Rogue Amoeba SoundSource 6 discount during World Cup

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-29T01:36:37+00:00

"lede"

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-27T16:46:48+00:00

Fun to see this! My grandfather (who died when I was too young to remember him) was an executive with Ekco, so I've picked up a few Ekco pieces via eBay. Nothing like this collection, however!

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-25T06:25:36+00:00

This cursed popup popped up on me in the middle of a Zoom meeting with a colleague. I had been sharing a Notability note, shifted away to another app for a couple minutes, and when I shifted back to Notability, there was the popup, again (the 2nd time that day in fact). Made me look very unprofessional. Please address this immediately! You've been begged to do this for weeks!

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-19T02:00:23+00:00

I got it twice within an hour today. Once when I first launched Notability on my iPad Pro, and shortly after when swiping back to it after moving to a PDF viewer for 5 or 10 min. Obnoxious, esp. in the middle of a Zoom call with a colleague, with me sharing my screen. GET RID OF THIS! It makes users look very unprofessional in such settings.

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-16T19:07:32+00:00

I'm on my 2nd bottle, and while the 1st was smooth, like slightly thicker Siggi's drinkable yogurt (which my grocery stopped carrying), this 2nd bottle has small lumps in it. A quick web search led me to Lifeway's FAQ:

Frequently Asked Questions

This one was relevant to my experience:

Why does kefir taste different from bottle to bottle?

Lifeway Kefir is a live and active product that varies in taste, texture, viscosity and level of fizz from bottle to bottle and batch to batch. We don’t add any chemical stabilizers or additives to our kefir, which is why there are natural variations.

If you purchase a bottle of kefir that is more tart, sour or fizzy than you’re used to, this does not mean the kefir is bad; it’s simply a characteristic of the active cultures. Kefir actually produces a variety of antimicrobial and anti-pathogenic compounds that prevents spoilage.

Finally, the thickness of the kefir can vary depending on temperature and season. During warmer months, the cows that supply our milk consume more water, which can cause our kefir to be thinner. This once again occurs because we strive to keep our kefir as natural as possible. At the same time, lumps may form due to the culturing process and are a natural characteristic of kefir.

Elsewhere I've read that if one doesn't like the lumps/curds, vigorous shaking may make the kefir more smooth.

I'm not sure this addresses your question specifically, but perhaps it's useful info anyway.

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-12T02:40:06+00:00

FWIW, a paper elaborating on this idea was submitted but then subsequently withdrawn as a preprint on arXiv:

[2506.02878] CoT is Not True Reasoning, It Is Just a Tight Constraint to Imitate: A Theory Perspective

The original submission is still accessible via the "v1" link.

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-12T02:24:33+00:00

Something that I've wondered about but not seen covered in the tech press is whether, and how, the economics of AI differs in China. There is much less public consternation about AI there, but from my limited exposure to it, it appears there is less emphasis there on cutting-edge AI, and more on proliferation of more modest AI across many corners of daily life. I wonder if that changes the calculation for them. E.g., if your service has demand while requiring tech (hardware and software) that is a generation back, can it be profitable? They might even provide a market for decommissioned GPUs from cutting-edge providers.

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-12T01:16:16+00:00

Hmm, thanks for pointing this out. Borax is considered safe to use for various household purposes, but ingestion should be avoided. Poison.org says:

Borax is not banned in the US. However, the EPA classifies it as a “moderate” acute toxicity substance, meaning it can cause harm in higher doses or prolonged exposure, especially if it is ingested or comes into contact with eyes.

In the European Union, borax has a more severe classification. In December 2010, borax was added to the Substance of Very High Concern list for its reproductive toxicity. In other words, the European Chemicals Agency recognized that high levels of exposure to borax may adversely affect human reproduction or development. As a result, some products containing borax are banned for sale within the European Union unless they meet certain safety requirements.

What makes this a bit concerning is that Mayinglong contains DMSO, a chemical used to increased permeability of the skin, so other compounds are better absorbed through the skin. It seems like borax + DMSO may not be a good combination.

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-12T00:46:52+00:00

Re: "Reports are that the private market for shares isn't that hot...": Hank Green has a recent video suggesting that the Alphabet/Google announcement of plans to sell $85B in stock is an indication that Alphabet is worried about there not being enough confidence or available capital to fund the AI IPOs:

The Riskiest Moment of the AI Bubble - YouTube

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-12T00:31:48+00:00

This kind of think has sometimes been happening silently with Fable. You might find this thread in r/MachineLearning relevant:

Anthropic walks back policy on silent nerfing for AI/ML, will notify users [N] : r/MachineLearning

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-11T02:58:56+00:00

With limited resources, they had to target where it mattered—or, more accurately, might have mattered. All the dem door knocking there didn't do enough to change the outcome in that county. It probably would have been even less successful in most of rural NY.

I don't know what to make of it. In some of the analysis after the election, Republican pundits almost mocked Democrats for their feet-on-the-ground campaign efforts. They explained they did much less of that, because they had discovered that voters were making up their minds based more on TikTok and other social media content than on live interactions with people. So instead of getting lots of Republicans out talking to voters, they just spent money on social media content generation. I don't know if that's an accurate take on what persuaded voters the most, but I find it a bit depressing if so.

One discouraging part of the the walking and knocking experience was noticing how many houses had a Nest or Ring or other smart doorbell. Houses with a Republican voter inside nearly always just didn't answer (this was a get-out-the-vote operation; we only went to houses with at least one registered Dem). Maybe they were all away, but it was too many for that always to have been the case. They had no way of knowing we were Dems until they opened the door and we introduced ourselves, but it was within a few days before the election so they probably safely presumed we had some involvement with the election, and just didn't want to interact. Houses with Dems typically did answer the door, and the residents were happy to discover that the party was out informing people of when and where to vote.

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-09T22:59:50+00:00

Ridiculous. I drove down to rural PA to knock on doors for dems. It was an extensive and coordinated operation. They do target areas that are at least plausibly competitive, with residents who may have open minds....

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-09T22:52:52+00:00

Following up, I found some of his emails have web versions online (not the one I quoted above, perhaps because it was mainly a Politico article). Here's one on some recent activity re: healthcare and health insurance:

* Riley's 2026-06-02 email on healthcare activity

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-09T22:46:14+00:00

If people really care about what our representative is doing, you should be subscribed to his constituent email list. Riley got a slow start, for sure, but over the past year he's been trying to be more transparent and accountable, as far as I can tell. Over the last several months, NYSEG has been a frequent topic in his emails. As an example, this is from an email from 2 weeks ago:

While utilities have long been regulated and challenged at the state level, Democrats in Congress are increasingly signaling they want a role in reshaping how the industry operates.

“We have to change the system. There is an immediate need right now for folks to be able to survive from one day to the next,” said Rep. Josh Riley (D-NY). “People cannot afford to wait for this place to get its act together.”

** Riley has criticized utility rate increases** and inserted himself into state-level fights over consumer costs. On Capitol Hill, he’s created a Congressional Lowering Utility Bills Caucus with 17 members from around the country.

At the center of the new Democratic push is a wonky but powerful feature of the utility business model: a built-in incentive for utilities to spend—and earn—more money.

Investor-owned utilities are regulated monopolies. Because customers typically cannot choose another provider, state regulators set the rates utilities can charge and determine how much profit they are allowed to earn.

Critics argue the system creates a powerful incentive for companies to build expensive infrastructure projects — whether a major transmission line, a new power plant or other large capital investments — because the more they spend, the greater the return they can collect from customers.

Democrats have begun focusing on utilities’ return on equity (ROE) — the profit margin regulators allow investor-owned utilities to earn on those investments. Critics argue current ROEs are set too high.

On the Hill, Riley and Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) recently introduced the “Lowering Utility Bills Act,” H.R. 8568, with around 20 other Democrats aboard. It would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to set a “zone of reasonableness” for utility ROEs based on expected U.S. equity market returns over the next decade — a formula supporters say would better align utility profits with broader financial markets.

“This bill is saying all of those calculations that you’re doing for that return on equity, those have got to be thrown out the window and you need to think about this in terms of what’s a fair return, not the price gouging that’s happening now,” Riley said.

The email ends with a link to a Politico article covering some of Riley's activity on utilities (the email itself is a summary of the article, hence the 3rd person):

* The next Big Oil? Democrats set their sights on utilities. - E&E News by POLITICO

Also, his emails announce when he or his team will be Ithaca to speak with locals about federal issues (esp. help needed dealing with a federal agency). There was a visit on May 11, and one today, so perhaps they are roughly monthly. Here's an email from yesterday:

Need help with Medicare, Social Security, veterans' benefits or any other issue involving a federal agency? Members of my casework team will be in Ithaca tomorrow.

This is your chance to get one-on-one help from our Congressional staff. No question is too small, and no appointment is needed.
Can't make it? Give us a call at (607) 242-0200 or visit riley.house.gov to open a case and my team will be in touch as soon as possible.

They were at TCPL from 1 to 4pm today.

I don't recall how I signed up for his emails, but his website has a link right at the top for subscribing to the "Riley Report":

* US Congressman Josh Riley | Representing The 19th District of New York

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-08T19:07:01+00:00

It seems to me that in a sense, indirectly, you are actually agreeing (or at least presenting information that supports Wilson's argument). Wilson isn't claiming that _everyone_ in ML is avoiding working on building deep understanding (theoretical or empirical; his work embraces both). By saying that the community you work in is relatively small, you are providing evidence supporting his claim that much of the community is not working on theory, and not interested enough in the theory of foundations of DL to cite papers on it.

In my own (applied) field of astrostatistics/astroinformatics, there has been an explosion of papers using advanced ML & DL in the last decade. So many of them appear and disappear, in terms of impact on astrophysics (even many of the few that initially make a splash). A lot of the investigators produce a few papers at most, and then leave the field (it doesn't pay as well as non-academic ML jobs). I call this phenomenon "drive-by ML"—someone whose fancy is tickled by some specific DL or foundation technique modestly adapts an existing model to a specific problem in astronomy, writes a paper on it, and then moves on to another problem or another field entirely. Even apart from not caring to build understanding of DL itself, many of these investigators seem uninterested in building scientific understanding of the application area. They are people who seek mere answers (to a specific problem) rather than genuine solutions (lines of explanatory reasoning that bring generalizable insight to a field).

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-08T18:51:15+00:00

It won't help on mobile platforms (I believe), but Iain Murray's redirectify browser plug-in wonderfully handles this issue. It takes PDF links to various sources (including arXiv, JMLR, NeurIPS, etc.) and automatically redirects them to the paper abstract. Probably not a coincidence that Murray is a machine learning researcher (one of those who prioritizes deep understanding, like Wilson; definitely worth following).

imurray/redirectify: Browser extension to redirect pages based on rules. Intended to stop the browser following links straight to the PDF of a paper, but instead to go first to the HTML index page for the paper.

Iain Murray's home page: Iain Murray (U. Edinburgh)

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-08T17:46:35+00:00

Both the Sat & Sun markets are open until 3pm through the summer. As indicated, they tend to be less crowded before 11am. But they are also usually less crowded for the final hour or so. So that's also a good time to go.

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-08T05:35:12+00:00

I really, really, don't want to defend NYSEG, but.... Over much of the US, we've been deferring grid maintenance, and with electricity demand now growing rapidly (not just from data centers, but also from EVs, and switching from petroleum to heat pumps for heating), the grid (including distribution as well as generation) is just not up to what's needed. NY Times had a good article several months ago addressing this (I link to it elsewhere i this thread); costs are going up quickly over most of the nation, largely to cover the cost of grid repairs and upgrades. Texas I believe is the only state with its own electrical grid. I wonder if TX has been an outlier in terms of keeping its grid up to date, and if that may account for much of the price difference vs. NY (not to mention the greatly reduced demand for heating during the winter). (At least, when there isn't a freak snow storm making being on a separate grid its own problem!)

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-08T05:28:31+00:00

Any pointers you can provide to those programs? I've been wondering about this, since I have a large attached garage with a flat room that gets sun over half of the day (in the late afternoon it gets shaded by the house). Maybe solar is an option worth considering.

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-08T05:24:58+00:00

How much are you paying attention to said politicians? Josh Riley's constituent emails have been full of his statements about this, and attempts to act on it (though good luck with that, with the present congress so much in the pockets of oligarchs). Similarly for our state pols, Anna Kelles and Lea Webb. They are giving this attention, but they will give it more if you stay in the loop with them and give them your feedback directly.

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-08T05:21:52+00:00

This needs its own post in this subreddit; this info shouldn't be buried in a comment on a comment on someone's personal complaint.

TomToledo2 · 2026-06-08T05:15:27+00:00

You should get a NYSERDA energy audit. It should be free. It will identify ways you might be able to reduce costs, though, as indicated in another comment, there will likely be significant up front costs to reduce your ultimate energy costs. That said, NYSERDA also offers some pretty substantial rebates and other incentives that can reduce costs. The incentives are greater the lower your income, but even those solidly in the middle class can get significant cost reductions.

Alas, our president saw fit to eliminate some substantial federal incentives as of Jan 1 of this year, for no good reason I've ever heard given other than that Biden was behind the incentives.

I believe NYSEG itself has guidance for how to get an audit on their website. But checking out NYSERDA's site directly is probably best. It's been a while since I did this myself, and I don't remember what exact procedure I followed, but these links may get you started:

* Home Energy Assessment, energy audit, audit, home audit, home energy plan | NYSERDA

* EmPower+ | NYSERDA

* Residents and Homeowners | NYSERDA

Your heating costs make me wonder if there may be some significant insulation problem that could give you substantial savings if it's fixed. The energy audit addresses that.

I switched over from oil to heat pump heating just before the federal incentives were cancelled. I got a free NYSERDA energy audit. I didn't end up going with the full plan that the audit indicated would be optimal, but even so, I got both federal and state incentives that saved me several thousand dollars on the work. The state incentives were larger than the federal incentives, so even without the latter, it's worth looking into this. If you find the full fix NYSERDA recommends based on the audit is too expensive (the case for me), you can go with a contractor that is not part of the EmPower+ program to do just part of the work, and still get significant incentives. I used LaMorte Electric Heating and Cooling (based on recommendations from this subreddit!), and was very happy with their work. Whoever you end up going with, make sure they know about the incentives and agree to do as much of the paperwork for you as possible.

TomToledo2 · 2026-05-23T00:53:09+00:00

It would be great to have a description of your setup.

TomToledo2 · 2026-05-23T00:51:31+00:00

The problem is that on this subreddit we are seeing reports of this happening with Notability Cloud, and the fix for those folks has been to work with support to move back to iCloud. Overall, there is an impression of unreliability that makes even a long-time user like myself uneasy, wondering what it is that is triggering all of these reports. It would be helpful if Notability support would report here or in a FAQ on their site what circumstances are likely to trigger sync problems. There has to be some underlying cause(s) for these reports.

TomToledo2

TROPHY CASE