Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by James Del

David_j_roth @davidjroth.bsky.social · 18h

You have to be willing to walk away from these guys if they let you down, just as a matter of basic self respect. It's not a fandom. You're hiring them to do a job or not.

timothy faust @tbone.malware-virus.biz · 19h

I liked the Platner ads too but I think there's a difference between "guy who had some bad reddit posts a decade ago" and "ex-Blackwater merc who still has a Nazi tattoo." Sucks bigtime that he's the only one taking positions and talking policy I like, but them's the breaks!

73 1.2K 5.7K

Reposted by James Del

Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 1d

Someone went there:

"It Kind of Seems Like Peter Thiel is Losing It"

via @futurism.com

futurism.com/future-socie...

It Kind of Seems Like Peter Thiel Is Losing It

He's spent the past month delivering four high-octane lectures in San Francisco's downtown waterfront on the antichrist.

futurism.com

140 350 1.4K

Reposted by James Del

Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 1d

This, FWIW, is my current teaching policy on AI, always subject to revision. It is, I recognize, easier applied to creative writing, which draws students who *want* to take the course rather than have to.

This is a course for those interested in writing not as means to an end but as an end in itself. Recently a friend and I read a cover story in New York magazine titled, “Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College,” by James D. Walsh. My friend has also taught writing. He likes to tell his students, “If you want to be a writer, put on a cool hat and go sit in a bar with cheap beer. If you want to write, write.”
I didn’t think AI would be a temptation for creative writing students. “Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College” persuaded me that for many it’s not a temptation but a condition. You sleep in a bed, you wear clothes, you don’t scream at teachers. Just the way it is. Maybe AI is becoming that, too, part of “just the way it is.” Maybe it is that already.
My mind raced through ideas about how to “beat” AI. The article dismantled them. Then I thought, “That’s not my job.” I’m a writer and a teacher, not a cop. If you want to work with me on writing, we can do that. If you want to cheat, you can do that, too, and I probably can’t stop you.
I’m interested in working with students for whom writing feels… good. Who seek that feeling. A feeling of being, of alertness. Of purpose; of intention.
This is a course for those who are interested in using writing to experience some variation of this feeling. Sometimes this feeling comes in a moment of clarity, sometimes in the making of a lyrical juxtaposition. There are so many more emotional, intellectual, and spiritual possibilities that arise from the act of shaping language. I live off the aftermath of that act—the recognitions, financial and otherwise, I earn from the results—but there is no paycheck, or even a finished book held in hand for the first time, that has ever brought me as much complicated pleasure as the arrangement of words. Maybe you’re like this, too. Or maybe you want to be. If so, I designed this course with someone like you in mind.

4 10 89

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 1d

I think the point is by doing a single take over the course of a semester you're deconstructing the immediacy of the reactive idea and instead dwelling on it, building on it as new information surfaces, sorting through the information that is good or bad. That's learning learning via take, imo.

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah, same. I think thats the behavior that needs to literally be trained in the age of AI, the reason I had all those reams of notes and books was I was working out my own take by absorbing the takes of others, that behavior is fundamentally the same still and can be part of HW, AI might even help?

1

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 1d

Then grade based on the evolution of thought from the start of the class to the end of it, you'll be able to tell who absorbed the material you put in front of them and who just clocked the key guideposts but didn't develop their own reasoned take.

1 1

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 1d

Gotta work with the students throughout the semester to develop the take they'll ultimately be writing about hot, I think? Like write an essay the first day and last day of class on the same exact subject, see how the take evolves with research, insight, primary sources, and a few months to stew.

2 3

Reposted by James Del

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 6d

We need to talk about how social media algorithms push moms down a slippery slope of distrust.

From "Are my kids getting enough support in school?" To "Maybe I should homeschool." To "Maybe modern medicine is bad."

I've seen this first-hand in research I'm doing on parenting apps. 1/🧵

39 470 1.6K

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 9d

This timeline is cursed with a whole host of ghoulish reality but I think having to explain Bari Weiss to my 99 year old grandmother is up there with the worst of it

1

Reposted by James Del

pixelatedboat aka “mr bluesky” @pixelatedboat.bsky.social · 12d

Nice try, “Paul A. Thompson”

A Pitchfork review for One Battle After Another that call it a “nerve-wracking masterpiece”, written by one Paul A. Thompson

30 180 2.2K

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 11d

Now Josh, let's not overlook his creation of extrajudicial kidnapping squads who deport people without due process to countries not famous for their human rights records. Or when he called Putin a genius for invading Ukraine. Or when he suggested Liz Cheney be shot at. Or called Africa a shithole co

5

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 12d

Went to see this on the big screen tonight, can confirm it is indeed lol

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 12d

Welp, here it is: maybe the funniest thing we've ever done, in its entirety.

The Onion Investigates: Jeffrey Epstein

YouTube video by The Onion

www.youtube.com

3

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 12d

He's a DINO(saur)

3

Reposted by James Del

Lucius Fox In The Box @carnegro.bsky.social · 12d

Pope Leo is spitting.

www.npr.org/2025/10/09/n...

Leo questioned a world where the wealth of the elite grows
"exponentially" while many "millions of people die of hunger or survive in conditions unfit for human beings." He also criticized "ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation,"
with false promises "that a free-market economy will automatically solve the problem of poverty."

Leo described a "new tyranny," which shuns any kind of oversight and where the economy is structured "in such a way that sacrifices are demanded of the masses in order to serve the needs of the powerful." The poor, he wrote, are only allowed "drops that trickle down."

The pope openly challenged "prosperity theology" and called Christians to the practice of giving charity. "It will not solve the problem of world poverty, yet it must still be carried out, with intelligence, diligence and social responsibility," he wrote.

Popular movements that challenge "the empire of money," invite people to take on the cause to combat poverty alongside the poor, instead of on their behalf, and "make history," the pope said. It our duty, Leo said, to "make their voices heard, albeit in different ways, in order to point out and denounce such structural issues, even at the cost of appearing foolish or naïve."

110 1.7K 5.7K

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 12d

This, by the way, is what "testing the Supremacy clause" looks like in practice. Kudos to Portland cops for upholding their oath to serve and protect their community, but a sad state of affairs when the state sanction enforcement branches are arguing. Back the blue, I guess??

1 2

Reposted by James Del

Anna Merlan @annamerlan.bsky.social · 12d

"A practice that would have been unthinkable under past administrations is becoming normalized: sending ICE detainees, without due process, to far-flung prisons in countries with notorious human rights records."

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

ICE is sending people to a prison in Africa’s only absolute monarchy

Inside the “legal black hole” in Eswatini, where Trump is sending detainees.

www.motherjones.com

11 200 420

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 13d

Somebody tell Trump about Jubilees (the historic monarchy tradition not the SFW gangbang videos). If we're gonna have a king we might as well get the good shit

1

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 14d

Only vibe code that matters to me is "thou shalt not attempt to finish the interrupted story a third time unless expressly invited"

3

Reposted by James Del

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 14d

this is very good

— lol, lmao —

Elizabeth Lopatto @lopatto.bsky.social · 14d

please read my memo www.theverge.com/business/793...

Memo to Bari Weiss Re: CBS News: You’re doomed

Bari Weiss has sold her company, The Free Press, to manage the decline of broadcast news at CBS. How many ways can it go wrong?

www.theverge.com

6 25 160

Reposted by James Del

Webvixen @webvixen.bsky.social · 16d

Frank Zappa 🎤

7 23

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 18d

Nope wrong Danny Gorman, mine is a Broadway and touring theater producer now lol sorry dude

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 18d

Danny Gorman (@dannygorman.bsky.social that you?) I believe also had SimmaDowNow or some variant, this was obviously back when SNL carried enormous heft for 13 year old boys' sense of comedy

1

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 18d

My AIM screen name in 7th grade was SimmerDownNowDC because this skit aired a week before a busload of LI middle school honor society kids went to Washington DC and spent 3 whole days telling vast numbers of federal employees to "simmer down now."

Chris Person @papapishu.bsky.social · 18d

1 2

Reposted by James Del

Jim Swift @jimswift.bsky.social · 18d

Donald Trump wanted to give King Charles one of Dwight Eisenhower's swords. The director of the library said no.

He was told to resign or be fired. WTF.

No swords for Kings.

22 140 380

James Del @jdel.bsky.social · 18d

Bless this source for providing such a vivid and potentially enduring image of the Veep-like clusterfuck this all stands to be

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 18d

NEW from me:

Several CBS News staffers and insiders told me that the network "is not a good place now" amid the imminent arrival of Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief, who one source likened to Michael Scott of The Office based on her lack of qualifications.

www.the-independent.com/news/world/a...

CBS News staffers are ‘literally freaking out’ about Bari Weiss taking over newsroom

EXCLUSIVE: ‘People are using words like depressing and doomsday – feels like some sort of doomsday,’ one source told The Independent about the mood inside CBS News right now.

www.the-independent.com