Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19h

One thing I like about #brightspace: I can import a calendar of events for a class/module, and if I change something, delete everything and reimport in a few clicks.

Pattern: manage your data outside the web app, import easily, remain in control.

All it needs is a calendar program outside that […]

Reposted by Brendan Halpin

Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · 19h

I don't know how many children 2025 Nobel Laureate Mary Brunknow has, but this AP photo caption says "one of their daughters." If she has 2 kids she just raised the mean number of children for Nobel medicine winners from 0.8 to 0.9.

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20h

RE: https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/115338739959369197

Really surprised that #julialang is mentioned only once in the replies. Pretty close to hitting the three criteria.

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Reposted by Brendan Halpin

Brian Harrod @brianharrod.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 1d

FOX NEWS IDIOT: If you thought the masked "Former Antifa Member" Jesse Watters had on last week looked familiar, there's a reason for that... #omg...He was also the masked "former gang member" and masked "Gaza resident" Watters had previously interviewed […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

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Reposted by Brendan Halpin

mariafarrell @mariafarrell.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 22h

RE: https://mastodon.social/@mariafarrell/115333913079023817

Well this is admirably concise and direct by Germany's justice ministry.

"Chat control without cause must be taboo in a state governed by the rule of law. Private communication must never be under general suspicion."

THANK YOU […]

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 1d

What a tale for our times! The cancelee's redemptive account of how he was cancelled by allegedly false allegations of #MeToo-era sexual abuse, cancelled by defamation claims from former colleagues who allege that his allegations about their behaviour (including supporting his alleged victim in […]

Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 1d

I have often told myself that many of my best tweets, toots, skytes etc are the ones I write, think about, and then delete instead of sending.

What I can't decide is whether the best thing about them is that they got deleted, or that I am deleting my best posts.

(Inclined to favour the former)

Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 1d

Britain clearly has a problem with too many people going to university, and Badenoch proposes to change that.

Imagine how much better off the UK would be, if Cameron, Osborne, Bojo, Gove et al had never gone to Oxford! […]

Original post on scholar.social

Reposted by Brendan Halpin

Bastian Greshake Tzovaras @gedankenstuecke.scholar.social.ap.brid.gy · 2d

Does anyone remember the Reinhart-Rogoff affair? The paper that was widely used to justify austerity policies, but where the main result was only an artifact due to the researchers screwing up their Excel formulas?

So yeah, can't see how putting the random number generator called "AI" in Excel […]

scholar.social

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Reposted by Brendan Halpin

ploum @ploum.mamot.fr.ap.brid.gy · 2d

D’ici 5 ans, ChatGPT sera plus intelligent que la majorité des humains.

De la majorité des humains qui auront passé 5 ans à utiliser ChatGPT.

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Reposted by Brendan Halpin

Kevin Carson @kevincarson1.kolektiva.social.ap.brid.gy · 2d

The World’s Most Annoying Man

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2019/05/the-worlds-most-annoying-man

The World’s Most Annoying Man

Steven Pinker is selling Reason™, not reason…

www.currentaffairs.org

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Reposted by Brendan Halpin

Claire McNab @2legged.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 2d

Fintan O'Toole at his excoriating best, putting the boot hard into Micheál Martin. Fianna Fáil's choice of #jimgavin was a badly botched attempt to "cut the presidency down to size" by selecting a man of little substance.

Paywalled original […]

[Original post on mastodon.ie]

Headline of Fintan O'Toole's column in The Irush Times: "What on earth was Micheál Martin thinking? Jim Gavin clearly wasn’t ready"

Sub-heading: "Getting your followers to agree to a proposition that makes no sense is the ultimate ego trip"

Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 2d

I was thinking of #bluesky as not-Twitter, i.e., commercial but free of the RW nazi-adjacent stuff, & run by well-intentioned people. I was forgetting that it is a US-based VC-funded corp. I imagine there are all sorts of crazy pressures on it to buckle under MAGA rule, and that e.g., Charlie […]

Budget 2026: State’s basic income scheme for artists made permanent

Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 2d

Good news for Irish artists, musicians etc.

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2025/10/06/budget-2026-states-basic-income-scheme-for-artists-made-permanent/

Negotiations down to the wire, with five big-spending departments yet to agree their budget allocations

www.irishtimes.com

Reposted by Brendan Halpin

Infrapink (he/his/him) @infrapink.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 3d

[Northern Ireland, The Troubles]

Hoo boy. The UVF carried out false flag attacks against Protestant civilians in the 1960s and 1970s, on the orders of Iran Paisley, to turn Protestants to the right and against any sort if détante or agreement with Catholics. The British Army knew what was going […]

Original post on mastodon.ie

mastodon.ie

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Reposted by Brendan Halpin

Kevin Lyda @lyda.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 2d

Just to make sure, if I put a 1 next to [CC or HH] and then a 2 next to the other one, can I put €3,000 next to the remaining candidate without spoiling the first two preferences?

#irishelection

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Reposted by Brendan Halpin

IanOB @ianob.mastodon.ie.ap.brid.gy · 2d

Reposted by Brendan Halpin

Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · 2d

Chris Van Hollen: "We want to re-open the government without giving Donald Trump a blank check to continue his lawless activities."
Who says bluesky isn't influential.
www.npr.org/2025/10/06/n...

Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · 4d

How about this suggestion for Dem framing:

GOP: Give us a continuing resolution to keep the government open

Dems: We're not going to give this lawless president a blank check (and specify conditions)

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 2d

@2legged French PM resigning after 14 hours is stealing his thunder

Reposted by Brendan Halpin

Martin Holland @fingolas.journa.host.ap.brid.gy · 3d

Macron: "We were incredibly naive to entrust our democratic space to #socialNetworks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies."

🤔

Screenshot of the social media accounts of the Élysée, all are from US-companies

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Reposted by Brendan Halpin

Terence Eden’s Blog @shkspr.mobi · 3d

## You did no fact checking, and I must scream

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/i-have-no-facts-and-i-must-scream/

I'm neither a journalist nor a professional fact checker but, the thing is, it's has never been easier to check basic facts. Yeah, sure, there's a […]

[Original post on shkspr.mobi]

**“I’ll be turning 95 this coming Monday. In my younger years, I was often filled with worry — worry that I wasn’t quite good enough, that no one would cast me again, that I wouldn’t live up to my mother’s hopes. But these days begin in peace, and end in gratitude.”**

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Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 3d

The last time I used MS Word to write a significant document was my PhD thesis. Since I've done everything of consequence in latex. More recently, I've used #emacs' #orgmode to write the latex: much easier for the routine stuff but you can include pure latex as you need. (15 yrs pure latex, 15 […]

Brendan Halpin @bthalpin.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 3d

@volts.wtf My theory about the autopen stuff is that Trump is inordinately proud of his signature, even if it is done with a sharpie, so the idea of it "being done by a machine" appals him.

(I.e., this explains why "autopen" is used as a label for Biden being senile, not why they attack Biden […]