Tootfinder

Refereed Learning
Ran Canetti, Ephraim Linder, Connor Wagaman
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05440 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.05440

Refereed Learning
We initiate an investigation of learning tasks in a setting where the learner is given access to two competing provers, only one of which is honest. Specifically, we consider the power of such learners in assessing purported properties of opaque models. Following prior work that considers the power of competing provers in different settings, we call this setting refereed learning. After formulating a general definition of refereed learning tasks, we show refereed learning protocols that obtai…

🏧 Crypto ATMs fueling criminal activity, Treasury warns
#crime

Crypto ATMs fueling criminal activity, Treasury warns
The Treasury Department warned that the massive increase in the number of crypto ATMs — convertible virtual currency kiosks — has been accompanied by a spike in the number of operators who fail to comply with anti-money laundering rules.

Canada's anti-money laundering agency fines crypto exchange KuCoin ~$14M for failing to report large and suspicious transactions; KuCoin appeals the decision (Nivedita Balu/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/c

For any of my comrades who are using SNAP, I wish I had something better to say than "if you crush 4 buckeyes with a hammer and tie the pulp in a sock you can wash a good sized load of laundry." English Ivy also has saponins, but I've never been able to make soap from it myself.
Ivy is everywhere. Buckeyes (Horse Chestnuts) are common in city parks (there are a ton in Seattle).
Yucca is also a good source of saponins, but it also has silica. That makes it a good scrubby soap. You can find these plants all over they're pretty common to find in yards.
If you can find acorns still (it's a bit late, but who knows), acorn grits are great and something you can survive on for a bit. Acorns need processing (it's easy to look up, but feel free to ask or check out one or Black Forager's videos on it).
If you've been following me for a bit, you probably already know all this. But if you don't, I hope it helps.
Any other forager folks are welcome to drop hints here that might be useful to folks in the city.
#Foraging

Donald Trump issued a pardon for the founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange on Thursday.
Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty in late 2023 to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money laundering program and stepped down as CEO of Binance,
which paid $4.3bn to settle related allegations.
He was sentenced to four months in prison.
Zhao, who is often referred to by his initials CZ, is one of the world’s richest people and biggest names in cryptocurrency.

"Ever get the feeling you're being watched?"
Yeah, I have cats...
I'm alway being watched. 👀

Filing: StubHub, which is planning a September IPO, says revenue grew 3% to $828M in H1, missing its earlier projection of $885M, with adjusted EBITDA down 7% (Cory Weinberg/The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/stubhub-missed-financial-t…

StubHub Missed Financial Targets Ahead of IPO
Even as StubHub makes a renewed push to go public, its business isn’t expanding as quickly as it had hoped. In the first half of this year, the ticketing app fell short of revenue and profit projections it shared with lenders earlier this year, in part due to new U.S. ticket pricing rules. The ...

Blockchain-based lender Figure files for a US IPO, reporting H1 revenue up 22.4% YoY to $191M and a profit of $29M, compared with a loss of $13M in H1 2024 (Arasu Kannagi Basil/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/blockchai

The mass of the Milky Way from outer halo stars measured by DESI DR1
Gustavo E. Medina, Ting S. Li, Gwendolyn M. Eadie, Alexander H. Riley, Monica Valluri, Nabeel Rehemtulla, Jiaxin Han, Wenting Wang, Amanda Bystr\"om, Leandro Beraldo e Silva, S. E. Koposov, N. R. Sandford, R. G. Carlberg, M. Lambert, O. Y. Gnedin, A. P. Cooper, J. Garc\'ia-Bellido, N. Kizhuprakkat, B. A. Weaver, J. Aguilar, S. Ahlen, A. Anand, D. Bianchi, D. Brooks, T. Claybaugh, A. Cuceu, A. de la Macorra, P…

The mass of the Milky Way from outer halo stars measured by DESI DR1
As a benchmark for galaxy evolution and dark matter studies, the total mass of the Milky Way is a parameter of cosmological significance, and its value at large radii from the Galactic center remains highly uncertain. Following a hierarchical Bayesian inference approach, we measure the cumulative mass of the Milky Way using full 6D phase-space information of stars from the first data release of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). We employ 330 blue horizontal-branch stars (BHBs) an…

Thermal scanning probe lithography for fabrication of perforated metallic films
Paloma E S Pellegrini (LJAD, ATLANTIS, CNRS), Francisco T Orlandini (LJAD, ATLANTIS, CNRS), Silvia V G Nista (LJAD, ATLANTIS, CNRS), St\'ephane Lanteri (LJAD, ATLANTIS, CNRS), Hugo Enrique Hern\'andez-Figueroa, Stanislav Moshkalev
https://arxiv.org/abs/…

Thermal scanning probe lithography for fabrication of perforated metallic films
Thermal scanning probe lithography offers high resolution and versatility, making it a promising alternative for fabricating photonic devices. Here, we introduce a new method that expands its applications by enabling direct fabrication of arbitrary perforated patterns on a silver film.