Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 22h

What's that saying, history doesn't repeat but it rhymes?

Debt for AI companies surpassed $1 trillion. Debt in the telecom bust surpassed $1 trillion.

Reposted by Aaron Pressman

Sean O’Kane @seanokane.bsky.social · 1d

Unreal. Tesla spent more than a year promoting "more affordable models" and didn't even get the price of the new bare-bones Model 3 below the $35,000 sticker price that the company never truly delivered on.

techcrunch.com/2025/10/07/t...

Tesla reveals slightly cheaper 'standard' versions of the Model 3 and Model Y | TechCrunch

The long-awaited cheaper Model 3 and Model Y are finally here, but they start at $36,990 and $39,990, respectively -- just a few thousand dollars less than Tesla's current offerings.

techcrunch.com

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Reposted by Aaron Pressman

Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 1d

After RFK Jr.’s shenanigans, COVID shot access will be a lot like last year

Most people can get vaccinated at their local pharmacy like normal.

arstechnica.com

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Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 1d

@davidpierce.xyz A 7 foot by 5 foot room that’s too small for a treadmill? Oh yeah tiny library time (but how good are you with wood working shop tools?) youtu.be/rwZLV5Kda3Q

I Built a Tiny Library on my Stairs

YouTube video by Morley Kert

youtu.be

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Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 1d

2 Hours in Line for a Free Hat
How Claude turned a free hat + coffee into the best brand moment of the year, by Eda Akturk edatweets.substack.com/p/2-hours-in...

2 Hours in Line for a Free Hat

How Claude turned a free hat + coffee into the best brand moment of the year

edatweets.substack.com

Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 5d

“I like to tell people that if Waymo worked as well as ChatGPT, they’d be dead.” — Bryant Walker Smith, a self-driving-car expert at the University of South Carolina School of Law www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Move Fast and Break Nothing

Waymo’s robotaxis are probably safer than ChatGPT.

www.theatlantic.com

Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 5d

In 2015, the FBI recovered an iPhone from one of the San Bernardino shooters. They demanded that Apple create a version of iOS with a backdoor to allow access. Apple refused and even went to court to defend its position. Does anyone think Tim Cook’s Apple in 2025 would resist, or be able to resist?

Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 7d

Contradictory data about the jobs impact of AI continues to flow in. Yale and Brookings researchers see no signs of labor market disruption. budgetlab.yale.edu/research/eva...

Evaluating the Impact of AI on the Labor Market: Current State of Affairs

budgetlab.yale.edu

Reposted by Aaron Pressman

Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · 9d

so in otherwords she's stealing *her own* sunshine: www.wired.com/story/mariss...

Sunshine, the consumer AI startup founded by former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer in 2018, has seen brighter days.

The small startup is shutting down and its assets are being sold to a new entity incorporated by Mayer, called Dazzle, according to an email viewed by WIRED. Mayer sent the email to Sunshine shareholders on September 17, informing them that Dazzle has officially incorporated and is ready to acquire Sunshine’s holdings.

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Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 10d

Amazing
FOA calls itself the first entirely owner-controlled EV fleet in history. So far, 4,055 Ocean owners have signed up, paying $550 a year in dues that the group estimates will raise around $3 million annually, about 0.1 percent of Fisker’s peak valuation. www.theverge.com/transportati...

When this EV maker collapsed, its customers became the car company

Meet the Fisker Owners Association.

www.theverge.com

Reposted by Aaron Pressman

Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 13d

The U.S. entities buying TikTok are getting it for less than 1/10th its actual value, estimates The Information

www.theinformation.com/articles/tik...

Talk about a fire-sale price. That’s the only way to describe the $14 billion valuation we learned today is being put on TikTok U.S. in the Trump administration–orchestrated sale of the app. Given what we’ve reported about TikTok parent ByteDance’s revenues, and our guesstimate about how much came from TikTok, the valuation may be less than one times revenue. For a business growing as quickly as TikTok has been, that’s a rock-bottom price. Meta Platforms, by contrast, is trading at 10.5 times last year’s revenue, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

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Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 13d

Ed Zitron is not a journalist, not a whistleblower and certainly not a prophet. He’s not here to spread conspiracies, to “tell it like it is” ... He is, he says, just a pissed off, emotional guy who needs to get “these f-cking words out of my head”. www.ft.com/content/4c8d...

Ed Zitron is mad as hell

How a British-born hobbyist blogger became one of Big Tech’s punchiest critics

www.ft.com

Reposted by Aaron Pressman

Sabrina Shankman @shankman.bsky.social · 13d

In the midst of an unbearably shitty series of events, my family was faced with a choice: hunker down, or lean into the chaos.

We chose chaos, and her name is Gigi.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/25/m...

Life is chaotic. Sometimes, chaos is an adorable dachshund. - The Boston Globe

Out tiny puppy is wreaking havoc on our family in just the way we need.

www.bostonglobe.com

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Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 13d

Interesting AI wish list from startup founder Sharif Shameem. What jumps out to you? I like the agent that sits beside while you read a book. And getting actual advice about how to improve my sleep rather than just data? Sign me up. sharif.io/28-ideas-2025

The 28 AI tools I wish existed

The models are powerful as is. But where are the tools?

sharif.io

Reposted by Aaron Pressman

Federico Viticci @viticci.macstories.net · 18d

And here it is:

My in-depth 'Behind the Scenes' article about the iOS and iPadOS 26 review.

This is the story of how I used Notion for the whole thing and built my own army of AI Review Assistants.

Have fun: club.macstories.net/posts/behind...

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Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 22d

Fantastic crypto caper from
the 90s that holds up even today. Great pick for a rewatch in honor of Redford.

Lisa Schmeiser @lschmeiser.bsky.social · 22d

In honor of Robert Redford's passing, take a listen to @theincomparable.com's episode on the movie SNEAKERS, "a Problematic Hen," with @snell.zone, @dmoren.com, @siracusa.social, @liss.bsky.social and @hollygodarkly.wandering.shop.ap.brid.gy.

www.theincomparable.com/theincompara...

A Problematic Hen (The Incomparable Mothership 482)

Your voice is your passport, so prepare to be verified. We discuss 1992’s “Sneakers,” a spy/heist thriller in which a team of smart people solve puzzles while trying to navigate the NSA, Russian spies...

www.theincomparable.com

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Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 23d

Boston Globe actual story: The murder of Kirk, a conservative provocateur who routinely appeared before university audiences to debate politics, puts a harsh new light on the worsening climate for political discourse on American college campuses. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/13/m...

Charlie Kirk’s death shines a spotlight on worsening climate for political discourse on college campuses - The Boston Globe

Political rhetoric has become increasingly toxic in America, and the stakes are so much higher for those on the losing end of the debate.

www.bostonglobe.com

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Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 23d

To put their money where their mouth is, Joz then tossed the iPhone Air to Lance Ulanoff and he said “Try to bend it. It’s on me.” Both Lance and I tried to bend the heck out of the iPhone Air. It did not break. www.tomsguide.com/phones/iphon...

I tried to break the iPhone Air during an interview with Apple execs — and then I asked about a possible iPhone Fold

This was wild

www.tomsguide.com

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Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 23d

Retired VC Jerry Neumann posits that the AI revolution is not like the PC revolution that preceded it and created many super-valued tech companies. Instead it's like shipping containerization, which magnified global trade without spawning dedicated mega-companies joincolossus.com/article/ai-w...

AI Will Not Make You Rich

The disruption is real. It's also predictable.

joincolossus.com

Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 25d

Decent recap of mind bending season finale of Foundation (be sure to read the comments too): Foundation Season-Finale Recap: Love Death + Robots www.vulture.com/article/foun...

Foundation Season-Finale Recap: Love Death + Robots

The finale is full of shocking events, but the biggest is the twist that the conquering dictator was the person we least suspected all along.

www.vulture.com

Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 25d

Re the just aired season 3 finale of Foundation, the people of Reddit are geniuses! (spoilers for the episode in link) www.reddit.com/r/Foundation...

From the FoundationTV community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the FoundationTV community

www.reddit.com

Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 25d

Despite headlines suggesting that fires are more likely to occur in EVs than gas-powered cars, either spontaneously or after a collision, there is no evidence to support this claim. Recent data reported by Kelley Blue Book indicates that the opposite may even be true. ev.aaa.com/articles/are...

Are Electric Vehicles Safe?

With safety ratings and studies to back them up, EVs are proving to be as safe as — if not safer than — traditional gas-powered cars

ev.aaa.com

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Reposted by Aaron Pressman

Elizabeth Lopatto @lopatto.bsky.social · 26d

did a little media criticism www.theverge.com/politics/777...

The WSJ carelessly spread anti-trans misinformation

The Wall Street Journal’s fuckup while covering Charlie Kirk’s killing needs more than an editor’s note.

www.theverge.com

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Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 26d

What do we think about the season finale of Foundation? I felt a bit let down after the shocking awesomeness of the nine episodes that came before....

Aaron Pressman @ampressman.bsky.social · 26d

gothamist.com/news/from-bu...

From burner phones to decks of cards: NYC teens are adjusting to the smartphone ban

A week into the ban on internet-enabled devices, students say they are making it work.

gothamist.com