Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 16h

mad how english folk can get four syllables out of embra

Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 16h

Was once told my late-submission request for a paper on dinosaur anatomy had been missed, and I could either write to the exam board pleading my case, or hand in by 4pm that day and eat the 5% late penalty. I spent that five hours knowing more about dinosaur anatomy than anyone on earth.

Dane 🔜 NYCC AA L-34 @monkeyminion.com · 1d

I wrote a 15 page report on heraldic symbolism in medieval armor and weapon design for my art history class the night before it was due (8am class). Made up 90% of it (only found one book for reference) and got an A. GenAI could fucking never.

wrote 20 pages on Faulkner's The Bear four hours before final papers were due on trucker pills and coffee and cigarettes and got an A, fuck you.
You people couldn't hang with real slackers.
finn
wokeupchic • 4d
It's fuck Al till your homework due in 25 minutes

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 1d

I mean the answer is ‘The Meat Lobby’, isn’t it?

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 2d

This is great, BUT the year we burned the most coal was 2024 and it's still going up.

Chart from Our World in Data showing coal production steadily increasing, largely led by China.

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 3d

nice try...

xkcd comic number 2827. Speech bubble: Did you know the mighty redwood is actually the same species as broccoli and kale? It's just a different cultivar. Wow! Caption: Every year or two, botanists add another plant to Brassica oleracea and see if anyone calls them on it.

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 6d

a computer-generated lifelike animation is not an "actor" and having to say that makes me feel like i'm the insane one

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 6d

As someone who knows nothing about palaeontology, I'm utterly convinced we've got helicoprion totally wrong. No way that's a coiled tooth-magazine. Like when we thought anomalocaris jaws were headless prawns.

Paul D. Taylor @nhmbryozoa.bsky.social · 6d

#FossilFriday An unused view of the bizarre tooth-whorl of the Permian cartilaginous fish Helicoprion taken for ‘Fossils. The Essential Guide’.

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 7d

Got @volcanologist.bsky.social’s new book in the post. Can’t wait to read the whole thing, but will be starting with chapter 4 as a matter of urgency.

A hardcover book called Volcanoes 10 things you should know – unearth the fascinating fundamentals of volcanoes, by Dr Rebecca Williams. It has a deep red cover with an image of an erupting volcano in embossed gold.

Chapter four. How not to die in a volcanic eruption.

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Reposted by Bob Gooday

Prof Col Macpherson @colinmacpherson.bsky.social · 7d

Spectacular concentric zoning and twinning of large titanaugite in essexite (nepheline monzogabbro) from Lennoxtown, Scotland. Plagioclase inclusions within the phenocryst align with zoning just as proximal groundmass plagioclase align with its edge. #ThinSectionThursday 🧪⚒️

Large clinopyroxene (titanaugite) crystal takes up much of field of view. Tin plane cuts from top left to bottom right separating twins showing different interference colours. Multiple concentric zones apparent in finer oscillation of interference colours. Plagioclase and olivine groundmass surrounds the phenocryst.

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 7d

One of my favourite bits of Moby Dick is this chapter where Melville basically says "a bunch of weird dorks keep telling everyone whales aren't actually fish but look at them... swimming around in the sea... of course they're fish".

Moby Dick @mobydickatsea.bsky.social · 8d

To be short, then, a whale is a spouting fish with a horizontal tail. There you have him.

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 8d

New series: guess the slightly silly mindat entry. @mindat.bsky.social

Colour: Emerald-green, grass-green, leek green, siskin green, apple green.
Lustre: Sub-adamantine, Vitreous, Waxy, Pearly
Hardness: 2 - 2.5

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 13d

Seconded. It’s basically this post in book format. I recommend the illustrated edition.

Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 13d

Scottish Greens have been (successfully) campaigning for Scotland games to be free to watch for ages. greens.scot/news/scotlan...

Scotland games on free-to-air TV a ‘Great result for fans’

Scotland games on free-to-air TV a ‘Great result for fans’ - Football is for everyone.

greens.scot

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 17d

Ian Holm's delivery of this line was very fun and silly, and really showed you're dealing with an ACTOR actor.

Paul Robichaud @pjrobichaud.bsky.social · 17d

‘I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.’

Happy Hobbit Day!

🎨 J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien’s drawing of Bilbo Baggins smoking a pipe.

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 19d

A hill I will die on is that she isn't wrong. Robbed of five points.

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 22d

A. I could live off apples and cod.

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 23d

Happy Pythagorean Day.
4^2 + 3^2 = 5^2
16 + 9 = 25

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 23d

this is just an alestorm song

Moby Dick @mobydickatsea.bsky.social · 24d

We don’t want thunder; we want rum

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 23d

Thought I already knew most of the very silly minerals, then along comes paddlewheelite. Ridiculous.

Chris 🧪⚒️ @chrisdoesrocks.bsky.social · 24d

Atomic steamboats and crystal spider? It's not an art show, but it is a great display piece! You can vote for which one gets top billing at mineralcup.org today!

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 25d

You know these systems were written by Americans because "Someone near Reading, England" accessing my account is me in Edinburgh.

Benzie, the puppies Penn & Teller, and Richard @rdaily.medsky.social · 26d

Gmail

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 27d

Is that Streitishvarf? Eastern Iceland is incredible for shallow magma dynamics. Enjoy!

Reposted by Bob Gooday

Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 28d

The custom I don’t understand - but still do - leaving tea bags out in a little pot by the sink before putting them in the food recycling bin.
Like an official period of lying in state before the funeral.

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · 28d

We're not going to waste the most delicious tap water in the world just for the sake of an undetectable layer of clean.

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Reposted by Bob Gooday

Rainbow Greens @sgprainbowgreens.bsky.social · Sep 9

“There are four key principles to Green politics. One of them is equality… if someone cannot accept that, fundamentally disagrees with us on that, then they do not have to stay in the Green Party. They can pursue the other things they care about elsewhere.”

www.heraldscotland.com/news/2545297...

Greer and Mackay: No place in Greens for people who don’t accept trans women as women

Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay say anyone who rejects trans rights has no place in the Scottish Greens.

www.heraldscotland.com

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Bob Gooday @bobgooday.bsky.social · Sep 7

well that scared the shit out of me.

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