Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

David Harrison @trawg.bsky.social · 6h

Awful, but I remain somewhat confident we have turned the corner already in terms of proliferation of renewables, and these increasingly desperate rearguard actions to slow the demise of coal will increasingly look stupid as renewables drive prices lower.

David Marler @qldaah.bsky.social · 8h

Crisafulli government's energy roadblock released. Coal to burn indefinitely in Queensland. A $400m investment fund with support for more than 1 GW of new gas generation. Renewable energy target repeal bill by December. National targets will be impacted. #qldpol reneweconomy.com.au/queensland-l...

reneweconomy.com.au

Reposted by David Harrison

Philip Bump @pbump.com · 13h

Oh, does it benefit the US to provide aid to foreign countries? That would have been good to know back in January and February.

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 16h

“Stabilizing Argentina is ‘America First’.”

🇦🇷 🇺🇸

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David Harrison @trawg.bsky.social · 1d

It's great that the government response to stuff like this is basically "well what are we going to do about it? Something? I don't think so". (How many MPs get treated in the public system would be an interesting stat)

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Chris Boyd @paperghost.bsky.social · 1d

the big problem with the inevitable ID verification data thefts is that it won't be the actual main org getting their stuff swiped; it'll be endless third parties nobody has ever really heard of, and the accountability chain will never, ever reach back to ukgov. the buck will stop with blorko ltd

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Jeremy Poxon @jeremypoxon.bsky.social · 2d

Now that the Deloitte report, about the government's unlawful administration of mutual obligations, is making international headlines, it's worth looking at what's actually in it (apart from AI slop) and WHY it was actually commissioned

A thread👇

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 2d

Bray is a historian at Rutgers who received death threats after landing on Turning Points USA's Professor Watchlist. As a result, he announced he was moving to Europe. And then this happened.

This kind of harassment and abuse of scholars is Charlie Kirk's legacy and it's only getting worse.

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 2d

“Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second.

We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’

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David Harrison @trawg.bsky.social · 2d

really want to see more Australian journalists asking the obvious followup questions to this like "have you checked all their other work recently" and "why would you ever give them any more money" and so on

your #3 source for absurdist true crime 🔨 @davidgerard.co.uk · 3d

Deloitte Australia retracts ChatGPT report, refunds government

vibe compliance

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HJV... - video
pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251007-del... - podcast

time: 3 min 28 sec

office worker with white shirt and glasses, dozing on his laptop keyboard

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nixCraft @cyberciti.biz · 3d

FAFO moment: Synology drops unpopular proprietary HDD rule to stop plummeting NAS sales. www.guru3d.com/story/synolo...

Synology Reverses Policy Banning Third-Party HDDs After NAS sales plummet

Synology has backtracked on one of its most unpopular decisions in years. After seeing NAS sales plummet in 2025, the company has decided to lift restrictions that forced users to buy its own Synology...

www.guru3d.com

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David Harrison @trawg.bsky.social · 2d

Fuck I did the same thing. I am kinda vaguely happy with bits of the Synology (though would never ever have bought one again with that stupid HDD policy) but I spend almost all my time using it thinking "I wish you were just a Linux box with a bunch of drives"

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merritt @merrittk.com · 5d

real lesson in bag fumbling! bluesky only hit any kind of mainstream success because they happened to benefit from musk's shitty behavior and there was already an early adopter base of ex-twitter people on here encouraging their friends to come over. most startups never get that lucky!

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David Harrison @trawg.bsky.social · 5d

Not really sure what these people think is going to happen if the files are released (whatever they are). Like they'll be held up to the sky and a ray of light will come down and sweep away the wrongdoers?

They'll just ignore it, lie about it, and continue stripping the country for parts.

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David Harrison @trawg.bsky.social · 5d

Worth noting for people who have not read Rise & Fall that page 139 is basically the start of the book and it is followed by all the really awful stuff. If nothing changes, this is just the beginning

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David Harrison @trawg.bsky.social · 5d

first they came for the chatbots, and I did not speak up because I, uh, was not a dick head

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lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 7d

this is like half of r/ups now

Hi Andrew,

You have a new invoice for $63,755.71

Tariff Fee on T Shirt

Total Due: $83.27

Government Charges: $59.27
Brokerage Charges: $24.00

How to go about disputing an incorrect tariff charge?

Total Due: $82.92

Government Charges: $68.92
UPS Brokerage fees: $14.00

I’ve received 15 different duties and tariff charges for items I didn’t order.
Customer Seeking Help
The title is the crux of the issue. Over the past 3 weeks I’ve received numerous brown envelopes all charging me for duty and tariff fees associated with items that I never ordered.

The seller is somebody I’ve bought from before, but the last time I purchased from them was several months ago and my name is on the sold to slot. The “shipped to” person is someone I don’t know and the address and tracking address are both unrelated to me.

I’ve sent emails to an address given to my by the one time I was able to get through the phone number listed on the paper bill. They said the invoices will be removed in 4-6 weeks but now I’ve started receiving late fee bills on top. I’ve tried to call in again once a day, but I either get hung up on or my call drops once the wait lasts over an hour.

Any advice? I just don’t want this to go to collections or affect my credit for something I didn’t order or have any relation to besides my name being on something it shouldn’t have.

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David Harrison @trawg.bsky.social · 7d

just zero thought has gone into these laws forcing websites to collect IDs for age verification. We're going to be seeing stories like this constantly

Marcus Hutchins @malwaretech.com · 7d

According to their blog: "The unauthorized party also gained access to a small number of government‑ID images (e.g., driver’s license, passport) from users who had appealed an age determination. If your ID may have been accessed, that will be specified in the email you receive."

David Harrison @trawg.bsky.social · 7d

scream

Guardian Australia @australia.theguardian.com · 8d

Dear computer boffins please stop trying to fix problems I don’t have | First Dog on the Moon

I don’t want AI in anything and certainly not everything please stop asking * Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published * Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

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David Harrison @trawg.bsky.social · 8d

finally, someone is making a movie with cute animals that isn't political

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Jesse Felder @jessefelder.bsky.social · 8d

‘OpenAI’s latest valuation gives it a market value roughly equivalent to Exxon Mobil, which reported annual revenue of almost $350B last year and profit of more than $30B. The AI company, meanwhile, is expecting $13B of revenue this year and a net loss in the billions.’ www.wsj.com/tech/ai/open...

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Leanne Veronica @leanneveronica.bsky.social · 8d

This uncertainty about the scope of the minimum age obligation should have been transparently discussed at the start of this year.

But the Govt failed to hold its promised public consultation on the rules setting out exclusions to the definition of age-restricted social media platform

Crikey @crikey.com.au · 9d

Australia's teen social media ban may require Wikipedia to restrict Australians under the age of 16 from having accounts on its platforms, @cameronwilson.bsky.social reports.

Wikipedia could be included in the teen social media ban. Australian users are worried

www.crikey.com.au

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Crystal Jane @crystaljane.bsky.social · 9d

This is a good case study of 1) how vague the teen social ban policy is, and 2) how eager the govt is to handball off responsibility.

The laws *could* apply to Wikipedia, so its they asked for confirmation. The govt won't confirm bc it's leaving enforcement up to the eSafety commissioner.

Crikey @crikey.com.au · 9d

Australia's teen social media ban may require Wikipedia to restrict Australians under the age of 16 from having accounts on its platforms, @cameronwilson.bsky.social reports.

Wikipedia could be included in the teen social media ban. Australian users are worried

www.crikey.com.au

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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 10d

This is the thing they'll never understand about "wokeness" or "political correctness" - huge organizations didn't implement these policies because of "cancel culture" or secret communists, they did it to stay competitive and viable. It's what people wanted

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The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 10d

Excited to introduce Vibes from Meta. Eat your slop, piggies!

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Asher Wolf @asherwolf.bsky.social · 11d

Ehsan Dehghan wrote his phD thesis on how antagonistic communities reposted each other during the Twitter campaign against Robodebt: the left and right formed a star-shaped network, working together to fight Robodebt. See page 197 eprints.qut.edu.au/174604/1/Ehs...

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David Harrison @trawg.bsky.social · 11d

Looking forward to EA's entire back catalogue being sold for peanuts at some point. Maybe Valve could buy it and just make all the games free.

Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 11d

Seeing people worried that Saudis and the Kushners are involved and that it will MAGA the product and I don't think you'll need to worry about that because I think EA is gonna close within 5 years. This is an insane move.

Jason Schreier @jasonschreier.bsky.social · 11d

It’s official: EA is going private.

The leveraged buyout will be financed by a staggering $20 billion of debt, which likely means some *aggressive* cost cutting is ahead for EA in the coming months and years.

www.businesswire.com/news/home/20...

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David Harrison @trawg.bsky.social · 15d

Feels kind of likely at this point that at least a certain cross-section of ICE have been explicitly told by superiors that they will be protected from on high no matter what, and tacitly encouraged to pursue these tactics to drive fear. The cruelty is the point.