Tootfinder

Ahead of the Holyrood elections in May, two more party profiles from Allan at Ballot Box Scotland.
Scottish Greens: https://ballotbox.scot/sp26-party-profile-greens/
"Despite an ill-fated spell in government from 2021 to 2024, the Greens are currently on tr…

SP26 Party Profile: Scottish Greens
Currently headed for their best result in history, even accounting for a history of underperforming against polling, the Greens may become a truly national party for the first time this year.

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #ChrisHawkins
Big Special:
🎵 DUST OFF / START AGAIN (6 Music Session, 13 May 2024)
#BigSpecial
https://open.spotify.com/track/2sUmTnB0rBgpx9DTcZUrQK

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump privately told donors about one of his favorite negotiating tactics,
recounting at a New York fundraiser in May how he would deter Chinese or Russian aggression
by threatening to bomb Beijing or Moscow.

“He thought I was crazy,”
Trump said of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s response.
“He didn’t believe me, except 10 percent.
And 10 percent is all you need.”

The story, which has not been confirmed by R…

Trump’s Iran brinkmanship reaches truce, escalates backlash at home
The president’s ultimatum drew condemnation across the political spectrum and intensified open debate about his credibility, morality and sanity.

„Seamonster“ by Facet
Platform: Amiga
Released: 18 May 2024
Specification: 320x256px, 32 colors
Note: 2nd in the Decrunch 2024 Amiga Pixel GFX competition
#GFX_Facet #YR_2024 #PF_Amiga

Entering the wild canyon...
(May 2024, IIRC it was the same day @… happened to be there too [unknowingly to us]...)
#FootpathFriday #NaturePhotography

Martian ionospheric response during the may 2024 solar #superstorm: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-69468-z -> ESA’s Mars orbiters watch solar superstorm hit the Red Planet: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/ESA_s_Mars_orbiters_watch_solar_superstorm_hit_the_Red_Planet

"Amazon wildfire emissions may be up to three times higher than estimated"
#Wildfires #AmazonRainforest #Emissions

Amazon wildfire emissions may be up to three times higher than estimated
Fires are a recurring phenomenon in central South America, often intensified by drought and deforestation. In 2024, wildfire activity reached its highest levels in 20 years, affecting vast areas of the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado—the world's most biodiverse tropical savanna, stretching across one-fifth of Brazil and extending into Bolivia and Paraguay.

Interesting: Minneapolis is actually converting downtown offices to residential, not just using it as an excuse to cut taxes while not converting any, like San Francisco.
Sounds like a bad deal for the public, though. The new units are expensive, up to $4,695 for 1415ft², and to get them the city is waiving all affordability requirements, and MN is considering subsidizing through tax credits as well.

Progress from 2024: Minneapolis Adds 574 New Homes with Adaptive Reuse
Through adaptive reuse, Minneapolis turned office space into 574 apartments. Possible new State legislature may make this easier, though the retail market remains challenging.

I generally hate buying new computing devices and try to make them last as long as possible. I bought a used/refurb iPad 5th Gen in 2022 for $199 and got 2 years of solid use before I upgraded to a 6th Gen in 2024 (for $170) so I could use an Apple Pencil.
I then put the old 5th Gen on my trainer bike as a video player and it still works great.
But sadly, two years in the 6th Gen now has dead spots on the screen. I may need to replace it.
1/n

🫧 Shipping regulations to reduce pollution may have exacerbated Great Barrier Reef bleaching
https://phys.org/news/2026-01-shipping-pollution-exacerbated-great-barrier.html

Shipping regulations to reduce pollution may have exacerbated Great Barrier Reef bleaching
Rising ocean temperatures have been implicated in mass coral bleaching events affecting the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). These events have been increasingly frequent, with major events occurring in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022, 2024, and 2025. Now, in an unexpected turn of events, it appears that regulations introduced in 2020 to reduce ship fuel pollution may have actually increased the solar radiation that leads to increased coral bleaching, according to a study published in Nature Communications Eart…

Will the 49ers trade, release or keep Brandon Aiyuk? Breaking down the options https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/48414734/brandon-aiyuk-contract-trade-san-francisco-49ers-commanders

Be prepared for an onslaught of disinformation to come out of Rockbridge Network, Koch Network, and overseas straw donors.
-- @…
https://www.

Koch Political Operation Spent Nearly $550 Million During 2024 Cycle
The huge sum shows that while the Koch network may not hold significant power at high levels of the Republican Party, it remains a financial juggernaut.

I love it when a state gets something right.
https://reason.com/2026/04/03/colorado-becomes-first-state-to-protect-defendants-against-faulty-roadside-drug-tests/

Colorado becomes first state to protect defendants against faulty roadside drug tests
A 2024 study estimated that 30,000 people every year may be getting wrongly arrested due to unreliable roadside drug tests used by police.

Incremental (k, z)-Clustering on Graphs
Emilio Cruciani, Sebastian Forster, Antonis Skarlatos
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.08542 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.08542 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.08542
arXiv:2602.08542v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Given a weighted undirected graph, a number of clusters $k$, and an exponent $z$, the goal in the $(k, z)$-clustering problem on graphs is to select $k$ vertices as centers that minimize the sum of the distances raised to the power $z$ of each vertex to its closest center. In the dynamic setting, the graph is subject to adversarial edge updates, and the goal is to maintain explicitly an exact $(k, z)$-clustering solution in the induced shortest-path metric.
While efficient dynamic $k$-center approximation algorithms on graphs exist [Cruciani et al. SODA 2024], to the best of our knowledge, no prior work provides similar results for the dynamic $(k,z)$-clustering problem. As the main result of this paper, we develop a randomized incremental $(k, z)$-clustering algorithm that maintains with high probability a constant-factor approximation in a graph undergoing edge insertions with a total update time of $\tilde O(k m^{1 o(1)} k^{1 \frac{1}{\lambda}} m)$, where $\lambda \geq 1$ is an arbitrary fixed constant. Our incremental algorithm consists of two stages. In the first stage, we maintain a constant-factor bicriteria approximate solution of size $\tilde{O}(k)$ with a total update time of $m^{1 o(1)}$ over all adversarial edge insertions. This first stage is an intricate adaptation of the bicriteria approximation algorithm by Mettu and Plaxton [Machine Learning 2004] to incremental graphs. One of our key technical results is that the radii in their algorithm can be assumed to be non-decreasing while the approximation ratio remains constant, a property that may be of independent interest.
In the second stage, we maintain a constant-factor approximate $(k,z)$-clustering solution on a dynamic weighted instance induced by the bicriteria approximate solution. For this subproblem, we employ a dynamic spanner algorithm together with a static $(k,z)$-clustering algorithm.
toXiv_bot_toot

RunPod, an AI app hosting service launched four years ago that raised a $20M seed in May 2024, says it has reached a $120M annual revenue run rate (Julie Bort/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/16/ai-cloud-startup-runpod-h…

AI cloud startup Runpod hits $120M in ARR — and it started with a Reddit post   | TechCrunch
Their startup journey is a wild example of how if you build it well and the timing is lucky, they will definitely come.

Here is wisdom. I learned this too late in life, and am still not sure I’ve learned it well:
❝Don’t feel like you need to fix everything. A common response to bearing witness to another’s trauma is to try and fix it. We don’t want others to suffer. That said, you may not be offering what the other person or group is clearly stating they need. If they need you to listen, and you choose to act but not listen, then you have both not supported them in their trauma and violated a boundary.❞
https://community.hachyderm.io/blog/2024/08/12/hachyderms-introduction-to-mastodon-moderation-part-1/

Just as they did across the country, Latino voters in the agricultural heart of California shifted toward Republicans in 2024.
GOP leaders celebrated the multiracial coalition they called the beginning of a political revolution.
Now, there are signs that support could be swinging away from the Republicans once again.
This year’s midterm election — in California and beyond — may show that the Latino rebuke of political parties can cut both ways.

In California’s Central Valley, Latino Voters Are Up for Grabs in 2026’s Elections
As in other Hispanic areas of the country, voters shifted toward Republicans in 2024. But now the question is whether this was a blip more than a durable trend.

The only border crossing that connects Gaza with Egypt
⭐️has opened for the first time in almost a year.
✅The step throws a lifeline to Palestinians who want to leave for medical care or return to homes and families after two years of war.
The passage, near the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza,
was seized by Israeli soldiers in May 2024
and had been mostly closed since then,
other than for a brief time during a temporary cease-fire last winter.
A long…

What to Know About the Rafah Border Crossing in Gaza
The only crossing that connects Gaza with Egypt has reopened after nearly a year of closures. The move will allow residents to leave for medical care or return to homes and families in the territory.

Assimilation of Ground and Satellite Magnetic Observations Unravels the Ionospheric, Magnetospheric, and Induced Fields During the May and October 2024 #GeomagneticStorms: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL116964 -> How does an ice satellite detect a geomagnetic storm? https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/CryoSat/How_does_an_ice_satellite_detect_a_geomagnetic_storm

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #6MusicsJukebox
Shabaka Hutchings:
🎵 Living (6 Music Session, 11 May 2024)
#ShabakaHutchings

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #CraigCharles
Sahra Halgan:
🎵 Sharaf (6 Music Session, 15 May 2024)
#SahraHalgan
https://sahrahalgan.bandcamp.com/track/sharaf
https://open.spotify.com/track/6a7b6cwzpNS1oA6AR4kvt1