity,” they write.

This effect “was exacerbated in more conservative constituencies,” the researchers add—not a huge surprise, given that conservatism has long been linked with less tolerance of uncertainty.

“The findings suggest that gender-atypical female politicians may be deemed as less suitable for leadership, overall,” they write. “In real-world elections, however … (this dynamic) persists only among those who more strongly value gender typicality: conservatives.”

So why weren’t subtly ambiguous male candidates similarly penalized? While the researchers aren’t sure, they note that, given then the fact that American political leaders have historically been men, “leader-like characteristics may be automatically conferred upon male politicians.”

It’s particularly striking that this effect was found “above and beyond the numerous other influences on electoral outcomes,” in the researchers’ words. One might think that voters would grow accustomed to a candidate’s face over the course of a campaign, but this research suggests otherwise.

“Although whether a politician is male or female is certainly established quite quickly, how relatively masculine or feminine his or her face appears persists,” Freeman explained. “Each time an individual encounters that politician’s face, our results suggest a state of subtle uncertainty is triggered.”

They also suggest that female politicians are in a tricky position.

“Electoral success for women may require a delicate balance between retaining associations with traditional femininity and attractiveness,” the researchers write, “while additionally evoking perceptions of competence, a masculine-associated trait.”

Sounds like the political equivalent of dancing backwards and in high heels.

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Even Slight Gender Ambiguity Is Costly to Female Candidates was first posted on May 15, 2014 at 9:00 am.

praduhhh:

b-ak3d:

chronicdelight:

My dad gives me this cake EVERY year on my birthday.

I’m gonna be that dad

http://praduhhh.tumblr.com/

DANCE like your bonus depends on it.

LAUGH like you’re the last to understand the CEO’s joke.

LOVE like your line manager is assessing your performance (with particular emphasis on flexibility and creative problem-solving).

SING like it’s a marketable skill.

ROMANCE like you have faith in eHarmony’s algorithms.

BELIEVE in yourself like you believe artisanal toast isn’t overpriced. That is, pretend to, so you don’t ruin brunch for everyone else.

LIVE like no one can see the stress-related eye twitch you’ve developed.

TRAVEL like you’re going to and from work. Actually, just do that. It’s all you can afford right now.

CREATE like your idea for a fantasy novel is a realistic solution to crippling student debt and you’re oblivious to your friends’ skepticism when you drunkenly bring it up.

EXPLORE like you still believe there’s a debt payment plan to solve your financial mess.

FEEL as deeply as an exhausted employee having a panic attack in a work toilet cubicle. Now stop feeling. And stop crying. Crying won’t pay your gym membership fees.

BREATHE like someone who remembers how to do it normally. You sound like bagpipes. Get a grip.

TAKE RISKS like someone trying to score Ritalin from Steve in Accounts to cope with fourteen-hour workdays.

ALLOW YOURSELF TO FAIL like someone who was sacked after trying to score Ritalin when it emerged that Steve was not the Ritalin guy but instead the guy who can’t keep his mouth shut.

STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES like an unemployed person who has nothing better to do. Also, stop blaming Steve.

SOAR like your blood pressure when you check your bank balance.

FOLLOW YOUR HEART like regret follows an online spending spree.

And always, always DREAM like you have a very limited grasp of probability.

After Emerald City Comicon’s doors were closed for the weekend, it asked its attendees to fill out a survey about the event, to see what worked, what didn’t work, and what they can do better or more of. In it, they gave folks a blank field to list whatever gender identity they felt most comfortable with, whether that be female, male, agender, “Wonder Woman,” “man?,” or “a nebulous glow cloud.” The results, once divided up, are quite revealing. More than half of survey takers identified as female. Even if (as is unlikely) all of the folks who identified as non-binary were guys doing so as some form of joke, women would still outnumber them: at the very least, you cannot say that women were rare or a minority in the community.

You might also point out that a voluntary survey is not a perfect measure of the actual population of the con, as undoubtedly some folks chose not to take it, skewing the results. That’s certainly true. All that this graphic might mean is that the folks who actually care enough about ECCC to want to help make it better were majority women.

(via Emerald City Comicon on Tumblr.)

Previously in Emerald City Comiccon

• Nathan Fillion Strikes Pose With Bruce Campbell
• Hawkeye Initiative Cosplay
• ECCC and the Seattle Police

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atroposxr:

Three chopped up dudes shrinky dinks 2014

Bartkira – a crowd-sourced reimagining of Katsuhiro Otomo’s “Akira” with the characters from Matt Groening’s The Simpsons – has reached its next stage of evolution. A year ago, it popped up as an ingeniously wacky Tumblr project by James Harvey and Ryan Humphrey. Since then, the project has exploded both online and IRL, with over 500 participating artists and recently, the project was shown at Portland’s Floating World Comics. Available at the show was a 96 page limited edition print book, now available on the store’s website for $15.

The Simpsons and Akira are much alike in ways – Both The Simpsons and Akira are creations of the 1980’s, both were to become influences in cartoon, and popular culture, and both are beloved around the World.

And isn’t Springfield just like a post-World War III Neo-Tokyo, populated by dissident revolutionaries, secretive government projects and psychotic psychic children, awaiting another end of the world? (Images: Bartkira)

The post Bartkira, The Book appeared first on ANIMAL.

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Dennis Culver created this series of Disney baddies as Star Wars baddies for Moviefone, and I love all the little details he put in. Oh, and I also love that the Darth Vader/Scar mashup is named “Scarth Vader.” Thumbs up on that one.

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Young artist falls asleep with paper maché mask of Marlene Dietrich on her lap, 1950.

Grocery store in Bukavu town, Democratic Republic of Congo, May 2014. Photo by Jana Ašenbrennerová @asenbrennerova #asenbrennerova #drcongo #bukavu #drc (at Bukavu City(DR Congo))

All components of Mars One’s settlement are slated to reach their destination by 2021. The hardware includes two living units, two life-support units, a second supply unit and two rovers. (Bryan Versteeg/Mars One)

Several hundred would-be Mars colonists have just had their hopes and dreams dashed.

The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One, which aims to establish a Red Planet settlement beginning in 2025, announced May 5 that it had sliced its pool of potential colonists from 1,058 down to 705. The remaining astronaut candidates now advance to an interview round with Mars One’s selection committee.

“We’re incredibly excited to start the next phase of Round 2, where we begin to better understand our candidates who aspire to take such a daring trip,” Mars One chief medical officer Norbert Kraft said in a statement. “They will have to show their knowledge, intelligence, adaptability and personality.” [Images of Mars One's Red Planet Colony Project]

The 353 people who didn’t make it were eliminated for personal or medical reasons, Mars One representatives said. The 418 men and 287 women who survived this latest cut come from all over the world, with 313 hailing from the Americas, 187 from Europe, 136 from Asia, 41 from Africa and 28 from Oceania.

Mars One plans to launch its first crew of four Mars colonists in 2024, with touchdown on the Red Planet coming in 2025. Additional crews will blast off in two-year increments thereafter, gradually building up the off-world settlement. At the moment, there are no plans to bring these pioneers back to Earth.

The organization will mount several unmanned Mars missions in the next decade to demonstrate technologies and prepare for the arrival of people. For example, it aims to launch a robotic lander and orbiter in 2018, a scouting rover in 2020 and six cargo missions in 2022.

Mars One plans to pay for all this by organizing a global media event around the Mars colonization effort, from astronaut selection through the settlers’ time on the Red Planet. It’s already negotiating with media companies about showing Round 2 of the selection process on TV, representatives said.

“Once the television deal is finalized and the interviews begin, the stories of the 705 aspiring Martians will be shared with the world,” Mars One said in a press release Monday.

More than 200,000 people applied to become Mars One astronauts. In December, the organization slashed this pool down to 1,058 candidates.

The interview round will slash the ranks further, from 705 potential settlers down to just a handful — enough to staff “several international teams consisting of two women and two men,” Mars One’s press release states. These teams will train full-time for their possible Mars mission.

“Whole teams and individuals might be selected out during training when they prove not to be suitable for the mission,” Mars One wrote in the press release. “Mars One will repeat the selection process regularly to train additional teams to replace eliminated teams and crews of settlers that have successfully left Earth to live on Mars.”

Source: Mars One Colony Project Cuts List of Potential Red Planet Settlers to 705

“Forget OKCupid. Too bourgeois.” H/T Popbitch .

Actual thing.

Really. Actual thing.

Via Facebook: OKComrade

It includes this sort of profile.

shutterstock.com

And this sort of profile.

Side note: about 75% of results for "dating" in stock picture sites have a weirdly wholesome couple posing so that the girl's being carried around like some sort of backpack.

shutterstock.com

There's also this exchange which is either terrible or amazing: frankly it's hard to say.

Via Facebook: OKComrade

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We've long known that whiskey and pork products produce great complementary flavors; it's the reason whiskey-based BBQ sauces are so delicious. But now one popular Iowa distillery has boldly asked the question, "hey, what if we streamlined that whole process?"

Read more...

The seventh and final round of the 2014 NFL Draft is underway and Michael Sam has not been drafted yet, but patrons at Gym Sportsbar in West Hollywood are holding out hope.

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Bibliothèque de Genève, Switzerland

Hot on the heels of a post earlier this week about centuries-old guide for mixing watercolors, I stumbled onto this 18th century instrument designed to measure the blueness of the sky called a Cyanometer. The simple device was invented in 1789 by Swiss physicist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt who used the circular array of 53 shaded sections in experiments above the skies over Geneva, Chamonix and Mont Blanc. The Cyanometer helped lead to a successful conclusion that the blueness of the sky is a measure of transparency caused by the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. You can learn more at the Royal Society of Chemistry. (via Free Parking)

NEW YORK—Warning that such occurrences pose a grave threat to the global economy and millions of human lives, a report presented Thursday at a United Nations summit on magical realism highlights an alarming increase in incidences in which the whole ...

Do you feel like you’re not honoring America’s fallen heroes, the Benghazi four, enough? Would you like to honor them EVEN WHILE YOU SLEEP? Do you like to wear the kind of pajamas children wear, so you can feel sweaty and restricted by your sleepwear? “Frecklesfuncat” on Cafepress has got you covered!

Yes, for a mere $75, you can clad your entire body in fuzzy memories of Benghazi, and the Benghazi rage can sink into you while you sleep.

Not feeling the footies? Sleep in the nude? Feeling so mad that you’re kind of incoherent about what you’re actually angry about? Try this lovely thong so your vag can shout at your potential sexual partners about how mad you are at Bamz.

Too modest for thongazi? How about a bodysuit that screeches about Bamz’ lies?

Menz, you are probably feeling so left out of the underthings action, but you shouldn’t be, because you can wear Dick Cheney right next to your dick. Not on your dick, because that would be gay.

Get your kids in on the action also too, because you don’t want them to grow up without feeling a white-hot rage at a made-up scandal. Start ‘em early with this baby blanket!

Finally, make sure that the family dog is a walking advertisement for your breathless irrational anger and make sure the world knows you can’t spell.

[Frecklesfuncat - CafePress]

The post Cover Your Body In Benghazi, Just Like God Intended appeared first on Happy Nice Time People.

Warner Brothers Records promotional sticker. Circa mid 70s(?).

Filed under: context, music, promo only

Women begging men, ca. 1900s (via)