Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 3h

Thanks Margaret. It's certainly a lovely day for frolicking! I've been digging around in the SLNSW catalogue but haven't asked a librarian yet—I'll give it a go.

Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 7h

History brains trust: does anyone know if flight logs exist for Mascot Airport in the 1930s, and if so where they are? I know that a plane landed there at 7:52pm on Tuesday, 7 November 1933 and I want to see if I can confirm the name of the pilot.

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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 21h

If you want to know more about our use of handwritten text recognition software (Transkribus) on the wills project, tune in on Zoom next week 👇

All welcome (not just postdocs!).

#EarlyModern 🗃️ #DigitalHumanities #HTR #CitizenScience

The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 21h

Project Research Fellows Harry Smith and Emily Vine are looking forward to speaking as part of the Warwick History 'Post-Doc' Club series, next Wed 22 October @ 17.00.

They'll be discussing 'Digitization & Citizen Science'📜💻

Follow this link for Zoom details:
warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/his...

A poster with a white background and black text, with a blue border at the top of the poster, and photographs of manuscripts. The title of the poster reads Warwick History ‘POST-DOC’ CLUB METHODOLOGIES SERIES. Online Meeting: Weds 22 October at 5pm
DIGITIZATION & CITIZEN SCIENCE: Inviting collaborative research to transcribe handwriting. With Harry Smith and Emily Vine of the Material Culture of Wills, 1540-1790 project at the University of Exeter.

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Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 1d

Reading a news report from 1932 on the secretary of the British Museum lamenting the loss of a "great body of social history of the most curious kind." His suggestion? Concealing microphones and talkie cameras in the bars of country pubs and other places to capture the life of the people.

a woman is sitting at a desk with her eyes closed and the words `` that 's creepy '' written on the screen .

Alt: A gif of a woman sitting at a desk turning to a person standing beside her and saying "That's creepy."

media.tenor.com

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Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks for sharing! I look forward to listening

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Deborah Lee-Talbot @colourfulhistories.bsky.social · 1d

A must listen episode about linking Pacific Islander culture and stories and GenAI:

AI ethicist Dr Karaitiana Taiuru poses a powerful question: "What do we do when our stories aren't our stories anymore?"

Please share.

#AI #colonisation #intellectualproperty #theft #digitalhumanities

Is artificial intelligence the new colonialism? Pacific communities confront a digital future - ABC Pacific

Artificial intelligence is everywhere, shaping our lives faster than we can keep up. It's generating stories, images and videos that blur the boundaries between truth and fiction. But for Pacific com...

www.abc.net.au

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Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 1d

Looking at archival documents from the Photographic and Cinema Branch in the 1930s. This summing up a candidate for a job: "he is a young man of good appearance and address; while definitely an artistic type he is well balanced and capable, with some force of character."

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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 1d

This just happened again and it really drives home the extent to which scholarly orgs could build great bridges with museums/historical sites by figuring out how to help them get access to scholarly materials. Those places might, in turn, help support those orgs with people and money.

Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 8d

Working at a museum without access to a university library means spending 6 years thinking about/reading Mark Twain & his reception and then every time I think I had an original thought it turns out @mattseybold.bsky.social tweeted it out in the form of a peer-reviewed article a decade ago.

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HerRoyalBOO👻bies @ourflagmeansbeth.bsky.social · 3d

This but an entire country’s economy lol

toddkramer.eth
@toddkramer1
I been hacked.
all my apes gone. this just sold please help me
11:10 PM • 12/29/21

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Thesiswhisperer @thesiswhisperer.bsky.social · 8d

Can you help us boost this signal? UTS colleagues are doing a governance project to talk back to the consultant led 'reform' of their university.

Please repost!! UTS people please have your say!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

UTS Governance Project Survey: A Staff-Led Collaborative Project

The UTS Governance Project is an independent, staff-led initiative to strengthen transparency, accountability and participation in how our university is run. Inspired by the ANU Governance Project, ...

docs.google.com

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Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 7d

5yr old in the car on the freeway this morning: I just saw a truck I call big red. One I call big red, and one I call big greeny. And one I call fuckface.

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Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 10d

That's a pretty great start. Other 1980s classics: Poltergeist; An American Werewolf In London; The Blob; Hellraiser. So many to choose from!

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Mita Williams @copystar.bsky.social · 15d

One of the real joys of writing online is when you see someone also find the value in something that you have shared, and runs with farther it in a way new to you.

Hugh Rundle’s insights on Google Search’s adoption of Ai snippets is a good read!

www.hughrundle.net/did-you-mean/

Did you mean..?

Search engines based on embedding vector queries are fundamentally at odds with the goal of enabling multiple ontological mappings across information and cultural works.

www.hughrundle.net

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Tamson Pietsch @capandgown.bsky.social · 14d

Important research here from Joel Barnes tracing the origins of philanthropic wealth in Australia. How should institutions reckon with these legacies?

theconversation.com/the-dixson-f...

The Dixson family were great Australian philanthropists, but their wealth was built on slave labour

The legacy of the Dixson family reveals a complicated history of interconnected global capital and racialised exploitation.

theconversation.com

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Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 14d

😢

Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 14d

Great thread, thank you!!

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Deborah Lee-Talbot @colourfulhistories.bsky.social · 14d

Recently the 2025 Ethics Index Report (EIR) for Australia was released. A major finding, although not unexpected, is that ‘AI has surged to become the third most pressing ethical challenge and is now ranked as the second most difficult future development to ethically navigate’.

Ethics Index - Governance Institute of Australia

Ethics Index 2025

www.governanceinstitute.com.au

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Kate Littlejohn @kelittlejohn.bsky.social · 16d

#PhD research callout!

I am seeking History teachers in NSW for a short interview about NSW History 7-10 syllabuses. If you have taught History in NSW and are interested, please enter your details into this form.

forms.office.com/r/cvf5QfLrLb

Ethics approval: H16788

Please share!

Seeking: NSW History Teachers. Have you taught History 7-10 in NSW? Are you interested in taking part in an online interview for a PhD study at WSU about the representation of women in the NSW history syllabuses? Please enter your details into the form below for further details. https://forms.office.com/r/cvf5QfLrLb Contacts: Kate Littlejohn, Kay Carroll

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Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 15d

As someone who is a) an archivist and historian, and b) generally works from home, I basically live in jeans and t-shirts, hoodies, cardigans, and caps. So today when I had to wear a suit and dress shirt to a meeting, I felt like a teenager who had borrowed his dad’s clothes for a job interview.

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Stereogum @stereogum.bsky.social · 17d

from the latest print edition of ‘The Onion’

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Darren S. Layne @funkyplaid.bsky.social · 17d

If anyone had doubts about the predatory nature of for-profit genealogy services, now you don’t. They’re insipid data machines that seek to capitalise our archival resources right into the ground at the expense of the institutions who curate and safeguard them.

Vivienne Dunstan @vivdunstan.bsky.social · 18d

From @chrismpaton.bsky.social Ancestry and the NRS - when the corporate genealogy world turns ugly. Extremely alarming legal saga involving US genealogy company Ancestry and National Records of Scotland re core Scottish genealogy and family history records. scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2025/09/ance...

Ancestry and the NRS - when the corporate genealogy world turns ugly

From Scotland, a daily news blog about genealogy, family history and personal heritage.

scottishgenes.blogspot.com

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Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 20d

Nah, he’s ambitious for her

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Ordinary Notes @hystericalblkns.bsky.social · 27d

If you’re on academia dot edu, let me suggest that you strongly consider deleting your account.

The new TOC from academia dot edu.

By creating an Account with Academia.edu, you grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license, permission, and consent for Academia.edu to use your Member Content and your personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness, city, institutional affiliations, citations, mentions, publications, and areas of interest) in any manner, including for the purpose of advertising, selling, or soliciting the use or purchase of Academia.edu's Services.

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Prof. Amanda Wise @amandawise.bsky.social · 25d

1/At Macquarie Uni we are losing 50% of our units in my faculty. This is on top of cuts in 2020. We estimate by next year my faculty will be teaching 80% fewer subjects than pre Covid. Disciplines being cut do not have declining enrolments. @jennaprice.bsky.social @michaelwestbiz.bsky.social

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Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 23d

My spelling is pretty good, but one word I can never get right first time is 'manoeuvres'.

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