Tootfinder

Disclaimer: IANAL I am not well-read on applicable laws.
POTUS executive military authority without Congressional Declaration of War should be limited to when full Congress can't be consulted due to urgency and secrecy. Best example I know is raid to get bin Laden — limited in scope, possibly limited time to act on intel, would've leaked the more who knew.
None of that applies to the slowly simmering situation with Venezuela.

Ohana sometimes still pretends that she doesn't like her little adopted sister Nina. That's why she has this "caught in the act"-face in this photo. 😄
Also: went to the vet today, and Nina is recovering well from her little surgery. ❤️
#dogsofmastodon

@… Well, doesn't the Securities Act say that all registration statements go effective after 20 days? I know that is not the way the Act has been administered for decades, of course, but there is a statutory basis for the SEC's move.

From Delegates to Trustees: How Optimizing for Long-Term Interests Shapes Bias and Alignment in LLM
Suyash Fulay, Jocelyn Zhu, Michiel Bakker
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.12689 ht…

From Delegates to Trustees: How Optimizing for Long-Term Interests Shapes Bias and Alignment in LLM
Large language models (LLMs) have shown promising accuracy in predicting survey responses and policy preferences, which has increased interest in their potential to represent human interests in various domains. Most existing research has focused on behavioral cloning, effectively evaluating how well models reproduce individuals' expressed preferences. Drawing on theories of political representation, we highlight an underexplored design trade-off: whether AI systems should act as delegates, mirr…

Enhancing the mass resolving power of FRIB's proposed high-voltage MR-ToF mass separator and spectrometer: addressing non-ideal conditions
Christian Michael Ireland, Franziska Maria Maier, Einstein Dhayal, Erich Leistenschneider, Ryan Ringle, Austin Sjaarda
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.11741

Enhancing the mass resolving power of FRIB's proposed high-voltage MR-ToF mass separator and spectrometer: addressing non-ideal conditions
Multi-reflection time-of-flight mass separators and spectrometers (MR-ToF MSs) are indispensable tools at radioactive ion beam (RIB) facilities. These electrostatic ion beam traps act as highly selective mass separators and high-precision mass spectrometers for rare and exotic nuclei. When well-tuned and designed to minimize higher-order flight-time aberrations, state-of-the-art MR-ToF MSs approach, and slightly exceed, mass resolving powers of \( m / Δm = 10^6 \). Achieving \( m / Δm > 3 \cd…

Steven Spielberg's "Artificial Intelligence" (2001) was on Netflix and I had never seen it. I had heard that the final act is very sappy and... spoilers... yes it has issues in my opinion (voice-over narration *and* an alien for exposition dumps?!) but the act works well in the context of the movie: I wasn't aware that this is a modern Pinocchio's tale and the movie is quite literal about it.
But what really blew me away were the animatronic robots:

Strava sues Garmin for allegedly infringing two patents related to its segments and heatmap features and violating a 2015 agreement between the companies (Ray Maker/DC Rainmaker)
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/10/strava-sues-garmin-demands-stop-sell…

Strava Just Sued Garmin: Demands Garmin Stop Selling Devices
 Strava has sued Garmin, an act that I very much did not have on my bingo card for 2025. In doing so, they are demanding that Garmin cease selling effectively all of their fitness/outdoor watches, as well as cycling

Leading up to the government shutdown on Wednesday,
congressional Republicans and Donald Trump have
repeated misleading claims
that Democrats were trying to pass a resolution that would provide
“free healthcare for illegals”.
It’s become a well-rehearsed refrain fueling GOP lawmakers.
At the White House on Wednesday, the JD Vance said the Democrats’ spending plan
“would have undone” the work of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA)
– which en…

Well, that's two ways of putting it.
https://www.theverge.com/news/823750/european-union-ai-act-gdpr-changes

Europe is scaling back its landmark privacy and AI laws
The European Commission has proposed changes weakening EU privacy legislation and delaying parts of the AI Act to make the bloc more competitive globally.

Well, it appears there was some very good news on my birthday, when I was too busy involved in celebrations to notice.
#PalestineAction
#RightToProtest

Coherent matter wave emission from an atomtronic transistor
Sasanka Dowarah, Mengxin Du, Alan Zanders, Shengwang Du, Michael Kolodrubetz, Chuanwei Zhang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03398

Coherent matter wave emission from an atomtronic transistor
The atomtronic matter-wave triple-well transistor is theoretically predicted to exhibit current gain and act as a coherent matter-wave emitter. In this work, we investigate the dynamics of an atomtronic transistor composed of a triple-well potential -- source, gate, and drain -- modeled by the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We systematically explore the dependence of the drain population and the current on the source bias potential and the strength of the interatomic interaction. Our…

Students on the campus where I work oppose Ontario Bill 33 - the Orwellian titled "Supporting Children and Students Act." Among other things, the bill would require universities to admit only on merit (though it provides no definition) and would allow the province to decide which fees are required and which are optional, which would undercut student unions, newspapers, and radio as well as some financial support for students.

Arriving at Act I, The Alters is quite engaging. It's a video game, in case you are reaching for your favourite search engine. So far, the sci-fi aspect has that structured feeling of the Eastern European/Soviet branch of the genre, mixed up with the post-Soviet era shift of values and cultural trends -- still kind of bland, but looking at the Western guilty thrill of the dystopian. It's a damn good, well-made game. I hope it holds up in that way until the end.

"Having Lunch Now": Understanding How Users Engage with a Proactive Agent for Daily Planning and Self-Reflection
Adnan Abbas, Caleb Wohn, Arnav Jagtap, Eugenia H Rho, Sang Won Lee
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.24073

"Having Lunch Now": Understanding How Users Engage with a Proactive Agent for Daily Planning and Self-Reflection
Conversational agents have been studied as tools to scaffold planning and self-reflection for productivity and well-being. While prior work has demonstrated positive outcomes, we still lack a clear understanding of what drives these results and how users behave and communicate with agents that act as coaches rather than assistants. Such understanding is critical for designing interactions in which agents foster meaningful behavioral change. We conducted a 14-day longitudinal study with 12 parti…

After #Trump finally crashes and burns (I'm still saying I don't think he makes it to the mid terms, and I think it's more than possible he won't make it to the end of the year) we'll hear a lot of people say, "the system worked!" Today people are already talking about "saving democracy" by fighting back. This will become a big rally cry to vote (for Democrats, specifically), and the complete failure of the system will be held up as the best evidence for even greater investment in it.
I just want to point out that American democracy gave nuclear weapons to a pedophile, who, before being elected was already a well known sexual predator, and who made the campaign promise to commit genocide. He then preceded to commit genocide. And like, I don't care that he's "only" kidnaped and disappeared a few thousand brown people. That's still genocide. Even if you don't kill every member of a targeted group, any attempt to do so is still "committing genocide." Trump said he would commit genocide, then he hired all the "let's go do a race war" guys he could find and *paid* them to go do a race war. And, even now as this deranged monster is crashing out, he is still authorized to use the world's largest nuclear arsenal.
He committed genocide during his first term when his administration separated migrant parents and children, then adopted those children out to other parents. That's technically genocide. The point was to destroy the very people been sending right wing terror squads after.
There was a peaceful hand over of power to a known Russian asset *twice*, and the second time he'd already committed *at least one* act of genocide *and* destroyed cultural heritage sites (oh yeah, he also destroyed indigenous grave sites, in case you forgot, during his first term).
All of this was allowed because the system is set up to protect exactly these types of people, because *exactly* these types of people are *the entire power structure*.
Going back to that system means going back to exactly the system that gave nuclear weapons to a pedophile *TWICE*.
I'm already seeing the attempts to pull people back, the congratulations as we enter the final phase, the belief that getting Trump out will let us all get back to normal. Normal. The normal that lead here in the first place. I can already see the brunch reservations being made. When Trump is over, we will be told we won. We will be told that it's time to go back to sleep.
When they tell you everything worked, everything is better, that we can stop because we won, tell them "fuck you! Never again means never again." Destroy every system that ever gave these people power, that ever protected them from consequences, that ever let them hide what they were doing.
These democrats funded a genocide abroad and laid the groundwork for genocide at home. They protected these predators, for years. The whole power structure is guilty. As these files implicate so many powerful people, they're trying to shove everything back in the box. After all the suffering, after we've finally made it clear that we are the once with the power, only now they're willing to sacrifice Trump to calm us all down.
No, that's a good start but it can't be the end.
Winning can't be enough to quench that rage. Keep it burning. When this is over, let victory fan that anger until every institution that made this possible lies in ashes. Burn it all down and salt the earth. Taking down Trump is a great start, but it's not time to give up until this isn't possible again.
#USPol

The state of checks and balances in the country is among the more ominous indicators of the health of America’s democracy:
in the executive branch is a president who is keen on exercising every lever of power that he has
– as well as some he does not
– to enrich himself and his allies
and to suppress dissent and political opposition.
The legislature is dominated by a regime-friendly political party
that is too happy to roll over and accede to the preside…

@… thinks a written constitution would somehow impede a #Fascist takeover of the United Kingdom. I admire his optimism: look how well it's working in the United States.
I mean, a written constitution …

There were actually a lot of good recommendations from that Committee report, the one on PR was just the final one! Here's a few more.. including some that local #Fediverse proponents could dig into! @… was on the Committee.
—>FEDI ADVANTAGE<— “The Committee heard about a number of issues related to
the electoral information environment. Members recommend
that the provincial government collaborate with Elections
BC and the federal government to review existing legislative
and regulatory measures related to misinformation,
disinformation, and hate speech during elections, including
**mechanisms to ensure the timely removal of harmful content** (**emphasis added)”
—> FEDI ADVANTAGE<— “To better address challenges associated with social media and emergent technologies such as artificial intelligence, Members recommend establishing a working group to propose amendments to BC’s privacy and election legislation. To better protect all users, the Committee recommends requiring digital platforms to act with a duty of care and establish clear safety-related requirements such as data privacy, platform design, and content policy. The Committee also heard about concerns regarding foreign interference, and recommends that these be considered by the Electoral Integrity Working Group.”
—The Committee heard about the critical importance of
civic education to ensure the public’s understanding of
democratic institutions, processes, and participation. The
Committee recommends strengthening civic education
in the K-12 school system with input from experts and a
greater emphasis on applied learning.
— the Committee suggests enhancing data collection by requiring proactive enumeration on an annual basis and ensuring that registered parties and candidates can access poll-by-poll results. Elections BC should review and improve
voter registration practices and communication, as well as
access to and public awareness of voting opportunities. With respect to expanding voter eligibility, the Committee supports further examination of extending voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds as well as permanent residents in BC.
— Committee Members recommend modernizing the candidate nominator verification process, requiring Elections BC to collect and share voters’ contact information with registered political parties and candidates, and strengthening measures related to access to multi-unit buildings for candidates and their campaigns.
Full report to the Legislature: #BCPoli #CanPoli #CdnPoli #ElectoralReform #Democracy #ProportionalRepresentation #Polarization

Now even I think Mike Johnson is going to hell. That lackey is the biggest performative Christian ever caught on camera. He is so deep into Trump's shit, he couldn't even act disgusted when they asked him what he thinks of Trump's latest AI masterpiece. Oh the affected amusement, oh the insincere delight in his eyes when he described what a social media genius is his dear leader. He might as well start crawling in front of the reporters and chew on Trump's diaper with a stupi…