Tootfinder

Close call: Russian military nearly fires on Aeroflot Boeing 737 after mistaking it for a drone: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/11/close-call-russian-military-nearly.html

Sources close to DC mayor and police say, Trump will deploy National Guard on Monday (WUSA)
https://www.wusa9.com/video/news/national/sources-close-to-dc-mayor-and-police-say-trump-will-deploy-national-guard-on-monday/65-20c7f856-abdf-4e7f-907b-2cccbaf2568b
http://www.memeorandum.com/250810/p63#a250810p63

If I close my eyes and move real slow, no one can see me :neocat_thief:

Numbers with three close factorizations and central lattice points on hyperbolas
Tsz Ho Chan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07094 https://

Numbers with three close factorizations and central lattice points on hyperbolas
In this paper, we continue the study of three close factorizations of an integer and correct a mistake of a previous result. This turns out to be related to lattice points close to the center point $(\sqrt{N}, \sqrt{N})$ of the hyperbola $x y = N$. We establish optimal lower bounds for $L^1$-distance between these lattice points and the center. We also give some good examples based on polynomials and Pell equations more systematically.

Hmmm. Does this PicoBlade connector (J2) look too close to the PMOD to its left?
It only needs to get connected once during assembly, this won't be frequently actuated, so it's OK if it's a bit annoying as long as I don't like physically collide.
(The PMOD is just-in-case GPIO expansion and I have no plans to use it as of now)

Sources: Linda Yaccarino told close contacts that the return of some advertisers and X's merger with xAI, which reduced her role, made it a good time to depart (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/…

TNO colours provide new evidence for a past close flyby of another star to the Solar System
Susanne Pfalzner, Frank W. Wagner, Paul Gibbon
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06693

TNO colours provide new evidence for a past close flyby of another star to the Solar System
Thousands of small bodies, known as trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), orbit the Sun beyond Neptune. TNOs are remnants of the planets' formation from a disc of gas and dust, so it is puzzling that they move mostly on eccentric orbits inclined to the planetary plane and show a complex red-to-grey colour distribution. A close stellar flyby can account for the TNOs' dynamics, but it is unclear if this can also explain the correlation between their colours and orbital characteristics. Assuming an init…

'If someone doesn't like it, we'll close it' — Poland's Duda calls out Ukraine, allies over attitudes toward key military aid hub: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/10/if-someone-doesnt-like-it.html

I grew up on a peanut farm near Tolga in FNQ. Sad to see the remnants of the industry declining. # peanuts
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-09/bega-to-close-peanut-processing-plants-kingaroy-tolga/105512476

150 jobs in doubt as Bega winds down peanut processing plants in Queensland
Bega Group says Australia's peanut industry faces increased competition from imports and declining production.

residence_hall: ANU Residence Hall network
A network of friendships among students living in a residence hall at Australian National University (date unknown). Edge direction indicates that resident i named resident j as a friend, and edge weight indicates the level of friendship: 5 (best friend), 4 (close friend), 3 (friend), 2, 1.
This network has 217 nodes and 2672 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Weighted

Bitter Willow & Mountain Pine by the lakeside.
(The beautiful blue backgrounds are the colors of the water)
#NaturePhotography #Photography #BloomScrolling

Sources: Linda Yaccarino told close contacts that the return of some advertisers and X's merger with xAI, which reduced her role, made it a good time to depart (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/linda-y

It's the Argentine independence day, and we used the day for another small hike close to home, to one of the waterfalls.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law school has
💥paused a full-tuition scholarship program named for its first Black graduate
❌ and plans to close its office of “equal opportunity and engagement” this month.
The changes come as m Donald Trump’s administration pushes for an end to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at universities nationwide.
⭐️The White House has threatened to pull federal funding from those that do not comply.
Penn Carey Law in 2021 …

Penn’s law school pauses scholarship honoring its first Black female graduate, plans to close equal opportunity office
Penn’s law school pauses scholarship honoring its first Black female graduate, plans to close equal opportunity office. Alumni expressed concern.

Not one iota of surprise on my part of course, but the president of the US complimenting another president on being able to speak their own country's language is a special moment.

I was born in Liberia, so this of course hits close to home.

https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cdxl4gknwgno

i recently got a lego minillennium falcon which is sitting next to my lego saturn v
and it occured to me that they are very close to the same scale
the saturn v is about 110m high and the model is 100cm high
the millennium falcon is about 35m long and the model is about 25cm long
not far off!

Just a taste of "Ritual Escape" - #Listen and #Watch -
or play the full playlist 👉🏼

Gophers... why do you put your args in float registers?
I feel like that's a Plan 9 thing inherited, much like the SB pseudo register.
I've spent the last couple of days down there in the Go runtime.
And I am quite close to finishing a patch. 🥳✨👩‍💻
On that note, Go documents quite a lot of stuff very nicely.
Have a look at the internal ABI specification:

- The Go Programming Language

Being #ActuallyAutistic, I love Fennec foxes because they are so undeniably cute.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennec_fox

Peachick staying close to Mom while foraging for food. LA Arboretum, Arcadia, California, USA. September, 2025. #laarboretum #bird #nirds

Damn these old diodes are pretty; inherited from my dad.
The top one is a Mullard OA10 which is apparently mid 60's.
The very very pretty bottom one I think is a GEC GEX00; a wire contact germanium - look close! It's early 50's I believe.
#retrocomputing

🍎 Timely Cornelliana -- looking out from Minns Garden here's the big crane working on the Peter Menig Fieldhouse, the main frame of which appears to be complete
#cornell #photo #photography

Propagation of Wave Packets Close to Conical Interscetions
Marianne Curely (LAREMA)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06420 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.06420

Propagation of Wave Packets Close to Conical Interscetions
In this paper, we study the propagation of wave packets close to conical intersections with respect to a system of two Schr{ö}dinger equations presenting a codimension 2 crossing. We focus on the dynamics that occur when the wave packets pass through an area close to the crossing, and our main results provide an explicit formula for the outgoing wave packet in terms of the incoming one, with a complete description of its phase and of the classical trajectories it follows, including a drift.

The incredibly noisy magpie lark who comes within inches of me and shrieks with impatience while I put seeds and scraps in the birds feeder each morning has reached a new level of comfort in our encounters and with his endeavours to beat out the other species of birds to the food.
When he saw me this morning, he ran straight towards me and then tagged me as I walked across to the feeder.
At least this morning's excitement didn't come close to bursting my eardrums.
A …

"""
Once the distinctions had been made, and the first punishments applied, the venereal were accepted into the hospital. And they were crammed inside. In 1781, 138 men occupied 60 beds in the Saint-Eustache quarter of Bicêtre, and in the Miséricorde in the Salpêtrière there were 125 beds for 224 women. Patients in the terminal stages of the disease were simply left to die. 'Grand Remedies' were applied to the others: never more, and rarely less than six weeks of care, starting of course with blood-letting and purging, then a week of baths for two hours per day, then purging again, followed by a full and complete confession to bring this first part of the treatment to a close. Rubbing with mercury could then begin, with all its efficacy. Each course of treatment lasted one month, and was followed by two more purges and one final bleeding to chase out the remaining morbific humours. Fifteen days of convalescence were then granted. After he had definitively made his peace with God, the patient was declared cured and sent away.
This 'therapeutic' demonstrates a rich tapestry of fantasy, and above all a profound complicity between medicine and morality, which give their full meaning to these purification practices. For the classical age, venereal disease was less a sickness than an impurity to which physical symptoms are correlated. Accordingly, medical perception is ruled by ethical perception, and on occasion even effaced by it. The body must be treated to remove the contagion, but the flesh must be punished, for it is the flesh that attaches us to sin. Mere corporal punishment was not enough: the flesh was to be pummelled and bruised, and leaving painful traces was not to be feared, as good health, all too frequently, transformed the human body into another opportunity for sinful conduct. The sickness was to be treated, but the good health that could lead to temptation was to be destroyed.
"""
(Michel Foucault, History of Madness)

Hoping for a #flare: During the final days of our 2 week observation campaign with #GREGORSolarTelescope on Tenerife, scientists work remote from the “GREGOR Operations Center” at #MPSGoettingen

„Drivers caught passing cyclists too closely are being offered education instead of prosecution by West Yorkshire Police.“
Wenn Verkehrssicherheit nicht mit dem Vorwand „Einschränkung der Freiheit“ ausgesetzt wird.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy85ylk27zgo

'Close pass' drivers offered education by police
Drivers caught passing too close to cyclists are offered education rather than prosecution.

Speculative politics
As an anarchist (okay, maybe not in practice), I'm tired of hearing why we have to suffer X and Y indignity to "preserve the rule of law" or "maintain Democratic norms." So here's an example of what representative democracy (a form of government that I believe is inherently flawed) could look like if its proponents had even an ounce of imagination, and/or weren't actively trying to rig it to favor a rich donor class:
1. Unicameral legislature, where representatives pass laws directly. Each state elects 3 statewide representatives: the three most-popular candidates in a statewide race where each person votes for one candidate (ranked preference voting would be even better but might not be necessary, and is not a solution by itself). Instead of each representative getting one vote in the chamber, they get N votes, where N is the number of people who voted for them. This means that in a close race, instead of the winner getting all the power, the power is split. Having 3 representatives trades off between leisure size and ensuring that two parties can't dominate together.
2. Any individual citizen can contact their local election office to switch or withdraw their vote at any time (maybe with a 3-day delay or something). Voting power of representatives can thus shift even without an election. They are limited to choosing one of the three elected representatives, or "none of the above." If the "none of the above" fraction exceeds 20% of eligible voters, a new election is triggered for that state. If turnout is less than 80%, a second election happens immediately, with results being final even at lower turnout until 6 months later (some better mechanism for turnout management might be needed).
3. All elections allow mail-in ballots, and in-person voting happens Sunday-Tuesday with the Monday being a mandatory holiday. (Yes, election integrity is not better in this system and that's a big weakness.)
4. Separate nationwide elections elect three positions for head-of-state: one with diplomatic/administrative powers, another with military powers, and a third with veto power. For each position, the top three candidates serve together, with only the first-place winner having actual power until vote switches or withdrawals change who that is. Once one of these heads loses their first-place status, they cannot get it again until another election, even if voters switch preferences back (to avoid dithering). An election for one of these positions is triggered when 20% have withdrawn their votes, or if all three people initially elected have been disqualified by losing their lead in the vote count.
5. Laws that involve spending money are packaged with specific taxes to pay for them, and may only be paid for by those specific revenues. Each tax may be opted into or out of by each taxpayer; where possible opting out of the tax also opts you out of the service. (I'm well aware of a lot of the drawbacks of this, but also feel like they'd not necessarily be worse than the drawbacks of our current system.) A small mandatory tax would cover election expenses.
6. I'm running out of attention, but similar multi-winner elections could elect panels of judges from which a subset is chosen randomly to preside in each case.
Now I'll point out once again that this system, in not directly confronting capitalism, racism, patriarchy, etc., is probably doomed to the same failures as our current system. But if you profess to want a "representative democracy" as opposed to something more libratory, I hope you'll at least advocate for something like this that actually includes meaningful representation as opposed to the current US system that's engineered to quash it.
Key questions: "Why should we have winner-take-all elections when winners-take-proportionately-to-votes is right there?" and "Why should elected officials get to ignore their constituents' approval except during elections, when vote-withdrawal or -switching is possible?"
2/2
#Democracy

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #Early
The Cure:
🎵 Close to Me
#TheCure
https://flashatkins.bandcamp.com/track/the-cure-close-to-me-edit-flash-atkins-edit
https://open.spotify.com/track/4xiyq1iRdsxuU1BPUJ490Z

Series A, Episode 03 - Cygnus Alpha
GAN: As long as the door doesn't break.
VILA: Did you see? They killed Arco.
BLAKE: I don't understand. There's no response from the ship.
VILA: Perhaps these bracelets don't work any more.
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/103/543

Blakes7Bot | Search
Companion site to the Blakes7Bot Twitter, Mastodon, and Bluesky accounts. Automated lines of Blakes 7 dialog. Includes a script search facility.

Urban Plantations ? 🟩
都市植被？🟩
📷 Pentax MX
🎞️Ilford FP4 Plus, expired 1994
buy me ☕️ ?/请我喝杯☕️？
#filmphotography

Bending Spoons agrees to acquire video platform Vimeo in an all-cash deal valued at ~$1.38B, set to close in Q4; Vimeo will be delisted from exchanges (Lynn Doan/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-10/bending…

Bending Spoons to Buy Vimeo in $1.38 Billion All-Cash Deal
Bending Spoons, one of Europe’s largest mobile app developers, has agreed to buy the video platform Vimeo in an all-cash deal valued at about $1.38 billion.

As temperatures soar, it’s time to close the green space gap https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/aug/07/temperatures-green-space-gap-urban-extreme-heat

Measuring AI Alignment with Human Flourishing
Elizabeth Hilliard, Akshaya Jagadeesh, Alex Cook, Steele Billings, Nicholas Skytland, Alicia Llewellyn, Jackson Paull, Nathan Paull, Nolan Kurylo, Keatra Nesbitt, Robert Gruenewald, Anthony Jantzi, Omar Chavez
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07787…

Measuring AI Alignment with Human Flourishing
This paper introduces the Flourishing AI Benchmark (FAI Benchmark), a novel evaluation framework that assesses AI alignment with human flourishing across seven dimensions: Character and Virtue, Close Social Relationships, Happiness and Life Satisfaction, Meaning and Purpose, Mental and Physical Health, Financial and Material Stability, and Faith and Spirituality. Unlike traditional benchmarks that focus on technical capabilities or harm prevention, the FAI Benchmark measures AI performance on h…

So the main "arguments" when I say "AI doesn't work" and "it will collapse" are:
1. "You don't know what you're talking about"
2. "It's inevitable and here to stay, might as well go with the program"
3. "But it's almost there! Just last week they released [name of model] that is so close!"
Literally no one ever replies with any concrete examples with how it reliably, ethically and non-wastefully works for them to increase their productivity and improve their and other people's lives in any meaningful way.
It's always ad hominems, hypotheticals or deeply flawed "it sort of works for this".

Spagnola: Maybe close call raises expectations https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/spagnola-maybe-close-call-raises-expectations

So you've been following the Skydance/Paramount merger. Did you know about administration's claim they were getting $20m in PSAs? Another not widely publicized story: Trump did this successfully with the Qatari jet. The United States was talking to Qatar about leasing or buying, but then Trump wished aloud that maybe it could be a gift . . . and then it was a gift. We're getting dangerously close to "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" territory.
Been d…

My favourite hammock for on our balcony broke and landed me on my ass, last month. Just got around to fixing it with parts of a new lashing strap that's rated for much more weight than me. The hammock itself is still in good shape, so this should last me some more years, now.
(I got the hammock from Kickstarter years ago, in a time when I was still fascinated by that website...

VisualTrap: A Stealthy Backdoor Attack on GUI Agents via Visual Grounding Manipulation
Ziang Ye, Yang Zhang, Wentao Shi, Xiaoyu You, Fuli Feng, Tat-Seng Chua
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06899

VisualTrap: A Stealthy Backdoor Attack on GUI Agents via Visual Grounding Manipulation
Graphical User Interface (GUI) agents powered by Large Vision-Language Models (LVLMs) have emerged as a revolutionary approach to automating human-machine interactions, capable of autonomously operating personal devices (e.g., mobile phones) or applications within the device to perform complex real-world tasks in a human-like manner. However, their close integration with personal devices raises significant security concerns, with many threats, including backdoor attacks, remaining largely unexp…

Police Who Have 'Bad Breakfast' May Not Arrest Reporters Who Stand Too Close, Appeals Court Rules https://thedissenter.org/police-who-have-bad-breakfast-may-not-arrest-reporters-who-stand-too-close-appeals-court-rules…

5 Takeaways: Why Joe Alt Was 'Close' to Perfect in Season-Opening Win Over Chiefs https://www.chargers.com/news/joe-alt-omarion-hampton-week-2-raiders-fantasy

Robust Lindbladian Estimation for Quantum Dynamics
Yinchen Liu, James R. Seddon, Tamara Kohler, Emilio Onorati, Toby S. Cubitt
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07912

Robust Lindbladian Estimation for Quantum Dynamics
We revisit the problem of fitting Lindbladian models to the outputs of quantum process tomography. A sequence of prior theoretical works approached the problem by considering whether there exists a Lindbladian generator close to a matrix logarithm of the tomographically estimated transfer matrix. This technique must take into account the non-uniqueness of the matrix logarithm, so that in general multiple branches of the logarithm must be checked. In contrast, all practical demonstrations of Lin…

The best microcontroller thing I did last year was build this little kit that fits in a 3D printed rugged box and covers close to 90% of things I need to deal with for the products I sell & support.
I can easily throw it in my bag when I'm on the road, otherwise it sits on my desk where I can quickly grab it to test something.
#maker

Did you know that when people subscribe to a newsletter using iCloud's Hide My Email, and later they close that email address, those addresses become spam traps? So if you send out newsletters infrequently (because you're trying to avoid spamming your subscribers), the only way to find out those email addresses are now spam traps is to send out your newsletter and get your server blacklisted for spamming. (At which point all the rest of your email starts bouncing too.)
Well, no…

PhyBlock: A Progressive Benchmark for Physical Understanding and Planning via 3D Block Assembly
Liang Ma, Jiajun Wen, Min Lin, Rongtao Xu, Xiwen Liang, Bingqian Lin, Jun Ma, Yongxin Wang, Ziming Wei, Haokun Lin, Mingfei Han, Meng Cao, Bokui Chen, Ivan Laptev, Xiaodan Liang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08708

PhyBlock: A Progressive Benchmark for Physical Understanding and Planning via 3D Block Assembly
While vision-language models (VLMs) have demonstrated promising capabilities in reasoning and planning for embodied agents, their ability to comprehend physical phenomena, particularly within structured 3D environments, remains severely limited. To close this gap, we introduce PhyBlock, a progressive benchmark designed to assess VLMs on physical understanding and planning through robotic 3D block assembly tasks. PhyBlock integrates a novel four-level cognitive hierarchy assembly task alongside …

Bending Spoons agrees to acquire video platform Vimeo in an all-cash deal valued at ~$1.38B, set to close in Q4; Vimeo will be delisted from exchanges (Lynn Doan/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-10/bending…

As the White House flailingly denies the authenticity of Donald Trump’s lewd 2003 birthday note to his then-friend Jeffrey Epstein,
Propaganda Minister Karoline Leavitt is, apparently, just creating evidence out of whole cloth.
Since the letter was released Monday
—as a result of the House Oversight Committee subpoenaing Epstein’s estate
—Leavitt and other Trump spokespeople have sought to deny its veracity by arguing that the signature at its close doesn’t match Trump’s…

Leavitt Cites Funniest “Handwriting Experts” on Trump Signature
The White House press secretary will say just about anything to dismiss the Jeffrey Epstein story.

Single and Multi-Frequency Path Loss Models for Indoor Hotspot Scenario Based on Measurements Conducted at 6.75, 16.95, 28, 73 and 142 GHz
Hitesh Poddar, Akhileswar Chowdary
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07331

Single and Multi-Frequency Path Loss Models for Indoor Hotspot Scenario Based on Measurements Conducted at 6.75, 16.95, 28, 73 and 142 GHz
This paper presents a comprehensive derivation of single and multi-frequency large-scale path loss model parameters for the close-in (CI) free space reference distance, CI free space reference distance with cross-polarization (CIX), floating-intercept (FI), CI free space reference distance with frequency-dependent path loss exponent (CIF), CI free space reference distance with frequency-dependent path loss exponent and cross-polarization (CIFX), alpha-beta-gamma (ABG), and alpha-beta-gamma with…

Hierarchical Lexical Graph for Enhanced Multi-Hop Retrieval
Abdellah Ghassel, Ian Robinson, Gabriel Tanase, Hal Cooper, Bryan Thompson, Zhen Han, Vassilis N. Ioannidis, Soji Adeshina, Huzefa Rangwala
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08074

Hierarchical Lexical Graph for Enhanced Multi-Hop Retrieval
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) grounds large language models in external evidence, yet it still falters when answers must be pieced together across semantically distant documents. We close this gap with the Hierarchical Lexical Graph (HLG), a three-tier index that (i) traces every atomic proposition to its source, (ii) clusters propositions into latent topics, and (iii) links entities and relations to expose cross-document paths. On top of HLG we build two complementary, plug-and-play ret…

AstroSat/UVIT Study of NGC 663: first detection of Be sdOB systems in a young star cluster
Sneha Nedhath, Sharmila Rani, Annapurni Subramaniam, Elena Pancino
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08126

AstroSat/UVIT Study of NGC 663: first detection of Be+sdOB systems in a young star cluster
Context. Be stars are rapidly rotating stars surrounded by a disc; however, the origin of these remains unclear. Mass and angular momentum transfer in close binaries account for the rapid rotation of a major fraction of Be stars, supported by the previous detection of low-mass stripped companions to them. The stripped companions can be helium burning subdwarf OB-type stars (sdOBs), and white dwarfs (WDs). Aims. The main objective of this study is to characterise the identified Be stars in the y…

Here's how (the first partiality of) yesterday's Total #LunarEclipse looked from the #ISS: #refraction.

Coming soon, in a #Russia (way too) close to you: nothing on the shelves.
https://mastodon.social/@hanse_mina/114820548125639123

I replaced my ancient phone with a Fairphone 5 and decided to do the ultimate comparison test: how accurate is the GPS when I'm riding my bike? Answer: on a map the tracks are v close but the F5 is consistently better, fewer wobbles. Errors in location mean errors in distance mean errors in speed: this image shows the new speed readings are much more steady. (NB: all speeds above 25 km/h are downhill.)

I have a similar relationship to birds. Love seeing them. Until the cherry tree starts to get close to ripe cherries...
https://infosec.exchange/@briankrebs/114993501420852471
briankrebs@infosec.exchange - Chipmunks are cute and all...until they start leaving half your tomatoes half-eaten. There is a new enemy in the garden.

A judge rejects Anthropic's $1.5B copyright settlement over concerns that class lawyers are striking a deal behind the scenes that will be forced on authors (Annelise Levy/Bloomberg Law)
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/anthropic-ju…

Anthropic Judge Rejects $1.5 Billion AI Copyright Settlement (1)
The federal judge overseeing Anthropic PBC’s proposed $1.5 billion copyright settlement is concerned class lawyers are striking a deal behind the scenes that will be forced “down the throat of authors.”

Mark Davis says Tom Brady was 'close' to signing with Raiders in 2020, but owner was outvoted by coach and GM

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/m…

Micro-Tidal Disruption Events in Young Star Clusters
Sara Rastello, Giuliano Iorio, Mark Gieles, Long Wang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07067 https://arxiv.o…

Micro-Tidal Disruption Events in Young Star Clusters
Dense young star clusters (YSCs) are ideal environments for dynamical interactions between stars and stellar mass black holes (BHs). In such dense environments, stars can undergo close encounters with BHs and fall within their tidal radius, resulting in micro-tidal disruption events (micro-TDEs), transient phenomena with potential multi-messenger signatures. We performed a suite of direct N-body simulations using the PETAR code, to which we implemented new prescriptions for modeling micro-TDEs.…

Constraint correlation functions of the Ising model in the scaling limit
Ivan Balog, Adam Ran\c{c}on
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08557 https://arxiv.org/pdf…

Constraint correlation functions of the Ising model in the scaling limit
We study the correlation function of the one-dimensional Ising model at fixed magnetization. Focusing on the scaling limit close to the zero-temperature fixed point, we show that this correlation function, in momentum space, exhibits surprising oscillations as a function of the magnetization. We show that these oscillations have a period inversely proportional to the momentum and give an interpretation in terms of domain walls. This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of the correlation func…

Quantum cosmological background superposition and perturbation predictions
Kratika Mazde, Lisa Mickel, Patrick Peter
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.06231 https://

Quantum cosmological background superposition and perturbation predictions
Predictions from early universe cosmology typically concern primordial perturbations generated during epochs where effects arising from the quantum nature of gravity may be important; quantum vacuum fluctuations being stretched to cosmological scales during a phase of inflation. Quantizing the background is then done by assuming a single close-to-classical state over which perturbations grow, as well as a Born-Oppenheimer factorization throughout the relevant phase. We present a scenario in whi…

Efficient Uncertainty Propagation with Guarantees in Wasserstein Distance
Eduardo Figueiredo, Steven Adams, Peyman Mohajerin Esfahani, Luca Laurenti
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08689

Efficient Uncertainty Propagation with Guarantees in Wasserstein Distance
In this paper, we consider the problem of propagating an uncertain distribution by a possibly non-linear function and quantifying the resulting uncertainty. We measure the uncertainty using the Wasserstein distance, and for a given input set of distributions close in the Wasserstein distance, we compute a set of distributions centered at a discrete distribution that is guaranteed to contain the pushforward of any distribution in the input set. Our approach is based on approximating a nominal di…

Graph Learning for Cooperative Cell-Free ISAC Systems: From Optimization to Estimation
Peng Jiang, Ming Li, Rang Liu, Qian Liu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06612

Graph Learning for Cooperative Cell-Free ISAC Systems: From Optimization to Estimation
Cell-free integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) systems have emerged as a promising paradigm for sixth-generation (6G) networks, enabling simultaneous high-rate data transmission and high-precision radar sensing through cooperative distributed access points (APs). Fully exploiting these capabilities requires a unified design that bridges system-level optimization with multi-target parameter estimation. This paper proposes an end-to-end graph learning approach to close this gap, modeling t…

LIQUIDating the Gallium Anomaly
Garv Chauhan, Patrick Huber
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07397 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.07397

LIQUIDating the Gallium Anomaly
The gallium anomaly has a global significance of greater than $5σ$. Most viable BSM solutions quickly run into strong tensions with reactor and solar neutrino data. We propose to use indium (${}^{115}\text{In}$) as a target as it offers a low threshold and reasonably high cross section. The neutrino-indium charged current cross section can be calibrated using the well-constrained solar ${}^{7}\text{Be}$ neutrino flux that lies very close in energy to the ${}^{51}\text{Cr}$ neutrino lines. The …

Double Daffodils (2 of 2) -- large bed near the visitor's center for the Cornell Botanic Garden
#photo #photography #flowers

Cactus flower bud, covered in water droplets. Macro, with focus stacking. Huntington Library, San Marino, California, USA. March, 2025. #huntingtonlibrary #desertgarden #cactusflower

The price of copper surged today after the rogue America president said he’s imposing a 50% tax on imports of the metal.
Canada supplies a third of all the copper imported into the States, in a flash, Trump’s Treasury will collect close to $2.5 billion in annual tariffs on Canadian copper – unless the new taxes gut our industry.
Once again, the White House has proven its capricious and wild cowboy unpredictability.
-- garth turner

So: played through 5 Starship songs and 6 Kansas songs today.
Regression in a couple spots as my art brain wrestles with my chart brain, but what has come into focus is what needs really close attention.
The 12 Temptations songs are more straightforward and I can read them if necessary, but the rock stuff needs more muscle memory and commitment to come alive.
Tomorrow I review:
- live endings for the Temps
- Smash Mouth tunes, incl charting them

Pickles on FIRE: The 3D Shape Evolution of Simulated Milky Way-Mass Galaxies
Luke Y. Xia, Courtney Klein, James S. Bullock, Michael Boylan-Kolchin, Vincent Caudillo, Jorge Moreno, Francisco J. Mercado, Robert Feldmann
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08508

Pickles on FIRE: The 3D Shape Evolution of Simulated Milky Way-Mass Galaxies
JWST and HST observations have revealed numerous elongated, pickle-shaped galaxies at high to intermediate redshifts, with masses close to those expected for Milky Way progenitors. Here we use reduced-mass eigentensors to quantify the ellipsoidal shape evolution of thirteen Milky Way-mass galaxies simulated using FIRE-2 physics; all but one form disks at $z=0$. We find that all of our Milky Way progenitors go through phases when they are elongated. They often oscillate between spheroidal and el…

Free stops for self contained RVs are a controversial topic in WA. Some shires have removed stops while others have added facilities. Last night I stopped in the free camp in Norseman which is gaining a good reputation among RVers. About 20 vans there last night.#RoadTrip

MAGA Antitrust Agenda Under Siege by Lobbyists Close to Trump (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/maga-antitrust-agenda-under-siege-by-lobbyists-close-to-trump-18558898
http://www.memeorandum.com/250806/p141#a250806p141

A judge rejects Anthropic's $1.5B copyright settlement over concerns that class lawyers are striking a deal behind the scenes that will be forced on authors (Annelise Levy/Bloomberg Law)
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/anthropic-ju…

Anthropic Judge Rejects $1.5 Billion AI Copyright Settlement (1)
The federal judge overseeing Anthropic PBC’s proposed $1.5 billion copyright settlement is concerned class lawyers are striking a deal behind the scenes that will be forced “down the throat of authors.”

Former Cowboys 1st Round Pick ‘As Close To Being Cut As You Can Be’ https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/dallas-cowboys/mazi-smith-close-being-cut/?adt_ei=[email]

Langtauferer
Today, a year ago, I ventured on a dream trip I'd been researching for a long time, and which ended up being a semi-religious experience, being immersed in (and somewhat overwhelmed by) an actively changing environment, the upheaval and plethora of geological features, structures, unreal colors, layers, textures and the "wounds" exposed by the melting and disappearing glaciers... Countless waterfalls, stunning erosion features, later traversing the glacier ga…

On the Error Exponent Distribution of Code Ensembles over Classical-Quantum Channels
Giuseppe Cocco, Javier Rodr\'iguez Fonollosa
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06868

On the Error Exponent Distribution of Code Ensembles over Classical-Quantum Channels
We show that the probability distribution of the error exponent in i.i.d. code ensembles over classical-quantum (CQ) channels with arbitrary output states accumulates above a threshold that is strictly larger than the CQ random coding exponent (RCE) at low rates, while coinciding with it at rates close to the mutual information of the channel. This result, combined with the work by Dalai [1] and the recent ones by Renes [2] and Li and Yang [3], implies that the ensemble distribution of error ex…

*Sniffs you*

A Language-Driven Framework for Improving Personalized Recommendations: Merging LLMs with Traditional Algorithms
Aaron Goldstein, Ayan Dutta
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07251

A Language-Driven Framework for Improving Personalized Recommendations: Merging LLMs with Traditional Algorithms
Traditional recommendation algorithms are not designed to provide personalized recommendations based on user preferences provided through text, e.g., "I enjoy light-hearted comedies with a lot of humor". Large Language Models (LLMs) have emerged as one of the most promising tools for natural language processing in recent years. This research proposes a novel framework that mimics how a close friend would recommend items based on their knowledge of an individual's tastes. We leverage LLMs to enh…

The JADE code. II. Modeling the coupled orbital and atmospheric evolution of GJ 436 b to constrain its migration and companion
M. Attia, V. Bourrier, E. Bolmont, L. Mignon, J. -B. Delisle, H. Beust, N. C. Hara, C. Mordasini
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07938

The JADE code. II. Modeling the coupled orbital and atmospheric evolution of GJ 436 b to constrain its migration and companion
The observed architecture and modeled evolution of close-in exoplanets provide crucial insights into their formation pathways and survival mechanisms. To investigate these fundamental questions, we employed JADE, a comprehensive numerical code that models the coupled evolution of atmospheres and dynamics over secular timescales, rooted in present-day observations. JADE integrates photoevaporation with migration driven by von Zeipel-Lidov-Kozai (ZLK) cycles from an external perturber, allowing u…

A high fraction of close massive #BinaryStars at low metallicity: https://www.astronomie.nl/upload/files/2025/Sana-Bloem-Obinaries-2025.pdf -> Massive stars in metal-poor environment often have close partner: https://www.astronomie.nl/nieuws/en/massive-star-in-metal-poor-environment-often-have-close-partner-4639

The uncertainty over federal Medicaid funding appears to have claimed its first victim in Nebraska.
Community Hospital in McCook announced Wednesday that it will close Curtis Medical Center in Curtis,
winding down its services over the next several months.
"Unfortunately, the current financial environment,
👉driven by anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid,
has made it impossible for us to continue operating all of our services,
many of which have…

Southwest Nebraska hospital announces plans to close, blames uncertainty over funding
Community Hospital in McCook announced Wednesday that it will close Curtis Medical Center in Curtis, winding down its services over the next several months.

Protest the Weapons Industry Gala night of the year
5:00pm Thursday July 10
National Convention Centre
27 Constitution Ave, Canberra
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/protest-weapons-industry-gala-night-year

Protest the Weapons Industry Gala night of the year
War and genocide are good for business. That’s what the Defence Industry Awards 2025 are celebrating: war, death, destruction —and how best to profit from them. Join us to protest genocide and the war profiteers. And let’s tell the Albanese government to end two-way arms trade with Israel, dump AUKUS, impose full sanctions and close US bases in Australia. The Australian government and defence industries MUST • STOP ARMING ISRAEL • Stop the two-way arms trade with Israel • FULL sanct…

Micah Parsons ranked 3rd best pass rusher by execs, coaches and scouts https://insidethestar.com/micah-parsons-ranked-3rd-best-pass-rusher-by-execs-coaches-and-scouts

residence_hall: ANU Residence Hall network
A network of friendships among students living in a residence hall at Australian National University (date unknown). Edge direction indicates that resident i named resident j as a friend, and edge weight indicates the level of friendship: 5 (best friend), 4 (close friend), 3 (friend), 2, 1.
This network has 217 nodes and 2672 edges.
Tags: Social, Offline, Weighted

A Pristine Star-Forming Complex at z=4.19
E. Vanzella, M. Messa, A. Zanella, A. Bolamperti, M. Castellano, F. Loiacono, P. Bergamini, G. Roberts-Borsani, A. Adamo, A. Fontana, T. Treu, F. Calura, C. Grillo, M. Lombardi, P. Rosati, R. Gilli, M. Meneghetti
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.07073

A Pristine Star-Forming Complex at z=4.19
We report the discovery of a faint (M_1700 ~ -12.2), oxygen-deficient strongly-lensed ionizing source -- dubbed LAP2 (Lensed And Pristine 2) -- at a spectroscopic redshift of z=4.19. LAP2 appears to be isolated and lies very close to the caustic produced by the lensing galaxy cluster Abell 2744. It was observed with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) NIRSpec MSA in prism mode as part of the UNCOVER program. The NIRSpec spectrum reveals prominent Lya emission (7.1 sigma), clear Ha emission (6…

GlobalFoundries agrees to acquire MIPS, a developer of RISC-V-based solutions and IP, with the deal expected to close in H2 2025 (Anton Shilov/Tom's Hardware)
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components…

GlobalFoundries to make RISC-V CPUs — fab acquires MIPS, will integrate RISC-V and AI IP into its portfolio
For an unknown sum.

Cowboys offensive line receives high praise from respected OL guru https://www.si.com/nfl/cowboys/news/dallas-cowboys-offensive-line-receives-high-praise-respected-guru

A 15 second exposure of my field around sunset with the camera resting on a bucket trying to capture the fireflies. I'm going to try again when its darker; I guess it counts as #sliceoflife
#photo #photography

HET/HPF observations of Helium in warm, hot, and ultra-hot Jupiters
Jaume Orell-Miquel, Kyra Sampson, Caroline V. Morley, William D. Cochran, Girish M. Duvvuri, Daniel M. Krolikowski, Suvrath Mahadevan, Quang H. Tran
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06847

HET/HPF observations of Helium in warm, hot, and ultra-hot Jupiters
The near-infrared helium triplet line is a powerful tool for studying atmospheric escape processes of close-in exoplanets, especially irradiated gas giants. Line profile fitting provides direct insight into the mechanisms driving atmospheric mass loss of close-in, Jupiter-sized planets. We present high-resolution transmission spectroscopy results for the helium triplet line of sixteen gas giants ($R_{\rm p} > 0.5 R_{\rm Jup}$). These observations are part of an extensive helium survey conducted…

Western Honeybee on yellow flowers. Descanso Gardens, La Canada Flintridge, California, USA. June, 2024. #descansogardens #bee #honeybee

Southwest Nebraska medical center announces plans to close, blames uncertainty over funding (Matt Olberding/Nebraska Public Media)
https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/news/news-articles/southwest-nebraska-hospital-announces-plans-to-close-blames-uncertainty-over-funding/
http://www.memeorandum.com/250703/p145#a250703p145

Cowboys Predicted To Make Peculiar Decision On Final 53 Man Roster https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/dallas-cowboys/predicted-five-running-backs-final-roster/?adt_ei=[email]

About 400 runners off the start at Ithaca High school this Sunday for the Ithaca 5 & 10 -- a rare photo I didn't color grade because I'm paying close attention to how the trees have gotten darker in the past two weeks because they're already starting to turn
#photo #photography

Radius valley scaling among low mass stars with TESS
Harshitha M. Parashivamurthy, Gijs D. Mulders
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07181 https://

Radius valley scaling among low mass stars with TESS
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has been highly successful in detecting planets in close orbits around low-mass stars, particularly M dwarfs. This presents a valuable opportunity to conduct detailed population studies to understand how these planets depend on the properties of their host stars. The previously observed radius valley in Sun-like stars has not been unambiguously detected among M dwarfs, and how its properties varies when compared with more massive stars remains un…

Dan Osborn,
the independent candidate who came surprisingly close to defeating Republican senator Deb Fischer in Nebraska last year,
announced on Tuesday he will run for the state’s other Senate seat in 2026 against GOP senator Pete Ricketts.
The industrial mechanic and former Kellogg’s strike leader lost to Fischer by less than seven points in 2024
– a remarkable result in deep-red Nebraska.
Osborn received 66,000 more votes than Kamala Harris, who lost the sta…

Dan Osborn (@osbornforne) on X
🚨MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT🚨 Ok. You've all convinced me. I'm in. I'm running for Senate against billionaire Pete Ricketts In Nebraska. This race represents the foundational battle taking place in America right now: The Billionaire Class vs. The Working Class Who's with me?

Databricks is set to close $1B in funding at a $100B valuation and is on track to generate $4B in revenue in its fiscal year ending January 2026, up 50% YoY (Angel Au-Yeung/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/databr…

Paramount says it expects its merger with Skydance to close on August 7; the new company will trade on Nasdaq as PSKY (Todd Spangler/Variety)
https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/paramount-skydance-deal-close-date-1236470440/

When Will the Paramount-Skydance Merger Deal Close? Date Is Set
Paramount Global expects the merger with Skydance -- forming Paramount Skydance Corp. -- to close Aug. 7.

From promise to pressure: Joe Milton struggles in Cowboys’ preseason opener https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/dallas-cowboys/news/promise-pressure-joe-milton-struggles-cowboys-preseason-opener/51691fd…

TOI-1259Ab: A Warm Jupiter Orbiting a K-dwarf White-Dwarf Binary is on a Well-aligned Orbit
Hugo Veldhuis, Juan I. Espinoza-Retamal, Gudmundur Stefansson, Alexander P. Stephan, David V. Martin, David Bruijne, Suvrath Mahadevan, Joshua N. Winn, Cullen H. Blake, Fei Dai, Rachel B. Fernandes, Evan Fitzmaurice, Eric B. Ford, Mark R. Giovinazzi, Arvind F. Gupta, Samuel Halverson, Te Han, Daniel Krolikowski, Joe Ninan, Cristobal Petrovich, Paul Robertson, Arpita Roy, Christian Schwab, Ryan T…

TOI-1259Ab: A Warm Jupiter Orbiting a K-dwarf White-Dwarf Binary is on a Well-aligned Orbit
The evolution of one member of a stellar binary into a white dwarf has been proposed as a mechanism that triggers the formation of close-in gas giant planets. The star's asymmetric mass loss during the AGB stage gives it a "kick" that can initiate Eccentric Lidov-Kozai oscillations, potentially causing a planet around the secondary star to migrate inwards and perturbing the eccentricity and inclination of its orbit. Here we present a measurement of the stellar obliquity of TOI-1259Ab, a gas gia…

Crypto asset manager CoinShares agrees to go public via SPAC Vine Hill at a $1.2B pre-money valuation, set to close by the end of Q4; CoinShares has ~$10B AUM (Muyao Shen/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20…