Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Ian

Colin Smith @colinsmith.bsky.social · 3h

1975: Harlan Ellison visits Michael Moorcock in London. The Englishman sits Ellison in front of the TV when Dr Who comes on & insists Ellison “be quiet & just watch”. By the late 1970s,Ellison is such a fan of Dr Who that he’s taunting US scifi fans with declarations of its superiority over US fare.

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Ian @grumpio.bsky.social · 3d

Ah, I had this on a compilation of something like 30 games on one cassette. Impossible to find the game you wanted to play. Although obviously simple compared to later games even on the Spectrum this was one of the games I'd spend all afternoon trying to find, it was quite fun.

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Tombmas Spooks @thomasfuchs.at · 5d

How many trillions of dollars have been invested into this technology so far?

Google search for "austria hungary in space"

Google excitedly tells you about the 1889 orbital flight, and that by 1908 there was a Mars research output with 30 people.

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waltydunlop @waltydunlop.bsky.social · 5d

Our Dennis The Menace is better than their Dennis The Menace. They're just jealous.

Mark GJ @brokentv.uk · 5d

America has GONE TOO FAR this time.

Post on Bluesky (user name redacted): "OK, I an American, have a question. Did anyone in the UK ever think anything in the Beano was funny? Was there just a weird national eye-rolling contest going on?"

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Ursula K. Le Guin @ursulakleguin.com · 5d

Something new from this corner of the internet: a newsletter! It will be irregular, not too frequent, and full of Ursula-related news. The first one, which went out last week, contains a note from Theo Downes-Le Guin, explaining a bit of the why and the wherefore. Here's part of that note.

A Welcome from Theo Downes-Le Guin
One of the great pleasures of my work as literary executor is the sense that we are creating a community around my mother’s writing and ideas. If I’m honest with myself, however, I know that this community already exists. Any time two people read the same book, and that book resonates with them, the potentiality for a community exists, and the chance that destiny will throw those two readers together increases exponentially. This is why text is a great tool for subversion, resistance, and revolution. So at best, I am slightly hastening this coming-together.

Ursula’s dear friend, moral compass, and tech mentor Vonda McIntyre had the foresight to set up early accounts for Ursula on Twitter and Facebook, to discourage impostors. We didn’t do anything with the accounts until after 2018, because Ursula had no interest in the style of communication that socials demand. After she died, things changed. As part of my grieving, I wanted to talk and write more about her, to as many people as possible. (I also learned, over the time, that this is my job description as executor.) Instagram, because it is image-based, allowed me to share glimpses of her life without crossing the line of privacy and intimacy.

Over the years, and with the deft guidance of my colleague Molly Templeton, we have created a tone (and a respectable following) on social media that my mother would have tolerated, if not embraced. I am certain that if she had ever jumped on Twitter (now, for us, Bluesky), she would have treated it as she treated her blog—a one-way channel that idiosyncratically alternated between intimate musings and fiery analysis of the political and ethical failings of society. I miss those tweets that never were. But it is not my job to try to simulate them—I’m not her, we have what she wrote, and we are fortunate for that.

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Ricardo Autobahn @ricardoautobahn.co.uk · 5d

This is the maddest tour I've ever seen in my life. It seems like he's doing more gigs than there are days in the year.

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Richard Herring @herring1967.bsky.social · 6d

Just got a hoax call about my crypto cash being blocked (oh no, oh wait I don't have any) but the AI voice knew my name (though it sounded slightly autotuned and wrong). Once they've got this perfected we are going to live in a scary world! Good luck everyone.

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Retro Computers @retrocomps.bsky.social · 6d

The 'Clementina', Argentina's first computer, a Ferranti Mercury mainframe named for its demo program that played "My Darling Clementine." Installed 1961, and effectively destroyed in Onganía's Night of Long Batons in 1966.

A replica of the Clementina computer. It's an 18m long computer with a desk, a QWERTY machine with photoelectric tape reader on the right, and a hardware monitor on the left; image left, one vacuum tube rack lies open, revealing the vacuum tube network within.

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Ian @grumpio.bsky.social · 6d

Could you start drinking again please? It has all got to shit since you stopped.

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Davey Jones @daveyjones.bsky.social · 7d

My Sunday evening challenge: first person to post a cartoon which they drew several years ago about Cyril Connolly is the winner. 5-4-3-2-1... I WIN

Cyril Connolly (1903-1974), the English literary critic and author of Enemies of Promise (1938), doing battle with a pram in the hall, and losing.

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Dr Delyth Badder @folklorewales.com · 7d

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

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Alex Selby-Boothroyd @alexselbyb.bsky.social · 10d

Hex map

Map by Ollie Corfe showing the followers of witchcraft in Britain by local authority according to the 2021 census

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Ian @grumpio.bsky.social · 9d

Avebury as well.

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Marc G @gravesnailyard.bsky.social · 11d

Do you think anyone ever ordered up a bespoke Bat Chain Puller ringtone back in the day?

Ad for Captain Beefheart ringtones inside a 2006 cd reissue of Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)

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Simon Pegg @simonpegg.bsky.social · 11d

Me, reading entries from Roger's Profanisaurus to the family at Christmas:

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 12d

I'm getting really really fed up at constant reassertion that welfare spending is "out of control" when it is the same as the average for the past few decades.

One reason disability benefit costs have risen is because core support has fallen.

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Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 16d

Trimming the world's largest and tallest yew hedge, Cirencester, England, 1962.⁣⁣

www.atlasobscura.com/places/talle...

3 men onlong ladders trimming a huge hedge, and I do mean huge.

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Unofficial BBCNews (UK) Bot @bbcnews-uk-rss.bsky.social · 16d

Ex-Reform UK Wales leader Nathan Gill pleads guilty to bribery charges

Nathan Gill admits eight charges of bribery while being a Member of the European Parliament.

www.bbc.com

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SF Encyclopedia @sfencyclopedia.bsky.social · 22d

Keith Roberts sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/robert... was born on this day, so here are three covers and his interior art for one of his own stories (Artist: Keith Page, [couldn't identify], Diane & Leo Dillon and Keith Roberts):

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Ian @grumpio.bsky.social · 21d

Facebook probably, if they are of a certain age.

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Viz Comic @vizcomic.bsky.social · 22d

subscriptions >>> shop.viz.co.uk/viz348bs

I DON'T know why people
say
"it's not rocket science"
as a means of explaining how
simple something is. Rocket
science is fairly simple itself. All
you have to do is make sure that
the thrust the engines produce
is greater than the weight of the
rocket and off they go. "It's not
getting an appointment with your
GP" would be a better phrase, as
this is virtually fucking impossible.
Tommy Tanksworth, Crewe

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Ian Duhig @ianduhig.bsky.social · 23d

Reading in York next Wednesday, where I once worked for the Council. The visit has reminded me of this sign in Museum Gardens which apparently banned cycling while allowing you to injure young and old alike by way of recompense. The good management of municipal facilities is all about give and take.