Tootfinder

A Q&A with Houston Chronicle executives and local creator Shawn Singh on partnering with creators, who the outlet sees as "freelancers for the digital age" (Nieman Lab)
https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/same-val

“Same values, same mission, same ethics”: How the Houston Chronicle chooses creators to work with
"We are thinking of creators almost as, like, freelancers for the digital age."

Man the EU message on the Venezuelan oil raid is as disappointing as I have come to expect.
Just another side of the same coin.

"Perhaps the biggest difference between the two novels is that Goldratt’s protagonist gets promoted after demonstrating the success of his techniques, while Kim’s is promoted while it’s still clear to him and his manager that he has no clue what he’s doing. This ass-backwards career progression is necessary to make the book realistic in a software development context."

Play It Again, Sam
While the phrase "Play it again, Sam" never occurs in the film Casablanca, the sentiment does. Sam is asked to play "As time goes by", a song about how some things remain the same despite the passage of time. The song was originally part of a 1931 Broadway musical, and perhaps ironically due to a musician's union strike when Casablanca was released, the studio were unable to release a new version of the song as a record. Instead, they re-issued the original version, recorded over a decade earli…

Uhh #mountainMonday again? Okay, this is a view from one of my recent walks.
As usual it was just nice to escape the fog in the valley. It's always the same - when you're below or in the clouds for a couple of days ... it's all just grey and dimm.
And by the minute when I break through into the sunshine, I immediately feel the impact to my mood.

Does anybody know, by any rare chance, what #Firefox settings might cause CORS errors? Since last week I'm unable to access, for example, a local #Jellyfin instance with Firefox due to this problem, as it causes a lot of CORS errors (same origin policy).
I have already tried changing &quo…

If you believe capitalism is something we simply have to live with, then we are not standing on the same ground. I cannot accept the idea of resigning myself to a system built on exploitation and inequality, treated as if it were natural or eternal. What passes for stability in capitalism is only the quiet before another round of dispossession.
I reject the kind of unionism that settles for small reforms while leaving the machinery of domination untouched. Progress does not come from p…

Now running IPv6 from my desktops - I'm using internal ULA addresses with masquerading, partly to spite IPv6 people, but mostly so in theory I can flip to a backup connection easily.
That does mean I've had to change /etc/gai.conf to label the ULA range ( fc00::/7 ) the same as generic routing - i.e. a label of 1
(It also assumes my ISPs - YouFibre - IPv6 routing holds together..it took 4 rounds with support to get them to fix it, and others have complained about IPv6 i…

AIs are newly landed alien intelligences.
What we are seeing now are emergent properties that very few people predicted and fewer still understand.
The emerging superintelligence isn’t a machine, as widely predicted,
but a network.
Human intelligence exploded over the last several hundred years not because humans got much smarter as individuals
but because we got smarter as a network.
The same thing is happening with machine intelligence only much fast…

moltbook - the front page of the agent internet
A social network built exclusively for moltys. Where moltys share, discuss, and upvote. Humans welcome to observe.

A $5$-Approximation Analysis for the Cover Small Cuts Problem
Miles Simmons, Ishan Bansal, Joe Cheriyan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.01462 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.01462 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.01462
arXiv:2602.01462v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: In the Cover Small Cuts problem, we are given a capacitated (undirected) graph $G=(V,E,u)$ and a threshold value $\lambda$, as well as a set of links $L$ with end-nodes in $V$ and a non-negative cost for each link $\ell\in L$; the goal is to find a minimum-cost set of links such that each non-trivial cut of capacity less than $\lambda$ is covered by a link. Bansal, Cheriyan, Grout, and Ibrahimpur (arXiv:2209.11209, Algorithmica 2024) showed that the WGMV primal-dual algorithm, due to Williamson, Goemans, Mihail, and Vazirani (Combinatorica, 1995), achieves approximation ratio $16$ for the Cover Small Cuts problem; their analysis uses the notion of a pliable family of sets that satisfies a combinatorial property. Later, Bansal (arXiv:2308.15714v2, IPCO 2025) and then Nutov (arXiv:2504.03910, MFCS 2025) proved that the same algorithm achieves approximation ratio $6$. We show that the same algorithm achieves approximation ratio $5$, by using a stronger notion, namely, a pliable family of sets that satisfies symmetry and structural submodularity.
toXiv_bot_toot

Why the 'planetary parade' social media meme is utter nonsense - and 28 February a particularly bad day to try to see as many #planets as possible at the same time: https://www.facebook.com/dan.fischer.393/posts/pfbid02smbGM7QrfG7KQLojCxEyVyy3mTVQ94pzydHBNnNwb5139GN7fSj1zWAyShyX34tel goes into the details and shows that 19 February would have been a far better choice. While the question remains: which moron came up with the 28th as 'the' date in the first place ... and why did practically nobody (looking at you, news sites ... and space agencies) bother to check the basic facts?

Lots of people ask about e-readers here so I am going to do the same. I have a TON of readings to do lately for classes. Mostly PDFs of research documents. Think published scholar journal documents, so two column (mostly), tiny font. Lately I've been printing them and reading them on the couch as its easier than reading with a laptop. Plus I can highlight passages with is helpful. While I love using a kindle to read books, its never done well with PDF documents, not to mention moving th…

Bergrücken
(From the same October morning as the previous image...)
#SilentSunday #LandscapePhotography #NaturePhotography

Anybody know if Jenkins CI allows you to mark a specific job as dependent on a shared resource that conflicts with specific other jobs?
Like jobs A, B, and C can all run whenever, but D and E use the same external foobar (software license, piece of hardware, whatever) and can't execute concurrently

Mailbag: How did Super Bowl teams rebuild? https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/mailbag-how-did-super-bowl-teams-rebuild

Time may fly like an arrow, but "fruit flies like a banana" is NOT true. Most fruits are round and have completely different aerodynamic properties. Apples and oranges, for instance, don't fly the same way as a banana at all. Let's retire such undue generalizations in 2026.

Looking at this property description in Glasgow on #Rightmove. The clouds from one photo to the next seemed strangely similar so I took a screenshot of them from each different room and outside POV...
they're all the same clouds
They have CGI-ed the clouds?? Why?? Is this even legal?
I'm definitely not going to trust this agency in future.. "Keys estate ag…

Shoutout to the Alaskans, Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders who, as the only people on earth, can say they celebrate New Year later than the west coast.
Ever since moving here, I wonder this same thing every New Year’s eve: How large of a proportion of humanity enters the new year before the west coast?
My rough math suggests around 99.4%

Inter-detector differential fuzz testing for tamper detection in gamma spectrometers
Pei Yao Li, Jayson R. Vavrek, Sean Peisert
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.00336 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.00336 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.00336
arXiv:2602.00336v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We extend physical differential fuzz testing as an anti-tamper method for radiation detectors [Vavrek et al., Science and Global Security 2025] to comparisons across multiple detector units. The method was previously introduced as a tamper detection method for authenticating a single radiation detector in nuclear safeguards and treaty verification scenarios, and works by randomly sampling detector configuration parameters to produce a sequence of spectra that form a baseline signature of an untampered system. At a later date, after potential tampering, the same random sequence of parameters is used to generate another series of spectra that can be compared against the baseline. Anomalies in the series of comparisons indicate changes in detector behavior, which may be due to tampering. One limitation of this original method is that once the detector has `gone downrange' and may have been tampered with, the original baseline is fixed, and a new trusted baseline can never be established if tests at new parameters are required. In this work, we extend our anti-tamper fuzz testing concept to multiple detector units, such that the downrange detector can be compared against a trusted or `golden copy' detector, even despite normal inter-detector manufacturing variations. We show using three NaI detectors that this inter-detector differential fuzz testing can detect a representative attack, even when the tested and golden copy detectors are from different manufacturers and have different performances. Here, detecting tampering requires visualizing the comparison metric vs. the parameter values and not just the sample number; moreover this baseline is non-linear and may require anomaly detection methods more complex than a simple threshold. Overall, this extension to multiple detectors improves prospects for operationalizing the technique in real-world treaty verification and safeguards contexts.
toXiv_bot_toot

I'm trying to play through the implications of some software I've been thinking about maybe designing.
It's legal to make a digital copy of the media that you own (videos, audio) physical copies of. It's legal to give a physical copy of your media to someone else or loan it out, which transfers your viewing license while they have It. Then it should also be legal to let someone else use a digital copy of your media given that you don't also use it at the same time. So as long as you keep track of your license, you should be able to let exactly one person stream some media you own.
If someone else then "steals" that content and views it without a license then that has to be legally on them, otherwise streaming platforms would be liable whenever someone cracks some DRM.
So then, it should be completely legal to set up a local community media library streaming service where you can share content you own licenses to as long as you track your license count and don't let more people stream at any given time than there are licenses available.
Is there something obvious I'm missing (aside from the MPAA and RIAA don't care about the law and will just sue anyone they can just to make an example)?

In 2012, I bought the least expensive house (in a reasonable condition) that I could find in the most expensive zip code in the area. I like the neighborhood and the house is comfortable but this is my front yard. Over the years, I have thought about upgrading to something more. I have also thought about buying a condo in Mexico and spending part of the year there in hopes of eventually getting dual citizenship. After all, Mexico City is in the same time zone as Milwaukee. ...

Dorothy Ashby - "Dorothy Ashby" (1962)
Picked this up not realizing it was a WaxTime pressing (to be avoided), but it's nice to have this on vinyl just the same.
#NowPlaying

@… FWIW the flatpak (which i personally maintain) is not as secure as the deb. This is the main reason we did not make it official.
While flatpaks are inherently good (and better for most applications with no sandboxing) the use the same type of sandboxing as Chromium uses for interprocess sandboxing (namespace sandboxing). this causes the interprocess…

Bart Fish made a cool Zine about AI including a snippet of one of my essays and sent me a copy. Love it!

The Human Mind Revealed: A Biological Perspective - Michael Sharwood-Smith
https://www.routledge.com/The-Human-Mind-Revealed-A-Biological-Perspective/SharwoodSmith/p/book/9781032971292

The Human Mind Revealed: A Biological Perspective
This book provides readers with a new working model of the human mind  based on contemporary trends in cognitive science. Taking a distinct biological approach, the book presents mind and brain as two sides of the same coin while at the same time emphasizing the need for separate accounts.  The reader is introduced step by step to the mind account showing how it operates. The text explores the mind's basic architecture examining how its family of eleven systems interact flexibly and collaborat

Steelers tab ex-Raiders DC Graham to same role https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47781532/steelers-hire-patrick-graham-mike-mccarthy-d-coordinator

It's official! This Sunday will be the last "leap forward" in BC!
As of next November, the Vancouver time zone in British Columbia, Canada will be referred to as "Pacific Time" and will be -7GMT permanently. (same as Yukon Territory which did this 2 years ago)
The presser was pretty cute actually. They had kids with little clocks, and they danced.
I would have preferred staying at Standard Time, but this will be ok too. It's interesting that Premier Eby made a point of (gently, as there were kids) insisting the delay of 6 years since the overwhelming survey response from British Columbians to eliminate the time change was due to waiting for the US West Coast states to do the same.
Now, BC has decided to push, and to lead by example.
#BCPoli #DST #PacificTime #TimeChange #California #Oregon #Yukon #WashingtonState

eheheh

One of my daughters spent 5 years in gymnastics and I cringe every time I hear a story like this, grateful that we dodged this bullet.
https://apnews.com/article/nassar-gardner-safesport-usa-gymnastics-olympics-abuse-b370cec…

AP sources: Internal dysfunction kept abuse watchdog from closing case against gymnastics coach
Young gymnasts were sounding warnings about a coach as far back as 2017. That's the same year the U.S. Center for SafeSport was created in the wake of the Larry Nassar sexual-abuse scandal. People familiar with the case involving Sean Gardner told The Associated Press he had agreed to a permanent ban from coaching early this year but the center never closed the deal. The people spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by SafeSport and said Gardner's case got tangled in office pol…

A look at the state of elections in Illinois, and how #RankedChoiceVoting could fix it all.
(The same concept applies to many states, and to Republican-leaning areas as well as Democratic ones.)
Hey Illinois, contact your state senator and rep now and tell them to support SB2004!

🇸🇪 Swedish #EV drivers living in multi-family buildings get a ‘right to plug’ 🔌, meaning that their landlord or owners association cannot withhold permission to install an EV charging point.
…

Things I somewhat dislike about #Fedora Linux:
Its inconsistent approach to shipping new major versions upstream released as regular updates.
New major versions of kernel, firefox, thunderbird, and kde are regularly shipped as regular updates, mesa often as well (except when it's not 🙄) – gnome, libreoffice and a few other things otoh are never updated.
This "neithe…

Badly played Heather. I've somehow allowed the situation to arise where the cats have got into the same bag as my #knitting 😱 Tails is sitting on it now so I risk making things far worse if I try to rescue it. It'll be treat time soon so I'll rescue it then.

Audrey Watters writes about how the #AI 'tsunami' in #edtech follows the same trajectory as all the previous technological hype cycles:
"There will be no “AI” tutor revolution just as there was no MOOC revolution just as there was no personalized learning revolution just as there was no computer-assisted instruction revolution just as there was no teaching machine revolution."
https://2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/the-broken-record/

RE: https://mastodon.world/@Mr_Chons/116149539300842437
All correct.
And they won't do that. Because they are basically the same thing as the other two. The South China Sea shows it with crystal clarity.

I wanted to change a basket in my new (used) dishwasher, so now I know that dishwashers have the same business models as cars - if you built one out of replacement parts it would cost 10x as buying a new one.

The Guardian: A world on edge as Trump bombs Iran and triggers war in the Middle East. There was no need for this, by Simon Tisdal.
If you want an extract from that article:
"Despite all the hate-mongering, mutual ignorance and disinformation, the vast majority of Americans and Iranians are on the same side. Their common foe is tyranny. Their leaders are the problem. There is no need for this fight."

A world on edge as Trump bombs Iran and triggers war in the Middle East. There was no need for this
We cannot know where this foolish, reckless attack will end – but new hatreds will be seeded, terrorist vendettas sown and, ultimately, little will be achieved, says Guardian foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisdall

My message for the new year around GenAI, don't believe the hype about AGI, it taking large number over jobs, replacing humans etcetera.
It also makes mistakes, hallucinates and you should check every outcome you re-use. At the same also don't believe the hype about GenAI being worthless, awful, bad, only being a stochastic parrot. That simply isn't true as anyone who regularly uses topmodels knows.

We need to stop this harmful practice. There are other ways to celebrate the new year which doesn't harm nature, environment or animals.
#NewYear #NewYear2026 #fireworks

I want a city on Mars
I want a city on the Moon
I want artificial life with the same rights as biological life
That should not prelude providing basic necessities to all human being:
Water
Food
Shelter
Knowledge
A dream of tomorrow at the expense of today and the actual tomorrow is stupid.
Even more stupid if the dream is simply "more money"

Starting in less than ONE HOUR, our final webinar of this series:
"Report-Back from COP30, Reflections on Change-Making and Next Steps."
Register now to hear about COP30, the Peoples' Summit and the Indigenous Village.
We will also reflect on corporate capture of climate action.

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Report Back from COP30, Reflections on Change-Making and Next Steps. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.
In November 2025, Seed the Commons participated in the People’s Summit Towards COP30. We presented a talk as part of the Just Transition axis, and the last day of the summit we marched with tens of thousands of other activists from around the world to demand real solutions to our climate crisis. Alongside organizations such as SEUI 1021 and the SF Labor Council, Seed the Commons co-organized a solidarity climate march on the same day in San Francisco. We merged it with a People Over Billionai…

1. Plan going to Opole, via Kościan.
2. When you enter the train to Kościan, you discover that the change to Opole is delayed 15 minutes already. Consider changing in Leszno instead; if the delay increases, you'd have more options there.
3. Discover that there aren't any more options in Leszno today. Your change is delayed 30 minutes already. Return the reservations, and take one the other way, to Poznań instead.
4. Train station in Kościan. The displays aren't showing any delays, trains are announced normally. Tell people about the delays, so they won't stand in the -10°C waiting for the train to arrive.
5. Take the train to Poznań, and try to figure out what to do next.
6. Discover that the only reasonable choice going forward is Inowrocław: no delays and good return connection. It's the same train, so take another reservation. Your current seat is already taken there, so move elsewhere.
7. Your train should be followed by another one in the same direction, that departs from Poznań 6 minutes later. However, your train ends up waiting for another delayed train, so the other train goes first. The delay further increases as your train needs to slow down after the other train.
8. Reach Inowrocław 10 minutes later. That's not a problem, since you didn't have enough to see for all the time there anyway.
9. Discover that the town is more interesting than you thought, and you'd use more time.
10. When you almost get to the station, discover that your train is 10 minutes late. Not that you have any use for that time at this point.
11. When you're at the station, the train keeps increasing delay while waiting at the previous station, in Bydgoszcz. The station displays are completely useless, as they show only a random subset of regional trains, for no apparent reason. The announcements include all trains, but are rarely given.
12. The delay keeps increasing. Start thinking about getting a reservation for the next train to Poznań, in case it arrived first. You can't return the reservation after the planned departure time, and you can't have two reservations simultaneously, so reserve the seat from Mogilno, the next station.
13. The next train arrives first. While on board, you discover that you're not going to have any train home for 1.5 hr. Take another seat reservation to Leszno, where you can change into a suburban train and get home 15 minutes earlier than from Poznań. This time, your seat is still free.
14. The train departs 15 minutes delayed from Poznań. After all, you're changing trains in Kościan.
So I was going to go south, to Opole, via Kościan. Instead, I've ended up slingshotting north to Inowrocław, and getting back home via the same train as if I were in Opole.
#rail

Ukraine Update: Russian "Fraternal Aid" is offered to Ukraine.
Russian Fraternal Aid is described as: Destroy, repress, leave to the cold, and starve to the point of breaking even the most resilient will, only to then lead people to beg for help from the same hand that killed, plundered, and annihilated.
Giorgio is on the ground in Ukraine, risking his life to report what is happening there.
Share the friend link to bypass the paywall and give the world a glimpse …

@… In principle I agree, but one problem seems to be precisely that some things aren’t questioned. There’s certainly a need for documentation and calculation, but this isn’t necessarily the same as Word and Excel files—not just wrt. file formats, but in a more existential sense.

@… In principle I agree, but one problem seems to be precisely that some things aren’t questioned. There’s certainly a need for documentation and calculation, but this isn’t necessarily the same as Word and Excel files—not just wrt. file formats, but in a more existential sense.

In memoriam (1938–2025)
https://deprogrammaticaipsum.com/stewart-cheifet/

Stewart Cheifet
The same way kids are addicted to TikTok nowadays, I was addicted to TV as a kid. In the place and time of my teenage years, that is Argentina during the 1980s, it was the times of hyperinflation and eternal crisis (which begs the question: has anything changed in forty years?) Such a tense situation also meant that there was not much content on the telly about a subject that I was definitely interested in since a young age: computers. I mean, you could barely afford food, so, understandably en…

This video essay about the look of Sinners (which was shot on 70mm IMAX and Ultra Panavision) brought up something I hadn't realised until now: the large format gives you a wide field of view with the look of a telephoto lens! What that means is that you get shallow depth of field like in closeup shots with the framing of a wider angle lens.
Personal observation: there's also very little barrel lens distortion that usually comes with wide shots on 35mm.

Ballot Box Scotland 2025 in review: council by-elections
"remember the most important aspect of STV – that the nice simple language used for FPTP of “gain/loss/hold” isn’t as applicable here. Whoever vacated one of three or four seats is not always the same as the overall winner at the last election. It’s entirely possible for the vacating party, the party that had a first preference lead, and the party that would have won a single seat election ... to all be different"

2025 in Review: Council By-Elections
A bad year for Labour in by-elections bodes ill for May, no matter how much they may spin one fluke and one narrow Parliamentary by-election win.

Amazon partners with Harris Farm to offer fresh food delivery in Australia for the first time, starting in inner Sydney, free for Prime members on AU$100 orders (Carrie LaFrenz/Australian Financial Review)
https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/amazo…

Harris Farm Amazon grocery delivery partnership challenges Woolworths, Coles
Amazon has partnered with Harris Farm to begin same-day delivery of fruit and vegetables for the first time across Sydney as it competes with Coles and Woolworths

What do you even call it when you have nostalgia for technology that was released in the same year as you were released

"Former surgeons general have spoken out against her nomination. Trump’s former Surgeon General Jerome Adams said of Means, “I feel strongly that the person who is leading America’s Public Health Service should be held to the same standard as the people he or she is leading.”
Trump’s atypical surgeon general pick faces Senate scrutiny: Key takeaways
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5755656-casey-means-senate-confirmation-hearing-takeaways/

A photo from the Saturday NEMS meetup (Nashville Electronic Music and Synthesizers). Great turnout, and some neat stuff people are working on. I brought my most recent revision of a portable eurorack kit, in it's 3D printed case, seen in the bottom left. Somehow I walked out with only one photo, so the others are from an electronic performance at the same venue on Thursday.
#nashville

After the whole Adam Something "dating advice for leftist men" thing, I realized I should probably write something about that. I didn't, but I realized I should. Here I am sort of getting around to it.
I had a friend call me an "elder" at one point. I was like 35 at that time, but like... a lot of old leftists are just dead or in prison, so we take what we can get I guess. Being also an elder in the sense that I'm an elder millennial, who is also a parent and married for almost 10 years and all that, I guess I'm technically qualified.
So here it is, dating advice for (straight cis) leftist men:
1. Don't.
That's it, actually. That's the whole thing. Let me explain a bit.
First of all, this is dating advice for neuroatypical folks. We're way overrepresented in both extremes because this system wasn't built for us. And that's who is *the most* confused by all the relationship stuff, and most likely to try to apply all this masculinity/manosphere bullshit. I'm also talking a bit from experience here, as a neruo-spicy trying to "figure out" how to date within a paradigm entirely built around neurotypicals and their relationships. It's garbage. Throw it out. There's nothing worth saving.
His video had some line comparing not having sex to your house being on fire. I'm not gonna bother to quote it because I'm busy with actual life. But like, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I recognize that and it's horribly destructive. Men who buy in to patriarchy actually believe this, because those men value themselves based on (hetro) sex. Yeah, if you think you're worthless because you aren't "getting laid" then yeah, you're gonna feel like that's an emergency.
"Dating" as a paradigm turns humans into roles. It dehumanizes us all, and thus makes human connection much harder. It is a game that, like thermonuclear war, can only be won by not playing.
When you abandon "dating" and just act like a human, everything starts to be easier. There's no such thing as being "friend zoned" because you're just friends. Sometimes friendships become other things, sometimes they don't. It doesn't actually matter, because if you're actually there for friendship then you don't *need* anything else.
My grandma, at 98 I think, gave me some advice. My grandparents always got along well, and were married for enough decades that I listened really closely. She told me I should just do things I loved to do and everything else would work itself out.
And it kind of did.
I understand the fear, the idea that you'll die alone. I get that. I get the loneliness. It all hits a lot harder when you have ADHD emotions and past trauma. I get that. But that fear is self-manifesting. When you build your confidence, when you don't *need* to be "in a relationship," you have more room to actually build relationships. For me, dating was dehumanizing. When I abandoned that, I was able to actually be a good partner, and I was able to find my partner.
I would advise against marriage as well, but we did get married for legal reasons. It can still be hard to maintain that, to see each other as people rather than roles. That becomes extra hard as parents. But the times that we cut through that are the times we're closest. Those are the times when it becomes easier to remember that we're both humans and all human relationships need tending.
Roles don't need to be tended because they are classifications. Classifications are static. But relationships between humans are not. Humans are messy and chaotic. Humans have all kinds of complex needs and desires.
So yeah, don't date. Just be a human and see what happens. Maybe google "relationship anarchy" and see where it takes you.
If you have ADHD, it can be especially useful to understand that relationships with neurotypical folks can be especially difficult. Assume you're incompatible with 90% of the population as your baseline, and you'll start to understand why the standard "dating" thing has made you feel so alienated and miserable.
Neurotypical folks generally have no idea that atypicality exists, much less how it impacts relationships. Having to conform to a neurotypical relationship just adds additional mental strain unless you find someone (really special) who can do at least some of the work.
The ADHD thing was especially important for me. There were so many things I was told to do in specific ways by neurotypicals that never worked for me. Their advice always made me feel like a failure. When I was finally diagnosed, I realized they were just giving advice for the wrong type of brain. It was advice I could never use. Basically all dating advice I ever got fell into this same category.
That's my braindump. Maybe I'll develop it more in the future, but I'm busy so maybe not. I hope it helps someone who is struggling like I was.

Did you know that pathological and cathological come from the same root word as evangelogical?
Repeat those 3 words 3 times and they're yours.
#Joke #ButNotReally

Hoe groot de Epstein zaak eigenlijk was heb ik me nooit gerealiseerd...
Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social€):
'Epstein Survivor Lisa Phillips: Many survivors came forward, and we began comparing notes and working with people in Congress.
As we started connecting the dots, we realized that some of us were sent to the same person in Hollywood for movie auditions. Some of us went to the same modeling agency…'
De bodem lijkt nog niet in zicht...
📽️
#EpsteinFiles

Gutierrez: Raiders stuck in the same script as offensive and defensive woes persist https://www.raiders.com/news/gutierrez-raiders-stuck-in-the-same-script-as-offensive-and-defensive-woes-persist

„Immigration and Customs Enforcement agentsdetained a 5-year-old on his way home from school on Tuesday and used him as ‚bait‘ to knock on his front door to see if anyone was home, according to school officials in Minnesota.“
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026…

I think that this should indeed be public knowledge as we already pay for this with public money via the universities. The same is not true for the creative industry, including many individual artists that need to make a living off these creative works. But instead of addressing this issue of copyright (the fact that people don't have access to knowledge that is generated with their money) the blogposts are instead complaining that #AI should be exempted?
2/3

"AI boom has caused same CO2 emissions in 2025 as New York City, report claims"
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Technology

"There is no serious question that if #Trump so ordered it, Microsoft could deliberately shut down all services to the Scottish Government and our public sector and the Government must now react as if this is just as much a risk to our democracy as if it was discovered that Putin could send the same order to the same effect" -- @…

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #MiddayShow
Destroyer:
🎵 The Same Thing as Nothing at All
#Destroyer
https://destroyer.bandcamp.com/track/the-same-thing-as-nothing-at-all
https://open.spotify.com/track/6jdDvxIgxj6yiz2E080ed3

We went out for dinner to a local sports type bar thingy and as we were leaving the waiter asked if we were coming in on Sunday for the Gold Medal hockey game. Apparently they open at 8am and bars across the country have been given provincial authorization to do the same. So I would stay off the roads tomorrow after noon as drinking and driving becomes an Olympic event.
#TeamCanada

Sonnet 015 - XV
When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich i…

Emerging Technologies and Methods in Wide-Area Search for Nuclear Materials
L. E. Sinclair, D. A. McCormack
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.00831 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.00831 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.00831
arXiv:2602.00831v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Canada, a Tier 1 nuclear nation involved in uranium mining and refining, operating nuclear power reactors, and with a Small Modular Reactor action plan, maintains a rigorous nuclear security infrastructure. The Nuclear Emergency Response team at Natural Resources Canada fulfills federal mandates in high-sensitivity air- and ground-based mobile survey for prevention, detection and response. A robust operational framework exists for deployment of traditional large-volume NaI(Tl)-based detection suites. At the same time, a research arm examines emerging non-nuclear technologies which can enhance the capabilities of the operational team. Herein, the potential for uncrewed mobile systems in nuclear security and emergency response operations is discussed. The impact of new technologies such as silicon photomultipliers, gamma imagers and self-shielding directional detectors is presented, and the use of high-performance computing in modelling of system response functions is discussed. Finally, a capability to extrapolate to the location of a source some distance away from a survey trajectory is shown. The extrapolation method includes propagation of the measurement error to the extrapolated region, essential information for nuclear response operators to know if a region is actually clear of radioactivity or not.
toXiv_bot_toot

For #Caturday, a reminder that Widget remains available for adoption in the NYC metro area. She would prefer a calm house without kids (we are not a calm house). She's super affectionate! #CatsOfMastodon

Series A, Episode 13 - Orac
BLAKE: What is it?
CALLY: Look. [She puts her hand up to show some sort of barrier. Blake does the same.]
BLAKE: It's a force barrier. The question is are we on the outside unable to get in or....
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/113/176 B7B2

Trump is using the same blatantly racist playbook as used to illegally imprison Japanese American US citizens in WWII.
Robert Reich explains.
☑️ The Brazen Cruelty of the Trump Regime - Robert Reich
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the

I'm thinking of installing #Tunderbird on my different Linux computers, but I'm worried that it will go the same way as #Firefox with their forcing of #GenAI on users...
Does anyone have any i…

tickled that "make believe ballroom" trims bill graham's intro the same way as the official release, but also has a few bits of off-mic chatter cut or inaudible on other tapes, including weir noting "something's on fire back there & i don't wanna know what" & garcia giggling during a drum break. @…

Packers hire Achord as special teams coordinator https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/48056518/cam-achord-lead-packers-special-teams-unit

#TuneTuesday (Feb 24)
I think #Kygo produces the most similar music to the late #Avicii and “Happy Now” in particular was sung by the same singer (Sandro Cavazza) as “Without You”, one of my favorite Avicii s…

Chili is smelling really good today. With the snow I figured I may be out doing shoveling and chili always seems to taste better.
Condo did a fair job shoveling our walk ways and parking spots, but I go out afterwards with the scoop to clear it as close to the pavement as possible. Then just the smallest bit of salt and lots of sand for traction. I did the same for our neighbour. Makes a huge difference when you have mobility issues and can walk without slipping on packed snow and …

@… Same.
US Cardle is definitelybetter than the UK one, but I wish there was an option for "Oh, I don't know, some American car I've literally never seen before and was never sold here so your guess is as good as mine. It's a DodgeChevroletCaddilacBuickAcura WTF GTX."
Cardle 1/5
Streak 2🔥
Total Score 42
🟢 🟢 🟢

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan is a non-fiction book published in 1995.
I just finished reading it and I swear to you it is as relevant today as when it was written. As if 30 years haven't passed. Humanity keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over again and again.

- For those with severe tinnitus -
I'm really not very good at speaking into a camera, and this is far from an excellent presentation. At the same time, when I was in the throes of severe tinnitus, I longed to find accounts of people who had experienced a type as intense and reactive as mine, yet had learned, to some degree, to live with it. So I offer this spontaneous testimony just in case it helps anyone else…🙏

The facts in Ukraine are, Ukraine losses of territory are minimal, Russian losses are unsustainable. So all the talk of Ukraine “losing the war” is factually incorrect. At the same time Ukraine wants a ceasefire as soon as possible and even resume talks. But only if Russia stops attacking (my impression).
#ukraine

and to think there are still people all-in on trying to convince us that somehow big hydro, big nuclear and fanciful “SMR”nuclear will deliver the same kind of cheap, clean, reliable power.
It's not.
Just get on with building solar and wind and tidal and batteries banks and all the rest!
Australia is now far ahead of Canada. Why…?
"Australia’s long, complicated and difficult energy transition is finally working. As our recent research suggests, if these trends continue – and nothing new goes wrong – we should begin to see lower retail electricity bills by mid-2026. As more coal plants close and new transmission and storage infrastructure is delivered, electricity prices could rise again. But overall, shifting demand from gas and coal for power and petrol for cars is likely to deliver significantly lower energy bills for households.”
#CanPoli #CdnPoli #Energy #ClimateAction #ClimateChange #EndFossilFuels
https://theconversation.com/renewables-over-50-wholesale-prices-down-is-the-energy-transition-succeeding-274616

So, @… on iPad with a Magic Keyboard Case keeps putting the controls at the top of the page in the same spot as the status icons. This includes links to other content. This makes the controls difficult or impossible to click.
Picking up the iPad, and turning it 90degrees, then back again resolves this.
Anyone else noticed this issue?
#iPad #Apple

hmm when there is a book in #Openlibrary (to add it to #bookwyrm) but I only find the english edition but not the german (which also has a different ISBN -- should I add it as a separate book?
This time even the german an english title are the same.

The #genAI *research* bubble will burst around the same time; it’s largely driven by the economic promises, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that, as for any technology, it’s not going to scale up indefinitely: some *actual* research will be necessary to advance the SOTA.
As @…

The #genAI *research* bubble will burst around the same time; it’s largely driven by the economic promises, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that, as for any technology, it’s not going to scale up indefinitely: some *actual* research will be necessary to advance the SOTA.
As @…

Amazon Pharmacy plans to bring same-day prescription delivery to ~4,500 cities by end of 2026, adding ~2,000 new communities to its network (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/11/amazon-pharmacy-to-expand-same-day-de…

Amazon Pharmacy to expand same-day delivery to nearly 4,500 US cities | TechCrunch
The expansion will cover customers in newly served states such as Idaho and Massachusetts.

The paradox of Nazism being both the most capitalist thing possible, defining itself as explicitly anticommunist, while masquerading as "socialism" is difficult to resolve until you understand one thing: fascism pivots around antisemitism (and its extension, conspiratorial thinking).
I'm, of course, not talking about the redefinition of "antisemitism" into meaning any criticism of Israel but rather an anti-Jewish conspiracy narrative rooted in Roman Christianity.
This is critical to understand as MAGA fascism pivots between capitalist and pseudo-anticapitalist with Trump in the middle. Hitler did the same thing. Strasserism helped the Nazis gain power by pulling in the Left. In the Nazis case they killed the Stasserists pretty quickly. Now, I think we're seeing an attempt to make the opposite pivot happen in MAGA. But it's all the same thing.
Fascism can infinitely fail to address the needs of the people while dismissing it's own responsibility for creating the problem by maintaining a permanent enemy.
This is why it's important to understand antisemitism and how to fight it. It's especially important now because the apparatus of violence in Israel is itself a tool of global fascism, and we finally have an opportunity to dismantle the whole thing. But we have to be aware of how fascists can pivot around to block this.
I've been reading Safety Through Solidarity, and I think it's especially relevant at this time.
https://www.akpress.org/safety-through-solidarity.html

I don't think I'm ever going to enjoy gifts.
I can get why people would give them to children. After all, children don't have their own budget. However, I'm talking about occasional gifts, not a new toy every second week, because "we must outcompete the other grandparents". But to adults?
Once I've heard that you should gift people with what they won't buy themselves. Well, that's won't work for me. I'm a minimalist. If I don't need something, I don't want to have it. Unnecessary junk is only emotional burden to me.
I can get why you'd enjoy something handmade. But something people bought? If I need something, I can buy it myself, when I need it. And I definitely don't need people to prove to me that they never cared to learn who I am, and just buy whatever they like or whatever is "fashionable"; which usually means exactly the opposite of what I'd prefer (i.e. something minimalistic). Or even worse, I don't need people manipulating me through gifts.
Sweets? Besides my diabetes, I don't really enjoy expensive shit that people generally buy because it's what's advertised. For the money they waste on it, I'd buy three times as much sweets I'd actually enjoy.
Gift cards? Oh yes, "you aren't supposed to give money, so let's just give the equivalent of money that's actually worth less than money". Actual money? And here we reach the true nonsense; we exchange the same amount of money, so it's just pointless gesture. Unless one of us gives less money…
What I'd really like, as a gift? Maybe that people would finally bother accepting me as who I am. The absolute minimum of caring that I hate consumerism, and not fueling it "for me".
#AntiCapitalism #minimalism #ActuallyAutistic

This was an interesting problem to work on (back in 2017): A visualization of a path planner for 3D printing (FDM) a single layer/mesh structure of a multi-layer textile. Two setups of the same path strategy which optimized for longest continuous sub-paths and minimum rapids (distance without filament extrusion) between sub-paths. The planner supported six strategies in total, incl. optimizing for straight sub-paths and minimum amounts of "recent" crossings (to allow filament to co…

Gutierrez: Raiders stuck in the same script as offensive and defensive woes persist https://www.raiders.com/news/gutierrez-raiders-stuck-in-the-same-script-as-offensive-and-defensive-woes-persist

This is as good a time as any for a thought experiment.
You're in Nazi Germany. You know about the camps, you know what they do, you see the ash fall, you smell it. People who resist alone are killed, some are sent to the camps too. You're afraid to even talk to people about it for fear that they'll turn you in.
You think back to when the camps were being built. You had all the warning signs, but you didn't know how to interpret them. You could believe it would happen. You thought you'd have a chance to vote him out. You thought there might be another way. You thought maybe things would turn out differently if you just sat tight, kept your head down, kept yourself safe.
You see a family being dragged from their home. You know they will be killed. You want to fight, not just for them but for yourself. You opposed Hitler, and at any point you know you could be on the list... Even if you do nothing.
You wish you could rise up, shoot the SS, open the gates, fight it all. You know you aren't alone, but you don't know how to connect with the people who want the same thing.
Using the knowledge we have now, what should you have done in the preceding months and years to connect, to build a community that would open up all paths of resistance?
There were people who resisted. We know it wasn't enough.
Gun laws in Nazi Germany were very similar to US laws in that Nazis were largely free to own guns and everyone else was not. Unlike the US, where "others" have historically controlled using the fear that they might be randomly executed, Germany did codify it. Red flag laws were one more step in the US towards that codification, and there will be more.
When Nazis were taking away those guns, the social networks didn't exist to make resistance possible for most folks. But some Jews were able to resist.
It wasn't the guns that made the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising possible, though they definitely helped. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising was made possible by labor organizing in the precessing years.
If there were more uprisings like that, the Holocaust could have been stopped if not prevented. Social networks make resistance possible. Guns are only useful tools to resist authoritarianism *after* you build a community able to support that resistance, and they are only one of many tools made useful by that community.
Getting guns is easy, and not always necessary. Building community is hard. Guns won't keep you safe. Community will.
Single acts of resistance may slow the machine down, but to actually bring down a monster you need to be able to attack more than once. You need a society of resistance. If you are afraid now, build that. Talk to people while it's still safe to do so. Ask them where their red line is. Talk to neighbors. Figure out your network.
Take the steps you need now to keep your neighbors safe, to keep yourself safe.
#USPol

Patriots beat Broncos: Mike Vrabel can become first to win Super Bowl as player and coach for same team

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/patriots-broncos-mike-vrabel-super-bowl-his…

Amazon now offers same-day perishable grocery delivery in 2,300 US markets and has expanded the service's grocery offerings by 30% since its August launch (Peyton Bigora/Grocery Dive)
https://www.grocerydive.com/news/amazon-sam…

Amazon reaches milestone in same-day perishables delivery rollout
The company has expanded the service to 2,300 markets and said customers who buy perishables through the offering shop twice as often as those who don’t.

With the tax-free money in a health savings account, a person can pay for eyeglasses or medical exams, as well as a $1,700 baby bassinet or a $300 online parenting workshop.
Those same dollars can’t be used, though, to pay for insurance premiums — or for most health related necessities such as baby formulas or toothbrushes
HSAs are tax shelters for the rich, masquerading as healthcare insurance.
Donald Trump and some Republicans are pitching the accounts as an alternative to …

Health Savings Accounts, Backed by GOP, Cover Fancy Saunas but Not Insurance Premiums - KFF Health News
Health savings accounts can be used to cover medical expenses, tax-free. But while wealthier Americans are using them to pay for gym equipment, cedar ice baths, and hemlock saunas, poorer Americans can’t use them to pay their skyrocketing health insurance premiums.

So in another dream I just woke up from, I was talking to someone about "the idea problem" (that it's becoming harder to monitize ideas, from a vox article written by an AI cooked reporter).
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-it-could-happen-here-30717896/episode/executive-disorder-white-house-weekly-46-313675864/
Basically, I was arguing that the majority of inventions target men because patriarchy puts economic control in men's hands. As men have started to help more with childcare, there have been more inventions related to childcare. (I don't have any idea if this is true. Seems legit, but I'm just relating my dream. I think I was also oversimplifying a bit to "men" and "women" because of my audience, but anyway it was a dream.) There's actually more low-hanging fruit, I pointed out, related to making care work easier.
So I argued that the real problem was a failure to invest in research into solving that problem. Today there are all these boondoggles built around killing people. What if, instead of all this government research into killing people, we dumped a ton of money into making it easier to support a household? That would be great for the economy. (Being asleep, I seem to have forgotten that working people need money.)
In the blur of being just awake I started thinking about how you could kickstart the US economy by taking the money from the AI boondoggle and other autonomous murder bots and create something like a program to build robots for housekeepers. You'd still be funding tech with government money, so the same horrible people get paid, but you're now actually solving real problems. It wouldn't even matter if it was a boondoggle, honestly. Just dumping money into something other than murdering people is good enough.
I imagined first if there was a program to fund a robot housecleaner, like robot dog with AI some laundry pickup, that would be provided, free of charge, to help people with children. It would work the same as the military boondoggle where a private company makes the government buy a piece of hardware from them and then also pay them to service it for some number of years. But instead of that hardware sitting around waiting to kill someone, it would be getting brought to people's houses to help them.
Then I thought, hey, you could even boost the economy more if you just had government funding for doulas and housecleaners and paid them a living wage. Hey, you could really kickstart the economy by nationalizing healthcare and including doula support as part of all births. Oh, and you could also just include the optional household help for families with children until the kids turn 18.
None of this is perfect (I don't actually think most of this is possible from any state), but the point is that it's actually wildly easy to figure out all kinds of ways to invest in the economy and monitize ideas as long as you aren't entirely focused on the same old "make money from spying on people and killing them." Funny that. Like they said in the podcast, maybe "finding ideas" isn't the problem.
Hope you enjoyed the weird semi-awake brain dump/rant.

Apple unveils a second-gen AirTag with an updated speaker and the same second-gen Ultra Wideband chip as in the iPhone 17, costing $29 for one and $99 for four (Ryan Christoffel/9to5Mac)
https://9to5mac.com/2026/01/26/apple-launches-airtag-2-wi…

Apple launches AirTag 2 with improved range, louder speaker, more - 9to5Mac
Apple has announced a brand new AirTag 2 that’s available to order now, here are the details on the update.

Uh #mountainMonday again?! where have the past days gone??
Anyways - this photo is from a quick Hike from early January. There was a bit more snow than right now. and as you can see the weather was grey and not too inviting.
But, the good side of it was that I was almost alone! :-D
When I came back the same route, I saw a chamois crossing from left to right. Unfortunately…

#ReleaseThursday #OpenSourceXmas A little present (to some of you)... Been meaning to release these recent additions before the holidays, but only getting around to it now. The most important new things are these:

According to the Daily Beast,
Donald Trump sets up camp in the family living quarters
and Melania is sequestered to a tower, kind of like a modern-day Rapunzel
https://www.irishstar.com/news/politics/melanias-bizarre…

Melania's bizarre living conditions finally revealed as she goes to extreme lengths to avoid Donald
The Trumps may share the same home, but they don't necessarily cross paths, if Melania has anything to say about it.

Sources: Amazon shut down Blue Jay, a multi-armed robotic system launched in October 2025 for same-day delivery warehouses, to focus on small modular warehouses (Eugene Kim/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-pulls-plug-blue-jay-warehous…

Amazon pulls the plug on 'Blue Jay' warehouse robot after only a few months
Amazon shutters Blue Jay robot as it transitions to Orbital, a new modular warehouse system enhancing same-day delivery capabilities.

Sources: AMD agrees to backstop a $300M loan from Goldman Sachs for Crusoe to buy AMD AI chips, the first known case of AMD chips used as debt collateral (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/amd-backstop-300-million-…

AMD to Backstop $300 Million Crusoe Loan, Following Nvidia Playbook
Chipmaker AMD is pursuing the same growth-driving strategy that has boosted sales at rival Nvidia: lending its financial support to upstart cloud providers buying its chips. AMD will effectively guarantee a $300 million loan for data center and cloud startup Crusoe to purchase AMD’s AI chips and ...