Tootfinder

reading a prelim paper on scaling up gpu-accelerated database query engines and feeling kinda gobsmacked at where that world is at
i remember when we built a “massive” memory machine at princeton with … i think it was 256 MB of RAM. (it sat idle except when ken thompson was logged in and building hash tables for chess endgames which was most of the time)

Oh happy task. #acadamicchatter

"The skyscraper, the apotheosis of form following finance and function"
—Jenny Diski, LRB
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n15/jenny-diski/post-its-push-pins-pencils

Jenny Diski · Post-its, push pins, pencils: In the Stationery Cupboard
The secret beating heart of the dream office is the stationery cupboard, the ideal kind, the one that opens to enough...

Tributes to the ficus marked for felling at Steiner and Waller 💚

Made new test prints on some off-cuts, using a slightly stronger developer solution than usual to see impact on max. depth. The main image (Eagle Creek, Oregon) is using 18% sodium acetate (curve corrected negative), the test strips are of 20% and 15% solutions (both uncorrected). The phone capture doesn't really show the differences too well, but I think I will go for the 18-20% from now on...
(Btw. The original image is here:

Oklahoma instructor removed from teaching for failing a screed of an essay
https://apnews.com/article/oklahoma-bible-essay-instructor-fulneckydei-f37ba4b8afdc9d9aba3b73b124f13b9b

The University of Oklahoma fires instructor who gave failing grade to Bible-based gender essay
The University of Oklahoma has fired an instructor who was accused by a student of religious discrimination. The complaint from 20-year-old junior Samantha Fulnecky was over a failing grade on a psychology paper in which she cited the Bible and called promoting a belief in multiple genders “demonic.” The university said Monday that its investigation found that the graduate teaching assistant had been arbitrary in giving Fulnecky zero points on the assignment. The attorney for instructor Mel…

WaPo Publisher Will Lewis appeared at NFL Honors in San Francisco Thursday, after failing to show for a Zoom call in which WaPo announced historic layoffs (Drew Lerner/Awful Announcing)
https://awfulannouncing.com/newspapers/will-lewis-nfl…

WaPo editor Will Lewis spotted on NFL red carpet day after killing paper's sports desk
Washington Post publisher Will Lewis appeared on the NFL Honors red carpet one day after laying off one-third of his paper.

A federal agent pointed a gun at a combat veteran’s face and said “
"bang, bang” and
“you’re dead, liberal”
during an immigration raid last week in Chicago,
the veteran is alleging in a new court filing.
https://…

Federal Agent Told Combat Veteran ‘You’re Dead, Liberal’ At Little Village Encounter, Attorneys Say
The allegation comes as ICE and Border Patrol are increasingly facing pushback for using tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and other measures against peaceful protesters and bystanders.

This week in small town paper headlines:
Vegan Circus serves up cruelty-free carnival delights
Joey Chang to bring unique cello-beatbox performance to Nevada City
911 caller reports truck with flames coming from undercarriage
Hospital announces their first baby of 2026 (Jan 5)

A graduate student at the University of Oklahoma
is the latest in a growing list of college instructors to face disciplinary action
after being targeted by Turning Point USA,
the right-wing campus pressure group founded by the late Charlie Kirk.
Mel Curth, a trans psychology instructor who recently won the Department of Psychology’s Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award,
gave a zero to junior Samantha Fulnecky’s reaction paper for an assignment on “gender typicali…

State Universities Are Scrambling to Appease the Bigoted MAGA Regime
From Oklahoma to Indiana to Alabama, state schools are bending over backward—suspending student magazines and even disciplining instructors—to preemptively satisfy the Trump administration.