@brewsterkahle@mastodon.archive.org2025-12-23 06:47:08
"Rabbit Recipes," US dept of Ag 1930. (We are looking for things to cook to celebrate public domain day Jan 21st 2026 re: 1930!)
Not so sure about Rabbit Recipes, but nice layout. Thank you US Dept of Ag for digitizing this (I love my job).
What will you cook to celebrate public domain day?
http…
@david@boles.xyz2026-01-22 15:31:24
The Last Living American White Male: A Novel of Obsolescence and Love
The title may make you uncomfortable. That was the point. For the past year, I have been living inside a grey city that exists only in my imagination, spending my days with a garbage man named Robert James Miller and an administrative processing unit named Alma. Today, their story is finally available to readers. The Last Living American White Male…
@deabigt@universeodon.com2026-02-24 15:44:51
Why would anyone use this? $1,500 rent means a $32.49 fee on top of your rent just to have them debit you twice instead of setting up autopay with your bank for free.
Split Pay charges $9.99 1.5% of your total payment amount per month. This fee is added to your first Split Pay payment each month. https://rent.app/help/renters?a=Is-there-a-fee-for-using-Split-Pay---id--FohAfEIBSB2nLJJiwifd0Q
@arXiv_csLG_bot@mastoxiv.page2026-02-25 10:35:11
High-Dimensional Robust Mean Estimation with Untrusted Batches
Maryam Aliakbarpour, Vladimir Braverman, Yuhan Liu, Junze Yin
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.20698 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.20698 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.20698
arXiv:2602.20698v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We study high-dimensional mean estimation in a collaborative setting where data is contributed by $N$ users in batches of size $n$. In this environment, a learner seeks to recover the mean $\mu$ of a true distribution $P$ from a collection of sources that are both statistically heterogeneous and potentially malicious. We formalize this challenge through a double corruption landscape: an $\varepsilon$-fraction of users are entirely adversarial, while the remaining ``good'' users provide data from distributions that are related to $P$, but deviate by a proximity parameter $\alpha$.
Unlike existing work on the untrusted batch model, which typically measures this deviation via total variation distance in discrete settings, we address the continuous, high-dimensional regime under two natural variants for deviation: (1) good batches are drawn from distributions with a mean-shift of $\sqrt{\alpha}$, or (2) an $\alpha$-fraction of samples within each good batch are adversarially corrupted. In particular, the second model presents significant new challenges: in high dimensions, unlike discrete settings, even a small fraction of sample-level corruption can shift empirical means and covariances arbitrarily.
We provide two Sum-of-Squares (SoS) based algorithms to navigate this tiered corruption. Our algorithms achieve the minimax-optimal error rate $O(\sqrt{\varepsilon/n} \sqrt{d/nN} \sqrt{\alpha})$, demonstrating that while heterogeneity $\alpha$ represents an inherent statistical difficulty, the influence of adversarial users is suppressed by a factor of $1/\sqrt{n}$ due to the internal averaging afforded by the batch structure.
toXiv_bot_toot
@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-02-19 15:55:59
Ownwell, which uses AI to let homeowners appeal property taxes, raised a $30M Series B, bringing its total funding to $54M; it also raised $20M in debt (Mary Ann Azevedo/Crunchbase News)
https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/ownwell-raise-lower-homeowner-propert…
@hikingdude@mastodon.social2025-12-21 14:51:43
Now this was a gorgeous cycling loop. Temperature was around freezing but luckily just few wind. As you see, the weather was ace. Clouds and fog stayed in the north 🌞
Also tried Knee warmers, which was just right! A very good buy!
I just need a solution against freezing toes. @… ,I bought neoprene toe warmer! The shoes are just a bit tight then, …
@jake4480@c.im2026-01-12 19:37:59
The 1990 Total Recall is one of my favorite movies, and I didn't know David Cronenberg was the original director for it and created the character of Kuato and all the mutants (although it makes perfect sense). The puppet itself was created by Rob Bottin.
How Kuato the mutant was created for Total Recall without any CGI:
@paulbusch@mstdn.ca2025-12-19 13:37:20
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/
@cdarwin@c.im2026-01-21 06:17:20
What is the Chagos deal?
Last year, Sir Keir agreed a deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius,
while retaining control of the UK-US military base on the island of Diego Garcia.
In return, the UK has been promised a 99-year lease on the base,
in return for an average annual fee of £101m in current prices.
The government estimates this will mean a total cost of £3.4bn.
These islands are currently governed by the UK as the
"British India…
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2026-01-22 03:11:22
Cowboys Proposal Has Them Move For All-Pro George Pickens-Replacement https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/dallas-cowboys/brandon-aiyuk-proposal-george-pickens-replacement/