This is not for help with a home craft project, but...

[charmian]

1. In the old days, when people would you know, have a skull as say a paperweight or around to have dramatic soliloquies to, like.... how did they get the brain out of the skull? Nowadays if you're making a skull, I bet they dissolve it with chemicals or something, but in the old days, what happened? Does the brain dissolve, sorta? Does it come out of the nose or the ears? Do they do something to get it out? I recall when making mummies they would remove the brain through the nose, IIRC.

2. Continuing on the "delete positive comments," it would be interesting if we had the ability on LJ type journaling services to easily set a default alternate way of showing comments. In other words, so we could have default view=flat if we wanted it that way, or we could change the ordering to show new comments on top instead of old comments, or have comment threads that had new replies float to the top instead.

3. On types of moderation of comments: (Summing up of the discussion in post below)

Right now the way LJ is, is that there are few social moderation tools for comms, meaning that the only person who can mod are the moderators (well, actually the maintainers) and the poster. In other foras, such as reddit and slashdot, there are ways that the other members may moderate comments, such as karma. Karma has certain negative aspects that I am not sure about, and I don't think all communities are suited for such a degree of self-moderation.

Moderation can exist, among other things, to a) identify, and possible make invisible "bad" comments, and b) to elevate and make more visible "good" comments, however 'good' and 'bad are defined.


To identify bad comments, a karma system may be used, or there may be a "flagging" system, a la Metafilter, in which comments can be flagged and a moderator alerted. I prefer this, because there is a moderator doing the final judgment over whether the comment should be removed or whatever. Flagging should probably be invisible (to avoid teh drama), and it should have mechanisms to avoid abuses.

To identify good comments, a "liking" or "rec" system could be used. Possibly, a comment might be featured at the top? Or, it might be 'highlighted' in some way. (turned a different color?)

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I adore Slashdot's display format (upmod amount, reason, uncollapsed) even though the moderation mechanics could be better.

I don't like sending comments to the top, as that would, on LJ/DW, possibly break threading badly.

[charmian]

How do they avoid collapsing things on Slashdot? I've never used it extensively.

[azurelunatic]

Like LJ's, once a certain number of comments are reached, the threads start collapsing. However, comments that are rated above a certain level are not collapsed, resulting in a title-username, title-username, +5 insightful title username full comment text, +3 funny title username full comment, title username, -1 troll title username, +2 insightful title username full comment, sort of experience. The certain level is user-set for logged-in users, and you can manually expand things below that if you really want to.

Unlike LJ, you can read at -1, which will expand everything, even known trolls. (Also, there is neither screening nor deletion.)

[troisroyaumes]

Hrm, I wouldn't be surprised if even in the old days, they used some sort of simple acid to try to dissolve away most of the brain and then remove the resulting mush. The brain is really soft tissue and decomposes easily.

[myaru]

1. Though I don't recall how they did it, the Egyptians were big on getting rid of brain matter, and all I remember is that they got it out through the nose, as you mentioned above. As for whether they shot some acid up there first, I don't know. Maybe you can find some information on a site about mummification.

However, I also remember doing some research on lobotomies, and reading about a guy who ran around the country administering them to emotionally distressed people by sticking icepicks into the skull around the eye cavity and wiggling them around. It was apparently enough to damage or destroy the brain in that area, so maybe you don't need to dissolve it?

[hatman]

The brain floats in a cushion of cerebro-spinal fluid, so there's no need to get it unstuck from the side.

I believe the Egyptians used a long hook up the nasal cavity. The nerve tissue tends to bundle together into squishy cords.

Thing is... the Egyptians carefully removed and preserved each organ in its own canopic jar. Each was believed to be the seat of some essential part of the personality, an idea which persists in our culture to this day. The heart as the seat of love and passion, the liver as the seat of hatred (think "bile"), etc. There was only one organ they didn't preserve, the one they thought had no real use except as a radiator - the brain.

(Perfectly sensible, really. 90% of heat lost from the body is through the head, and that's an essential feature in desert life. Not to mention that the brain has very little in the way of sensors to detect its own status. You may get pain signals from the skin and muscle outside the skull, but you don't actually feel anything inside of it.)

So they didn't have to worry about being careful and removing it intact. And they already had the chest open to remove the heart and lungs.

Which brings me to the answer for the actual question at hand: If you just want to get the brain out, and you don't mind what happens to it, and you have things open anyway... I'd say the most sensible thing to do would be to take it out through the bottom of the skull. Nice big open hole there. And then you can clean it out with chemicals. Shouldn't even be that hard, since, as mentioned, you've got the fluid there as a cushioning layer, anyway.

[franzeska]

Boiling works pretty well to remove flesh from bones. I'll bet it liquefies brains too. I think it's only a pain to remove if you care about the head being intact-ish afterwards. If you just want the bare skull, it's not that hard even without modern technology.