Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Taz Wake

George Takei @georgetakei.bsky.social · 6h

Not a peep from Musk about this government spending. Was the chainsaw from him worth it, Elon?

A tweet from Armand Domalewski reads: “The total USAID budget was $35 billion by the way.” Below it, a retweeted post from More Perfect Union says: “BREAKING: The Trump administration is doubling its Argentina bailout to $40 billion.”

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Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 6h

Really odd how GB News, the Daily Mail and Telegraph aren't covering the thwarting of a terrorist plot to attack synagogues in the UK by a group that had amassed a horde of 200 weapons. Wonder what's different about this group?

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Three neo-Nazis jailed for plotting terror attacks on UK mosques and synagogues

Group of ‘like-minded extremists’ styled themselves after the SS and amassed arsenal of more than 200 weapons

www.theguardian.com

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Ryan Mac 🙃 @rmac.bsky.social · 2d

this is the dumbest shit i have ever read

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Marcus Hutchins @malwaretech.com · 2d

The cybersecurity agency running propaganda ops on a breach notification call was not on my 2025 bingo card but definitely should have been.

Kim Zetter @kimzetter.bsky.social · 2d

On CISA media call just now to discuss the F5 hack and source code breach, CISA staffer interrupted the discussion to blame the Democrats for the government shutdown and forcing workers to work without pay

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L'Histoire de Manon @manonatelier.blacksky.app · 2d

I actually feel like a small part of my brain stopped functioning reading it -- WTF was that?

Ryan Mac 🙃 @rmac.bsky.social · 2d

this is the dumbest shit i have ever read

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Anon Opin @anonopin.bsky.social · 3d

Covid was a wasted opportunity. During lockdown the climate of earth drastically improved, outdated work practices were uprooted & people had time for their own lives. It's a shame none of that continued.

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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 4d

I bang on about this a lot: I think the combination of a global pandemic, underregulated internet/SM, collapse/corruption of trustworthy media, plus now unregulated genAI, is a wildly toxic environment for radicalisation & mental health. We see the results of that in our politics & lives every day

James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 5d

Everyone knows at least one person (normally, but not exclusively, a guy) whose gone properly mental due to net rabbit holes.

We see public figures regularly go mad and destroy themselves.

And we have, at a policy level, just decided to put our fingers in our ears and go nahnahnah

Alastair Meeks @alastairmeeks.bsky.social · 5d

Last night I heard of another friend of a friend who has been lost to a rabbit hole of online propaganda. We need to start treating this as a serious public health concern.

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James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 5d

Everyone knows at least one person (normally, but not exclusively, a guy) whose gone properly mental due to net rabbit holes.

We see public figures regularly go mad and destroy themselves.

And we have, at a policy level, just decided to put our fingers in our ears and go nahnahnah

Alastair Meeks @alastairmeeks.bsky.social · 5d

Last night I heard of another friend of a friend who has been lost to a rabbit hole of online propaganda. We need to start treating this as a serious public health concern.

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Alice Roberts @profaliceroberts.bsky.social · 5d

I’m sure they didn’t mean to eliminate the woman in this image.

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Taz Wake @tazwake.bsky.social · 6d

Anonymous and wrong.

Anon Opin @anonopin.bsky.social · 6d

Ice lollies with ice cream inside are an abomination. Make your mind up, you're either an ice lolly or an ice cream not both. The combination is revolting.

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 6d

Pretty sure Fraser Nelson is just making this up?

I'm sure that some people on UC (health) have serious alcohol/drug problems, but don't think "alcoholism is an accepted reason" to pass the WCA

archive.ph/pHOzq

. Alcoholism is one of the accepted reasons: money is issued with no help offered. Unsurprisingly, alcohol-related deaths have surged to an all-time high of 10,500 a year. My friend, now, amongst them. Signing alcoholics on to welfare without help is a crisis which, last week, felt all the more vivid.

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Rob Bowley @robbowley.net · 6d

Some people are saying the potential overbuild because of AI might not be a bad thing because, like the dotcom era, it could leave behind infrastructure we’ll benefit from for a long time.

1/6

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Classical Studies Memes for Hellenistic Teens @csmfht.bsky.social · 6d

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Taz Wake @tazwake.bsky.social · 7d

I think reform... sadly.

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Dan Kaszeta FRHistS @dankaszeta.bsky.social · 8d

Use only water or fresh air on tear gas or pepper spray.

No milk, vinegar, antacids, urine, etc. and especially not in eye.

Thank me later,

An actual expert

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Anon Opin @anonopin.bsky.social · 8d

Yeah, yeah. I know. America is important. But I'm so fucking sick of it absolutely dominating the UK news cycle. I get it. You voted in a turd and now you're swimming in fascist shit. But we have our own rightwing wanklord problems that need more national coverage.

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Bookshop.org @bookshop.org · 10d

Can’t decide what to buy on Prime Day?

Try: absolutely nothing, and then go support indie bookstores instead 📚

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Taz Wake @tazwake.bsky.social · 11d

Sadly, I'd bet money on Reform winning in 2029.

Labour and the Tories don't oppose him. They just reinforce his arguments and suggest they'll do the same things differently. That loses supporters while promoting Farageists. The UK has no visible way out right now. I hate it here.

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Marcus Hutchins @malwaretech.com · 11d

Having a rather amusing conversation after I pushed back on the advice that using public wifi without a VPN will get you hacked. I bet someone $10k that I could log into my bank account via their wifi network and they couldn't even tell me my username. This guy is telling me he'd "use Pegasus" 1/3

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Dr Robert Bohan @robertbohan.bsky.social · 11d

🧵 I think it would help if people stopped ‘feeling’ whether or not a person or party is/was extreme or far right.

There’s actually a fairly respected definition. Let me take you through it & then you can decide if someone meets the definition. This is aimed, in particular, at journos [1]

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Dr Kat Day (she/her) @chronicleflask.katday.com · 11d

Daughter of Robin Williams, Zelda Williams 💔

zeldawilliams
20m
From Create Mode
••
Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad. Stop believing I wanna see it or that I'll understand, I don't and I won't. If you're just trying to troll me, I've seen way worse, i'll restrict and move on. But please, if you've got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It's dumb, it's a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it's NOT what he'd want.
To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to 'this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that's enough,
, just so
other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening. You're not making art, you're making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else's throat hoping they'll give you a little thumbs up and like it.
Gross.

And for the love of EVERYTHING, stop calling it 'the future. Al is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be reconsumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume.

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Rowdy @r0wdy.sk33t.expert · 11d

bluesky: we give you moderation tools so you can make your experience here whatever you want, which is why we don't ban transphobes

also bluesky: just don't use those tools in a manner that makes us sad

carrion🐛 @carrion.bsky.social · 11d

just don’t create a moderation list, bluesky said that’s bad

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Taz Wake @tazwake.bsky.social · 11d

Yeah, I just hope we can work out how to turn back.

It's also sad that reform has reinvented itself as the 3rd choice now. It has fewer MPs than the Lib Dems or SNP. Before the last election, it won zero seats and relied on defectors. But now the whole country treats them as the opposition.

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Taz Wake @tazwake.bsky.social · 11d

I agree. But, as a country, we don't seem to be willing to do anything different.

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Taz Wake @tazwake.bsky.social · 12d

And no, I don't think Labour will survive either.

Both parties lost the ability to lead the country 20 years ago. Now it's just "parrot any populist nonsense and wonder why people don't vote for them."

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