Tootfinder

More Montessori:
❝Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.❞
And here’s a kicker:
❝Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.❞
Put that last thought in the context of arts and education being deeply intertwined, and oligarchy seeking to dismantle both, and…well….
/end

Judge overturns Biden-era HHS rule on HIPAA protections for those seeking reproductive care https://therecord.media/judge-overtuns-biden-era-hhs-rule-hipaa-reproductive-care

Casper: Inferring Diverse Intents for Assistive Teleoperation with Vision Language Models
Huihan Liu, Rutav Shah, Shuijing Liu, Jack Pittenger, Mingyo Seo, Yuchen Cui, Yonatan Bisk, Roberto Mart\'in-Mart\'in, Yuke Zhu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.14727

Casper: Inferring Diverse Intents for Assistive Teleoperation with Vision Language Models
Assistive teleoperation, where control is shared between a human and a robot, enables efficient and intuitive human-robot collaboration in diverse and unstructured environments. A central challenge in real-world assistive teleoperation is for the robot to infer a wide range of human intentions from user control inputs and to assist users with correct actions. Existing methods are either confined to simple, predefined scenarios or restricted to task-specific data distributions at training, limit…

Missouri governor signs package to help finance Chiefs, Royals stadium projects https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6432303/2025/06/17/kansas-city-chiefs-royals-stadium-projects/

Accelerating Cloud-Based Transcriptomics: Performance Analysis and Optimization of the STAR Aligner Workflow
Piotr Kica, Sabina Licho{\l}ai, Micha{\l} Orzechowski, Maciej Malawski
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.12611

Accelerating Cloud-Based Transcriptomics: Performance Analysis and Optimization of the STAR Aligner Workflow
In this work, we explore the Transcriptomics Atlas pipeline adapted for cost-efficient and high-throughput computing in the cloud. We propose a scalable, cloud-native architecture designed for running a resource-intensive aligner -- STAR -- and processing tens or hundreds of terabytes of RNA-sequencing data. We implement multiple optimization techniques that give significant execution time and cost reduction. The impact of particular optimizations is measured in medium-scale experiments followe…

Methods for pitch analysis in contemporary popular music: multiple pitches from harmonic tones in Vitalic's music
Emmanuel Deruty, David Meredith, Maarten Grachten, Pascal Arbez-Nicolas, Andreas Hasselholt J{\o}rgensen, Oliver S{\o}nderm{\o}lle Hansen, Magnus Stensli, Christian N{\o}rk{\ae}r Petersen
https://arxiv.org/abs/25…

Methods for pitch analysis in contemporary popular music: multiple pitches from harmonic tones in Vitalic's music
Aims. This study suggests that the use of multiple perceived pitches arising from a single harmonic complex tone is an active and intentional feature of contemporary popular music. The phenomenon is illustrated through examples drawn from the work of electronic artist Vitalic and others. Methods. Two listening tests were conducted: (1) evaluation of the number of simultaneous pitches perceived from single harmonic tones, and (2) manual pitch transcription of sequences of harmonic tones. Relat…

What does jamming a crowbar into the fracture point look like?
When the Trump admin says they’re backing off deporting agricultural workers, remind the racists that Trump screwed them over to appease its ultawealthy corporate ag owners.
When the Trump admin keeps deporting undocumented people seeking work and thus drains the abusable labor pool, remind the rich corps who employ those people that Trump screwed them over to appease the racist chucklefucks who really control it.
/5

"The real threat posed by generative AI is not that it will eliminate work on a mass scale, rendering human labour obsolete. It is that, left unchecked, it will continue to transform work in ways that deepen precarity, intensify surveillance, and widen existing inequalities."
"The current trajectory of generative AI reflects the priorities of firms seeking to lower costs, discipline workers, and consolidate profits — not any drive to enhance human flourishing. If we allo…

Is the AI Bubble About to Burst?
In the years since Automation and the Future of Work first appeared, a new wave of technological enthusiasm has swept across the popular imagination. The catalyst this time has been the rapid advances in generative artificial intelligence, spearheaded by companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta. Once again, a c

Gov. signs stadium aid package for Chiefs, Royals https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/45514109/missouri-governor-signs-stadium-aid-package-chiefs-royals

❝We humans are stability-seeking creatures. Getting accustomed to what used to seem unthinkable can feel like an accomplishment. And when the unthinkable recedes at least a bit…it’s easy to mistake it for proof that the dark times are ending.
But these comparatively small victories don’t alter the direction of our transformation — they don’t even slow it down measurably — even while they appeal to our deep need to normalize.…And so just when we most need to act — while there is indeed room for action and some momentum to the resistance — we tend to be lulled into complacency by the sense of relief on the one hand and boredom on the other.❞
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/opinion/trump-danger-normalization-shock.html