Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Dinah Roe

👻madeline boOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 4h

the answer to the trolley problem is not to pick who to sacrifice, it’s to dismantle the system that led to an unsafe trolley crossing.

if any part of your morality strategy involves picking a group to let die on a hill, throw the entire strategy out. it’s wrong.

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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 3h

How to ymprove higher ed
And win all the pryzes:
1) Hire manye facultye
2) Small class syzes

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Durotriges Dig @durotrigesdig.bsky.social · 16h

The 10.7ha univallate Iron Age glory of Segsbury Camp (aka Letcombe Castle) Oxfordshire

Here looking south in an aerial picture © James Pratt from the OA citizen science project #Airchaeology 😍

www.airchaeology.org/2018/09/28/s...

Happy #HillfortsWednesday 🥳

The grass covered ramparts of a hillfort bisected by a modern road from the air looking to the cloudless sky of the horizon

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Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 9h

The reason the Right are so invested in the myth that the arts have no value isn’t because the arts don’t generate wealth (they do); it’s that studying the arts teaches people to imagine better ways of judging the value of an idea than by counting how much money it makes…

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Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 12h

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Paintings of London @paintingsoflondon.bsky.social · 1d

'Thames Nocturne: Battersea Reach from Cheyne Walk' by Walter Greaves (1846-1930)

(Private collection)

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Sham Jaff @shamjaff.bsky.social · 14h

It’s a "crisis" when immigrants "take jobs away", but "innovation" when machines do. Funny.

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Andy Marshall @fotofacade.bsky.social · 1d

🚴John Betjeman said that it was worth cycling 40 miles in a headwind to see them.
🪽The early C16th Angel Roof at St Wendreda in Cambs is adorned with over 100 oaken angels.

View along the nave of St. Wendreda’s Church, March, showing the magnificent medieval angel roof with carved wooden angels soaring above the slender stone arcades.

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The Bookseller @thebookseller.com · 2d

ICYMI: Around 5,000 children have already been registered for Dolly Parton’s free book-gifting programme, just two months since the initiative first launched in Wandsworth 👇 #BookSky

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Wandsworth recruits 5,000 children in two months

ebx.sh

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Laura Ashe @lauraashe.bsky.social · 2d

Epic; no notes

Headline from the Times: "Bestselling novelist Jilly Cooper dies in fall aged 88", illustrated with a rather famous black and white picture of Virginia Woolf

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British Association for Romantic Studies @bars.bsky.social · 2d

On the BARS blog: information on applying for the @ksaacomm.bsky.social Carl H. Pforzheimer Research Grants, worth $3000. Deadline 1st November. www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6151

Funding Opportunity: Carl H. Pforzheimer, Jr., Research Grants – BARS Blog

www.bars.ac.uk

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Ancestral Enquiries - Tony Smith 🌳 @ancestralenq.bsky.social · 2d

The Grade 1 listed North Wing of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London reopens after £9.5 million restoration with 2 William Hogarth masterpiece murals available for the public to see for the first time. 👇
BBC News - Hospital's Hogarth opens to public for first time
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Hogarth masterpieces restored at Barts Hospital open to public

The restoration of the north wing has 'recaptured its beauty and dignity', the project teams says.

www.bbc.com

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cait (and adonis) @cait.bsky.social · 2d

i'm sorry but I can't stop thinking about how funny it is to write a song called "the fate of ophelia" and have it be an upbeat pop song about your quarterback boyfriend. thank god I found a man so I don't have to kill myself

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Dinah Roe @preraphsrule.bsky.social · 2d

It's giving speaker-in-a-Robert-Browning-poem vibes.💀

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Dinah Roe @preraphsrule.bsky.social · 2d

"'AI is a good place to let younger people practice their social skills,' Jones said [...] 'People will say things to an AI that would be abusive if they said them to a real person. Like: ‘Hey stupid slut, what’s up?’"

Apparently Patrick Bateman has a new career in AI development.

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 2d

‘Obedient, yielding and happy to follow’: the troubling rise of AI girlfriends

AI dating sites claim they remove potential for exploitation, but critics say they are reinforcing harmful stereotypes

www.theguardian.com

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David Veevers @davidveevers.bsky.social · 2d

Sorry, we can't afford to give you your real-terms pay cut.

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 2d

'Staff at some institutions will not get even get the small rise due to them because of a clause in the negotiations that allows for a delay for up to 11 months if a university is facing financial difficulties.' So far, Dundee, Kent, Brunel, Coventry, Swansea.

Five UK universities tell staff they can’t afford pay rises

Negotiations over whether to honour 1.4 per cent increase ongoing at several other institutions amid financial crunch

www.timeshighereducation.com

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Sarah Frideswide @sjfrideswide.bsky.social · 3d

Read "One-Armed Nick and the Nuns of Osyth" now! (Where else will you find talking ghost kittens on a Sunday afternoon?)

sarahfrideswide.substack.com/p/a-creeping...

#ghost #ghoststory #oxfordshire #fiction #halloween #halloweenstory
@preraphsrule.bsky.social @msfennybentley.bsky.social

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 3d

'Whether it’s dancing the tango or playing the guitar, engaging in a creative pastime can slow brain ageing, according to a study of dancers, musicians, artists and video game players from multiple countries.'

Good thing we're killing off the Arts in universities, then.

Creative hobbies could slow brain ageing at the molecular level

To keep the mind young, dance the tango.

www.nature.com

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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 5d

🫡

How to Turn Off AI Tools Like Gemini, Apple Intelligence, Copilot, and More - Consumer Reports

AI features are crowding into Google search, Gmail, iPhones, Windows laptops, and other products. If you're suffering from AI overload, these settings can help.

www.consumerreports.org

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Dinah Roe @preraphsrule.bsky.social · 5d

"Mischaracterised by university leaders as financial ‘saving’, austerity is in truth vandalism."

Rob Hawkes @robbhawkes.bsky.social · 5d

As more of my valued colleagues face the threat of redundancy, here’s a quick reminder that it takes years and years of public investment to train an academic. Cutting someone with this wealth of experience loose isn’t “saving” anything. It is a massive waste of our collective resources.

UK Universities in Crisis? Time to Transform Higher Ed Finance

by Rob Hawkes and Scott Ferguson Universities in the UK are in crisis. Job cuts in the sector are reaching ‘cataclysmic’ levels, with an estimated 10,000 already lost and many more at risk. Just da…

moneyontheleft.org

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Adam Roberts @adamroberts.bsky.social · 6d

This latest series of "Slow Horses" has taken an unexpected turn.

Oldman as the oldest of men, Count Dracula. Keanu Reeves stands, looking beautifully wooden.

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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 5d

The "lanyard class" should almost always be parsed as an attack on women who work, and the enforcement of norms that make workplaces better for them.

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 5d

This is his repeated attacks on what he calls the "lanyard class". Who are the terrible people who wear lanyards? Doctors & nurses, care workers, teachers, managers, administrators, secretaries. The people who hold society together, who keep everything running, who do the jobs he wouldn't stoop to.

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Erin Casali @folletto.bsky.social · 5d

Social media, meaning the spaces for people to meet and socialize globally, has been dead for possibly 10 years already.

What we have now is parasocial media: a form of mass media where there’s illusion of relationships covering a high virality broadcast tool controlled by algorithms.