Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Zoë Crowther @zoecrowther.bsky.social · 1d

Lots of coverage this week about Reform councils being likely to raise council tax

@politicshome.bsky.social has been ahead of this for a while, including digging into Reform councils’ cost-cutting promises last month…

Reform's Cost-Cutting Unit Struggles With The Reality Of Local Pressures

After more than 100 days in office, those in charge of Reform-led councils are facing a political reality check in the form of soaring social care ...

www.politicshome.com

3 16 30

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

ByteRockers' Games 🤘 @byterockers.games · 1d

Do all games need to be 100h blockbusters?

We think not! Neither do DearVillagers, who have created the #GamesUnder5Hours showcase for short and sweet indie experiences ⌛️

OKU celebrates brevity with both its playtime and the haikus you write ingame 🖌️

#GU5HSteam25 #GU5H

1 2 3

Prof. Catherine Flick @liedra.net · 1d

Yep :( it sucks. I try to prop myself up for a while but then end up taking cough medicine that has dextromethorphan in it which stops the coughing for enough time to let me sleep. Hope you feel better soon.

1 1

Prof. Catherine Flick @liedra.net · 1d

These things are dangerous and not worth the costs to society or the environment. Their applications should be narrowed to very specific functions & heavily moderated; these general chat bots need to go.

Kevin Collier @kevincollier.bsky.social · 1d

New: We jailbroke four versions of ChatGPT to get instructions on how to create viruses and chemical weapons.

The instructions were all flawed, and the it didn't work on GPT-5. But 4 of the 5 big AI companies have internally found their top models are close to being able to tutor bioterrorists.

ChatGPT safety systems can be bypassed to get weapons instructions

NBC News found that OpenAI’s models repeatedly provided answers on making chemical and biological weapons.

www.nbcnews.com

4 9

Prof. Catherine Flick @liedra.net · 1d

I'm right here with you today, this sucks

1 1

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Jason Furman @jasonfurman.bsky.social · 1d

The other day a student asked me about the prevalence of insider trading in prediction markets. I now have an answer.

9 160 640

Prof. Catherine Flick @liedra.net · 2d

Yeah, it’s not for lack of ideas, just time 😭

1

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 2d

I met and wrote this paper with @liedra.net
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

1 1 2

Prof. Catherine Flick @liedra.net · 2d

It was so much fun! Some day soon we will do it again … she says hopefully 🫣😅🫠

2

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 3d

NVIDIA and OpenAi:

Concerns that their “increasingly complex and interconnected web of business transactions is artificially propping up the trillion-dollar AI boom.“

@bloomberg.com $NVDA 👀
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

150 760 2.1K

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

KOJAMF🤘🖤🤘 @kojamf.bsky.social · 6d

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

810 17K 38K

Prof. Catherine Flick @liedra.net · 5d

Ah but does it also invest in OpenAI? because we all know that's the best way to make a house of cards, might as well go all in eh

TechCrunch @techcrunch.com · 5d

AMD has signed a multi-year chip supply deal with OpenAI that could generate tens of billions in revenue for the chipmaker, helping accelerate its momentum in the AI industry.

AMD to supply 6GW of compute capacity to OpenAI in chip deal worth tens of billions | TechCrunch

AMD has signed a multi-year chip supply deal with OpenAI that could generate tens of billions in revenue for the chipmaker, helping accelerate its momentum in the AI industry.

techcrunch.com

2

Prof. Catherine Flick @liedra.net · 5d

argh why is "new outlook" adding massive spaces at the end of lines in my signature

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 6d

Bluesky, a poem:

I liked the post that everyone hated

I read it too quickly and wasn’t paying attention

Please don’t cancel me

8 34 370

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Dr Delyth Badder @folklorewales.com · 6d

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?” 🧵

240 2.1K 8.9K

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 6d

This is grim & dangerous over reach.

This is a government that have lost the moral argument & are still selling arms to Israel. Now further cracking down on dissent.

Absolutely the opposite of what they should be doing - so of course this is what the Labour Government choose.

Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 6d

NEW: Home Office announces planned new anti-protest powers, mainly aimed at pro-Gaza protests like those for Palestine Action. Police will be able to consider the "cumulative impact" of repeated protests and potentially order that they be relocated.

65 730 1.9K

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Deanna Kreisel 🌱 @doctorwaffle.substack.com · 9d

In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:

Screen cap of parodic version of William Blake's "The Tyger" that begins:
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
(Not sure if I spelled that right)
What immortal hand or eye
Could fashion such a stripy guy?
What the hammer that hath hewn it
Into such a chonky unit?
Did who made the lamb make thee,
Or an external franchisee?

39 1.4K 3.7K

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Goth Brooks @wehrmanm.bsky.social · 7d

"Give me beefy boys!" Hey cool lil' buddy you're twelve!

2 47 400

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Anil Dash @anildash.com · 8d

I think this is a useful distinction in the “if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product” sense, but that user was trying to assert that the platform (and the company) can’t justify its value without its large user base, and thus users should be treated with appropriate respect.

5 8 300

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Mike Drucker @mikedrucker.bsky.social · 8d

It’s probably bad that the group that hates BlueSky users the most are the people who run BlueSky

Jay 🦋 @jay.bsky.team · 8d

Are you paying us? Where?

31 290 2K

Prof. Catherine Flick @liedra.net · 8d

"I'm not sure, so we should probably hire an AI ethicist, but only post-launch", says guy who definitely does not care about the ethics of this

Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 8d

Is it wrong for your kid to play with a "racist pile of linear algebra" (h/t @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social ) that's deployed by Big Tech companies whose primary desire is to scale scale scale through evermore exploitation and extraction?

‘My son genuinely believed it was real’: Parents are letting little kids play with AI. Are they wrong?

Some believe AI can spark their child’s imagination through personalized stories and generative images. Scientists are wary of its effect on creativity

www.theguardian.com

2 4

Prof. Catherine Flick @liedra.net · 8d

Always fascinating to see how much work editors of journals do to get reviewers. I keep getting review requests from journals to my old email address which has a OOTO on saying that I'm no longer there. If they'd emailed to ask first they would have received that! So I don't feel bad ignoring them.

Prof. Catherine Flick @liedra.net · 8d

I can't be the only one who saw this and immediately thought "Michael and Peter are going to Have Opinions about this and I can't wait to hear them" #IfBooksCouldKill

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 8d

Bari Weiss is set to be named the editor in chief of CBS News, the New York Post reports

Paramount Skydance is poised to name Bari Weiss as editor in chief of CBS News in the coming days — giving the hard-charging journalist unusual clout to revamp the struggling network as it also acquires her scrappy news site the Free Press, The Post has learned.

Weiss — a 41-year-old former New York Times opinion writer who has built the Free Press into a buzzworthy site with a contrarian bent — is expected to be named to the top post in a Monday announcement, although the talks are in flux and the timing could change, a source close to the situation said.

1 4

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Anil Dash @anildash.com · 8d

This sucks, because it doesn’t read as lighthearted in-joking about the culture of this site (which I would assume is probably your intent), it looks like poking at already-upset people who think you don’t care about the legitimate frustrations they’ve had about Bluesky.

20 80 1.3K

Reposted by Prof. Catherine Flick

Jeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 9d

On National Poetry Day, the greatest poem I have ever read

A printed poem which reads:

I hav for breakfast Weetabix

I hav for lunch some meat

I have for tea 2 sosajis and thats enuf to eat

Peter Hazel, 5

61 940 3.6K