Vorige week verscheen op De Correspondent een stuk waarin Jesse Frederik mijn boek De Symfonie van Onvredeaangreep voor een polemiek over de oorzaken van het succes van radicaal-rechts en de manier waarop wetenschappers daar onderzoek naar doen. Laat ik vooropstellen dat ik een groot voorstander ben van open debat en kritische journalistiek. Ik heb immers […]

Het bericht Jesse Frederik gaat te kort door de bocht: Waarom complexe maatschappelijke onvrede niet in één verklaring past verscheen eerst op StukRoodVlees.

Iran’s government has decided the nation should reconnect to the global internet. In the days after the USA and Israel attacked Iran in February, traffic from the Gulf nation to the global internet dropped to just one percent of usual volumes – with the remaining trickle of traffic thought to be the result of a policy allowing access to a small group of mostly government and military users. On Tuesday, Iran's vice-president Mohammad Reza Aref used his X account to announce “the first step toward free and regulated access to cyberspace has been taken.” Not long afterwards, NetBlocks and Cloudflare both recorded substantial traffic flowing to and from Iran for the first time in 88 days. Outage-watchers at network observability outfit Kentik believe Iran’s disconnection is the longest such incident since Libya’s six-month shutdown in 2011. Internet analyst Doug Madory rated it as far more significant, because Iran’s population is 15 times larger than Libya’s. “Along with the sheer number of people cut off from the world, what makes this shutdown unique is Iran’s use of an elaborate system to selectively allow internet access for some favored individuals and organizations, while blocking the internet for everyone else, a practice referred to as either whitelisting or a tiered internet,” he wrote in April. Outage-watching org NetBlocks thinks filtering of content remains in place, “but can be worked around,” but has also observed that Iran’s government has now restricted access to Meta’s messaging service WhatsApp. Iran’s government said it blocked connections to the outside world as a national security measure. The nation has blocked traffic in the past during conflicts and internal protests, presumably to prevent citizens sharing the true state of the nation’s affairs with the world and to make life harder for would-be cyber-attackers. Vice-president Aref said resuming connection will mean “smart services will be streamlined … and the obstacles to knowledge-based development and scientific authority will be removed,” but didn’t explain why the government decided to end outage at this time. Iran’s government has reportedly split over the issue of restoring connectivity. ®

Original Mastodon Post

by Chris Reccardi

#art #ChrisReccardi

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Aerodynamic drag is a major "barrier" in high-speed airplanes, automobiles, and bullet trains. This is because a design with less aerodynamic drag allows the aircraft to move at higher speeds with less energy. When an aircraft or car body moves at high speed, a thin layer of air called the "boundary layer" is formed on its surface. This boundary layer has two states: laminar flow, in which air flows in an orderly fashion, and turbulent flow, which involves turbulence. The longer the air stays in the laminar flow state with low friction, the smaller the air resistance becomes, but as the air speed increases, it transitions to turbulent flow. The key to reducing aerodynamic drag is how to delay this transition to turbulence.

For more than 80 years, the principle of "the surface of an object must be smooth" has been the basic premise of aeronautical engineering throughout the world in order to suppress the transition to turbulence and reduce aerodynamic drag. This premise was based on the results of a 1940 study by Ichiro Tani, a Japanese aerodynamicist who quantitatively demonstrated the relationship between "surface roughness" (an indicator of the state of the machined surface) and turbulent transition, arguing that surface roughness, which was unavoidable with the manufacturing technology of the time, prevented laminar flow from being realized. However, in 1989 Tani reinterpreted the experimental data on rough-surface pipes obtained by fluid engineer Johann Nikulase in the 1930s, bringing a new perspective that "roughness may not necessarily only promote turbulent transition and increase fluid resistance." Inheriting this idea, a research group led by Yasuaki Kohama of Tohoku University experimentally demonstrated in the 1990s that fibrous rough surfaces, which have fine fibrous irregularities on their surface, have the effect of delaying transition under certain conditions.

The same Tohoku University research team recently announced a discovery that significantly advances this trend. Aiko Yakino, associate professor at Tohoku University's Institute of Fluid Science, and her research group were the first in the world to demonstrate that aerodynamic drag can be reduced by up to 43.6 percent simply by applying distributed micro-roughness (DMR), a surface roughness so fine and irregular that it cannot be distinguished by the naked eye. This technology is fundamentally different from the "rivulet (shark skin) process," which is known as a typical aerodynamic drag reduction technology. The rivulet process mimics the fine longitudinal grooves in shark skin, and by carving grooves approximately 0.1 mm wide along the direction of airflow, it aligns the vortices that occur near the wall surface of turbulent airflow areas. DMR, on the other hand, delays the switch from laminar to turbulent flow by means of random and minute irregularities. The flow zones it affects and the mechanisms it employs are based on completely different concepts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I started kickboxing 20 years ago in a bid to be like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but thought I could never manage all the punching and jumping. It turns out I could handle much more than I thought

At 14, I decided to learn a martial art. I told my parents it was to defend myself on the mean streets of Congleton – a market town in Cheshire largely devoid of danger – when, in truth, it was because I wanted to be like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I joined a kickboxing club, and what could have been a passing phase became a thrice-weekly commitment spanning four years. I was a model student, picking up a different coloured belt every few months to mark my progression through the grades. I grew strong and flexible, swapping puppy fat for muscle. I routinely fought men without fear and found a confidence in my body I have never experienced before or since.

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People have celebrated Eid al-Adha, or the Festival of Sacrifice, at mosques and train stations, in the middle of the road and on the edge of the sea. This is the second major holiday in Islam, with approximately 2 billion pilgrims worldwide offering prayers as a sign of devotion, adherence and unity

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LONDEN (ANP/BLOOMBERG) - De ontslagen voorzitter van het Britse olie- en gasconcern BP, Albert Manifold, ontkent de beschuldigingen omtrent wangedrag. In een e-mail aan persbureau Bloomberg stelt hij dat er "valse verhalen" worden verteld rondom zijn gedwongen vertrek.

De raad van bestuur van het bedrijf onthief Manifold dinsdag na een dienstverband van acht maanden vanwege "ernstige zorgen" direct uit zijn functie. De zorgen hebben betrekking op goed bestuur, toezicht en gedrag.

Persbureau Reuters meldde op basis van ingewijden dat Manifold "onacceptabel en agressief gedrag" tegen collega's zou hebben vertoond. Bloomberg hoorde van ingewijden dat hij heeft geprobeerd om de raad van bestuur te omzeilen in beslissingen waarbij zij betrokken had moeten zijn.

"Ik ben zonder waarschuwing en zonder uitleg ontslagen", aldus Manifold in zijn mail. "Ik betwist de karakterisering van mijn gedrag ten zeerste en ik zal niet toestaan ​​dat een vals verhaal onweerlegd blijft."

DEN HAAG (ANP) - Het aantal faillissementen is in april op jaarbasis afgenomen, meldt het Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS). In totaal werden er vorige maand 293 bedrijven failliet verklaard, een daling van 12 procent. Ten opzichte van maart daalde het aantal faillissementen met 3 procent.

De faillissementsgraad, het aantal faillissementen per 100.000 bedrijven, was vorige maand 7,9. Een jaar eerder werden in april 9,1 bedrijven per 100.000 bedrijven failliet verklaard. De faillissementsgraad geeft volgens het CBS een zuiverder beeld van de ontwikkeling van het aantal faillissementen. Ook bedrijfstakken kunnen hiermee beter met elkaar vergeleken worden. Het aantal bedrijven kan namelijk fluctueren door de tijd heen en sterk verschillen tussen bedrijfstakken.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo: