The Food and Drug Administration rarely uses its authority to pull dangerous medical devices off the market
and is so poorly staffed that it’s sometimes unable to make sure companies are taking critical steps to protect patients during health emergencies,
according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
The inquiry by the congressional watchdog was requested nearly two years ago by top members of the Senate
in the wake of an investigation about the 2…
@… Ah... So that's where the fishy fishy fishy fish went!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npJQKtV5aP4
@… Ah... So that's where the fishy fishy fishy fish went!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npJQKtV5aP4
Dutch payments company Adyen reports H2 2025 net revenue up 17% YoY to €1.27B and forecasts 2026 net revenue growth at 20%-22%, vs 22.8% est.; ADYEN falls 15% (Kai Nicol-Schwarz/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/12/adyen-stock-price-earnings.html
@…
Yes, those are real limitations.
Generally speaking I try to do as much as possible on a computer and as little as possible on a phone.
Beyond Revenue and Welfare: Counterfactual Analysis of Spectrum Auctions with Application to Canada's 3800MHz Allocation
Sara Jalili Shani, Kris Joseph, Michael B. McNally, James R. Wright
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.08106 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.08106 https://arxiv.org/html/2512.08106
arXiv:2512.08106v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Spectrum auctions are the primary mechanism through which governments allocate scarce radio frequencies, with outcomes that shape competition, coverage, and innovation in telecommunications markets. While traditional models of spectrum auctions often rely on strong equilibrium assumptions, we take a more parsimonious approach by modeling bidders as myopic and straightforward: in each round, firms simply demand the bundle that maximizes their utility given current prices. Despite its simplicity, this model proves effective in predicting the outcomes of Canada's 2023 auction of 3800 MHz spectrum licenses. Using detailed round-by-round bidding data, we estimate bidders' valuations through a linear programming framework and validate that our model reproduces key features of the observed allocation and price evolution. We then use these estimated valuations to simulate a counterfactual auction under an alternative mechanism that incentivizes deployment in rural and remote regions, aligning with one of the key objectives set out in the Canadian Telecommunications Act. The results show that the proposed mechanism substantially improves population coverage in underserved areas. These findings demonstrate that a behavioral model with minimal assumptions is sufficient to generate reliable counterfactual predictions, making it a practical tool for policymakers to evaluate how alternative auction designs may influence future outcomes. In particular, our study demonstrates a method for counterfactual mechanism design, providing a framework to evaluate how alternative auction rules could advance policy goals such as equitable deployment across Canada.
toXiv_bot_toot
Prune, Don't Rebuild: Efficiently Tuning $\alpha$-Reachable Graphs for Nearest Neighbor Search
Tian Zhang, Ashwin Padaki, Jiaming Liang, Zack Ives, Erik Waingarten
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.08097 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.08097 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.08097
arXiv:2602.08097v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Vector similarity search is an essential primitive in modern AI and ML applications. Most vector databases adopt graph-based approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search algorithms, such as DiskANN (Subramanya et al., 2019), which have demonstrated state-of-the-art empirical performance. DiskANN's graph construction is governed by a reachability parameter $\alpha$, which gives a trade-off between construction time, query time, and accuracy. However, adaptively tuning this trade-off typically requires rebuilding the index for different $\alpha$ values, which is prohibitive at scale. In this work, we propose RP-Tuning, an efficient post-hoc routine, based on DiskANN's pruning step, to adjust the $\alpha$ parameter without reconstructing the full index. Within the $\alpha$-reachability framework of prior theoretical works (Indyk and Xu, 2023; Gollapudi et al., 2025), we prove that pruning an initially $\alpha$-reachable graph with RP-Tuning preserves worst-case reachability guarantees in general metrics and improved guarantees in Euclidean metrics. Empirically, we show that RP-Tuning accelerates DiskANN tuning on four public datasets by up to $43\times$ with negligible overhead.
toXiv_bot_toot
The EU's General Court reduces a 2023 EU antitrust fine on Intel to €237.1M, down from €376.36M; the EU fined Intel a record €1.06B in 2009, then overturned (Samuel Stolton/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20
i find it extremely annoying that MacOS 26 screwed up folder icon caching. (2023 M3 iMac w/ 24 GB of RAM and no memory pressure)
this happens not every time but multiple times a day
#GrumpyOldMan
On Jun 10, 2023 I watched
𝗕𝗔𝗬𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗖𝗛 Season 3 Episode 18 “𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗕𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵” 21 Feb 1993 starring #DavidHasselhoff #NicoleEggert #PamelaAnderson
Der wohl mit großem Abstand bescheuertste Grundriss eines Hauses aller Zeiten:
https://plan7architekt.com/i/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/In-der-Pro-Version-vom-Plan7Architekt-sind-alle-Funktionen-enthalten-um-Unterlagen-fuer-einen-Bauantrag-zu-erstellen.jpg
Le bouddhisme tibétain, ses grandes figures ont gardé le silence sur 3 canaux distincts :
- Le Dalai Lama de 1998 Š 2023
- Shechen Rabjam de 1997 Š 2023
- Matthieu Ricard de 2010 Š 2023
Découvrez pourquoi ces dates sont cruciales :
1/5
Redebeitrag zum 12.10.2023 von der Gira Zapatista Gruppe Hamburg
Redebeitrag zum 12.10.2023 von der gira zapatista Gruppe Hamburg
12.10: GLOBALER AKTIONSTAG GEGEN NEOKOLONIALISMUS
Es gibt nichts zu feiern! Seit dem Massenmord durch die spanische Besatzung von Abya Yala, auch Lateinamerika genannt, wird die offizielle Geschichte von 1492 bis heute mit dem Blut indigener Pueblos auf der ganz
Mit meinem kindgerechten #Magnificat grüße ich euch von der #FediKirche an diesem 1. Weihnachtstag https://
Harry Dunn was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2023, the second-highest civilian honor, which was presented to him by former President Joe Biden.
"I once told Congress,
'I did my job, now you do yours,'"
Dunn says in his announcement video posted Wednesday.
"Well, I'm done waiting."
Dunn will face a crowded field for the Democratic nomination to replace Hoyer,
including established Maryland politicians Del. Adri…
#Frankfurt hat den 2000. Antrag auf Förderung einer #Photovoltaikanlage bewilligt.
Das Programm „Klimabonus“ unterstützt seit 2023 unter anderem PV-Anlagen, #Stromspeicher,
Amid this news madness, I've thoroughly enjoyed being subscribed to the daily #CarbonBrief. Instead of compulsing the news, I try [and often fail] to focus on the most insightful items in my news feeds. This analysis of the latest UK auction for #WindPower was excellent:
I would also like #ipv6 to be adopted. However my ISP doesn't even give me a ipv6 allocation, so had to set up a tunnel over tunnelbroker.net. My learnings so far; some of this stuff specially related to dynamic ip allocation isn't that trival to understand. https://www.apalrd.net/posts/2023/network_ipv6/
Good Morning #Canada
The month of December will typical put a dent in your paycheck, or January if you're using your credit cards, so it's tough to save any money. Canadians rank 21st worldwide with regards to how much of our salary we put into a savings account. According to World Population Review, we put away approximately 7% of our paycheck for a #RainyDay, far behind South Korea at 35%. I'm retired and therefore not a saver at this point, but even during my most successful earnings period I can't imagine I would have been able to put away a third of my salary.
I suspect the savings percentage is driven by a small group of high wage earners as individual Canadian debt has increased. According to Equifax, total consumer debt in Canada reached $2.56 trillion at the end of 2024, a 4.6 per cent increase over 2023.
#CanadaIsAwesome
https://www.equifax.ca/business/blog/all-news/-/story/stable-versus-struggling-canada-s-financial-divide-widens/
from my link log —
ROCkN: Providing GPS-quality timing accuracy with portable optical atomic clocks.
https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-01-20
saved 2023-10-05
Ich muss hier mal kurz (und völlig ohne eigene Recherche) auf einen Leserhinweis im Spamblog aufmerksam machen:
https://spam.tamagothi.de/2023/04/03/projekt-schutz-fuer-kinder/comment-page-1/#comment-163313
Den ganzen Kontext (i…
El resumen de mi #SpotifyWrapped. Este año diversifiqué mucho mšs mls fuentes de escucha, así que esto es solo una visión parcial. Cuando tenga tiempo voy a comparar con last.fm o maloja.
#Spotify #Musica
Grubhub plans to remove delivery and service fees on restaurant orders over $50 starting Feb. 2; Grubhub's US market share fell to ~4% in 2025 from 10% in 2023 (Natalie Lung/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-…
📢 Bundesverwaltungsgericht kippt "Hammerskins"-Verbot
Das Bundesverwaltungsgericht hat das Verbot der rechtsextremen Gruppierung "Hammerskins Deutschland" gekippt. Das Gericht in Leipzig gab mehreren Klagen einzelner Mitglieder und regionaler Chapter der Neonazi-Gruppierung statt. Die damalige Bundesinnenministerin Nancy Faeser (SPD) war 2023 gegen die "Hammerskins" vorgegangen.
➡️
Call for Participation für den transform_D Summit (18. bis 19. Juni 2026 in Berlin)
Der transform_D Summit 2026 lädt Innovator:innen der Zivilgesellschaft ein, eigene Impulse einzubringen. Ob Digitalisierung, gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt oder Klimaschutz – auf der Bühne habt ihr die Chance, Akzente zu setzen und eure Themen mit nachhaltigen Lösungen in einem 60-minütigen Format zu präsentieren.
Bewerbungsphase bis zum 23. 01. 2026
@…
Point taken. I was thinking of processes that started already in 2020 and are still ongoing, making a different point.
@… @… I've been very happy with Mint since switching in 2023.
Massachusetts could soon join 40 other jurisdictions with its own climate bank. Ceres CEO Mindy Lubber testified on Beacon Hill for legislation that would blend public and private investments to fund low-interest loans for clean energy projects.
The model works: similar banks invested $10.6B in 2023 alone. Lubber urged prioritizing environmental justice communities alongside rural and coastal areas.
@…
Not after, *during* the ongoing pandemic. Escalating ableism is necessary to "justify" the urgency of the "normal". You wouldn't want them disabled people to hold us back from living like nothing happened, would you?
Currently retrieving my old blog.rmendes.net data from the internet archive 2020-2023 with the intent to migrate it to this place !
A languid spiral galaxy appears draped against deep space in a stunning new image from the European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope.
Euclid launched in 2023 on a six-year mission to map the cosmos at scale,
observing billions of galaxies stretching as far away as 10 billion light-years from Earth.
The effort could reveal how galaxies form and evolve and how the universe has expanded over its 13.8-billion-or-so-year history.
@… @…
yes, it felt like an entirely different world too
@…
Fantastic! Really happy for you!
I want to leave LinkedIn too.
Leaving Facebook and Twitter was easy as I never relied on them for income. I just left in disgust.
I freelance, and unfortunately a majority of work opportunities comes from people finding me on LinkedIn.
I'm on Xing as well, but in the Nordic…
Adobe's stock has slumped more than 45% since the end of 2023, reflecting analyst concerns over the threat of AI-driven disruption to SaaS companies (Ryan Vlastelica/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-…
@…
Fantastic! Really happy for you!
I want to leave LinkedIn too.
Leaving Facebook and Twitter was easy as I never relied on them for income. I just left in disgust.
I freelance, and unfortunately a majority of work opportunities comes from people finding me on LinkedIn.
I'm on Xing as well, but in the Nordic…
@… @…
Finland is going through a long bad period economically with self-imposed austerity and (surprise) EU-beating unemployment that keeps rising.
There *is* awareness that the …
@…
Indeed. And it's not just European politicians sane-washing Trump, also European media which is perhaps even more damaging.
Sadly, as we try to salvage it we need to work with the premise that NATO might already be doomed. So unfortunately European countries really need to invest more on defense and even mor…
@cdarwin@c.im
