Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · 2d

i wish i could put this through a machine that blurs out the words to make them sound like english to non-native speakers www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU2w...

What English Sounds Like To Non-English Speakers

YouTube video by GC

www.youtube.com

colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · 2d

listening to the new taylor swift album as background music: it's vaguely nice bops but every time i've dedicated mental effort to focus on the words, it's so cringey

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colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · 9d

I want to recommend writing about Chile's constitutional referendums to a student -- both the 1988 one after Pinochet and the 2022 one. Bluesky has not historically been a great "hey does anyone have reading suggestions" platform for me, but hey does anyone have any reading suggestions? #polisky

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Yan Matusevich @ymatusik.bsky.social · 21d

Two former video editors for independent news website Kloop have been sentenced to 5 years in prison for allegedly spreading “false information”. They were just doing there jobs, had no part in any editorial decisions, only the technical video editing. Chilling

www.reuters.com/business/med...

www.reuters.com

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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 26d

Whenever I see data like this from Inside Higher ed survey, I want to go back and ask the students these questions: 1. What kind of brainstorming? Did you ask for an idea for your research paper? For a list of points you could cover in your paper? For ideas about how to research your topic? /1

graph of how students are using AI from a july 2025 survey by Inside Higher Ed

Way students used generative AI for coursework % of respondents
Brainstorming ideas 55%
Asking it questions like a tutor 50%
Studying for exams or quizzes 46%
Editing writing or checking work 44%
Using it like an advanced search engine 42%
Generating summaries 38%
Outlining papers 31%
Generating citations 26%
Completing assignments or coding work 25%
Writing free responses or essays 19%
Have not used generative AI for coursework 15%

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colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · 26d

how the semester's going, end of week 3

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Joshua Erlich @joshuaerlich.bsky.social · 26d

thank god we’re all against political
violence

Steve Herman @newsguy.bsky.social · 27d

Politico - President Trump tells reporters "we just have to beat the hell" out of "radical left lunatics," following the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.

Trump says ‘we have to beat the hell’ out of ‘radical left lunatics’ after Kirk killing

The conservative activist's killer remains at large and authorities have not said what the motive was behind his shooting.

www.politico.com

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colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · 26d

a student wearing a trump 2028 livestrong bracelet kept referring to james madison as she/her while discussing federalist 51. me: "i'm saying madison because it's his last name" student: "yeah that makes sense. anyway she sounds really smart." gender, a construct, etc etc

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eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social · 27d

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.

-Adam Zagajewski

Resharing a favorite.
[trans. Clare Cavanagh, published in TheNewYorker’s Sept 2001 special issue]

#everynightapoem

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships; one of them had a long trip ahead of it, while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees heading nowhere, you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world and the gray feather a thrush lost, and the gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns.
(Translated, from the Polish, by Clare Cavanagh.)

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Bilge Yesil @bilgeyesil.bsky.social · Sep 7

This is what we are talking about when we say Erdogan is blocking the roads so people can’t go to oppo party HQ. This is one of the major arteries in central Istanbul, a city of 18 million.

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JS @jsplaceholder.bsky.social · Sep 3

Fermented horse milk is *the* staple drink of rural Central Asia and the amount of female labor that goes into make sure it is (relatively) safe to drink on the daily is *wild*

Tim Longman 🏳️‍🌈 @timlongman.bsky.social · Sep 3

I lived for several years in rural cattle country in Central Africa, where milk was a major part of the diet. All the milk was either boiled or fermented to make it safe. Always. No one ever drank raw milk.

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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · Sep 2

Here we go. of all IFLE funding. No FLAS fellowships or NRC area studies centers nationwide.

Might be nice of even a single university president was willing to speak up about this disaster for R1 universities & their students.

democrats-appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-su...

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colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · Aug 30

Between the hours it takes to write the syllabus plus the hours it takes to get the LMS page up and running for each class, it very well may be easier to just email them what to read before each class😭

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colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · Aug 27

fun!!

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Karl (sad trombone noise enthusiast) @brainnotonyet.bsky.social · Aug 27

There are vetted sources now reporting that five children are in the hospital after being shot at the church/ school this morning. bsky.app/profile/apne...

The Associated Press @apnews.com · Aug 27

A Minneapolis hospital says it is treating five children injured from a shooting at a Catholic school.

Follow live updates.

Live updates: Shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school injured at least five children, local hospital says

At least five children were injured in a shooting Wednesday during the first week of classes at a Minneapolis Catholic school, authorities and a hospital said.

bit.ly

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colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · Aug 26

nah you'll be good -- fuel up! bring little snacks (better to eat before you actively feel tired/hungry, i have a snack every 15 miles or so when i do a longer ride), check that there's places to get water. good luck!

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colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · Aug 25

75-minute hot yoga, herby creamy zucchini + bucatini for dinner, Naked and Afraid while playing Stardew Valley. Trying to zen-max before the first day of the semester, thinking about the next 16 weeks feels both like facing a giant hill I need to bike up + like I'm at the top of a roller coaster

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Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · Aug 24

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Anjali Dayal @anjalikdayal.bsky.social · Aug 15

the two young women just waiting for their Ubers while this unfolds behind them really captures the complete ludicrousness of this situation

Republicans Against Trumpism @rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social · Aug 15

DC Union Station tonight. Unreal.

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colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · Aug 14

I also want to find tutors for Turkish and Persian, but the last time I tried jumping between these languages (in a taxi in Baku), my brain totally shut down and it took like 15 minutes to remember *any* words in *any* language

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colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · Aug 14

I restarted Russian tutoring on italki and got super lucky to click with the first woman I met -- on the docket for our next session: discussing a podcast interview between an astrologer and political scientist about how the ✨cosmos✨ affects our worldly political life

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · Aug 13

Unironically calling them TRAPS is like how the Ivy League trained founders of Panopto clearly knew what they were doing

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colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · Aug 12

no LMS other than a folder with shoddily titled pdfs of all the readings. no rubrics!!!! just grasping around in the (beautiful) dark to figure out how to write.

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colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · Aug 12

Timeline cleanse: my dearest dearest friend got married this weekend and I helped make her bouquet from flowers her housemate grew in their garden

An arm extended over a green lawn holds a bouquet with a sunflower in the middle, pink amaranth bending, and sprigs of dill flowers, tomato greens, and onion flowers extend above the sunflower

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colleen wood @colleenwood.rocks · Aug 12

2/3 of content slashed to make the reports "more readable," but also apparently much more palatable - isn't it nice that dark things apparently aren't happening anymore if we stop writing about them?

NPR @npr.org · Aug 12

Required by Congress, the reports no longer single out things like rigged elections or sexual violence against children as human rights violations.

State Department slashes its annual reports on human rights

Required by Congress, the reports no longer single out things like rigged elections or sexual violence against children as human rights violations.

n.pr

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