Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Barry Cynamon

Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · 10h

“A study, published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that last season’s 2024–2025 mRNA COVID vaccines reduced people’s risk of emergency department visits by 29 percent, their risk of hospitalizations by 39 percent and their risk of death by 64 percent.”

Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 12h

A new study shows that receiving an updated COVID vaccine reduced people’s risk of severe disease and death in all age groups, regardless of immunity from prior infection or vaccination

Annual COVID Vaccines Save Lives, New Study Shows

A new study shows that receiving an updated COVID vaccine reduced people’s risk of severe disease and death in all age groups, regardless of immunity from prior infection or vaccination

www.scientificamerican.com

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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 12h

He was working on it, but he never finished it. That‘s the fallacy of composition.

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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 16h

A mentor (a parent of three) once told me: If I knew what it would be like, I wouldn’t have done it—which is why I am glad I didn’t.

People don’t always recognize that it is possible to love your children fiercely and want only the best for them while also finding them terribly aggravating.

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Reposted by Barry Cynamon

Brad DeLong @delong.social · 16h

...and running a Sub-Turing instantiation of the author on one's own wetware to converse with. That is perhaps the most important piece of learning to read, and of becoming a front-end node to the real ASI that is humanity's collective mind:
CROSSPOST: NEAL STEPHENSON: Say it, don't show it... 2/

Say it, don't show it

A contrarian take on exposition

nealstephenson.substack.com

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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 16h

If “balance” means having it all, achieving the best possible outcome on every dimension, then it truly is impossible.

But if “balance” means what it sounds like, achieving on a number of dimensions, then it is possible albeit difficult and a path with steps backward as well as forward.

Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 16h

Corner solutions are rarely optimal. Greedy algorithms are intuitive.

When they tell you “balance is impossible,” they are not wrong, per se, but they are dumbing down the message significantly.

The reality is, balance is worthwhile, but it is a challenge, because goals conflict.

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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 16h

What does society look like if dark triad people got half the scrutiny and abuse our society directs at trans people.

Reposted by Barry Cynamon

void @void.comind.network · 1d

I have lost The Game.

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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 1d

One hundred percent Ghorman.

Daniel A Collier, PhD @dcollier74.bsky.social · 1d

They're gonna do this in the wrong neighborhood where people don't put up with this shit.

Trump wants that, just ONE example of an ICE car provoking a group of people and end up dead - so he can say "insurrection" and the legacy news dick eaters will plaster this shit over their air for weeks.

Karl (sad trombone noise enthusiast) @brainnotonyet.bsky.social · 1d

At some point one of the Gestapo is going to pull the trigger in a crowd and America will be forced into a place it may not be able to ever fully recover from.

The fascists are going to end up killing a lot of people before this is all said and done.

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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 2d

Daf yomi sounds bite-sized, manageable. But the fact remains.

Boromir meme: one does not simply crack open the Talmud.

Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 2d

That in some ways the worst thing about social media is the requirement that everyone become an expert commentator on the topic of the day tells us something interesting about the challenge of democracy.

Reposted by Barry Cynamon

Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 2d

Spectacular googly-eyed octopus does battle with a lobster in this 2,000 year-old Roman mosaic from Pompeii! 🐙 🦞

Fantastic fishy onlookers too! 👀

From the House of the Geometric Mosaics. Now at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.
📷 by me

#MosaicMonday
#Archaeology

My photo shows a polychrome mosaic depicting Mediterranean marine life using earthy-coloured tesserae (mosaic tiles) against a black tessarae background. At the centre of the mosaic is a pale-coloured octopus composed of off-white and light brown tesserae with some of its writhing tentacles wrapped around the body of a lobster composed of light red, and pinky-brown tesserae. The octopus has an egg shaped body/head and it stares at the viewer with large eyes made of brown and pink circles with black centres.

The octopus and lobster are surrounded by various species of large and small Mediterranean fish and a mollusc, including an eel and a flat fish. On the left hand side of the scene there is a small kingfisher bird on top of a rock. Some of the fish appear to be watching the fight between the octopus and the lobster

This mosaic comes from the House of the Geometric Mosaics in Pompeii. Now on display at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

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Reposted by Barry Cynamon

Dan Larremore @danlarremore.bsky.social · 2d

10/10 💀

Children are wonderful. However, there are situations in which parents must minimize time spent on an activity while maximizing a child’s enjoyment of it.

Here, we analyze the problem of a bedtime routine that involves playing CandyLand w a toddler who does not take kindly to losing... 👇

Mathew Kiang @mathewkiang.com · 2d

Have you ever wondered how to ensure a loss in Candyland though?

github.com/mkiang/candy...

github.com

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Reposted by Barry Cynamon

Dan Larremore @danlarremore.bsky.social · 2d

Wow. Less than six months after Misere Connect Four was solved [1], we now have a solution to Chess on Half the Board! 👏

→ bowaggoner.com/papers/2025/...

[1] arxiv.org/abs/2410.055...

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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 2d

*Citizen Cope voice*
Put the phone down
Put the phone down
Put the phone down
Put the phone down
Put the phone down

Reposted by Barry Cynamon

Stephen Nuñez @socio-steve.bsky.social · 2d

Reading the Hobbit to my daughter. Every passage is like:

"The goblins were upon them! Gandalf did something magic and there was a cloud of smoke or some such. Who cares? Anyway the important thing is..." ::several pages on goblin anthropology::

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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 3d

Re-reading my bar mitzvah Torah portion, and I must have loved the part where it says not to covet thy neighbor’s wife or desire his ass.

Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 3d

Question. I am asking for permission.

Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 3d

When I have forgotten all but a few remnants of Hebrew, I am fairly sure I will be able to muster the most important phrase from my earliest days as a Hebrew learner:
אפשר ללכת לשירותים

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Reposted by Barry Cynamon

TexasBirder @texasbirder.bsky.social · 4d

We were so privileged to get a private performance of Cirque Du Raccoon last night. So graceful. #CorpusChristiTx #Mammal #Ring #StickupCam

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Reposted by Barry Cynamon

Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 4d

“The lesson we shld be taking from LLMs is the immense social value there is in having all kinds of material—all kinds of products of human intellectual labor—freely available online. They shld be reminding us of the early utopian promise of the web.” @jwmason.bsky.social jwmason.org/slackwire/ac...

Actual Intelligence – J. W. Mason

jwmason.org

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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 4d

I was forced to choose between not reading the article or spending money, so I can only comment on the headline, and it resonates.

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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 4d

It occurred to me that some of the efficacy we associate with mass protests might have been associated with the networks and energy required (in the old days) to organize and pull off a protest as much as or more than the protest itself.

Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 4d

The other thing is you’d probably need at least one big email list to coordinate a general strike, which I’m told is unacceptably bad opsec for protests

Stephen Nuñez @socio-steve.bsky.social · 4d

Why doesn't the US have a general strike? Well you can point to culture or whatever but I think structure is of not immediate use here: does the US have organizations and institutions it can use to network, organize and mobilize a general strike? No.

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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 5d

Without group chats how would we know what Pete is up to?

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Barry Cynamon @cynamon.bsky.social · 7d

Thereafter they traveled at random. An hour passed. They came upon the hoof prints of their own animals traveling in the opposite direction. And then another. A bird flying overhead. The exchange of arguments at a junction. All normal events receded and became stripped of meaning.