Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · 2d

#SilentSunday #Monochrome #AlgonquinPark #Ontario #NaturePhotography

A black-and-white photograph of a calm lake in Algonquin Park at dusk. A fallen tree trunk extends from the foreground into the still water, perfectly mirroring the treeline and clouds above. The mood is serene and reflective, evoking a sense of solitude and quiet beauty in nature.

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · 2d

#SilentSunday #Monochrome #AlgonquinPark #Ontario #NaturePhotography

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · 9d

#SilentSunday #StreetPhotography #MotionBlur #BlackAndWhite #UrbanLandscape #IndustrialDecay #OnTheRoad #PhotographyArt #MinimalMood #Monochrome

A blurred white van speeding past on a highway, captured in black and white. In the background, an old industrial grain elevator looms under a cloudy sky, creating a moody, urban scene.

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · 23d

Explore College Success in a whole new way with Google’s #NotebookLM!

🎧 Audio overview
🎞️ Video breakdowns
💬 AI-powered Q&A to explore the book interactively

Perfect for students + educators.

Start here: notebooklm.google.com/notebook/766...

#NotebookLM #OpenStax #CollegeSuccess #EdTech

Sign in - Google Accounts

notebooklm.google.com

Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · 25d

That was a challenge. I got 2-5 quickly but 1 had too many options. Not a uniquely Canadian word!

Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · 25d

Added "Stitch" to my Google A-Z reference doc.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Google/Alphabet A-Z

Alphabet/Google A-Z This document was created to support a presentation I created many years ago about the use of Google products in Education — at a time when Google Apps was just starting to gain i...

docs.google.com

Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Sep 6

Need to summarize an article? I wrote this GPT for Obsidian (and named it so) but it will of course work for any note software you use. (requires a #ChatGPT account)

Obsidian Notes chatgpt.com/g/g-6887932a...

ChatGPT - Obsidian Notes

A conversational AI system that listens, learns, and challenges

chatgpt.com

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Sep 2

I built two custom GPTs that streamline note-taking in #obsidian Find Keywords, which extracts Obsidian-formatted keywords, and Obsidian Topic Page Generator, which turns those keywords into structured topic pages with summaries and context.

Read more here:

tinyurl.com/3y4n385d

Free Tools for Obsidian Users: Keyword Finder & Topic Page Generator | Beens' Blog

I built two custom GPTs that make note-taking in Obsidian faster and more structured: Find Keywords, which extracts Obsidian-formatted keywords from any text, and Obsidian Topic Page Generator, which ...

www.beens.ca

Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Aug 31

I’ve been experimenting with #GoogleAIStudio text-to-speech voices for short data analysis tutorials, so I made a video (<3 min) to compare them.

It includes chapter markers to make it easy to bounce back and forth between voices.

youtu.be/dFE7TPF8Uu4?...

#TTS #VoiceAI #AI #TextToSpeech

Google AI Studio TTS Voices | Which One Sounds Best?

YouTube video by Peter Beens

youtu.be

Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Aug 17

#SilentSunday #BadlandsNationalPark #Bison #WildlifePhotography #Photography #Nikon #AltText

A solitary bison stands in an open grassland under a clear blue sky at Badlands National Park, with patches of green and golden-brown vegetation in the background.

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Aug 10

BTW, you mentioned recently (your last podcast IIRC) the need to type your long Microsoft password when installing Windows.

Follow these directions to use a local account instead.

www.google.com/search?q=byp...

Google Search

www.google.com

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Aug 10

Coding's pretty good, but its auto-switcher adds delays to things that used to be quick. For example, I have a "Personal Assistant" GPT I could drop meal pics into for an instant report with 4o. Now it takes up to 30 seconds instead of 3–4. I'd love to be able to keep 4o for certain tasks.

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Aug 10

#SilentSunday #PrinceEdwardIsland #ConfederationBridge #PEI #ElbowsUp

The image shows a scenic coastal view of Prince Edward Island with the Confederation Bridge stretching across the water in the background. The bridge, supported by evenly spaced concrete pillars, extends from the right side of the frame toward the horizon on the left, disappearing into the distance. In the foreground, reddish-brown rocks and grassy patches with small wildflowers slope down toward a narrow strip of reddish sand and calm, rippling water. The sky above is partly cloudy, with soft sunlight creating a bright but slightly hazy atmosphere.

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Jul 31

Gemini-CLI Prompt Creator is a Custom GPT I created that converts unstructured issue descriptions into concise, command-line-ready prompts for tools like Gemini CLI.

Usable by all ChatGPT users, including free-tier.

chatgpt.com/g/g-688bb6eb...

#AI #DevTools #PromptEngineering #GeminiCLI

ChatGPT - Gemini-CLI Prompt Creator

Helps create shortened, command line-friendly prompts for Gemini-CLI (or other similar AI programming tools)

chatgpt.com

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Jul 21

@pythonbytes.fm Not posting your new episodes to the socials anymore?

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Jul 20

#SilentSunday #UrbanDecay #ForgottenPlaces #AbandonedHouse #CurbsideMystery #RusticCharm #FadedMemories #HauntingBeauty #LostInTime #PhotographAsStory #Photography

A weathered, sepia-toned photograph of an abandoned house with boarded-up windows. The house has the number “4035” spray-painted on a wooden board over the front window. Overgrown plants encroach on the stone steps, and an old mailbox leans slightly near the rusted railing. The edges of the image are faded and worn, adding to the feeling of age and decay.

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Jul 18

Anyone using Google Alerts? I'll bet most people don't know about it. I love it -- custom news alerts straight to your inbox.

"Monitor the Web for interesting new content"

google.com/alerts

Google Alerts - Monitor the Web for interesting new content

google.com

Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Jul 17

I'm obviously an idiot when it comes to dictation mode in #Perplexity. What am I doing wrong? (1 minute video)

youtu.be/b5ulhk3YYmE

Perplexity Dictation Issue

YouTube video by Peter Beens

youtu.be

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Jul 16

I just created a new Custom GPT that will create TLDR content with options, such as for slides, educators, lower reading levels. Can even create slides for #PowerPoint or #GoogleSlides. Would love your feedback! (Requires a #ChatGPT account)

TLDR (w/ Options) chatgpt.com/g/g-6877cf76...

ChatGPT - TLDR (w/ Options)

TLDR summarizes content with clarity and precision, offering formats like educator mode, action items only, detailed bullets, or PowerPoint-ready slides. Choose how you want your TLDR—fast, structured...

chatgpt.com

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Jul 14

I built WebTimer—a clean timer + stopwatch (with laps!)—by crafting ChatGPT prompts for Gemini CLI. It’s a single-page JS app—no install required.
▶️ Launch it here: pbeens.github.io/WebTimer/
ℹ️ Info icon links to the code.
#GeminiCLI #ChatGPT #GitHub #OpenSource

A mobile-view screenshot of a clean, modern timer/stopwatch web app. At the top are two tabs: “Timer” (blue underline, active) and “Stopwatch” (inactive). Centered below is a circular countdown display showing “10:00” with a light grey ring. Beneath it is instruction text: “Click the time to set a custom duration.” At the bottom are two round buttons: a blue play/pause icon on the left and a reset icon on the right. An “ℹ️ About” button is visible below the controls.

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Jul 10

#AltText

A four-panel comic titled "Work Chronicles" shows a boss and an employee named Bob.
Panel 1: The boss says, “Bob, you’re doing the job expected of you.”
Panel 2: She continues, “But sometimes you need to go above and beyond.”
Panel 3: Bob asks, “Does that also mean that sometimes you will pay me above and beyond?”
Panel 4: The boss flatly replies, “No. It doesn’t work like that.” Bob looks frustrated.

Source: WorkChronicles.com – comics about work, made with love and coffee.

Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Jul 10

New tool! 📄🔍
Find Keyword in PDFs scans folders of PDFs, finds any word (case-insensitive), shows context, and exports clickable HTML reports.

Check it out → github.com/pbeens/Find-...
Feedback welcome!

#Python #PDFTools #GitHub #OpenSource #TextExtraction

GitHub - pbeens/Find-Keyword-in-PDFs: Find every mention of a word in a folder full of PDFs—quickly scan, preview context, and save results to a file.

Find every mention of a word in a folder full of PDFs—quickly scan, preview context, and save results to a file. - pbeens/Find-Keyword-in-PDFs

github.com

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Jul 9

Historically, junior devs learned through trial, error, and mentorship. Over-reliance on LLMs may erode these learning opportunities, stunting professional growth.

True? False? Or it doesn't matter?

#AI #CS

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Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Jul 8

"Some educators are considering moving away from an emphasis on mastering programming languages, instead exploring hybrid courses that blend computing skills with other disciplines."

Contextualized learning is the way a lot of education should be, even in K-12.

Peter Beens 🍁📷🏍️ @pbeens.bsky.social · Jul 7

He tested Google AI Overview (a search engine, not Gemini) vs Perplexity (an LLM). It wasn't an apples vs apples test in the least. Click-bait journalism, if you asked me.