Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 10h

Nice glassware, perfect choice

Reposted by John Power Jr.

Colin Smith @colinsmith.bsky.social · 11h

1975: Harlan Ellison visits Michael Moorcock in London. The Englishman sits Ellison in front of the TV when Dr Who comes on & insists Ellison “be quiet & just watch”. By the late 1970s,Ellison is such a fan of Dr Who that he’s taunting US scifi fans with declarations of its superiority over US fare.

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 12h

Getting banned from Epstein island after my first visit because I totally missed the subtext in the email chain and turned up with Catan and a load of D&D character sheets

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 12h

You have to admit, it’s kinda hilarious that these guys are all like, “remember, when we’re discussing all the noncing to do it in code, really obvious and really creepy code”

A screenshot from a bbc news story

“The Duke of York was in contact with the US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein longer than he had previously admitted, emails published in court documents appear to show.
"Keep in close touch and we'll play some more soon!!!!" said an email sent to Epstein from a "member of the British Royal Family", believed to be Prince Andrew.”

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Reposted by John Power Jr.

Wyrd Science Magazine @wyrdscience.bsky.social · 14h

Totally not terrifying that there’s a very good chance that we’ll before the end of Trump 2, magazines like Wyrd Science will be required reading to understand why and how the most powerful people in the world are trying to immanentize the eschaton

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 16h

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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Reposted by John Power Jr.

Wyrd Science Magazine @wyrdscience.bsky.social · 20h

Ah perfect, what better way to start a Sunday than with a 50 minute long glacially paced mid 70s bbc paranormal documentary. Great stuff

HALLOWEIRD @johnnymains.co.uk · 4d

Today on the BBC Archive youtubes, I have mostly been watching THE GHOST HUNTERS from 1975.

Strange goings on, indeed. Benson Herbert is a one.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTqt...

1975: Meet THE GHOST HUNTERS | Classic BBC Documentaries | BBC Archive

YouTube video by BBC Archive

www.youtube.com

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 1d

Sorry, every hour

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 1d

Every day is a new footnote in an incredibly bleak future book about the early 21st century

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid, one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before t...

chicago.suntimes.com

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 1d

Got to admit it’s pretty funny that the Right are obsessed with the aesthetics of the Roman Empire but have apparently not even cursorily glanced at anything like the Wikipedia page for the Praetorian Guard

CNN @cnn.com · 1d

Top Republicans in Congress will take a massive gamble on shutdown politics in the coming days: GOP leaders will not step in to prevent missed paychecks to the military.

GOP leaders steadfast in shutdown stance despite rising pressure inside party | CNN Politics

Top Republicans in Congress will take a massive gamble on shutdown politics in the coming days: GOP leaders will not step in to prevent missed paychecks to the military.

www.cnn.com

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Reposted by John Power Jr.

Wyrd Science Magazine @wyrdscience.bsky.social · 1d

Because games don’t exist in isolation we’ve introduced Sidequests, the new section of the magazine where you’ll find writing on everything from bands like Castle Rat through to fantasy inspired art exhibitions by artists like Jean Jullien…

A photo of the new issue of Wyrd Science open to an interview with the band Castle Rat

A photo of the new issue of Wyrd Science open to a piece on French artist Jean Jullien’s exhibition Juju’s Castle

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 1d

When I think about the incoming AI powered asteroid about to hit the world’s economy I often think about graphs like this that show how the last time the US wrecked everything they ended up becoming richer than everyone else

Which I suspect isn’t exactly an incentive to responsible fiscal behaviour

A graph of GDP showing how after the 2008 financial crisis, caused by America, it was the US that bounced back faster and did better than everyone else

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 3d

funny thing about those Young Tory photos & indeed the modern right is you see them & go "ha, they're not beating the allegations" & then you open up a paper or tuen on the TV and they're being paid to not only not beat the allegations but explain in great detail how in fact they're much much worse

Will Davies @will-davies.bsky.social · 3d

Oh, and it turns out the guy with the umbrella is definitely a new breed of activist

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 3d

Adventures in Time & Racism

Dr Mark | 北马克 |🍉🇦🇺🇲🇾🇹🇭 @ajaanmark.bsky.social · 4d

Are they hoping to start a Young Tory cosplay trend on TikTok
www.thetimes.com/article/8c9a...

Meet the young Tories dreaming of a bright blue future

The Conservatives know they have a problem with Gen Z voters. At the party conference, The Times met a new breed of activists who are embracing the challenge

www.thetimes.com

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 3d

one thing I can say for certain after 7 issues of Wyrd Science is that I’m somehow more annoyed now at how music journalists treat music PRs than I was when I was one

Because trust me, trying to get stuff done in a sector where the idea of doing PR appears to be incomprehensibly alien is no fun

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Reposted by John Power Jr.

Wyrd Science Magazine @wyrdscience.bsky.social · 4d

Right, now I have some time (and a copy myself!) it's time to share some internal pics from the new issue, my thoughts on the relevant features & perhaps persuade a few more of you to buy a copy (because it's swell)

shop.wyrd.science

So today let's start with @malcolmcraig.bsky.social's one, as...

a photo of the latest issue of Wyrd Science, open to a spread on a feature about Cold War RPGs, one the left hand side is a full page picture of an atom bomb test, on the right the headline Playing Games in the Shadow of the Bomb

a photo of the latest issue of Wyrd Science, open to a spread on a feature about Cold War RPGs, it shows a still from the film Red Dawn with Russian soldiers posing in front of a McDonalds, the subhead for this section reads The Paranoid Style in American Gaming

a photo of the latest issue of Wyrd Science, open to a spread on a feature about Cold War RPGs, one side is taken up with the cover art for Greg Costikyan's Price of Freedom

a photo of the latest issue of Wyrd Science, open to a spread on a feature about Cold War RPGs

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 4d

genuinely remarkable how much of my life is spent doing ridiculously time consuming, secret service level investigative work just to find a name and contact details for nerd industry companies' PR/marketing people, people whose jobs you might, foolishly, assume require them to be broadly contactable

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 5d

Email me if you want, happy to have a crack

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 5d

Any lip readers out there?

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 5d

Wow, I don’t actually think I’ve seen Jenrick do a speech for quite a while, and oh god he is bad. Any political journalists who big up his career need to be fucking stuffed in a locker

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 5d

I assume when Badenoch says the Conservative conference is ‘buzzing’ she means in the way a several months dead body is

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 5d

Ah yes, “back of the goal”, something football fans say all of the time

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 5d

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 5d

Funny as just reading this you can already hear in your head the wounded indignation and outrage from the sloppers

Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda hits out at AI-generated videos of her dead father: ‘stop doing this to him’

Film-maker tells the public to stop sending her videos, saying: ‘You’re not making art, you’re making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings’

www.theguardian.com

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 5d

Quick question. Is it illegal for American news stations now to go to a place, other than a Midwest diner ofc, and report on what is happening themselves, or is it law that everything must instead be filtered through studio based opinion?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 6d

Stephen Miller claims that in Portland "ICE officers have to street battles against antifa, hand to hand combat every night, to come and go from their building"

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John Power Jr. @johnpower.bsky.social · 6d

So seriously what I really need in the very near future is someone to write a very clear & concise piece explaining how ordinary folk who may be interested in retiring before they’re 90 get to ride this one out

Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 6d

"The hundreds of billions of dollars companies are investing in AI now account for an astonishing 40 per cent share of US GDP growth this year... In a way, then, America has become one big bet on AI."

America is now one big bet on AI

It’s seen as the magic fix for every threat to the US economy

www.ft.com

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