Tootfinder

Challenges facing the Bills, Brady -- and how to overcome them https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47888106/challenges-buffalo-bills-joe-brady-solutions-fix

Spotify rolls out About the Song, swipeable stories in English, summarized from third-party sources to highlight song details, in beta for Premium users (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/06/spotifys-n…

Spotify's new feature lets you explore the story behind the song you're listening to | TechCrunch
The feature displays short story cards that users can swipe through and rate with a thumbs up or down.

SB LX, halftime show fall shy of ratings records https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47891761/super-bowl-lx-bad-bunny-half-fall-shy-ratings-records

Australian Shorts
Hosted by Karen Hollands, each episode features a short story read by its author followed by a conversation about their story...
Great Australian Pods Podcast Directory: https://www.greataustralianpods.com/australian-shorts/

A short sci-fi story for the news of these few weeks (aka about the stupid attack on Iran) ...
"Superiority" by A. C. Clark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superiority_(short_story)

'This is everything to me': Gabe Taylor set for debut in D.C., where brother Sean starred https://www.espn.com/united-football-league/story/_/id/48379274/ufl-dc-defenders-gabe-taylor-sean-taylor

Indian studio Applause Entertainment partners with microdrama platform Story TV to co-produce and distribute short-form content for mobile audiences (Naman Ramachandran/Variety)
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/applause-entertainment-story-…

Applause Entertainment, Story TV Team for Microdrama Slate in India
Applause Entertainment has struck a partnership with Indian microdrama platform Story TV to co-produce and distribute a slate of short-form content.

Interior offensive linemen Raiders should go hard after in free agency https://raiderswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/raiders/2026/03/04/nfl-free-agency-interior-offensive-linemen-raiders-should-sig…

Short-term survival of #tardigrades (Ramazzottius cf. varieornatus and Hypsibius exemplaris) in #martian #regolith simulants (MGS-1 and OUCM-1): https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-astrobiology/article/shortterm-survival-of-tardigrades-ramazzottius-cf-varieornatus-and-hypsibius-exemplaris-in-martian-regolith-simulants-mgs1-and-oucm1/8A91986096FB533FB264DD056F549DF2 -> ‘Water bears’ reveal potential for adapting, protecting Martian resources: https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/water-bears-reveal-potential-adapting-protecting-martian-resources - microscopic tardigrades help inform how simulated Martian soil might support plant life and mitigate contaminants shedding from human explorers, researchers report -> Scientists Finally Found Something Tardigrades Can’t Survive: https://gizmodo.com/scientists-finally-found-something-tardigrades-cant-survive-2000728358 - tardigrades are practically invincible on Earth, so scientists looked to outer space in search of their kryptonite.

Cowboys could be great fit for RB who thrived with current OC https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/03/03/the-dallas-cowboys-might-be-a-good-fit-for-a-soon-to-be-free-ag…

I am late to the party, but up to now I just thought: well, search is getting worse all over the place, and at least since Google became Alphabet it is only about the money. But “The men who killed Google”¹ explains how this was deliberate, how driven by (short-term) shareholder value increase they actively made search worse. Ant that there was an internal fight – and now Google is far away from “don't be evil”.
__
¹

The Man Who Killed Google Search
Wanna listen to this story instead? Check out this week's Better Offline podcast, "The Man That Destroyed Google Search," available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. UPDATE: Prabhakar has now been deposed as head of search, read here for more details. This is the story

“Lamb to the Slaughter,” by Roald Dahl. Yes, that Roald Dahl. https://mastodon.social/@anon_opin/116153549193997197

For those who don't want to Youtube, it is as follows:
Girls.
Tall girls, short girls, fat girls, thin girls, ugly girls and pretty girls.
Tarts and floozies, nymphomaniacs and gangsters' molls.
And ... nice girls, respectable girls, upper middle-class girls with good manners and impeccable accents.
This is the story of four girls. They all live together in one flat, in one square, in one particular part of London.

Cowboys could benefit from combine's biggest disappointments dropping https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/03/02/draft-cowboys-rueben-bain-cashius-howell/88950684007/

$$ of dollars of hardware under my fingertips, and I started writing a short story in longhand. I think it's because, the main character? She's loco 😄

Walmart is embedding its own chatbot Sparky in ChatGPT after conversion rates via OpenAI's Instant Checkout were 3x lower than those requiring clicking out (Paresh Dave/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-lab-walmart-openai-shaking-up-agentic-shoppin…

Why Walmart and OpenAI Are Shaking Up Their Agentic Shopping Deal
After OpenAI’s Instant Checkout feature fell short, Walmart is instead embedding its Sparky chatbot directly into ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

Ok so a weird thing happened just now.
I was doomscrolling as usual and somehow I end up on voice acting challenges section on IG and listening to this person’s voice has inspired me to think of writing a dark fantasy short story for starters.
If you’re curious, here’s the reel:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQ4K22BDU4X/…

New OC says Fins to add competition at QB spot https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47829369/slowik-praises-tagovailoa-divulge-dolphins-qb-plans

My short story, "Doctor Vex Gets Her Revenge," received another rejection. That's part of the process. But the magazine said they said they received 7000 submissions. If that magazine has 7000 readers I'll cut off my left arm.
I'm convinced there are more people writing new fiction, than reading it.

Kickstarter: Muslim Futures – I’m in it
I'm really pleased to be publishing my first short story, and it's with an amazing group of authors, who have much longer pedigrees in fiction writing than I do. And some of the stories (alas, not mine) will also be published a comic book.
It's on Kickstarter here.
It runs the whole mont of Ramadan, and the description

HagioClass, by José Pablo Iriarte
Lightspeed Magazine
Basically, an @… Hanna Fresh AI Hell segment in the form of a short story
Highly recommended the podcast form narrated by Steven Rudnicki, whose Hemingway growl is amazing.

HagioClass - Lightspeed Magazine
Hayley stands by the exit to the bookstore, eyeing the torrent coming down in sheets over the parking lot. Behind her, Matt hides the tiniest of fist pumps and says, “You don’t want to go out in that. Come on, let me buy us a couple of drinks at the café.” She takes a long look at the tempest outside, checks the time on her phone, and says, “I guess I have time for a cup of tea. I’ll get my own.”

Seattle has a short-yardage threat: AJ Barner's ne... https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47759002/seattle-seahawks-tush-push-aj-barner-super-bowl-patriots

Quinnen Williams, Whitecotton reunion short lived; DL coach to Titans https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/01/26/cowboys-dl-coach-aaron-whitecotton-titans/88372466007/

🔊 #NowPlaying on #BBCRadio3:
#PrivatePassions
- George Saunders, writer
George Saunders, a Booker Prize-winning novelist and master of the short-story form, shares his musical choices with Michael Berkeley.
Relisten now 👇
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002sfcg

Kickstarter: Muslim Futures – I’m in it
I'm really pleased to be publishing my first short story, and it's with an amazing group of authors, who have much longer pedigrees in fiction writing than I do. And some of the stories (alas, not mine) will also be published a comic book. It's on Kickstarter here. It runs the whole mont of Ramadan, and the description is:

My latest short story submission for "Doctor Vex Gets Her Revenge" has been 'Under Review' for over a week. There's no way to know if they're seriously considering it, or just putting off reading the slush.

Here's another short story that reflects on our extollation of technology...
The Flying Machine – Ray Bradbury
https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories/flying-machine/

I was in the process of writing a short story when all this talk of #LLM spellchecking came up. So I wrote a story that you can't actually use an LLM spellchecker on because it breaks them:
#Writing #Fiction #SolarPunk

Sources: Broncos fire OC after falling short of SB https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47747655/sources-broncos-fire-oc-joe-lombardi-afc-title-game-loss

Bills bring back Hamlin on one-year contract https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/48321867/bills-re-sign-damar-hamlin-one-year-contract

Cowboys expected to hire Baylor grad, NFL alum for assistant coaching role https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/cowboys/2026/02/13/cowboys-kyle-fuller-expected-hiring-assista…

Mahomes shows progress, posts video throwing https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/48306071/patrick-mahomes-shows-rehab-progress-throws-new-video

Payton looking to join Reid, more on list of coaches who reached Super Bowl with different teams https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47694818/nfl-coaches-super-bowls-multiple-teams

With the eight week improv course ending last week, I timed it well to start a new group with a new set of eight sessions this week.
The Free Association seem more serious than Hoopla. They have 50% longer classes for a start. Three hours rather than two.
More instruction and notes rather than just positive encouragement. Clearer aim even from the early levels. More like a classroom than a playground.
First couple of sets of eight at Hoopla are just aimed at getting you to lose your decorum and allow yourself to be free and spontaneous. All really short form games, lightning rounds. Parlor games rather than theater.
But the Free Association's aim from the start is to get you building scenes and then stories. Their first set of lessons is titled "intro to long form". This one "Scene work".
Not so much the one minute parlor games, more focus on acting and characters and drama.
In vague terms at early stages that is. I mean, they have more in common than different. Plenty of short games in warm-up at FA and I just finished a whole set on drama and story with Hoopla.
Three hours is pretty long though. Starts half an hour earlier, ends half an hour later. Good thing it's also much much closer for me. Ten minute walk instead of 40 minutes on the bus.
We did lots and lots of first-scene head-to-head, mostly concentrating on trying to get specific. Check that after two minutes the audience knows where you are and who you are and how you know each other and what you're doing and none of the players are unsure either. Make it all specific as soon as possible, ambiguity is the enemy.
And everyone got that and exercised it pretty much flawlessly right away. So good group.
#theFreeAssociation #improv #london

Cynicism, "AI"
I've been pointed out the "Reflections on 2025" post by Samuel Albanie [1]. The author's writing style makes it quite a fun, I admit.
The first part, "The Compute Theory of Everything" is an optimistic piece on "#AI". Long story short, poor "AI researchers" have been struggling for years because of predominant misconception that "machines should have been powerful enough". Fortunately, now they can finally get their hands on the kind of power that used to be only available to supervillains, and all they have to do is forget about morals, agree that their research will be used to murder millions of people, and a few more millions will die as a side effect of the climate crisis. But I'm digressing.
The author is referring to an essay by Hans Moravec, "The Role of Raw Power in Intelligence" [2]. It's also quite an interesting read, starting with a chapter on how intelligence evolved independently at least four times. The key point inferred from that seems to be, that all we need is more computing power, and we'll eventually "brute-force" all AI-related problems (or die trying, I guess).
As a disclaimer, I have to say I'm not a biologist. Rather just a random guy who read a fair number of pieces on evolution. And I feel like the analogies brought here are misleading at best.
Firstly, there seems to be an assumption that evolution inexorably leads to higher "intelligence", with a certain implicit assumption on what intelligence is. Per that assumption, any animal that gets "brainier" will eventually become intelligent. However, this seems to be missing the point that both evolution and learning doesn't operate in a void.
Yes, many animals did attain a certain level of intelligence, but they attained it in a long chain of development, while solving specific problems, in specific bodies, in specific environments. I don't think that you can just stuff more brains into a random animal, and expect it to attain human intelligence; and the same goes for a computer — you can't expect that given more power, algorithms will eventually converge on human-like intelligence.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, what evolution did succeed at first is achieving neural networks that are far more energy efficient than whatever computers are doing today. Even if indeed "computing power" paved the way for intelligence, what came first is extremely efficient "hardware". Nowadays, human seem to be skipping that part. Optimizing is hard, so why bother with it? We can afford bigger data centers, we can afford to waste more energy, we can afford to deprive people of drinking water, so let's just skip to the easy part!
And on top of that, we're trying to squash hundreds of millions of years of evolution into… a decade, perhaps? What could possibly go wrong?
[1] #NoAI #NoLLM #LLM

Sage Hall (Left) and Barnes Hall (Right) from the roof of the Cornell Store
#photo #photography #buildings #cornell

Future still 'really bright' for depleted 49ers https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47648369/proud-san-francisco-49ers-quickly-turn-page-next-season

Sizing up overreactions, big questions from divisional round: Why do the Bills keep falling short? https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47631469/nfl-playoffs-divisional-round-nfc-afc-big-questions-overreactions-2026

Philly GM: 'Hard to find great players' like Brown https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/47622415/howie-roseman-downplays-aj-brown-trade-talk-says-eagles-wr-great-player