Workers Who Love 'Synergizing #Paradigms ' Might Be Bad at Their Jobs
#CornellUniversity makes an announcement. "Employees who are impressed by vague corporate-speak like ' #synergistic leadership,' or 'growth-hacking paradigms' may struggle with practical decision-making, a new Cornell study reveals.
#corpspeak #growthhacking
Cornell University makes an announcement. "Employees who are impressed by vague corporate-speak like 'synergistic leadership,' or 'growth-hacking paradigms' may struggle with practical decision-making, a new Cornell study reveals." Published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, r...
“Iran, Israel and the U.S. have all struck #oil and #gas facilities since the war started, worsening #supply concerns.
In economic terms, this is already the largest oil supply shock ever,” said Nicholas Mulder, an assitant professor of history who studies the economic impacts of wars at #CornellUniversity. As Gulf producers reduce output and shut down production, he explained, “we are seeing roughly three to four times as many barrels of oil lost as during the 1973 and 1979 #OilCrises.”
<https://apnews.com/article/markets-oil-iran-trump-war-brent-72e8c9a29c2ba1fd761ee968f3d4e553>
The Iran war has upended oil production and shipping across the Middle East, straining energy supplies worldwide. And crude prices swung wildly Monday. The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, briefly surged to $119.50 per barrel on Monday — its highest level since the summer after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. West Texas Intermediate, which is produced in the U.S., also soared to $119.48 per barrel at one point. But those prices fell to under $90 late Monday, as markets made significant reversals after President Donald Trump told CBS News that he thinks “the war is very complete.”
How John Meadow’s LDV Hospitality Came To Rule The Food World
94 If you’ve had an unforgettable meal in New York City, you can probably thank John Meadow, who is the mastermind behind …
#dining #cooking #diet #food #Italiancuisine #CornellUniversity'sSchoolofHotelAdministration #HotelSeville #Italia #Italian #italiancuisine #italiano #italy #JohnMeadow #LDVHospitality #scarpetta #ThePlazaHotel
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2547621/how-john-meadows-ldv-hospitality-came-to-rule-the-food-world/
Large-scale online deanonymization with LLMs
From Cornel University Computer Science
We show that large language models can be used to perform at-scale deanonymization. With full Internet access, our agent can re-identify Hacker News users and Anthropic Interviewer participants at high precision, given pseudonymous online profiles and conversations alone, matching what would take hours for a dedicated human investigator. We then design attacks for the closed-world setting. Given two databases of pseudonymous individuals, each containing unstructured text written by or about that individual, we implement a scalable attack pipeline that uses LLMs to: (1) extract identity-relevant features, (2) search for candidate matches via semantic embeddings, and (3) reason over top candidates to verify matches and reduce false positives. Compared to classical deanonymization work (e.g., on the Netflix prize) that required structured data, our approach works directly on raw user content across arbitrary platforms. We construct three datasets with known ground-truth data to evaluate our attacks. The first links Hacker News to LinkedIn profiles, using cross-platform references that appear in the profiles. Our second dataset matches users across Reddit movie discussion communities; and the third splits a single user's Reddit history in time to create two pseudonymous profiles to be matched. In each setting, LLM-based methods substantially outperform classical baselines, achieving up to 68% recall at 90% precision compared to near 0% for the best non-LLM method. Our results show that the practical obscurity protecting pseudonymous users online no longer holds and that threat models for online privacy need to be reconsidered.
Simon Lermen, Daniel Paleka, Joshua Swanson, Michael Aerni, Nicholas Carlini, Florian Tramè
#computerscience #cornelluniversity #AiResearch #privacy #anonymity #llm #HackNews #athropic #pseudonymity
#deanonymization
#MDACF - #InvasiveInsects on the Horizon: #BoxTreeMoth and #SpottedLanternfly
February 25, 2026
"Two invasive insects are spreading in the United States. Neither is known to be established in Maine, although both are closing in around our borders. Please be aware of these insects and report any suspicious sightings to help our efforts to manage them.
Box Tree Moth
If you have #boxwood plantings, keep your eyes out for box tree moth. This invasive pest was first discovered in #NewYork in 2021 and has subsequently spread to at least 10 other states despite state and federal quarantines. It has also been confirmed in #NewBrunswick, Canada near the Maine border.
Boxwoods infested with box tree moth are characterized by leaf defoliation, the presence of silken threads, and girdling of twigs. A heavy infestation will lead to plant mortality.
Although adult moths are strong fliers, box tree moth mostly moves to new areas as eggs and overwintering caterpillars on boxwood plants. These life stages are easy to miss, so it's important to check your boxwoods carefully for signs of this new invasive insect. If you suspect you have box tree moth, immediately contact [email protected].
Spotted Lanternfly
The spotted lanternfly (SLF) is a large planthopper that has been spreading around the eastern half of the United States since 2016, where it is now in 18 states. It is still not known to be established in Maine, although we periodically receive reports of adult lanternflies, generally observed at rest areas and in warehouses.
Originally from Asia, the spotted lanternfly "hitchhiked" to Pennsylvania as egg masses on stone tile imports. When the eggs hatched in the spring, the little planthopper nymphs found their way to some preferred host plants, like tree-of-heaven, maple, and grape. Planthoppers have straw-like mouthparts (stylets) that they insert into plants to suck out the juices. This type of feeding can severely weaken the plant and sometimes spread diseases. The spotted lanternfly sticks its stylet into the stem and bark of plants, extracting the sap and exuding honeydew," a sticky liquid that rains down on surfaces, promoting the growth of sooty mold.
The spotted lanternfly has caused plant mortality in states where its firmly established. Please familiarize yourself with the different life stages of this bug and report any sightings. Please send photos or collect the specimen and email us: [email protected]."
Source:
https://www.maine.gov/dacf/about/news/news.shtml?id=13343929
Box Tree Moth
(Cydalima perspectalis)
Exotic Insect Pest Fact Sheet (via #CornellUniversity)
https://cals.cornell.edu/integrated-pest-management/outreach-education/fact-sheets/box-tree-moth
#SolarPunkSunday #SaveTheTrees #Forestry #Stewardship #CitizenScience #InvasiveSpecies #InvasiveSpeciesWeek
#MaineDepartmentOfAgricultureConservationAndForestry
Cornell Student Develops Novel Sunlight-Powered Carbon Capture System
Cornell student Bayu Ahmad developed a new system using sunlight to capture carbon dioxide, inspired by plants. This could lower costs and be more sustainable than old methods.
#CarbonCapture, #CornellUniversity, #SustainableTech, #BayuAhmad, #CleanEnergy
https://newsletter.tf/cornell-student-bayu-ahmad-develops-sunlight-carbon-capture-system/
A new carbon capture system at Cornell uses sunlight, like plants do, to pull CO2 from the air. This is different from older methods that often need fossil fuels for energy.
#CarbonCapture, #CornellUniversity, #SustainableTech, #BayuAhmad, #CleanEnergy
https://newsletter.tf/cornell-student-bayu-ahmad-develops-sunlight-carbon-capture-system/
#SnowWashing Is Everywhere—Fabric Experts Explain When It Works and When It Doesn’t
From #rugs and #blankets to #sweaters, this old-world laundry trick can refresh fabrics without water or detergent. Experts break down how to reap the benefits—and when to skip it.
By Terri Robertson, Published: Jan 30, 2026
"I can barely scroll TikTok or Instagram these days without coming across a post about the latest laundry trend—snow washing, or #snötvätt in Swedish. This traditional cleaning method is sort of like taking your #wool clothing, blankets, and rugs to #MotherNature’s #DryCleaner.
"It’s free, completely natural, and nothing new to those who live in Nordic countries. Many knitters are hip to the process too. But everyone else might be wondering, does this really work?
"Enter Fran Kozen and Larissa Shepherd, experts in fiber science and apparel design at #CornellUniversity who are demystifying the trend—and as it turns out, it’s a really good one."
Learn more:
https://www.countryliving.com/home-maintenance/cleaning/a70203964/snow-washing-trend/
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/pJ5OV
#SolarPunkSunday #SnowWashing #SnowCleaning #Winter #Laundry #NaturesDryCleaning #WoolBlankets #WoolClothing
#Google Fulfilled #ICE Subpoena Demanding #StudentJournalist’s #Bank and #CreditCard Numbers
#AmandlaThomasJohnson didn’t know how much information ICE requested in a subpoena until months later. Google never gave him a chance to fight it.
Jessica Washington. February 10 2026
Excerpt: "Amandla Thomas-Johnson had attended a protest targeting companies that supplied weapons to Israel at a #CornellUniversity job fair in 2024 for all of five minutes, but the action got him banned from campus. When President Donald Trump assumed office and issued a series of executive orders targeting students who protested in support of #Palestinians, Thomas-Johnson and his friend Momodou Taal went into hiding.
"Google informed Thomas-Johnson via a brief email in April that it had already shared his metadata with the Department of Homeland Security, as The Intercept previously reported. But the full extent of the information the agency sought — including usernames, addresses, itemized list of services, including any IP masking services, telephone or instrument numbers, subscriber numbers or identities, and credit card and bank account numbers — was not previously known.
" 'I’d already seen the subpoena request that Google and Meta had sent to Momodou [Taal], and I knew that he had gotten in touch with a lawyer and the lawyer successfully challenged that,' Thomas-Johnson said. 'I was quite surprised to see that I didn’t have that opportunity.'
"The subpoena provides no justification for why ICE is asking for this information, except that it’s required 'in connection with an investigation or inquiry relating to the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.' In the subpoena, ICE requests that Google not 'disclose the existence of this summons for indefinite period of time.'
Thomas-Johnson, who is British, believes that ICE requested that information to track and eventually detain him — but he had already fled to Geneva, Switzerland, and is now in Dakar, Senegal.
"The #ElectronicFrontierFoundation, which is representing Thomas-Johnson, and the #ACLU of Northern California sent a letter to Google, #Amazon, #Apple, #Discord, #Meta, #Microsoft, and #Reddit last week calling on tech companies to resist similar subpoenas in the future from #DHS without court intervention. The letter asks the companies to provide users with as much notice as possible before complying with a subpoena to give them the opportunity to fight it, and to resist gag orders that would prevent the #TechCompanies from informing targets that a subpoena was issued.
" 'Your promises to protect the privacy of users are being tested right now. As part of the federal government’s unprecedented campaign to target critics of its conduct and policies, agencies like DHS have repeatedly demanded access to the identities and information of people on your services,' the letter reads.
" 'Based on our own contact with targeted users, we are deeply concerned your companies are failing to challenge unlawful surveillance and defend user privacy and speech.' "
Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2026/02/10/google-ice-subpoena-student-journalist/
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/zEa6d
#ResistICE #ResistFascism #USPol #Authoritarianism #Fascism #ICEOut #DefundICE #Orwellian #BigBrother #NineteenEightyFour #FreePalestine #FreeGaza #SilencingDissent #SilencingFreeSpeech #DepartmentOfHomelandInsecurity
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