Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jason Byrne

☢️Dangerously Radioactive M. O’Lybdenum☢️ @perchorin.bsky.social · 12h

Yall! Virginia is about to get a black cat license plate!

Richmond SPCA * • Follow
...
RICHMOND SPCA
1h •
Virginia drivers asked, we listened. We've been working for the last 12 months to create the Saving Lives Together plate with the Virginia DMV. More than 1,000 drivers indicated they'd like this plate on their vehicles in 2026, and the online presales are ready!
When we sent staff to join #TaskForceFrancine in Garysburg, NC on September 29, that wasn't out of the ordinary. Our teams mobilize daily to visit shelters across the Commonwealth and in neighboring states.
Collaboration is one of our guiding values, and we work with more than 66 shelters and rescues to save lives together. Your purchase of this license plate will be a driving force behind those lifesaving transfers.

A cute black cat sits in front of a Virginia license plate featuring a cute black cat.

A cute black cat and a woman sit in front of a Virginia license plate featuring a cute black cat.

People outside look happy that we have a black cat lice we plate in Virginia now.

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Jason Byrne @geekwithsoul.bsky.social · 19h

My parent's back yard in Falls Church is going to look like that soon. Need to start making sure they're wearing their hard hats 😀

Jason Byrne @geekwithsoul.bsky.social · 19h

I mean, naturally, that would be the first thing I'd think to try 😉

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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 19h

"We'll negotiate on healthcare after we reopen the government" is the most obvious wallet inspector line ever even if you weren't dealing with someone whose entire career was telling people he was the wallet inspector and taking their wallets

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Jason Byrne @geekwithsoul.bsky.social · 1d

I saw the thumbnail and knew without even watching the video that it would be Sysco. And I was right. I long for the days of an actual functioning government that either stopped these companies from creating monopolies, or that broke them up once they were monopolies.

I Tracked Down The Company Ruining Restaurants

YouTube video by More Perfect Union

youtu.be

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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 2d

Genuinely cannot wait for this, it is going to redefine the ways a game can suck ass

Every Film Now @everyfilmnow.bsky.social · 2d

Elon Musk announces xAI game studio will release a great AI-generated game before end of 2026.

Powered by Grok, the studio aims to revolutionize gaming with dynamic, photo-realistic experiences.

#xAI #Grok #AIGaming

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Lora Kolodny @lorak.bsky.social · 2d

icymi - “Deloitte Australia will issue a partial refund to the federal government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a $440,000 report littered with errors including… a made-up quote from a Federal Court judgement.” www.afr.com/companies/pr...

Deloitte to refund government, admits using AI in $440k report

Deloitte will issue a partial refund to the government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a report littered with errors.

www.afr.com

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Reposted by Jason Byrne

Boo London @cmdrsue.bsky.social · 3d

Twice as much power as New Orleans.

The insanity must stop.

Mississippi Free Press @mississippifreepress.org · 3d

In a rural corner of Louisiana, Meta is building one of the world's largest data centers, a $10 billion behemoth as big as 70 football fields that will consume more power in a day than the entire city of New Orleans at the peak of summer.

New Meta Data Center Needs Twice as Much Energy as New Orleans

Meta is constructing its largest data center yet: a $10 billion facility in Louisiana requiring more than twice as much electricity as New Orleans.

buff.ly

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Jason Byrne @geekwithsoul.bsky.social · 4d

I was remembering the story about Lucas being perturbed about hiring Liam Neeson because it meant he needed to make the sets he appeared in taller. And of course his frustrations whenever an actor had real questions about a character's motivations when attempting the wooden dialogue he often wrote.

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Jason Byrne @geekwithsoul.bsky.social · 4d

Not that Disney isn't probably thinking about it, but at least they seem to want to be viewed as valuing creatives and some level of artistic merit. And hopefully they know how such a move would be received. They may not actually care about the art of acting but they do care about the money.

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Jason Byrne @geekwithsoul.bsky.social · 4d

With all the news stories about an AI "actress", I just realized how glad I am that George Lucas doesn't still own Star Wars. With his views and frustrations with real actors, he'd almost certainly be embracing the chance to play with digital dolls to turn out soulless Star Wars AI slop movies.

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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 4d

chat, is saying you want to destroy a computer program the same as genocide?

Parker Molloy @parkermolloy.com · 4d

*takes massive bong rip*

hailey
@hailey.at • 6h
an unfortunate irony about this post - and even if you are the staunchest anti-ai critic out there, i think you'd agree - is that some of the most bigoted things are being said to respond to this. copy/pasting phrasing and terminology used by bigots but replacing "dna" with "bits" doesn't make it ok
4J @dystopiabreaker.xyz • 3d
i'm completely serious when i say that much of the dismissive ai discourse on here fires the bigotry neuron
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hailey
@hailey.at • 6h
if you're writing a sentence that sounds like eugenics but you go "oh that's fine to say because it's not a real person" (whatever that means) you may want to consider what made you okay with saying that

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Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 4d

A WILD ONE: A man broke his leg during an arrest by ICE at a car wash south of L.A.

ICE has held him under 24/7 guard at a hospital, registering him under a pseudonym, for *37 days* without telling him why.

A judge has ordered his immediate release.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 5d

It’s crazy the assault on academic freedom in China.

*Taps earpiece* Hold on, I’m told it’s the US.

Trump Administration Asks Colleges to Sign ‘Compact’ to Get Funding Preference

www.nytimes.com

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 5d

Naked children torn from their mothers and tossed into vans.

U.S. citizens detained for hours in zip ties.

Doors kicked in and belongings stolen or destroyed.

This is the reality of Trump’s deportation agenda.

It was always about cruelty.

Massive immigration raid on Chicago apartment building leaves residents reeling: 'I feel defeated'

The Department of Homeland Security said federal agents with Border Patrol, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested 37 people in the raid.

chicago.suntimes.com

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Jean-Marc Liotier @liotier.bsky.social · 5d

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Jason Byrne @geekwithsoul.bsky.social · 6d

It's a fascinating view into why, even though it's presented to children as a fixed system, the English language alphabet and spelling rules has always been flexible and changing. And why many letters & letter combos represent completely different sounds - sometimes just based on vibes 😄

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Jason Byrne @geekwithsoul.bsky.social · 6d

"This means that ‘ᵹ’ actually had three pronunciations in Old English, not two: the y-sound (next to front vowels), the g-sound (at the start of words), and the gh-sound (in the middle of words)."

Articles like this light up parts of my brain. It's like a cool BTS extra explaining weird movie props

The strangest letter of the alphabet

The rise and fall of yogh

www.deadlanguagesociety.com

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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 7d

"Oh you like it? Well this helpful thing that has improved your life was actually created by AI" - Something that's never happened even once

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Jean-Marc Liotier @liotier.bsky.social · 8d

Recruit abuse exists, but it is taboo and even US Marine Crops drill instructors are supposed to never lay hands on recruits - rough "posture adjustments" aside, and infractions are handled seriously. Dropping the leash on sadism will turn the USA's armed forces into Russia's - with similar results.

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Casket For My Tears @jillpantozzi.bsky.social · 11d

Omg.

I watched the latest Peacemaker earlier, and tonight, I randomly decided to watch the movie Solace, which I'd never seen. I spotted something.

They used the same "kid's" sculpture as a prop.

WHAT??? These are 10 years apart!! And it's such a random item!

From the 2015 film, Solace, a shelf with a baseball, family photo, and a child's sculpture of a blue/green dragon.

From HBO's Peacemaker TV show, a glass collectibles cabinet. The main item is meant to be a child's sculpture of a blue/green dragon. It's the same one from the movie Solace.

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Jason Byrne @geekwithsoul.bsky.social · 11d

Have run across the same thing. I think it's less ability and more motivation. Vintage CD players were sold in a competitive market and having a crappy one meant less sales. Now it's considered niche, and if a component costs .03 more, they don't use it because it cuts into the profit margin.

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Gauchohaulic 🗽 @gauchohaulic.bsky.social · 11d

Comparing Yarvin to Dennis Miller is *chef’s kiss*

Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 11d

I'm pretty proud of this snarky summation of Yarvin's M.O. I wrote back in December.

Seth Cotlar@sethcotlar.bsky.social •9mo
This is what happens when you create a bubble in which tech reactionaries with fancy degrees & big heads who never took a humanities course can sit around huffing Yarvin's brain farts and end up convincing themselves that Trump is the Emperor God who will save western civilization from the wokes.
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Seth Cotlar@sethcotlar.bsky.social • 9mo
Yavin "edginess" involved simply being brave enough to believe every right wing propaganda campaign of the last 20 years...and then he wrapped those baseless conspiracy theories in some references to obscure past thinkers and sold it to Silicon Valley as "the truths they don't want you to know!"
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Seth Cotlar@sethcotlar.bsky.social • 9mo
Reading Yarvin's work is like if someone put Candace Owens' podcast content through an Al that translates it into a late-career Dennis Miller monologue with obscure references, maximum cockiness, and zero humor.
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Jason Byrne @geekwithsoul.bsky.social · 11d

Austin keeping it weird still - nice to know some things never change 😀

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Gauchohaulic 🗽 @gauchohaulic.bsky.social · 13d

I was the geeky kid in the 80’s who enjoyed Bloom County.
The fact that he was even considered for political office felt like a personal insult aimed at me.

Conversation in the Bloom County comic strip between Ronald Anne and Donald Trump (trapped in the body of Bill the Cat:

THIS IS SUCH A QUALITY COUNTRY.
I HAVEA DREAM.
A DREAM THAT ONE DAY I MIGHT GET SIX POINTS ON MARGIN FOR THE EIFFEL TOWER DEAL.
WHAHADDYA
MEAN,
MR TRUMP ?
MY
PALM BEACh
COTTAGE
HA5 118
ROOMS.
WHAT DO YOU DREAM ABOUT
DIVER.
HOW MANY
ROOMS DOES
YOUR
COTTAGE HAVE?
I HAVE A #NO MILLION BOAT. DO YOU HAVE A BORT
ONE
BUT WE HAVE MINE BEDS!
REYIELDA
HERE
SLEEPS IN A SOUP
BOX.
WHEN THE PLUMBING
BREAKS
OK SOFA
FLOATS
AND IMAGINE
IN THIS GREAT, QUALITY NATION, FOLKS LIKE YOU HAVEN'T STRUNG FOLKS LIKE ME UP BY THEIR INTESTINES.

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