LightNews — News, ranked by scholars

Rick

@rickwebb.net

An unfortunate dentist visit, bad dreams, weekend low voltage chores, Low's The Great Destroyer

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1822

An unfortunate dentist visit, bad dreams, weekend low voltage chores, Low's The Great Destroyer

buttondown.com

September 28, 2026 at 1:25 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

More Foursquare, disturbing popcorn, new Taylor, new Carly Rae, mysterious ethernet cable

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1821

More Foursquare, disturbing popcorn, new Taylor, new Carly Rae, mysterious ethernet cable

buttondown.com

September 25, 2026 at 1:31 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Calling it now Macklemore needs some sort of "buy a ticket and give it to a fan for free" purchase option or a bajillion people are gonna buy tickets to show support but not show up to the concerts.

The Independent @the-independent.com · 5d

Macklemore ticket prices surge past Ed Sheeran’s after rapper’s removal from tour

Rapper was dropped from Ed Sheeran’s tour after making pro-Palestine comments on stage

trib.al

September 25, 2026 at 12:13 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Burning rosewood feels overly decadent for me. That's too much. We're Methodists!

September 25, 2026 at 11:37 AM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Being an angel investor kinda sucked, Paramount, Foursquare, WakeMed, Mary Peltola, the Greenfield lesbian bar, justice for Mrs. Davis

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1820

Being an angel investor kinda sucked, Paramount, Foursquare, WakeMed, Mary Peltola, the Greenfield lesbian bar, justice for Mrs. Davis

buttondown.com

September 24, 2026 at 1:12 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Son Volt in Saxapahaw, Cabaret Voltaire in Boston

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1819

Son Volt in Saxapahaw, Cabaret Voltaire in Boston

buttondown.com

September 23, 2026 at 1:24 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Monet at auction, how racist is America, roundup of 80's musicians making music today, Velocity Girl, broken shit, mean daughter

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1817

Monet at auction, how racist is America, roundup of 80's musicians making music today, Velocity Girl, broken shit, mean daughter

buttondown.com

September 18, 2026 at 1:45 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

An audit friend of mine pointed this out: calling LLM model development R&D At this point is reeeeal dodgy from an accounting perspective.

September 18, 2026 at 2:12 AM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

What percentage of politicians are corrupt, Slack's AI privacy mystery, a possible giant HIPPA violation, The Pains of being Pure at Heart, Kevin Warsh who knew

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1816

What percentage of politicians are corrupt, Slack's AI privacy mystery, a possible giant HIPPA violation, The Pains of being Pure at Heart, Kevin Warsh who knew

buttondown.com

September 17, 2026 at 1:13 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

The thing about this is the science is incompletr. The big platforms don't share much of the revelant data, and it is highly unlikely we can arrive at a definitive answer without data from at least one big platform.

Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 12d

So if we decide Taylor's premises are completely wrong, we're...anti-science?

Guardian US @us.theguardian.com · 12d

Can social media be addictive?

@taylorlorenz.bsky.social says no.

“You wanting to communicate and chat with your friends every day is not an addiction,” says Lorenz. “And to frame it that way is incredibly harmful and anti-science.”

September 16, 2026 at 8:24 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Katy Perry, Macklemore, Laura Logan, Sinéad, Escalades, Canada, Daisy Chain merch imbroglio

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1815

Katy Perry, Macklemore, Laura Logan, Sinéad, Escalades, Canada, Daisy Chain merch imbroglio

buttondown.com

September 16, 2026 at 1:37 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Only two options left for Ed: quit his own tour or come out next show and say "Fuck Bob Kraft and free Palestine.

September 15, 2026 at 8:21 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Don't 3D chess your way out of an opportunity, buying a washing machine, Pulp, fall shows, where's the Tear Garden setlist?

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1814

Don't 3D chess your way out of an opportunity, buying a washing machine, Pulp, fall shows, where's the Tear Garden setlist?

buttondown.com

September 15, 2026 at 1:19 PM

Reposted by Rick

ℳatt

@matttomic.bsky.social

Worth noting, as Macklemore was banned by NFL owners in what will be dubbed "fighting antisemitism", that Kanye, who
- sold merch with swastikas
- said on Alex Jones that he idolizes Hitler
- tweeted he was "going Defcon 3 on Jewish people"

is currently on a multi-city tour of NFL stadiums

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 14d

New: Macklemore says Robert Kraft — who owns Gillette Stadium, where Macklemore & Ed Sheeran were to perform later this month — called Sheeran.

Kraft rallied other owners together behind an ultimatum for Sheeran: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you won't be allowed in our venues.

I'm not sure how to start this. So I'm going to speak from the heart and share the truth. Ed Sheeran and his team have made the decision to remove me from The Loop tour.
But before I get into it, I want to say something that should be obvious. In this moment I think it matters. I am not a victim. Ed Sheeran is not a victim. Pink is not a victim. We have careers, money, opportunities, safety and audiences around the world. Whatever consequences any of us face for what we say, we get to go home to our families.

The victims are the Palestinian people. The men, women and children who have been killed, starved, displaced and forced to live through unimaginable violence. More than 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza alone. People are being killed today, and people will be killed tomorrow. I want to make sure that as I tell this story, we don't lose sight of that.

Ed is my friend. I've known him for 13 years. We've shared late nights, studio sessions and stages. He has this infectious magic about him that I've grown to love. I consider him a brother. And because of that, we've had some difficult conversations this past week. The type of talks rooted in love and respect for one another that still end in a place of fundamental disagreement. Nothing I'm writing here is out of spite or because I want to tear down his character. But as I told Ed multiple times on the phone, our friendship can't change my responsibility to tell the truth about what happened.

Last Monday, in the middle of all the media attention surrounding Pink and what I said at MetLife, Ed told me that Robert Kraft called him. We were scheduled to play Gillette Stadium later this month, which is owned by the Kraft Group. Ed told me that Kraft said I would not be allowed to perform in his stadium. Ed also told me that Kraft had rallied some of the other
stadium owners and collectively they gave him an ultimatum: if Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues.

Ed was in …

What I said at MetLife I have been saying on stages around the world for almost three years. So why is it an issue now? Because now I'm sharing a stage with one of the biggest artists in the world, in some of the biggest stadiums in America. At a certain level of exposure, "Free Palestine" becomes too much of a risk. If I kept doing the shows, saying Free Palestine, with Ed implicitly supporting it, the crowd getting loud and showing undeniable support for Palestinian liberation, what artist might speak out next? The stage becomes resistance. Maybe that's why this time it became so important to silence me.

And one of the most effective ways to enforce that silence has been to weaponize the accusation of antisemitism. Antisemitism is real. And that is exactly why the word matters too much to be used as a shield against criticism of the Israeli state. When criticizing Israel, opposing Zionism or saying "Free Palestine" gets conflated with hatred of Jewish people, it doesn't protect Jewish people. It protects Israel from accountability.

I hope this isn't the end of my relationship with Ed.
Thirteen years of friendship doesn't disappear because of one painful disagreement. I hope we both continue listening, studying what is happening in Palestine and wrestling with what neutrality means in a moment like this. My door will always be open to continuing that conversation.

When my brother Omar was doing the subtitles for the video I posted from MetLife, I thanked him. He told me there's a phrase in Arabic:
لا شكر على واجب
"La shukra ala wajeb." There is no thanks for a duty.
That stayed with me. Because that's what this has become for me and millions of others around the world. A duty. Not something deserving of praise or gratitude. Not brave. Human.

Who is winning the internet, who is getting canceled, who gets to play the stadium and who doesn't, all of it becomes so small when held against what we are actually witnessing in Gaza and the West Bank. An entire people be…

September 14, 2026 at 6:02 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Weekend chores, how AI could ruin the world without superintelligence or an apocalypse, Lina's perspective, A+ parenting weekend

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1813

Weekend chores, how AI could ruin the world without superintelligence or an apocalypse, Lina's perspective, A+ parenting weekend

buttondown.com

September 14, 2026 at 1:03 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

9/11, Apple's Watch recording gambit, Gnoomes.

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1812

9/11, Apple's Watch recording gambit, Gnoomes.

buttondown.com

September 11, 2026 at 1:10 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

The Duo is the wrong size, a minor domestic crisis, Girl Scouts, talking to my daughter about Phil Elverum, the world needs a Motown Philly box set

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1811

The Duo is the wrong size, a minor domestic crisis, Girl Scouts, talking to my daughter about Phil Elverum, the world needs a Motown Philly box set

buttondown.com

September 10, 2026 at 1:07 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

It seems very straightforward for a democratic administration to criminally prosecute this as CSAM posession

Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 19d

NEW: The San Francisco City Attorney has hit Meta with a cease-and-desist telling it to stop publishing ads with AI-generated child sexual abuse.

The letter asks Meta why the same ads keep running.

Meta says the ads didn’t run in San Francisco and they are outside the city attorney's jurisdiction

San Francisco Orders Meta to Stop ‘Allowing’ AI Child Abuse Ads

The City Attorney’s Office has asked Meta to explain how the harmful ads repeatedly ran on Facebook and Instagram. The company claims the ads are not under the city’s jurisdiction.

www.wired.com

September 10, 2026 at 12:42 AM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Everyone perform admirably. The new Medicine. AI shenanigan insanity. Canadian Whiskey and dads. Communi-Grater. Olivia teaching my daughter about Nina Simone.

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1810

Everyone perform admirably. The new Medicine. AI shenanigan insanity. Canadian Whiskey and dads. Communi-Grater. Olivia teaching my daughter about Nina Simone.

buttondown.com

September 9, 2026 at 1:45 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Chores, studio work, gardening, PDA, an excellent mix tape, double-parking nurses, contractor contradictions

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1809

Chores, studio work, gardening, PDA, an excellent mix tape, double-parking nurses, contractor contraductions

buttondown.com

September 8, 2026 at 2:00 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

How bout this: you go to the post office. They look at, but do not record, your ID. They give you a login, you make a password and passcode or some shit. And you can now use this to prove age on any website.

September 5, 2026 at 12:33 AM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Choose life.

buttondown.com/rickwebb/arc...

Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1808

Choose life.

buttondown.com

September 4, 2026 at 5:18 PM

Rick

@rickwebb.net

Don Davis (NC) called me fundraising once. I told him atm my primary concern was Gaza. "Israel is killing them," he said. "It's horrible and I will work against it," he said. Ok buddy. Glad I didn't donate.

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 25d

Here are the 33 Democrats who voted with Republicans to block federal funding to American colleges if they engage in boycotts against Israel — a foreign country that's committed genocide and killed Americans using American tax dollars: