Tootfinder

“Professors like me … should be part of the embodied change we seek: turning off our computers and phones, taking all our annual leave, refusing to answer emails out of hours and only scheduling meetings within work hours everyone—including colleagues with caring responsibilities—can make.” #HigherEducation

Are Democrats really angry at Biden about Gaza?
Compared to the last basically uncontested primary (2012), the "uncommitted" vote against Biden was much less than against Obama, except in Michigan and Minnesota. https://wapo.st/4a453GX

Analysis | The ‘uncommitted’ vote story isn’t exactly what you might think
Yes, there was a protest vote in Minnesota. But in other states that voted on Tuesday, 2012 was way worse for the Democratic incumbent.

KIWI: A Dataset of Knowledge-Intensive Writing Instructions for Answering Research Questions
Fangyuan Xu, Kyle Lo, Luca Soldaini, Bailey Kuehl, Eunsol Choi, David Wadden
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.03866

KIWI: A Dataset of Knowledge-Intensive Writing Instructions for Answering Research Questions
Large language models (LLMs) adapted to follow user instructions are now widely deployed as conversational agents. In this work, we examine one increasingly common instruction-following task: providing writing assistance to compose a long-form answer. To evaluate the capabilities of current LLMs on this task, we construct KIWI, a dataset of knowledge-intensive writing instructions in the scientific domain. Given a research question, an initial model-generated answer and a set of relevant papers…

Japan’s answer to seasonal allergies: A subsidized tropical escape
Spring is a miserable time for millions of Japanese.
One of them is Naoki Shigihara, whose hay fever symptoms make it difficult to focus at work.
Luckily for him, his employer, an IT company called Aisaac, offers a “tropical escape” program, allowing employees to work remotely from other parts of the country with low pollen counts.
It even offers to subsidize the temporary relocation to the tune of…

Japan’s answer to seasonal allergies: A subsidized tropical escape
So many people call in sick with hay fever during the peak pollen season that Japanese companies are taking novel steps to allow them to continue to work.

@… - my question for your upcoming Q&A episode of Cautionary Tales: as someone who works with technology in government, I've come across a few situations where people have tried to solve a problem with some shiny tech or gadget, rather than a superior but sometimes boring answer such as rejigging a clunky process.
What are some of your favour…

The Billionaires in Texas Politics - by Chris Tackett #Texas

The Billionaires in Texas Politics
Forbes released their 2024 list of the Richest People in the World. I thought it would be interesting to see how many are investing in Texas politics, how much, and to who. And turns out the answers are a lot, a lot, and mostly Republicans.See It. Name It. Fight It. is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

An Empirical Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distance Method in the Near Infrared. I. HST WFC3/IR F110W and F160W Filters
Max J. B. Newman, Kristen B. W. McQuinn, Evan D. Skillman, Martha L. Boyer, Roger E. Cohen, Andrew E. Dolphin, O. Grace Telford
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.03086 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.03086
arXiv:2403.03086v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The Tip of the Red Giant Branch (TRGB)-based distance method in the I band is one of the most efficient and precise techniques for measuring distances to nearby galaxies (D <= 15 Mpc). The TRGB in the near infrared (NIR) is 1 to 2 magnitudes brighter relative to the I band, and has the potential to expand the range over which distance measurements to nearby galaxies are feasible. Using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging of 12 fields in 8 nearby galaxies, we determine color-based corrections and zero points of the TRGB in the Wide Field Camera 3 IR (WFC3/IR) F110W and F160W filters. First, we measure TRGB distances in the I band equivalent Advanced Camera System (ACS) F814W filter from resolved stellar populations with the HST. The TRGB in the ACS F814W filter is used for our distance anchor and to place the WFC3/IR magnitudes on an absolute scale. We then determine the color dependence (a proxy for metallicity/age) and zero point of the NIR TRGB from photometry of WFC3/IR fields which overlap with the ACS fields. The new calibration is accurate to ~1% in distance, relative to the F814W TRGB. Validating the accuracy of the calibrations, we find that the distance modulus for each field using the NIR TRGB calibration agrees with the distance modulus of the same fields as determined from the F814W TRGB. This is a JWST preparatory program and the work done here will directly inform our approach to calibrating the TRGB in JWST NIRCam and NIRISS photometric filters.

"Huisjes heeft zijn publieke omroep met zendtijd voor politieke partijen willen vullen. Als je journalistieke basisprincipes aan je politieke idealen opoffert, dan heb je in het publieke bestel niets te zoeken."
https://www.

‘Angry Bert’ Huisjes maakte van WNL een omroep met zendtijd voor politieke partijen
De meeste mensen hebben er geen flauw benul van welk programma van welke omroep is. De programma’s zijn op NPO1, 2 of 3 en wie ze maakt zal ze wors...

I wish I knew why backup connectivity that Just Worked for months broke only one client host following an OS update and concomitant reboots on the evil backup server from hell. Also, why did it ever work, i.e. why was my ugly hack that makes it work NOW not needed 2 weeks ago?
There are a mess of vlans and netmasks involved. Many physical interfaces. And I will probably find the answer somewhere in the update notes for

I wish I knew why backup connectivity that Just Worked for months broke only one client host following an OS update and concomitant reboots on the evil backup server from hell. Also, why did it ever work, i.e. why was my ugly hack that makes it work NOW not needed 2 weeks ago?
There are a mess of vlans and netmasks involved. Many physical interfaces. And I will probably find the answer somewhere in the update notes for