Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kelly B @kellyblack.ca · 2h

Oh wow!

Kelly B @kellyblack.ca · 2h

Unfortunately the album is not Reveen covering Frankie Goes to Hollywood

youtu.be/mQC4wRPufZY?...

He's The Man They Call ReVeen SASKATOON Centennial Vintage show Saskatchewan History Hypnotist

YouTube video by Saskatoon History

youtu.be

4

Reposted by Kelly B

Kelly B @kellyblack.ca · 2d

Thrift store find. IYKYK

Colour photo. The cover of a vinyl record. A man’s face on a black background. The record is titled “Relax with Reveen.”

3 1 6

Reposted by Kelly B

The Tyee @thetyee.ca · 15h

As drought in B.C.’s Peace River region leads to massive wildfires and the City of Dawson Creek scrambles to find a new water source, a report released today concludes that water use by the region’s fracking industry shot up a record 50% last year.

Ben Parfitt reports. #bcpoli

Fracking’s Water Demand Soared in Drought-Plagued Northeast BC | The Tyee

A report today from Stand.earth shows the industry’s water use increased 50 per cent in 2024.

thetyee.ca

2 62 75

Reposted by Kelly B

Negro Frolics @desmondcole.bsky.social · 16h

Until a few years ago, it was a criminal offence in Canada to scare the Queen of England

The Carney government's new hate crime proposals have a similar aim—to protect the ruling classes from discomfort and political dissent

My latest for @breachmedia.ca

breachmedia.ca/new-hate-cri...

New hate crime law is a cover for suppressing Palestine protests ⋆ The Breach

The proposed 'Combatting Hate Act' is built on the idea that protests inspire hateful violence, and gives police the tools to crack down on expression

breachmedia.ca

3 35 75

Reposted by Kelly B

Daniel Munro @dkmunro.bsky.social · 10h

January: Elbows up.

July: Elbows down.

October: Elbows nudge nudge, wink wink.

blair @blairaf.com · 15h

Looks like Canada's approach to "sovereign AI" will involve creating structural dependencies on large US tech companies

Excerpt from an article that reads: Lehane met with AI Minister Evan Solomon on Monday. Solomon told The Logic in June that his mission is to “create sovereign AI.” But “sovereignty is not solitude,” Solomon said, noting that Canada still needs technology and capital from other countries.

OpenAI is participating in similar initiatives in other advanced economies. In May, the firm launched OpenAI for Countries, a new program that localizes ChatGPT and its underlying models for a nation’s particular customs and the requirements of its public sector. It is also offering to build data centres for countries that help pay for the infrastructure.

Countries are turning to OpenAI because of its “cutting-edge technology,” which can be used to build homegrown tools and applications, and because the firm can help stimulate their domestic AI ecosystems by building or buying compute capacity, Lehane said.

1 5 6

Kelly B @kellyblack.ca · 3h

Starting to think not ever getting the chance to apply for a permanent teaching position was a good thing

1 1

Reposted by Kelly B

Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 14h

Netanyahu's mouthpiece, Amit Segal, casually admits on Twitter that his country has been holding 1,700 people from Gaza hostage, including children.

Among other things, according to the decision:

- 250 security prisoners will be released.
- 1,700 residents of the Gaza Strip who were not involved in the events of October 7 and were arrested after the massacre will be released.
- 22 minors under the age of 18, residents of the Gaza Strip who were not involved in the events of October 7 and were arrested after the massacre, will be released.
- 360 bodies of terrorists will be returned.

31 680 1.5K

Reposted by Kelly B

angel💀 @sabattons.com · 1d

what legal recourse do artists and museums have against international militaries stealing and using our work to commit warcrimes, since apparently that's a conversation we need to have now.

The Serfs (youtube.com/theserfstv) @theserfstv.bsky.social · 1d

Losing my mind and what look like video game assets but instead were used to justify war crimes and genocide in the real world

NEW: Since October 2023, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit has released dozens of 3D animations illustrating alleged Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iranian sites

The style is unmistakable: satellite zoom-ins, black & white wireframes, and red-textured houses - a new visual language of war.Our analysis of 43 official IDF videos found recycled 3D environments, spatial inaccuracies, and assets lifted from unrelated artists and institutions.We traced over 30 unique assets to Washington-based 3D creator Ian Hubert, who makes bespoke models created for his sci-fi project Dynamo Dream, available to his Patreon subscribers.

Models of parking lots, antennas, + pipes were repurposed as Hamas and Iranian military sites

@evanhill
·
11m
Fascinating work here tracing how the IDF recycled 3D assets from a cyberpunk sci-fi art project, the Scottish Maritime Museum and elsewhere to populate its widely-seen models of supposed enemy locations in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. One of the most infamous, the alleged underground Hamas command center at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, used to justify an unprecedented assault on the biggest medical center in Gaza, was actually an animation the IDF had used the previous year, saying at the time it was a tunnel beneath a UN school.

5 480 1.1K

Reposted by Kelly B

The Serfs (youtube.com/theserfstv) @theserfstv.bsky.social · 1d

Losing my mind and what look like video game assets but instead were used to justify war crimes and genocide in the real world

23 1.1K 3.1K

Kelly B @kellyblack.ca · 13h

I dont either. And why is KPMG delving into education anyway?

1 2

Kelly B @kellyblack.ca · 15h

This morning I heard the CBC reporting on a recent KPMG report on AI in post-secondary - it basically said 73% of ppl are using it and most of them find it’s harming their thinking skills, thus “ethical” AI skills should be taught better…

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 19h

A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.

2 15 44

Reposted by Kelly B

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 19h

This also indicates the essential dishonesty of saying “it’s just a tool.” A hammer is a tool. Nobody writes about the “inevitability” of hammers. Nobody has ever studied the harmful effects of hammers on learning and concluded that teachers must all hit their students with hammers “responsibly.”

9 180 750

Reposted by Kelly B

NBZ PS @f-rima25.ooguy.com · 1d

My baby RIMA 💔
💔 She was born in a tent, under bombs.
Never saw a cradle, never touched a home.
Now she starves, while the world scrolls on
🥀 Her tiny legs bend from hunger.
No milk. No bread. No peace.
Just fear, fire, and silence.
🔗 D0nate: bit.ly/3Va8TsN
🔗 Pay.Pal: bit.ly/4oPYj88

3 20 14

Reposted by Kelly B

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 19h

A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.

25 520 1.5K

Reposted by Kelly B

Kelly B @kellyblack.ca · Sep 15

The least we can do, is make the world a better place
Not just for a few, but the human race
To end wars and quarrels, make John Lennon’s dream come true
To build a new set of morals,
It’s the least we can do

youtu.be/GeX3VhJYIEU?...

The Least We Can Do

YouTube video by Christy Moore - Topic

youtu.be

2 2

Reposted by Kelly B

Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 1d

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

410 9.5K 25K

Reposted by Kelly B

Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 1d

BREAKING: Israeli war planes continue to launch raids on Gaza City as Palestinians celebrate the ceasefire announcement, according to an Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent on the ground.

🔴 LIVE update: aje.io/xqppys

18 560 700

Reposted by Kelly B

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 8d

2) For the same class we read Ch. 8 of Robert Paxton's classic The Anatomy of Fascism. I used his definition of fascism in my book Antifa.

I love his argument that a definition of fascism "encompasses its subject no better than a snapshot encompasses a person."

Cover of The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton. It shows a woman giving a fascist salute.

What Is Fascism?

The moment has come to give fascism a usable short handle, even though we know that it encompasses its subject no better than a snapshot encompasses a person.

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by
obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

1 39 210

Reposted by Kelly B

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 8d

2a) Apart from featuring his definition of fascism (which he offers reluctantly), Paxton observes how the fascist relation to ideas is merely tactical and not grounded in intellectual consistency.

Useful for today's world to remember how fascists dont feel the need to "justify" changes in position.

The fascist leaders themselves, as we observed in chapter 1, called
their movements ideologies, and many interpreters have taken them at
their word. It is commonplace to see fascism defined by extracting common threads from party programs, by analogy with the other “isms.” This works better for the other “isms,” founded in the era of educated elite politics. I tried earlier to suggest that fascism bears a different relation to ideas than the nineteenth-century “isms,” and that intellectual positions (not basic mobilizing passions like racial hatreds, of course) were likely to be dropped or added according to the tactical needs of the moment. All the “isms” did this, but only fascism had such contempt for reason and intellect that it never even bothered to justify its shifts.

3 48 220

Reposted by Kelly B

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 9d

I teach a history of antifascism course @ruhistorydept.bsky.social and figured I'd start an ongoing thread this semester to share some insights from course readings and recommend some great works on antifascism.

🧵

23 530 1.7K

Kelly B @kellyblack.ca · 1d

Nanaimo. Ucluelet. Tsawwassen…

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 1d

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

2 1 10

Reposted by Kelly B

Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · 1d

The vote, which passes 178 votes to 169, enshrines into law an embargo that has been in effect since the war began.

Spain’s parliament formally approves Israel arms embargo

The vote, which passes 178 votes to 169, enshrines into law an embargo that has been in effect since the war began.

bit.ly

2 82 270

Reposted by Kelly B

lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 1d

microsoft product (begging, pleading): save this document to my documents?

me: save to desktop

microsoft (twitching, shaking) this jpeg. save to pictures?

me: save to desktop

microsoft (weeping, throwing up): this email attachment... downloads?

me: desktop

130 580 4.3K

Reposted by Kelly B

cageyratfish FREE LINK, YOU COWARDS 🏳️‍⚧️🇨🇦 @cageyratfish.bsky.social · 1d

It's just routine kidney stone surgery!! Dolly Parton is Just Fine! i repeat she's FINE (very fine as usual!) 💕💕

Molly Knight @mollyknight.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah here’s Dolly on IG cleaning up her sister’s mess. Hair done, makeup done, shooting promos. Alive and well: www.instagram.com/reel/DPjkor7...

2 11 57