Japan’s Hayabusa2 craft has just buzzed an asteroid, successfully completing the first objective of its extended mission. Hayabusa2 launched in 2014, and four years later arrived at Asteroid Ryugu. In 2019 the craft sent a pair of landers onto Ryugu’s surface and collected samples that it dropped off in the Australian outback in late 2020. Analysis of those samples suggests Ryugu is home to amino acids, and probably came from the outer solar system before somehow settling into an elliptical orbit that crosses over the celestial paths traversed by both Earth and Mars. After delivering its sample, the craft then headed back into deep space – with around 30 kilograms of propellant aboard. Japan’s Space Exploration Agency (JAXA) soon defined an extended mission with two objectives. The last of those will hopefully occur in 2031 at Asteroid 1998 KY26, a tiny space rock that astroboffins think may be just 11 meters wide. JAXA ticked off the other objective on Sunday with a flyby of asteroid 98943 Torifune, a 450-meter diameter rock. The space agency decided to visit Torifune out of scientific curiosity, and because it’s conveniently located for Hayabusa2. The fact that the asteroid’s orbit intersects Earth’s was another motive, as JAXA feels anything we can learn about the object can contribute to planetary defense strategies. Expectations for the flyby were low, because Hayabusa is set up to observe asteroids at close quarters – but it sped past Torifune at around five kilometers per second. JAXA managed to maneuver the craft to within 800 meters of the asteroid and has said Hayabusa2 operated normally after the flying visit. The agency hasn’t released detailed data or images. We’ll update this story if it does so after a planned press conference later today – but for now hope readers appreciate the many excellent feats of engineering and astrogation that made the flyby possible. Hayabusa2 was JAXA’s second sample return mission and the agency hopes to soon launch another in the form of the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft, which it hopes to launch in November or December. The mission plan calls for the craft to land on Phobos next year and grab some samples that will land on Earth in 2031. If successful, the mission will be the first to land on Phobos. JAXA’s also working on another interesting project: a voice interface for spacecraft. As explained in an announcement posted last Friday, the “Mission Buddy” project aims to replace complicated instrument panels with a conversational interface. “‘Mission Buddy’ is not simply a mechanism for personifying spacecraft, but is positioned as a cognitive interface that connects researchers, operators, educational institutions, and general users through dialogue, based on mission information, observation data, operational knowledge, and research results,” JAXA wrote. “This is expected to create a wide range of value, including mission understanding, learning support, science communication, knowledge transfer and utilization, and even multilingual information dissemination.” ®

As the US took this weekend to celebrate their complicated relationship with tyranny, we reach back through the archives for another story of tyrants. If you think about it, the Declaration of Independence is basically the same thing as quitting without notice. Original --Remy

It was Steve's first week on the job, and he had plenty of questions about the code base and the new features he was supposed to implement. He muddled through for most of the week, but Friday morning he hit a brick wall and needed to talk to Bill, the architect.

"Can I meet with you for like an hour to go over things?" Steve asked.

"No."

"Can I get half an hour then? I h-"

"No. Company meeting, every Friday, 12-5pm. It should be on your calendar. I'll forward the invite."

Bill also couldn't free up time in the morning, so that meant Steve was stuck until Monday afternoon. Still, it probably wasn't all bad. He assumed that since this was a small company, in startup mode, it was going to be one of those meetings that was less meeting and more party. He had heard about one company in town that had a kegger every Friday afternoon.

Steve really should have known better. During his interview, the actual technical questions were thin on the ground. It focused more on "soft skills", like time management. He fielded a lot of questions about how best to manage his time. The other question that really stuck out in his mind was the standard, "Have you ever had to deal with a difficult personality in the workplace? How did you deal with it?" It was memorable, less because the question itself was unusual, but because at least six variations of the same question showed up in the interview.

On his very first day, he learned who the difficult personality was: Frank, the boss and grand-high pooba of the dev team. Around 2PM Frank lumberghed himself into Steve's cube. "Yeah, we've got a little problem," Frank said. "I've noticed you spending a great deal of time in the break room."

"Oh, yeah, I was just going back for more coffee," Steve said with an awkward laugh. "You know how it is with programmers- we're fueled by caffeine."

"Yeah, well, if you could just go ahead and make sure you're at your desk doing work, that would be great."

As it turned out, Frank had gone easy on Steve because it was Steve's first day. The next day, Steve sat in on Bill's planning meeting- a 4-hour marathon to organize the development backlog and parcel out work. Halfway through, Bill called for a break. He and a few other co-workers darted outside to gradually commit suicide via cancer, while everybody else hung around the room committing suicide by donut. And then Frank walked in.

"What's happening?"

"It's um… just a little break," one of the devs replied. "Bill's outside."

"I see." Frank loitered in the room until Bill returned. The instant Bill's foot crossed the threshold of the meeting room, Frank's human facade was stripped away, and a spitting, slavering demon replaced him. He proceeded to dress Bill down, back up and right back down for disrespecting his team, disrespecting the company, disrespecting Frank and Frank's poor elderly mother with his attitude. He closed with, "They're developers and I want them sitting around and developing! Not waiting for you to finish your smoke breaks!"

On Thursday, Steve got to drive a meeting to show off the latest batch of features the dev team had completed. When he turned on the projector, Frank asked, "What's wrong with your computer?"

"Um… nothing?"

"The desktop is wrong! None of the icons are in the right place!"

Like most developers, Steve had changed the wallpaper and reorganized his desktop to suit his working style. Unfortunately, his transgression against the default desktop settings set Frank off on a long rant that consumed the entirety of the meeting. Steve was lucky, Frank claimed, that he wasn't fired on the spot. Standard work was vitally important, and personalization was frowned upon. "It's vitally important that any developer can use any other developer's computer- we can't afford to waste a minute of time just because you needed to be a special little snowflake!"

By the time the Friday afternoon meeting rolled around, Steve should have been expecting some kind of Frank-led time management course. Instead, Bill handed him a mop. "New blood gets mop duties. Start in the break room, and then hit the other common areas."

"Excuse me?"

"Frank's orders. Every Friday, we spend the afternoon cleaning the office, from top to bottom."

"There isn't a cleaning crew?"

"Oh, there is," Bill said. "Frank doesn't trust them to do a good job." That weekend, Steve decided to take Frank's lessons on time management to heart, and immediately left to seek employment that didn't involve wasting his time.

De aftermath

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Terwijl heel de wereld naar de oorlog op het voetbalveld tussen Mexico en Engeland keek, bestookte de Russen de Oekraïense hoofdstad Kiev in een nieuwe, bloedige episode uit het Slavische Slachthuis. Bij een massale aanval met ballistische raketten en drones werden meerdere gebouwen, waaronder een wooncomplex (zie hierboven), vernietigd met als resultaat dat er volgens de Kyiv Independent minstens 10 doden vielen en tientallen mensen gewond raakten. Net als bij eerdere Russische aanvallen had Zelensky al gewaarschuwd voor de verwoestende Russische agressie, die plaatsvindt net voor de aankomende NAVO-top in Turkije. Drie keer raden wat daar hoog op de agenda staat: het beëindigen van deze oorlog. Trump zal dus wel een hartig woordje met Zelensky spreken over de Russische aanval of Infantino een en ander laten regelen, en anders kan de vredespresident altijd nog tijd maken voor een verhandeling over Zelensky's garderobe. Hoe dan ook: meer gruwelbeelden uit het Slavische theater hieronder.

De aanval

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Original Mastodon Post

De volledige 3 uur van gisteren ter ere van Bob Rusche is terug te luisteren via https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/xrated_892548/

AMSTERDAM (ANP) - ING neemt een minderheidsbelang van ongeveer 40 procent in de Spaanse vermogensbeheerder Singular Bank. Daarmee wil de bank zijn groei in private banking en vermogensbeheer in de Spaanse markt versnellen.

ING meldt niet hoeveel geld met de deal gemoeid is. De bank neemt het belang over van de Amerikaanse investeringsmaatschappij Warburg Pincus, die momenteel 93 procent van de aandelen bezit. De deal wordt naar verwachting in het eerste kwartaal van 2027 afgerond, onder voorbehoud van goedkeuringen door toezichthouders.

Singular Bank biedt verschillende producten en diensten aan vermogende particulieren aan. In een verklaring noemt ING het bedrijf "een toonaangevende bank, met ongeveer 19 miljard euro aan beheerd vermogen". Singular Bank blijft volgens ING onder leiding staan van Javier Marín.

Vorige maand meldde de Spaanse zakenkrant Cinco Días al dat ING werkt aan een overnamebod op de vermogensbeheerder.

Broadway star, who is performing on the vessel, expresses shock after authorities ban Scarlet Lady from docking in Kuşadası

A cruise ship carrying 2,000 LGBTQ+ passengers and the Broadway performer Patti LuPone has been blocked from entering Turkey after local authorities said their behaviour didn’t “align with the structure of our society and our moral values”.

Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady set sail from Athens, Greece, on 5 July for what was billed as “an epic all-gay voyage” over 10 days run by Atlantis, a US company that puts on cruises and vacations for LGBTQ+ people.

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This was the most extraordinary night of football as an experience of the mind, body, bones, guts and blood

“Enn-JOYYY this unforrrgGEDDABLE Fifa Worrrld Cup … expPERRIENCE!!” the strangely guileless American-accented public address had commanded, with 40 minutes still to run before the delayed kick-off in Mexico City.

Er. OK then. Looking out over the mist-shrouded cliff face of the Estadio Azteca, drenched to the inner seams in generational rain, throbbing through the chest from the endless waves of noise, the word enjoy just didn’t seem to capture the basic sensory experience.

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Crowds grew as they moved through Tehran as mourners wore black and carried flags with the slogan ‘we will rise’

A millions strong crowd assembled on Monday to take part in the funeral procession of Iran’s assassinated supreme leader.

The scale, and depth of the march, however engineered, is an extraordinary turn around for a country that only seven months ago was gripped by street protests that saw thousands killed by government security forces. Many will say that the assembly was a monument to a misconceived war launched on Iran by Donald Trump in February.

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A probability puzzle

Today’s puzzle imagines a TV game show.

The compere announces that at the end of the show two people will be chosen and each placed in a separate booth.

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Nederlanders en Belgen die Chinese pakketjes bestellen, betalen vanaf woensdag 3 euro meer per product of productcategorie. Dat meldde Tweakers. Het betreft een Europese regel uit december, om de toestroom van goedkope pakketjes in Europese landen aan te pakken.

Onder de huidige regels zijn pakketten tot 150 euro vrijgesteld van invoerheffingen (customs duties). Dat gaat nu dus veranderen. Tweakers legt uit:

De gemiddelde waarde van bestellingen in Chinese webshops is 30 euro en dus krijgen veel bestellingen te maken met de heffing. De webwinkel moet het bedrag afdragen aan de douane bij de import van bestellingen. Dat is anders dan bij inklaringskosten, die bestellers afrekenen voordat zij een pakket kunnen ontvangen. De heffing geldt voor alle webwinkels buiten de EU. In totaal gaat bijna 50 procent van alle pakketjes die van buiten de EU de unie binnenkomen naar Nederland of België, terwijl nog geen 7 procent van de inwoners van de EU in Nederland of België wonen.

De gestelde redenen zijn oneerlijke concurrentie, omdat in China zó veel goedkoper geproduceerd wordt. En daar komt dan bij dat men zich ook niet (altijd) aan Europese normen houdt, zodat producten ook gevaarlijk kunnen zijn (denk aan usb-laders die brand kunnen veroorzaken).

Of 3 euro toeslag nou écht de concurrentiepositie verbetert, kun je je afvragen. Het zal in ieder geval zelden een bedrag zijn waardoor een consument denkt “ik ga het wel bij een Europese webwinkel kopen” – als dat al kan, want veel dingen haalt men uit China omdat ze hier niet te verkrijgen zijn.

Op diverse fora is te lezen dat het een kwaadwillend complot is van organisaties zoals EuroCommerce, die vooral lobbyen voor Europees protectionisme. Nou is lobbyen voor je eigen belang inherent aan Europees wettenmaken, dus wat ik hiervan moet vinden weet ik niet.

Een belangrijke tekortkoming van de maatregel is dat ze alleen geldt bij goederen die direct vanuit buiten de EU verzonden worden naar de consument. Grote zakjesschuivers zoals AliExpress hebben magazijnen in de EU en versturen vanuit daar. Die zendingen blijven daarmee buiten schot. Op zich niet erg, want zo is Ali in de EU aan te spreken op bv. overtreding van CE-certificeringsregels.

Arnoud

 

Het bericht Pakketjes van Chinese webwinkels zijn vanaf woensdag minstens 3 euro duurder verscheen eerst op Ius Mentis.