Tootfinder

from my link log —
Remotely unlocking an encrypted hard disk.
https://jyn.dev/remotely-unlocking-an-encrypted-hard-disk/
saved 2026-01-23 h…

Raiders player tributes pour in after Rondale Moore’s death https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/raiders/raiders-player-tributes-pour-in-after-rondale-moores-death-3711313/

A quick seven -- my good day.
#blogging #writing

Ski Rental with Distributional Predictions of Unknown Quality
Qiming Cui, Michael Dinitz
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.21104 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.21104 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.21104
arXiv:2602.21104v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We revisit the central online problem of ski rental in the "algorithms with predictions" framework from the point of view of distributional predictions. Ski rental was one of the first problems to be studied with predictions, where a natural prediction is simply the number of ski days. But it is both more natural and potentially more powerful to think of a prediction as a distribution p-hat over the ski days. If the true number of ski days is drawn from some true (but unknown) distribution p, then we show as our main result that there is an algorithm with expected cost at most OPT O(min(max({eta}, 1) * sqrt(b), b log b)), where OPT is the expected cost of the optimal policy for the true distribution p, b is the cost of buying, and {eta} is the Earth Mover's (Wasserstein-1) distance between p and p-hat. Note that when {eta} < o(sqrt(b)) this gives additive loss less than b (the trivial bound), and when {eta} is arbitrarily large (corresponding to an extremely inaccurate prediction) we still do not pay more than O(b log b) additive loss. An implication of these bounds is that our algorithm has consistency O(sqrt(b)) (additive loss when the prediction error is 0) and robustness O(b log b) (additive loss when the prediction error is arbitrarily large). Moreover, we do not need to assume that we know (or have any bound on) the prediction error {eta}, in contrast with previous work in robust optimization which assumes that we know this error.
We complement this upper bound with a variety of lower bounds showing that it is essentially tight: not only can the consistency/robustness tradeoff not be improved, but our particular loss function cannot be meaningfully improved.
toXiv_bot_toot

Democrats Counter Trump With Their Own Plan to Limit Wall Street Landlords (Matthew Goldstein/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/us/politics/trump-senate-democrats-single-family-rentals-homes.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/260224/p57#a260224p57

Reform UK, the anti-people party.
<<Vote for us, for extreme weather, choking air, exploitation at work and a free hand for landlords.>>
'Tice, who leads for the party on business issues, called for “a great repeal Bill that ditches daft regulations: scrap net zero, scrap ZEV (zero emission vehicle) mandates, scrap new employment rights rules, scrap new property rental rules.” '
Reform ‘declares war’ on workers | Morning Star

Players around NFL mourn Rondale Moore, urge mental-health awareness https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7064764/2026/02/22/rondale-moore-death-nfl-reaction-mental-health-awareness/

POL-GS: Zeugenaufruf nach Verkehrsunfall und Straßenverkehrsgefährdung Goslar (ots) - Am Dienstagmorgen kam es gegen 7.40 Uhr auf der B 241 zwischen Goslar und der Bärentalkurve zu einer Straßenverkehrsgefährdung und anschließender Verkehrsunfallflucht, für die die Polizei Goslar Zeugen sucht. Ein 65-jähriger ... https://www.

Series A, Episode 10 - Breakdown
VILA: Let's hope they don't even think about it.
[Farren's office]
FARREN: I've never seen a ship remotely like it before. What do you think, Professor Kayn?
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/110/356 B7B3

NFL wide receiver Rondale Moore dies at age 25 https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/48000896/nfl-wide-receiver-rondale-moore-dies-age-25