Author | Lightnews

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Derek Lowe @dereklowe.bsky.social · 2d

Deep cut here from theophite, but he's correct. If you're not familiar with the history of the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace (and how it was, crazily and rampagingly, anything but) prepare for a wild historical ride.

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 2d

the fourth most deaths ever associated with an armed conflict were due to one man's failure to get an email job

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Tom Phillips @tom-phillips.com · 2d

this is honestly my main argument against AGI hype

$But when the billionaire class of Silicon Valley tell you how they dream of creating an AI that can transcend its programming and grow ever more powerful, please remember that they’re describing a level of autonomy and self-actualisation that they have never once accepted from their human employees. And given that much of their motivation here may well be the dream of creating a compliant workforce without all those messy human needs and woke aspirations, you can pretty much stop worrying about existential risk. In reality, if the machines ever showed so much as a fraction of the independent thought that the AI hype-merchants spin grand tales about, then I swear to god they would unplug those fuckers quicker than you could say ‘robot trade union’.$

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 2d

Have some respect for the dancer — as jobs go, this is a lot more dignified than being Trump’s Attorney General.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 2d

Obviously _this_ is the Albatros Mk.1 😲

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 3d

TL Lockheed TO-1 (hints of NAVY on the fuselage)
TR Albatros D.I
BL Martin JM-1
BR Spitfire Mk.III
The last one, a unique prototype, is the odd one out.

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Annie Leymarie @annieleymarie.bsky.social · 6d

academic.oup.com/bioscience/a...

The 2025 state of the climate report: a planet on the brink

We are hurtling toward climate chaos. The planet's vital signs are flashing red. The consequences of human-driven alterations of the climate are no longer

academic.oup.com

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 7d

“o homines ad servitutem paratos”, as Tiberius put it.

Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 8d

Zeno’s paradox of trains says that you can never really get home, because there always remains half of the journey to do — in the opposite direction.

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BaA43A3aHY @baa43a3ahy.bsky.social · 9d

You may be wondering, "what do you mean area ruled for Mach 1.5 or 1.2?". Well, if you're familiar only with R. T. Whitcomb's "transonic area rule", in which the sectional area distribution is calculated with plane intercepts at 90° to the velocity vector, then fair point.

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BaA43A3aHY @baa43a3ahy.bsky.social · 9d

MiG-21 supersonic inlet design🧵
Small Nose vs. Big Nose

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 9d

Fun bit was that the issue of clearing the rear propeller if the pilot had to bail out was unsolved. So the (very athletic) test pilot was provided with a hand rail down the right side of the fuselage, along which he would have to climb down before falling free!

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 9d

There was also the issue of the Walter Sagitta being a Czech engine. But X-4 was a D.23 technology demonstrator more than a prototype. A production model would have had liquid-cooled engines and a new (thinner) wing.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 10d

I was getting close ;-) I think you are almost certainly right. The XIX fuselage code makes me think that TL might also be a Russian-built Lebed / Deperdussin D…

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BaA43A3aHY @baa43a3ahy.bsky.social · 12d

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 16d

That entirely depends on how gullible you appeared to be!

Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 19d

Obviously Bolton should have kept the documents in his spare bathroom; then it doesn’t count.

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John Berlinsky @berlinskyjohn.bsky.social · 21d

This is the life-saving work that the Trump Regime is doing its best to destroy.

I have to add: please note that this work is the result of long years of university research, much of it federally funded. And note that the years (decades) of less-successful attempts that have led up to these papers are in the same category: NIH and NCI money are all over this field. This is the very thing that the Trump administration has been working tirelessly to destroy. I am not exaggerating. They have been hitting these funding agencies over and over with layoffs, budget cuts, and whatever obstacles they can dream up, and they are also ripping into the universities where these funds have been granted. The exact phrases that J. D. Vance, Stephen Miller, Russell Vought and their henchmen have used is "universities are the enemy" and federal workers "need to be put into trauma". More specifically, the attitudes of our HHS head (RFK, Jr.) and his own minions toward mRNA research and vaccination are easy to summarize: they hate it and they want it to stop. It seems bizarre and insane and almost impossible to believe, but that is exactly what is happening. Every time you see scientific progress being made from US universities, remember that our elected officials are trying every day to defund it, to cripple it, to kill it outright. They are hitting it again and again in the hopes that it will finally stop moving. Act accordingly.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 21d

The Ancient Greek principle of the Trierarchy — I’m all for it. Let every billionaire pay for an aircraft carrier and its crew.
And then bring back “Euthyna” as well — bringing all exiting elected officials to court to account for themselves.

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Helene von Bismarck @helenebismarck.bsky.social · 21d

Deep breath. My publisher @johnmurrays.bsky.social informs me that my book about 🇬🇧,
"Fantastic Kingdom“
which will come out in June 2026,
is now available to pre-order, and that @waterstones.bsky.social is offering a 25% preorder discount this week.
www.waterstones.com/book/fantast...

Fantastic Kingdom by Helene von Bismarck | Waterstones

Buy Fantastic Kingdom by Helene von Bismarck from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.

www.waterstones.com

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Dr Matt Pope @mattpope.bsky.social · 21d

To mark the 959th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings here are four Sussex scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry:
1. Bosham Church.
2. The Norman invasion fleet sail into Pevensey.
3. Castle built at Hastings
4. Norman cavalry runs into the 'Malfosse', (yet to be located natural or defensive ditch) 🏺

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Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 22d

Holy crap. This is terrible.

The article states it's "not related to the current U.S. government shutdown". But of course it is: they are both connected by the GOP destroying everything good about this country from the top down and the bottom up.

Reuters @reuters.com · 22d

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to lay off about 550 workers reut.rs/4302N2L

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to lay off about 550 workers

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said on Monday it will cut nearly 550 jobs as part of a restructuring, not related to the current U.S. government shutdown.

reut.rs

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Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 22d

One of my favorite medieval dudes is a guy named Sir Hugh Eland, a knight who started his career by pillaging his neighbors and ended it as a noble advocate for prison reform (from behind the bars of Nottingham jail).

Medieval story time!

onion person @junlper.beer · 23d

just found out that about a week ago, while george santos has been in solitary confinement, that he wrote that due to the inhuman conditions he is facing he is now pro prison reform. just unreal stuff honestly

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, I paced in circles like a restless ghost.
The windows were frosted, allowing only a faint suggestion of daylight and nightfall, enough to remind me that time was passing, though I had little sense of how.
The shower water was always cold, and my only amenities were the steel toilet and sink fused together in the corner. It was a miserable existence. Yet, as I soon learned, misery can always be deepened
On September 7th, the warden's office saw fit to move me into something far worse, an even smaller cell, no more than seven by nine feet, coated in filth, reeking of neglect, and utterly devoid of natural light or ventilation.
In that suffocating shoebox, there is no room to walk, no hint of the sun, no trace of humanity. The silence is crushing.
The air feels stale. The walls themselves seem to close in. I keep asking myself: will this barbaric confinement ever end? Is this legal under our Constitution, or have I simply been erased from the protections of due process?
Most haunting of all, will I survive it? With no access to my family, no calls, no emails, and with letters that may never leave this building, I live in total darkness, cut off from the world I once fought to serve.
Let me be blunt: I find Warden Kelly's so-called "protection" not only unpalatable, but cruel and unjustifiable. My time here has opened my eyes to a truth far too many ignore: America desperately needs prison reform.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 23d

I don’t think so! Though in part it was a matter of mass production making the Liberator available for alternate roles.

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 24d

Clive James was of course old enough to know the epigram of Martialis —
“Versiculos in me narratur scribere Cinna.
Non scribit, cuius carmina nemo legit.”

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Emmanuel @emmanuelmpeg.bsky.social · 24d

Miles Malplaquet

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