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De roeiende Noren & doorgesnoven Argentijnen laten we vanavond maar even in hun sop gaarcoken en dan aandacht voor het volgende: het leukste, gezelligste, raarste en ruigste festival van Nederland KEERT TERUG. We voelen ons als importknuppels in de Randstad zó thuis in het Verre Oosten dat we sinds jaar en dag rondhobbelen op de Zwarte Cross - vroeger nog gewoon als bezoeker met afgeragde vouwwagen toen de Jovinks vermomd als de Ayatollahs met gruizige knettergekrock de katse campingtent afbraken, later (nu) ook als corporate mediadinges. Tom Staal gaat tegenwoordig streamend, lullend, kletsend en crossend over dat terrein EN JULLIE KUNNEN MEE! Wat is er nou leuker om zélf te zien hoe stuntmannen zichzelf óver de Megatent laten katapulteren, een bult bier te drinken op rare plekken, te rammen bij de Dropkick Murphys, te rocken bij Eli 'Paperboy' Reed (later deze week: Mosterds Muziektips), te rauzen bij Bökkers en natuurlijk allerlei krankzinnige creaties over de crossbaan te zien stuiven? Helemaal niks! Wij van GeenStijl geven een zooi gratis & voor niks Zwarte Cross-weekendtickets (+camping) in setjes van 2 weg. Enige voorwaarde: je moet GeenStijl Premium zijn en als je dat niet bent kun je dat HIERRRR worden. Slechts een paar euro per maand dus je kunt het ook rustig een maandje proberen. Wil jij 2 weekendtickets voor de Zwarte Cross? Mail effe je username naar michiel@geenstijl.nl en onze Paarse Broek neemt contact met je op - bij veel animo gaan we loten. En onthoud: gang is alles!

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Dit was vorig jaar

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The NATO chief Mark Rutte is quite annoying. It is in a worthy cause.

In een Tsjechisch onderonsje was Linda Nosková lange tijd dominant. Het leek een eenzijdige wedstrijd te worden, maar Karolina Muchová knokte zich naar een derde set. Na een snelle break was het uiteindelijk toch Nosková die de sterkste bleek.

In March, Anthropic's Claude "quietly deployed software to spy on China-based customers," reports the Washington Post — apparently to unmask Chinese rivals "suspected of hijacking its technology to make their own AI tools smarter."

Last week Anthropic removed the spyware "after a software developer revealed its existence and privacy advocates criticized Anthropic, saying it had surveilled its own users."

Anthropic's tracking code was designed in part to catch Chinese firms "distilling" its AI models, a technique that involves pressing a large, expensive AI system to serve as a tutor to a smaller, cheaper one. Asking the larger system huge numbers of questions — hundreds of thousands or more — generates responses that can be used to upgrade the power of the smaller one on the cheap. Distillation isn't illegal, and it has been used for years in the AI industry. But distillation without permission is against AI companies' rules, and, used effectively, is giving Chinese AI companies a major leg up, American AI companies say... Anthropic and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI have both accused Chinese AI companies of using this technique to build copycat AI models of their own.

In a May blog post, Anthropic said that Chinese companies' use of distillation, along with evading U.S. export controls on high-end computer chips, has allowed them to "trail closely" behind U.S. models. But if these techniques can be blocked, it might be possible for the United States to "lock in a 12-24 month lead" on Chinese capabilities, the company said... This month, Anthropic said in a letter to U.S. senators that was obtained by The Post that it uncovered a campaign in which Chinese tech giant Alibaba's Qwen AI team used roughly 25,000 fraudulent accounts to generate more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude to improve its own technology. In February, Anthropic made similar accusations against the Chinese firms Deepseek, Moonshot and MiniMax and said the campaigns were "growing in intensity and sophistication...." Anthropic and OpenAI have appealed to the U.S. government, arguing that distillation amounts to intellectual property theft that harms the U.S. in the geopolitical AI contest....

That Chinese AI labs are using U.S. models to improve their own technology appears beyond dispute. In a February 2025 study, researchers from China's Peking University and the state-funded Chinese Academy of Sciences developed methods to detect signs of distillation in leading large language models. They concluded that, with the exception of ByteDance's Doubao, most domestic models they tested showed substantial evidence of distillation, mostly drawing from U.S. models... In one set of intensive tests, a Qwen model misidentified itself as Claude nearly a third of the time, the Chinese researchers found.

U.S. firms have also used distillation to piggyback on AI systems made by others. In 2024, OpenAI released a tool to make it easier for customers to distill its own models and produce data sets for AI training. SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in court testimony in May that his AI company xAI used distillation to train its models and that the technique is common throughout the industry.

The article also notes that Anthropic "said it has banned nearly 700,000 accounts that were using Claude in China." But the article includes this quote from Kyle Chan, a fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution's China Center. "Anthropic's framing is that this is a geopolitical contest for basically the future of the world and freedom and democracy. It's that this is not just undercutting the U.S. commercially, but undercutting American strategic advantage in the most powerful technology we know today."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

The journey this truck has made over the previous 10 hours, by road and rail from northern France, was undertaken in great secrecy, due to the importance and value of the cargo within (reported to be insured for over a billion dollars). Great secrecy, anyway, until the secret was blown a couple of hours before the truck's arrival, in a social media post from French president Emmanuel Macron: "The Bayeux Tapestry is heading for London. This age-old treasure that tells our shared history is crossing the Channel." National Geographic reports on the big move, which took place over July 9-July 10, 2026.

...The British have been trying to borrow it for at least a century. Five times since 1931, British institutions have requested a loan, including for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953 and the 900th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings in 1966. Five times, its French custodians ultimately said no. The two countries' ever shifting political relationship doubtless played a role, but the key objection was typically a practical one: The artwork was considered too old, too fragile, and too large to be transported safely. A meticulous, inch-by-inch study of the tapestry, conducted by French experts some years ago, precisely quantified the damage it has already sustained over the centuries: "24,204 stains, 16,445 wrinkles, 9,646 gaps in the cloth or the embroidery, 30 non-stabilized tears, more significant weakening in the first few metres of the work." ...In France, some of the professionals who'd worked on the tapestry made it known that they viewed this decision as irresponsible. In Britain, high-profile critics included the famed artist David Hockney, who passed away this June at 88. He denounced the proposed loan as "madness," arguing that "some things are too precious to take a risk with." But the decision had been made. The Bayeux Museum was set to close for a two-year renovation, and the challenge ahead was to determine how such a precarious object could be moved safely.