Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 3h

For that matter, swastika graffiti also seems to be getting more common

Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 4h

All very 2008. But then being unoriginal is GenAI's thing.

Alex Callinicos @alexcallinicos.bsky.social · 4h

Where have we seen these before? ‘A common structure used to finance data centres involves the creation of special purpose vehicles backed by large amounts of private credit. Arrangements like these have the advantage of staying off the balance sheets of the tech companies.’

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 6h

On average, perhaps. But averages aren't the whole story. We misunderstand racism if we see it as coming only or even mainly from the uneducated and lower classes, if we fail to identify the crucial role played by racists among the elite, the establishment and the educated. Know your enemy.

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 12h

I wish I thought the AI-generated market crash was going to be as superficial and empty as an AI-generated text. I wonder if ChatGPT can tell you how many e's are in the word "recession".

Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 17h

And the bubble: "In financial markets, a bubble occurs when the level of investment in an asset becomes persistently detached from the amount of profit that asset could plausibly generate... A.I. investment fits that pattern."

Opinion | Warning: Our Stock Market Is Looking Like a Bubble

www.nytimes.com

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 12h

Why are those parties doing this?

a/ They want to appeal specifically to the most cruel, racist and authoritarian minority of voters.
b/ They themselves hold cruel, racist and authoritarian beliefs.
c/ They plan to do cruel, racist and authoritarian things.
d/ All of the above.

I lean towards d.

Dr Alex Cruikshanks @alexsaysstuff.bsky.social · 22h

Reminder: leaving the ECHR is not a popular position with voters! But the 3 most prominent parties in the country are all at least leaning towards it for some reason!

Do British people want to leave the ECHR? Here’s what the polls say

Withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights has become a defining issue for political parties

www.independent.co.uk

Reposted by Bill Berry

The Onion @theonion.com · 22h

Israel Warns Gaza Still Harboring Hundreds Of Doctors https://theonion.com/israel-warns-gaza-still-harboring-hundreds-of-doctors-1850964439/

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 21h

Great news for the overworked human moderators behind the machine.

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Reposted by Bill Berry

elia ayoub @ayoub.bsky.social · 23h

Trans ppl and pro-Palestine ppl would have been among the two easiest demographics for Labour to keep but this leadership decided to adopt a far right transphobic position on basic rights while also cracking down on the freedom to protest while also being complicit in the Israeli genocide

Jolyon Maugham KC @goodlawproject.org · 23h

Woah! So Labour's position really is, 'telling us off for breaching human rights undermines the case for human rights'? Proper Trumpian stuff from Labour's answer to Suella Braverman.

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 23h

The image of racists as all uneducated and lower class (one commenter even says "chavs"!) owes more to snobbery and comforting blind spots than reality. Education doesn't inoculate against racism, and there's no lack of racists among the Oxbridge graduates and public school boys of Westminster.

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Reposted by Bill Berry

Rick Burin @rickburin.bsky.social · 1d

Damn, Shabana Mahmood saw the prompt. www.gov.uk/government/n...

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 1d

There's a story by Borges about a cult of Judas with pretty much this exact belief.

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 1d

No-one has ever said that Jesus wrote it. Who do you think Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were supposed to be?

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 1d

Old-style Kindle yes, great for travelling too, but they ruined e-readers by turning them into tablets.

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 1d

My English teacher said something along these lines, probably hoping to encourage us to go to the theatre more. In practice it's just been my alibi for not reading Shakespeare. I watch the films sometimes, it's what he would have wanted.

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 1d

Anna Karenina is two books awkwardly mushed together and the shorter of them is the better one. What is Levin's non-story doing in there?

Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 1d

Stoner is both cloyingly sentimental and violently misogynistic

Reposted by Bill Berry

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 1d

To be effective, protest must be noisy, obstructive, annoying. No longer is this allowed. Now the last attribute of effective dissent – persistence – is also to be banned. But the moment protest ceases to be effective is the moment democracy dies. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Here’s what you need to know about Starmer’s illiberal protest curbs: they would have killed the Labour party at birth | George Monbiot

The rights we enjoy in the UK, and the movement the PM purports to lead, were built on protest. Those rights are in dire peril, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Bill Berry

Doug Saunders @dougsaunders.bsky.social · 1d

It's Ada Lovelace Day, so worth noting that the era during which coders were mainly women (starting with her machine-language explication of the Bernoulli sequence in 1843) lasted about 130 years whereas the male-dominated period has lasted less than half that long

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 1d

This podcast tells an inspiring Manchester story I never knew.

Grace Thomas @gracerethomas.bsky.social · 14d

Loving this podcast presented by Azariah France Williams. Great local history

#Manchester #Hulme #History

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

In Detail... - Sanctuary: An Act of Defiance - Introducing... Sanctuary: An Act of Defiance - BBC Sounds

A man begs for Sanctuary in a church. The vicar protects him, defying the government.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 1d

Just got round to watching part 1 of this. Fascinating stuff.

Jim Al-Khalili @jimalkhalili.bsky.social · 22d

🧪 I have a new TV offering: a 2-part Horizon special on BBC2 going out on 29th Sep and 6th October. It is called Secrets of the Brain. See
See www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

BBC Two - Secrets of the Brain, Series 1, Episode 1

Jim Al-Khalili reveals how the staggeringly complex human brain evolved.

www.bbc.co.uk

Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 2d

Vaccines and antibiotics are two of the greatest breakthroughs in human history, and they are both being undone before our eyes.

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 2d

Sharp global rise in antibiotic-resistant infections in hospitals, WHO finds

Experts describe findings as deeply concerning and predict 70% increase in related deaths by 2050 Hospitals across the world have recorded an alarming rise in common infections that are resistant to antibiotics, with doctors saying the number of deaths driven by drug resistance will increase sharply in the years ahead. One in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections were resistant to antibiotic treatments in 2023, with more than 40% of antibiotics losing potency against common blood, gut, urinary tract and sexually-transmitted infections between 2018 and 2023, records show. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 3d

Réduire, Réutiliser, Recycler

Clémence Guetté @clemenceguette.bsky.social · 4d

Lecornu : censure.

Macron : destitution.

Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 3d

Spain, Italy and now Greece - amazing to see Southern Europe on strike for Palestine. What would it take to get that here?

Alex Callinicos @alexcallinicos.bsky.social · 3d

Excellent analysis of the Greek general strike on Friday. socialistworker.co.uk/internationa...

Strikes across Greece block everything for Palestine

Tens of thousands of workers in Greece staged a general strike for Palestine on Friday.It was a powerful show of solidarity with the Palestinian resistance.

socialistworker.co.uk

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Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 6d

Gross. Honestly,these gross, gross guys. If the term "Anglofuturist" has to become a thing, it should really be as an insult.

Joe Mulhall @joemulhall.bsky.social · 6d

Really interesting new article by @patrikhermansson.bsky.social and @harryshukman.bsky.social explaining what Anglofuturism is. Check it out! hopenothate.org.uk/2025/10/08/r...

Robert Jenrick says he’s an Anglofuturist. What does that mean? – HOPE not hate

In late June, the shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick took the stand at a conference. Addressing the crowd of Tories and radical-right political figures, he made an unusual statement. “I am what c...

hopenothate.org.uk

Bill Berry @whimberry.bsky.social · 6d

An obvious consequence of the new online safety law. Making people give ID to access websites makes us LESS safe, not more.

Danny Palmer @dannypalmer.bsky.social · 6d

Once again, I'm asking for governments and lawmakers to have the slightest idea about how the Internet does - and doesn't - work...

www.bbc.com/news/article...