Tootfinder

Last night I dreamed that the great computer scientist, Niklaus Wirth, had died by suicide because he was convinced his intellect was failing, because a simple financial calculation was failing, because he'd caught an exception and just returned zero instead of handling it, because he'd written sketch code and meant to come back and deal with it later but had not done so.
Which is almost certainly all arrant nonsense, but what a BIZARRE thing to dream about.

(Did you know that in the original stage version of The Sound of Music, the thing that finally breaks Captain von Trapp’s engagement to the baroness isn’t the vague, wishy-washy “noble unstated feelings” scene that’s in the movie (and which never worked in my view, despite the actors giving it their all); it’s that the baroness tries to convince him to go along with the Nazis because there’s nothing he can do, and he decides he can’t marry a woman with no convictions. They cut the song from the film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Way_to_Stop_It)

Faster exponential algorithms for cut problems via geometric data structures
L\'aszl\'o Kozma, Junqi Tan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.22281 https://

Faster exponential algorithms for cut problems via geometric data structures
For many hard computational problems, simple algorithms that run in time $2^n \cdot n^{O(1)}$ arise, say, from enumerating all subsets of a size-$n$ set. Finding (exponentially) faster algorithms is a natural goal that has driven much of the field of exact exponential algorithms (e.g., see Fomin and Kratsch, 2010). In this paper we obtain algorithms with running time $O(1.9999977^n)$ on input graphs with $n$ vertices, for the following well-studied problems: - $d$-Cut: find a proper cut in wh…

here’s what look to be newish sidewalk trees, 2 of them, on Capp in front of Alioto Park.
I have mixed feelings. Capp’s sidewalks are a miserly 9’ while the roadway is much too wide. Now when SF widens the sidewalk, these trees will be obstructions in the middle of it. We need to legalize planting trees in the parking lane

I'm in Sainsbury's. There is a PA announcement. Literally these words:
"Feeling peckish? Why not treat yourself to a bacon or sausage barm from the hot food counter? I'm not sure if they're reduced, they might be, but just get yourself down there and have a lickle mooch".

Synthesizing Performance Constraints for Evaluating and Improving Code Efficiency
Jun Yang, Cheng-Chi Wang, Bogdan Alexandru Stoica, Kexin Pei
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.23471

Synthesizing Performance Constraints for Evaluating and Improving Code Efficiency
Large Language Models (LLMs) have been increasingly used to optimize code efficiency. Evaluating their effectiveness and further suggesting optimization opportunities often rely on high-quality tests to demonstrate the performance bottlenecks presented in the program. However, existing approaches rely on a limited set of hand-curated inputs or LLM-generated uninteresting length-stressing tests, failing to reveal more nuanced optimization opportunities. We present WEDGE, a framework for generati…

gardening trivia of the day / no I don't want to get into roses I am just rabbit holing rose varieties and gardens for no reason
#TIL #roses

PBS and one of its local affiliates sue the Trump administration, saying his executive order to cut federal funding violated PBS' First Amendment rights (Sara Fischer/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2025/05/30/pbs-funding-sue-trump

PBS sues Trump administration over funding cuts
The filing argues the president's executive order violates PBS' First Amendment rights.

My fair city of Roanoke attained “Bee City USA” status in 2022, which aims to “promote healthy, sustainable habitats for bees and other pollinators, responsible for the reproduction of nearly 90% of the world’s flowering plant species and one in every three bites of food we eat.”
Last night, a couple of garden clubs teamed up with the city to screen a new PBS Nature documentary, “My Garden of a Thousand Bees”.

My Garden of a Thousand Bees
New PBS documentary following wildlife filmmaker Martin Dohrn as he films more than 60 species of bees in his urban garden in Bristol, England, during the COVID-19 2020 lockdown.