Tootfinder

@… I'd be willing to bet that the ownership of Medtech don't actually know where all their data is, e.g. backups. I'd be very surprised if no personal data is stored, unencrypted, offshore.

This is frickin' brilliant: #TimMinchin, you lil' beauty.

Bingo: "awareness is growing that digital autonomy is no longer a luxury but a prerequisite for a well-functioning democracy." https://ginaplat.com/posts/20251031-digital-sovereignty-and-gov/ Thanks for this, @…

from my link log —
Wiki Creole 1.0 lightweight markup language.
http://www.wikicreole.org/wiki/Creole1.0
saved 2018-12-03 https://dotat.at/:/69…

Current situation... Could be worse. Could be tenting... Heavy rain watch for the next dozen or so hours... Have a great finish to your year! It was... a year, eh. Ok to put it behind us.

Prompt Curriculum Learning for Efficient LLM Post-Training
Zhaolin Gao, Joongwon Kim, Wen Sun, Thorsten Joachims, Sid Wang, Richard Yuanzhe Pang, Liang Tan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01135

Prompt Curriculum Learning for Efficient LLM Post-Training
We introduce Prompt Curriculum Learning (PCL), a lightweight reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm that selects intermediate-difficulty prompts using a learned value model to post-train language models. Since post-training LLMs via RL remains sensitive to batching and prompt selection strategies, we first conduct a series of systematic experiments where we (1) determine the optimal training batch size that balances generation efficiency and gradient quality and (2) establish the importance of f…

Energy-Regularized Sequential Model Editing on Hyperspheres
Qingyuan Liu, Jia-Chen Gu, Yunzhi Yao, Hong Wang, Nanyun Peng
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01172 https://

Energy-Regularized Sequential Model Editing on Hyperspheres
Large language models (LLMs) require constant updates to remain aligned with evolving real-world knowledge. Model editing offers a lightweight alternative to retraining, but sequential editing often destabilizes representations and induces catastrophic forgetting. In this work, we seek to better understand and mitigate performance degradation caused by sequential editing. We hypothesize that hyperspherical uniformity, a property that maintains uniform distribution of neuron weights on a hypersp…

Microsoft is increasingly shrill in its desperation to get people to love it's 'AI' service, 'Copilot'... https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/11/28/you-heard-wrong-users-brutually-reject-microsof…

Fast, Secure, and High-Capacity Image Watermarking with Autoencoded Text Vectors
Gautier Evennou, Vivien Chappelier, Ewa Kijak
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.00799 https://

Fast, Secure, and High-Capacity Image Watermarking with Autoencoded Text Vectors
Most image watermarking systems focus on robustness, capacity, and imperceptibility while treating the embedded payload as meaningless bits. This bit-centric view imposes a hard ceiling on capacity and prevents watermarks from carrying useful information. We propose LatentSeal, which reframes watermarking as semantic communication: a lightweight text autoencoder maps full-sentence messages into a compact 256-dimensional unit-norm latent vector, which is robustly embedded by a finetuned watermar…

Damn - https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/577448/watch-the-moment-a-dramatic-blaze-ignites-in-whangarei-hospital-s-carpark imagine if the person in that ICE ute had a blanket and had thrown it over over the fire at th…

I love what Tauri has done, a lightweight version of Electron, where you author the backend code in Rust.
But while I love Rust, I do not love it for app building, and I wanted to have that HTML-model for programming but available in Swift.
I used assorted AI tools to port Tauri to Swift (it still reuses the big chunks of code from Tauri), but now you can write HTML desktop apps in Swift:

GitHub - velox-apps/velox: Velox is a port of Tauri to Swift.
Velox is a port of Tauri to Swift. Contribute to velox-apps/velox development by creating an account on GitHub.

"Toyota developing two-seater electric vehicle with solar roof"
#Toyota #Cars #Vehicles

Toyota developing two-seater electric vehicle with solar roof
Toyota Manufacturing UK says it is leading a consortium to investigate the feasibility of a lightweight micro-mobility electric vehicle with a PV roof, digital connectivity, and sustainable components.

Unpacking Musical Symbolism in Online Communities: Content-Based and Network-Centric Approaches
Kajwan Ziaoddini
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.00006 https://a…

Unpacking Musical Symbolism in Online Communities: Content-Based and Network-Centric Approaches
This paper examines how musical symbolism is produced and circulated in online communities by combining content-based music analysis with a lightweight network perspective on lyrics. Using a curated corpus of 275 chart-topping songs enriched with audio descriptors (energy, danceability, loudness, liveness, valence, acousticness, speechiness, popularity) and full lyric transcripts, we build a reproducible pipeline that (i) quantifies temporal trends in sonic attributes, (ii) models lexical salie…

Inclusive Easy-to-Read Generation for Individuals with Cognitive Impairments
Fran\c{c}ois Ledoyen, Ga\"el Dias, Alexis Lechervy, Jeremie Pantin, Fabrice Maurel, Youssef Chahir, Elisa Gouzonnat, M\'elanie Berthelot, Stanislas Moravac, Armony Altinier, Amy Khairalla
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.00691

Inclusive Easy-to-Read Generation for Individuals with Cognitive Impairments
Ensuring accessibility for individuals with cognitive impairments is essential for autonomy, self-determination, and full citizenship. However, manual Easy-to-Read (ETR) text adaptations are slow, costly, and difficult to scale, limiting access to crucial information in healthcare, education, and civic life. AI-driven ETR generation offers a scalable solution but faces key challenges, including dataset scarcity, domain adaptation, and balancing lightweight learning of Large Language Models (LLM…

For all you nature lovers (especially herpetological sorts, i.e. lizards, and more specifically, geckos here in Aotearoa) get a load of this: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-strange-beautiful-lizard-at-the-bottom-of-the-world/ Stunning. I tried t…

from my link log —
libfringe: an old Rust library for stackful coroutines.
https://github.com/edef1c/libfringe
saved 2025-10-28 https://dotat.at/:/S…

This is freakin' cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSch_NgZpQs how trees actually work. I learned a lot!

For the record, I'm pretty sure that no one should care what Bill Gates thinks. He's missed/misjudged every single technological and social leap in the past 30 years. I'm amazed he's made any money at all, but I guess that's what multi-million $ trust funds and a willingness to ruthlessly exploit ill-gotten monopolies will get you.

Can someone remind me why no national leaders (so far as I know) are clamouring for a global, independent tax authority to rein in exploitative global corporations (and their attendant billionaires)?

On a side note, where are the Chinese-made EV station wagons? That most perfect of form factors seems to be a dying breed (and all of the current models European except for maybe Japanese Subarus, but even they're looking very bubbly-SUVy to me these days) - it's all hatches and inflated SUVs... yuck.

Huh, think I might've figured out why one (but only one) of my NextCloud instances loses contact with the OnlyOffice instance on the same host... Figured out it *might* be because of frequent polling that's resulted in the Mailcow instance (also on the host, as I'm trying to economise) is seeing it as making too many connections and is temporarily fail2banning it nightly. I've added the host's IP(v4&6) to the Fail2Ban whitelist... 🤞 it's still connected tomorrow!<…

Jeepers, Piwigo has come out with an impressive new version! https://piwigo.org/release-16.0.0 (I've been running one for a decade or so). Hot damn, preparing to upgrade.

Wow, that's pretty cool - got $50 off my Quic broadband bill this month, because someone apparently listed me as their reason for transferring to Quic.nz - no idea who, but I'm chuffed! Thanks to whoever it was!

Welp, after a day or two of fermentation and a few hours preparing the accompaniments, like the potato filling, the 'gunpowder' to sprinkle over it, and both tomato and coconut chutneys (all made from scratch, even involving cracking a fresh coconut!), I've made my first ever dosas. I'm quite chuffed by the result. It's a lot of work for a one-off...

Just received a Christmas email from a dear older cousin of mine. Suspect it's gone out to a lot of people (He savvily used BCC), but the PDF he sent out is a blank one pager... sigh. This brave new world of pervasive digital tech is a real challenge for all of us.

Migrating a large accretion of complex blog post content between platforms is a draining & thoroughly demoralising experience. It turns out that we, as web developers, are capable of creating byzantine platforms which give diligent blog writers the ability to create hours and hours of unrewarding work that is so cryptically & diversely broken that no script can be written to make sense of the mess.
Enjoy your holidays if you're in a cultural context where that sort of thin…

Yup, cats, and their wandering predatory ways, are a huge problem in Aotearoa, and getting much bigger: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/579669/why-are-there-so-few-rules-for-the-millions-of-cats-that-damage-our-biodive…

Hah - interesting that this was considered newsworthy: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/576752/picton-man-uses-electric-car-to-cook-hot-breakfast-amid-power-outages during the ongoing windstorm that's knocked out po…

On RNZ right now, they're talking about how the software used by pharmacists is not even remotely fit for purpose. Imagine that. Why isn't that sort of thing being sorted by a publicly funded, openly licensed (available to all) system developed by a consortium of companies - that can be scrutinised by anyone - because it's too important to be entrusted to the proprietary gain of any one company. This stuff is a no-brainer. Some things are far too important to be dependent on a pr…

This is what I'm rocking out to while applying system updates to 30ish VPSs on a stunning warm late spring morning in Ōtautahi... #DLO3

This interview https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2019013452/emergency-departments-to-use-ai-consultations-with-patients suggests a fait accompli of 'AI' saturating ou…

Wow, it's a stunner here in Ōtautahi, but that nor'west wind is formidable! Hope the greenhouse holds up to the onslaught!

I wonder how many digital service businesses who have been affected by the AWS outage... have all their comms to their customers also happening through that same service... Wonder how many of them recognised that issue and went 🤷‍♀️ we'll be fine.

Most days I'm reminded of this: 'expedience is the absence of principle'...

Wilderness 4WDing is a 'hobby' no one should be allowed to have. It's simply wasteful and destructive. It's like having the hobby of demolishing other people's buildings. It's just stupid. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/nati…

Just took a wee walk around the garden and saw at least 7 (native grass) skinks out and about, doing their thing. Warms my heart each time.

This is quite splendid. Why are we settling for either Chris when we could have someone like this steering the waka?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtSsFV9eC1Y

Many parts of the Internet I know and loath are mostly down. I hope this helps shake confidence in US BigTech. Probably won't, because if people were rational, they wouldn't have built the digital world we're currently forced to inhabit, but who knows, it might. Even the vague possibility of it has made my day better as I head to bed.

Thinking about all the citizen data that our government is shipping offshore to AU & elsewhere... there're apparently indications that Russian vessels have been hovering around undersea data cables in the north Atlantic... some suspect they've installed charges on all cables supplying data to Europe. In a future conflict, they could use these to continually disrupt European communications & intelligence. Who's to say that the US/China/others? haven't done the same to …

Listening to pundits talking to Kathryn Ryan on RNZ NineToNoon about their 'AI' reckons - most of them don't understand much. Their optimism is misguided. Wow. They don't get the implications on how people learn and behave. Or the fact that new LLMs are trained on content that might be mostly LLM-generated content (who can say?), with constantly declining veracity.

Who's the real enemy now? Extremely wealthy people (oligarchs) and large corporations (especially in health, fossil fuels, media, & tech). Everything else is probably manageable. We need to hobble the extremely wealthy and the mega corporations. We need to end the 'corporations-as-person' model. as well. It is untenable. That also means rejecting, explicitly & systemically, groups like the Atlas Network/Project 2025.
For the record, these have long been the enemy, b…

Katherine Rich gives Uber far too much credit. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2019013122/what-uber-ruling-could-mean-for-gig-economy They didn't do any of it to 'make the world be…

This is very good: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2025/10/the-pivot-1.html Many thanks @…! Between you and

Reminder - if your software is 'a little bit proprietary', it's entirely proprietary. It's like claiming to be a little bit pregnant.

Turns out writing a WP-CLI plugin (for my sins, in php) is not a road well travelled or sign-posted. Sigh.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@glynmoody/115733951845579974
Yup. The EU is orchestrating its own obsolescence, just like the US has.

This seems most auspicious: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/12/yes-new-york-will-soon-be-under-new-management-but-zohran-mamdani-is-just-the-start anti-trust specialist Khan on M…

As Microsoft EOLs Windows 10, I'm reminded of why Windows is fundamentally broken, by design. https://davelane.nz/windows-broken-design When you're a global platform monopoly, your existing users are your biggest competition. Your interests and those of your customers are diametricall…

Wow, loving our greenhouse - already have the first tomatoes turning red! Only a couple weeks into summer (not even proper summer, 22 Dec in Aotearoa, yet) Crazy! This is months before we've ever had ripening fruit pre-greenhouse.

Ugh, listening to RNZ right now - Kathryn Ryan talking to a US correspondent, who's just stated, with what sounds like a straight face, that US Republicans are saying that the reduced tax on wealthy people will 'trickle down' to poor people. And Kathryn didn't even question the legitimacy of that concept. Come on Kathryn, you need to call this stuff out. Stop the gormless credulity please.

RE: https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@futuresprog/115550268885525233
Superb. It works, recursively!

Wow - #SodiumIonBatteries half the price, 5x the lifespan, performs better from -20C to 70C, and has a higher energy density than LithiumIon & LithiumFP chemistries, with entirely common materials. Also, the manufacturing can use existing battery production lines with minimal retooling.

Wow, Blender 5 looks frickin' incredible: #libre

Ok, so I just found out that today's 'Ministry of Ed-mandated' teacher-only day at our boys' high school is so that teachers could have 'professional development' in "'AI' skills" (whatever that means), provided by someone from the Google corporation. This is totally corrupt bullshit. Nothing to do with education.

Just disposing of a couple Indian pickles in my substantial collection. These two had a pretty good run. Need to make room in the cupboard for more recent acquisitions.

Tomorrow (Tues, 11 Nov 2025) from 20:00 NZDT we're having a #Libre / #FOSS catch up at https://meeting.iridescent.nz…

Mary Pop Poppins is superb on a warm spring Friday arvo. https://yewtu.be/watch?v=u0DXpeV6IKc or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0DXpeV6IKc

I'm really looking forward to seeing this: https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/anchor-me-don-mcglashan-story-2025

Golfer, 74, hits three aces in a month - odds 1.95 trillion to one https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/578273/golfer-74-hits-three-aces-in-a-month-odds-1-point-95-trillion-to-one Let that sink in.
🤪

Almost literally rubbed shoulders with Marlon Williams at the supermarket earlier over the tomatoes in the produce section. He's a tall dude. Everyone was respectfully pretending he wasn't there, as NZers tend to do with famous people.

Ok, doing Drupal updates while a wee bit snookered, but I'm sure it'll be fine.

Wow, this TourismNZ CEO on RNZ right now, talking about attracting Chinese tourists to Aotearoa... sounds just like Luxon. 🤢 "Well look" starts every response. I don't like the guy just based on the way he talks and the fact that he's blithely trying to get people to travel frivolously & superficially without considering the broader (profound) implications.

Right... I've just set up a new (old school, but up-with-the-times) mailing list manager (Mailman 3 - https://docs.mailman3.org/en/latest/) for Aotearoa NZ communities. Upon reflection, it seems to me that the last generation or 2 of digital community tools has missed the mark, not providing a suitabl…

It begins: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/581225/man-dumps-home-insurance-over-tower-insurance-s-sea-surge-assessment - people being unable to afford insurance for their homes due to climate-related risks they don'…

And Juice Media is bang-on as usual: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxRB5qWphJE The 'under 16' social media ban is precisely the wrong approach. The right approach would involve regulating US BigTech by leading the formation of a global consortium of countries. Sadly, few politicians have …

Everyone with a digital existence needs to watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wE8G-d7SnY Cory Doctorow is on fire. His fluency is astounding - a 'gattling gun of jaw-dropping moments'.

Oh my word: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUh9aV0xRfE AOC is superb, and yes, this is terrifying. The US' economy is a house of cards. And it will fail spectacularly. And I fear for all of those who will be affected because they're oblivious to the extreme (unconscionable) recklessness of…

Huh. Just got given a generous gift of a $50 petrol voucher by my boys' school for my help as an Ultimate (frisbee) coach this year. Our main vehicle is a full EV. I guess it's fortunate we still have one (33yo) ICE vehicle, albeit hardly used.

It's that time again! Tomorrow evening (Tue 9/12), 20:00 NZST is our monthly FOSS/Libre Tech catch up. Find us at https://meeting.iridescent.nz - all welcome! We'll be discussing relevant current events, sharing case studies, looking at new technologies, and how to make a living doing this stuff! Our mee…

We need more folks who understand POSSE and why it's crucial to a) personal digital sovereignty, b) functional open (democratic) societies, and c) a free and open Internet: Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.
canonical: https://indieweb.org/POSSE
popular media:

Wow, hearing about Robert Murray-Smith's death is sobering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhramXiUrY4 Robert's videos were quirky and his laughter infectious, and he made me wish I had a 3D printer... Robert was an amazing scientist in the most fundamental sense: reading about what's…

This is quite a thoughtful takedown of 'AI', especially in art. It helps characters/express something most of us feel but can't quite explain: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

Wow, https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2019011532/chch-physicist-s-examination-turns-nz-x-ray-history-on-its-head when I saw the picture, I thought, 'I recognise that guy…