Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Caroline Fiennes

@carolinefiennes.bsky.social

2.5K followers 330 following 1.7K posts

Director of Giving Evidence: helping donors make decisions based on sound evidence. (www.giving-evidence.com) "Charmingly disruptive" - Nobel laureate Richard Thaler. U.Cambridge visiting fellow. Former FT columnist. Irrationally exuberant. Church nerd.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · Nov 13

Hello! I'm Caroline & I run Giving Evidence which supports donors & funders to be more effective by basing their giving on sound evidence: of where & why a need is, who's doing what about it, what works, & the intended beneficiaries' views.
Effective philanthropy.
And I'm doing a Masters right now😧

3 4 39

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 3h

How are people using AI for languages in Africa & what can it do? Big conf on this tomorrow, in Uganda, led by Sunbird AI (Ugandan non-profit), which is also launching its multi-language LLM Sunflower:

Register here: us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Ai FOR AFRICAN LANGUAGES CONFERENCE 2025-VIRTUAL ACCESS(HYBRID). After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

us06web.zoom.us

Reposted by Caroline Fiennes

Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 1d

A reminder of how Mrs Thatcher's Conservative party in 1983, an era featuring much more widespread racial prejudice in the public, approached the issue of race and national identity:

10 37 100

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 5h

Nobel Peace Prize is tomorrow!
Let's all make one confident prediction.....🤦🏽‍♀️

Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 1d

Horrific reporting from the AP on the Myanmar families watching their kids starve to death from Trump and Musk’s aid cuts apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 15h

Really amazing responses here - a very many of them 👇🏼

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 1d

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 19h

I met & became pals with somebody who then got a Nobel Prize!
So I got to write a "congrats on your Nobel Prize" card, which is really quite something.

Also in many years, >50% of my company's revenue has been from people/ orgs whom I've met on social media(!)
And that's aside from the ideas.

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 1d

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

1 4

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 23h

Yeah,but you also recommended @jowolff.bsky.social and he turned oùt to be a total rabbit hole 🤣🤣

1 1 3

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 23h

I do love it when people award me a free PhD!! 👍🏽

Excerpt of an email address to me as "Dr Fiennes"

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

Also, the website on which she was so charmingly advertised was literally called "without her knowledge". 🤦🏽‍♀️

He's going to have a terrible time defending himself. I might even watch!

1 1

Reposted by Caroline Fiennes

Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 1d

A reminder that this week the Conservatives announced they want a “British ICE”

John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 1d

Um, ICE just coldly shot an unarmed PRIEST in the head w a pepper ball when he (and everyone around him) clearly posed no threat.

For the crime of … complaining about government policy.

Core 1A speech.

With cameras rolling, they’re sniping priests for sport.

Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 1d

Here’s video of the incident

2 93 180

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

An all-time favourite cathedral photo! (That's me...amid the angels!)

When the lady opened up those panels, we all gasped: so unexpected.
View into the crossing/ nave to die for!

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

What are your cathedral tours, and can I come on them???
Sounds great.

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

Notice that two of today's Nobel physics winners 👇🏼 did the prize-winning work as grad students. Jocelyn Bell discovered pulsars while a grad student, but the Nobel went to her - ahem - male supervisors, allegedly bc at the time students weren't eligible. So this is probably progress, of sorts.

Laura Lopez @ohdearz.bsky.social · 1d

Valuable info about the Physics Nobel Prize today from Prof. Joseph Barranco at SFSU on Martinis and Devoret being a grad student and postdoc in Clarke's lab at UC Berkeley & Clark and Devoret being immigrants. "California *public* education made this happen. Immigration made this happen." ⚛️

Joseph Barranco posted on social media: Go Bears! Nobel Prize in Physics goes to 3 physicists studying mesoscopic quantum phenomena... Work was done in the 1980s in UC Berkeley Professor John Clarke's lab with his graduate student John Martinis and postdoctoral fellow Michel Devoret... all 3 share the Nobel Prize. Must also point out that both Clarke and Devoret are immigrants from the UK and France, respectively. All 3 are pioneers in the race to build the most powerful quantum supercomputers. California *public* education made this happen. Immigration made this happen.

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

No. She is such a hero.

She doesn't even have to be there, and listen to yet more of their whinny, absurd, disingenuous excuses.

Brava lady!

(Now *she* should get two state visits & banquets here...)

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

Did you get up into the roof?
Gotta love a cathedral roof!

View down the nave from up next to the ceiling

View down the 'nave,' up in the roof space IE, above the ceiling

View of the south transept from up on the southern roof. Very sunny day!

1 1

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

The king granted the bishop "the power to licence brothels and prostitutes".
Top medieval church history here!

(Tell me again the objections against women bishops??...)

HT @mattlewishistory.bsky.social

1 4

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

*hot 🤦🏽‍♀️

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, it's very good isn't it? We were there on Wimbledon Finals weekend: almost too hit to be outside so we were in the cathedral for seven hours (🤣) & had lunch in that jolly courtyard - before a surprise kind of concert in the chapter house by Stile Antico! Lovely.

2 2

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

GOOD MAN 🥳🥳

I didn't know about the 2nd paper. Nice. Thanks 👍🏽

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

Unless they're a child?
Dunno: we don't have any in this household (any more! 🤣)

1 1

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you.
Obviously I know that that is true in some circs. But this isn't one of them: the usefulness of quantum tunnelling has been known for ages.

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

The Nobel Prize in Physics just got awarded for work in...the 1980s!!!
So speedy🤣

It's for "the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit" - which sounds like stuff we studied in undergrad in the 1990s already!

Those prizes are so weird.

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 2d

BREAKING: John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis win the Nobel Prize in Physics for discoveries in quantum mechanics.

Nobel Prize for physics goes to 3 scientists for discoveries in quantum mechanical tunneling

John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis have won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their research into quantum mechanical tunneling.

bit.ly

2 5

Caroline Fiennes @carolinefiennes.bsky.social · 1d

I never understand the term 'crowd in'.
Does it just mean 'attract'?

Reposted by Caroline Fiennes

Alex Sutherland @criminologist.bsky.social · 2d

OMG. it was actually...a randomised trial.

💪💪💪

Evidence-based policy making.

Well done Ireland!

(I'm not looking any deeper at it. no methods cold shower for now. NO!)

Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 2d

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Post from Threads user rodneyowl: "Ireland has declared the Basic Income for Artists scheme permanent. This will be officially announced in tomorrow’s budget. Details to follow. Congratulations to all who fought for it and the present and future artists of all sorts in Ireland. That includes me 👌We’re just comin to the end of a 3 year pilot scheme. It’s been a roaring success. For every €1 paid out to the 2000 participants, the government got €1.46 back. Can’t argue with that. Other countries are already taking note."

1 3 9

Reposted by Caroline Fiennes

Prof Lisa Schipper 🌍🍉💪 @lisaschipper.bsky.social · 2d

Nobel Week is once again upon us! How many women and how many scientists from the Global South will be awarded Prizes this year? Remember that this is typically a set of Prizes dominated by white men from North America (some Europe, some Asia). The first announcement was today: Medicine. 🧵 1/

4 17 47

Reposted by Caroline Fiennes

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 3d

Happy to announce that I'll give a talk on how we can make rigorous causal inference more mainstream 📈

You can sign up for the Zoom link here: tinyurl.com/CIIG-JuliaRo...

3 53 140