Tootfinder

Ukraine shot down 3,200 Shahed-type drones from helicopters in past year, chief commander says: https://benborges.xyz/2025/08/18/ukraine-shot-down-shahedtype-drones.html

The LA Times Guild plans to hold its first-ever strike authorization vote as contract talks near their third year; the union lost about 200 members since 2022 (Raquel 'Rocky' Harris/The Wrap)
https://www.thewrap.com/la-times-union-strike-authorization-vote/…

LA Times Union to Hold First-Ever Strike Authorization Vote as Contract Talks Near 3rd Year
Since negotiations began in September 2020, the guild has seen layoffs impact approximately 200 Times staffers.

Jaime Alanís died a day after a frenzied immigration raid of Glass House Farms in Ventura county
where authorities arrested at least 200 workers.
The 57-year-old, who was from the town of Huajúmbaro in Michoacšn, Mexico, is the first known person to die during the Trump administration’s enhanced immigration enforcement operations in southern California.
The federal government’s ramped up enforcement activities have brought chaos across southern California as Ice agents des…

Unraveling the Secrets of the lower Solar Atmosphere: One year of Operation of the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) on board Aditya-L1
Rahul Gopalakrishnan, Soumya Roy, Deepak Kathait, Janmejoy Sarkar, Nived V. N., Durgesh Tripathi, A. N. Ramaprakash, Sami K. Solanki, Sreejith Padinhatteeri, Mahesh Burse, Rushikesh Deogaonkar, Sakya Sinha, Adithya H. N., K. Sankarasubramanian, Dipankar Banerjee, Dibyendu Nandy, Srikant Motamarri, Amit Purohit, Rethika T, Sreenath K R, Priyank…

Unraveling the Secrets of the lower Solar Atmosphere: One year of Operation of the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) on board Aditya-L1
The Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) is an instrument onboard Aditya--L1, the first solar space observatory of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India, launched on September 2, 2023. SUIT is designed to image the Sun in the 200--400 nm wavelength band in eight narrowband and three broadband filters. SUIT's science goals start with observing the solar atmosphere and large-scale continuum variations, the physics of solar flares in the NUV region, and many more. The paper el…

As of today I have a decade worth of Dad Experience! He was one tiny guy just… yesterday??!?!??! How did that happen??! 🙃

“How did a sports scene like #MiLB minor league #baseball—with a more than 100-year history of silly mascots, intimate hometown stadiums, and local ownership—get devoured so quickly by #PrivateEquity?”

Source: Perplexity has secured commitments from investors for $200M in new funding at a $20B valuation (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/perplexity-finalizes-20-billion-valuation-round

Perplexity Finalizes $20 Billion-Valuation Round 
Perplexity, which runs an artificial intelligence-powered search engine, has secured commitments from investors for $200 million in new funding at a $20 billion valuation, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The new capital comes less than two months after the three-year-old startup raised money at a $18 billion valuation. The frequent but relatively modest financings, at

💀 Solving the mystery of a 200-year-old ambush
#history

Solving the mystery of a 200-year-old ambush
A new report reveals that 10 Napoleonic soldiers attacked by Spanish guerrillas were not sent to prison, as previously believed, but killed

Dutch drought resumes. The season's precipitation deficit (evaporation minus rainfall) has been hovering around 200 mm for a while, a high value already. But now, it is starting to grow again, in line with the top 5% driest years in the 1906-2025 record.
#ClimateChange #drought

A bit of good news!   our #PurdueFortWayne 🐘 department collaborates with Indiana University and #IUI on an annual conference series, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation for approx. 10 years.  We have just received notice that this year's grant has been approved at all…

A dark money group that was founded by one of former President Trump’s key allies raised over $20 million in 2020 and used the money to help finance various conservative groups.
Leonard Leo’s The 85 Fund received the money through the Donors Trust, a donor-advised nonprofit group that funnels money from wealthy conservative financiers to other organizations, according to a tax filing first seen by CNBC.
Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA received $200,000 for a “TP Campus Project” fr…

Trump ally's fund received over $20 million last year, then funneled cash to other right-leaning groups
A dark money group that was founded by one of ex-President Trump's key allies raised over $20 million in 2020.

I am an asshole on the Old People's Social Media:
"I would love to see drivers follow the example set by cyclists, and manage to kill "only" 200 pedestrians per year, instead of 6000."
(these are approximate US figures, for anyone reading from the civilized world.)

Sources: Meta offered Ruoming Pang a $200M pay package over a several-year period in line with Meta's other major AI hires; Apple didn't try to match the offer (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Meta Poached Apple’s Ruoming Pang With Pay Package Over $200 Million
Meta Platforms Inc. has made unusually high compensation offers to new members of its “superintelligence” team — including a more than $200 million package for a former Apple Inc. distinguished engineer.

Use of a genetic algorithm in university scheduling for equitable and efficient determination of teaching assignments
Tom Bensky, Karl Saunders
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06981 …

Use of a genetic algorithm in university scheduling for equitable and efficient determination of teaching assignments
Here a genetic algorithm (GA) is presented that creates a teaching schedule for a university physics department by algorithmically assigning ${\sim}200$ classes to ${\sim}50$ professors for each of three academic terms per year. The algorithm is driven by chromosomes of the GA that encode proposed pairings between enumerated lists of professors and classes. The fitness of the pairings is measured by considering both contractual work constraints and individual teaching preferences. The algorithm…

There were upsets in the East for sure, but it was OKC all along in the West, and it's OKC in the end. It's their year.

For those who have .social or other premium domains.
How can I be sure, that the registration company is not making a premium domain from 200$ a year to 2000$ a year?
It would be bad, if you think, 200$ a year is fine, and register it and building a community in it, but then it's too high and you still have to pay the 2000$ for it, as you can't lose the community?
Any idea how that works?

“Let’s play #baseball, everyone. It’s time for the 120th Midnight Sun game, live from Fairbanks, #Alaska, 153 miles from the Arctic Circle, on the longest day of the year.”

🌽 To get that perfect ear of corn, weather has to cooperate. But climate change is making it dicier
#corn

To get that perfect ear of corn, weather has to cooperate. But climate change is making it dicier
Robb Rynd and his brother grew up farming and wanted to do more of it outside their day jobs, so they went in together on what's now a little over 200 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat and sorghum. Last year was a good year, and Rynd said he enjoyed walking the fields with his kids to see how the corn was doing.

Researchers tested 200 toddlers — 96 chemicals were lurking in their bodies #UnitedStates

Researchers tested 200 toddlers — 96 chemicals were lurking in their bodies
Researchers testing urine from 2- to 4-year-olds in four U.S. states uncovered 96 different chemicals, many of them unmonitored and linked to hormone and brain disruption. Legacy toxins like triclosan are slowly declining, yet replacements such as DINCH plasticizer and modern pesticides are rising. Toddlers—especially the youngest, later-born, and those from minority groups—often carried higher levels than their own mothers. Scientists urge expanded biomonitoring and stricter regulations be…

Pony AI says it rolled out 200 Gen-7 Robotaxis since mass production started two months ago, putting it on track for its 1,000-vehicle goal by the end of 2025 (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-13/po…

The Trump administration is sending 200 Marines to Florida
to aid federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, according to a statement by U.S. Northern Command.
The deployment is part of a broader push by the administration
❌ to ramp up deportations using active-duty troops.
Earlier this year, Donald Trump
🔥deployed some 4,000 National Guard personnel and 700 Marines to California
under a law known as Title X,
-- which allows troops to be …

200 Marines among those being sent to Florida to help ICE
ICE will determine the duties assigned to the Marines.

Wait: econ professors get *bonuses*? For what, being such darling peaches?

Paying $17/mo or $200/year for Claude Code feels expensive.
I pay less for my IDE.
Asking the question of being worth is very tempting.
Answers might not help me with the decision as the context will most probably be completely different.

The Unhurried Universe: A Continued Search for Long Term Variability in ASAS-SN
Sydney Petz, C. S. Kochanek, K. Z. Stanek, Benjamin J. Shappee, Subo Dong, J. L. Prieto, Todd A. Thompson
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07174

The Unhurried Universe: A Continued Search for Long Term Variability in ASAS-SN
We search a sample of 5,685,060 isolated sources in the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) with 14.5

#lego #nintendo

Today I was very happy that we got external blinds last year, which are very effective to keep the heat (today 38°) out of our appartment.

This is the extremely rare Parachute penstemon, only found in a small area in northern Colorado, USA.
This penstemon grows on steep shale fields at 7,800 to 9,200 feet elevation. The flower blooms from about mid-June to mid-July each year.
Photo: CPW/Raquel Wertsbaugh
#Flower #Rare

I was so busy with all the preparations, that I forgot to tell you: I‘m at #NeosCon! Yeah, it’s that time of the year again, meeting old and new friends and recharging our community batteries. As always, we’re having such a great time! I‘ll post some more details after the conference.
Greetings from Karlsruhe!

Internal email: Cognition offers buyouts to the ~200 newly acquired Windsurf staff, with Cognition CEO Scott Wu writing "we don't believe in work-life balance" (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/cognition-off…

Cognition Offers Buyouts to Newly Acquired Windsurf Staff
Cognition, a two-year-old artificial intelligence coding startup last valued at $4 billion, has offered buyouts to the roughly 200 employees it acquired in a takeover of rival Windsurf three weeks ago, saying they will receive nine months of salary in return, according to an e-mail seen by The ...

The Trump administration
illegally withheld funding
from the federal child care program, according to congressional investigators.
It’s the third time this year that
investigators from the Government Accountability Office
have determined the administration
defied Congress on spending.

Trump Administration Illegally Withheld Head Start Funds, Watchdog Finds
It’s the third time this year that investigators from the Government Accountability Office have determined the administration defied Congress on spending.

Dear Democratic National Committee. I pledge to send you $100 on the last day of each month. I will reduce that amount by $1 for every unsolicited communication (text, email, phone call, voice mail, physical mail piece) I receive from a left leaning candidate, cause, or PAC requesting a donation.
Although I am pledging up to $1,200 for the next year, I suspect my total donation under this pledge will be between $0 and $60.

An interview with CEO David Baszucki on Roblox's origin story, what's next for the gaming platform whose shares have risen about 200% in the past year, and more (Tim Fernholz/Sherwood News)
https://sherwood.news/tech/he-didnt-set…

He didn’t set out to create a kids’ company. Roblox’s “Builderman” wound up with one anyway.
Founder and CEO David Baszucki tells us the origin story and what’s next for a company that has nearly tripled in stock price and caught a lot of controversy over the past year.

The oregano is doing well this year! 🍝 So is the poison ivy... ☠️
#gardening #food #plants

Today I had my first "Sturm" of the year at Volksstimmefest (very traditionally)

"EU remains major wildlife trafficking hub, report finds"
#EU #EuropeanUnion #Animals #Wildlife

EU remains major wildlife trafficking hub, report finds
The European Union remains a major hub for global wildlife trafficking, with nearly 5,200 seizures reported in 2023. The confiscations mostly involved critically endangered European eels (Anguilla anguilla), timber and medicinal plants, according to a new report by wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC. Worth an estimated $23 billion a year, the illegal wildlife trade is a […]

Today I went for the first swim in Neue Donau (very late this year).

Inside Amazon's Indiana data center complex: built for Anthropic with plans for ~30 centers, consuming 2.2GW of power and millions of gallons of water per year (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/technology/amazon-ai-data-centers.html

At Amazon’s Biggest Data Center, Everything Is Supersized for A.I.
On 1,200 acres of cornfield in Indiana, Amazon is building one of the largest computers ever for work with Anthropic, an artificial intelligence start-up.