Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Phantom Corsair

@phantomcorsair.bsky.social

220 followers 440 following 1.2K posts

Toby - wittering about cars, technology, showtunes and other stuff since… ooh, ages ago.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · Nov 6

I am a professional writer and editor - and rather good at copy-editing and proofreading. I'm happy to volunteer my services to any trans or gay rights organisation that can use them (as long as I'm not depriving anybody of a paid job!)
If you need help, contact me!
#transrights
#LGBTQI+rights

1 11

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 1d

Don't be a coelacanth. Be a coelaCANh!
#motivationalfossils

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 1d

Ba-ba-ra-ra-koo-koo-da-da!

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 2d

Don't forget Hope!

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 2d

Yes! I'm so glad I'm not the only one.

1 1

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 2d

Can recommend seeing Metropolis with live orchestra at the Babylon-Kino!

1 1

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 5d

Matron (Hattie Jacques): "I'm a sensitive woman, and I want to be wooed!"
Doctor (Kenneth Williams, adopting 'common' voice): "Well, you can be wude as you like with me, dear!"

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 5d

It was almost certainly started by an exploding electric car...

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 6d

Bart calls 911, and the new Springfield Police automated crime reporting line asks for a four-digit code describing the crime. He punches some random numbers in, and hears:
"You have selected... regicide".

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 6d

Terrific. And what a wonderful resource the Poetry By Heart website is!

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 8d

That generation of Corvette is looking rather exotic. I could imagine a V12 in there!

1 1

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 8d

The second picture makes it look like a giant hand is casting a shadow on the ground. Cool...

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 8d

I saw him at the airport with his family: he was completely as expected, wearing snakeskin cowboy boots and a Comme des Garçons jacket. His wife and children seemed lovely.

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 10d

This is astonishing ambition: 24-hour-a-day energy from a solar plant with thermal battery storage, and enough output for 830,000 homes at a cost of $480m - that's around $600 per household!

Christian Breyer @christianonre.bsky.social · 11d

China Three Gorges commissions world's largest PV-CSP solar plant www.pv-magazine.com/2025/09/25/c...

China Three Gorges commissions world’s largest PV-CSP solar plant

Hybrid project pairs a 100 MW linear Fresnel concentrated solar power (CSP) with a 900 MW PV facility, delivering 24-hour output and demonstrating large-scale storage integration.

www.pv-magazine.com

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 10d

I'm enjoying Clues by Sam. It's rather a well-constructed logic game.

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 11d

I was once at a friend's birthday party - which I enjoyed greatly - and was only told later that Indira Varma had been at the same party.
Bugger!

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 13d

WE MUST CONIFER WITH THE ELM

1 8

Reposted by Phantom Corsair

Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 14d

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

730 10K 30K

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 15d

I like the explanation of factoid as something that only has the shape of a fact.

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 15d

Not enough to hyphenate 'near perfect', apparently.

Reposted by Phantom Corsair

Tom Clark @tom-clark.bsky.social · 15d

Useful reminder from Peter Kellner on the problems we refuse to acknowledge are getting better, and the politics of hopelessness that this breeds

open.substack.com/pub/kellnerp...

37 470 890

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 16d

Yes! That was just a nostalgia thing - harking back to the RAC-based designations of earlier Wolseleys - cf the Mini being branded as the Austin Seven to start with.

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 16d

Cars also had designations like the Rolls-Royce 40/50 and Alvis 12/70, where the first number represented the RAC rating and the second the actual (brake) horsepower.

1 1

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 16d

Don't forget that the RAC horsepower calculation (based on cylinder bore) encouraged slow-revving, long-stroke engines in the UK for decades from 1910, and was the reason for names like the Austin Seven and Riley Nine.

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 19d

And I've checked, and I was wrong. Oh no! I was wrong in the Internet!

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · 19d

I thought it was a UK-only ad campaign.

2 1