Tootfinder

Introducing Merge Labs https://merge.io/blog

Sam Altman's brain-computer interface startup Merge Labs raised $252M from OpenAI, Bain Capital, and others (Ike Swetlitz/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-15/altman-s-merge-raises-252-million-to-l…

Exclusive: OpenAI and Sam Altman back a bold new take on fusing humans and machines https://www.corememory.com/p/exclusive-openai-and-sam-altman-back-merge-labs-bci The Merge or the Übermensch in a Silicon Valley jacket.

Exclusive: OpenAI and Sam Altman Back A Bold New Take On Fusing Humans And Machines
Merge Labs is here with $252 million, an all-star crew and superpowers on the mind

JTN Networks, parent company of Just the News, acquires The Post Millennial and Human Events, which has been featuring columns and podcasts from Jack Posobiec (Ted Johnson/Deadline)
https://deadline.com/2025/11/right-wing-media-brands-merge-j…

JTN Networks Acquires Post Millennial And Human Events In Union Of Brands On The Right
JTN Networks, the parent company of Just the News, has acquired the Human Events and The Post Millennial, uniting news brands on the right. Human Events, which was founded in 1944 and has more recently featured columns and podcasts from Jack Posobiec, the MAGA influencer, will end daily publication this month and will be transformed […]

@… @… @… aus dem Nähkästchen: ich merge bei uns Dupes in Bookwyrm und da kommt…

The Extended Stellar Distribution in the Outskirts of the Ursa Minor Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy: #DwarfGalaxies Merge? New Clues from the Outer Stars of a Milky Way Satellite: https://subarutelescope.org/en/results/2026/01/13/3641.html

I just found out that #renovate stopped working on my repositories, when I configured "manual merge" as the sole merge strategy on #Codeberg/#Forgejo. It said that the tool was "blocked".
That's too bad, because that's the only merge strategy that seems to enabl…

Sources: French studio Mediawan is in advanced talks to merge with Peter Chernin's North Road Company; the deal values North Road between $700M and $1B (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-16/-ford-…

Yesterday, I wanted to quickly post something on my blog when I realized that my blog generating process was broken after upgrading to Debian 13.
So I had to analyze the situation, got lost in my complex shell script hell and decided to merge it into one single script without lots of dated stuff.
Next I realized that one of my own libs has a minor issue with Python 3 strings: had to migrate to raw strings to get rid of very valid warnings.
Well, I could not publish that lib…

I just found a relatively new tool for syntax-aware diff/merge operations on git repositories ( #Mergiraf ).
Unlike other tools I've tried in the past, this one is also diff3-friendly .
- https://mergiraf.org/
- https://lwn.net/Articles/1042355/
For the weirdos like me who prefer `rebase` over `merge` this can be a great mood & productivity booster

from my link log —
GHC: from bug to merge.
http://neilmitchell.blogspot.com/2018/12/ghc-from-bug-to-merge.html
saved 2018-12-12 ht…

Don Moynihan on "Purge, Merge, and Surge" (Aaron Rupar/Public Notice)
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/don-moynihan-interview-purge-merge-surge
http://www.memeorandum.com/251108/p21#a251108p21

Instead of invasive electrodes (Neuralink Blindsight) or ultrasound ( invasive irreversible gene therapy and/or neural dust, Merge Labs), The vOICe vision BCI uses audible sound and is completely noninvasive https://www.artificialvision.com/neuralink.htm and it works, gives functional v…

Sources: French production company and MasterChef-owner Banijay is in advanced talks with All3Media-owner RedBird IMI to merge their TV production businesses (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-tel

@lexinova@mas.to @… @… There's information about it in https://

I’ve seen students panic and ••delete their entire local clone•• of a project (discarding all of their unpushed work!!) because they were so sure they’re ruined everything when they encountered a tiny merge conflict.
Of course I try to counter this — warning them up front about what a merge conflict looks like, helping them overcome their fear of asking for help, doing hands-on exercises with intentionally creating merge conflicts — but the fact “OMG DELETE EVERYTHING” could •ever• be a newcomer’s response to a minor merge conflict is a blaring klaxon of design failure.
/end

Source: Sam Altman's Merge Labs, which seeks to read brain activity using ultrasound, is being spun out of LA-based nonprofit Forest Neurotech (Emily Mullin/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/sam-altman-brain-computer-interf…

Sam Altman’s New Brain Venture, Merge Labs, Will Spin Out of a Nonprofit
Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface startup that seeks to read brain activity using ultrasound, is being spun out of Forest Neurotech, a Los Angeles nonprofit.

#Fubo, a sports streaming provider consolidates operations with former competitor Disney / #Hulu.
Longtime Disney exec put in charge of Fubo, as Fubu advertising sales operations folded into #Disney.and Rat takes 70% stake in joint v…

Pair of major streaming services merge live TV offerings to challenge YouTube TV
The merger forms the second largest virtual pay-TV provider in the U.S. with an estimated six million subscribers.

I've asked before, and I ask again.
People who try to merge onto the interstate at 40 mph, what are you doing?!?!

FWIW, this is fixed now. Thanks for the merge @….
https://php.net/pipe

PHP: Functional - Manual
Functional Operators

Obvious inflammatory rhetoric.
Also, "because X11 did it that way" is the single stupidest reason possible for deleting a feature that has been standard on *nix platforms since the 1980s.

Joint neutrino oscillation analysis from the T2K and NOvA experiments: #neutrinos may hold the keys to why we exist: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1103650 - MSU scientists help merge data from two neutrino experiments to offer most precise look yet at elusive particles.

Mij lijkt het een verschrikkelijk plan dat Rotterdam z'n kunstacademie verliest.
Onderteken de petitie:
https://savewdka.petities.nl/

Save WDKA, the Willem de Kooning Academy
The Hogeschool Rotterdam (HR) announced a merger with the department of Communication, Media and Innovation (CMI), part of a bigger reorganization. With this merge the Willem de Kooning Academy (WdKA) loses its autonomous position, its status as art academy. Help us preserve our art education! https://savewdka.petities.nl

Ukraine says Russia is trying to merge Soviet-era and modern air defenses to plug gaps: https://benborges.xyz/2025/10/31/ukraine-says-russia-is-trying.html

“a move that is clearly designed to blunt the award-winning magazine’s insightful journalism at a time when it is needed the most.”
Teen Vogue To Merge With Vogue Website; Condé Union Condemns Move
https://deadline.com/2025/11/teen-vogue-merger-vogue-conde-union-condemns-layoffs-1236606081/

Everyday #Emacs #orgmode task: merge two tables
I'm grading, and want to merge the class list with the list of assignment submissions. Include the two lists as named tables, and a tiny R-snippet will produce a merged table (also named).

A classic. I've implemented the sweep-merge-interval algorithm in more languages than I can remember. #Gleam
I just completed "Cafeteria" - Day 5 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode

from my link log —
Lessons from merging hash tables.
https://gist.github.com/attractivechaos/d2efc77cc1db56bbd5fc597987e73338
saved 2026-01-08

2026-01-01_hashmap-merge.md
GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

Sources: Sam Altman's brain-computer interface startup Merge Labs hires Mikhail Shapiro, who works on noninvasive techniques for neural imaging and control (Alex Heath/Sources)
https://sources.news/p/altman-taps-leading-researcher-for

Altman taps leading researcher for BCI startup Merge Labs
The hire suggests that Merge is taking a much less invasive approach than Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Also: Sources IRL and reactions to yesterday's Snap scoop.

Something that just drives me up the wall about this particular area of Git (merge conflicts) is that, beyond the all-too-typical Git problem of sloppy terminology, this is bad feature design. In most situations, “use ours” and “user theirs” are •both• the wrong answer! There are two doors, and they’re •both• trapdoors.
If you have a merge conflict, that means that you changed something •and• somebody else changed something, and your job is to •synthesize• both changes. To use one is to discard the other, which is usually not what you want!
The thing Git (and every Git GUI) ought to surface is a three-way merge: show me what I changed and what they changed ••relative to the nearest common ancestor••. Yes yes yes, I know it’s possible to finagle that into view with Git. It should be the danged default. It is what I should see first. It is what I should see if I have no idea what I’m doing.
1/ https://hachyderm.io/@jeremydmiller/115741417416659492

@… sad to see development has stalled. I'm not accusing of course, just a bit sad. Also, it can't be very motivating that there hasn't been a merge into the main branch for 9 months. When quoted toots will become a thing, do you plan to implement this?

Enshittification wasn't an accident.
It also wasn't inevitable.
This isn't the iron laws of economics at work, nor is it the great forces of history
#Enshittification was a choice:
Known individuals, in living memory, enacted policies that created the enshittogenic environment.
They created a world that encouraged tech companies to merge to monopoly,

Interview with Eugen Rochko, creator of Mastodon https://coywolf.com/news/social-media/mastodon-creator-shares-what-went-wrong-with-threads-and-ponders-the-future-of-the-fediverse/

WIRED: Sam Altman’s new brain venture, Merge Labs, will spin out of a nonprofit, Forest Neurotech https://www.wired.com/story/sam-altman-brain-computer-interface-merge-labs-spin-out-nonprofit-forest-neurotech/ Focus on usin…

Sam Altman’s New Brain Venture, Merge Labs, Will Spin Out of a Nonprofit
Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface startup that seeks to read brain activity using ultrasound, is being spun out of Forest Neurotech, a Los Angeles nonprofit.

@… both gitlab and GitHub do have some capability for reviewing merge requests. I don't know if they can auto apply patches though.

@… deep merge??

@… pkgbasify is not stupid.
Merges occur automatically. Effort should be minimal, close to zero.
In my experience, manual attention to a merge conflict is very rarely required.
cc @…

We need to merge #cloudflare with #aws so that this industry ~~fails~~ wins harder next time.

Would really love it if this MR went through somehow https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/8236 - Not being able to paste directly from clipboard manager/emoji picker is one of my bigger annoyances with plasma

Sources: Comcast is looking to merge NBCUniversal, including NBC TV, studios, and theme parks, with WBD, whose shareholders would get cash and stock (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-02/comcast-s-bid…

I managed to merge five PRs from other picolibc contributors today. I really like getting contributions from other other people; it makes me think that maybe my little project is starting to be useful in the world.

""[…] one message came through clearly: as we move forward, we should take the opportunity to improve the [#Fedora packager workflow] model rather than simply replicate it. The conversation focused on three key areas: package ownership, artifact storage, and Packit integration.
[…]
Key takeaways include:
* A Shift to Merge Requests: There is strong momentum to make …

Sam Altman's next startup eyes using sound waves to read your brain https://www.theverge.com/column/806666/sam-altman-merge-labs-brain-computer-interface-startup-hire (archived at

Sam Altman’s next startup eyes using sound waves to read your brain
Sam Altman has tapped Mikhail Shapiro, an award-winning biomolecular engineer, to join the Merge Labs brain-computer interface startup he’s set to announce soon with co-founder Alex Blania.

This game has captivated the whole family. You shoot squishy bouncy cats together to merge them into bigger squishy cats?! Game of the Year contender! 😂
https://www.nintendo.com/de-de/Spiele/Nintendo-Switch-2-Spiele/PUNYAN-for-Nintendo…

Sources: SoftBank explored a potential takeover of Marvell earlier this year to merge it with Arm, in what would have been the chip industry's largest-ever deal (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-…

Nexstar reports Q3 revenue down 12.3% YoY to $1.19B and net income down 64% to $65M as ad revenue fell 23.5% to $476M due to lower political ad revenue (Etan Vlessing/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business

Nexstar Quarterly Revenue, Income Falls on Lower Political Ad Sales
The latest financial results follow Nexstar unveiling a deal with smaller rival Tegna to merge its local TV stations amid the continuing consolidation of the U.S. broadcast sector.

What could go wrong?
Trump Media to Merge With TAE Technologies, a Nuclear Fusion Firm, in a $6 Billion Deal - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/business/trump-media-tae-technologies-fusion-power-deal.html

Crosslisted article(s) found for math.QA. https://arxiv.org/list/math.QA/new
[1/1]:
- Merge on workspaces as Hopf algebra Markov chain
Matilde Marcolli, David Skigin

Coursera plans to acquire rival online education platform Udemy in an all-stock deal valued at $2.5B, combining two of the largest US learning platforms (Akash Sriram/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/coursera-udemy-merge-deal-v…

Git merge flatten is a mistake and a skill issue from those with bad git history visualisers.
#git

I spend a lot of my teaching life helping students learn to use Git, and I cannot emphasize enough how hostile the user experience of a merge conflict is for a new user. It looks like everything is broken. The terminology is crap. The verbiage is bamboozling. The default actions are all booby traps. The most important information is buried. The UI is terrible (both CLI and most GUIs). It’s incredibly easy to accidentally commit the conflict markers. It’s a nightmare.
2/

In case you don’t know what this game is about: Squishing cats so the merge into bigger ones. You run out of space the more you get.

Sources: David Ellison will keep WBD mostly intact in a possible Paramount merger, merge HBO Max into Paramount , keep creative teams, and target 30 films/year (Christopher Palmeri/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

TMTG agrees to merge with Google-backed fusion energy company TAE in a $6B deal and begin building the "world's first utility-scale fusion power plant" in 2026 (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/1e1978d5-535b-4241-872f-38db778df694

Boat rental services Boatsetter and GetMyBoat plan to merge; Boatsetter CEO Michael Farb says the combined company is set to have $100M in bookings in 2025 (Ben Glickman/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/two-air

MuckRock and Sunlight Research Center merge; Sunlight provides training, tools, and support for investigative reporting, with a focus on local news (Sarah Scire/Nieman Lab)
https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/rebuilding-the-research-desk-in-local-newsrooms/…

Rebuilding the research desk in local newsrooms
A merger between MuckRock and Sunlight Research Center will help slimmed-down newsrooms investigate local governments, public officials, and more.

Trump Media agrees to merge with Google-backed fusion energy company TAE in a $6B deal and build the "world's first utility-scale fusion power plant" in 2026 (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/1e1978d5-535b-4241-872f-38db778df694

Filing: Comcast's offer to merge NBCUniversal with WBD valued Comcast's media and theme-park assets at about $81B; Comcast's overall valuation is about $111B (Christopher Palmeri/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20