Tootfinder

IRS Direct File,
the electronic system for filing tax returns for free,
will not be offered next year,
the Trump administration has confirmed.
An email sent Monday from IRS official Cynthia Noe to state comptrollers that participate in the Direct File program said that
“IRS Direct File will not be available in Filing Season 2026. No launch date has been set for the future.”
The program developed during Joe Biden’s presidency
was credited by users with…

IRS Direct File won't be available next year for submitting tax returns for free
The Trump administration has decided not to offer the IRS' electronic tax filing system for free next year, and its future is unclear. An IRS official informed state comptrollers in an email Monday that "IRS Direct File will not be available in Filing Season 2026." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said better alternatives exist and the private sector can do a better job. The program, developed during Joe Biden's presidency, was praised for making tax filing easy and economical. However, it face…

"Whenever anyone asks me for advice, I tell them: we don’t realize how deeply the nine-to-five fractures us. The weekends, the holidays, the fixed friend group—whatever rigidness exists in your behavior will exist in your perception, and it will exist in your ability to think critically."
Victoria Brugger, "Last Words of an Ego on Death Row"

Last Words of an Ego on Death Row
Hello.I don’t know who you are. But I hope we meet in the next pages—across whichever dimension I had to cross to embody these feelings.This is not a book. It is not a journal.It is the autopsy of an ego and the birth certificate of the woman I am today.It carries the blueprints I bled for: how to build something from nothing, how to love yourself when the mirror is a battlefield, how to decode the nature of existence and drag purpose out of the dark.But more than all of that—this is my b…

I've been using Broadcom/VMware ESXI 8 U3 on a Gen 15 Intel Ultra 9 powered box.
Gack, you would think that a giant company like Broadcom/VMware would keep its software up to date.
But no. One has to jump through special configuration hoops (not documented except by third parties) to even get ESXI loaded.
And then if one wants to use USB-4/Thunderbolt based network interface devices one has to find and install a "FLING" patch.
It seems to me that Broadc…

❝Arduino will retain its independent brand, tools, and mission, while continuing to support a wide range of microcontrollers and microprocessors from multiple semiconductor providers as it enters this next chapter within the Qualcomm family.❞ https://ar…

Qualcomm is buying Arduino, releases new Raspberry Pi-esque Arduino board
Qualcomm claims Arduino will keep its own branding and “open source ethos.”…

MPC strategies for density profile control with pellet fueling in nuclear fusion tokamaks under uncertainty
Christopher A. Orrico, Hari Prasad Varadarajan, Matthijs van Berkel, Lennard Ceelen, Thomas O. S. J. Bosman, W. P. M. H. Heemels, Dinesh Krishnamoorthy
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04784

MPC strategies for density profile control with pellet fueling in nuclear fusion tokamaks under uncertainty
Control of the density profile based on pellet fueling for the ITER nuclear fusion tokamak involves a multi-rate nonlinear system with safety-critical constraints, input delays, and discrete actuators with parametric uncertainty. To address this challenging problem, we propose a multi-stage MPC (msMPC) approach to handle uncertainty in the presence of mixed-integer inputs. While the scenario tree of msMPC accounts for uncertainty, it also adds complexity to an already computationally intensive …

Long but very good:
"An essay on wank"
It names and identifies one of my least favorite genre of posts – finally I have a proper term for it!
I'm sure I've been guilty of it too in the past, so it's useful for self-regulation, too.
https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/essay_

Colibri: A new tool for fast-flying PDF fits
Mark N. Costantini, Luca Mantani, James M. Moore, Valentina Schutze Sanchez, Maria Ubiali
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03391 https://

Colibri: A new tool for fast-flying PDF fits
We present Colibri, an open-source Python code that provides a general and flexible tool for PDF fits. The code is built so that users can implement their own PDF model, and use the built-in functionalities of Colibri for a fast computation of observables. It grants easy access to experimental data, several error propagation methodologies, including the Hessian method, the Monte Carlo replica method, and an efficient numerical Bayesian sampling algorithm. To demonstrate the capabilities of Coli…

Post-leave burnout recovery, week 2:
Lots of mixed feelings in returning to work. I really missed my team and my job. Work and the work schedule are each somewhat helpful for recovery. 1:1s with reports and partnerships are a strong highlight of my week!
Motivation while recovering from the tail end of burnout is hard for some types of work as a manager. Burnout makes motivation hard as it is, and lack of context on what's going on makes that harder, and both of those exacerba…

Really silly dream
I had a really silly #dream recently. I dreamt that my CFL broke. Or more specifically, it kept trying to turn out, successive parts of it were lighting up, then it all went off and tried again. And it looked like it had a bunch of cuts across it, and around these cuts little thunder sparks started appearing, like some kind of STALKER-like anomaly.
I finally flipped the switch, but the anomaly remained, and I wanted to get rid of it in case the sparks could jump onto my hardware and damage something. So I threw a metal bowl towards it, supposing the thunder would jump onto it. While it was flying near the anomaly, it slowed down and started turning back like a boomerang. On top of that, pieces of cat food (don't ask me why I threw a full bowl) were getting out of it and staying in the air levitating. When the bowl reached the floor and started turning again, Mr Ek came close to it and started levitating himself; he was sitting a few centimeters above the floor.
In the middle of all this, I've figured out I should record it. I took a bunch of photos with my phone, before I managed to switch to recording video.
Once I've recorded the fascinating flying bowls and levitating cat food, I needed to go back to discharging the thing. I threw a second metal bowl, and that one started levitating as well. I've figured out that's stupid, and I've found some big ass hammer with a metal end and a wooden handle. I held the end near the lamp to charge it, then tried to find something to discharge it to. I've tried some small stuff like the door handle, but obviously that wasn't sufficient. Finally, I've figured out to use the electricity box, since it is grounded. I held the hammer to it, watching sparks light the semi-darkness; I've recorded that as well.
And that's how much of it I remember.

Insider Reveals Old Fines That Cowboys’ Jerry Jones Could Deal With After Flipping Jets Fans Off https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/dallas-cowboys/jerry-jones-jets-fans-fines/?adt_ei=[email]