Author | Lightnews

Al Parsai @parsai.bsky.social · 12d

Wittgenstein’s Philosophy Is Daunting. This Biography Makes Him Human. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/b...

Wittgenstein’s Philosophy Is Daunting. This Biography Makes Him Human.

www.nytimes.com

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Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 15d

Telling the same story in different ways can change the brain networks that the listener uses to form memories

Your Brain’s Memory of a Story Depends on How It Was Told

Telling the same story in different ways can change the brain networks that the listener uses to form memories

www.scientificamerican.com

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Al Parsai @parsai.bsky.social · Jul 28

Bernard! You are one of only a handful journalists in NZ worth reading. Don’t get too bleak ☺️

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Al Parsai @parsai.bsky.social · Jul 19

How Empathy Became a Threat www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/b...

How Empathy Became a Threat

www.nytimes.com

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Jun 17

When I read Philip K Dick at 16 and it blew my mind, I was inspired me to go out and read Berkeley’s _Principles_.

When these guys saw The Matrix at 32 and it blew theirs, they were inspired to go out and ask ChatGPT “generate a five-minute podcast about what The Matrix really means.”

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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · May 29

The Natural Philosophy Symposium is underway! I had some idea of live-skeeting, but the real-time event is too absorbing.

www.naturalphilosophyhopkins.org/natural-phil...

Anyway, we've had:

(cont)

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Al Parsai @parsai.bsky.social · May 25

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/u...

A Professor’s Final Gift to Her Students: Her Life Savings

www.nytimes.com

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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · May 23

I went on Piers Morgan to talk with Eric Weinstein. Not a productive conversation, alas.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m7L...

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Al Parsai @parsai.bsky.social · Apr 15

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/h...

This Therapist Helped Clients Feel Better. It Was A.I. (Gift Article)

In the first clinical trial of its kind, an A.I. chatbot eased mental health symptoms among participants. The technology may someday help solve the provider shortage.

www.nytimes.com

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Al Parsai @parsai.bsky.social · Apr 10

variety.com/2025/film/ne...

‘The Phoenician Scheme’ Trailer: Wes Anderson Returns With Father-Daughter Drama, Absurd Action and a Star-Studded Cast

Benicio del Toro and Mia Threapleton portray a complex father-and-daughter duo in the trailer for "The Phoenician Scheme," Wes Anderson's new film.

variety.com

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Mar 25

With all the bad shit going on, I'm trying to spend more time reading science and math and less doom-scrolling.

Today's diversion was an exploration of the James-Stein estimator, wherein we can get a better joint estimate of the means of three variables than by taking the mean of each variable.

(PDF) Stein's Paradox in Statistics

PDF | On May 1, 1977, Bradley Efron and others published Stein's Paradox in Statistics | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

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Melbourne Cinematheque @melbcinematheque.bsky.social · Mar 23

Join us on Wednesday March 26 for the start of our season of American neo noir films of the 1970s. At 7pm, Robert Altman’s THE LONG GOODBYE (1973), followed at 9.10pm by Don Siegel’s DIRTY HARRY (1971). Full program details via the link on our bio.
www.melbournecinematheque.org/category/pre...

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Al Parsai @parsai.bsky.social · Mar 14

Been waiting for it.
Thank you 🙏

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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · Mar 8

Worse than I thought! For example:

“John Lilly, a neurophysiologist and psychedelic researcher who once used LSD to investigate dolphin communication, famously abused ketamine until he believed that he was contacted by an extraterrestrial entity who removed his penis.”

Peter H @henderburn.bsky.social · Mar 7

www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

What Ketamine Does to the Human Brain

Excessive use of the drug can make anyone feel like they rule the world.

www.theatlantic.com

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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · Mar 7

"Under Fascism there appear for the first time a type of man who does not want to give reasons or to be right, but simply shows himself resolved to impose his opinions."
José Ortega y Gasset

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Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · Mar 5

Are complex systems predictable? Can we use (un)predictability to measure complexity? Here's a great review by A. Vulpiani and co-workers on how chaos, Lyapunov exponents, information theory and statistical physics get together to answer these questions denali.phys.uniroma1.it/~cencini/Pap...

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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.bsky.social · Mar 5

French polling on Ukraine

Pascal @pascallth.bsky.social · Mar 5

Macron is giving a televised address tonight, likely on defence and security

So here's polling from this week on how French people see the war in Ukraine

First, 73% say the US isn't an ally of France

🧵

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Mark Affleck @flick131.bsky.social · Mar 5

“Want to organize a union? Check out these resources from experienced union leaders:

📌 UE’s 5 Steps to Organizing: ueunion.org
📌 NEA Union 101: nea.org
📌 Organizer’s Handbook: workerorganizing.org
📌 Teamsters Guide: teamster.org
📌 Digital Union Guide: uniontrack.com

#UnionStrong #OrganizeNow”

UE

The Union for Everyone | Members Run This Union

ueunion.org

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Kit Yates @kityates.bsky.social · Mar 4

🚨I promised I'd say more on the Royal Society and Elon Musk, so here it is. 🚨

I've resigned my position as Associate Editor at Royal Society's journal Open Science in protest at their lack of action over Elon Musk.

My op-ed in @theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Elon Musk is a proven danger to good science, but the Royal Society won’t say so. That’s why I resigned | Kit Yates

It is vital to act, and I urge colleagues to do so. How can we stand by and laud this man while he undermines scientific integrity? asks academic and author Kit Yates

www.theguardian.com

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Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · Mar 4

In an ideal world, every College and University in the States would have a mass protest and general strike tomorrow.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Mar 4

Criminalizing protest is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes

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Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · Mar 4

‘The basis of eugenics’: Elon Musk and the menacing return of the R-word www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

‘The basis of eugenics’: Elon Musk and the menacing return of the R-word

The slur is rooted in the dehumanization of people with intellectual disabilities. Its resurgence threatens the fragile progress we’ve made

www.theguardian.com

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Al Parsai @parsai.bsky.social · Mar 3

Watch it here:

www.newyorker.com/culture/scre...

A Woman Wonders if She’s Human in “I’m Not a Robot”

In Victoria Warmerdam’s short film, a series of failed CAPTCHA tests plunges a woman into a strange new reality.

www.newyorker.com

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The New Yorker @newyorker.com · Mar 3

“I’m Not a Robot,” a darkly comic film about a woman trying to convince her computer that she is human, won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. It is the second film released by The New Yorker to be honored with an Oscar.

The New Yorker Film “I’m Not a Robot” Wins a 2025 Academy Award

The Oscar for Best Live Action Short went to Victoria Warmerdam’s darkly comic tale about a woman who fails a series of CAPTCHA tests.

www.newyorker.com

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Feb 4

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines?

Jevin West (@jevinwest.bsky.social) and I have spent the last eight months developing the course on large language models (LLMs) that we think every college freshman needs to take.

thebullshitmachines.com

INTRODUCTION

thebullshitmachines.com

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Branko Milanovic @brankomilan.bsky.social · Feb 23

The importance of Taleb’s system
From the Fourth Quadrant to the Skin in the Game
branko2f7.substack.com/p/the-import...

The importance of Taleb’s system

From the Fourth Quadrant to the Skin in the Game

branko2f7.substack.com

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