Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Rob Donoghue

Shawn Tomkin @shawntomkin.bsky.social · 5h

My least favorite bit about self-publishing is figuring out the right time to do a new print run. It costs tens of thousands of dollars, so I can't over-invest in stock, but I inevitably get caught off guard by a sell-through and have long gaps where items are not available at all. I suck at it.

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Reposted by Rob Donoghue

Funranium (AKA Phil Broughton) @funranium.bsky.social · 6h

UPDATE:

I absolutely did trigger my fire marshals to go through the code and grumble about it continually playing catch up. That part of the point of building the datacenters where they are isn't just cheap land and resource they can exploit, but older code with poor enforcement.

Funranium (AKA Phil Broughton) @funranium.bsky.social · 1d

I suspect I have just triggered a "Well, shit" moment regarding the building code, its to imagine datacenters facilities like this, and the potential of people just outright ignoring the code to load as many GPUs in as possible and run them at 99.999% of maximum clock speed until they melt.

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Reposted by Rob Donoghue

Funranium (AKA Phil Broughton) @funranium.bsky.social · 4h

"I can no longer tell the difference between someone trying to pull a fast one and genuine dumbass. This is why I drink." - my favorite fire marshal

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Reposted by Rob Donoghue

Sticky Doodler @stickydoodler.bsky.social · 1d

Once you start going to local tabletop design events you start realizing how many people make games, some right in your own hometown. @playsamovar.bsky.social is someone I'm delighted to share a neighborhood with. Come check out his love letter to Ursula Le Guin's Hainish cycle:
1/▶️

Indie & Local Tabletop Games Fair
featuring Samovar Games
Emissary: A story game inspired by Ursula Le Guin's Hainish Cycle
📆 Sat, Oct 18
🕛 12-5pm
📍 People's Book, Takoma Park MD

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Rob Donoghue @rdonoghue.bsky.social · 2d

I am not terribly moved by surprise twists in stories, but I am incredibly appreciative when I can 100% see something coming and the author completely nails it all the same.

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Rob Donoghue @rdonoghue.bsky.social · 2d

So, I view this with the same skepticism I do any other Hockey Stick graph, but I admit that stablecoin news has made me curious whose lunch this is proposing to eat, since it seems it’s seizing value rather than adding.

www.visualcapitalist.com/visualized-s...

Visualized: Stablecoin Market Size Forecast into 2030

See the stablecoin market size's growth from 2020 to 2025 along with Citi's bear and bull case forecasts for the stablecoin market in 2030.

www.visualcapitalist.com

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Rob Donoghue @rdonoghue.bsky.social · 2d

Good read and a good reminder that RSS is still a better way to consume the web than anything else.

inessential.com/2025/10/04/w...

inessential: Why NetNewsWire Is Not a Web App

inessential.com

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Reposted by Rob Donoghue

The Alternate Historian @althistorian.bsky.social · 2d

Well I hope it works out because it sounds like it would be really fucking bad if this was a bubble.

Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 2d

"The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year... In a way, then, America has become one big bet on AI."

America is now one big bet on AI

It’s seen as the magic fix for every threat to the US economy

www.ft.com

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Reposted by Rob Donoghue

Sticky Doodler @stickydoodler.bsky.social · 2d

I started my career in civil legal aid, and there is never enough money to serve most of the people in need in eviction, unemployment, debt, and immigration cases. As the DMV region suffers from the government shutdown, those needs will just grow. Please give this games bundle your consideration.

Swan and Raven Studio @swanandravenstudio.com · 3d

Drumroll please...

HELLO//GOODBYE is a charity bundle containing 203 games for only $12. Every dollar goes directly to Virginia charities providing free legal aid to people facing injustice. Available now until November 5th.

itch.io/b/3276/hello...

HELLO//GOODBYE Charity Bundle for Legal Aid. available until November 5th, 6PM EST

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Rob Donoghue @rdonoghue.bsky.social · 3d

80's movie! With some Stupidly Young people who arena longer Stupidly Young.

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Reposted by Rob Donoghue

Daniel Solis @danielsolis.bsky.social · 3d

After listening to part 2 of the Planet Money #boardgame series, I raise an eyebrow as they hype up this being such an original game concept. Emphasizing that misleads the audience about how much the market values originality AND how original this game actually is. (It's an I-cut-you-choose game.)

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Reposted by Rob Donoghue

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 3d

This is compounded by the actual endurance challenge of just managing to listen to Pete Hegseth for 45 minutes.

If you have experienced this speech only in snippets, first: good, don't change that. But second, you have not fully imbibed how incredibly vapid and annoying it is.

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Rob Donoghue @rdonoghue.bsky.social · 3d

“Artless” is a harsh condemnation, and hard to apply cleanly without sounding like a snob, but I feel like it is summed up by those who understand the profound power of stories but also think that it can be achieved by telling what the story is rather than the more onerous act of telling the story.

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Rob Donoghue @rdonoghue.bsky.social · 3d

“God dammit, past me knew what he was doing.”

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Reposted by Rob Donoghue

Spencer Campbell @gilarpgs.bsky.social · 4d

The spooky season is upon us! I've put my spookiest game, REAP, on sale for the rest of the month.

Grab this excellent solo TTRPG of a wandering necromancer for 25% off. Sale applies to book and PDF versions!

gilarpgs.myshopify.com/products/reap

REAP

The lands of Obron are dying. You are a necromancer, striding between the lands of the living and the dead. Wander this broken world. Seek Horrors, and reap their souls. What Is REAP? REAP is a solo t...

gilarpgs.myshopify.com

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Reposted by Rob Donoghue

Daniel Solis @danielsolis.bsky.social · 3d

Planet Money is developing a party card game with Exploding Kittens, which means they're explaining to NPR listeners the absolute basics of how to pnp a prototype. youtu.be/coTkbsBeSYY?...
#gamedesign #boardgame

Planet Money X Exploding Kittens Board Game | NPR

YouTube video by NPR

youtu.be

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Reposted by Rob Donoghue

Anise K. Strong @anisekstrong.bsky.social · 3d

This is the most amazing bit of cross-cultural mythmaking ever. I wonder if this was inspired by myths of Talos? Anyhow, I am very sorry that the secretive guild of ancient Roman robot engineers never existed, though pleased they were appropriately unionized.

Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 3d

When I was researching my book Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India, I learned of a 1000-year-old myth about Roman tech being used to build killer robots to guard the Buddha's remains in Pataliputra, and a Hungarian folklorist read my book & got excited about it, & she managed to dig up a🧵(1/3)

Romanised Pali manuscript of the Lokapannati

Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India
p. 60
Bhoota Vahana Yanta
Bhoota Vahana Yanta means “spirit movement machine.” The term is used
for several varieties of robot drone assassins and sword-wielding machine-
men mentioned in the Lokapannati, a Pali-language text written between
1000 and 1200 CE by Saddhammaghosa of Thaton, but concerning
events that took place much earlier, around 500 to 200 BCE.
According to the story, robots were first invented by engineers of the
early Roman Republic. These robots were used for commerce, in agriculture,
as a police force, and as executioners. The secret of how to build these
spirit-engines was fiercely protected. If any engineer dared to take the designs
out of the city, one of his own executioner robots would come after
him and kill him.
At that time, in Pataliputra (then in the kingdom of Magadha, now
Patna in the state of Bihar), there lived a young man who had heard of the
Romans’ magical androids. He became so determined to learn the secrets
of their manufacture and share them with the people of Magadha that he
arranged his own death. Then, on his deathbed, he vowed to be reincarnated
as a Roman.
This indeed took place. In his new life, the man grew up to join the
Roman guild of engineers. He even married the daughter of the Master
Robot-Maker, and had a son by her.
Once he learned the secrets of the Bhoota Vahana Yanta, the man resolved
to transfer the information back to Pataliputra. But he was well
aware that now, since he was a member of the guild, he would be killed as
soon as he left. So he cut a gash in his thigh, inserted the plans in his flesh,
and sewed the wound back up.

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Rob Donoghue @rdonoghue.bsky.social · 3d

Have I just spent an hour on my phone in the car because I didn’t want to go into the supermarket? Yes.

Is the store going to be that much more crowded and unpleasant because I delayed? Also yes.

I don’t need opposition - I do a bad enough job on my own.

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Rob Donoghue @rdonoghue.bsky.social · 3d

I get that this may seem like a really kind of strange thing that falls into no particular bucket, and that makes it a hard pitch. There is a lot of “what even am I looking at?” If you explain it.

And yet.

Ettin is fucking funny. And he delivers.

If you’re *faintly* curious, this is a good bet.

Ettin @ettin.itch.io · 3d

The KS campaign for my light novel (about a guy reborn in the bad RPG campaign he ran as a teenager) is on track to fund with 10 days left! If you're at all into TTRPGs, check it out while you can!

(Already backed? Tell your friends, tell your enemies, get abducted by aliens and explain RPGs to em)

CRINGE WIZARD: A TTRPG Isekai Light Novel

A light novel about a guy forced to live through the terrible TTRPG campaign he ran when he was a teenager.

www.kickstarter.com

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Reposted by Rob Donoghue

Ettin @ettin.itch.io · 3d

The KS campaign for my light novel (about a guy reborn in the bad RPG campaign he ran as a teenager) is on track to fund with 10 days left! If you're at all into TTRPGs, check it out while you can!

(Already backed? Tell your friends, tell your enemies, get abducted by aliens and explain RPGs to em)

CRINGE WIZARD: A TTRPG Isekai Light Novel

A light novel about a guy forced to live through the terrible TTRPG campaign he ran when he was a teenager.

www.kickstarter.com

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Reposted by Rob Donoghue

lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 3d

Time to repost a classic.

clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/

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Rob Donoghue @rdonoghue.bsky.social · 3d

Of all things, this is a lens I really like applying to shonen anime. The whole genre lionizes willpower/grit/resolve but often fails to SHOW it in any way other than “yelling louder”. I am FASCINATED by attempts to actually fold it into narrative.

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Rob Donoghue @rdonoghue.bsky.social · 3d

I am somewhat horrified by how badly “Turk 182” dates me as a reference. There has got to be something more current. Any thoughts?

(Not Leverage. Similar Robin Hood cleverness, but the political element of Turk 182 is essential to its use as a reference.)

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Rob Donoghue @rdonoghue.bsky.social · 3d

Not to say there is no place for antiplumbing, rather that it is not an alternative to *showing up*.

Your(my) hypothetical future heroics are less than a wet fart compared to the work of the person willing to go stand in the crowd and be seen.

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Rob Donoghue @rdonoghue.bsky.social · 3d

And to be clear, this brush of condemnation colors me quite strongly. I absolutely bought into that idea, and the whole anti-plumber things remains one of my absolute favorite sorts of escapism. The trick comes in recognizing that it *is* escapism.

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