Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Nikolay Marinov

@professorniki.bsky.social

400 followers 180 following 670 posts

U.S.-trained academic in Sweden, elections, sanctions, propaganda. Advocate for corruption-free Bulgaria. Професор в Швеция, избори, санкции, пропаганда. Застъпник за Варна, Морската Градина.

Videos

Political science 51%

Sociology 22%

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Nikolay Marinov @professorniki.bsky.social · 4d

Карта на собствеността на парцелите в Елените yurukov.net/blog/2025/el...

Карта на собствеността на парцелите в Елените | Блогът на Юруков

След като миналата седмица стана наводнение в Елените, имаше много коментари за жертвите, собствениците, инвеститорите, виновните, корупцията, процедурите, проверките и провала им. Сравних мащабите на...

yurukov.net

Reposted by Nikolay Marinov

Новини @newsmixerbg.bsky.social · 4d

Карта на собствеността на парцелите в Елените yurukov.net/blog/2025/el...

Карта на собствеността на парцелите в Елените | Блогът на Юруков

yurukov.net

1 2

Reposted by John Heathershaw, Nikolay Marinov

Nate Schenkkan @nateschenkkan.bsky.social · 7d

I wanted to share some of the sources and inspirations for my new @jodemocracy.bsky.social essay this week on transnational repression. Like with anything, there are citations but then there's also stuff that doesn't make it into the piece

www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the...

The Golden Age of Transnational Repression | Journal of Democracy

Authoritarian regimes are targeting exiles and diaspora communities in more places than ever before. Activists, journalists, and regular people living abroad must watch their backs…

www.journalofdemocracy.org

1 10 19

Nikolay Marinov @professorniki.bsky.social · 11d

ако искаш мир готви се за война - логично е

1 1

Reposted by Nikolay Marinov, Dan Immergluck

pork, cheese, broccoli rabe @garlicbuffalo.gobirds.biz · 12d

8 290 960

Nikolay Marinov @professorniki.bsky.social · 19d

the British are coming

Gareth Watkins @garethwatkins.bsky.social · 21d

Dam been writing a book about this and she just TikToked it in 90 seconds.

270 8.2K 20K

Reposted by Nandita Sharma, Rosemary A. Joyce, Melanie C. Green , and 4 more Nandita Sharma, Rosemary A. Joyce, Melanie C. Green, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Jessica Vitak, Nikolay Marinov, Henrik Skaug Sætra

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 22d

Luckily, Sinclair has a helpful database of all their stations, so you can see if they're operating in your area and respond accordingly.

sbgi.net/tv-stations/

510 10K 20K

Reposted by Nikolay Marinov

Правосъдие за всеки @pravosadiezavseki.com · 23d

Тук може да следите заседанието по обжалване на мярката на зам. кмета Барбутов.

1 5 7

Reposted by Nikolay Marinov

Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 24d

A machine gunner of a Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter shoots down 6 Russian Shahed drones& 4 Gerbera drones during one of Russia's recent attacks

Very impressive!Glory!

To protect Ukraine from massive Russian drone strikes,we need combat helicopters armed with machine guns&thermal imagers of Flir type⤵️

13 170 880

Nikolay Marinov @professorniki.bsky.social · 26d

This answer does not count as dead-simple by any metric I am familiar with

1 4

Reposted by Robin Celikates, Nikolay Marinov, Stefan C. Aykut

Sinem Adar @sinemadar.bsky.social · 26d

www.zeit.de/politik/ausl...

Opposition in der Türkei: "Das sind politische Prozesse"

Am Montag könnte ein Gericht in Ankara die Führung der größten Oppositionspartei CHP absetzen. Wahlen wären danach nur noch symbolisch, sagt Türkei-Expertin Sinem Adar.

www.zeit.de

4 7

Reposted by Nikolay Marinov

Cédric Mas @cedricmas.bsky.social · 29d

Bonjourrrr

Deux vieilles dames habillées en style fin 19e, discutent devant une table avec un service à café en porcelaine (tableau de Hildebrand de 1860).

Avec une blague sur l’eau qui est un élément essentiel de la vie car sans eau, pas de café et sans café pas de vie.

2 43

Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, Aaron Sojourner, Julia Lynch , and 1 more Rosemary A. Joyce, Aaron Sojourner, Julia Lynch, Nikolay Marinov

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · Sep 9

People are following federal agents around DC w/the Imperial March. 😘

CHICAGO!!

Will add some basic ICE melting🧊 resources below.

Plz add other resources/ideas, & let’s get sub threads by city, so eg one person can start a Boston reply thread and everyone can add stuff to that thread — ?

🧵

150 980 3K

Reposted by Nikolay Marinov

Правосъдие за всеки @pravosadiezavseki.com · Sep 8

Бившият зам. кмет на Варна Диан Иванов твърди, че разследващите по делото срещу Благомир Коцев и двамата общински съветници не са го търсили след “оттеглянето” на дадените под натиск показания.

7 21

Nikolay Marinov @professorniki.bsky.social · Sep 6

I want to assign sth by Carl Schmitt on the State of Exception, for undergrads, to showcase the logic of slipping into auhtoritari
nism - do u have suggestions on what to put on the reading list?

Reposted by Timnit Gebru, Margaret Mitchell, Euan G. Ritchie , and 38 more Timnit Gebru, Margaret Mitchell, Euan G. Ritchie, Steve Peers, Elizabeth Stokoe, Ernesto Priego, Ana Delicado, Martin Tomko, Rebecca Sear, David S. Cohen, Jo Barraket, Silvia Secchi, Patrick S. Forscher, Stephen D. Murphy, Beatriz Gallardo Paúls, John Hogan, Christine Kooi, Ben Crum, Stefan M. Herzog, Aoife O’Donoghue, Jonathan Webber, Nikolay Marinov, Tama Leaver, Zen Faulkes, Madeleine Pownall, Erin O’Donnell, David Murakami Wood, Aurélien Mondon, Ann Bartow, Clayton Littlejohn, Henrik Skaug Sætra, Jack Stilgoe, James Connelly, Aleksandra Urman, Juan Ramón, Gary Marcus, Michael Larkin, Alysia Blackham, Hilary J. Allen, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Maksym Polyakov

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

96 1.6K 3.1K

Reposted by Nikolay Marinov

Insta Science @instascience.bsky.social · Aug 25

Water (life) returning to a dried river bed after a good rain.

160 1K 8.4K

Reposted by David Rothschild, Colombia, Cathy N. Davidson , and 3 more David Rothschild, Colombia, Cathy N. Davidson, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Nikolay Marinov, Mark Rice

Raider @iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · Aug 24

WTF 🤬
This is happening in Washington, DC

570 1.8K 2.9K

Nikolay Marinov @professorniki.bsky.social · Aug 20

For now

Reposted by Richard S.J. Tol, Nikolay Marinov

Darth Putin @darthputinkgb.bsky.social · Aug 20

Day 1274 of my 3 day war. It's going so well that a country with massive reserves of oil is running out of fuel.

I remain a master strategist.

28 140 770

Reposted by Nikolay Marinov

Reposted by Esther K. Choo, Melanie C. Green, Nikolay Marinov , and 2 more Esther K. Choo, Melanie C. Green, Nikolay Marinov, Karen L. Cox, Greg Linden

Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR) @hcrichardson.bsky.social · Aug 18

I think it’s high time we take back the national narrative. For centuries Americans of all races, genders, religions, and abilities have worked to create a more perfect union, and we should shout from the rooftops that WE are America. Not these idiot white supremacist authoritarians.

140 1.9K 6.3K

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Will Jennings, Brendan Nyhan , and 10 more Anna O. Law, Will Jennings, Brendan Nyhan, Efrén O. Pérez, Sanford F. Schram, Rebecca Tushnet, Alan Richardson, David R. Miller, Nikolay Marinov, Nelson Flores, Sam Kamin, Greg Linden, Stuart Shapiro

Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · Aug 17

I want to congratulate leading Democrats’ for their insistence on saying the takeover of DC is a “stunt” or a “distraction.”

It’s a rare trifecta of intellectual failure, political stupidity, and moral obtuseness.

300 1.8K 8.9K

Reposted by Nikolay Marinov

Kate Ross @kateross.bsky.social · Aug 17

Historian suggests fighting a wildfire with a back burn.

26 580 1.2K

Reposted by Kim L. Scheppele, Norbert Schwarz, John McLaren , and 12 more Kim L. Scheppele, Norbert Schwarz, John McLaren, David Rothschild, Trade, Jesús Rodríguez Pomeda, Lesley Bartlett, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Nikolay Marinov, Jason Lyall, W Grant, Cynthia Miller‐Idriss, Susan Strasser, Simon Lester, Susan D. Blum

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · Aug 16

NEW: Video shared with me from a bystander in DC shows multiple masked federal agents (at least one of whom appears to have an ICE badge) violently attacking and handcuffing a delivery worker in the street outside Bluestone Lane cafe near Logan Circle this morning.

Please take care when watching.

530 2.6K 5.1K

Reposted by Nikolay Marinov

Philip Gourevitch @pgourevitch.bsky.social · Aug 16

Excellent update.

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08...

33 120 520

Reposted by Nikolay Marinov

Nokov @nokov.bsky.social · Aug 13

четях Буковски и съм запомнил как пие евтино уиски в мизерна стая и слуша класическа музика по радиото. Великата музика звучи още по-истински на дъното.
Тук са закрили последното радио с класическа музика, вече няма. Сега имаме само дъното. С прекъсвания за реклами на майонеза и крем за гъбички.

2 17

America Xanadu @johnxuandou.bsky.social · Aug 13

This is one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed, the craft here is impeccable.

400 7.4K 19K

Reposted by Nikolay Marinov

Morgan J Freeman @mjfree.bsky.social · Apr 14

I'm going to post this video every day so we never forget what Trump did.

120 1.7K 4.8K