Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 5h

These morons just fundamentally don't understand creativity

Gretchen Felker-Martin 🍉 @scumbelievable.bsky.social · 7h

I don't like him personally, but David Simon on AI is the final word on the subject.

Reposted by William Russell

Xalavier Nelson Jr. @writnelson.bsky.social · 7h

You would not believe how many stories like this have been popping up over the last ~5 years

Not just full games cancelled—entire characters and plot lines removed or changed, leaving less time for making the *rest of the game better*, to try avoiding a small and malicious contingent of voices.

Stephen Totilo @stephentotilo.bsky.social · 7h

SCOOP: Last year, Ubisoft cancelled an Assassin's Creed game set during Reconstruction. Was to feature a Black Assassin who, among other things, fought the rise of the Klan

Sources: Leadership nixed it over concerns re: U.S. political climate, backlash to Yasuke

www.gamefile.news/p/scoop-ubis...

Scoop: Ubisoft cancelled a post-Civil War Assassin’s Creed last year

Company leadership deemed the project too controversial for the moment, sources tell Game File

www.gamefile.news

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 8h

Unfortunately I don't find this funny at all... 😰

David M. Bennett MD (FAAOS, FPOSNA, DABOS) @davembmd.bsky.social · 10h

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. @aptshadow.bsky.social @abraham.bsky.social

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 11h

😱

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Reposted by William Russell

BlindManBaldwin @blindmanbaldwin.bsky.social · 11h

this fits with a key feeling of contemporary conservative thought being mad at luke skywalker making a mistake; "star wars" being "you're twelve years old and entering the big world" and so they can't accept the continuation of that line of thought.

Patrick Cosmos @veryimportant.lawyer · Sep 8

working on a new unified theory of american reality i'm calling "everyone is twelve now"

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Reposted by William Russell

Dr Ani Permana @dranipermana.bsky.social · 11h

Human #nestbuilding all in the name of 🧪

Luckily my teachers 🦧 were the best!

Construction is not as easy as you think - got 5 minutes? Show me what you can do!

#nestbuildingchallenge
#primates
#orangutans
#tooluse
#technology

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 12h

Nice! That's an actual Q&A too so you'll get to talk to him 🤩

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 13h

I'm gonna be honest, my brain first interpreted this picture as a tabletop with a game of Magic the Gathering going on

Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 1d

Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...

Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children

Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.

southsideweekly.com

Reposted by William Russell

Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 16h

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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Reposted by William Russell

NikkiJay is making Shards Of A God @nikkijay.games · 14h

Happy international lesbian day

Bubblegum and Marceline showing the ends of the lesbian fashion spectrum

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 15h

Source

Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 9d

Carl Benz has an idea

[Scene is a 19th century drawing room with a sign outside saying TRANSPORT INVENTORS CLUB. Inside, the German Engineer KARL BENZ is addressing a meeting of gentlemen about his new transport idea]

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KARL BENZ:
OK guys - you’re gonna love this

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KARL BENZ:
So it’s like, a box made of metal that goes at up to 120 miles an hour, yeah?

[Karl shows them a diagram of a car]

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KARL BENZ:
And your drive it down one side of the road, and the boxes going the other way go on the opposite side, so we don’t need to build two roads!

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OTHER GUY:
What’s down the middle?

KARL BENZ:
A white line.

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OTHER GUY:
So like, a white barrier…

KARL BENZ:
No a white line. Drawn on the floor.

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OTHER GUY:
And who’s piloting these machines?

KARL BENZ:
I was thinking: random members of the public.

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[Pause, the other guys all look with concern at Karl]

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OTHER GUY:
Karl are you OK

KARL BENZ:
No listen it’s fine

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OTHER GUY:
You know we’re worried about you, don’t you?

KARL BENZ:
No really it’ll work -

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KARL BENZ:
Once hundreds of millions of people have died and the world’s started ending because of the fumes it’ll all be normal.

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OTHER GUY:
Is that normal like the ‘commuter travel device’ you brought in last week which was just…

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OTHER GUY:
…an iron maiden fired from a catapult?

[The other guy displays a diagram of an iron maiden being fired from a catapult]

KARL BENZ:
THAT WOULD’VE WORKED!

[ends]

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 15h

Cars are a good idea

A cartoon of a smartly dressed mustached man pointing at a diagram of a car, saying, "And you drive it down one side of the road, and the boxes going the other way go on the opposite side, so we don't need to build two roads!"

An older mustached man asks, "And who's piloting these machines?"

His reply, with an expression of incredible confidence and insight, "I was thinking: random members of the public."

"Carl are you OK"

"No listen it's fine"

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 16h

#StopAI!

Give me a single reason why Sora2 should exist.

YouTube video by Hank Green

youtu.be

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Reposted by William Russell

Peter Kelly @thepeterkelly.bsky.social · May 24

Dear Mr. Clegg

I have started a business, selling the contents of your house

I knew when I launched I did not have legal access your house

Without this access my company will not be profitable

Others have told me I have a flawed business model, but I disagree

Please advise how I should proceed

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Reposted by William Russell

cabinetstories.bsky.social @cabinetstories.bsky.social · 18h

Plus all the xenophobic politicians complaining that people who want to become British citizens need to be fluent in written and spoken English...or is it merely that they hate literature/books/storytelling/critical thinking?

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Reposted by William Russell

Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 18h

I cannot understand what these people think the purpose of human life is?

It is *not* "pursue joy, deal justly, love well, try to understand as much and see as much of this beautiful world and of the deepness, richness and variety of human culture and experience as you can before you die"?

Tim Worthington @outonbluesix.bsky.social · 18h

How is this repeatedly made into a policy issue - by *all* parties - when the blunt fact of the matter is that grown adults who are obliged to pay for their own education, and relentlessly pursued to repay their loans, should be able to study whatever the fuck they want.

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Reposted by William Russell

Ian McQue @ianmcque.bsky.social · 18h

This. So much fucking THIS

Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 18h

feels like yet again time to mention that the *videogames* industry (that's a creative industry, which people do creative degrees in) brings in more than twice the amount to the British economy as the fishing and steel industries *combined*

Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 18h

I cannot understand what these people think the purpose of human life is?

It is *not* "pursue joy, deal justly, love well, try to understand as much and see as much of this beautiful world and of the deepness, richness and variety of human culture and experience as you can before you die"?

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Reposted by William Russell

Lana Sinapayen @sinalana.bsky.social · 20h

If you haven't yet, come see our poster designed by my coauthor Harrison.
Tl;dr: if some lifeforms were going around terraforming planets, we could detect them* even without a working definition of "life" or "habitability"

*terms and conditions apply

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Reposted by William Russell

Preorder Read This When Things Fall Apart @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 1d

Y'all who keep lecturing protesters to "not give them an excuse" need to pause for a minute. Imagine yourself telling a DV victim, "Be sure not to mouth off or make any mistakes so he won't hit you. Don't give him an excuse! It's what he wants!" That's what you fools sound like.

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 1d

This video just released by Nintendo is extremely odd

until you realise it has invisible Pikmin in it

Close to you

YouTube video by Nintendo 公式チャンネル

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by William Russell

Dawei Bai @daweibai.bsky.social · 5d

New paper: the ‘Double Ring Illusion’!
Does the visual system integrate *intuitive physics*? This new illusion developed by Brent Strickland and I offers a straightforward demonstration – one that you can experience yourselves!
Demos in thread👇
[1/6]

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 1d

And I can't really afford to do any more voluntary internships. I have no money left! I need to work, but getting related work is also impossibly hard.

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Reposted by William Russell

Ethan Landes @ethanlandes.bsky.social · 1d

The UK is within spitting distance of having more murders portrayed annually on TV shows and movies set in the country than occur in real life

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 1d

It's so incredible how low homicide rates are in Europe. The UK, with a population of 70 million people, had fewer than 600 murders in 2023.
www.connexionfrance.com/news/double-...

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Reposted by William Russell

Gilly Forrester @gillyforrester.bsky.social · 1d

Do you recognise her? It's because we're related. Just like you and me she has thoughts, emotions, desires, friendships, joy, grief and everything in between. When we learn about what it means to be human we are also learning what it means to be ape.

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 1d

Details here:

Fox News 'Antifa Whistleblower' Looks Familiar...

YouTube video by The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder

www.youtube.com

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