Tootfinder

We couldn't have hoped for a better advertisement for this year’s public lecture series than last night's spectacular show of northern lights!
The talks will deal with all the exciting aspects in the fiery relationship between the Sun and the Earth (in German). So if you want to learn more about the Sun, the aurora borealis, the dangers of solar storms, about space weather forecasting and more, join us for
"Im Feuerwerk der Sonne"

I stopped wearing my #Apple watch last week, replacing it with a simple digital Casio.
Observations so far:
- I miss tapping to pay with my wrist, but the phone is honestly pretty easy to use too.
- Missing notifications has not been a problem even when I’m leaving my phone in the other room. Nothing has been so urgent that I needed to see it immediately
- My ability to focus is already tangibly improving. Yesterday I sat and read Shakespeare for 1.5 hours without interruption - I don’t remember last time I could do something like that!
- I keep instinctively reaching for the charger in the evening thinking I need to take off my watch
- I have tried to swipe down on the Casio to see notifications at least 3 times…
#SmartWatch

Die Bahnhofsbäckereikette, die mich vor einiger Zeit durch Einstellung der Topfentörtchen vergrämte, gewann nun durch Einführung von Apfeltörtchen überraschend an Attraktivität.

One of my undergrad history RAs has set my heart aflutter - they dated their time sheet in the only sensible manner: YYYY/MM/DD.

The implications are interesting enough when we apply this to systems like capitalism or national governments, but there are other very interesting implications when applied to systems like race or gender.
Like, as a cis man the only way I can be free to express and explore my own masculinity is if the masculinity I participate in is one which allows anyone the freedom to leave. Then I have an obligation to recognize the validity of nom-masculine trans identity as a necessary component of my own. If I fail to do this, then I trap myself in masculinity and allow the system to control me rather than me to be a free participant in the system.
But if it's OK to escape but not enter, that's it's own restriction that constrains the freedom to leave. It creates a barrier that keeps people in by the fear that they cannot return. So in order for me to be free in my cis masculine identity, I must accept non-masculine trans identities as they are and accept detransitioning as also valid.
But I also need to accept trans-masc identities because restricting entry to my masculinity means non-consensually constraining other identities. If every group imposes an exclusion against others coming in, that, by default, makes it impossible to leave every other group. This is just a description of how national borders work to trap people within systems, even if a nation itself allows people to "freely" leave.
So then, a free masculinity is one which recognizes all configurations of trans identities as valid and welcomes, if not celebrates, people who transition as affirmations of the freedom of their own identity (even for those who never feel a reason to exercise that same freedom).
The most irritating type of white person may look at this and say, "oh, so then why can't I be <not white>?" Except that the critique of transratial identities has never been "that's not allowed" and has always been "this person didn't do the work." If that person did the work, they would understand that the question doesn't make sense based on how race is constructed. That person might understand that race, especially whiteness, is more fluid than they at first understood. They might realize that whiteness is often chosen at the exclusion of other racialized identities. They would, perhaps, realize that to actually align with any racialized identity, they would first have to understand the boot of whiteness on their neck, have to recognize the need to destroy this oppressive identity for their own future liberation. The best, perhaps only, way to do this would be to use the privilege afforded by that identity to destroy it, and in doing so would either destroy their own privilege or destroy the system of privilege. The must either become themselves completely ratialized or destroy the system of race itself such being "transracial" wouldn't really make sense anymore.
But that most annoying of white person would, of course, not do any such work. Nevertheless, one hopes that they may recognize the paradox that they are trapped by their white identity, forced forever by it to do the work of maintaining it. And such is true for all privileged identities, where privilege is only maintained through restrictions where these restrictions ultimately become walls that imprison both the privileged and the marginalized in a mutually reinforcing hell that can only be escaped by destroying the system of privilege itself.

Gemini 3 Pro is integrated into the Gemini app, which now has 650M MAUs, and powers Google Search's AI Mode conversational search feature (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/business/google-gemini-3.html

Google Unveils Gemini 3, With Improved Coding and Search Abilities
The new artificial intelligence model is the second the company has released this year. OpenAI and Anthropic made similar updates a few months ago.

RE: https://mstdn.social/@hkrn/115746396115275350
I think my take on why I don't use AI coding tools is much more detached from their abilities.
It's partly that my kind of coding requires skills that I don't want to lose. But it's also the…

Sources: an August vesting milestone gives Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen the ability to cash out from their Cox deal and possibly exit (Natalie Korach/Status)
https://www.status.news/p/axios-cox-deal-jim-vandehei-mike-allen

Axios’ Future: Why It Matters
Three years after selling to Cox, incentives for Axios’ co-founders have vested, opening the door to a possible exit—a scenario Cox execs have begun informally planning for, Status has learned.

Recent polling shows the majority disapprove of how ICE operates.
But to truly stop the damage requires going further
– it means eradicating the security logic that ever made people think that arming a secret police on an ethnic cleansing mission could ever make them safe.
Formed in 2003, during the embarrassing and disastrous national excesses of the post-9/11 era
– when the nation launched two ill-fated forever wars, and demonized Muslim immigrants
– ICE’s ma…

Q&A with Sam Altman on OpenAI's "code red" call, enterprise strategy, product ambitions, IPO plans, ChatGPT's personalization plans, and more (Alex Kantrowitz/Big Technology)
https://www.bigtechnology.com/p/sam-altman-on-openais-plan-to-win<…

Sam Altman on OpenAI’s Plan to Win, AI Personalization, Infrastructure Math, and The Inevitable IPO
OpenAI's CEO joins Big Technology for a candid discussion covering OpenAI's strategy, its product ambitions, its ability to pay for $1 trillion+ in infrastructure, going public, and much more.