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An Uncomplicated Man, Emily Wilson’s review of Nolan’s The Odyssey. “I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script. Sadly, Damon’s Odysseus isn’t complicated or wily or artful.”

Former top US health official wrote about challenging interactions with publicity-fixated Trump during Covid

Diary entries released by a Republican senator in an attempt to damage Anthony Fauci also show the former top US government science adviser’s growing disillusionment with Donald Trump in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, branding the president “rambling”, “crazy”, “desperate”, “bumbling”, “incompetent”, “an idiot”, “a true embarrassment”, “totally nuts” and “truly an obnoxious adolescent”.

From the earliest days of the crisis six years ago, Fauci noted in his journal challenging interactions with the publicity-fixated Trump. On 27 February 2020, amid the first stirrings of public alarm, he wrote of a surprise late-night call, in which the US president “wanted to chat about the coronavirus situation in general”.

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Exclusive: Two children reportedly taken to hospital after residents told in-built units ‘not offered as amenity’

Homeless families placed in temporary accommodation in London were told they could not use the in-built air conditioning as it had “not been offered as an amenity” for them, leading to two children being hospitalised during recent heatwaves.

Other families placed in Britannia Point in Colliers Wood, south-west London, also experienced such stifling conditions that young children became ill. The company managing some of the tenancies involved told the Guardian households in temporary accommodation had now been told they could use the air conditioning.

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If you have wistful longings for the days when your songs carried the subtle hiss of the cassettes you listened to, we have some reel good news. A new project takes modern music back to the analog era. The project, available on GitHub, is called "Audio Cassette Simulation" and uses FFmpeg to transcode audio files to get that "wish I'd bought some decent tapes instead of the superstore's own-brand" sound. The repository includes simulations of BASF LH Extra C90, Maxell UD C90, Sony CHF60 Type I Normal, Sony CHF90, TDK D90, and even Soviet MK-60 tape. Navigate to the appropriate cassette folder using bash, then run the conversion code (or use it to convert a live stream). The output is dumped into a ./out folder for a bit of retro enjoyment. According to the README, "This project simulates cassette tape audio profiles using ffmpeg. "It applies tape noise, wow and flutter pitch modulation, bandwidth limits, and equalizer adjustments." There's no special magic going on behind the scenes – a glance at the .sh files shows that the real effort has gone into working out the FFmpeg filters to recreate the effect of the required tape. Audiophiles might be horrified to see the output being saved as .mp3 files, but let's face it: if you're after that compact cassette sound, the potential audiophile downsides of .mp3 probably won't be too high on the list of worries. Compact cassettes first appeared in the 1960s and stored magnetic tape wound between two reels inside a plastic shell. The tape would be unwound from the first reel and wound onto a second reel during use, with the whole thing enclosed in a case (hence "cassette"). Data could be stored on it (indeed, we're sure plenty of readers have fond memories of home computers that used the media for software) as well as audio, which brings us to the simulator. Different brands of cassettes (and hardware) could impart differing levels of distortion and hiss to the audio, giving it a unique sound. As with vinyl, cassette sales dropped as customers turned to digital formats decades ago but, also like vinyl, the medium has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years. The simulator is therefore a bit of a quarter-way house. It can't recreate the feel of a cassette in the user's hands. Nor can it replicate the heart-stopping noise of tape being chewed up in a misbehaving mechanism. But it can take some tediously pristine modern audio and make it sound like it’s the 1980s all over again. ®

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

These images by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, captured on 26 July, show the area to the west of Bordeaux, in south-western France, where wildfires continue to burn countryside, fanned by wind and heatwave conditions.

Over the weekend, almost 220 000 people are reported to have been evacuated from the Gironde region, which is famous for its vineyards, pine forests and marshland.

An area at least four times the size of Paris is thought to have been left charred by the wildfires. The darkened area is visible on the true-colour image (here) to the north of the Arcachon inland bay. On this image, infrared data from Copernicus Sentinel-2 have been added, showing areas emitting heat, particularly in the centre and at the top of the image.

This image is a false-colour Sentinel-2 image, which clearly shows the burned landscape – which should not be confused with Arcachon Bay and two lakes at the top of the image, which are also shown in black.

Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2026), processed by ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

These images by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, captured on 26 July, show the area to the west of Bordeaux, in south-western France, where wildfires continue to burn countryside, fanned by wind and heatwave conditions.

Over the weekend, almost 220 000 people are reported to have been evacuated from the Gironde region, which is famous for its vineyards, pine forests and marshland.

An area at least four times the size of Paris is thought to have been left charred by the wildfires. The darkened area is visible on this true-colour image to the north of the Arcachon inland bay. On this image, infrared data from Copernicus Sentinel-2 have been added, showing areas emitting heat, particularly in the centre and at the top of the image.

This image is a false-colour Sentinel-2 image, which clearly shows the burned landscape – which should not be confused with Arcachon Bay and two lakes at the top of the image, which are also shown in black.

Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2026), processed by ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, captured on 26 July, shows a zoomed-in view of the Cebreros ground station, west of Madrid, Spain.

The area around the town of Ávila, about 100 km northwest of the Spanish capital, was one of the worst affected areas during the outbreak of fire in Spain. More than 90 000 people were evacuated from the region over the weekend.

The European Union’s Copernicus Emergency Mapping Service was activated on 23 July to monitor and provide emergency mapping data on the wildfires in central Spain.

Also within the affected area, the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Cebreros ground station, 77 km west of Madrid, hosts a 35-metre antenna and provides routine operational support to ESA deep-space missions, such as Mars Express, Gaia, BepiColombo, Solar Orbiter, Juice and Euclid. It also supports missions for other space agencies under resource-sharing agreements. As of the morning of 27 July, ESA reviewed the situation at the Cebreros station and declared it safe for nominal operations.

This Sentinel-2 image uses true colour overlaid with false colour to highlight the active fire fronts. Each of the Sentinel-2 satellites carry an innovative wide swath high-resolution multispectral imager with 13 spectral bands for a detailed view of land and vegetation.

A wider view of the area affected by the wildfires was also captured by Sentinel-2 on the same day.

Credits: contains modified Copernicus data (2026), processed by ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, captured on 26 July, shows a wide view over the wildfires to the west of Madrid, Spain.

The area around the town of Ávila, about 100 km northwest of the Spanish capital was one of the worst affected areas the outbreak of fire in Spain. More than 90 000 people were evacuated from the region over the weekend.

The European Union’s Copernicus Emergency Mapping Service was activated on 23 July to monitor and provide emergency mapping data on the wildfires in central Spain.

The Sentinel-2's near-infrared channel has been used to highlight the active fire fronts. Each of the Sentinel-2 satellites carry an innovative wide swath high-resolution multispectral imager with 13 spectral bands for a detailed view of land and vegetation.

A zoomed-in view over ESA's Cebreros ground station – see area marked – was also captured by Sentinel-2 on the same day.

Credits: contains modified Copernicus data (2026), processed by ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Wat een ontspannen avond in Frankrijk had moeten zijn, slaat voor Jary de Hon (59) uit Hardinxveld-Giessendam om in een hectische nacht. De enorme bosbranden in Frankrijk komen te dichtbij en dwingen hem en zijn gezin om halsoverkop de camping te verlaten. Midden in de nacht pakt hij zijn spullen en vlucht.