Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Noel Rappin @noelrappin.com · 13h

As usual, the weird thing about a newsletter is that subscribers generally come in at random, while un-subscribers tend to cluster right after you release a new newsletter, and some people go "why am I subscribed to that thing again?"

Anyway, subscribe at buttondown.com/noelrap

The Dynamic Rubyist

A newsletter about Ruby, Dynamic Languages, the tools you use for working in dynamic languages, dynamic programmers, and dynamic teams. From Noel Rappin, co-author of Programming Ruby 3.3 (the Pickaxe...

buttondown.com

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Dr. Frisky Whisky McThicky, Ball Knower @professorpash.bsky.social · 15h

Michael Eugene Archer aka D’Angelo 🖤🕊️

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drmorr @drmorr.appliedcomputing.io · Sep 12

This is a post by Anastasjia Uspenski
about how the "myth of the 10x engineer" is actively harmful (the post is itself based on a talk by @charity.wtf at the Craft Conference in Budapest):

shiftmag.dev/10x-engineer...

Are you chasing the 10x engineer dream — or building a 10x team?

Organizations built on heroes eventually break. You don’t need a 10x engineers — you need a 10x organization that scales sustainably.

shiftmag.dev

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Charity Majors @charity.wtf · 11h

You can't always trust your gut when you're just starting out, but if you've had at least one good job in your life, you know what it feels like. Trust that.

link: charity.wtf/2025/06/08/o...

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Tombmas Spooks @thomasfuchs.at · 11h

Another option to upgrade from Windows 10 is Windows 95.
It's 85 versions ahead, it will blow your mind how advanced it is.

New installation of Windows 95 on a 1990s ThinkPad

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Anton Tkachov @antontkachov.bsky.social · 1d

🎙️ Phillip Campbell – “Sidekiq at Gusto” @ Gusto

- The real bottleneck: your database
- Build early-warning systems (SLA queues, kill switches)
- Maturity = dashboards, playbooks, telemetry

“A 0.0001% error still means thousands of failures daily.”

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Samira Ahmed @samiraahmeduk.bsky.social · 18h

There's a lovely BBC Archive online about the 60th anniversary of the Asian Programming Unit. Which includes this lovely photo of my mum, Lalita Ahmed, (with script on far left) who presented Gharbar. Once she took me along and I watched from the gallery. canvas-story.bbcrewind.co.uk/asian60/

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Noel Rappin @noelrappin.com · 1d

And here's a newsletter/blog post

noelrappin.com/blog/2025/10...

Part one of a likely two-part series about the languages that influenced Ruby.

This time, Perl, with all of its shortcuts and syntax quirks. The things Ruby took and the things Ruby left behind...

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Terence Eden @edent.tel · 21h

We (OpenUK) are running a free unconference in London next week to discuss AI.
agentopenunconference2025.eventbrite.co.uk
Boosters and sceptics very welcome!

#Unconference #London #AI

Agent Open Unconference organised in partnership with the AI Alliance

Agentic technology will be explored in a day of technical and security discussions, with maybe some governance and ethics in an unconference

agentopenunconference2025.eventbrite.co.uk

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Libby Brooks @libbybrooks.bsky.social · 19h

“A great unmasking”: how the fierce debate over the Boiler Room boycott exposed longstanding systemic issues with how dance music is distributed and consumed - terrific investigation by Phil Jennings for Guardian Music

www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

‘We’re ripping ourselves to shreds’: with dance music bitterly divided, how far should cultural boycotts go?

Some artists and audiences are boycotting Boiler Room and other events over its parent company’s links with Israel – creating fierce debate about the best way to protest and how to remain uncompromise...

www.theguardian.com

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Lighthouse - Edinburgh's Radical Bookshop @lighthousebks.bsky.social · 20h

Want a full run down of the events?! Buckle up readers!

Lighthouse - Edinburgh's Radical Bookshop @lighthousebks.bsky.social · 20h

Edinburgh's Radical Book Fair is less than a month away!

4 Days of bookstalls from 50+ presses
20 events incl DragQueen Storytelling, Community Lunch & 2 Cabarets!

Full program is live, hybrid & either £5 or free!
5-9Nov: Join us!

tinyurl.com/RadicalBookF...
lighthousebookshop.com/events/edinb...

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Andrew Copson @andrewcopson.bsky.social · 1d

Fantastic news. The UK Armed Forces has sworn in its first-ever non-religious pastoral carer, a groundbreaking appointment making possible full inclusion and equality for all who serve. Well done Neil!

First-ever humanist pastoral carer in the UK Armed Forces

The UK Armed Forces has sworn in its first-ever non-religious pastoral carer. Dr Neil Weddell has been appointed a ‘chaplain’ in the Army and started in the role on 23 June, has already helped many pe...

humanists.uk

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paulsinha.bsky.social @paulsinha.bsky.social · 4d

In 2019 I married a man. I won the British quiz championships. I was diagnosed with a degenerative illness. I relentlessly made the news in New Zealand. I fell apart on Taskmaster.

This memoir is the story of how a shy gay Bengali teenager primed for a medical career, changed direction.

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wroclove.rb @wrocloverb.com · 2d

CFP for #wrocloverb 2026 is already open!

⏲️ We aim for ~30 min talk
🗣️ First-time speakers are more than welcome!
🗓️ We are waiting for your submissions until January 13th

PaperCall.io - wroclove.rb 2026

www.papercall.io

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Dak @dak.myatproto.social · 4d

🎶Whoa, Black Betty🎶

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rubyconitaly.bsky.social @rubyconitaly.bsky.social · 2d

Tickets for #Rubycon are finally available, grab yours before it's too late! ti.to/rubycon/ruby...

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Erin Kissane @kissane.myatproto.social · 2d

I’ve been feeling grim about my apparent inability to manage dozens and dozens of comms channels by ~building more and better toolchains~ or w/e and idk I woke up at 5am 100% certain that this is actually all a weird lie 🤷🏻

Erin Kissane @kissane.myatproto.social · 2d

I counted up the number of ways (platforms, accounts, apps) that people in my professional and personal lives plus healthcare systems and kid’s school are contacting me and uhh. This is objectively impossible.

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The Ineffable Horror of Joe Muggs @joemuggs.bsky.social · 2d

I did a LOT of big features over the summer, nice they're starting to come out now. This was one of the bigger ones... Again another true inspiration, and another model of embracing cultural abundance and optimism in scary times.

Little Simz on Her Own Terms | GOAT

Despite a shelf full of awards and a critically acclaimed new album out now, Little Simz is just getting started. For GREATEST 10, she explains why.

www.goat.com

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Juliana Dias at [email protected] @juuh42dias.bsky.social · 4d

Why I Built RubyEnv Instead of Using asdf, rbenv, or Docker

rubyenv.app/blog/why-rub...

Why I Built RubyEnv Instead of Using asdf, rbenv, or Docker - RubyEnv Blog

Building Rails apps should feel smooth, fast, and focused—but for years, my local development setup felt like controlled chaos. RubyEnv.app is the tool I built to fix that.

rubyenv.app

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George Penney @georgepenney.bsky.social · 4d

🧵Spotted on Market Day in Aotearoa New Zealand:

A small human (4?) is strutting along next to Dad, gripping a cheese scone that's almost as big as his face, munching on it like an apple.
Bare feet.
The sun's shining.
Crumbs flying everywhere and no one cares.
He's having a GOOD day. (1)

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Alice Lilly @aliceolilly.bsky.social · 4d

If we can’t even talk in general terms about MPs’ workload- which MPs of all parties agree is v casework- heavy and getting heavier- without a lot of responses being to assume that MPs are not telling the truth/just whinging/ working on the wrong things etc- then I think we’re in a bad place

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Andy Croll @andycroll.bsky.social · 4d

If I put together a 2/3day Rails-oriented, indie business/small team technical leader MICRO-conference for early/mid-Jan in the UK countryside… would that sound interesting?

Everyone brings one strong opinion and one problem and we take it in turns to help each other out.

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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcc.bsky.social · 5d

Higgledy piggledy
Timothée Chalamet
Has a name meriting
Endless design

Much like his forerunner
Benedict Cumberbatch:
Hexasyllabically,
Easy to rhyme

tweet from childish branzino @absflora:
timothée chalamet is the new benedict cumberbatch in the sense that you can say ANYTHING and we know who you mean. tiffany chevrolet. timpanogos charlemagne. symphony cabernet. jiminy castaway.

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Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 4d

The 📷 shows an apartment building in #Kyiv hit by a Russian Shahed last night.It captures the overall atmosphere in the city with painful accuracy

A hellish night of Russian strikes...We cherish every moment of life,because any moment,any day could be our last.That's why we live a bit desperately⤵️

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Alpine Migrant @alpinemigrant.bsky.social · 5d

Until we had a miscarriage in pregnancy I had no idea a) quite how devastating this is and b) how it happens to LOADS of people. It's incredibly common and it's a absolute bastard.

This is a decent and thoughtful law and props to all behind it.

Sarah Owen MP @sarahowen.org.uk · 5d

Today marks the start of Baby Loss Awareness Week.

This year, it comes as the UK is about to pass a law guaranteeing the right to bereavement leave for miscarriage, making us one of only 4 countries in the world to offer it.

My heart is with everyone who experiences the heartbreak of baby loss.

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