Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Tan G.

Nereide @drnereide.bsky.social · 15h

🧵
A nice circumhorizontal arc (informally known as a fire rainbow, which is a misnomer) over West Virginia captured by Christa Harbig!

It is an optical phenomenon belonging to the family of ice halos, so it is neither fire nor a rainbow.

➡️ apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap21083...

🔭 🧪 #science

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$The image shows a circumhorizon arc (or circumhorizontal arc), an optical phenomenon resembling a fiery rainbow. It forms in a clear sky with cirrus clouds made of flat, hexagonal ice crystals aligned horizontally. These crystals refract sunlight, creating a colorful arc parallel to the horizon. Vibrant colors shine brightly against the blue sky, captured near North Fork Mountain, West Virginia.$

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 16h

Email from Strava informing me of the Garmin Data Attribution requirement added to their API terms of use. Does this mean they’ve conceded or just a temporary measure so Garmin doesn’t switch off uploads?

Reposted by Tan G.

Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 20h

oooh new version of Positron just released and it has (1) github copilot chat and (2) automatic {dplyr} code generation based on filtering/sorting/etc that you do in the data viewer #rstats

Me saying "hey it's github copilot chat in my positron"

Automatically generated dplyr code that matches the filtering and arranging that I did by clicking on columns in the data viewer

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Reposted by Tan G.

Guillaume Noblet @gnoblet.bsky.social · 1d

One of my graph has just entered the "best" section of the r-graph-gallery.com with a tutorial.

Featuring a waffle chart for time series, where the subtitle serves as a colorful legend.

Thanks a lot to @yan-holtz.bsky.social and @soeundataviz.bsky.social for adding it! #rstats #dataviz #ggplot2

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 1d

This is pretty cool work

#dataviz

Ana Lucía González @anlugonz.bsky.social · 1d

This dataviz love letter by Giorgia Lupi and @pentagramdesign.bsky.social using open data from NY transport and "assigning behaviors, movements, and idiosyncrasies to each MTA train" has just brightened my day
www.pentagram.com/work/a-data-...
Animation
www.instagram.com/reel/DPkAziW...

‘A Data Love Letter to the Subway’

A data-driven animation for Fulton Center commissioned by MTA Arts & Design for its 40th anniversary.

www.pentagram.com

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 1d

“No one’s had more annual physicals than me. People often ask me ‘is it because of your cankles or the bruising on your hand, sir?’ Well, it’s both…”

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Reposted by Tan G.

Martin Stabe @martinstabe.ft.com · 2d

Great piece of data journalism on the widespread anomalies in council tax banding, by @jonathanvincent.bsky.social and Sam Fleming and involving our great engineering teams on both the front- and back-end of the project. #ddj Plus a nod to some classic #dataviz design by @theboysmithy.ft.com:

A grid of small charts compares trends in house prices and council tax bills across UK local authorities since 1995. Each chart shows two indexed lines: one for average house prices (blue) and one for average council tax bills (grey), both normalised to 1 in 1995.

The top section displays towns and cities in northern England — such as Barnsley, Bradford, Burnley, County Durham, Northumberland, North Yorkshire, Preston, Redcar and Cleveland, and Sunderland — where the two lines rise together over time, indicating that house prices and council tax bills have increased broadly in line.

The lower section forms a cartogram map of London boroughs, where house prices have risen much faster than council tax bills. In boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, Camden, Hackney, Islington, and Waltham Forest, the blue line representing house prices climbs steeply compared to the flatter grey council tax line. The layout mirrors the approximate geography of London, with boroughs like Enfield and Barnet at the top and Croydon, Bromley, and Sutton at the bottom.

Source: Financial Times analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Valuation Office Agency (VOA). London cartogram design based on a concept by Max Gadney and Mike Gallagher.

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 2d

Good to know, I’ll check it out. I’m using Reeder and it sounds similar but you have to find the feeds or add in a URL and I’m not totally sold on its interface.

Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 2d

Is it just for managing RSS feeds or does it offer feed discovery?

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Reposted by Tan G.

Marie Segger @mariesegger.bsky.social · 2d

We have quietly launched Off the Charts, our @economist.com data newsletter, on Substack.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for FREE (paid subscribers also receive access to our newsletter archive & two of our data-driven pieces each week)

theeconomistoffthecharts.substack.com

The Economist: Off the Charts | Substack

The Economist’s data and visual journalists share the tools, techniques and ideas behind their award-winning stories. Click to read The Economist: Off the Charts, a Substack publication.

theeconomistoffthecharts.substack.com

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 3d

Very good!

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 3d

You and @jerthorp.bsky.social can be bird friends 🤝

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 3d

And a funny guy too which is something that comes across in his photography. Have you seen ‘I Am Martin Parr’? I’m going to try and finally watch it at some point this week

I Am Martin Parr - Official UK Trailer

YouTube video by Dogwoof

youtu.be

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 3d

If you’re anywhere near Bristol this weekend the annual BOP Festival takes place at his foundation.

bopbristol.org

BOP Bristol

bopbristol.org

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 3d

Met the one and only Martin Parr and he signed his autobiography for me. A nice way to spend a couple of hours after work.

UTTERLY. LAZY AND INATTENTIVE
Martin Parr in Words and Pictures

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Reposted by Tan G.

Bellingcat @bellingcat.com · 3d

Satellite analysis by Bellingcat found that wildfires destroyed over a third of Namibia’s most visited wildlife reserve last month, impacting crucial grazing lands for endangered species, including black rhinos and elephants. www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/10...

Wildfires Ravage One of Africa’s Largest Nature Reserves - bellingcat

Satellite analysis of the Etosha wildfires in Namibia has found that more than a third of the nature reserve was burned.

www.bellingcat.com

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 4d

How to get addicted to TikTok - a cautionary tale told in #dataviz

Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 4d

🤳EXCLUSIVE: We analyzed real data from over 800 U.S. TikTok users to reveal how the app transforms casual users into power users.

Extremely proud of this one, over a year in the making w/ @richardsima.bsky.social Leslie Shapiro @asteckelberg.bsky.social @ence.bsky.social

wapo.st/4obueib

Here’s how TikTok ‘power users’ end up scrolling 4 hours a day or more

Washington Post reporters analyzed data from over 800 TikTok users to learn how the app turns people into power users, some of whom spend hours per day scrolling.

wapo.st

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 4d

You get what you pay for, I suppose 🤷

Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 4d

I got the new GPT-5 pro API model to "Generate me an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle". This pelican took 6m8s to generate and cost me $1.10! simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/6/g...

GPT-5 pro

Here's OpenAI's model documentation for their GPT-5 pro model, released to their API today at their DevDay event. It has similar base characteristics to GPT-5: both share a September 30, …

simonwillison.net

Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 4d

This collection of Cold War #dataviz and maps is worth checking out

Beautiful Public Data @beautifulpublicdata.com · 4d

✨📊 Cold War Military Slides

A reporter stumbled upon a treasure trove of Department of Defense slides from the 1970s and 1980s depicting data from missile systems, Soviet capabilities and America’s nuclear ars…

🔗

https://beautifulpublicdata.com/cold-war-military-slides

Text "MISSION AND ORGANIZATION" is overlaid on a fragmented map with a blue grid and multicolored sections.

A dynamic painting depicting U.S. Air Force and Navy missiles and aircraft in flight against a colorful sky background.

A pie chart from the 323D Flying Training Wing displays FY 1979 graduate assignments, with SAC at 46%, TAC at 36%, MAC at 15%, and other at 3%.

A pie chart from AFSC FY 80 showing the distribution of total funds managed, totaling $17.4 billion, with sections for procurement (43%), RDT&E (25%), foreign military sales (21%), and other (11%).

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 4d

Very clever design!

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Reposted by Tan G.

Jason Thorne @jasonthorne.bsky.social · 5d

The Venn diagram of urban density and average household GHG emissions is pretty much a circle. Interesting study on “Mapping household GHG emissions in the Greater Golden Horseshoe” from the University of Toronto School of Cities schoolofcities.utoronto.ca/mapping-hous...

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Reposted by Tan G.

Guillaume Noblet @gnoblet.bsky.social · 5d

#TidyTuesday a week late on Crane Observations at Lake Hornborgasjön, Sweden (1994–2024).

🗓️ Used a heatmap to look at the repeated yearly spring observations
🎷 `ggbranding` to add personal branding github.com/gnoblet/ggbr...
👽 Code: gnoblet.github.io/TidyTuesday/

#rstats #ggplot2 #heatmap #dataviz

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 5d

This morning I learnt that the French Fourth Republic had 21 different administrations in the 12 years between 1946-1958, so is another PM really that bad?

Olivier Simard-Casanova @o.simardcasanova.net · 5d

Less than a month after his nomination, the new French PM has already resigned

Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 5d

It does seem that way although I do wonder what implications this will ultimately have for copyright laws

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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 6d

I love this video by @casey.nyc explaining AI video slop app Sora for me, a person who has no intention of ever using Sora.

SORA: the all Ai TikTok Clone. will slop end creativity?

YouTube video by CaseyNeistat

youtu.be

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