Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 7h

I'm so sorry. We love our pets so much and it's so tough to lose them. 😞

Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 7h

It's not that it's the same idea, just that the structure and style is very similar: one big sci-fi thing happens with little to no explanation, and we watch its impact on society through the eyes of a handful of interconnected people.

Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 7h

Sometimes I read a book that feels, not exactly derivative, or copying, but like it couldn't have existed if another book by someone else hadn't been written first. The Measure by Nikki Erlick really feels like it couldn't have come before The Power by Naomi Alderman.

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 11h

I'm hoping everyone will realise I meant well!

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 11h

Having a "my fingers are sending emails before my brain has caught up" sort of day.🤦

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 12h

Usually I don't think I could tell in the audiobook - it was just if I also had a print or e copy, so it was fairly seamless. In Terry Pratchett (fiction) they have a different narrator and a sound effect, which I find quite difficult as it really breaks up the thought.

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 12h

Any ideas from anyone? I don't think I've ever listened to an academic audiobook that attempted citations or bibliographies. Some do footnotes if they're just little asides of discussion.

Ellen Forget @ellenforget.bsky.social · 1d

Can anyone recommend an academic audiobook that was well done? Looking for a good example of how to handle citations, footnotes, bibliography, etc. in audiobook format. Ideally an academic monograph. Please only recommend if you've read the audiobook and thought it was well done.

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 1d

Yay! I did Julius Caesar in army desert khakis and it was my comfiest costume ever (although not the most flattering).

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 1d

I'm working a five day week instead of my usual four because of freshers stuff and now I am spending all week disorientated and overstimulated. Please bear with.

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Reposted by Kat Steiner🔸

Leigh Walton @leighwalton.bsky.social · 1d

“The scheme provides unconditional, regular payments to eligible artists and creative workers, allowing them to focus on their practice without the pressure of commercial viability.”

“A cost-benefit analysis by Alma Economics found that for every €1 invested, society receives €1.39 in return.”

Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 2d

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Post from Threads user rodneyowl: "Ireland has declared the Basic Income for Artists scheme permanent. This will be officially announced in tomorrow’s budget. Details to follow. Congratulations to all who fought for it and the present and future artists of all sorts in Ireland. That includes me 👌We’re just comin to the end of a 3 year pilot scheme. It’s been a roaring success. For every €1 paid out to the 2000 participants, the government got €1.46 back. Can’t argue with that. Other countries are already taking note."

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Reposted by Kat Steiner🔸

Reform Party UK Exposed @reformexposed.bsky.social · 3d

Reform UK’s Councillor Dave Poole has put out this bizarre graphic littered with spelling errors.

Our favourite part is where it says Reform UK keeps being called the ‘fat right’.

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 1d

Love for both the front- and back-end of the library catalogue to break in the busiest week of the year, when we show it to all the new students 🙄

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Reposted by Kat Steiner🔸

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 2d

The Sora AI disinfo nightmare is here

For more like this:
tiktok.com/@drewharwell
instagram.com/bydrewharwell

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 2d

I realised that I can use my bone conduction headphones to listen to podcasts (but not audiobooks, too complicated) on my bike commute. Game changer. My old commute was too noisy but this is marginally quieter. I'm really trying to cycle rather than take the bus so this is great.

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Reposted by Kat Steiner🔸

Deanna Kreisel 🌱 @doctorwaffle.substack.com · 6d

In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:

Screen cap of parodic version of William Blake's "The Tyger" that begins:
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
(Not sure if I spelled that right)
What immortal hand or eye
Could fashion such a stripy guy?
What the hammer that hath hewn it
Into such a chonky unit?
Did who made the lamb make thee,
Or an external franchisee?

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 3d

It and Addams Family Values really have aged like fine wine! I just finished the 2nd series of Wednesday and it's fun, but it can't compete.

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 3d

Having a fridge jar cull - it's like George's Marvellous Medicine over here.

A kitchen surface covered with many half-empty jars, including aioli and various chutneys.

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 3d

Book 59 of 2025: Math Girls. This was an almost perfect book for me, but I do have most of a maths degree, so it's aiming for a very specific readership. Just the greatest hit of nostalgia for studying maths at university. And nicely translated from Japanese. app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/dcdb...

Review by kastrel - Math Girls

This felt like a book written just for me! I have a maths degree (sort of, it's complicated), ...

app.thestorygraph.com

Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 3d

Book 58 of 2025: Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre. I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but this was really great (and relevant to my #medlibs job). app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/0caf...

Review by kastrel - Bad Pharma: How Medicine is Broken, and How We Can Fix It

I've had this on my to read list for a while, after I read Bad Science a few years ago and lov...

app.thestorygraph.com

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 3d

Ha, I think life is too short.

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 3d

Oops, apparently it's just Gilmore Girls, no the. I'd know that if I'd watched it, presumably.

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 3d

I've never seen the X Files or the Gilmore Girls.

Hannah Fearn @hannahfearn.bsky.social · 3d

Inspired by a post I just saw in which someone admitted they hadn’t seen a single episode of Friends nor the film Love Actually… what cultural hole do you have that’s a bit weird for your generation?

I’ll go first: I haven’t seen Dirty Dancing.

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 3d

Book 57 of 2025: The Men Who Stare at Goats. What the hell was this book? It's written as non-fiction but it all read as too weird to be true. I didn't find the endless litany of military men and departments very interesting. app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/a059...

Review by kastrel - The Men Who Stare at Goats

Such a weird book! I'd seen the film so I thought I knew what this would be like, but it's wri...

app.thestorygraph.com

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 3d

Book 56 of 2025: Just in Case. I was gifted this book of poetry from my grandmother, and I fondly remember the title poem, but actually the others weren't as good. app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/7889...

Review by kastrel - Just in Case: Poems in My Pocket

I inherited this little book of poems from my grandmother, because I remembered fondly the poe...

app.thestorygraph.com

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Kat Steiner🔸 @kastrel.bsky.social · 3d

Book 55 of 2025: On Anxiety. This was some sort of crowdfunded publisher that I don't think made it. A collection of fiction, poetry and non-fiction on the theme of anxiety - pretty good overall. app.thestorygraph.com/books/eab944...

On Anxiety by Erin Aniker, Sarvat Hasin, Eli Goldstone, Alice Slater, Claire Gamble, Narayani Menon, Sophie Mackintosh, Harriet Thompson, P.E. Garcia, Deborah Frempong, Ka Bradley, Rosemary Waugh, Han...

Anxiety. Worry, fear, longing, impatience. One word can mean so many things, be it the medical te...

app.thestorygraph.com

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