Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 8h

Good on you mate!

Reposted by Mike Dickison

the Juice Media @thejuicemedia.com · 8h

The Government of New Zealand has made a new tourism ad and it's surprsingly honest and informative!

Honest Government Ad | Visit New Zealand!

YouTube video by thejuicemedia

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Idiot/Savant @norightturnnz.bsky.social · 10h

Current progress so far:

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social · 13h

It's #NautilusNight!⁣ The common name "paper nautilus" for the genus Argonauta comes from the Greek ναυτίλος nautílos, meaning "sailor". People once believed these octopuses used two of their arms as sails, as seen in this #SciArt from "Zoography" (1807) www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/54312693 🧪

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 16h

Join me online in few minutes if you want to help with this.

Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 1d

Here's how you can help make a book of 19th century fairy tales available for everyone to read for free.
Frances Brownes was a 19th century Irish poet ("the blind poetess of Donegal"), whose best-known work is Granny's Wonderful Chair, an 1857 fairytale collection. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances...

The only photo of Frances Browne, circa 1879

Frontispiece from the 1906 edition of Granny's Wonderful Chair, illustration by Dora Curtis.

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 23h

lede = introductory section in journalism

bury the lede = hiding the most relevant pieces of a story within other distracting information

Allegedly, it’s spelled ‘lede’ to avoid confusion with ‘lead,’ which was the strip of metal that would separate lines of type.

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 1d

Here's how you can help make a book of 19th century fairy tales available for everyone to read for free.
Frances Brownes was a 19th century Irish poet ("the blind poetess of Donegal"), whose best-known work is Granny's Wonderful Chair, an 1857 fairytale collection. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances...

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 1d

If you're on the OU campus, join @thneed.bsky.social in the library's seminar room 2 at 12:30, or me online at whereby.com/wikimeet at 11:30, for a quick Wikisource lesson so you can help with transcribing. We might be able to get the whole book done in time to share with the festival attendees.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 1d

Why do this, when with a bit of sleuthing you can find multiple scanned editions online? Wikisource produces a nicely-formatted EPUB, which works with an eReader or screen reader—good if you're vision is impaired. And the out-of-copyright book and images can be freely shared and remixed.

Category:Granny's Wonderful Chair, and its Tales of Fairy Times (1857 1st ed.) - Wikimedia Commons

commons.wikimedia.org

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 1d

But @thneed.bsky.social and I thought it would be great if there was a transcribed, proofread version of the book's first edition available too. So I've set up a Wikisource crowdsourced editing project; anyone can help out. en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:G...

Granny's Wonderful Chair (1857) frontispiece by Kenny Meadows.

Granny's Wonderful Chair (1857) illustration by Kenny Meadows; frightened children, malevolent woman, cat, huge raven—hitting all the buttons here.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 1d

There's now an annual Frances Browne literary festival in Ballybofey-Stranorlar, and Tom McLean, Professor of English at Otago, is over there at the moment to give a talk and run a workshop on writing a Wikipedia article about Granny's Wonderful Chair. www.francesbrowneliteraryfestival.com

Excerpt from programme: "A fascinating workshop with Professor Thomas McLean on how to find and use historical letters for research and writing inspiration." and "Learn how to update Wikipedia with local knowledge."

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 1d

Here's how you can help make a book of 19th century fairy tales available for everyone to read for free.
Frances Brownes was a 19th century Irish poet ("the blind poetess of Donegal"), whose best-known work is Granny's Wonderful Chair, an 1857 fairytale collection. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances...

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

ChrisP @wordsmithgetxo.bsky.social · 2d

In an old ad for board game Scattergories in Spain a player was shown flouncing out while anothet said “OK, we’ll accept ‘octopus’ as a pet”.
“Aceptamos pulpo” has now entered the language in the meaning of “that’s a bit of a stretch but let’s go with it just for the sake of argument”.

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Musical Chairs @musicalchairs.bsky.social · 12d

Looks like a good time in the news cycle to tackle three big myths 🧵
❌ NZ pension costs are an unsustainable burden ❌
Seriously, no, for lots of reasons.
1. Our current Govt spending on pensions is low compared to most other advanced economies. And... [1/n]

Graph of public pension costs as % of GDP for OECD countries in 2021 (latest data). NZ is lower quartile at around 5.1%. OECD average is 7.8%. Plenty of Euro countries are around 10% or above.

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Margaret Stanley @ecostanley.bsky.social · 2d

The remarkable rise of eBird – the world’s biggest citizen science project
theconversation.com/the-remarkab...

The remarkable rise of eBird – the world’s biggest citizen science project

In 2002, an online database was set up allowing birdwatchers to record their species observations. It is now a vast resource, shaping scientific research.

theconversation.com

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

Te Ara Paerangi Com - Research Advocacy Capability @te-ara-paerangi.community · 2d

We'd love to have a huge turn out for Nic's talk. Please help spread the word. There are downloadable pdf adverts in the link below. They can be emailed or printed. If you work in a public space (e.g. Library) you could help by printing and posting one of the flyers. Ngā mihi nui!

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

A/Prof Narrelle Morris @narrellemorris.bsky.social · 8d

This is one of the lesser known (but tragic) consequences of Gen AI. It’s not just about theft of IP, which is usually mentioned, it’s about damage to the information infrastructure of underfunded archives, libraries and museums etc. with long term consequences for them and for researchers.

Daryl Green @ilikeoldbooks.bsky.social · 8d

by the way, all those benign AI bots crawling the internet for for-profit LLMs, yeah it turns out when 9,000 hit your archive catalogue or image database all at once they break the system. This is an emerging sector issue.

The last weeks have literally seen humans labouring to feed the machines...

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 2d

It seems I cannot spell MilkMan’s intercap branding right, so here’s the correct version.

MilkMan business cards with canonical spelling.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 2d

I’ve already sung the praises of the Milk Man cheese scones, but they’ve just started doing amazing sausage rolls, $6.50 with a bit of spice, and handmade relish on a good day. I have sometimes had sausage rolls that are wider than they were long, and this is very much the opposite.

Huge sausage roll laden with flaky pastry shot using the Peter Jackson trademark forced perspective that made Gandalf look huge. But it is huge. With a little dish of tomato sauce which Ben apologised for.

Bonus, they seem to be hosting a Barista Battle 16 Oct 5:30 (although Mill Man is tiny and they can only fit about six people inside, so let’s hope it’s a sunny evening).

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 3d

Thank you for your service!

Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 3d

We'll also be going on a photo walk after lunch to take some shots of Lyttelton's remaining heritage buildings, most of which sadly don't have any freely-usable images. If you have a nice camera and are looking for something socially-worthy to do with it, join us.

Former warder's house for Lyttelton gaol, and the gaol doesn't even have its own Wikipedia article, despite its formative role in NZ history—Mackenzie! Parihaka! Honestly what have the history enthusiasts of Christchurch be DOING for the last 25 years? OK I'll calm down now.

Sled dog statue outside the library, reminding everyone this was where so many Antarctic expeditions left from.

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 3d

Ōtautahi folks: on Saturday 10:00–1:00 we have a Wikipedia edit-a-thon in the Lyttelton Library, looking at the architecture and history of the port. If you're heading over for the market, why not pop in and join us, and learn how to edit Wikipedia? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

Lyttelton in 1967 taken by amateur photographer Wilford Peloquin (who calls it Littleton in all his photos)

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 3d

Vote! Vote in your local election! Post your vote by 5pm today! It matters. Hayden explains this more hilariously than I can: thespinoff.co.nz/politics/06-...

One hundred and eighty five billion dollars.
That's the estimated bill to repair our terrible water infrastructure and experts think that estimate is too low. Why is it going to cost so much? Mainly because angry people who didn't want to pay rates were the only ones who voted in local elections. They elected other angry people who didn't want to raise rates and those people kept costs down via the foolproof method of "letting the pipes rot in the ground". Just a few years ago, 8,000 people in and around Havelock North got poisoned when sheep poo seeped into some poorly maintained water infrastructure. Four people died! Wellington's streets are now equal parts sewage and concrete. For a while there people in Otago were drinking lead.

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Reposted by Mike Dickison

John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 4d

Delighted that Cory is having a moment with "Enshittification," because it's an accurate word for what's happening in tech and he's the right person to describe it.

(Gift link)

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/b...

A Powerhouse Writer Found One Word to Change the Debate About Tech

www.nytimes.com

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 4d

These are the giant pandas of the plant world, surviving in the 8% of remaining Philippine rain forest. The largest Philippine species was seen once in 1885, then not again for a century. No doubt other undescribed Rafflesia are still hiding out. parasiticplants.siu.edu/RaffPhil/Raf...

Title slide: Hidden giants: The strange world of Rafflesia
Pieter Pelser
School of Biological Sciences
6 October 2025

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