Tootfinder

Orientation Reading by Production Vision-Language Models on Optotype Charts: A Controlled Multi-Model Evaluation Across Reasoning Modes, Prompts, and Access Modalities
Shahryar Wasif, Avneek Sandhu, Bin Hu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.16595 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.16595 https://arxiv.org/html/2607.16595
arXiv:2607.16595v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: OBJECTIVES: Vision-language models are increasingly used to interpret medical and everyday images through consumer chat interfaces, yet their ability to read orientation - the single perceptual operation tested by the tumbling-E acuity optotype - is poorly characterized on the surfaces through which they are actually used. METHODS: We evaluated four production vision-language models (referred to as Claude, GPT, GROK, and Gemini) through their consumer chat interfaces on a locked set of seven optotype charts: four uniform tumbling-E charts (one per cardinal orientation), two mixed-orientation tumbling-E charts, and one Snellen letter chart as a specificity control. Each model was run in two reasoning modes (Fast and Thinking) under two prompt variants (with and without an explicit orientation-decoding rule) by up to three operators. The corpus comprised 920 scoreable trials and 50,420 glyph judgements. The primary outcome was glyph-level accuracy against the chart's designed orientation, summarized with Wilson 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS: Accuracy ranged from 43.0% to 97.0% across models on identical charts, and the strongest model depended on reasoning mode (GPT 97.0% in Fast mode; GROK 96.6% in Thinking mode). Errors were not random but collapsed onto a model-specific attractor direction. Models were 96-100% internally self-consistent yet ranged widely in accuracy, dissociating reliability from validity. An answer-key-free ensemble-consensus estimate tracked accuracy closely (r = 0.998). For one model, consumer-interface accuracy fell 25-27 points below programmatic access, almost entirely on a single orientation. CONCLUSIONS: A single accuracy figure conceals clinically relevant, orientation-specific failure modes; vision-language models should be evaluated along multiple axes and on the deployment surface before image-interpretation outputs are trusted.
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"‘Recovery becomes self-propelling’: Five positive tipping points that can save the world"
#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange

The 5 positive tipping points that could ‘rapidly’ heal the world
“For too long a sense has prevailed that solutions to the climate and nature are out of reach. This new research explodes that myth once and for all.”

Donno what’s worse, the verse itself or DuckDuckGo’s generated explanation of it. @… https://partyon.xyz/@nando161/116925119988965039

Points as Tori: Fast Pointwise Signed Distance for Point Clouds
Nicole Feng, Ioannis Gkioulekas, Keenan Crane
https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.16946 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.16946 https://arxiv.org/html/2607.16946
arXiv:2607.16946v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We describe a method for computing signed distance to point clouds that allows fast pointwise evaluation at arbitrary spatial resolution. As input, our method takes a point cloud with normals; as output, it provides an analytical parameterization that allows queries of signed distance to the approximate underlying surface at arbitrary points - simultaneously providing reconstruction and distance. Our key idea is to reconstruct shapes by locally fitting point clouds with tori, which have closed-form signed distance functions. Tori are fitted in a feed-forward manner, using a pre-trained network to output per-point curvature and shift parameters. Importantly, our method does not require costly global optimization or spatial discretization, and is easily parallelizable. Underlying our method is a new theory that unifies signed distance with the classic reconstruction methods of winding numbers and Poisson surface reconstruction. We use our method to compute signed distance to point clouds arising from photogrammetry, meshes, 3D Gaussians, and neural implicits. Our method allows point clouds to be used directly in applications, without explicit surface reconstruction: as examples, we take offsets of point clouds, apply morphological and Boolean operations, and directly visualize offset surfaces using sphere tracing.
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Singularities of the Wigner Caustic and the Centre Symmetry Set of Frontal Curves in the Euclidean Plane
Micha\l{} Zwierzy\'nski
https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.14653 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.14653 https://arxiv.org/html/2609.14653
arXiv:2609.14653v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Motivated by the role of the Wigner caustic in semiclassical phase-space analysis, we extend it, together with the centre symmetry set, from regular planar curves to cooriented frontals. For an angularly regular parallel pair, the signed speed of the Wigner caustic is one half of the difference of the extended signed radii of curvature, while singular points of the finite centre symmetry set are the critical points of their projective ratio. These formulas yield criteria and explicit invariants for ordinary and higher cusps, an order-lowering relation between the two constructions, and a multiplicity-weighted extension of the classical cusp-count inequality for strictly convex ovals.
We also analyse parallel pairs containing a singular frontal which is not a front. A $5/2$-cusp produces either a $5/2$- or, at a signed-radius resonance, a $5/3$-cusp on the Wigner caustic. The opposite resonance sends the centre symmetry set to infinity. We obtain the corresponding transfer results for a $5/3$-cusp and give a projective completion which resolves vanishing denominators and simultaneous finite-order zeros of the two signed radii.
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If you buy a T-shirt at Gap, it will have a label that tells you where it was made. That’s federal law.
The same is true for automobiles, appliances, television sets, every fresh or frozen fruit and vegetable sold at the supermarket.
Beef and pork are notable exceptions to these laws.
And that may help to explain why President Trump signed a proclamation last month that will allow the duty-free importation of about 660 million pounds of inexpensive beef.
If American co…

Opinion | Why Did Trump Order Up 660 Million Pounds of Mystery Meat?
On second thought, I’m not that hungry.

Horizon3, whose AI penetration testing platform NodeZero helps find and exploit attack paths in production systems, raised a $250M Series E at a $2B valuation (Kate Park/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/03/horizon3-hits…

Horizon3 hits $2 billion valuation with $250M Series E as AI threats escalate | TechCrunch
Cybersecurity startup Horizon3 raised $250 million at a $2 billion valuation as companies want continuous, AI-powered security validation instead of annual pentesting.

Pseudoreal AMSB: Troubling Tensions with Tumbling
Bea Noether
https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.06148 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.06148 https://arxiv.org/html/2608.06148
arXiv:2608.06148v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: I analyze the pseudoreal confining $\mathcal{N}=1$ SUSY gauge theories deformed by anomaly mediated SUSY breaking (AMSB). Taking the conjecture that the AMSB and non-SUSY limits are in the same universality class, I find broadly that the non-SUSY confining pseudoreal gauge theories of this class have no massless particles in their spectra. This contradicts recent expectations from tumbling. I explore whether or not non-standard tumbling could reconcile the two pictures, and find that it would require condensation in repulsive channels in three of the cases, and that in one case it does not appear possible regardless of attractiveness/repulsiveness. I briefly comment on the additional theories that may be in the conformal window, and find that their SUSY versions are consistent with flowing to superconformal fixed points.
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Boundary flexibility for curvature conditions
Helge Frerichs
https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.14581 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.14581 https://arxiv.org/html/2609.14581
arXiv:2609.14581v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We prove a general boundary gluing principle for families of Riemannian metrics with pointwise curvature restrictions on manifolds with possibly non-compact boundary. This includes, as special cases, the classical gluing theorems by Perelman for metrics with positive Ricci curvature and convex singularities and by Gromov-Lawson and B\"ar-Hanke for metrics with positive scalar curvature and mean convex singularities. Using the language of algebraic curvature cones, our theorem implies and unifies many more previous gluing results. We also prove a boundary deformation principle that enables us to compare spaces of metrics with interior curvature restrictions and different boundary conditions. Our construction is based on the local flexibility lemma for open partial differential relations, as well as explicit 1-jet deformations of metrics along the boundary.
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Major military contractor and surveillance giant Palantir
has posted a chilling manifesto on social media that calls for tech companies like itself to play a larger role in a dystopian future
where imperialist and white supremacist powers are unleashed and Americans are increasingly subject to the whims of the surveillance state.
The post contains 22 points it says were summarized from a 2025 book,
"The Technological Republic", written by Palantir co-founder…

Palantir Posts Manifesto Lamenting Post-War “Neutering” of Nazi Germany
The surveillance giant has exploded in value as it’s scored massive contracts from the Trump administration.