Tootfinder

Sources: several tech companies, including OpenAI, are encouraging the DOD behind the scenes to back away from designating Anthropic a "supply chain risk" (Mike Isaac/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.…

Silicon Valley Musters Behind-the-Scenes Support for Anthropic
Tech companies have been reluctant to directly confront Trump administration officials over their contract feud with the A.I. start-up.

Finally, Volkswagen is launching a V2G tariff in Germany. It is now scheduled for launch in Q4 2026.
Although Volkswagen was the first German car manufacturer to release bidirectional charging functionality in their vehicles, they are now behind BMW, Mercedes and Ford (whose EVs use VW technology) in terms of announcing an actual charger and tariff bundle.

Sacred US 😇
神聖的我們 😇
📷 Pentax MX
🎞️ Lucky SHD 400
If you like my work, buy me a coffee or a roll of film from PayPal #filmphotography

Stolen to add #AltText. https://mstdn.social/@GeriAQuin/116400031496819346

Urban Demons VII 👻
城市鬼魂 VII 👻
📷 Zeiss IKON Super Ikonta 533/16
🎞️ Ilford HP5 400 Plus, expired 1993
If you like my work, buy me a coffee from PayPal https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/ydcdingsite

Local Computation Algorithms for (Minimum) Spanning Trees on Expander Graphs
Pan Peng, Yuyang Wang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.07394 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.07394 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.07394
arXiv:2602.07394v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We study \emph{local computation algorithms (LCAs)} for constructing spanning trees. In this setting, the goal is to locally determine, for each edge $ e \in E $, whether it belongs to a spanning tree $ T $ of the input graph $ G $, where $ T $ is defined implicitly by $ G $ and the randomness of the algorithm. It is known that LCAs for spanning trees do not exist in general graphs, even for simple graph families. We identify a natural and well-studied class of graphs -- \emph{expander graphs} -- that do admit \emph{sublinear-time} LCAs for spanning trees. This is perhaps surprising, as previous work on expanders only succeeded in designing LCAs for \emph{sparse spanning subgraphs}, rather than full spanning trees. We design an LCA with probe complexity $ O\left(\sqrt{n}\left(\frac{\log^2 n}{\phi^2} d\right)\right)$ for graphs with conductance at least $ \phi $ and maximum degree at most $ d $ (not necessarily constant), which is nearly optimal when $\phi$ and $d$ are constants, since $\Omega(\sqrt{n})$ probes are necessary even for expanders. Next, we show that for the natural class of \emph{\ER graphs} $ G(n, p) $ with $ np = n^{\delta} $ for any constant $ \delta > 0 $ (which are expanders with high probability), the $ \sqrt{n} $ lower bound can be bypassed. Specifically, we give an \emph{average-case} LCA for such graphs with probe complexity $ \tilde{O}(\sqrt{n^{1 - \delta}})$.
Finally, we extend our techniques to design LCAs for the \emph{minimum spanning tree (MST)} problem on weighted expander graphs. Specifically, given a $d$-regular unweighted graph $\bar{G}$ with sufficiently strong expansion, we consider the weighted graph $G$ obtained by assigning to each edge an independent and uniform random weight from $\{1,\ldots,W\}$, where $W = O(d)$. We show that there exists an LCA that is consistent with an exact MST of $G$, with probe complexity $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{n}d^2)$.
toXiv_bot_toot

Last minute decision to go to philharmonic last night for Shostakovich. Was delighted with Miguel del Águila’s “Concierto en Tango” for cello (commissioned by BPO in 2014).
History: https://interlude.hk/the-less-classical-cello-concerto-miguel-de…

Urban Demons IV 👻
城市鬼魂 IV 👻
📷 Zeiss IKON Super Ikonta 533/16
🎞️ Ilford HP5 400 Plus, expired 1993
If you like my work, buy me a coffee from PayPal https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/ydcdingsite

A study of ~1,500 US workers finds AI use can reduce burnout but also cause "AI brain fry", a mental fatigue from using AI tools beyond one's cognitive capacity (Harvard Business Review)
https://hbr.org/2026/03/when-using-ai-leads-to-brain-fry

When Using AI Leads to “Brain Fry”
As firms increasingly incentivize employees to build and oversee complex teams of agents—for example, by measuring and rewarding token consumption as a proxy for performance—people are finding themselves pushed to their cognitive limits. Participants in a recent study described a “buzzing” feeling or a mental fog with difficulty focusing, slower decision-making, and headaches. The authors call this phenomenon “AI brain fry,” defined as mental fatigue from excessive use or oversight…

Urban Demons III 👻
城市鬼魂 III 👻
📷 Nikon F4E
🎞️ Rollei RPX 400
If you like my work, buy me a coffee from PayPal #filmphotography