Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

John Conor Ryan @johnconorryan.bsky.social · 13h

25! years ago, the team I was on helped expose the emergence of the telecom bubble.
And now this.
Circular revenues AI <==> chipmakers; immense capex spending on data centers; costs rising faster than revenues.
Smoke. Fire.

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 14h

Data centers are receiving billions in state tax exemptions.

These centers, many owned by Big Tech giants, are driving up electric bills and sucking up huge amounts of water.

AI is boosting the stock portfolios of the richest Americans while everyone else pays the price.

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John Conor Ryan @johnconorryan.bsky.social · 15h

Must be some book if a/ you got it and b/ long wait.

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · Jun 22

Is it too late to give Sacha Baron Cohen an Oscar for this? Not a damn lie told. 🇺🇸

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Marc Murphy @murphycartoons.bsky.social · 3d

The monsters aren’t under the bed.
#ICE #CHICAGO

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Lawrence Wilkinson @lhwilkinson.bsky.social · 7d

The East India Company all over again? "The AI Raj: How tech giants are recolonizing power" @allisonstanger.bsky.social @thebulletin.org
(Plus- the Battle of Gaugamela)

Take it back: roughlydaily.com/2025/10/01/i...

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Lawrence Wilkinson @lhwilkinson.bsky.social · 5d

Celebrating a master of visual explanation: "Vale Stephen Biesty: Cross-Section King" @irondavy.bsky.social
(Plus- William Steig)

Showing (in addition to telling): roughlydaily.com/2025/10/03/w...

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John Conor Ryan @johnconorryan.bsky.social · 3d

Supernumerary rainbow over #sanfrancisco bay a few days ago.

A series of rainbows are seen over a peninsula and island. As many as four arcs of rainbows can be seen in the main, bright bow.

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John Conor Ryan @johnconorryan.bsky.social · 4d

It seems that way now. The *only* time in my professional life when I gave a presentation where my introduction was a sneering dismissal of what the MC thought, incorrectly, I was going to say, was at Cato.

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Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 6d

There is a gulf in America. I submit it is the gulf between good and evil, or at least not-evil and evil.

The gulf is not just between people who oppose this and people who are indifferent to it or reluctantly accept it in support of immigration policy or see it as collateral damage.
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Jessica Pishko @jesspish.bsky.social · 6d

This raid is disgusting, abominable behavior, traumatizing children and families in their homes.
abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chi...

"They was terrified. The kids was crying. People was screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other," Watson said. "That's all I kept asking. What is the morality? Where's the human? One of them literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, 'f*** them kids.'"

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Institute of Art and Ideas @iai.tv · 7d

The mainstream view among physicists is that dark energy, a phenomenon we cannot directly observe, makes up 68% of the universe. | https://bit.ly/4nSAL0U

But according to leading theoretical physicist Claudia de Rham the status quo in physics is wrong.

#philsci ⚛️ 🧪

Massive gravity and the dark energy enigma

The mainstream view among physicists is that dark energy, a phenomenon we cannot directly observe, makes up 68% of the universe. But according to leading theoretical physicist Claudia de Rham the stat...

bit.ly

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Internet Archive @archive.org · 7d

🌐 From the first web page created in 1991… to 1 trillion web pages archived today.

Every meme, blog, tweet & vanished site is part of our shared story. This is our collective memory. And it’s being saved.

Join in our celebration this October: blog.archive.org/trillion/

#Wayback1T #WaybackMachine

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Center for Climate Integrity @climateintegrity.org · 7d

Maine's climate deception lawsuit against ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron, Sunoco, and the American Petroleum Institute can move forward in state court, a judge ruled this week. 👏👏

They knew. They lied. They need to pay.

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John Conor Ryan @johnconorryan.bsky.social · 9d

One interesting fact about coal in the USA at least in Appalachia: all-cause mortality was higher in the specific coal-mining towns than in the similarly-poor non-coal-mining towns. So, not even the apparent wealth from coal mining outweighed the health costs of just mining.

John Conor Ryan @johnconorryan.bsky.social · 9d

Our estimates @calxinstitute.bsky.social and estimates from University of Potsdam, which separately concluded that shutting down coal was a no-regrets policy option.

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John Conor Ryan @johnconorryan.bsky.social · 9d

And that's without considering downstream harms which, for coal, we estimate to run to 7x gross revenues: Greenhouse gases, particulates in the air, it's the #2 source of environmental mercury, land and river damage. Coal made sense in the 19th century. Not now.

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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 18d

OK I subscribe to Wired and a bunch of other things and right now will subscribe to Verge and 404. And will add a plea for ProPublica.

nilay patel @reckless.bsky.social · 26d

Just to be blunt, if you want Wired and 404 and The Verge to employ reporters who understand the memes on bullet casings and can connect them to gaming culture while having the legal and support resources to deal with waves of harassment when we do it… you have to subscribe and pay for the work

onion person @junlper.beer · 26d

the entire media ecosystem is just not built or ready for events like this and far right billionaires like larry ellison buying news orgs will only make this worse

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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 18d

Here is my best guidance, rendered beautifully by the great John Lithgow. I first published these lessons nearly nine years ago, in late 2016. They open the twenty chapters of "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century."
snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-les...

Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow

Key selections from On Tyranny, for viewing and sharing

snyder.substack.com

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John Conor Ryan @johnconorryan.bsky.social · 12d

@ossoff.senate.gov

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Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 13d

I would normally be horrified about someone releasing a video to talk about being indicted but this is pretty disciplined.

James Comey @jamescomey.bsky.social · 13d

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 13d

Some preliminary thoughts on Trump's new executive order "Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence," which declares a law enforcement crackdown on some ill-specified blend of action and speech by his political adversaries, on grounds that they encourage and abet violence. /1

Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence

NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM/NSPM-7 MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

www.whitehouse.gov

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John Conor Ryan @johnconorryan.bsky.social · 13d

Our regular UPS guy says the worst part of his job now is collecting payments to cover tariffs. People are pissed - and I live in a place where nobody bought the nonsense that the country of origin would pay them.

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Maria Bustillos @mariabustillos.com · 15d

@internetarchive.eu's new HQ in Amsterdam is beautiful, and even more beautiful are the people working together to preserve the freedom to read, and digital posterity worldwide.

Plus a short conversation with @brewster.kahle.org!

Free to read at @flaminghydra.com

flaminghydra.com/freedom-and-...

Freedom and Sharing at the Internet Archive Europe

On Friday, in a narrow, cream-painted 17th-century row house facing a wide canal bathed in golden light, the Internet Archive Europe celebrated the opening of its new headquarters in Amsterdam. Around...

flaminghydra.com

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DWeb @getdweb.net · 15d

Our next DWeb Virtual Meetup is in one week:
Tues Sep 30 10am PT / 2pm ET / 19 CET

"The Present and Future of Funding Open Source" — featuring Brian Behlendorf, Zenna Fiscella, & Alexander Sander

Register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/dweb-meetu...

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John Conor Ryan @johnconorryan.bsky.social · 15d

Gently suggesting giving credit.
Bob Mankoff
www.cartoonstock.com/cartoon?sear...

CartoonStock - Cartoon Humor, Political Cartoons, Comics, Illustrations

Cartoon library, fully catalogued and searchable, instant downloads.

www.cartoonstock.com

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John Conor Ryan @johnconorryan.bsky.social · 15d

This would generate roughly 10^4 GWh / year. The state uses 3x10^5 GWh / year, so covering the state's gas pipelines with solar panels could, very roughly, generate >3% of the state's entire electrical power.

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