Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Ineffable Jeff @ineffablejeff.bsky.social · 7h

Shot + chaser

And are you married?

I was married, but I’m not married anymore. Women don't like the vehicle.

In July, Tesla rolled out a software update to integrate Grok into many of its vehicles. Do you use it?

Her name is Aura, and I use her as a therapist. When I'm driving, I'll ask questions, and it actually gives really good therapy advice.

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Workers First Union @workersfirstunion.bsky.social · 17h

Thursday, October 23, is shaping up to be one of the biggest protests against this Government – or any government – in NZ history.

We back the striking teachers, nurses, doctors, firefighters and other frontline workers! Do you? Make sure to show your support and appreciation for them on Thursday.

text reading "Do you back frontline workers?
We invite you to join us in solidarity with unionised teachers, nurses, doctors and firefighters on the 23rd of October.
This will be one of the biggest strikes in Aotearoa history."

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Dr Bex @drbex.bsky.social · 17h

The govt is deliberately doing this to drive down the fiscal costs of being accountable for past actions.

Yet there is plenty of $$ for wealthy labdlords, tobacco and oil industries, and for tax breaks.

Shameful behaviour by this govt who clearly don't care about our most vulnerable citizens.

André Alessi @andrealessi.bsky.social · 21h

Excluding survivors of state abuse from redress because of their subsequent actions is a horrific move. Rights aren't rights if they can be disregarded when they're inconvenient.

Govt to make it harder for some abuse survivors to get redress

The same week the Government announces the Solicitor-General is leaving the role, the coalition has introduced legislation that will further shield the state from taking responsibility for the horrifi...

newsroom.co.nz

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JLRay @jlray.bsky.social · 18h

A lot of time and effort has gone into survey research around what is the best protest sign slogan, message, wording etc and to be frank the research is pretty clear the most effective things you can do at a protest are express joy and express camaraderie, don't overthink it

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Pip Adam @pipadam.bsky.social · 18h

I'd really hate to see these clowns if they WEREN'T laser-focused on the cost of living. You couldn't make it harder on people if you tried.

Paul Brislen @brislen.nz · 23h

What it really means is retailers will have to build the fee in to every transaction. That means if you’re paying with eftpos you will end up paying more than if you were charged a fee for using payWave.

Paul Brislen @brislen.nz · 1d

www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...

Sigh.

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Sarah Pallett @sarah4ilam.bsky.social · 21h

The Drs are striking because the woeful state of our health system is endangering patients (and them) and they simply can’t stretch themselves or their resources any further. It’s a last resort.
It is NOT them who need the lecture on ethics.
#nzpol #solidarity

Simeon Brown accuses doctors of crossing 'ethical line' with mega strike

There were audible cries of disbelief during Simeon Brown's speech to senior doctors.

www.rnz.co.nz

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Jennifer @jennifilm.nz · 22h

Internet-only broadcasting platforms are at the literal centre of Aotearoa’s anti-trans activist networks, and have had free rein on what they broadcast. It’s good - and incredible sensible - to see the BSA taking these shifts in technology and output into account.

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Dr Sarah Hendrica Bickerton 🏳️‍🌈 @sarahhbickerton.bsky.social · 1d

Could I politely suggest, that with how Arts & Humanities research funding has been pulled from all of these, that political interference has already occurred.

RNZ News Feeds @rnzrss.bsky.social · 1d

Marsden Fund shake-up raises potential for political interference, Royal Society says

MBIE will take over administration of the Marsden Fund, but the society warns such centralisation could undermine the country's science credibility.

www.rnz.co.nz

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MadWoman.PDX ❌👑 @resister4344.bsky.social · 1d

Book club meeting in front of the ICE building, in #Portland. They’re discussing Animal Farm by George Orwell. 🤣🐷🐖🐽

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Coffee House Press @coffeehousepress.bsky.social · 1d

Great books come in all sizes. Some snapshots of our recent season, including the forthcoming ANALOG DAYS, TERRY DACTYL, VERY COLLECTED POEMS, & THE AQUATICS. @mbsycamore.bsky.social @tomcomputer.bsky.social @pipadam.bsky.social

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1d

Old enough to remember when kids being anti-semitic was the basis for a federal government assault on higher education

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Des Fitzgerald @desfitzgerald.bsky.social · 3d

Seeing people nonchalantly post stuff like makes me feel like I'm going crazy honestly.

A post from an academic on blue sky that says: "I'm learning about "prompt engineering" when asking LLMs to extract data. I now add this to all instructions:

Style
Be concise, analytic, and specific (cite page/figure if provided). If essential info is missing, keep going but flag Unclear and exact data needed. Never invent data.

#academicsky"

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MeatMechSuit @meatmechsuit.bsky.social · 5d

To ask a pakeha majority to remove representation of an indigenous minority is ongoing white supremacist colonisation. #nzpol

TheLoyalOrder @theloyalorder.bsky.social · 5d

Preliminary results of the 2025 Māori wards referendums

#nzpol

Map showing preliminary margin of support by council for the 2025 Māori ward referendums

CC BY 4.0 TheLoyalOrder

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Cam Bennett @cambennett.bsky.social · 4d

I feel like I misunderstood what they meant by back on track

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 4d

About a month ago, the Trump administration got rid of the de minimis exemption, whereby packages valued under $800 could slide in without import duties. Now there's a backlog as the government can't process all of this paperwork, leading to UPS just destroying packages

Business Insider headline reads: UPS is telling customers that their packages coming to the US are marked for destruction.

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R.S.A. Garcia (BUY THE NIGHTWARD) @rsagarcia.bsky.social · 4d

Unpopular opinion: Billionaires are pyramid schemes foisted on the public by disconnected from reality, growth obsessed stock markets, VCs & 1%ers.

Nobody's business is worth more than the land value of the planet. But they can scam real fortunes out of govs etc if they claim that. That's the goal.

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Jesse @requiemarm.bsky.social · 4d

this is by far the worst reading of Alan Moore’s Watchmen I’ve ever seen and if you spend an appreciable amount of time online you will know what a crowning achievement that is

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 4d

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.

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👁🌻🦊⚙️⚓ Bob, Engineer, Pusher of Paper @navmecheng.bsky.social · 5d

> It is 2025 BC. I am a soldier from one of the outlying provinces called to defend the pyramid in Memphis

> It is 2025 AD. I am a soldier from one of the outlying provinces called to defend the pyramid in Memphis

Soldiers at the Bass Pro Shops pyramid in Memphis, TN.

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Nick Young @nickofnz.bsky.social · 4d

Mind blowing.

The Luxon Government has confirmed it will rewrite NZ’s once bipartisan climate change law to dilute methane reduction targets and PERMANENTLY exclude dairy from the Emissions Trading Scheme – a move Greenpeace says amounts to full-blown climate denial.
#nzpol

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James Nokise @jamesnokise.bsky.social · 4d

I have never ever seen a Comedy Festival - or any Festival - where the acts have had to do a post-fest press tour back announcing donations of part of their fees to charities because of how bad the organisers were.

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Bill Bennett @billbennett.bsky.social · 4d

Have I got this right? We can't afford to fund the health system but we can build a Death Star.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

NZ defence strategy explores space weapons export potential

Defence Minister Judith Collins insists NZ-produced technology could compete internationally.

www.rnz.co.nz

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Lyndon Hood @lyndonhood.bsky.social · 5d

Men will literally call everything that irritates them the antichrist rather than go to therapy

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Pip Adam @pipadam.bsky.social · 5d

Yaaaaay!!!

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Cars are still bad @jondoesnotexist.bsky.social · 6d

“Everyone who is rich enough or close enough to reactionary politics is effectively in a cult with beliefs loonier than the median Heaven’s Gate member” is a relatively straightforward description of the current moment. I don’t know how we live like this

Craig Harrington @craigipedia.bsky.social · 6d

I dunno, man... I dunno. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Inside billionaire Peter Thiel’s private lectures: Warnings of ‘the Antichrist’ and U.S. destruction

In leaked recordings of private lectures by tech billionaire Peter Thiel he argued that “the Antichrist” is likely to take the form of a critic of technology.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Idiot/Savant @norightturnnz.bsky.social · 5d

Tory Whanau missing out on a Māori ward seat sucks, but it has an obvious brightside: she's free to run for parliament in 2026 if she wants to.

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