Tootfinder

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.

Hey, Denmark is a monarchy. Get His Maj Frederik, who’s a good-looking dude, to offer the orange one a Royal Duchy that comes with a cool golden crown or something like that if he’ll shut up about Greenland. Orange guy loves royalty.
https://www.kongehuset.dk/en/the-royal-family/…

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.

„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

It’s just hard to catch your breath, because every day there’s a new, outrageous thing happening with the administration
Abortion has been replaced as a top issue by affordability and the economy.
That seems to be first and foremost for everyone.
But it’s also, for Democrats,
the state of democracy writ large.
We consistently find that Democrats are more concerned about the health of democracy.

Characteristics of temporal and spatial variation of the electron density in the plasmasphere and ionosphere during the May 2024 super #GeomagneticStorm: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40623-025-02317-3 -> How superstorm Gannon squeezed Earth’s plasmasphere to one-fifth its size: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1106633 - new study shows how a major space storm dramatically shrank Earth’s protective plasma layer and slowed its recovery, helping improve solar storm forecasts and protect space infrastructure we rely on.

One I somehow missed last year and may have even made my top 20 because of how damn good it is, NYC punks KALEIDOSCOPE and their LP 'Cities of Fear' that was written and recorded in just a few days in 2024. Some KILLER, catchy, rough, angry hardcore punk the way it SHOULD be. ffo MDC, Poison Idea, Crucifix.
https://

Malwarebytes: a 2024 Instagram data breach exposed information on 17.5 million users, including emails, phone numbers, and physical addresses (Jackson Chen/Engadget)
https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/an-

An Instagram data breach reportedly exposed the personal info of 17.5 million users
The leak may be responsible for Instagram users receiving plenty of emails requesting a password reset.

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

Russian shadow fleet ship that sank in 2024 carried nuclear reactor components to North Korea, may have been torpedoed, La Verdad reports: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/01/russian-shadow-fleet-ship-that.html

Finally, a more modest increase in atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa: based on daily values, the December average was 427.5 ppm, that's 2.1 ppm more than last year
#emissions #co2 #climatechange…

"Brits heading for Spain may soon have to wear a face mask again due to the huge surge in flu and Covid cases."
Everyone else will be exempt or what? 🥴
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2140229/spain-covid-flu-alert-new-rules-hospitals…

Every few years, Democrats try to convince themselves they’ve found the one
– a candidate who can finally speak fluent rural, who looks and sounds like the voters they’ve lost.
In 2024, that hope was pinned on #Tim #Walz, the flannel-wearing, “Midwestern nice” governor whose small-town roots were supposed to unlock …

Why rural Maine may back Democrat Graham Platner’s populism in the Senate campaign − but not his party
Whether Maine’s Graham Platner wins or loses, his campaign to knock off longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins already points to a deeper question: Can Democrats do more than rent rural authenticity?

How President Trump's tariffs ended China's monopoly on making US game consoles, boosting Vietnam, whose exports jumped from $30M/month in 2024 to $400M in May (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-trump-tariffs-vietnam-china-video-…

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

Trump may have just created the "kryptonite" that brings down his second administration,
according to a new report
Trump's MAGA movement coalition has started to crack in recent weeks over the administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files,
which Trump promised to release in full during his 2024 presidential campaign.
The administration has sought to withhold files from the public,
and the Justice Department has said it
"nee…

'End of the era': Trump just created the 'kryptonite' that could bring down his presidency
President Donald Trump may have just created the "kryptonite" that brings down his second administration, according to a new report. Trump's MAGA movement coalition has started to crack in recent weeks over the administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which Trump promised to release i...

A Chinese hospital says Alibaba's PANDA AI tool has analyzed 180,000 CT scans and detected ~24 pancreatic cancer cases since its deployment in November 2024 (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/world/a…

In China, A.I. Finds Pancreatic Cancer That Doctors May Miss
A tool for spotting pancreatic cancer in routine CT scans has had promising results, one example of how China is racing to apply A.I. to medicine’s tough problems.

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.

Unsealed documents detail a US operation that stopped the alleged smuggling of $160M worth of Nvidia H100 and H200 GPUs to China between Oct. 2024 and May 2025 (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/31/160-million-export-controlled-nvid…

How $160 million worth of export-controlled Nvidia chips were allegedly smuggled into China
The scheme involved falsifying shipping documents to misclassify the GPUs and hide their true destinations, including China and other prohibited locations.

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

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #LaurenLaverne
Orbital:
🎵 Spicy (Sofa Session, 15 May 2024)
#Orbital
https://darkenergyrecordings.bandcamp.com/track/spicy-crab-of-nighttime

🇺🇦 #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