Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 8h

"For many people, it feels like the world is burning. The government’s recent changes to benefits feel like this: the house is on fire, and this policy is them turning off the smoke alarm and saying it’s fixed"

Craig Renney @clrenney.bsky.social · 5d

#nzpol Sometimes a policy is so stupid it makes you question the very fabric of reality. Decisions so fabulously, almost wantonly dumb, you wonder if we actually live in a simulation. Welcome to the world of removing Jobseeker Support for 18 & 19-year-olds. craigrenney.substack.com/p/a-small-wr...

A small wrinkle in the Jobseeker policy

The government’s recent changes to benefits feel like this: the house is on fire, and this policy is them turning off the smoke alarm and saying it’s fixed

craigrenney.substack.com

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michael veale @michae.lv · 15h

Does your university have a contract with Grammarly? Write to the decision-maker asking if they think the university should be paying for a tool that is fast integrating features that can only be used for academic misconduct and cognitive offloading and request they drop the contract.

Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · Aug 18

It is not "attribution and sourcing" to generate post-hoc citations that have not been read and did not inform the student's writing. Those should be regarded as fraudulent: artifacts testifying to human actions and thought that did not occur.
www.theverge.com/news/760508/...

For help with attribution and sourcing, Grammarly is releasing a citation finder agent that automatically generates correctly formatted citations backing up claims in a piece of writing, and an expert review agent that provides personalized, topic-specific feedback.

Screenshot from Grammarly's demo of inserting a post-hoc citation.
https://www.grammarly.com/ai-agents/citation-finder

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Marcus Luther @marcusluther.bsky.social · 16h

Genuine question: for those enthusiastically pushing AI tools into every part of our education system—what checks/guardrails are there around algorithmic biases like this?

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 21h

The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”

OpenAI is trying to clamp down on ‘bias’ in ChatGPT

GPT-5 is better at resisting liberal ‘pressure,’ the company says.

www.theverge.com

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Binkenstein @binkenstein.bsky.social · 2d

Selling off productive publicly owned companies/infrastructure to reduce govt debt is like selling off your car to reduce your mortgage, then taking an uber/taxi to work each day.

Sure you have lower debts, but it costs more in the long run.

#nzpol

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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 2d

Huh. Who could have predicted that once all the experienced staff were fired, work would slow down and, needing experience, those same staff would be hired back at consulting rates... [Shocked Pikachu face]

Newsroom NZ @newsroom.co.nz · 3d

Comment: Minister Judith Collins has relaxed constraints on consultants spend, after the public sector massively over-delivered on promised spending cuts ... and the Govt work-rate slowed accordingly.

Public spend on consultants slashed – but not to those embedded deep in govt

newsroom.co.nz

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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 5d

oops, alt text: Southerly front and rain arriving into Lyall Bay, Wellington like a big, grey wall.

beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 5d

Full credit to @metservice.com, that arrived exactly as predicted

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Jolisa Gracewood @nzdodo.bsky.social · 6d

18 & 19 year olds with no income support should “just go where the jobs are” said the Prime Minister who famously had his limo deliver him across the road.

“Good luck with the train-hopping, you plucky young hobos,” he added, suggesting hedge-&-ditch as an affordable alternative to bed-&-breakfast.

Watch: Christopher Luxon defends cuts to benefits for youth

The prime minister says businesses are 'crying out for young people' as advocates decry the changes as a punishment.

www.rnz.co.nz

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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 8d

🤦

Patrick Morgan @patrickmorgan.bsky.social · 8d

Is this the dumbest objection to bike lanes ever?
"Cycling may be considered a “greener” option than using public transport, but cycleways use an awfully high amount of petroleum-based products to create and maintain." - Ray Chung @cyclewgtn.bsky.social www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3608...

Wellington mayoral candidates on bike lanes

Each week we are asking the main mayoral candidates what they will do on key issues. This week: Retain, extend or reduce Wellington's current bike lane network?

www.thepost.co.nz

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CNN @cnn.com · 10d

Meta will soon use what people tell its artificial intelligence chatbot to get even better at selling them things.

The company said users’ chats and interactions with Meta AI will soon be used to target them with even more personalized ads. https://cnn.it/4nXks2K

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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 12d

in related news i'm excited to announce that i'm selling sam altman's house unless he asks me not to

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 12d

this is not gonna go down well

www.reuters.com/technology/o...

OpenAI's new Sora video generator to require copyright holders to opt out, WSJ reports

OpenAI is planning to release a new version of its Sora generator that creates videos featuring copyrighted material, unless right holders opt out of having their work appear, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

www.reuters.com

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Stephanie... In New Zealand @bootstheory.bsky.social · 14d

Anyone heard from the "one law for all, equal treatment" crowd on this or are they too busy complaining about something important like macrons on road signs

Wealthy NZ family member guilty of child abuse images given sentence discount for donation

He gave $50,400 to charities days before his sentencing was scheduled.

www.nzherald.co.nz

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Byron C Clark @byroncclark.bsky.social · 15d

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

- Desmond Tutu

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sea shanty stan account ⛵️ @anarchoshanties.bsky.social · Sep 11

This one's maybe a little on the ling side, but trust me, it's worth it. I've cried reading it multiple times.

(1/3)

mylordshesacactus

Carpathia received Titanic's distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian's exact position at the time is... controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic's distress rockets. It's uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia's Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic's aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia's lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her.

He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don't know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out.

By this time, many of the passengers were awake-prepping a ship for disaster relief isn't quiet-and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here's the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms-which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors.

He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she'd done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can't push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless-it's difficult to maneuver-but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can't do it. It can't be done.

Carpathia's absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can't-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn't expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 27d

My theory is Pay My Park sent someone to be a wo(man) on the inside and sabotage meter usability so that everyone would just use Pay My Park instead.

Reposted by beccadownes

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · Sep 11

I'm often told on here that clothes are meaningless, and to some degree, I agree. However, in this instance, the GOP's aesthetic transformation shows how they use populist style to position themselves as populist outsiders, even as they serve elite interests.

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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · Sep 8

Iconic

Animation Obsessive @ani-obsessive.bsky.social · Sep 8

Pinball No. 4 (1977), dir. Jeff Hale, Imagination Inc.

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · Sep 6

Two trials will be repeated endlessly despite always producing the same results:

1) Does UBI work? (yes)
2) Does AI improve productivity? (no)

M365 Copilot fails to up productivity in UK government trial

: AI tech shows promise writing emails or summarizing meetings. Don't bother with anything more complex

www.theregister.com

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Nat Torkington @gnat.bsky.social · Sep 1

www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

"Boost GDP by $11B," you say? I'd love to see the maths behind that.

There's a lot of one-offs in construction. I imagine they'd import as much of the specialist materials as they can.

Annual component is electricity and water (ffs), and a handful? of engineers?

Christopher Luxon hypes re-announcement of $7.5 billion Amazon investment from 2021

The Prime Minister says Amazon is spending $7b on data centres - a move announced by the company four years ago.

www.rnz.co.nz

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joshuatj @joshuatj.digipres.club.ap.brid.gy · Sep 1

Only 7 out of 300+ analysed restructures went back to monitor and document the after-effect and whether it's been successful.

#govis2025

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joshuatj @joshuatj.digipres.club.ap.brid.gy · Sep 1

Applying the concept of technical debt in software development onto public sector restructuring - Organisational debt.

"Organisational debt" articulate the residual cost of decision-making under constraint, that only becomes problematic when ignored.

#govis2025

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Bernard Hickey @bernardchickey.bsky.social · Aug 30

Fascinating. NZ well past peak car. So why are we spending so much more on new roads?

David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · Aug 29

And this is number of actively registered passenger cars and vans per driving age capita since 2017. Some lockdown affects, but it is another dataset suggesting peak car.

passenger vehicles per driving age population

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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · Aug 30

On one hand, reducing car use reduces urban pollution.
But on the other, everyone likes it and cities become more livable

Average nitrogen dioxide concentration in Paris has fallen significantly

Her proposals have faced pushback — from right-leaning politicians, a car owners’ association and suburban commuters, who say that targeting cars makes their lives more difficult.

But last month, Parisians voted in a referendum to turn an additional 500 streets over to pedestrians. A year earlier, Paris had moved to sharply increase parking fees for SUVs, forcing drivers to pay three times more than they would for smaller cars. The city has also turned a bank of the Seine from a busy artery into a pedestrian zone and banned most car traffic from the shopping boulevard of Rue de Rivoli.

Carlos Moreno, a professor at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and a former adviser to the city, said the French capital has developed “an urban policy based on well-being.”

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Cool Bike Art @coolbikeart1.bsky.social · Aug 29

Royal Air Force pilots train to fly in a squadron
ca. 1942

Photo taken from above of several soldiers on bicycles riding in a triangular formation while holding model planes.

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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · Aug 27

Mountain bike trails are not equivalent to cycleways, just because both involve bicycles. It's like saying "you don't need more roads in Wellington, there are lots of perfectly good roads in the Hutt". I don't hear anyone suggesting that.

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