Lululemon’s absurdly capacious 80-litre bag will set you back a small fortune – and it’s one of the cheapest giant holdalls on the market
Name: Big-Ass Bags.
Age: The titular “Big-Ass Bag” launched this month (but large carrying receptacles have been available for centuries).
Continue reading...Picture showing White Helmets volunteer unconscious and with bruises on his body went viral
Syrians have protested over the death of a man who was arrested and allegedly beaten by security forces, sparking widespread anger at a practice thought to have ended under the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
A crowd gathered in the city of Aleppo, demanding accountability for the security forces who carried out the alleged torture, with participants holding signs and slogans such as: “Do not repeat the same oppression that we revolted against.” Protests were also planned to take place in front of Syria’s parliament in Damascus on Tuesday, as well.
Continue reading...An over-investment in people-pleasing can be emotionally costly. Here’s how I’m training myself to be OK with letting people down
A few months ago, my 10-year-old daughter and I went to our neighborhood cafe. At the counter, the owner greeted us with her typical effusion of warmth and welcome. Instead of greeting her in kind, my daughter looked on with a stony expression and ungiving eyes.
My face flushed. I was embarrassed and incensed by what I perceived as blatant rudeness. You could at least smile, I thought.
Continue reading...Mosengo-Omba says Fifa’s congress backs Infantino
Fecofa president admits he did not support sell-off plan
One of Gianni Infantino’s closest allies has said he would “take a bullet” for the Fifa president and is confident that he still has the overwhelming support of its all-powerful congress despite mounting pressure.
But Véron Mosengo-Omba, who served as Fifa’s chief member associations officer until 2021 and is now president of the Congolese Football Federation (Fecofa), also criticised Infantino’s Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) scheme that wanted to sell off more than 20% of the World Cup to private investors.
Uefa, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation have been increasing their efforts to oust Infantino since publishing an open letter calling for “leadership that serves football, not seeks to command it”.
That came after Fifa had accused Infantino’s opponents of launching a “concerted and ongoing effort by some to undermine Fifa and its president”. The Fifa chief operating officer, Kevin Lamour, was sacked on Monday after criticising Infantino’s ill-fated plan.
As reported by the Guardian, Uefa has been seeking support from other confederations to call an emergency Fifa congress to trigger a vote of no confidence in Infantino, although there are serious doubts whether they have enough support to reach the threshold of 106 of the 211 Fifa members required to unseat him.
Mosengo-Omba – a close friend of Infantino’s from their university days in Switzerland, who was elected unopposed as Fecofa president in May – has admitted that he was against the controversial plan but backed Infantino to stay on as president.
“Most of the federations are supporting him. Just ask the congress,” he told the Guardian. “I didn’t send a letter of support [for Infantino] because I didn’t agree with the way the project was done. Now people are trying to attack Gianni but I’m ready to take a bullet for him.”
Mosengo-Omba added: “Gianni came with a proposal. Uefa is selling the Champions League and the Euros – they are independent companies. He was doing the same. Gianni came with a similar proposal but now he has withdrawn it. So what’s the problem? What I didn’t like and where I think Gianni committed a mistake was the way it was done. Because the risk was it could have seen a lot of [private] companies organising the World Cup. That is my reproach to him.”
In partnership with US bank JP Morgan, Infantino had planned for FFE to raise hundreds of millions of dollars by selling 21% of the World Cup’s commercial rights to investors, with promises of an increase in distribution of “over $10bn” (£7.5bn) then being redistributed back to Fifa’s 211 member associations.
A study of mobile apps claims that Meta collects three times as much user data on average as tools published by Apple or Microsoft. Google is also one of the worst data-scavenging offenders. The research was conducted by the reassuringly named Surfshark, a VPN and security tools provider. It found that Meta's apps were the most "data-hungry," declaring an average of 25 out of 35 possible data types, compared with seven or eight for apps from Apple and Microsoft. The findings are based on privacy information submitted by developers to Apple's App Store, rather than independent observation of what the apps transmit. They count the number of data types an app may collect, not the amount or frequency of collection, and do not mean that every category is gathered from every user. Surfshark examined 171 iOS apps published by Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, making this a comparison of five tech giants rather than the wider app market. Google accounted for 29 of the 40 apps declaring the broadest data collection, although it was also overrepresented in the sample, with 44 apps – more than any other publisher. Nine of Meta's 12 apps made the top 40. The 29 Google apps declared between 18 and 26 data types each. Amazon Alexa was the most data-hungry non-Meta app, listing 28. All the Meta apps studied declared the collection of device IDs, product interactions, performance information, and crash data, Surfshark says. Nine listed precise location data, which the researchers argued went beyond what the apps were likely to need, while seven listed browsing history. Although Google's apps listed fewer data types on average than Meta's, they ranked as the most data-hungry in six App Store categories: Photo & Video, Music, Entertainment, Utilities, Health & Fitness, and Developer Tools. All the Google apps examined listed device IDs, diagnostic information, and performance data, while many declared search histories, purchase histories, photos or videos, email addresses, and usernames. Amazon's apps commonly listed device IDs, email addresses, names, performance information, product interactions, and crash data. Eleven declared precise location data, while one listed browsing history – Amazon Shopper. Apps from Microsoft and Apple declared the fewest data types on average among those Surfshark examined, although neither emerged entirely empty-handed. The data types most commonly listed by Microsoft apps included crash data, device IDs, email addresses, names, diagnostic and performance information, product interactions, and user IDs. Two also declared browsing history. Safari was the only Apple app to list browsing history, while six Apple apps declared precise location data. Other commonly listed types included device IDs, email addresses, and performance information. "Our research shows that the Big Tech business model is often built on an insatiable appetite for user information," said Surfshark research lead Dr Luis Costa. "When these giants weave together search history, purchase habits, and precise GPS coordinates across dozens of different apps, they are building a detailed digital map of users' lives." m®
Kijk het ene drankje is de andere niet. En na de bijsluiter te lezen zijn we al helemaal aan boord. "Lekker fris. Cola zero sugar kruidnootsmaak is een echte dorstlesser. Suikervrije, koolzuurhoudende frisdrank met cola- en kruidnootsmaak. Met zoetstoffen." Suikervrij, dus dit is praktisch groente. En bovendien precies wat we nodig hebben tijdens een ontluikende herfst. Koude winterthee met prik, en de warmte voelen we van binnen. Er wordt wel eens beweerd dat Nederlanders geen cultuur hebben, maar hoe laat kruidnootcola zich dan verklaren? Schaakmat liberaal.
Op de N217 bij Mijnsheerenland zijn twee auto’s met elkaar in botsing gekomen. Hierbij raakten meerdere mensen gewond, zo melden 112-correspondenten. De weg werd korte tijd afgesloten.
Top album releases linked to rise in fatal crashes as 'distracted' drivers access music
Harvard study finds traffic fatalities increase by 15% on release dates compared with similar days either side
Harvard study finds traffic fatalities increase by 15% on release dates compared with similar days either side