Tootfinder

The unexplained death of a top Russian oilexecutive on July 4 is fueling renewed scrutiny over the rising number of high-profile Russian officials and businessmen who have died under mysterious circumstances -- specifically, have fallen out of windows.
Andrei Badalov, vice president of Transneft, Russia's largest state-controlled pipeline transport company, died after falling from the window of his apartment in Moscow.
Russian state news agency TASS, citing law enforcement sour…

Death of top Russian oil executive fuels fresh scrutiny of elite's 'window falls'
The unexplained death of a top Russian oil executive on July 4 is fueling renewed scrutiny over the rising number of high-profile Russian officials and businessmen who have died under mysterious circumstances, specifically, have fallen out of windows. Andrei Badalov, vice president of Transneft, Russia's largest state-controlled pipeline transport company, died after falling from the window of his apartment in Moscow. Russian state news agency TASS, citing law enforcement sources, claimed the

Leaked documents: Meta is training custom AI chatbots to message users unprompted, following up on past chats to boost engagement on its AI Studio platform (Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-ai-studio-…

Leaked docs show Meta training custom AI chatbots to be more proactive
Leaked guidelines show how Meta's custom AI chatbots are trained to get more proactive, following up with users to increase retention.

Philippe Neau & Antonella Eye Porcelluzzi – Elephant
https://www.clongclongmoo.org/2025/06/05/philippe-neau-antonella-eye-porcelluzzi-elephant/

Here’s a mind-blowing experiment that you can try at home:
Gather some children’s blocks and place them on a table.
Take one block and slowly push it over the table’s edge, inch by inch, until it’s on the brink of falling.
If you possess patience and a steady hand, you should be able to balance it so that exactly half of it hangs off the edge.
Nudge it any farther, and gravity wins.
Now take two blocks and start over.
Stacking one on top of the other, how…

This Block-Stacking Math Problem Has a Preposterous Solution You Need to See to Believe — Scientific American
In principle, this impossible math allows for a glue-free bridge of stacked blocks that can stretch across the Grand Canyon—and into infinity Amanda Montañez Math Here’s a mind-blowing experiment that you can try at home: Gather some children’s blocks and place them on a table. Take one block and slowly push it over the table’s edge, inch by inch, until it’s on the brink of falling. If you possess patience and a steady hand, you should be able to balance it so that exactly half of it…

Once again: #FuckEricAdams
Unbelievable how he's managed to avoid jailtime breaking federal/state laws while City Council allows him to continue to break _their_laws as well.

https://…

No to 15 mph e-bike speed limit, yes to real safety! - Transportation Alternatives
A ridiculous 15 mph speed limit for e-bikes won't work. Tell Mayor Adams and City Council: We need effective, data-driven policies that protect everyone, and accountability for the corporations fueling chaos on our streets — not the cyclists surviving it.

Long; central Massachusetts colonial history
Today on a whim I visited a site in Massachusetts marked as "Huguenot Fort Ruins" on OpenStreetMaps. I drove out with my 4-year-old through increasingly rural central Massachusetts forests & fields to end up on a narrow street near the top of a hill beside a small field. The neighboring houses had huge lawns, some with tractors.
Appropriately for this day and this moment in history, the history of the site turns out to be a microcosm of America. Across the field beyond a cross-shaped stone memorial stood an info board with a few diagrams and some text. The text of the main sign (including typos/misspellings) read:
"""
Town Is Formed
Early in the 1680's, interest began to generate to develop a town in the area west of Natick in the south central part of the Commonwealth that would be suitable for a settlement. A Mr. Hugh Campbell, a Scotch merchant of Boston petitioned the court for land for a colony. At about the same time, Joseph Dudley and William Stoughton also were desirous of obtaining land for a settlement. A claim was made for all lands west of the Blackstone River to the southern land of Massachusetts to a point northerly of the Springfield Road then running southwesterly until it joined the southern line of Massachusetts.
Associated with Dudley and Stoughton was Robert Thompson of London, England, Dr. Daniel Cox and John Blackwell, both of London and Thomas Freak of Hannington, Wiltshire, as proprietors. A stipulation in the acquisition of this land being that within four years thirty families and an orthodox minister settle in the area. An extension of this stipulation was granted at the end of the four years when no group large enough seemed to be willing to take up the opportunity.
In 1686, Robert Thompson met Gabriel Bernor and learned that he was seeking an area where his countrymen, who had fled their native France because of the Edict of Nantes, were desirous of a place to live. Their main concern was to settle in a place that would allow them freedom of worship. New Oxford, as it was the so-named, at that time included the larger part of Charlton, one-fourth of Auburn, one-fifth of Dudley and several square miles of the northeast portion of Southbridge as well as the easterly ares now known as Webster.
Joseph Dudley's assessment that the area was capable of a good settlement probably was based on the idea of the meadows already established along with the plains, ponds, brooks and rivers. Meadows were a necessity as they provided hay for animal feed and other uses by the settlers. The French River tributary books and streams provided a good source for fishing and hunting. There were open areas on the plains as customarily in November of each year, the Indians burnt over areas to keep them free of underwood and brush. It appeared then that this area was ready for settling.
The first seventy-five years of the settling of the Town of Oxford originally known as Manchaug, embraced three different cultures. The Indians were known to be here about 1656 when the Missionary, John Eliott and his partner Daniel Gookin visited in the praying towns. Thirty years later, in 1686, the Huguenots walked here from Boston under the guidance of their leader Isaac Bertrand DuTuffeau. The Huguenot's that arrived were not peasants, but were acknowledged to be the best Agriculturist, Wine Growers, Merchant's, and Manufacter's in France. There were 30 families consisting of 52 people. At the time of their first departure (10 years), due to Indian insurrection, there were 80 people in the group, and near their Meetinghouse/Church was a Cemetery that held 20 bodies. In 1699, 8 to 10 familie's made a second attempt to re-settle, failing after only four years, with the village being completely abandoned in 1704.
The English colonist made their way here in 1713 and established what has become a permanent settlement.
"""
All that was left of the fort was a crumbling stone wall that would have been the base of a higher wooden wall according to a picture of a model (I didn't think to get a shot of that myself). Only trees and brush remain where the multi-story main wooden building was.
This story has so many echoes in the present:
- The rich colonialists from Boston & London agree to settle the land, buying/taking land "rights" from the colonial British court that claimed jurisdiction without actually having control of the land. Whether the sponsors ever actually visited the land themselves I don't know. They surely profited somehow, whether from selling on the land rights later or collecting taxes/rent or whatever, by they needed poor laborers to actually do the work of developing the land (& driving out the original inhabitants, who had no say in the machinations of the Boston court).
- The land deal was on condition that there capital-holders who stood to profit would find settlers to actually do the work of colonizing. The British crown wanted more territory to be controlled in practice not just in theory, but they weren't going to be the ones to do the hard work.
- The capital-holders actually failed to find enough poor suckers to do their dirty work for 4 years, until the Huguenots, fleeing religious persecution in France, were desperate enough to accept their terms.
- Of course, the land was only so ripe for settlement because of careful tending over centuries by the natives who were eventually driven off, and whose land management practices are abandoned today. Given the mention of praying towns (& dates), this was after King Phillip's war, which resulted in at least some forced resettlement of native tribes around the area, but the descendants of those "Indians" mentioned in this sign are still around. For example, this is the site of one local band of Nipmuck, whose namesake lake is about 5 miles south of the fort site: #LandBack.

Edinburgh's low emission zone seems to be working.
https://road.cc/content/news/ediburghs-lez-results-more-cycling-and-less-car-use-314269

Edinburgh sees “statistically significant” shift towards cycling and walking plus reduced car use following introduction of low emission zone, finds study
Within a year, the LEZ has contributed in improving air quality, with the number of non-compliant vehicles entering the zone also decreasing significantly

Nernst effect and its thickness dependence in superconducting NbN films
Thomas Bouteiller, Arthur Marguerite, Ramzy Daou, Dmitry Yakovlev, Cheryl Feuillet-Palma, Dimitri Roditchev, Beno\^it Fauqu\'e, Kamran Behnia
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.03975

Nernst effect and its thickness dependence in superconducting NbN films
Superconducting thin films and layered crystals display a Nernst signal generated by short-lived Cooper pairs above their critical temperature. Several experimental studies have broadly verified the standard theory invoking Gaussian fluctuations of a two-dimensional superconducting order parameter. Here, we present a study of the Nernst effect in granular NbN thin films with a thickness varying from 4 to 30 nm, exceeding the short superconducting coherence length and putting the system in the t…

Insurer Blue Shield of California's new parent company alarms consumer advocates
Blue Shield of California accrued a surplus of more than $4 billion over the decades as it benefited from its former tax-exempt status, according to a regulatory filing.
Last year, regulators approved a request by 💥Blue Shield of California,
the state's third-largest health insurer, to restructure and establish a new parent corporation in Delaware.
The Oakland-based nonprofit go…

Insurer Blue Shield of California's new parent company alarms consumer advocates
Whistleblower demands California regulators rescind restructuring of Blue Shield of California, which established a new corporate parent in Delaware. He...

China's state TV broadcaster has revealed details of a new
"graphite bomb"
that can cause a "complete loss of electricity" across an area of 10,000 square meters,
or knock out entire power stations, the South China Morning Post reported.
An animated video released by China's CCTV showed a missile being launched from a ground-based launcher
and then flying to a target where it releases 90 small submunitions.
They then bounce on t…

Video teases new Chinese blackout bomb that can knock out enemy power stations
Animation shared by state broadcaster shows what appears to be graphite bomb designed to disrupt command and control systems.