Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Celtibeŕ @celtiber.bsky.social · 4d

Unrelated to waffles™, I should have another break from Bluesky to get some perspective about this and other stuff. I’m sure I’ll be back before my first Blueskyversary – a month and a half from now – bc I’m addicted to the good shit y’all post.

A paraŕ fóŕte!

Celtibeŕ @celtiber.bsky.social · May 31

I’m gonna take a break from Bluesky, totally unrelated to this week’s discourse: not counting Weixin – the real “everything app” –, this is my first social media account and, after 6 months, I think it’s time to ponder the experience.

And let’s see how long I can resist the FOMO.

2

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

🏛️ Roma Aeterna 🏛️ @romaaeterna.bsky.social · 6d

#RuinoftheDay : les vestiges du Largo di Torre Argentina à Rome et sa fameuse colonie féline.

3 7 57

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

National Trust @nationaltrust.org.uk · 5d

This is extreme gardening.

At 55 feet high and 300 years old, it takes one gardener 10 weeks on a hydraulic cherry-picker to trim the hedges at Powis Castle, returning the yew hedges to their famous, cloud-like shapes.

A gardener stands holding electric shears on a huge red cherrypicker, trimming a gigantic, cloud-shaped, dark green hedge. The rolling green hills of the countryside stretch out in the background under a blue sky.

A view up at the 55-foot-tall, cloud-shaped hedges at Powis Castle. A brick wall partitions the garden. In the top left-hand corner, a red cherrypicker holds a gardener over the hedges.

4 32 180

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Andrew A.N. Deloucas @aandeloucas.com · 4d

Back to wondering whether Sumerian zid-lal3 was something like خبيص (khabeeṣa), which was served in cups to gods and mentioned with morning meals:

[ZID3] Flour, often emmer or semolina
[LAL3] Honey, syrup

1 2 9

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Marcus Hutchins @malwaretech.com · 4d

I personally, am not a fan of Bluesky's view on free speech and would happily move to an instance with more aggressive moderation. But there aren't any, because everyone would rather just yell at the company CEO. It doesn't take much effort for people to get together and spin up new servers. 8/?

3 1 52

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Marcus Hutchins @malwaretech.com · 4d

Everyone is yelling at Jay thinking it will change things, but the organization was deliberately structured in a way which limits her power. On top of that, since the platform's original vision was "free speech", there are some, what I'd call 'free speech extremists', on Bluesky's board. 5/?

2 2 45

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Marcus Hutchins @malwaretech.com · 4d

But Bluesky was also designed to mitigate other Twitter issues such as hostile takeovers, or the CEO going nuts and unilaterally making bad decisions (which kind of protected us from Jack's terrible ideas). Both were facilitated by decentralization. 3/?

1 1 43

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Marcus Hutchins @malwaretech.com · 4d

I think the important historic context about Bluesky is while it's seen as a safe space for people who fled Elon-Twitter, it was not designed to be that. It was a misguided side-project created by the previous Twitter CEO (Jack Dorsey) after he learned zero lessons from what happened to Twitter. 1/?

5 33 150

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

(Dr) Rena Maguire @justrena.bsky.social · 5d

Theres a wow factor....nit to mention a hmmm considering the aceramic nature of the Iron Age in many places...

Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 5d

#FindsFriday This 2000-year old whale vertebra seems to have been used by Iron Age people as a bowl!

Found at the Broch of Gurness in #Orkney, #Scotland, it is thought to have come from a beached whale and shows their resourcefulness

📸 Mine

#archaeology #ancientbluesky #museums #photooftheday 🏺

A whale vertebra on a museum stand with a cup-shaped hollow at the top

1 3 14

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Yoïn van Spijk @yvanspijk.bsky.social · 5d

The word ‘male’ is etymologically related to ‘macho’, but it’s unrelated to ‘female’.

‘Male’ comes from the French descendant of Latin ‘masculus’ (male), while ‘macho’ arrived in English via Spanish.

These are also related to ‘masculine’ – and perhaps even to ‘mastʋrbate’.

Click to read more:

4 10 35

Celtibeŕ @celtiber.bsky.social · 5d

[CONTEXT] Some demonstrators yesterday calling for a certain country in the Middle East to be ‘suntsitu’-ed, and my brain intrusively replying: “after almost 80 years in a baking hot place, it’s already ‘sunsido’”.

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Florent Moncomble @fmoncomble.tract-linguistes.org · 5d

Car non, bande d'ignorant·es, le rôle du dictionnaire n'est pas de recenser de nouveaux mots : c'est de cimenter la nation, car « le propre d'une nation est de permettre à tous les citoyens de pouvoir échanger » !
Et quel est l'ennemi n°1 de la nation ? Les JEUNES, avec leur vocabulaire riquiqui :

un dictionnaire marque la précision de
la langue. La profusion des mots qui y
demeurent est là pour rappeler ses nuances.
Quand les jeunes disent « grave bon », cette
locution recouvre au moins cinquante mots
de la langue française! En l'utilisant, on se
coupe de la grande précision du français
et on l'appauvrit.

1 2 4

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Florent Moncomble @fmoncomble.tract-linguistes.org · 5d

J'oubliais la lutte contre l'ennemi absolu, l'anglais… Point Godwin allègrement franchi page 51 : emprunter des mots à l'anglais c'est apparemment du même niveau que sacrifier la Tchécoslovaquie ou livrer des juifs à l'occupant nazi. Par les mêmes qui nous serinent que « les mots ont un sens ».

Dans ce
combat permanent contre l'hégémonie
anglophone - qui ne fait que prendre la suite
d'une ancienne hégémonie francophone,
ce qui n'excuse aucunement tel ou tel
comportement munichois, voire collabo -

1 2 6

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Maarten Kossmann @maartenkossmann.bsky.social · 5d

Leiden's greatest happening today. In remembrance of the lifting of the Spanish siege, all inhabitants can have free herring and white bread.
This was the waiting line around 8:30

3 5 33

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · 5d

Someone around 1350 to 1380 walked in this shoe in nowadays Spain. By the time, the first paper sheets appeared in Europe, and the Americas were yet unknown, and the Black Death started his debut album in Europe … What a time to lose a shoe! #skystorians

www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

2 10 53

Celtibeŕ @celtiber.bsky.social · 5d

TIL that only the ‘euskalkiak’ of the French Basque Country had ‘suntsitu’ [s̺ũnt͡s̺it̪u] – “(be) destroy(ed), vanish”–, a cognate of my dialect’s ‘sunsiŕ’ [s̺ũns̺iːɺ] – “diminish by the action of heat or time” –(Pyrenees) Aragonese ‘sulsir’ [sulˈsiɾ] or Valencian ‘solsir’ [soɫˈsiɾ].

Entry for ‘suntsitu’ in the ‘Orotariko Euskal Hiztegia’ of Euskaltzaindia.

Entry for ‘sulsir, sunsir’ in the ‘Diccionario aragonés-castellano-catalán’ of the Estudio de Filología Aragonesa.

Entry for ‘solsir’ in the ‘Diccionari català-valencià-balear’ of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

1 1 4

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Arabic Poetry @arabicpoetry.bsky.social · 5d

Arabic has 348 words for "lion". Here is the cover of Ibn Khālawayh's (d. 980, Baghdad) book on the subject.

3 11 23

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Ola Wikander @olawikander.bsky.social · 6d

Ugaritic word of the day:
ntbt ("path, way, road").

Östra Mårtensgatan, a cobblestone street in Lund, under blue skies.

2 13

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 6d

Because of landfill / land reclamation, Boston has considerably more land area than it did in 1630.

Reclamation efforts between 1800-1900 on the 'Shawmut Peninsula' more than doubled the size of central Boston, mostly through elimination of wetlands & tidal flats.

#TimeTravelersTakeNote

It's a map of Boston and Cambridge with the red part showing the 1630 shoreline, and the 1999 shoreline in grey. Logan airport is almost all reclaimed zone.

1 8 51

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Mab Stenek Veur @mabstenekveur.bsky.social · 8d

Bord du y'n Tavern Koth yn Eglosvelyan - pur dha

10 18

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Calle Börstell @cborstell.bsky.social · 7d

Distributions of endings in Swedish place names

#RStats #DataViz

A map of Sweden in 10 different panels, each showing the proportional frequency of different place name endings in various shades of blue

2 10 43

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Isaac Samuel @rhaplord.bsky.social · 7d

The city states of the Yoruba: a history of pre-colonial West African urbanism (1000-1900 CE)

www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-city-s...

The city states of the Yoruba: a history of pre-colonial West African urbanism (1000-1900 CE)

At the close of the 19th century, the Yorùbá region of South-west Nigeria was one of the most urbanized places in Africa.

www.africanhistoryextra.com

1 10 26

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Isaac Samuel @rhaplord.bsky.social · 7d

The paved streets of medieval Ife during the classical period (1000-1500CE)

www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-city-s...

2 3

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

Leo Cadogan @leocadogan.com · 7d

Decoration on a broadside from Barcelona 1682.

Bottom LH corner of broadside featuring: woodcut border decoration featuring flowers and branches, a woodcut vase with flowers, some typographical decoration, and in letterpress the first words from the imprint: “En Barcelona:”.

1 3 13

Reposted by Celtibeŕ

euobserver — EU news that matters @euobserver.com · 7d

Every year, Europe loses 1,500km² to construction. Green spaces that once sheltered wildlife, supplied food and removed carbon from the atmosphere at an alarming rate, a new investigation reveals.

'Cementing over our own future': Europe's nature loss is 600 football pitches daily

Every year, Europe loses 1,500km² to construction. Green spaces that once sheltered wildlife, supplied food and removed carbon from the atmosphere at an alarming rate, a new investigation reveals.

euobserver.com

4 11