Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 8d

I’d add: Klein and Coates highlight the divide over where liberalism has placed its faith in this illiberal time. Klein clearly still believes in the institutions that have steadily fallen one by one. Coates puts his faith in people. (The right, of course, operates entirely on bad faith.)

You don't have to swallow frogs

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 8d

This is such a thoughtful, generous, close read of Ezra Klein’s conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates

https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/you-don-t-have-to-swallow-frogs

Klein and Coates show that if you don't know what your core beliefs are, you're going to get played.

degenerateart.beehiiv.com

A carried leaf. — ethanmarcotte.com

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 8d

He buried the lede — you have a chance to work with @beep! As someone who’s had that very privilege on multiple occasions I’ll just say you won’t regret it.

https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/a-carried-leaf/

What we talk about when we talk about showing our work.

ethanmarcotte.com

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jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 13d

“Civility obsessives love a silver-tongued devil, wearing a nice suit, sporting a tidy haircut, while whispering sweet bigotries.”

Always read @roxanegay

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/opinion/civility-fantasy-power-kirk.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ok8.LoXb.4_TRFOn5496w&smid=url-share

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 16d

Good thread on why I’m waiting for 26.1 across the board

https://mastodon.online/@nikitonsky/115248089319181113

So I looked at Tahoe release (in VM). Some highlights: - Window toolbar changing color from white to black for no reason

mastodon.online

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 19d

I’ve seen a few “smart glasses are good now???” reviews this week and not a single one mentioned they are a physical node on the most grotesque, exploitative surveillance network devised by capitalism and overseen by amoral sociopaths […]

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jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 20d

This is obvious and dumb and clownish in all the usual Trumpian ways he’s too ignorant and self involved to give a shit about. The important message to corporate media is: one day you will need something — a merger approved, a license renewed — better obey in advance to make sure you get it […]

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 23d

The six year old came home and declared he wanted to make his own lunch for tomorrow, assembled a pickle and cream cheese bagel sandwich, pretzels, dried apricot, apple sauce, and a bit of turkey jerky. I have nothing to add to this development?

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 25d

Seems only fair, given my professed love for Thanksgiving, that the neighborhood turkeys should turn my newly seeded lawn into a buffet.

A rafter of turkeys cozies up to the patch of lawn I spent most of the day prepping and overseeding.

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 25d

“Kirk was not just putting on a show. He was a dedicated proponent of a specific political program. He was a champion for an authoritarian politics that backed the repression of opponents and made light of violence against them.”

Always read @jbouie […]

Blacksky People's Assembly

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 28d

Blacksky is doing the most interesting, innovative work on the decentralized web these days. Pay attention to not just what they’re doing but how they are doing it.

dapurplesharpie @sharpiepls.com · 28d

#blacksky is not an autocracy: its a democracy

everything the community decides, we do together.
make sure your voice is heard.

if you use @blackskyweb.xyz feeds, moderation, or are hosted by blacksky.app: please take a moment to vote anonymously here!

🗳️: assembly.blacksky.community/6carwc4nzj

Blacksky People's Assembly – a space for public deliberation and collective decision-making.

assembly.blacksky.community

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · Sep 8

I’ve long maintained the Times Style (and real estate) section is staffed by secret marxists determined to expose the plutocracy for all their petty tackiness in order to pave way for the revolution and looks like they’re crankin’

Zohran Kwame Mamdani @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social · Sep 8

"How Are the Very Rich Feeling About New York’s Next Mayor?"

A Dramatic Reading of The Recent New York Times Dispatch from the Hamptons.

Presented by The Gilded Age's Morgan Spector.

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · Sep 7

As a parent you like to think you’re preparing your children for the world, knowing you can’t protect them from everything only give them the tools to be their best most authentic selves in a culture that wants anything but that.

And then your son is singing Benson Boone at 7:00am on a Sunday.

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · Sep 4

I started listening to In Our Time from the very first episode earlier this year and the show itself is a fascinating time capsule of how the world has changed over nearly three decades. What a run […]

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · Sep 3

Cleaving off Chrome or Android never made any sense. Forcing Google to decouple its ad and search, though, would be good for antitrust and probably better for Google in the long run.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/02/tech/google-antitrust-ruling-chrome-android

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · Sep 3

If a bunch of pissed off redditors stage an insurrection because the president canceled funding for a promising baldness cure, it will confirm my suspicion we’re living in a footnote of an unpublished David Foster Wallace novel […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

Screenshot from an NY Magazine story about a potential cure for baldness that may be delayed or just never arrive because the of the Trump administration’s war on higher education:

Then again, that may not come to pass. This summer, the Trump administration abruptly froze $584 million in federal grants to UCLA — citing alleged civil-rights violations tied to antisemitism and affirmative action — and is now seeking a $1 billion settlement to restore the money. “My current basic-research grant from the National Institutes of Health, which is a continuation of the work that led to this discovery on alopecia, was suspended last week,” Lowry tells me in early August. “I don’t know what interesting discoveries won’t be made the longer this thing stays suspended.” Even if that funding returns, there’s another threat looming. Congress is considering a bill, proposed by Republican representatives in New York and Florida, that would bar federally funded research from using animals, including lab mice.

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · Sep 2

Is there a MacOS window manager that works like tmux sessions? I want to group windows from various apps into a session and hide everything else. Spaces might’ve worked but they’re too app-centric, e.g. I want to pin windows to a space, not entire apps.

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · Aug 31

Incredibly sharp thinking from @ben about how newsrooms can embrace building communities not just broadcasting to audiences, especially with new social protocols.

https://werd.io/can-newsrooms-become-social-platforms/

jimray @jimray.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · Aug 30

It only took Nick Clegg eight years of apologizing for Facebook’s recklessness (while making millions) to realize what had been obvious for at least a decade before he worked there. Will his next job be determining if it hurts while smashing one’s face with a hammer? […]