Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · 9d

it scans so beautifully 😭

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · 12d

I am shocked to my very core by this news.

Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 12d

Stanford researchers found that AI-generated "workslop" is actually making people less productive, in part because workers have to correct errors or decode the useful information/intent buried in a flood of auto-generated garbage:

AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity

Despite a surge in generative AI use across workplaces, most companies are seeing little measurable ROI. One possible reason is because AI tools are being used to produce “workslop”—content that appea...

hbr.org

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · 15d

"A more courageous Labour government could have helped with what might be called structural fact-checking: calling out the lie that migration is to blame for Britain’s declining social services and widening wealth gaps", etc.

www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...

Claire Wilmot | Fascistic Dream Machines

Part of the misunderstanding of the deepfake threat stems from the idea that it is a problem of bad information, rather...

www.lrb.co.uk

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · 20d

What I don't understand about the rush to AI is why people don't *want* to think. Thinking is the most pleasurable, gorgeous, exciting, sophisticated thing I do, and skipping that to get to an output and have more time to spend, I don't know, on my phone or something just seems insane to me.

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · 20d

it looks like a good website for HE teachers!

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · 20d

"Using LLMs makes your work bland, vague, and wrong, and impedes the development of skills ... That development only happens with sweat, practice, shitty first drafts, errors, time, and revision."

it makes your work BLAND, VAGUE, AND WRONG

against-a-i.com/syllabus-lan...

Syllabus Language - AGAINST AI

(looking for persuasion rather than edicts? here's one template)

against-a-i.com

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Reposted by Rosalind Brown

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 21d

this exists it is called thinking

Matthew McConaughey says he wants a private LLM, fed only with his books, notes, journals, and aspirations, so he can ask it questions and get answers based solely on that information, without any outside influence.

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · 22d

Oh actually same composer in fact, Estelle White

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · 22d

hahahaha that's great. We used to sing 'Michaelmas Daisies', from the same anthology I think, but which has a more authentically Keatsian autumn feel to it: "low-hung boughs of laden apple trees" etc
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfyt...

Michaelmas Daisies - Junior Hymn

YouTube video by The Firs School

www.youtube.com

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Sep 11

Do other writers out there have opinions about using a thesaurus? I'm using mine a lot at the moment, but am wondering whether it's reducing my own ability to think of vocabulary (which seems like a pretty essential skill). Am always wary of 'shoulds' around writing, but your experience is welcome!

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Reposted by Rosalind Brown

Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · May 29

I am now offering writing teaching and mentoring! See my website for details ...

(spoiler: I probably won't tell you to delete your adverbs)

rosalindbrown.com/teaching-and...

Teaching and mentoring

My approach as a creative writing mentor is informed partly by the teaching I received during my Creative Writing MA and PhD, partly by teaching I have done myself as a qualified secondary school t…

rosalindbrown.com

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Sep 9

“benzimidazobenzophenanthroline”

Sam Leith @questingvole.bsky.social · Sep 9

I reviewed the new Dan Brown. It is (I note admiringly), weapons-grade bollocks.

The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown review – weapons-grade nonsense from beginning to end

Code-breaking hero Robert Langdon is back for another conspiracy thriller, featuring underground laboratories and new thoughts on the nature of consciousness

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Rosalind Brown

Rembrandt @rembrandtrijn.bsky.social · Sep 9

Two Women Teaching a Child to Walk https://www.wikiart.org/en/rembrandt/two-women-teaching-a-child-to-walk

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Sep 8

I like the optimism of "Your order is being posted!" which means, I think, that the sender has downloaded the postage label from eBay, to affix to a parcel that may or may not yet exist.

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Sep 6

thank you so much!! It's just been a busy summer I think but I have a novel underway that I'm afraid is neither devastating nor particularly slim ...

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Sep 5

I'll add it to my list of slim devastating novels I plan to knock out when I feel less tired. (that will happen some day, right??)

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Sep 4

the side swipe at golf 😂

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Reposted by Rosalind Brown

Andrew Kenrick @andrewkenrick.bsky.social · Aug 26

Come see this face in person this Saturday!

Hinterland Magazine - open for submissions @hinterlandnf.bsky.social · Aug 26

Just a couple of days until our taster day introducing you to the craft of writing non-fiction. It's hosted by our very own founding editor @andrewkenrick.bsky.social, in person in Norwich, this coming Saturday. We still have tickets available. Beginners welcome! www.eventbrite.com/e/hinterland...

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Aug 26

Pond! What a great book, so happy it's still selling.

Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Aug 24

THIS. The water and electricity consumption of LLMs mean we should NOT BE USING THEM, even to critique/mock them – there are plenty of examples of them being terrible, we don't need to generate any more – just boycott them now.

Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · Aug 23

You can add up all the enjoyable pursuits of LLMs and the work productivity hacks and none of them, separately or together, will be more important than AI’s ecological costs or political disruption.

“We” is more important here.

Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Aug 11

Three days until this – can't wait! Harriet's book TO REST OUR MINDS AND BODIES is brilliant and you should definitely read it

Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Jun 18

I will be at the Edinburgh Book Festival this year! talking with novelist Harriet Armstrong (whose book I am excitedly about to start reading) and Sasha de Buyl.

Thursday 14 August, 5.30pm, in the mysteriously named "Venue B". Tickets on sale from Saturday!

www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival...

Harriet Armstrong & Rosalind Brown: Lessons in Inner Life

From Thu 14 Aug - Two razor-sharp debut novelists talk with Sasha de Buyl about the fitful, lurching paths we take on the coming-of-age journey…

www.edbookfest.co.uk

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Aug 11

PRACTICE is one of @theguardian.com's paperbacks of the month!

"The great strength of Practice is Brown’s gift for the romance of the quotidian... The character of the solipsistic, over-earnest, pretentious, self-consciously ascetic Annabel is brilliantly done"

www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

This month’s best paperbacks: Gabriel García Márquez, Craig Brown and more

Looking for a new reading recommendation? Here are some great new paperbacks, from a posthumous novel to an absorbing account of how nationalism shaped a country

www.theguardian.com

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Jul 30

"you mustn't smack but nor must you be gentle"

🤔

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Reposted by Rosalind Brown

Mark Kersten @markkersten.bsky.social · Jul 29

The former Attorney General of Israel, Michael Benyair is now calling Israel's actions in Gaza genocide.

"To eternal shame. Jews, who suffered a genocide 80 years ago, are committing genocide in Gaza. Shame, rage, and sorrow"

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · Jul 22

Wrote one (soon out in this lovely paperback!), and currently reading the other. At least I'm consistent.

Two books: one a paperback copy of Practice by Rosalind Brown, the other a copy of Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell. Both books have yellow covers/spines and similar typefaces and aesthetics.

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