Ian & Marg has added a photo to the pool:

Queensland Fruitgrowers Cooperative Society (QFS) received and loaded the fruit and vegetables destined for the Brisbane market from this large goods shed by the Amiens Branch Line. Arthur Baker was one of their managers. He was responsible for the operation of their agricultural supplies shop here. This platform and shed was one of his daughter's favourite places to play for she was near her dad and home was just across the line.
Seventy years on, she returned for a nostalgic visit, recalling moments and the joy of a simple family life among this orcharding area. Apples, apricots, peaches, nectarines, pears, and plums (especially Wilson Plums) were grown on diversified farms all along this branch line. This area of the Queensland Granite Belt was opened up to closer settlement by the government and allocated to soldiers returning from the First World War. The stations or sidings, like this one, were named after World War battlefields: Fleurbaix, Possiers, Passchendaele, Bapaume, Messines, and Amiens was the terminus.
Hailstorms were a fact of life in the early summer in this high altitude area with consequential destruction of fruit, so the diversified crops were essential to ensure each farmer survived, as each different variety matured at different rates.
Arthur Baker had migrated from North Yorkshire as an 18 year old, dreaming to become a "sheep farmer in Victoria". But instead he was drafted to serve as a farm labourer on a new orchard owned by Walter H Bell at Bapaume. When Arthur married an Australian girl, they bought a small farm and laboured through the wiles of the elements (hailstorms, late frosts when trees were flowering, droughts, and occasional tornadoes). Eventually, Arthur sold his farm, when he had the opportunity to become QFS manager first at Bapaume and later in the main regional town of Stanthorpe on the Southern Line.

William Shatner, the actor and author known for his role as Captain Kirk in Star Trek and the oldest person to go to space, is now preparing to release a new metal album. Built around collaborations with 35 hand-picked artists from across the metal world, worlds are colliding with science fiction, actual space, and metal. Known for blending spoken-word intensity with cinematic soundscapes, Shatner's latest project leans into heavy guitars, dramatic arrangements, and narrative-driven performances.

Once-in-a-lifetime red-rock waterfall in Western Australia's north delights onlookers. The question of whether there is water in Python Pool is often asked around the pubs and message boards of Western Australia's Pilbara. For the moment, the answer is very much yes.

PayPal is notifying customers of a data breach after a software error in a loan application exposed their sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, for nearly 6 months last year. From a report: The incident affected the PayPal Working Capital (PPWC) loan app, which provides small businesses with quick access to financing. PayPal discovered the breach on December 12, 2025, and determined that customers' names, email addresses, phone numbers, business addresses, Social Security numbers, and dates of birth had been exposed since July 1, 2025.

The financial technology company said it has reversed the code change that caused the incident, blocking attackers' access to the data one day after discovering the breach. "On December 12, 2025, PayPal identified that due to an error in its PayPal Working Capital ('PPWC') loan application, the PII of a small number of customers was exposed to unauthorized individuals during the timeframe of July 1, 2025 to December 13, 2025," PayPal said in breach notification letters sent to affected users. "PayPal has since rolled back the code change responsible for this error, which potentially exposed the PII. We have not delayed this notification as a result of any law enforcement investigation."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cable TV providers have spent the past decade losing tens of millions of households to streaming services, but companies like Charter Communications are now slowing that exodus by bundling the very apps that once threatened to replace them.

Charter added 44,000 net video subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2025, its first growth in that count since 2020, after integrating Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ directly into Spectrum cable packages -- a deal that grew out of a contentious 2023 contract dispute with Disney. Comcast and Optimum still lost subscribers in the quarter, though both saw those losses narrow.

Charter's Q4 numbers also got a lift from a 15-day Disney channel blackout on YouTube TV during football season, which drove more than 14,000 subscribers to Spectrum. Charter has been discounting aggressively -- video revenue fell 10% year over year despite the subscriber gains. Cox Communications launched its first streaming-inclusive cable bundles last month, and Dish Network has yet to integrate streaming apps into its packages at all.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Do you know your Gaia from your Cronus from your Zeus? In fewer than 15 minutes, this video provides a comprehensive overview of all the important Greek & Roman gods, goddesses, nymphs, heroes, monsters, demigods, and other assorted spiritual beings, who begat who, and what all of their domains were. (via open culture)

Tags: infoviz · mythology · religion · video

James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:

Light from the age of the dinosaurs

The light that Webb collected to create this image has been journeying to us from NGC 5134 for 65 million years, or since soon after Tyrannosaurus rex went extinct! (Meaning, NGC 5134 is 65 million light years away!)

For perspective on the size of the universe, this galaxy is actually relatively close to ours! So close that Webb can spot incredible details in its tightly wound spiral arms. Webb’s MIRI instrument collects the mid-infrared light emitted by the warm dust speckled through the galaxy’s clouds, tracing the clumps and strands of dusty gas. Webb’s NIRCam instrument records shorter-wavelength near-infrared light, mostly from the stars and star clusters that dot the galaxy’s spiral arms.

Read more: esawebb.org/images/potm2602a/

Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy

Image Description: A spiral galaxy, seen tilted diagonally. It has a blue-white, glowing spot at its core. Its oval-shaped disc glows faintly blue throughout with light from its many stars. The disc is filled with waves and strands of bright red dust that swirl around the core. At places there are holes torn in the dust, while elsewhere it forms dense clumps that glow orange. Several tiny, distant galaxies appear across the background.

Voor de dertigjarige Antoinette Rijpma-de Jong moest alles deze vrijdag samenkomen. Ze moest pieken, en dat deed ze.

Voor Miho Takagi (31) was de 1.500 meter nooit zomaar een afstand. Het was, in de woorden van haar Nederlandse coach, „de koninginnenrit”. De afstand die alles vraagt: snelheid, uithoudingsvermogen, techniek. En de afstand die haar al twee Olympische Spelen net ontglipte.

MILAAN (ANP) - Shorttrackster Michelle Velzeboer is op de Olympische Spelen uitgeschakeld in de kwartfinale van de 1500 meter. De 22-jarige Nederlandse ging in de laatste ronde onderuit en eindigde daardoor niet bij de eerste drie. Dat was nodig om een ronde verder te mogen.

De Spelen zijn daarmee uitgedraaid op een grote teleurstelling voor Velzeboer, die woensdag in de finale van de aflossing met de vrouwen ook al ten val kwam. Haar zus Xandra Velzeboer viel juist in de halve finale op de gemengde aflossing.

Ook op de 500 en 1000 meter wist Michelle Velzeboer in Milaan de finale niet te bereiken.