Tootfinder

MIT researchers have developed a new method for designing 3D structures that can be transformed from a flat configuration into their curved, fully formed shape with only a single pull of a string.
This technique could enable the rapid deployment of a temporary field hospital at the site of a disaster such as a devastating tsunami
— a situation where quick medical action is essential to save lives.
The researchers’ approach converts a user-specified 3D structure into a flat s…

One pull of a string is all it takes to deploy these complex structures
MIT researchers developed a method that converts a user’s design into a flat series of interconnected tiles that can be converted to a 3D structure with one pull of a single string.

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.

A look at the challenges some AI developers face in building models to extract trillions of high-quality tokens from PDFs, which are hard to parse, for training (Josh Dzieza/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/882891/ai-pdf-parsing…

How many AIs does it take to read a PDF?
For all of the AI industry’s advancements, the major models like ChatGPT and Claude still struggle with PDFs, one of the oldest and ubiquitous file formats.

The Open Contributions Descriptor (OCD) is an open, machine-readable JSON format that allows an organization to publish a structured description of its participation in the open ecosystem.
It's still a bit in flux but the goal of OCD is to make organizational openness discoverable, interoperable, and automatable.
#opensource

Experimental insights into data augmentation techniques for deep learning-based multimode fiber imaging: limitations and success
Jawaria Maqbool, M. Imran Cheema
https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.19072 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.19072 https://arxiv.org/html/2511.19072
arXiv:2511.19072v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Multimode fiber~(MMF) imaging using deep learning has high potential to produce compact, minimally invasive endoscopic systems. Nevertheless, it relies on large, diverse real-world medical data, whose availability is limited by privacy concerns and practical challenges. Although data augmentation has been extensively studied in various other deep learning tasks, it has not been systematically explored for MMF imaging. This work provides the first in-depth experimental and computational study on the efficacy and limitations of augmentation techniques in this field. We demonstrate that standard image transformations and conditional generative adversarial-based synthetic speckle generation fail to improve, or even deteriorate, reconstruction quality, as they neglect the complex modal interference and dispersion that results in speckle formation. To address this, we introduce a physical data augmentation method in which only organ images are digitally transformed, while their corresponding speckles are experimentally acquired via fiber. This approach preserves the physics of light-fiber interaction and enhances the reconstruction structural similarity index measure~(SSIM) by up to 17\%, forming a viable system for reliable MMF imaging under limited data conditions.
toXiv_bot_toot

These stories are relentless, and even when we aren’t seeing ICE with our own eyes, we’re carrying the weight of hearing these stories — carrying each other’s burden of witness. The story-sharing is both a part of the weight we carry and a part of the healing we do together.
It’s hard. But I do feel like I repaired something in myself over the weekend, first watching the right-wing hate march get humiliated and then making time with friends.
Ready to continue.
/end

Alte Freunde am Tisch, der Spiritus fließt, das Gespräch auch, die Skizzen werden dann auch leicht flüssig ...
#sketching

Rund 3 000 #Gletscher weltweit können ihre Bewegung immer mal wieder stark beschleunigen und während solcher #Surges bis zu 60 Meter pro Tag vorrücken.
Ursache ist Wasser, das sich unter dem Eis staut und die Reibung verringert. Diese Prozesse verändern Landschaften und können Flüsse blockier…

Glaciers Can Suddenly And Dangerously Surge Up to 60 Meters a Day
It's difficult to forget standing in front of a glacier that is advancing towards you, towering ice pillars constantly cracking as they inch forward.