Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted

Dreadnought Holiday @dreadships.bsky.social · 4h

"Titan submersible imploded due to poor engineering, say US officials."

Also experts, amateurs, people consigned to asylums for congenital lunacy, people who've never heard of submersibles before, a tortoise called Alan and literally anyone else hearing the vaguest description of it.

BBC headline - Titan submersible inked sure to poor engineering, say US officials - above an image of the submersible in happier times, eg when it hadn't yet imploded and turned its occupants into a seawater-flavoured paste.

25 62 370

Reposted

rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 16d

of all the dumb shit that sucks these days, the dumbest and pettiest shit that sucks is the way people fetishize debate. i would like to revert to the old roughly agreed-upon cultural understanding that debate club is for boring friendless nerds

100 530 3.8K

Reposted

Colin Angus @victimofmaths.bsky.social · 5h

I was looking at some Scottish cause of death data yesterday and the extent to which transport accident deaths in young men have all but disappeared is pretty remarkable.

Nice to find a good news story in this data for a change.

A lexis diagram - essentially a heatmap showing rates of death from transport accidents by age and over time from 2001-2024 in Scotland. For men in the 2000s there was a clear peak in deaths at ages 15-35 (plus a smaller one in the oldest age groups). But around 2010 this basically disappeared, and now all age groups have similarly, much lower, rates of transport accident deaths. For women the pattern is similar, albeit at a much lower level, except that in the early 2000s there were more deaths in older, rather than younger adults.

7 20 62

aethylred.bsky.social @aethylred.bsky.social · 4h

Oh.. right.. you’re the “Kiss me like the spinning blades peeling all these potatoes in the basement kitchen” guy

1 4

aethylred.bsky.social @aethylred.bsky.social · 4h

The obvious solution is smooching while being dismembered by some horrific death trap

1

Reposted

Katiesaurus @katiesaurusseven.bsky.social · 9h

"Data shows PHEVs emit just 19% less CO2 than petrol and diesel cars, an analysis by the non-profit advocacy group Transport and Environment found on Thursday. Under laboratory tests, they were assumed to be 75% less polluting."

Plug-in hybrids pollute almost as much as petrol cars, report finds

Analysis of 800,000 European cars found real-world pollution from plug-in hybrids nearly five times greater than lab tests

www.theguardian.com

3 1 3

Reposted

David Ritchie @dritchie.bsky.social · 9h

Jim Bolger (left) as portrayed in Clint Eastwood's "Invictus"

2 5

Reposted

Preeti Chhibber @runwithskizzers.bsky.social · Aug 18

Any way, here's the clip if you're interested, the actual interaction starts at about 1:23 (spoilers tho for Superman!)

youtu.be/auz1txQ5WVc?...

James Gunn Shares Heated On-Set Debate With David Corenswet Over Key ‘Superman’ Scene

YouTube video by TheWrap

youtu.be

2 17 190

Reposted

Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 12h

Sora is a paper machete. It is low-quality, impossible to make consistent or reliable, while also being incredibly expensive to run. Every single “good” video you’ve seen is cherrypicked from dozens of terrible ones to make you feel scared that this can create entire movies’ worth of content.

Dustin @hareandthere.bsky.social · 12h

Curious to hear your perspective on Sora. It seems to be the only real (and terrifying) AI product to hit the market lately. How much mileage are they going to get out of this thing that needs to be regulated out of existence?

24 330 1.7K

aethylred.bsky.social @aethylred.bsky.social · 9h

It was 14Ha, so losing 2000sqm to a treatment tank and soak was reasonable, but not if you couldn’t use it yourself

You still needed your own septic, just the icky half

aethylred.bsky.social @aethylred.bsky.social · 9h

If we’d bought it, we’d have gotten a lawyer onto the easement as being burdensome and having no benefit to the property owner, and used the other… deficits… to blackmailed our way into the easement being changed to able to use it at no cost as it’s hosted on the property

1

Reposted

Tyler, from the Internet @tylerfromtheinternet.com · 26d

When you're in public standing in line and you gotta be still but you got headphones in and the music is banging and your soul be dancing

1 50 220

Reposted

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 10h

Again, it is a full-blown federal felony crime for anyone in the White House or Executive Office of the President to order tax investigations into anyone.

And it's not just a crime to DO it, it's even a federal crime for an employee not to REPORT such an order to the Treasury Inspector General.

26 U.S. Code § 7217 - Prohibition on executive branch influence over taxpayer audits and other investigations
U.S. Code
Notes
prev | next
(a)Prohibition
It shall be unlawful for any applicable person to request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer with respect to the tax liability of such taxpayer.

(b)Reporting requirement
Any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service receiving any request prohibited by subsection (a) shall report the receipt of such request to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

(c)Exceptions
Subsection (a) shall not apply to any written request made—
(1)to an applicable person by or on behalf of the taxpayer and forwarded by such applicable person to the Internal Revenue Service;
(2)by an applicable person for disclosure of return or return information under section 6103 if such request is made in accordance with the requirements of such section; or
(3)by the Secretary of the Treasury as a consequence of the implementation of a change in tax policy.
(d)Penalty
Any person who willfully violates subsection (a) or fails to report under subsection (b) shall be punished upon conviction by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.

(e)Applicable person
For purposes of this section, the term “applicable person” means—
(1)the President, the Vice President, any employee of the executive office of the President, and any employee of the executive office of the Vice President; and
(2)any individual (other than the Attorney General of the United States) serving in a position specified in section 5312 of title 5, United States Code.

130 2.6K 5.9K

aethylred.bsky.social @aethylred.bsky.social · 9h

As a rural property owner who’s bumped into the first, based on really questionable of the second, and apparently having no relation to the third.

Eeep.

Subdivision, last large block to be sold, had the effluent soak for all the surrounding properties on it, and no right to use the soak itself

2 1

Reposted

1News NZ (Unofficial) @1newsnz.nzcow.com · 14h

📢 There were audible cries of disbelief when he said the action — while their legal right — had "crossed an ethical line".

Simeon Brown accuses doctors of crossing 'ethical line' amid strike action

www.1news.co.nz

5 8

Reposted

kiwisockpuppet.bsky.social @kiwisockpuppet.bsky.social · 14h

“The room erupted in laughter when he said he had been advised by Health NZ that the average salary for a senior doctor was $325,000”

Is it even possible for them to make the country hate their guts more #nzpol

1News NZ (Unofficial) @1newsnz.nzcow.com · 14h

📢 There were audible cries of disbelief when he said the action — while their legal right — had "crossed an ethical line".

Simeon Brown accuses doctors of crossing 'ethical line' amid strike action

www.1news.co.nz

2 24 51

aethylred.bsky.social @aethylred.bsky.social · 9h

Even then I don’t thing they could organise a coup in a chook house

1

Reposted

Idiot/Savant @norightturnnz.bsky.social · 10h

Parliament adjourning because of Bolger's death means that that's time they don't get to spend passing shit legislation.

This regime has maybe 90 sitting days left, so Bolger just ate 1% of their future legislating time. He served us even in death.

1 2 20

Reposted

Lar deSouza @lartist.bsky.social · 10h

From the Larchives. Another RHPS cartoon.

cartoon: Audrey II as Frankenfurter with Audrey and Seymour as Brad and Janet

2 24 130

Reposted

Mountain Tui @mountaintui.bsky.social · 12h

Winston threatened journalists, Seymour said RNZ's budget was cut to "teach them a lesson," Goldsmith low key threatened our national broadcaster. And now they're all crying because Sean Plunket might be subject to basic scrutiny. It's becoming so farcical, it feels like we're in a sketch #nzpol

3 28 100

Reposted

Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 10h

Anyway, though: Tom Bjorkland's art of archaic humans and human ancestors.

www.instagram.com/tombjorklund...

2 16 130

Reposted

Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 10h

Ettore Mazza's art of archaic humans and human ancestors. (the Homo Habilis being attacked by both a croc and a leopard is based on a real fossil, BTW.)

www.instagram.com/ettore.mazza/

3 6 57

Reposted

Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 10h

The sculptural reconstructions of The Kennis Twins.
The first showin ehre is my favorite, FAVORITE reconstruction of Lucy, ever. The second is Tollund Man, the famous bog body. The third is Shanidar Z, a semi-recent Neanderthal find. Fourth is Homo floresiensis (a "hobbit.")

2 17 170

Reposted

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 14h

Reminder that any political party trying to make it harder to vote is sending a clear message: they can't win on their ideas alone.

250 4.1K 14K

Reposted

Mountain Tui @mountaintui.bsky.social · 11h

Just look at the police line defending Luxon in Dunedin.
Meanwhile crimes are up, they can't even recruit 30 of the promised 500 new cops,police don't even bother to investigate over 5000 retail crimes & a raging meth & cocaine crisis goes ignored #nzpol Photo courtesy @petesi.me

15 30 99