Tootfinder

HOW A NUCLEAR ATTACK ON THE U.S. MIGHT UNFOLD, STEP BY STEP
(Washington Post, 2 July 2025)
#CommPrep #prepper

A deep dive into Oracle's data center strategy and its emergence as an AI computing powerhouse, amid questions about the sustainability of the GPU business (SemiAnalysis)
https://semianalysis.com/2025/06/30/how-oracle-is-winning-the-ai-compute-…

How Oracle Is Winning the AI Compute Market
Oracle’s Cloud Infrastructure business is firing on all cylinders and is greatly outpacing expectations. All eyes are on the high-profile Stargate JV and the massive Abilene, Texas datacenter…

Hubble's excellent new image of GN 04.32.8, a reflection nebula 480 light-years away in Taurus https://www.sci.news/astronomy/hubble-reflection-nebula-taurus-molecular-cloud-14028.html

Hubble Spots Reflection Nebula in Taurus Molecular Cloud | Sci.News
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have produced an outstanding image of the reflection nebula GN 04.32.8.

(1/3) Please join me today on Zoom at 12pm ET / 11am CT / 10am MT / 9am PT for "Beyond the Algorithmic Feed," a free MediaEd Club webinar for the Media Education Lab:
https://mediaeducationlab.com/index.php/events/beyond-algorithmic-feed
While som…

Studying the multi-phase interstellar medium in the Large Magellanic Cloud with SRG/eROSITA -- I. Analysis of diffuse X-ray emission
Martin G. F. Mayer, Manami Sasaki, Frank Haberl, Kisetsu Tsuge, Yasuo Fukui, Chandreyee Maitra, Miroslav D. Filipovic, Zachary J. Smeaton, Lister Staveley-Smith, Baerbel Koribalski, Sean Points, Patrick Kavanagh
https:/…

Studying the multi-phase interstellar medium in the Large Magellanic Cloud with SRG/eROSITA -- I. Analysis of diffuse X-ray emission
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), being a nearby and actively star-forming satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, is an ideal site to observe the multi-phase interstellar medium (ISM) of a galaxy across the electromagnetic spectrum. We aim to exploit the available SRG/eROSITA all-sky survey data to study the distribution, composition and properties of the diffuse X-ray emitting hot gas in the LMC. We construct multi-band X-ray images of the LMC, reflecting the morphology and temperatures of the dif…

Beyond the Cloud: Assessing the Benefits and Drawbacks of Local LLM Deployment for Translators
Peter Sandrini
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.23399 https://arxi…

Beyond the Cloud: Assessing the Benefits and Drawbacks of Local LLM Deployment for Translators
The rapid proliferation of Large Language Models presents both opportunities and challenges for the translation field. While commercial, cloud-based AI chatbots have garnered significant attention in translation studies, concerns regarding data privacy, security, and equitable access necessitate exploration of alternative deployment models. This paper investigates the feasibility and performance of locally deployable, free language models as a viable alternative to proprietary, cloud-based AI s…

Looks like EU funding of #FLOSS will continue: "Open digital infrastructure, from search and identity to cloud and software governance, is now a strategic European priority."

NGI Forum 2025 marks a strategic shift from Next Generation Internet toward the Open Internet Stack
The Next Generation Internet (NGI) Forum 2025, the flagship event of the European Commission’s NGI initiative, took place in Brussels on 19-20 June, with over 200 on-site participants and many more via web stream. The Forum focused on accelerating the shift from research and experimentation to the deployment of sovereign, open digital infrastructures.

This water station will limit my ability to taunt the runners...
#rockandrollmarathon

Rich guys get rich, and stay rich, by getting the public to pay for whatever they need...
https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/06/02/cuomo-legal-war-sexual-harassment-accusers-19-million/

Inside Cuomo’s State-Funded Legal War Against the Women Who Accused Him of Sexual Harassment
A review by THE CITY of thousands of pages of court documents paints the most complete picture of how intensely he is battling the women who stepped forward.

@… nightmare!! so your stuck because the vendors won't change providers.

Check out my day 2 notes (so far) for #CivicsOfTech25 the “Civics of Technology 2025 Conference.” Challenging & important presentations, esp from Chris Guilliard and Ian Linkletter:
https://wfryer.me/day2 

Notes - Civics Of Technology 2025 (July 31 - Aug 1)
Notes - Civics Of Technology 2025 (July 31 - Aug 1) What is this? My name is Wes Fryer and I am a middle school media literacy teacher in North Carolina. More links for me are on: https://wesfryer.com/after These are my notes and links from the July 31 / August 1 2025 “Civics of Technology”...

Quantize-Sample-and-Verify: LLM Acceleration via Adaptive Edge-Cloud Speculative Decoding
Guangyi Zhang, Yunlong Cai, Guanding Yu, Petar Popovski, Osvaldo Simeone
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00605

Quantize-Sample-and-Verify: LLM Acceleration via Adaptive Edge-Cloud Speculative Decoding
In edge-cloud speculative decoding (SD), edge devices equipped with small language models (SLMs) generate draft tokens that are verified by large language models (LLMs) in the cloud. A key bottleneck in such systems is the limited communication bandwidth between edge and cloud, which necessitates quantization of the information transmitted about generated tokens. In this work, we introduce a novel quantize-sample (Q-S) strategy that provably preserves the output distribution of the cloud-based …

Collaborative Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Approach for Elastic Cloud Resource Scaling
Bruce Fang, Danyi Gao
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00550 https:/…

Collaborative Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Approach for Elastic Cloud Resource Scaling
This paper addresses the challenges of rapid resource variation and highly uncertain task loads in cloud computing environments. It proposes an optimization method for elastic cloud resource scaling based on a multi-agent system. The method deploys multiple autonomous agents to perceive resource states in parallel and make local decisions. While maintaining the distributed nature of the system, it introduces a collaborative value function to achieve global coordination. This improves the respon…

The Dynamics of Infall and Accretion Shocks in the Outer Disk
Susan Terebey, Loraine Sandoval Ascencio, Lizxandra Flores-Rivera, Neal Turner, Andrew Barajas
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.24582

The Dynamics of Infall and Accretion Shocks in the Outer Disk
High-spatial-resolution observations of disks around young stars suggest planetary systems begin forming early, during the protostellar phase (< 1 Myr) when stars accrete most of their mass via infall from the surrounding cloud. During this era shocks are expected to be ubiquitous around the gaseous accretion disk due to supersonic infall that strikes the disk. We investigate the role of shocks using a theoretical and modeling framework we call the shock twist-angle Keplerian (STAK) disk, conne…

Tipp: trackingfreies detailreiches und zuverlässiges Wetter gibt es nicht nur für #burgos über https://www.yr.no/en/forecast/graph/2-3127461/Spain…

Graph for Burgos
Weather forecast for Burgos for the next 3 days in a graph.

My summer camp for rising 4th and 5th graders this week, “Coding in Minecraft - Mars Outpost Mission” is going great!
https://www.astrokidsclub.org/
More info about my middle school unit “Coding Mars” is on:

AstroKids Summer Camp by Dr. Fryer
In this exciting camp, students will build and code their own Mars Outpost inside Minecraft Education! With the help of their robot agent and step-by-step tutorials, campers will learn beginner coding, explore real-world space science, and work together as young engineers and inventors. No

Comparative Studies: Cloud-Enabled Adaptive Learning System for Scalable Education in Sub-Saharan
Israel Fianyi, Soonja Yeom, Ju-Hyun Shin
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.23851

Comparative Studies: Cloud-Enabled Adaptive Learning System for Scalable Education in Sub-Saharan
The integration of cloud computing in education can revolutionise learning in advanced (Australia & South Korea) and middle-income (Ghana & Nigeria) countries, while offering scalable, cost-effective and equitable access to adaptive learning systems. This paper explores how cloud computing and adaptive learning technologies are deployed across different socio-economic and infrastructure contexts. The study identifies enabling factors and systematic challenges, providing insights into how cloud-…

A 3D Mobile Crowdsensing Framework for Sustainable Urban Digital Twins
Taku Yamazaki (Shibaura Institute of Technology), Kaito Watanabe (Shibaura Institute of Technology), Tatsuya Kase (Shibaura Institute of Technology), Kenta Hasegawa (Shibaura Institute of Technology), Koki Saida (Shibaura Institute of Technology), Takumi Miyoshi (Shibaura Institute of Technology)

A 3D Mobile Crowdsensing Framework for Sustainable Urban Digital Twins
In this article, we propose a 3D mobile crowdsensing (3D-MCS) framework aimed at sustainable urban digital twins (UDTs). The framework comprises four key mechanisms: (1) the 3D-MCS mechanism, consisting of active and passive models; (2) the Geohash-based spatial information management mechanism; (3) the dynamic point cloud integration mechanism for UDTs; and (4) the web-based real-time visualizer for 3D-MCS and UDTs. The active sensing model features a gamified 3D-MCS approach, where participan…

Shadow and thin accretion disk around Ay\'{o}n-Beato-Garc\'{i}a black hole coupled with cloud of strings
Ziqiang Cai, Zhenglong Ban, Lu Wang, Haiyuan Feng, Zheng-Wen Long
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.22744

Shadow and thin accretion disk around Ayón-Beato-García black hole coupled with cloud of strings
In this paper, we investigate the shadow and thin accretion disk around Ayón-Beato-García (ABG) black hole (BH) coupled with a cloud of strings (CS), characterized by the nonlinear electrodynamics (NLED) parameter $g$, and the CS parameter $a$. By comparing shadow diameters with Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations of M87$^{*}$ and Sgr A$^*$, we have established constraints on the BH parameters $g$ and $a$. Additionally, we analyze the BH shadow, lensing ring, and photon ring features f…

Sonnet 034 - XXXIV
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak,
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though th…

A little tip to all those folks using Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud: you're paying ~ 20x more than you need to be paying. If you claim you're using 'special services only provided by __insert name of ripoff cloud provider here__' then you've got your organisation locked into a single provider with the inability to move to a better one. Consider your options very carefully & build vendor-agnostic systems. Dependence on

While looking for ics import options for Synology Calendar, I found the most Dutch comment ever. Guy didn't need to say where he was from. We knew from the opening sentence.

Temporal variation in the cloud-top temperature of #Venus revealed by meteorological satellites: https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-025-02223-8 -> Meteorological satellites observe temperatures on Venus: https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/focus/en/press/z0508_00415.html - the forecast is bright for future, long-term multiband monitoring of planets.

Caught the train at the very end of the line, along the lake back to town after the shower. Group ticket for 4 made it quite cheap.
#train #rail #Tegernsee

(1/2) Check out the EdTech Situation Room Episode 347 “DeepSeek Disruption”
https://edtechsr.com/2025/07/02/edtechsr-ep-347-deepseek-disruption/
Also on SubStack:

EdTechSR Ep 347 DeepSeek Disruption
where technology news meets educational analysis Welcome to episode 347 (“DeepSeek Disruption”) of the EdTech Situation Room from February 12, 2025, where technology news met educational analysis. In this episode, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) unpacked the latest headlines and their educational implications. The co-hosts dove into China’s rapidly advancing DeepSeek AI model, exploring its open-source release, security concerns, and what it could me…

Embedded DevOps: A Survey on the Application of DevOps Practices in Embedded Software and Firmware Development
Parthiv Katapara, Anand Sharma
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00421

Embedded DevOps: A Survey on the Application of DevOps Practices in Embedded Software and Firmware Development
The adoption of DevOps practices in embedded systems and firmware development is emerging as a response to the growing complexity of modern hardware--software co-designed products. Unlike cloud-native applications, embedded systems introduce challenges such as hardware dependency, real-time constraints, and safety-critical requirements. This literature review synthesizes findings from 20 academic and industrial sources to examine how DevOps principles--particularly continuous integration, conti…

Propagation of the Madden-Julian oscillation as a deterministic chaotic phenomenon
Daisuke Takasuka, Tamaki Suematsu, Hiroaki Miura, Masuo Nakano
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.23195 …

Propagation of the Madden-Julian oscillation as a deterministic chaotic phenomenon
The Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO), a gigantic tropical weather system, is marked by eastward travel of cumulus cloud clusters over the Indo-Pacific region and often causes severe weather and climate events worldwide. The physics and predictability of MJO propagation remain elusive, partly because of little attention to untangling roles of multi-scale processes relevant to the MJO. Here, we reveal the chaotic nature of MJO propagation arising from cross-scale nonlinear interactions, based on 4…

Infrared Variability of Carbon Stars in the LMC Observed with NEOWISE-R
Kyung-Won Suh
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.22100 https://arxiv.…

Infrared Variability of Carbon Stars in the LMC Observed with NEOWISE-R
We investigate the infrared variability of carbon stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Our sample consists of 11,134 carbon stars identified in both visual and infrared bands. Among these, 1,184 objects are known Mira variables based on the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment III (OGLE-III) observations. We study the infrared variability of the entire sample using the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) photometric data spanning the past 16 years, including the AllWISE multiep…

Xpheno: Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Google, and their affiliates grew their combined India headcount by 16% over the past year, adding 28K jobs (Himanshi Lohchab/The Economic Times)
https://economictimes.in…

Big Tech continues to hire in India even as local majors downsize
Despite global layoffs, FAAMNG companies are expanding their India headcount, growing by 16% in the past year, driven by demand for AI, cloud, and cybersecurity skills. While Indian IT firms face workforce reductions due to skills mismatch, Big Tech's India-based global capability centers are increasing hiring for high-end work and innovation.

Exploring Privacy and Security as Drivers for Environmental Sustainability in Cloud-Based Office Solutions
Jason Kayembe, Iness Ben Guirat, Jan Tobias M\"uhlberg
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.23866

Exploring Privacy and Security as Drivers for Environmental Sustainability in Cloud-Based Office Solutions
In this paper, we explore the intersection of privacy, security, and environmental sustainability in cloud-based office solutions, focusing on quantifying user- and network-side energy use and associated carbon emissions. We hypothesise that privacy-focused services are typically more energy-efficient than those funded through data collection and advertising. To evaluate this, we propose a framework that systematically measures environmental costs based on energy usage and network data traffic …

Please join me on Monday (noon Eastern time) for our August MediaEd Club webinar, "Searching with AI: Can We Trust the New Gatekeepers?" It's FREE on Zoom! Check out the recommended links first:
https://mediaeducationlab.com/events/searching-ai

One upside of Trump being in office is how the left have suddenly rediscovered the 10th Amendment. Sadly, they already took the teeth out of it over the last few decades while they were in charge, so it's useless...

Cloudflare will now block AI crawlers by default
The internet architecture provider will also let some publishers make known AI scrapers pay to crawl their sites
https://www.theverge.com/news/695501/cloudflare-block-ai-crawlers-default

Cloudflare will now block AI crawlers by default
Cloudflare has announced that it will now block AI web crawlers by default for new customers. It’s also introducing a new “Pay Per Crawl” fee that will let some publishers make AI companies pay to scrape their content.

Performance Measurements in the AI-Centric Computing Continuum Systems
Praveen Kumar Donta, Qiyang Zhang, Schahram Dustdar
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.22884

Performance Measurements in the AI-Centric Computing Continuum Systems
Over the Eight decades, computing paradigms have shifted from large, centralized systems to compact, distributed architectures, leading to the rise of the Distributed Computing Continuum (DCC). In this model, multiple layers such as cloud, edge, Internet of Things (IoT), and mobile platforms work together to support a wide range of applications. Recently, the emergence of Generative AI and large language models has further intensified the demand for computational resources across this continuum…

At its core, #CCSignals is an attempt by Creative Commons, a Silicon Valley-based organisation, to legitimise the AI grifts of its donors – Google, Microsoft, and Meta (Zuckerberg).
Creative Commons was always a thinly-veiled attempt at enabling Big Tech data farmers to get more data (that’s why the whole “open data” realm is so well funded/popular – open as in “open for business” not fre…

Identification of New Candidate Be/X-Ray Binary Systems in the Small Magellanic Cloud via Analysis of S-CUBED Source Catalog
Thomas M. Gaudin, Jamie A. Kennea, Malcolm J. Coe, Phil A. Evans
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.24766

Identification of New Candidate Be/X-Ray Binary Systems in the Small Magellanic Cloud via Analysis of S-CUBED Source Catalog
It has long been known that a large population of Be/X-ray Binaries (BeXRBs) exists in the Milky Way's neighboring dwarf galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), due to a recent period of intense star formation. Since 2016, efforts have been made to monitor this population and identify new BeXRBs through the Swift SMC Survey (S-CUBED). S-CUBED's weekly observation cadence has identified many new BeXRBs that exist within the SMC, but evidence suggests that more systems exist that have thusfar e…

"Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else", but how to do this with Linked Data? Eero Hyvönen is quoting Leonardo Da Vinci as an intro to his presentation "How to Create a Portal for Digital Humanities Research Using a Linked Open Data Cloud of Cultural Heritage Knowledge Graphs: Case SampoSampo"
paper:

[VIDEO] The Government Knows AGI is Coming | The Ezra Klein Show
#AI

Just read that Mozilla has decided to shut down Pocket (!?!). Its integration with Kobo e-readers is great and something I will miss. It will be difficult to find a similarly practical way to read web articles on my e-reader, other than the somewhat clunky pdf-saving cloud sync method. Any tips much welcome!

Air quality due to wildfire smoke still bad here in Northeast Kansas, but better than it was last night. Check the air quality in your area of the United States using:
#AirQuality

SEC filing: Oracle signed multiple large cloud agreements, including one that is expected to contribute $30B in annual revenue starting in FY28; ORCL jumps 5% (Samantha Subin/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/30/oracle-orcl-stock-cloud-deal.html

Oracle stock jumps after $30 billion annual cloud deal revealed in filing
Oracle shares have jumped more than 33% this year, benefiting from cloud growth and the rise of artificial intelligence models.

Government, brought to you by the people who paid people to take their tests in college....
"Nobody has ever accused RFK Jr. of academic rigor,” said Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. "The speed (of the MAHA report) suggests that it could not have been vetted carefully and must have been whisked through standard clearance procedures. The citation problem suggests a reliance on AI."

Please join me on July 7th for next month's MediaEd Club webinar for the Media Education Lab: "Privacy, Power, and Platforms"
https://mediaeducationlab.com/index.php/events/privacy-power-and-platforms
If you missed today's / this month…

Check out my new blog post, "Is Any AI Use Ethical?"
https://www.speedofcreativity.org/2025/08/01/is-any-ai-use-ethical/
Inspired by conference presenters yesterday and today at

Serving LLMs in HPC Clusters: A Comparative Study of Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 Ultra and High-Performance GPUs
Mohammad Firas Sada, John J. Graham, Elham E Khoda, Mahidhar Tatineni, Dmitry Mishin, Rajesh K. Gupta, Rick Wagner, Larry Smarr, Thomas A. DeFanti, Frank W\"urthwein
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00418

Serving LLMs in HPC Clusters: A Comparative Study of Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 Ultra and High-Performance GPUs
This study presents a benchmarking analysis of the Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 Ultra (QAic) accelerator for large language model (LLM) inference, evaluating its energy efficiency (throughput per watt) and performance against leading NVIDIA (A100, H200) and AMD (MI300A) GPUs within the National Research Platform (NRP) ecosystem. A total of 15 open-source LLMs, ranging from 117 million to 90 billion parameters, are served using the vLLM framework. The QAic inference cards appears to be energy efficient…

This Meshtastic mesh just keeps growing. 489 nodes reaching across Austria, Switzerland and even into France now, over 250km away from me in Munich. I also moved my antenna up 1 floor, to the 2nd floor, getting me 6 direct connections. Up from only 2 before.
#Meshtastic #Munich

Check out my new “Media Literacy Roundup: 2 August 2025” newsletter on SubStack!
https://open.substack.com/pub/wfryer/p/media-literacy-roundup-2-august-2025?r=d4phj&utm_campaign=post&u…

Media Literacy Roundup: 2 August 2025
Media, Links and Reflections from Wes Fryer

Metal-poor single Wolf-Rayet stars: the interplay of optically thick winds and rotation
Lumen Boco, Michela Mapelli, Andreas A. C. Sander, Sofia Mesini, Varsha Ramachandran, Stefano Torniamenti, Erika Korb, Boyuan Liu, Gautham N. Sabhahit, Jorick S. Vink
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00137 …

Metal-poor single Wolf-Rayet stars: the interplay of optically thick winds and rotation
The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) hosts 12 known Wolf-Rayet stars (WRs), seven of which apparently single. Their formation is a challenge for current stellar evolution models, because line-driven winds are generally assumed to be quenched at a metallicity Z<0.004. Here, we present a set of MESA models of single stars with zero-age main sequence masses 20-80 M_sun, considering different initial rotation speeds (Omega=0-0.7 Omega_c), metallicities (Z=0.002-0.0045), and wind mass-loss models (optic…

Check out my new “Media Literacy Roundup: 2 August 2025” newsletter on SubStack!
https://open.substack.com/pub/wfryer/p/media-literacy-roundup-2-august-2025?r=d4phj&utm_campaign=post&u…

Media Literacy Roundup: 2 August 2025
Media, Links and Reflections from Wes Fryer

“Inclusion is GOOD!”
(I posed with this great sign at the Indivisible CLT social gathering tonight at Starlight on 22nd)
https://indivisibleclt.org
https://starlighton…

Indivisible Charlotte
Indivisible Charlotte - Your regional hub for civic activism

Won't it be a surprise when it turns out that the party of bad losers, who've been trying to convince everyone that they could only have been beaten with election fraud for years, turns out to be the primary source of election fraud?
https…

NC Republicans Banished Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Now the Only Perspective That Matters to Them Is Their Own (Herald Sun, 30 June 2025)
https://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/article309546875.html

Distributed Intelligence in the Computing Continuum with Active Inference
Victor Casamayor Pujol, Boris Sedlak, Tommaso Salvatori, Karl Friston, Schahram Dustdar
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.24618

Distributed Intelligence in the Computing Continuum with Active Inference
The Computing Continuum (CC) is an emerging Internet-based computing paradigm that spans from local Internet of Things sensors and constrained edge devices to large-scale cloud data centers. Its goal is to orchestrate a vast array of diverse and distributed computing resources to support the next generation of Internet-based applications. However, the distributed, heterogeneous, and dynamic nature of CC platforms demands distributed intelligence for adaptive and resilient service management. Th…

The 2025 Student Guide to AI by #ElonUniversity (no relation to #ElonMusk of course)
https://

#podcast recc: The End of the World as We Know It - Pocket Casts https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/9810e560-d78e-0139-9b84-0acc26574db2/f11b26b6-16…

The End of the World as We Know It

(1/2) Can you trust what you hear? 🎧 Episode 344 of the EdTech Situation Room (from 15 Jan 2025) explores AI voice tech, misinformation, and media ethics in the digital age.
on Substack:
https://open.substack.com/p…

The Ultimate I-band Calibration of the TRGB Standard Candle
A. Udalski, D. M. Skowron, J. Skowron, M. K. Szyma\'nski, I. Soszy\'nski, P. Pietrukowicz, P. Mr\'oz, R. Poleski, S. Koz{\l}owski, K. Ulaczyk, K. Rybicki, P. Iwanek, M. Gromadzki, M. Wrona, M. Ratajczak, M. J. Mr\'oz
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20766

The Ultimate I-band Calibration of the TRGB Standard Candle
We present the ultimate I-band calibration of the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) standard candle. Our calibration is based on photometry from the outer parts of the Large Magellanic Cloud, 2.75

Helpful showing all data websites / trackers can gather about you:
https://ipleak.net/
via my new browser experiment: LibreWolf (custom version of FireFox)
https://librewolf.net/

IP/DNS Detect
What is your IP, what is your DNS, check your torrent IP, what informations you send to websites.

The UK's CMA finds that Microsoft's software licensing terms harm competition in the cloud market, may open a probe into Microsoft and Amazon in 2026 (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/364036c5-524c-40ed-a9ad-cd2c969c211f

#podcast recc: Trailer: Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet - Pocket Casts https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/9810e560-d78e-0139-9b84-0acc26574db2/5f…

Trailer: Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet

Chrome extensions, short-form content, Substack clips, and tech ethics — it’s all in #EdTechSR 343 “Clickbait & Chrome!” from 1 Jan 2025!
on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/JnYFfkf0eAA
…

Towards a Testbed for Scalable FaaS Platforms
Trever Schirmer, David Bermbach
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.23431 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.23431

Towards a Testbed for Scalable FaaS Platforms
Most cloud platforms have a Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) offering that enables users to easily write highly scalable applications. To better understand how the platform's architecture impacts its performance, we present a research-focused testbed that can be adapted to quickly evaluate the impact of different architectures and technologies on the characteristics of scalability-focused FaaS platforms.

NYC-based Carbyne, which offers cloud-based tools for emergency services, raised $100M from AT&T Ventures, Axon Enterprises, Cox Enterprises, and others (Meir Orbach/CTech)
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skhy4rdvgg

Carbyne raises $100 million to modernize emergency call infrastructure
With deployment in 23 U.S. states, the company is reshaping the way dispatchers respond to crisis situations.

“…those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength...”
‭‭Isaiah€ ‭40€:‭31€
Gifts and Graces - Pray As You Go
#dw4jc

Gifts and graces - Pray As You Go
Welcome to the Saturday Examen. Today we celebrate the feast of the Visitation, when Mary travelled to visit her cousin Elizabeth after receiving the message of the angel Gabriel and sang her Magnificat in praise of God’s saving power. Dur...

The government would *never* misuse their vast and terrifying domestic spying capabilities for evil. The people who *work* for the government, on the other hand....
https://www.404media.co/a-texas-cop-searched-license-plate-cameras-…

A Texas Cop Searched License Plate Cameras Nationwide for a Woman Who Got an Abortion
The sheriff said the woman self-administered the abortion and her family were concerned for her safety, so authorities searched through Flock cameras. Experts are still concerned that a cop in a state where abortion is illegal can search cameras in others where it's a human right.

Book recc via #CivicsOfTechnology #CivicsOfTech25 #COT2025 keynote chat: “More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Hum…

Collaborative State Machines: A Better Programming Model for the Cloud-Edge-IoT Continuum
Marlon Etheredge, Thomas Fahringer, Felix Erlacher, Elias Kohler, Stefan Pedratscher, Juan Aznar-Poveda, Nishant Saurabh, Adrien Lebre
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.21685

Collaborative State Machines: A Better Programming Model for the Cloud-Edge-IoT Continuum
The development of Cloud-Edge-IoT applications requires robust programming models. Existing models often struggle to manage the dynamic and stateful nature of these applications effectively. This paper introduces the Collaborative State Machines (CSM) programming model to address these complexities. CSM facilitates the development of reactive, event-driven, and stateful applications targeting the Cloud-Edge-IoT continuum. Applications built with CSM are composed of state machines that collabora…

“The value of doing distance without doing scale - the more we move to scale the more we DEHUMANIZE everything we are doing in education”
ByCivicsofTech25ewart - https://bonstewart.com/belonging/ (Civics Of Technology 2025 Conference)

Good listen: #AngryPlanet [PODCAST] America’s Favorite Gunfighters and the Birth of the Old West (subscriber episode)
https://open.substack.com/pub/angrypla

America’s Favorite Gunfighters and the Birth of the Old West
America loves the Western.

I’m a supporter of “Civics of Technology” and just made a small donation:
https://buymeacoffee.com/civicsoftechnology
Check out their great work, I’m attending their summer 2025 free online conference:

Civics of Technology
Dear Civics of Tech Community,We have launched this page to create a way for our community members to support our organization and help us expand the work that we do.Civics of Technology is a grassroo

Sunset over the Flinthills (just outside Manhattan, Kansas)

Great point by Karen Hao in this [PODCAST] interview: Open AI has become an EMPIRE like the East India Trading Company did historically. Acting with impunity for their own self interests w/o nation-state consequences.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/130137015?utm_campaign=posts…

“For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.””
‭‭Galatians€ ‭5€:‭14€ ‭NRSV€€
#dw4jc

Galatians 5:14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” | New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) | Download The Bible App Now
For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

My notes and links from the #CivicsOfTech25 conference: https://wfryer.me/civicsoftech25
Follow presenters & participants via this BlueSky Starter Pack:

Notes - Civics Of Technology 2025 (July 31 - Aug 1)
Notes - Civics Of Technology 2025 (July 31 - Aug 1) What is this? My name is Wes Fryer and I am a middle school media literacy teacher in North Carolina. More links for me are on: https://wesfryer.com/after These are my notes and links from the July 31 / August 1 2025 “Civics of Technology” Co...

Check out my new post, “Civics Of Tech 2025 Conference”
#CivicsOfTech25

🚨 Encryption isn’t optional anymore. In EdTechSR Episode 342: Jason & I discuss why the FBI wants you on Signal, Google’s antitrust headaches, and AI tools that’ll blow your mind.
🎙️ https://edtechsr.com/2025/05/30/edtechsr-ep-342-encrypted-by-default/

EdTechSR Ep 342 Encrypted by Default
where technology news meets educational analysis Welcome to episode 342 (“Encrypted by Default”) of the EdTech Situation Room from December 18, 2024, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week, Dr. Jason Neiffer (aicentrist.com) and Dr. Wesley Fryer (wesfryer.com) unpacked the FBI’s unprecedented advice urging Americans to use encrypted messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp, discussing the implications for personal privacy, national security, and school digital literacy…

new podcast recommendation: The Outlaw Ocean Podcast https://www.theoutlawocean.com/the-outlaw-ocean-podcast/ The Outlaw Ocean is a riveting anthology podcast that explores the most lawless place on earth — the vast unpoliceable ocean.

The Outlaw Ocean Podcast
The Outlaw Ocean Podcast is a seven-part series that explores a gritty and lawless realm rarely seen: the high seas.

Mark Zuckerberg Already Knows Your Life—Now He Wants His AI to Run It (Gizmodo, 30 June 2025)
https://gizmodo.com/mark-zuckerberg-already-knows-your-life-now-he-wants-his-ai-to-run-it-2000622496

Mark Zuckerberg Already Knows Your Life. Now He Wants His AI to Run It
In a sweeping new plan, the Meta CEO is assembling an AI "Avengers team" to build not just a better chatbot, but a personalized intelligence that anticipates your needs, manages your schedule, and guides your decisions. Welcome to Life-as-a-Service.

Back in 2015 I shared a TEDx talk on “Digital Citizenship in the Surveillance State” #MediaLit

new blog post: RSS Converter for Mastofeed
#Mastodon

🗳️ A new virtual summit is in the works—uniting educators, activists, artists & citizens to resist authoritarianism defend democracy. 🛠️ Help shape the vision: take the planning survey − bit.ly/4jhX8tR
#Resist #Democracy

I’m going to try the Dia AI browser:
https://www.diabrowser.com/
More on:
Begun, the AI Browser Wars Have
https://spyglass.org/ai-browser-wars/

Meet Dia – the AI Browser Where You Can Chat with Your Tabs
Dia is the AI browser from The Browser Company. Chat with your tabs, write in your own voice, learn and plan faster, shop, and more — all with privacy that you control.

“Just over 100 graduates in the USAFA Class of 2025 are commissioning directly into the US Space Force.”
Dr. Troy E. Meink, Secretary of the USAF

Google’s NotebookLM Now Creates Video Overviews With Studio Bot AI (The Verge, 29 July 2025)
https://www.theverge.com/news/715283/google-notebooklm-video-overviews-studio-ai

Google’s NotebookLM can now make narrated slideshows with AI
Google’s NotebookLM is getting a new Video Overviews feature that uses AI to create narrated slideshows. The Studio tab is getting some updates, too.

Weaponized Storytelling: How AI Is Helping Researchers Sniff Out Disinformation Campaigns (The Conversation, 28 May 2025)
https://theconversation.com/weaponized-storytelling-how-ai-is-helping-researchers-sniff-out-disinf…

Weaponized storytelling: How AI is helping researchers sniff out disinformation campaigns
Disinformation campaigns are using AI to tell false but compelling stories. AI tools are also helping counter the campaigns by detecting incongruities in usernames, cultural references and timelines.

#podcast recc: Episode 308: The Campus Free Speech Panic: Who’s Fueling the Misinformation Machine? - Pocket Casts https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/febe8

Episode 308: The Campus Free Speech Panic: Who’s Fueling the Misinformation Machine?

Google’s AI Chief on the State of Artificial Intelligence (New York Times, 23 May 2025)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/podcasts/google-ai-demis-hassabi…

Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis on AGI, Innovation and More
Demis Hassabis, the chief executive of Google DeepMind, says that “we’re quite close” to human-level artificial intelligence. After that, all bets are off.

I like Ike.
(That includes the 91% top marginal income tax rate for the wealthiest Americans during his presidency.)
#Eisenhower #HistoryMatters #TaxFairness

“America’s Pivot to the Pacific” by #AngryPlanet [PODCAST]
https://pca.st/episode/535d72f1-3347-4b94-b69c-3ddba08c83cca

#podcast recc: How to Talk to Your Son About Fascism The National Guard Sent to Los Angeles – Straight White American Jesus https://www.straightwhiteame…

Some lighthearted podcast listening for today… #not #sarcasm
[PODCAST] Peter Thiel and the Antichrist by Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
https://…

Peter Thiel and the Antichrist

new podcast recommendation: Jaws and the Charleston church shooting - Pocket Casts https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/0fb0dfd0-8615-0130-0aa2-723c91aeae46/5f158d8f-52db-49bf-9382-01419c60294e the horrific account of Polly Sheppard who…

Jaws and the Charleston church shooting

new podcast recommendation: Peter Thiel and the Antichrist - Pocket Casts https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/045f3aa0-aa6a-0136-7b93-27f978dac4db/d3c84739-30eb-4e2b-bda3-6f0fadf98bb1 The billionaire Peter Thiel is unimpressed with our…

Peter Thiel and the Antichrist

(1/2) We need to empower progressive media creators and influencers to more effectively advocate for the values of human rights, representative democracy, religious tolerance, and social justice.
#ResistAndHeal #HealOurCulture
via:

Wes Fryer (@wesfryer.com)
Thanks for sharing this link, article and these thoughts. I heartily agree. We need to empower progressive media creators and influencers to more effectively advocate for the values of human rights, representative democracy, religious tolerance, and social justice. #ResistAndHeal #HealOurCulture

#book2read: How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Time (2009)
https://a.co/d/fxNTXgQ
More on:

new podcast recommendation: The Collapse of American Trust — with Sam Harris - Pocket Casts https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/7cee4630-3297-0138-96f4-0acc26574db2/175e9479-8bfb-4549-8690-71870cacfea4 Sam Harris, a neuroscientist, phi…

The Collapse of American Trust — with Sam Harris

new podcast recommendation: Libya, China, and the Outlaw Ocean - Pocket Casts https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/9a3a3550-17a1-0133-246a-059c869cc4eb/59a99dce-b589-418a-9870-fe4f7bafd3f5
On this episode of Angry Planet, journali…

Libya, China, and the Outlaw Ocean

Nordic countries are serious about emergency preparations. We should be too.
https://apnews.com/video/how-norwegians-are-preparing-for-emergencies-1fb35749bdfa4905be8caef5feabb5d2

How Norwegians are preparing for emergencies
Local authorities in Norway have dusted off Cold War-era bomb shelters, installed a new satellite communications system and are working with the military on plans to help a deployment of Western forces in case of conflict.

(1/2) Preston Thorpe Is a Software Engineer at a San Francisco Startup. He’s Also Serving His 11th Year in Prison. (TechCrunch, 24 July 2025)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/24/preston-thorpe-is-a-software…

Preston Thorpe is a software engineer at a San Francisco startup — he’s also serving his 11th year in prison | TechCrunch
A senior software engineer for Turso, Thorpe is part of an experimental program in the Maine state prison system that allows incarcerated people to work remote jobs from custody.

new podcast recommendation: Hard Fork Live, Part 1: Sam Altman and Brad Lightcap of OpenAI - Pocket Casts https://pocketcasts.com/podcasts/467b49a0-c657-0138-e72e-0acc26574db2/6203dc5b-bf65-4208-97aa-444011f4b97d The first Hard Fork…

Hard Fork Live, Part 1: Sam Altman and Brad Lightcap of OpenAI