Tootfinder

ACE-G: Improving Generalization of Scene Coordinate Regression Through Query Pre-Training
Leonard Bruns, Axel Barroso-Laguna, Tommaso Cavallari, \'Aron Monszpart, Sowmya Munukutla, Victor Adrian Prisacariu, Eric Brachmann
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.11605

ACE-G: Improving Generalization of Scene Coordinate Regression Through Query Pre-Training
Scene coordinate regression (SCR) has established itself as a promising learning-based approach to visual relocalization. After mere minutes of scene-specific training, SCR models estimate camera poses of query images with high accuracy. Still, SCR methods fall short of the generalization capabilities of more classical feature-matching approaches. When imaging conditions of query images, such as lighting or viewpoint, are too different from the training views, SCR models fail. Failing to genera…

For #Caturday, a reminder that Widget remains available for adoption in the NYC metro area. She would prefer a calm house without kids (we are not a calm house). She's super affectionate! #CatsOfMastodon

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Nacirema people is their insistence that they do not participate in practices of which they clearly do. Equally unusual is the fact that, unlike other sacrificial cultures who raid neighboring tribes for victims, both slaves and victims for human sacrifice are only taken from within the society. In fact, there is a very strong cultural taboo against sacrificing or enslaving those from other tribes.
They are aware of the rituals of human sacrifice in other tribes, but claim such rituals to be inconsistent with their society. Yet their human sacrifice rituals are some of the most elaborate in the world. These rituals are so important that there is a whole part of Nacirema society dedicated specifically to arguing about who should and should not be sacrificed, restraining and feeding the potential victims for the years during which these arguments take place, and ultimately preparing and administering the ritual poison.
This is strangely similar to their approach to slavery. Both human sacrifice and slavery were once a much larger part of Nacirema society. Their human sacrifice rituals now take far longer and happen far less often, but at no point have they ever recognized these ritual sacrifices as such. Meanwhile, the Nacirema do acknowledge that slavery was part of their culture once. During the time when they did recognize their practice of slavery, they did raid other tribes for slaves. Now they follow the same complex ritual for slavery as they do for human sacrifice.
It is strange that, by following this ritual and only choosing victims from within their society, they seem to become incapable of seeing their behavior for what it is.

Just finished "Beasts Made of Night" by Tochi Onyebuchi...
Indirect CW for fantasy police state violence.
So I very much enjoyed Onyebuchi's "Riot Baby," and when I grabbed this at the library, I was certain it would be excellent. But having finished it, I'm not sure I like it that much overall?
The first maybe third is excellent, including the world-building, which is fascinating. I feel like Onyebuchi must have played "Shadow of the Colossus" at some point. Onyebuchi certainly does know how to make me care for his characters.
Some spoilers from here on out...
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I felt like it stumbles towards the middle, with Bo's reactions neither making sense in the immediate context, nor in retrospect by the end when we've learned more. Things are a bit floaty in the middle with an unclear picture of what exactly is going on politics-wise and what the motivations are. Here I think there were some nuances that didn't make it to the page, or perhaps I'm just a bit thick and not getting stuff I should be? More is of course revealed by the end, but I still wasn't satisfied with the explanations of things. For example, (spoilers) I don't feel I understand clearly what kind of power the army of aki was supposed to represent within the city? Perhaps necessary to wield the threat of offensive inisisia use? In that case, a single scene somewhere of Izu's faction deploying that tactic would have been helpful I think.
Then towards the end, for me things really started to jumble, with unclear motivations, revelations that didn't feel well-paced or -structured, and a finale where both the action & collapsing concerns felt stilted and disjointed. Particularly the mechanics/ethics of the most important death that set the finale in motion bothered me, and the unexplained mechanism by which that led to what came next? I can read a couple of possible interesting morals into the whole denouement, but didn't feel that any of them were sufficiently explored. Especially if we're supposed to see some personal failing in the protagonist's actions, I don't think it's made clear enough what that is, since I feel his reasons to reject each faction are pretty solid, and if we're meant to either pity or abjure his indecision, I don't think the message lands clearly enough.
There *is* a sequel, which honestly I wasn't sure of after the last page, and which I now very interested in. Beasts is Onyebuchi's debut, which maybe makes sense of me feeling that Riot Baby didn't have the same plotting issues. It also maybe means that Onyebuchi couldn't be sure a sequel would make it to publication in terms of setting up the ending.
Overall I really enjoyed at least 80% of this, but was expecting even better (especially politically) given Onyebuchi's other work, and I didn't feel like I found it.
#AmReading

Almost reached the top!
(A wonderfully wild path along the cliff edge and glorious evening light on the way to Teufelstättkopf, with a view of the Wetterstein massif and Zugspitze in the distance...)
#FootpathFriday #LandscapePhotography

"For a site that recently rose to prominence despite the calcified nature of the platform ecosystem [...] this is a crucial moment. Bluesky, some users feel, is failing to meet it."
(Original title: Bluesky Really Doesn’t Want People To Say ‘Rest In Piss’ About Charlie Kirk)
https://afterma…

I Am Experiencing A Feeling And I Would Like It To Stop
right right ok let's try watching some monster factory
that's always how I can gauge how Serious the problem is like if I do not Laff at da monster factory then I know it's some serious shit

Sticker collection for 39C3 is complete. 500 of each iso8601ultras, "We do not test on animals, we test in production" and a large stack "Nett hier. Aber waren Sie schon mal in Ankh-Morpork?"
Will be distributed in trading boxes/stacks/heaps
#39c3 #stickers

Sunspot Observations in 1684-1702: John Flamsteed and Philippe de La Hire
Nadezhda Zolotova, Mikhail Vokhmyanin
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.11375 https://ar…

Sunspot Observations in 1684-1702: John Flamsteed and Philippe de La Hire
In this work, we present an extensive review and detailed analysis of sunspot measurements, drawings, and engravings made by John Flamsteed and, mainly, by Philippe de La Hire during the Maunder minimum. All available information and contemporary knowledge about the sunspot nature are shown. The coordinates, areas, and numbers of sunspots and sunspot groups are reconstructed. Based on these observations, La Hire, Jean-Dominique Cassini, and his son Jacques Cassini regularly published results th…

No Sign of a Magnetar Remnant Following the Kilonova-Producing Long GRB 211211A $\sim 1.7~$Years Later
Genevieve Schroeder (Cornell), Ben Margalit, Brian D. Metzger, Wen-fai Fong, Benjamin P. Gompertz, Kate D. Alexander, Edo Berger, Tanmoy Laskar, Gavin P. Lamb, Andrew Levan, Charles D. Kilpatrick, Jillian C. Rastinejad
https://arxiv.org/a…

No Sign of a Magnetar Remnant Following the Kilonova-Producing Long GRB 211211A $\sim 1.7~$Years Later
In addition to a $γ$-ray burst (GRB), the merger of two neutron stars may produce a temporarily or indefinitely stable neutron star remnant with a strong magnetic field (a "magnetar"). As this magnetar remnant spins down, it can deposit its rotational energy into the surrounding kilonova ejecta, producing synchrotron emission that peaks in the radio bands $\sim$months-years after the merger ("boosted kilonova"). The nearby ($z=0.0763$) long-duration GRB 211211A, which has an apparent kilonova …