Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 1h

Sci-fi writers use numbers kinda like ancient Roman historians used numbers. There weren't *really* ten thousand ships at the Battle of Salamis, it's just a synecdoche for "a lot".

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 2h

The NYT is more obsessed with campus politics than most actual professors I've known.

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 2h

It's a very good book! Easton is hilarious and Ruritanian and it's great.

NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 2h

You keep writing 'em, we'll keep pre-ordering 'em.

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 5h

That sounds loosely correct. I remember reading some time ago that raising a kid from birth to age 18 costs parents on the order of $185k - probably higher now.

And that's just the pure monetary cost.

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 5h

It's just so... pointless. There's no greater purpose, no mission, no sacrifice, no reason for this.

Trump and Musk and Rubio chose to kill children because of stupidity or base bigotry or petty resentment, and that's it. Mohammed Taher's son died because we laughed at Trump's hotels.

Reposted by NeoTiamat

Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 10h

anyways

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 5h

We need a game that does for the South what Wolfenstein does for the Nazis.

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 1d

.......yeeeeeep. I didn't know that particular line, but yeah.

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 1d

1) That is absolutely awful.
2) I'm laying down my marker right now that we're going to have a Hasan-involved-in-domestic-violence revelation within five years.

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 1d

Honestly this is one of the most annoying "politics as fandom" trends. There are very few people with a (D) after their name who I actually dislike!

Sure, I like some better than others, but most Dems don't disagree with each other on that much meaningful stuff. We're on the same side.

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 1d

Quite possibly the only ones worse than the chekists.

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 1d

Considering how hard it is to get a job in history, a surprising amount of my historical knowledge is relevant these days.

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Reposted by NeoTiamat

Wayne E. Lee @milhistlee.bsky.social · 2d

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 2d

"hmm, I wonder why I have Donnegan blocked?"

"Oh yeah"

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 2d

...as someone who mostly likes AdMech...

I'm-in-this-picture-and-don't-like-it.jpg.

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 3d

On the one hand, it sucks that we are completely unable to impose legal or social consequences on any of these neo-fascists.

On the other hand, it's nice that they're completely and utterly miserable anyway. Just a group of people who cannot be and will never be happy.

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 3d

....holy.... that is *impressive*

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 3d

Hissy!!!

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 3d

Somewhere there is a school administrator wondering if they can just hide under their desk till Thanksgiving.

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 3d

Not quite Central Asia, but the most beautiful city I have ever been in has got to be Istanbul.

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 3d

Quite aside from everything else, what is even the *point*? Portland's not a very big city, but still, what are 300 national guardsmen, who very likely do not want to be there, even supposed to accomplish?

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Reposted by NeoTiamat

Scott Murderhouse @voxparlour.bsky.social · 4d

Taylor Swift announces next album title: The Queen in Yellow. She told Variety: "A few years back I came across this amazing play and I was so inspired. It's been living in my head for years. I even dream of it, of the city in the play."

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Reposted by NeoTiamat

Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 3d

I couldn't resist. #pleasingterror

A bingo card for the ghost stories of M.R. James. Boxes read:
"Spiders
Terrible hotel stay
Narrator makes fun of golf
Latin passages
Eerie disembodied voices
Confirmed bachelor main character
Vengeful spirit
Evil magician
Working-class character as comic relief
Bleak East Anglian coast
Visit to an archive
Narrator in guidebook mode
FREE SPACE
Unholy doings in a church
Frogs or toads
Queen Anne style house
Cursed artifact
Don't buy that rare book!
Something hairy and horrible
Someone gets too curious
Tentacles
Story told via old manuscript
Research trip gone horribly wrong
Beds are scary
Tactile horror

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NeoTiamat @neotiamat99.bsky.social · 3d

Ultimately, the main use case for publicly available LLMs like ChatGPT-et-al is "pretend to be human". Turns out there aren't really a ton of legal, pro-social situations where we want a thing that isn't human to act like a human!

So instead we have scams, academic cheating, deep fake porn, etc.

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