Tootfinder

I just saw an interesting video about a relevant topic (a skill I haven't been able to acquire from reading the docs) so I clicked on it.
No! I lasted about 12 seconds before killing the window: do not try to communicate technical information to me via video! Write it down!

Common Randomness Generation from Sources with Infinite Polish Alphabet
Wafa Labidi, Rami Ezzine, Moritz Wiese, Christian Deppe, Holger Boche
https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.01948

Common Randomness Generation from Sources with Infinite Polish Alphabet
We investigate the problem of common randomness (CR) generation in the basic two-party communication setting in which a sender and a receiver aim to agree on a common random variable with high probability. The terminals observe independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) samples of sources with an arbitrary distribution defined on a Polish alphabet and are allowed to communicate as little as possible over a noisy, memoryless channel. We establish single-letter upper and lower bounds on the…

Scientists found the two disjunct [!] neuron switches in mice that control inflammation status and communication concerning immune responses in the body!
This is currently shared by many accounts here and yes, it deserves ALL of the attention. I fully agree with this quote from the linked summary below [which is very good!]:
"But overall, this discovery should blow us away."

Scientists Just Made A Stunning Biological Discovery
Sometimes something happens that takes your breath away, in a good way. Those who read my stuff know I’m not someone who gets carried away by optimism, to say the least. But a new paper by scientists at Columbia has blown me away. Researchers have made a discovery, which, if it holds up, has the potential to transform treatments for autoimmune diseases and post-viral illness like long covid and myalgic encephalomyelitis.

Source: Paramount and Skydance agree to the terms of a merger, which will likely be announced in the coming days (Lillian Rizzo/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/03/paramount-skydance-merger-deal-update.html

I agree, totally. Collective intelligence can produce marvels.
I wish us ALL good luck and good times with this.
Rocky shoals surround.
#CollectiveIntelligence #Cooperation #ArtificialIntelligence

Odd things Ubuntu does
Having just booted a new VM up using the official #Canonical #Ubuntu image on #Azure, I noticed that, during the first boot cycle, it makes a call out to "entropy.ubuntu.com"
This is done by the "polliniate" package which describes itself:
pollinate is an entropy as a service client. It will fetch a random seed from one or more remote servers, and feed those into a (pseudo) random number generator. This is often useful in cloud and virtual machine environments with limited sources of entropy.
https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/jammy/man1/pollinate.1.html
There's something oddly jarring about this. Not least because this call-out for "supplementary" entropy is done after generating the host's SSH keys.
I hope, hope very much, that someone with Prof in their title from a very well regarded Computer Science department has written a paper suggesting this is ok.

Urgent challenges demand more action from scientists
Professor of Planetary Health Pim Martens introduced a new concept to the audience by describing himself as a Scientivist. Martens formulates that:
"Scientivists are scientists that are engaged in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge (the ‘science’ part), that aim to promote, impede, or direct societal change (the ‘activist’ part)”.
:mastodon:

Could a planetary health approach in sustainability science wake up the masses to act? | Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science | University of Helsinki
Urban planning and policymakers must adapt to the growing understanding of how planetary health impacts human well-being. To achieve this, there is a need for resolute language in scientific communication to encourage immediate actions.

https://www.asor.org/anetoday/2023/08/who-invented-alphabet/ - Who really invented the alphabet?

Modeling the refractive index profile n(z) of polar ice for ultra-high energy neutrino experiments
S. Ali, P. Allison, S. Archambault, J. J. Beatty, D. Z. Besson, A. Bishop, P. Chen, Y. C. Chen, B. A. Clark, W. Clay, A. Connolly, K. Couberly, L. Cremonesi, A. Cummings, P. Dasgupta, R. Debolt, S. de Kockere, K. D. de Vries, C. Deaconu, M. A. DuVernois, J. Flaherty, E. Friedman, R. Gaior, P. Giri, J. Hanson, N. Harty, K. D. Hoffman, J. J. Huang, M. -H. Huang, K. Hughes, A. Ishihara, A. K…

Modeling the refractive index profile n(z) of polar ice for ultra-high energy neutrino experiments
We develop an in-situ index of refraction profile using the transit time of radio signals broadcast from an englacial transmitter to 2-5 km distant radio-frequency receivers, deployed at depths up to 200 m. Maxwell's equations generally admit two ray propagation solutions from a given transmitter, corresponding to a direct path (D) and a refracted path (R); the measured D vs. R (dt(D,R)) timing differences provide constraints on the index of refraction profile near South Pole, where the Askarya…