Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Katherine I

Melanie D’Arrigo @darrigomelanie.bsky.social · 23h

I feel like this photo of masked, armed men pepper spraying a pastor protecting his community is going to be a defining picture of this moment in America for a long, long time.

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Joanne Hall @hierath77.bsky.social · 15h

Good advice here. Pete Sutton and I are running a workshop on Getting through the Slush Pile at @bristolcon.bsky.social , if you're interested?

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 15h

‘Stay true to yourself – and fly closer to the sun’: what I’ve learned from 50 years of rejection

As a writer, I have been rejected thousands of times, and it initially led to shock, denial and anger. Then I accepted it. Here’s what you can gain from doing so too

www.theguardian.com

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Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Blade Wielding Bisexual (Lordean arc) @shengokai.blacksky.app · 18h

The more I read the responses by BlueSky's dev team, the more annoyed I am about the ways that they've squandered the promise of what this site could be.

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Jeremy @jeremycarter42.bsky.social · 1d

Half the audience going "hypocaust" has been my favourite part so far (alongside Jenrick criticism, wish is always welcome!)

Alice Roberts @profaliceroberts.bsky.social · 2d

I’m back on tour with my new book DOMINATION this week - travelling to Bradford, Sheffield, Newcastle, Hull & Northampton. Expect plenty of monasteries, basilicas, hypocausts as I explore the end of the western Roman Empire and why it’s still relevant today!

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Cast of Wonders @castofwonders.org · 1d

Cast of Wonders 657: Plutopalooza by Gretchen Tessmer narrated by Emma Osborne produced by @jeremycarter42.bsky.social - our second story for #BannedBooksWeek

www.castofwonders.org/2025/10/cast...

CW: end of the world

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Banned Books Week @bannedbooksweek.bsky.social · 1d

TOMORROW: Join #BannedBooksWeek youth honorary chair Iris Mogul & student advocates from around the country for a conversation about how young people can fight book bans! 10/8, 3pmCT

bit.ly/YouthFightingBookBans

#BannedBooksWeek #CensorshipIsSo1984

w/ @ncacensorship.bsky.social

A fight for our rights: Youth fighting book bans. A conversation with student leaders moderated by Banned Books Week youth honorary chair Iris Mogul. October 8, 2025, 3:00 p.m. CT. Register: bit.ly/YouthFightingBookBans

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Unite Against Book Bans @uabookbans.bsky.social · 2d

✨ It takes all of us to fight for the freedom to read. Take this NEW #BannedBooksWeek quiz to assess your strengths & uncover your individual advocacy style. At the end, get actions you can take based on your result: https://quiz.tryinteract.com/#/68d400f64d6f970015d8e11b #UniteAgainstBookBans

What's your Freedom to Read Advocate Personality? Take a quiz to find out! Censorship is so 1984. Read for your rights. Banned Books Week. Oct. 5-11, 2025.

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Tim Evanson @timinthecle.bsky.social · 1d

#BannedBooksWeek

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Unite Against Book Bans @uabookbans.bsky.social · 3d

It's officially the start of #BannedBooksWeek!

How are you observing the week? #BTS' RM is reading a book by Patrick Süskind, an author whose work has been banned.

Find ideas for titles to read or actions you can take on #LetFreedomReadDay (10/11) at UniteAgainstBookBans.org #UniteAgainstBookBans

BTS member RM wearing a dark "Read Banned Books - Penguin Random House" hat.

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Banned Books Week @bannedbooksweek.bsky.social · 3d

"Those who ban books want to lock away ideas they fear. But in truth, they are trying to steal our freedom."

#BannedBooksWeek honorary chair @georgetakei.bsky.social encourages all of us to stand up for the freedom to read! #CensorshipIsSo1984

youtu.be/qwtzX15AKvQ?...

George Takei, Banned Books Week 2025 Honorary Chair

YouTube video by Banned Books Week

youtu.be

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American Library Association @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social · 3d

Censorship is so 1984. Read for your rights.

Today kicks off #BannedBooksWeek, and this year's theme reminds us that the right to read belongs to all of us, that censorship has no place in contemporary society, and that we must defend our rights.

https://www.ala.org/bbooks.

BANNED BOOKS WEEK Oct. 5-11, 2025. Censorship is so 1984 - Read for Your Rights. ala.org/bbooks. American Library Association

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Katherine I @chesneycat.bsky.social · 2d

AHAHAHAHAHAHAOHGODWHATMUPPETS

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 2d

Dear Gods of all that is stupid...

IT'S REAL.

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Katherine I @chesneycat.bsky.social · 2d

It's here! Our first #BannedBooksWeek story for 2025 is a lovely piece by a teen author, featuring a bookbinder and a very helpful dragon.

Cast of Wonders @castofwonders.org · 2d

Cast of Wonders 656: Unconventionally Bound by Açaí Sparrow, narrated by Karen Menzel, produced by @jeremycarter42.bsky.social

www.castofwonders.org/2025/10/cast...

This is our first story for #BannedBooksWeek 2025

Banned Books Week episode art: butterflies emerging from a book

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Bisexual Kaiju @bisexualkaiju.myatproto.social · 2d

So you want to support living marginalized banned authors but your local banned books week displays and events are full of famous dead people?

Not to worry: your helpful non-binary bookseller is here to help!

A thread!

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Katherine I @chesneycat.bsky.social · 2d

Hexapodia is the key insight

essencesimmone.blacksky.app @essencesimmone.blacksky.app · 5d

Those who are 35+, what advice do you have for people just entering their 30s?

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Jonathan W. Gray @elmcitytree.blacksky.app · 3d

James Baldwin to Angela Davis in 1970, discussing white Americans:

Or, to put it another way, as long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness— for so long as they are unable to walk out of this most monstrous of traps-they will allow millions of people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into and surrender themselves to what they will think of-and justify—as a racial war. They will never, so long as their whiteness puts so sinister a distance between themselves and their own experience and the experience of others, feel themselves sufficiently human, sufficiently worthwhile, to become responsible for themselves, their leaders, their country, their children, or their fate. They will perish (as we once put it in our black church) in their sins—that is, in their delusions. And this is happening, needless to say, already, all around us.

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Joyce (Wolf) Chng/Ch'ng 🐺 @jolantru.bsky.social · 2d

And because it's Mid-Autumn Festival and it is a tradition beloved by many. Imagine it being suppressed in the future, where celebration of it is forbidden.

Metal Can Lanterns. www.castofwonders.org/2019/09/cast...

%%title%% %%page%% | Cast of Wonders

“Nduka, you better hurry or you’ll be late for school! Your breakfast is getting cold and you know you don’t like when curds form in your pap!” Aniele calls from the kitchen. “Yes Mama…

www.castofwonders.org

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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 3d

*gasp*

“Everyone thought we’d come in and there were going to be these huge costs we could cut away but there just aren’t,” said a third senior Reform cabinet member in Kent.

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File 770 @file770.bsky.social · 2d

Pixel Scroll 10/5/25 Many Are Scrolled But Few Are Pixeled
file770.com/pixel-scroll...

Pixel Scroll 10/5/25 Many Are Scrolled But Few Are Pixeled

(1) TEXAS SCHOOL DISTRICT REMOVES YOLEN BOOK. “Texas school district yanks Holocaust book ‘The Devil’s Arithmetic’ over ‘DEI content’” reports The Times of Israel. A school district in central Texa…

file770.com

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Ben Whitham @drbenwhitham.bsky.social · 3d

Men in balaclavas set fire to a mosque in East Sussex last night. It's only appearing on the BBC's local coverage, rather than its main national headlines, despite coming just a week after the (also under-reported) firebombing of an asylum hotel in London last week
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Peacehaven: Fire at East Sussex mosque probed as 'hate crime'

Video appears to show two people in balaclavas at the mosque before a large blaze spreads.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Frames @oxinabox.bsky.social · 4d

"it might be conscious but unable to express it! You can't know."
O-kay... That sounds like you are trying to argue for existence of a soul. Why have you never argued this for animals or other objects that didn't have multibillion dollar marketing campaigns?

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Frames @oxinabox.bsky.social · 4d

Part of same thing "it seems like in humans consciousness just appeared when sufficiently complex systems. So you can't rule it out for LLMs"

Yes we can. The way it makes mistakes is exactly indicative of nonconciousness.
Of a lack of any sense of comprehension of its inputs.
And of self awareness.

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Frames @oxinabox.bsky.social · 4d

as a girl with a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning it's actually offensive to me when you say "we don't know how LLMs work so they might be conscious"

I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.

We know exactly how LLMs work.

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Katherine I @chesneycat.bsky.social · 4d

Have the very best birthday!

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Katherine I @chesneycat.bsky.social · 6d

Oooh! This cat-loving physicist sees a Christmas gift idea...

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