Tootfinder

Apple announces the Foundation Models framework, giving developers direct access to its on-device AI models for the first time (Tim Hardwick/MacRumors)
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/09/foundation-models-framework/

Apple Announces Foundation Models Framework for Developers to Leverage AI
Apple at WWDC today announced Foundation Models Framework, a new API allowing third-party developers to leverage the large language models at the...

President Trump is the first to ask federal job applicants to describe their allegiance to administration policy in an essay
or to mandate training for senior government officials on White House executive orders, experts said.
Senior agency officials, who are often political appointees, are to be directly involved in the hiring process, which has not previously been the case.
The guidelines, released last month, arrived at a time when the Trump administration was beginning …

In Trump’s ‘Patriotic’ Hiring Plan, Experts See a Politicized Federal Work Force
Political appointments inherently take into consideration loyalty to the president or the party. But expanding those types of questions to the career civil service is a significant departure.

Elon is as fragile as the orange turd? Shocker.
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/05/elon-musk-new-party-poll-trump

Musk floats new party in signal he could torch GOP
"Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?"

Well, duh - Elon (age 53) will still be alive (preserved by drugs, perhaps) while FFOTUS (age 78) is decomposing in a box. Musk has time on his side.
"Who holds the cards in Trump vs. Musk?"
https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/06/politics/repu…

Who holds the cards in Trump vs. Musk? Trump, but …
It remains to be seen whether President Donald Trump and Elon Musk can patch things up after their ugly break-up this week – as many around them are hoping.

Understanding the Error Sensitivity of Privacy-Aware Computing
Mat\'ias Mazzanti (University of Buenos Aires), Esteban Mocskos (University of Buenos Aires), Augusto Vega (IBM T. J. Watson Research Center), Pradip Bose (IBM T. J. Watson Research Center)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.07957

Understanding the Error Sensitivity of Privacy-Aware Computing
Homomorphic Encryption (HE) enables secure computation on encrypted data without decryption, allowing a great opportunity for privacy-preserving computation. In particular, domains such as healthcare, finance, and government, where data privacy and security are of utmost importance, can benefit from HE by enabling third-party computation and services on sensitive data. In other words, HE constitutes the "Holy Grail" of cryptography: data remains encrypted all the time, being protected while in …

Dinner Party Orecchiette #Eggs, #Pasta

Dinner Party Orecchiette
Orecchiette is one of my favourite ways to use (and preserve) eggs. This batch is for a dinner party. Homemade orecchiette, frozen ahead of time and just cooked straight from frozen while the guest…

Apropos of yet another conversation today, I’m a big fan of using automation in WCAG testing.
But I also know WCAG well enough to understand the limitations (and lies) the tools.
https://adrianroselli.com/2025/04/automated-wcag-testing-is-grrreat.htm…

Automated WCAG Testing Is Grrreat!
I’m a big fan of using automation in WCAG testing. I use bookmarklets, dev tools, browser features & reporting, and a pile of third-party products from assorted vendors. These save me time and effort, letting me focus on more tricky cases. But… Unfortunately, the marketing machines of some vendors seem…

In a valiant attempt to keep the world at bay, I have been doing another playthrough of Mass Effect. This time, it was misbehaving in various ways in the Citadel DLC. I restarted after it froze, which unblocked things but now if I invited person A for a hangout, person B would show up. Odd things like that.
It gets better.
During the party, after talking upstairs to the group including Traynor, I walked into the bedroom where Traynor was also standing, stock-still, unresponsive, in her underwear, even though a responsive Traynor was still on the couch nearby.
In the morning, waking up (next to Garrus of course), unresponsive Traynor was still standing in the bedroom. I hope this is a first in ME history, a sort of threesome or at least voyeur party.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz says Democrats need to take a page from Donald Trump’s own playbook.
“Maybe it’s time for us to be a little meaner,” the former vice presidential hopeful said during a speech at the South Carolina Democratic Party’s annual convention in Columbia, South Carolina.
“Maybe it’s time for us to be a little more fierce because we have to ferociously push back on this.”
“When it’s a bully like Donald Trump, you bully the s--t out of him,” Walz added

Walz Tells Dems to ‘Bully the S**t’ Out of Trump or Risk Becoming ‘Roadkill’
The former vice presidential candidate doled out harsh words for both the president and his own party.

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #SundaySoul
Cinnamon Sons:
🎵 Party Time
#CinnamonSons

Religion, PLpol
It's about time I elaborated on an earlier thought.
"Non-practicing Catholics" have more liberal worldview than "conservative" Catholics — and often they jeer at them. These qualities make it easy to forget that you're draining with Catholics. But when the push comes to shove, you discover that you can't rely on them. They won't openly oppose the Church, they won't protect the people who are "immoral" according to Catholic morality, and if they are forced to choose a side, they'll side with the Catholics.
The Polish PO/KO party (often perceived as "liberal") is just like that. Their views are more liberal than the conservative right wing, they love portraying themselves as an opposition to it, but in the end they are a right-wing party. When it's convenient to them, they happily present liberal postulates — but they are as fast to withdraw them to please their right-wing electorate.
#PLpol

Well that should give me some time to look the Online Safety Act.
I basically configured my CDN provider to block any UK IP addresses, although I did make a few exceptions to try and limit how much federation is broken while still completely preventing any "user content" from being shown.
None of this should be necessary, but here we are.

Time For 9 o'clock #HashTagGames hosted by @… Let's play!
#UninvitedGuestASongOrPoem