Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Liam Proven

Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 1d

the most delightful version of logging on to see what news you've missed

Dr Ramsdell, whose phone had been on airplane mode when the Nobel committee tried to call him, told the BBC's Newshour Programme that his first response when his wife said, "You've won the Nobel prize" was: "I did not."

To which Ms O'Neill replied that she had 200 text messages that suggested he had.

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Jennifer Kretchmer @dreamwisp.bsky.social · 1d

Because it feels relevant as we continue to evaluate the media and our representatives’ statements, my favorite way to identify the active vs. passive voice.

A post by Rebecca Johnson:
“I finally learned how to teach my guys to ID the passive voice. If you can insert "by zombies" after the verb, you have passive voice.”

A tumblr respond from mightymur:
“The final, brilliant word on passive voice.
"She was killed [by zombies.]"<--passive
"Zombies killed [by zombies] her." <-- active”

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Liam Proven @lproven.bsky.social · 1d

I'm not a Tory or Tory supporter by any stretch of the imagination, but Michael Heseltine is the greatest PM British never had in my lifetime.

BBC Newsnight @bbcnewsnight.bsky.social · 1d

“You described Reform and other parties across Europe today as among the 'right wing equivalents of the fascists in the 1930s'. Why?”

“Because that’s what they are”

@vicderbyshire.bsky.social asks Lord Heseltine about remarks he made at Conservative Party Conference.

#Newsnight

Reposted by Liam Proven

Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · Aug 18

When people ask me if I have any good stories from when I used to interview rock stars for a living my mind often goes a bit blank, and to be honest a lot of it was quite ordinary and unremarkable, but on the other hand there is this.

24 years ago I was sent to a London pub by a newspaper to interview and drink whisky (no “e” over here) with Lemmy, who was in the band Motorhead and, before that, slightly less famously, Hawkwind and, before that, much less famously, Sam Gopal. We had a good chat: about being from the part of the Midlands north of the River Trent, about books, and about roadying for Hendrix in the mid-60s (him, not me; I was minus nine at the time). When the record company PR sidled over to tell me my time was up, Lemmy waved him away. “No, no, I’m enjoying this,” he said, commandingly. I realised at this point that I had another question I’d been meaning to ask but hadn’t. “Are you scared of anything?” I said to Lemmy. “Nothing,” he replied. Then he paused and frowned for a moment, as if an idea had suddenly occurred to him. “Oh, maybe snakes,” he said. “It’s because they’ve got no shoulders.”

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Jack Womack @jwomack.bsky.social · 2d

Not unlike some critter from the Burgess Shale.

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Reposted by Liam Proven

Esther Schindler @estherschindler.bsky.social · 2d

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

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Liam Proven @lproven.bsky.social · 2d

Nearly 50 of them. Write then down. Use them. Shame these cretins.

your #3 source for absurdist true crime 🔨 @davidgerard.co.uk · 2d

AI SLURS

*ahem*

Clanker
Slopper
Token tanker
Thought stopper

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Reposted by Liam Proven

Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 2d

It helps to be able to spell the country you say only you are competent enough to run.

Goody-bag merch from Tory Conference branded "When Labour negotiates Britian loses" and signed "Kemi Badenoch".

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Stephen Barlow @steb77.bsky.social · 3d

The mistake most make about the climate crisis, is in thinking that anthropogenic climate change, is the crisis. No, the climate crisis is that the science clearly describes the danger of ACC, but our whole system, acts as if this danger is not real. That is the crisis.
3/9

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Publisher Spotlight @pubspotlight.bsky.social · 3d

RIP #JillyCooper #kidlit www.thebookseller.com/obituaries/d...

Dame Jilly Cooper dies aged 88

Dame Jilly Cooper has died at the age of 88, her agent Curtis Brown has announced.

www.thebookseller.com

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Reposted by Liam Proven

Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 6d

[Scene is ANCIENT GREECE - where SOCRATES and PLATO and others are sitting round, thinking]

1
SOCRATES:
Plato..

PLATO:
Yes Socrates?

2
SOCRATES:
Can you tell me, are you human?

PLATO:
Why… yes, Socrates

3
SOCRATES:
And would you agree, Plato, that a human knows what a chariot is?

PLATO:
Um, yep

4
SOCRATES:
So you can tell me, then

5
[Socrates produces a papyrus, showing a drawing of the corner of a chariot wheel]

SOCRATES:
*Is that a chariot*?

6
PLATO:
Well
that’s more just a bit of wheel

7
SOCRATES:
So not a *chariot*.

PLATO:
No.

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SOCRATES:
[Producing another papyrus with the full drawing of the chariot, chopped into boxes]

So if a man were challenged to “tap the boxes containing chariots to prove you’re human” when he was just trying to check his ClubCard points... *where could he tap*?

9
PLATO:
Well you can’t tap any of them really

10
SOCRATES:
So are we not human?

PLATO:
‘Spose not.

11
[Bleak pause]

12
PLATO:
I’ll get the hemlock

SOCRATES:
Yeah

[ends]

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Reposted by Liam Proven

Frames @oxinabox.bsky.social · 4d

as a girl with a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning it's actually offensive to me when you say "we don't know how LLMs work so they might be conscious"

I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.

We know exactly how LLMs work.

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Dr Delyth Badder @folklorewales.com · 4d

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

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Liam Proven @lproven.bsky.social · 5d

@nemo20000.bsky.social Interesting... I found this.

www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/...

What an absolutely horrendous cockup.

From the Windows10 community on Reddit: The true reason behind Aero Glass's removal from a former Microsoft Software Engineer

Explore this post and more from the Windows10 community

www.reddit.com

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Liam Proven @lproven.bsky.social · 5d

Huge if true... No version since had looked so good.

nemo 🐦 🦣 🐳 🃏 @nemo20000.bsky.social · 5d

Win7 Aero ♥️

You know that Aero was ripped out of the Windows codebase in a panic because the 1st Surface tablets didn't have the grunt, and there was so little time to do so (2 days IIRC) the ONE developer was not even allowed to build-switch it? It just got deleted. 😡

Can't remember his name now.

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Liam Proven @lproven.bsky.social · 6d

Windows 7 marketshare jumps to nearly 10% as Windows 10 enters final weeks of support

buff.ly/RvilLvj

<- this is funny. Neowin can't imagine why. I can.

I nuked 2 of my machines & put Win10 IoT LTSC on them last month. But if I'm doing that anyway — why not 7? 🤔

Windows 7 marketshare jumps to nearly 10% as Windows 10 enters final weeks of support

Windows 10 support is ending in two weeks, and the latest market share data shows some rather odd stats.

buff.ly

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Liam Proven @lproven.bsky.social · 6d

A 3000-year-old copper smelting site could be key to understanding the origins of iron

Research from Cranfield University sheds new light onto the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, showing how experimentation with iron-rich rocks by copper smelters may have sparked the…

buff.ly

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Reposted by Liam Proven

Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 6d

gotta hand it to @davidgerard.co.uk for warning us early about the crypto politics guiding the people who run this site

Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 6d

This is actually scary. If we are all gonna now have to be afraid that the team who runs this site, with hundreds of thousands of followers combined, highlighting individual users to make an example of in their “social media should be nicer” campaign then we are all at risk.

Paul Frazee
@pfrazee.com
Follow
waffles
The Louvre of Bluesky @thelouv... • 7d
darth ™ @darthbluesky.bsky.social • 8h once a day be able to delete some one else's post
Conrad Hackett
@conradhackett... • 9h
If you could change one thing about Bluesky, what would it be?
35
3 55
879
•••
Gretchen S Bolanos @gretchenbolanos.b... • 15m
So you want to take away people's first amendment rights once a day?
ALT
October 1, 2025 at 6:35 PM

Jay
@jay.bsky.team • 3h
* Matt Yglesias Follower
Too real. We're going to try to fix this.
Social media doesn't have to be this way.
Jerry Chen @jcsalterego.... • 5d
• he/him
O he/they
(bluesky user bursts into Waffle House) OH SO YOU HATE PANCAKES??
• 146
¿ 171|
• 1.4K
企
...
lucas, ho chi minh thot @antioc... • 3h have y'all banned Jesse Singal yet or
• 4
฿ 46
• 1.1K
...
Jay @jay.bsky.team
Follow
Matt Yglesias Follower
WAFFLES
October 1, 2025 at 11:40 AM

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Liam Proven @lproven.bsky.social · 7d

More Dr Goodall in the comics...

www.irregularwebcomic.net/1290.html

Irregular Webcomic! #1290

www.irregularwebcomic.net

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Reposted by Liam Proven

Dr Tiffani Angus @tiffaniangus.bsky.social · 7d

Even “trying it out” tells the techbro assholes bankrolling it (and wrecking YOUR environment to do so) that people want it.

Think of it as dressing up as a N*zi or Klan member for Halloween: even doing it in jest strengthens the original message.

Jason E. Dunlap, Valeyard @redeyedjedi.bsky.social · 7d

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Liam Proven @lproven.bsky.social · 7d

No no no! I think governments planning long term for climate change would be a good thing... If that planning were happening, which it isn't.

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Liam Proven @lproven.bsky.social · 7d

Without actually disagreeing... If she hadn't, how much of it would have happened anyway?

A parallel: swingeing railway cutbacks happened in countries Dr Beeching never touched.

www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/...

From the MapPorn community on Reddit: Irish Railway System in 1920 vs 2020

Explore this post and more from the MapPorn community

www.reddit.com

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Liam Proven @lproven.bsky.social · 7d

Nah. That would actually be good, but they don't believe it, are congenitally incapable of seeing past the next election, and anyway, are in the pay of the petrochemical-military-industrial complex.

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Liam Proven @lproven.bsky.social · 7d

The thread. Or, possibly, the vein...

Nanoraptor @nanoraptor.danamania.com · 7d

TIL C++ is a street name for cocaine.