Month: August 2025

Microsoft hosts emergency press conference after protesters ‘storm a building’

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Microsoft president Brad Smith hosted an impromptu press conference on Tuesday afternoon, just hours after protesters gained access to a building at the company’s headquarters and held a sit-in demonstration inside his office. Seated on the edge of his desk, in the office that had been occupied by protesters earlier that day, Smith addressed a … Read more

Building a CBIR Benchmark with TotalSegmentator and FAISS

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Table of Links Abstract and 1. Introduction Materials and Methods 2.1 Vector Database and Indexing 2.2 Feature Extractors 2.3 Dataset and Pre-processing 2.4 Search and Retrieval 2.5 Re-ranking retrieval and evaluation Evaluation and 3.1 Search and Retrieval 3.2 Re-ranking Discussion 4.1 Dataset and 4.2 Re-ranking 4.3 Embeddings 4.4 Volume-based, Region-based and Localized Retrieval and 4.5 … Read more

Medical Image Retrieval Needs a New Benchmark

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:::info Authors: (1) Farnaz Khun Jush, Bayer AG, Berlin, Germany (farnaz.khunjush@bayer.com); (2) Steffen Vogler, Bayer AG, Berlin, Germany (steffen.vogler@bayer.com); (3) Tuan Truong, Bayer AG, Berlin, Germany (tuan.truong@bayer.com); (4) Matthias Lenga, Bayer AG, Berlin, Germany (matthias.lenga@bayer.com). ::: Table of Links Abstract and 1. Introduction Materials and Methods 2.1 Vector Database and Indexing 2.2 Feature Extractors 2.3 … Read more

Microsoft locks down a building after protesters get inside president’s office

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Redmond police outside Microsoft’s building 34 | Image: No Azure for Apartheid Microsoft has temporarily locked down a building at its headquarters after protesters managed to get inside the office of the company’s president. Current and former Microsoft workers held a sit-in protest inside Brad Smith’s office in Building 34, demanding that the company cut … Read more

Why Bitcoin Won’t Save You From Tyranny, Inflation, or Market Collapse

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Table of Links Introduction/Abstract The Blockchain Vulnerability of Revenue-Free Bubbles Success in Wrong Places Principles for a Currency The Difficult with Inflation Hedges Some Additional Fallacies Conclusion and References SOME ADDITIONAL FALLACIES 1) Fallacy of libertarianism: The belief that bitcoin is an offshoot of libertarian and Austrian economics has no solid backing — it has … Read more

The Limits of Inflation Hedges: Gold, Silver, Bitcoin, and Beyond

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Table of Links Introduction/Abstract The Blockchain Vulnerability of Revenue-Free Bubbles Success in Wrong Places Principles for a Currency The Difficult with Inflation Hedges Some Additional Fallacies Conclusion and References PRINCIPLES FOR A CURRENCY First, let’s discuss the demonetization of gold. In 1971, the U.S. government terminated the Bretton Woods Agreement, ending the convertibility of the … Read more

Why Bitcoin Lacks the Staying Power of Gold

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Table of Links Introduction/Abstract The Blockchain Vulnerability of Revenue-Free Bubbles Success in Wrong Places Principles for a Currency The Difficult with Inflation Hedges Some Additional Fallacies Conclusion and References VULNERABILITY OF REVENUE-FREE BUBBLES A central result (even principle) in the rational expectations and securities pricing literature is that, thanks to the law of iterated expectations, … Read more

Why Blockchain’s Math Doesn’t Translate Into Financial Stability

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:::info Author: (1) Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Universa Investments, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University Forthcoming, Quantitative Finance. ::: Table of Links Introduction/Abstract The Blockchain Vulnerability of Revenue-Free Bubbles Success in Wrong Places Principles for a Currency The Difficult with Inflation Hedges Some Additional Fallacies Conclusion and References INTRODUCTION/ABSTRACT This discussion applies quantitative finance methods … Read more