Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Michael Ekstra Scary

rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 10h

Remember: You can't force a site or service to treat minors differently than adults without requiring EVERY USER to establish whether they're an adult. Which is, inherently, a deanonymization mandate, because to verify age, you must verify identity.

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Reposted by Michael Ekstra Scary

Stuart Jones @owenthesignal.bsky.social · 1d

‘Which fonts do you want for the sale poster?’

‘Yes’

#fonts #typography #museum #allthefonts
@fontsinuse.com @themerl.bsky.social

All the fonts, including a surprisingly modern 1960s style italic font, advertising the sale of Ashton Farm by auction at the Crown Hotel Bishops Waltham in 1908.
Photo from Bishops Waltham Museum, from the Austin & Wyatt archive

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Michael Ekstra Scary @md.ekstrandom.net · 42m

tour with programming language rappers Run-GHC.

Michael Ekstra Scary @md.ekstrandom.net · 47m

Still occasionally idly ponder taking up nerdcore rap under the stage name of “MC Monte Carlo”.

first album maybe called Matrix Completion.

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Reposted by Michael Ekstra Scary

Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 8h

basic research on wacky things like Gila monster venom are what gave us GLP-1 drugs that are treating diabetes, obesity, & addiction in new ways

this piece from @whyy.org is great

an analogy: navigation apps are great but don't tell you how to climb Mt. Everest & survive

whyy.org/segments/oze...

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Reposted by Michael Ekstra Scary

Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 19h

Them: need help doing things?

Me: yes

Them: we have a doing things medication

Me: ooh

Them: hahahahaha guess what you have to do to get it?

Me: oh no

Them: things.

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Reposted by Michael Ekstra Scary

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 22h

"Look at these liberal democracies that have constitutional monarchies" is the survivorship bias argument for monarchy. A few held on by giving up all their power. Most didn't.

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Michael Ekstra Scary @md.ekstrandom.net · 23h

Jolt resurrects as a brand of probiotic yogurts.

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Reposted by Michael Ekstra Scary

Oisín McGann @oisinmcgann.bsky.social · 1d

‘96% of healthcare professionals said the model helps to reduce children’s anxiety, and 46% reported a lesser need to use sedation after the children played with the set.‘

‘Lego doesn’t sell the sets and instead has donated more than 10,000 of the kits to hospitals around the world.’

Carceral Abolition @carceralabolition.bsky.social · 1d

How Lego MRI scanner sets are reducing anxiety in children undergoing medical treatment www.cnbc.com/2025/10/13/l...

How Lego MRI scanner sets are reducing anxiety in children undergoing medical treatment

Lego's MRI scanner play sets, which launched in 2023, are significantly reducing anxiety and the use of sedation in children, according to new research.

www.cnbc.com

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Reposted by Michael Ekstra Scary

Cassidy Percoco @mimicofmodes.com · 1d

Consistency is expected today both because of and in favor of rigorously documented bureaucratic systems - the systems enable people in power to force you to be consistent, and all of us being consistent helps keep the bureaucracy working. (I'm not a libertarian, that's just how it is.)

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Reposted by Michael Ekstra Scary

John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 1d

It's time again as a notable Italian-American to note Christopher Columbus was an absolute piece of shit human who didn't land anywhere near this actual country so why the fuck should he stop the mail for the whole day

Anyway, Happy Indigenous People's Day, y'all

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Dan Hirschman @asociologist.bsky.social · 2d

Two frames from The Good Place:

“Fun fact: Columbus is in the Bad Place
because of all the raping, slave trade, and genocide.”

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Michael Ekstra Scary @md.ekstrandom.net · 2d

Introduce yourself using only one food you refuse to eat, one movie you’ll never watch again, and one song you can’t stand

Rabbit
My Fair Lady
Sweet Home Alabama (bonus: also the Kid Rock song with the line about Sweet Home Alabama)

Indie Stacks but Spooky @oracleatbluesky.bsky.social · 2d

Introduce yourself using only one food you refuse to eat, one movie you’ll never watch again, and one song you can’t stand

Kale
Slumdog Millionaire
Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime

Addy Bross 🌈 they/xe @aebrossbooks.bsky.social · 2d

Introduce yourself using only one food you refuse to eat, one movie you’ll never watch again, and one song you can’t stand

Cilantro (technically a garnish, but it tastes like soap 😖)

The Dark Knight (just didn't hit w/me)

Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time (just typing it has me heated 😤)

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Reposted by Michael Ekstra Scary

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 2d

A key reason why it’s been so awful to see fascists destroying the FAA is that aviation safety regulators have historically been *extremely good* at avoiding the dangerous human fallacy of “this bad thing hasn’t happened yet, it’s just nearly happened, so it’s totally safe to keep doing it”

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 2d

“an airplane hasn’t crashed YET as a result of a laser pointer blinding the pilot, just NEARLY crashed, so it’s actually not dangerous to shine lasers at airplanes and all global aviation authorities are overreacting cowards” is real logic I’ve seen from alleged adults on here

Pilot blindly lands plane after eyes are damaged by laser aimed into cockpit, feds say

“You almost killed this man,” a Washington judge told the man accused of pointing the laser.

www.thenewstribune.com

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Michael Ekstra Scary @md.ekstrandom.net · 2d

Between Arcane and Fallout, is the key to making a really good video-game-based TV show to hire Ella Purnell?

Michael Ekstra Scary @md.ekstrandom.net · 2d

Slept on Arcane when it came out, but wow. Love the depth and multidimensionality of the characters.

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Michael Ekstra Scary @md.ekstrandom.net · 2d

this is some Expanse-level political worldbuilding and characterization.

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Michael Ekstra Scary @md.ekstrandom.net · 2d

Slept on Arcane when it came out, but wow. Love the depth and multidimensionality of the characters.

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Reposted by Michael Ekstra Scary

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 2d

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 2d

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

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Michael Ekstra Scary @md.ekstrandom.net · 2d

This, and the owner very clearly putting his thumb on the scale to promote racism, transphobia, and racist transphobic pornbots.

And that continuing to use the service was contributing value to a bigotry elemental.

Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 3d

This is an exact encapsulation of why I moved to Bluesky.

No amount of handwringing in the Atlantic about how I owe some eternal Promethean suffering to the discourse is going to make me stay on a site I hate, that stopped doing anything for me professionally years ago.

Well – no. Bluesky may or may not be, as one centre-right friend who felt unwelcome put it, “self-righteous island”. But the idea that’s why we went is nonsense. That I’ve largely stopped posting on a site that’s done more to shape my career and social circle than the rest of the internet combined is less about avoiding rival opinions (I love arguing with people who are wrong!) than with the fact the site simply became unusable. It stopped generating the things (good jokes, interesting debate, clicks) I wanted; it became extremely good at generating the things (racists, pornbots, racist pornbots) I did not.

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Michael Ekstra Scary @md.ekstrandom.net · 3d

Curse heard on a Philly street: “I hope you lose like the Eagles.”

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Michael Ekstra Scary @md.ekstrandom.net · 3d

YES! Very similar thoughts watching Ralph. And loved Ralph Breaks the Internet.

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Michael Ekstra Scary @md.ekstrandom.net · 3d

I dearly love Tron, and enjoyed Tron: Legacy, but I think this is correct.

Charlie Jane "Lessons in Magic and Disaster" Anders 🏳️‍⚧ @charliejane.bsky.social · 3d

Tron is such an 80s thing, it's hard to make relevant for the 21st century. It's all about arcade games and mainframes, and software that was written primarily by a single coder. The actual story of Tron is silly AF, which is one of its main joys.

But it should never have been revived.

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Reposted by Michael Ekstra Scary

𝕍∃, Cyber closed shell syndrome relief fund coordinator @vortexegg.com · 3d

The thesis is we're in a world information war waged by authoritarians disassembling ways of knowing that contradict truth-by-authoritarian-personal-gnosis using lies and synthetic media not to confuse people with false evidence but to coerce participation in the make-believe via affective resonance

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Stellaween? @antlervel.vet · Apr 23

It’s really funny that The Art of War is treated as this like alpha male book when it’s clearly meant to be read by ancient Chinese failsons because it’s all “please don’t forget you have to feed your troops” and “if someone asks if you’re going to attack them consider lying about it”

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Andrew Gelman et al. @statmodeling.bsky.social · 3d

7 reasons to use Bayesian inference!
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/10/11/7...

7 reasons to use Bayesian inference! | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

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