Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 22m

the hardest thing to watch was in spite of them actually delivering some of the lowest rate rises, you wouldn't know it to ask the population there. It's a relief today's outcome wasn't worse than it was.

1 2

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 1h

Brad will be spewing to get knocked out of the mayoral before her. That must sting.

1 1

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 1h

Oof, Whangārei results aren't great.

The good news is your rates probably aren't going to go up.
The bad news is you'll be lucky if the bread truck is even going up there in a year or two.

1 4

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 1h

… and if the specials bump it up a bit, well, let's just he's got a plan

Unix terminal output showing that 179 and 181 are both prime numbers

3

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 1h

Don McDonald got 179 votes, dude'll be fucking stoked with a prime number

1 1 11

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 7h

my wife has a degree in economics, and if she came home to me ripping copper pipe out of the walls she would probably not say "stop these asset sales immediately!", she would say "what the fuck are you doing you idiot", because the specific general ledger isn't what's important.

1 7

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 8h

it's actually something journalists are trained not to do. A lion escapes the zoo: is it good or bad? Who's to say? There's a lot of angles, it's probably great if you're the lion. Let's get David Attenborough on the phone.

1 3 8

Reposted by Ben Torkington

Daily Indignation @dailyindignation.bsky.social · 11h

Well that’s certainly the headline the government wanted when they drew it up on the whiteboard, cheers NZME, job done.

Nzherald.co.nz: Nicola Willis says Chorus sales money could go towards funding hospitals and schools

5 6 36

Reposted by Ben Torkington

David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · 1d

We had a discussion of this in June last year. Some NZ Uni's activated AI detection software options (Massey made the news www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3503... ). Others took a look at the false positive rate and went "No way are we going to accuse 1000s of students of things they didn't do".

Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa @sanjanah.bsky.social · 1d

University wrongly accuses students of using artificial intelligence to cheat www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/5...

University wrongly accuses students of using artificial intelligence to cheat

An Australian university has accused thousands of its students of cheating with artificial intelligence. The problem? Many have done nothing wrong.

www.rnz.co.nz

2 10 21

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 1d

It’ll be reported as “Six win Lotto Second Division, find out where”

1 4

Reposted by Ben Torkington

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 1d

I also wonder if the habit many AI boosters (both professional and enthusiast) have developed of essentially dismissing the entire non-online world + information not legible to LLMs as *irrelevant and unimportant* is linked to this Excruciating Onlineness Uptick

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 1d

as soon as the pandemic social distancing hit, I predicted that this would ignite the most terminally online era in human history - and I do think I nailed that

William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 1d

I think it’s because this is the first disruption that was paired with widespread, mature internet entertainment platforms. Some latent “hyper online” tendency got activated in lots of population where it was previously dormant.

3 26 240

Reposted by Ben Torkington

Amytiville Hoyrror @amyhoy.bsky.social · 2d

my husband just referred to happy feelings from playing with the dog as “dogamine”

9 36 370

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 2d

Probably. "probably" the poster child. He's the NZME ratings golden boy, commanding a fan base of the most uncritical thinkers, and he can't even pluck up the courage to be unequivocal on something that's implicitly subjective.

I'd take it as a compliment tbf. You scared him into a 'probably'

10

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 2d

maybe not? I searched for the flight number expecting a trickle of comments, but it's not as busy as it might have been on… another social site, in years gone by

1

Reposted by Ben Torkington

Ernie Smith @ernie.tedium.co · 2d

If you run a NAS company, don't upset the nerds.

www.guru3d.com/story/synolo...

Synology Reverses Policy Banning Third-Party HDDs After NAS sales plummet

Synology has backtracked on one of its most unpopular decisions in years. After seeing NAS sales plummet in 2025, the company has decided to lift restrictions that forced users to buy its own Synology...

www.guru3d.com

5 12 47

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 2d

how far we've come from "Here's to the crazy ones" [in the alt text]

Here’s to the crazy ones.

The misfits.

The rebels.

The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.

They explore. They create. They inspire.

They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?

Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?

Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

1 1 2

Reposted by Ben Torkington

Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 2d

🎵 They did the Monster Slash 😭 @ellecordova.bsky.social

11 380 850

Reposted by Ben Torkington

Mike Suszek @mikesuszek.bsky.social · 10d

Once again, this perfect @zeboydgames.bsky.social post comes to mind:

13 840 2.7K

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 4d

one explanation for the bsky ceo's severe case of posting syndrome is the buckets of silicon valley dopamine in anticipation of new-big-number day

Bluesky @bsky.app · 4d

we hit 2 billion posts today! 🥳

3

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 4d

hail and thunder in Miramar 🥶

1

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 5d

I mean yeah, there's a chance they were beaten to it by about five billion people

Scott Smith @canaansdad1987.bsky.social · 5d

Wall Street Journal is not the first one to rank him as the worst.

#USDemocracy

1 4

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 5d

What about Child Support liability, too? That’s going to leave the custodial parent hanging if the contributions also dry up

2

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 6d

What a night for the heater to crap out while we’re trying to dry all this stuff though

1

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 6d

and now the city emails me to say they’ll get back to me with a timeframe for repair, I dunno what the hey is going on

2 2

Ben Torkington @bentorkington.bsky.social · 6d

I called the city and they got someone around here fairly shapish, only to tell me it’s a private drain. It’s on a ROW with four other houses, all of which are uphill from it, so it looks like its between me and my landlord, neato

1 2