Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Simon Johnson🇺🇦 @simonrjohnson.bsky.social · 42m

For one thing his Robot books are basically set in a society which is 1950s America, it's like the Jetsons

Simon Johnson🇺🇦 @simonrjohnson.bsky.social · 50m

Have you read The Bicentennial Man by Asimov ? Generally I think Asimov's writing is pretty poor but I found that quite moving.

1

Reposted by Simon Johnson🇺🇦

Ed Morrish @edmorrish.bsky.social · 1h

what’s your most unhinged opinion about engagement farming?

9 33 160

Simon Johnson🇺🇦 @simonrjohnson.bsky.social · 2h

Particularly when the tax-free allowance for capital gains tax is only £3k

5

Reposted by Simon Johnson🇺🇦

FOHF @fohf.bsky.social · 5h

These two should not go together…

One senior OpenAI executive said
"[investors] expect you to have a five-year model", but added "right now I'd say there's lots of fuzz on the horizon, and as it gets closer and it's going to start to take real shape"

These people said it is exploring "creative" plans to raise new debt

2 4 24

Simon Johnson🇺🇦 @simonrjohnson.bsky.social · 6h

Thanks, will give Peter Heather a shot

Reposted by Simon Johnson🇺🇦

Alan Beattie @alanbeattie.bsky.social · 14h

BTW let's appreciate the sheer bathetic comedy of Trump's threats sliding from WE'RE GOING TO BAN ALL CRITICAL SOFTWARE WE WILL BRING YOUR ECONOMY TO A HALT down to WE'LL MAKE OUR OWN COOKING OIL SEE IF WE DON'T.

Matt Peterson @mattpeterson.bsky.social · 15h

Don't look now but Trump just freaked out the market again by continuing to escalate the trade war.

I believe that China purposefully not buying our Soybeans, and causing difficulty for our Soybean Farmers, is an Economically Hostile Act. We are considering terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil, and other elements of Trade, as retribution. As an example, we can easily produce Cooking Oil ourselves, we don’t need to purchase it from China.

13 41 170

Simon Johnson🇺🇦 @simonrjohnson.bsky.social · 14h

Oompa loompa dying of old age

2

Simon Johnson🇺🇦 @simonrjohnson.bsky.social · 14h

Hive mind: what's a good book to read on the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire which wasn't written by a Gibbon ?

a monkey is hanging from a rope bridge in the jungle .

ALT: a monkey is hanging from a rope bridge in the jungle .

media.tenor.com

1 1

Reposted by Simon Johnson🇺🇦

Tuffy @smtuffy.bsky.social · 15h

The pivot from “I’m building god” to “I’m building a jerkoff tool” is pretty funny

Reuters @reuters.com · 16h

OpenAI to allow mature content on ChatGPT for adult verified users starting December reut.rs/3J8NTAi

OpenAI to allow mature content on ChatGPT for adult verified users starting December

OpenAI will allow mature content for ChatGPT users who verify their age on the platform starting in December, CEO Sam Altman said, after the chatbot was made restrictive for users in mental distress.

reut.rs

43 230 1.2K

Reposted by Simon Johnson🇺🇦

John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 21h

Turning up to the "No Kings" protest with my "Actually maybe you need a king" sign.

14 19 110

Reposted by Simon Johnson🇺🇦

Rosamundi @rosamundi.bsky.social · 1d

Thomas Hardy couldn't write for shit and making teenagers read him because he's a "local writer" is an act of cruelty that should see you on trial at The Hague. Bloke needed some antidepressants and a nice day out in the sunshine, not being given a pen and a big stack of paper.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

10 2 23

Simon Johnson🇺🇦 @simonrjohnson.bsky.social · 1d

100%. Also the chapters are short and parts of it are properly funny

1 1

Reposted by Simon Johnson🇺🇦

Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 1d

Imagine the idea of a leader who is so checked out of his own trade policies that in the ensuing infighting the pugnacious commerce ministry is pitted against the more cautious finance ministry. www.ft.com/content/fbc5...

Earlier on Monday, Bessent said it was possible Xi was unaware of the rare earths announcement. The senior US official said there was a fight between government agencies in Beijing that was affecting US-China negotiations.
"We think there's an internal dynamic between the finance ministry and the commerce ministry. Their commerce department - including Li - is much more provocative," the senior official told the FT.

2 5 21

Simon Johnson🇺🇦 @simonrjohnson.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, it's the Golgafrimchan Ark B

1 1 1

Simon Johnson🇺🇦 @simonrjohnson.bsky.social · 1d

Bad news for the AI-industrial complex

Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 1d

nanochat by Andrej Karpathy is neat - 8,000 lines of code (mostly Python, a tiny bit of Rust) that can train an LLM on $100 of rented cloud compute which can then be served with a web chat UI on a much smaller machine simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/13/...

nanochat

Really interesting new project from Andrej Karpathy, described at length in this discussion post. It provides a full ChatGPT-style LLM, including training, inference and a web Ui, that can be …

simonwillison.net

1

Reposted by Simon Johnson🇺🇦

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 1d

pound-for-pound "Asterix the Gladiator" and "Asterix the Legionary" are maybe the funniest books ever written: masterpieces of density and variety of jokes, callbacks, and wit.

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 1d

the only acceptable language to read the Asterix books in is English.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat