Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Chris Carr

@carrchr.bsky.social

This thread is quite worrying

An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.

November 29, 2025 at 5:56 AM

Reposted by Chris Carr

BillThePony

@billthepony.bsky.social

Everything with silicon valley thing is like Scooby-Doo where you peel off the mask and it's just some low-paid person in Southeast Asia...

October 29, 2025 at 2:16 AM

Reposted by Chris Carr

NPR

@npr.org

Amazon's cloud computing service provides back-end support to many companies that operate online. When it has problems, so do they.

Outage at Amazon Web Services disrupts websites across the internet

Amazon's cloud computing service provides back-end support to many companies that operate online. When it has problems, so do they.

n.pr

October 20, 2025 at 10:15 PM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Mike Okuda

@mikeokuda.bsky.social

Patriotic protesters wearing goofy inflatable frog costumes are using laughter to fight facism. And there’s nothing a bully hates more than being laughed at.

October 16, 2025 at 3:19 AM

Chris Carr

@carrchr.bsky.social

What in the ?!?

Purplepingers ☭ @purplepingers.bsky.social · Sep 22

An update on that insane lease term where the landlord owns everything you create during the tenancy:

September 24, 2025 at 6:02 AM

Reposted by Chris Carr

aloof wife

@jonchristian.net

this is the funniest possible way to describe GWAR

libs of tiktok melting down that GWAR did a comic bit about killing trump, which they've done with every president for years, as well as a broad range of public figures

September 22, 2025 at 10:02 PM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Mallory McMorrow

@mallorymcmorrow.bsky.social

You deserve a break on Sundays that doesn’t break the bank.

September 7, 2025 at 1:04 PM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Kai Ryssdal

@kairyssdal.bsky.social

This is dumb. And useless

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Aug 26

Lutnick: "The Department of Commerce is going to start issuing its statistics on the blockchain, because you are the crypto president."

August 27, 2025 at 5:23 PM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Rebecca Solnit

@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social

There's a reason why sports teams don't chant "I believe that we will lose" before a game, a reason so obvious that I'm pretty sure it needs no explanation. Which is why it makes my head explode when people surrender in advance verbally, which they do all the time about politics.

On Not Surrendering in Advance, or During, or At Any Point Thereafter

There's a reason why sports teams don't chant "I believe that we will lose" before a game, a reason so obvious that I'm pretty sure it needs no explanation in that context. Words have power. They not ...

www.meditationsinanemergency.com

August 20, 2025 at 6:12 PM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Engineer Brains

@hhackenbecker.bsky.social

Happy 50th birthday to the CPU that powered the home computer revolution: MOS Technology's 6502! The very first retail unit shipped from Norristown PA on 18th August, 1975.

An MCS6502 microprocessor in ceramic 40-pin dual-inline package, with gold-plated pins and die-shield.

Image credit: Michael Steil, https://www.pagetable.com/?p=1295

The Hardware Manual and Programming Manual for the MOS 6500 Family of microprocessors that came in the retail package.

Image credit: Michael Steil, https://www.pagetable.com/?p=1295

Title page for the MCS6500 Hardware Manual, first revision, dated August 1975.

Image credit: Michael Steil, https://www.pagetable.com/?p=1295

August 18, 2025 at 1:13 AM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Dirk Diggler

@johnxuandou.bsky.social

This is one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed, the craft here is impeccable.

August 13, 2025 at 6:06 AM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Clive Thompson

@clivethompson.bsky.social

behold the "HTML bomb"

It's a counterattack for AI companies that persistently scrape and rescrape your web site, even when you tell them not to

when a scraper grabs it, it becomes a 10-gig HTML page and 💣 goes the scraper

Item #6 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter: buttondown.com/clivethompso...

A Chrome browser error page displays the familiar “Aw, Snap!” message, indicating that something went wrong while loading a webpage. A pixelated frowning file icon with Xs for eyes appears at the top left. Below, the error code reads “Out of Memory,” suggesting the browser ran out of system resources. The page includes a “Reload” button in blue on the bottom right

August 5, 2025 at 10:32 PM

Chris Carr

@carrchr.bsky.social

Disappointed that I scrolled on here for, like, 10 minutes and not one post about #OzzyOsborne
Rest in Peace Prince of Darkness

July 23, 2025 at 2:29 AM

Reposted by Chris Carr

RiotGrlErin

@riotgrlerin.bsky.social

ozzy osbourne in famous works of art: thread

Ozzy Osbourne in The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci.

July 22, 2025 at 11:23 PM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Sixfortyfive

@sixfortyfive.bsky.social

The reason why I'm not terribly worried about AI's impact on job security as a software engineer is because I see a lot of future work opportunity in cleaning up this dreck after the fact.

Not that that's the line of work I'd *prefer,* mind you.

July 13, 2025 at 3:00 AM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Anne Lutz Fernandez

@lutzfernandez.bsky.social

I put together a short document for those wary of the AI mania in schools. Four of the main arguments for teachers using AI tools and introducing kids to AI as early as kindergarten are addressed--with thoughts and rebuttals and links to sources. Hope it's helpful.

drive.google.com/file/d/1urCM...

Help Sheet: Resisting AI Mania in Schools

K-12 educators are under increasing pressure to use—and have students use—a wide range of AI tools. (The term “AI” is used loosely here, just as it is by many purveyors and boosters.) Even those who envision benefits to schools of this fast-evolving category of tech should approach the well-funded AI-in-education campaign with skepticism and caution. Some of the primary arguments for teachers actively using AI tools and introducing students to AI as early as kindergarten, however, are questionable or fallacious. What follows are four of the most common arguments and rebuttals with links to sources. I have not attempted balance, in part because so much pro-AI messaging is out there and discussion of risks and costs is often minimized in favor of hope or resignation. -ALF

Argument: “Schools need to prepare students for the jobs of the future.”

The skills employers seek haven’t changed much over the decades—and include a lot of “soft skills” like initiative, problem-solving, communication, and critical thinking.
Early research is showing that using generative AI can degrade these key skills:
An MIT study showed adults using chatGPT to help write an essay “had the lowest brain engagement and ‘consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.’” Critically, “ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study.”
A business school found those who used AI tools often had worse critical thinking skills “mediated by increased cognitive offloading. Younger participants exhibited higher dependence on AI tools and lower critical thinking scores.”
Another study revealed those using “ChatGPT engaged less in metacognitive activities…For instance, learners in the AI group frequently looped back to ChatGPT for feedback rather than reflecting independently. This dependency not only undermines critical thinking but also risks long-term skill stagnation.” …

Argument: “AI is a tool, just like a calculator.”

Calculators don’t provide factually wrong answers, but AI tools have. Last year, Google’s AI search returned, among other falsehoods, that cats have gone to the moon, that Barack Obama is Muslim, and that glue goes on pizza. Even though AI tools have and are expected to improve, children in schools shouldn’t be used as tech firms’ guinea pigs for undertested, unregulated products while AI firms engage elected officials in actively resisting regulation.
Calculators don’t provide dangerous, even deadly feedback. In one study, a ”chatbot recommended that a user, who said they were recovering from addiction, take a ‘small hit’ of methamphetamine” because, it said, it’s “‘what makes you able to do your job to the best of your ability.’" Users have received threatening messages from chatbots.
Calculators don’t pose mental health risks because they aren’t potentially addictive or designed to encourage repeated use. They don’t flatter, direct, or manipulate. Chatbots have been designed this way—and this has led to dreadful mental health outcomes for some, including users in a New York Times report. Alleging a chatbot encouraged their teen to die by suicide, parents in Florida filed a lawsuit against its maker.
Calculators don’t lie. Chatbots, however, have misled users. Writer Amanda Guinzberg shared screenshots of interactions with one that she asked to describe several of her essays. It spewed out invented material, showing the chatbot hadn’t actually accessed and processed the essays. After much prodding, it “admitted” it had only acted as though it had done that requested work, spit out mea culpas—and went on to invent or “lie” again.
Calculators can’t be used to spread propaganda. AI tools, though, including those meant for schools, should worry us. Law professor Eric Muller’s back-and-forth with SchoolAI’s “Anne Frank” character showed his “helluva time trying to get her to say a bad word about Nazis.” In this er…

Argument: “AI won’t replace teachers, but it will save them time and improve their effectiveness.”

Adding edtech does not necessarily save teachers time. A recent study found that learning management systems sold to schools over the past decade-plus as time-savers aren’t delivering on making teaching easier. Instead, they found this tech (e.g. Google Classroom, Canvas) is often burdensome and contributes to burnout. As one teacher put it, it “just adds layers to tasks.”
“Extra time” is rarely returned to teachers. AI proponents argue that if teachers use AI tools to grade, prepare lessons, or differentiate materials, they’ll have more time to work with students. But there are always new initiatives, duties, or committee assignments—the unpaid work districts rely on—to suck up that time. In a culture of austerity and with a USDOE that is cutting spending, teachers are likely to be assigned more students. When class sizes grow, students get less attention, and positions can be cut.
AI can’t replace what teachers do, but that doesn’t mean teachers won’t be replaced. Schools are already doing it: Arizona approved a charter school in which students spend mornings working with AI and the role of teacher is reduced to “guide.” Ed tech expert Neil Selwyn argues those in “industry and policy circles…hostile to the idea of expensively trained expert professional educators who have [tenure], pension rights and union protection… [welcome] AI replacement as a way of undermining the status of the professional teacher.”
Tech firms have been selling schools on untested products for years. Technophilia has led to students being on screens for hours in school each week even when their phones are banned. Writer Jess Grose explains, “Companies never had to prove that devices or software, broadly speaking, helped students learn before those devices had wormed their way into America’s public schools.” AI products appear to be no different.
Efficiency is not effectiveness. “Speed a…

Argument: “Students are already using AI, so we have to teach them ethical use.
If schools want ethical students, teach ethics. More students are using AI tools to cheat, an age-old problem they make much easier. This won’t be addressed by showing students how to use this minute’s AI, an argument implying students don’t know what plagiarism is (solved by teaching about plagiarism) or understand academic integrity (solved by teaching and enforcing its bounds)—or that teachers create weak assignments or don’t convey purpose. The latter aren’t solved by attempting to redirect students motivated and able to cheat.
Students can be educated on the ethics of AI without encouraging use of AI tools. They can be taught, as part of media literacy and social media safety programs, about AI’s potential and applications as well as how it can enable predation, perpetuate bias, and spread disinformation. They should be taught about the risks of AI and its various social, economic, and environmental costs. Giving a nod to these issues while integrating AI throughout schools sends a strong message: the schools don’t really care and neither should students.
Children can’t be expected to use AI responsibly when adults aren’t. Many pushing schools to embrace AI don’t know much about it. One example: Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who said kindergartners should be taught A1 (a steak sauce). The LA Times introduced a biased and likely politically-motivated AI feature. The Chicago Sun-Times published a summer reading list including nonexistent books—yet teachers are told to use the same tools to do similar work. Educators using AI to cut corners can strike students as hypocritical.
The many costs of AI call into question the possibility of ethical AI use. These include:
Energy - AI data centers need huge amounts of water as coolant as well as electricity, pulling these resources from their communities—which tend to be lower-income—straining the grid, and raising household costs. Thi…

June 24, 2025 at 10:37 PM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Julian Sanchez

@normative.bsky.social

We really need to stop talking about this as some kind of looming threat rather than a process well underway. It’s not “close.” You have arrived at your destination. The order has been delivered.

MS NOW @ms.now · Jun 19

Former President Barack Obama issued a warning about the future of American democracy, while speaking at an event in Connecticut.

Obama cautioned that the country is “dangerously close” to normalizing behavior “consistent with autocracies.”

June 19, 2025 at 3:00 AM

Reposted by Chris Carr

m. r. sauter

@oddletters.bsky.social

so i spent the weekend fucking around with the latest chatgpt build working through its text analysis/synthesis capabilities and hoooooooo boy i have a bunch of complicated thoughts.

June 15, 2025 at 8:57 PM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Josh Zingher

@zingherpolisci.bsky.social

Everything that’s happened over the past six months has been a response to an imaginary crisis. There is no immigrant invasion. No trade crisis. No scientific or governance crisis. Just people completely high off their own supply trying to fundamentally reorder society. None of this had to happen.

June 9, 2025 at 12:39 AM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Kai Ryssdal

@kairyssdal.bsky.social

Hello. I live in Los Angeles. The president is lying.

June 8, 2025 at 9:54 PM

Chris Carr

@carrchr.bsky.social

it's the headshot for an 80s band like Tears for Fears or Hall & Oates

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · May 21

Probably the weirdest corporate acquisition announcement I've ever seen

Sam & Jony introduce io
Sam & Jony introduce io
May 21, 2025

This is an extraordinary moment.

May 22, 2025 at 2:03 PM

Reposted by Chris Carr

southpaw

@nycsouthpaw.bsky.social

This is America.

Maydee, still confronting the officers, says
"Where is the warrant?" Officer Lugo, according to his nameplate, says "Ma'am we are trying our best but they are federal."
Morales again asks for the warrant.
"They're federal."
"They still need a warrant."
Another officer, frustrated, says "They don't need a warrant." Finally, one of them tells the truth. Due process is not a matter they're concerned with.

May 9, 2025 at 4:02 AM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Alejandra Caraballo

@esqueer.net

Videos about how to build guillotines are going viral on tiktok just in case you were wondering what the vibes are on the resist side.

April 30, 2025 at 7:49 PM

Reposted by Chris Carr

Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans)

@iwriteok.bsky.social

if you'd told me as a 21-year-old tech journalist in 2009 that in 2025 Walt Mossberg would be posting about the need for a new American Revolution I'd have asked you if you smelled burnt toast but here we are

Walt Mossberg @waltmossberg.bsky.social · Apr 19

Today is the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride from Boston. Along with others, he was dispatched to warn the patriots at Lexington and Concord that the British were coming to arrest their leaders. Today, we need millions of Paul Reveres to arouse our country to the threats to our freedoms.