Tootfinder

This survey question is rich. This is from one of the BigMoneySF groups trying to make it harder for the rest of us to put stuff on the ballot.
But they will never ban paid signature gathering, the one thing that would most effectively keep crap off the ballot. They just want to raise the signature threshold for the rest of us. It would still be easy for billionaires to abuse the system and qualify any ballot measure they like, just hard for anyone else.

Not all flower visitors are equally helpful to the flower; separately tracking bees that buzz to release pollen and bees that steal pollen from flowers in a bunch of Chamaecrista species shows how tracking visitation alone would misrepresent the interactions
https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.70758
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The 2026 January Jicker is the first of three indoor track meets at Cornell's Barton Hall which are a great escape from cabin fever
#photo #photography #running

Managed to put the new Pi music player together before leaving work today. Got it set up with remote control and a quick test of playback. Next stop: Speaker mounting and figuring out if I should bet on physical security through obscurity by making it not easily visible or using a moderately long RCA cable. What’s a reasonable cable length with decent quality cables?

#ThrowbackThursday Platinum printing session at the now defunkt Oregon College of Art and Craft. The pictures are from an unforgettable winter hike in the Eagle Creek valley, just a few days prior (and 6 months before a wild fire consumed the entire valley)...
(Also see my prev. message for my new darkroom setup :)

"What has not changed in 50 years is the fact we are still using centralized architectures, prone to government intrusion and privacy leaks. Maybe it is time to think about a “Post Cloud” era where information is distributed instead of centralized. Of course this raises questions of trust, cryptography, security and collaboration, but the technology to build such systems already exists. It is more of a question of policy and education than of technology."

Somebody Else's Computer As A Service
On November 12, 1990, a 35 year-old Bill Gates introduced his "Information at your Fingertips" concept during his keynote at COMDEX. The PC, he said, would become "more personal," integrating "fax, voice and electronic mail," and providing "easy access to a broad range of information." More or less at the same time, Tim Berners-Lee was giving the final touches to the first web browser and web server software ever put in production. Bill Gates was right; as any Internet user can easily confirm 3…

In my #HamRadio #POTA adventure today, I got my inverted-V linked dipole caught in twigs today and it died. The silicon wire winds easily around a tight radius, which is nice for putting it on the winder, but also winds around twigs easily, and that fine wire breaks easily. Easier than…

Atomic and molecular systems for radiation thermometry
Stephen P. Eckel, Eric B. Norrgard, Christopher Holloway, Nikunjkumar Prajapati, Noah Schlossberger, Matthew Simons
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.08668 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.08668 https://arxiv.org/html/2512.08668
arXiv:2512.08668v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Atoms and simple molecules are excellent candidates for new standards and sensors because they are both all identical and their properties are determined by the immutable laws of quantum physics. Here, we introduce the concept of building a standard and sensor of radiative temperature using atoms and molecules. Such standards are based on precise measurement of the rate at which blackbody radiation (BBR) either excites or stimulates emission for a given atomic transition. We summarize the recent results of two experiments while detailing the rate equation models required for their interpretation. The cold atom thermometer (CAT) uses a gas of laser cooled $^{85}$Rb Rydberg atoms to probe the BBR spectrum near 130~GHz. This primary, {\it i.e.}, not traceable to a measurement of like kind, temperature measurement currently has a total uncertainty of approximately 1~\%, with clear paths toward improvement. The compact blackbody radiation atomic sensor (CoBRAS) uses a vapour of $^{85}$Rb and monitors fluorescence from states that are either populated by BBR or populated by spontaneous emission to measure the blackbody spectrum near 24.5~THz. The CoBRAS has an excellent relative precision of $u(T)\approx 0.13$~K, with a clear path toward implementing a primary
toXiv_bot_toot

Philadelphia Eagles' rout of Giants showcases daunting reality for rest of NFC https://www.nfl.com/news/philadelphia-eagles-rout-of-giants-showcases-daunting-reality-for-rest-of-nfc

Only one way to go here, always forward... just as in life!
(This is the equally stunning & adventurous ridge between Feigenkopf and Große Klammspitze, the summit ahead, almost touching the clouds — if you zoom in, you can just about make out the summit cross... One of my fave hikes ever. Picture is from early May 2022)
#SilentSunday