peaceful-jp-scenery has added a photo to the pool:

Blood Pond Hell
血の池地獄

If you're visiting Beppu which boasts the highest volume of hot spring water discharge in Japan, this is likely the first place you'll want to see.

日本一の温泉湧出量を誇る別府で、まず観光といったらここかな。

Beppu city, Oita pref, Japan

peaceful-jp-scenery posted a photo:

Blood Pond Hell
血の池地獄

If you're visiting Beppu which boasts the highest volume of hot spring water discharge in Japan, this is likely the first place you'll want to see.

日本一の温泉湧出量を誇る別府で、まず観光といったらここかな。

Beppu city, Oita pref, Japan

Châtaigniers en fleurs, valued at $180m, to be auctioned along with 11 other works by likes of Cézanne and Monet

For more than 50 years it was held in a private art collection with an “almost mythical status” that was likened to a miniature version of Paris’s Musée d’Orsay.

But on Wednesday a painting by Vincent Van Gogh created during the last two months of his life has gone on display before it is put up for auction with a value of $180m (£136m).

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Deal aimed at deterring small boat arrivals set to end as talks stall over French demand for EU-wide scheme

• UK politics live – latest updates

The UK government’s “one in one out” deal with France, which was supposed to help deter small boat arrivals, is expected to expire on Thursday, government sources have said.

It is understood that negotiations have stalled over French demands for a Europe-wide deal instead, and a reluctance to scale up the numbers of people exchanged between the two countries.

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Northern Ireland secretary holding talks with both sides as Garvaghy Road group launches fresh legal challenge

• UK politics live – latest updates

Talks to break the deadlock over the controversial Drumcree parade will continue with the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Bryant, on Wednesday as nationalist protesters declare the prospect of mediation with unionists “dead in the water”.

The nationalist Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition has at the same time launched a fresh legal challenge to reimpose the almost 30-year ban on the Orange Order marching down their road, mounting fresh arguments that the Parades Commission has “materially misdirected itself”.

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Insects provide protection, sanitation and even shelter to vertebrates, making them a priority for conservation efforts

For many vertebrates, insects are more than a food source. As “little things that run the world”, insects provide critical functions such as protection, sanitation and shelter across ecosystems, according to a new study.

The study, published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity on Wednesday, sheds light on the various ways insects support vertebrates, ranging from birds and bats to reptiles, amphibians and mammals.

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Dozzam:) has added a photo to the pool:

Blue Mountains, NSW

More than half of UK businesses lack confidence in their ability to perform at least one basic cybersecurity task, according to the government's latest skills survey. The annual research found 57 percent of businesses reported a basic technical skills gap, up from 49 percent last year despite tighter national standards and repeated government warnings about cyber resilience. That equates to approximately 808,000 businesses whose cybersecurity leads were not confident in carrying out at least one of nine tasks, including storing data securely, configuring firewalls, and detecting and removing malware. The equivalent estimate last year was 699,000 businesses. The researchers cautioned that the increase might reflect greater awareness of organizations' security posture rather than an actual deterioration in their capabilities. Interviews suggested that recent high-profile breaches had prompted executives and boards to scrutinize cybersecurity more closely. Detecting and removing malware produced the largest reported skills gap: 38 percent of businesses, 47 percent of charities, and 23 percent of public sector organizations lacked confidence in performing the task. The public sector reported fewer problems than businesses and charities across all nine basic skills measured. Sam Thornton, COO at cybersecurity consultancy Bridewell, said the figures reflected the position of smaller businesses and charities, where cybersecurity is often "just one part of someone's wider role rather than a dedicated job." "Malware is evolving quickly, and AI is increasingly helping attackers produce faster variants which are harder to spot," he told The Register. "Keeping pace requires constant attention, which may be harder when the person responsible for security is also handling several other roles. "This could mean that personnel lean on greater use of AI tooling to support cyber defences, which in turn could induce further exposure to the organization where sufficient skill levels are needed to understand and interpret the output of such AI models." Matt Hull, veep of cyber intelligence and response at NCC Group, said limited resources were compounded by increasingly complex IT environments. "Businesses increasingly rely on cloud infrastructure, SaaS platforms, APIs, third parties and growing numbers of human and machine identities," he said. "These environments can change rapidly, making it much harder to apply security fundamentals consistently across the organization." Hull said the industry also has "a habit of chasing the latest shiny update," when in reality most problems arise when organizations overlook the fundamentals. "It's a bit like looking after your car. You can spend a fortune on the latest safety features and a brilliant sound system, but none of that helps much if your tyres are bald or you can't see through the windscreen." Other reported gaps included storing and transferring personal data securely, restricting which software could run, configuring firewalls, selecting secure device settings, enabling automatic updates, and creating user accounts securely. Charities reported the widest skills gap on most measures, although businesses were less confident about storing and transferring personal data securely. Although the public sector scored better than businesses and charities in this survey, its overall basic skills gap nearly doubled from 14 percent last year to 27 percent. That comes despite repeated warnings about weaknesses in government systems. In 2025, the National Audit Office found "significant" gaps and immature controls across most critical systems it examined. Incidents affecting the Legal Aid Agency, Foreign Office, British Library, and NHS supplier Synnovis have provided ample demonstrations of the potential consequences. Among the government's responses is the £210 million Cyber Action Plan, announced at the start of the year to strengthen central government systems and introduce mandatory security requirements. Operators of critical services can use the NCSC's Cyber Assessment Framework to assess their resilience, while smaller organizations can seek Cyber Essentials certification as a baseline. The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, now making its way through the Lords, would impose additional requirements on operators of essential services and their suppliers. The bill is intended to replace the NIS Regulations 2018 but excludes central and local government. The UK government believes the Cyber Action Plan essentially holds the public sector to the same standard as those in scope of the new bill, but does so without any legal obligations. Thornton argued that tighter regulation was unlikely to close the skills gaps among small businesses and charities without practical support tailored to their limited resources. "When more than half of UK businesses lack confidence in the basics, and nearly half of those responsible for security don't feel equipped to handle an attack, we have an economy that is both easier to breach and slower to recover," he said. "A growing skills gap at the bottom of the supply chain weakens the UK's resilience as a whole. Tighter regulation will help protect critical infrastructure, but it's unlikely to improve the skills in smaller businesses and charities. "Closing the gap will need affordable, practical support for smaller organisations, whether through managed services, simpler tools or incentives from insurers, so that good baseline security becomes the default rather than something only larger firms can afford." ®

Iedereen opgelet, dit wordt de allernieuwste foodtrend! Social media queen Monica Geuze zei zojuist in een video dat ze onwijs kan genieten van een lepeltje kattenvoer afgetopt met wat allesreiniger. Volgens de influencer is het kleffe van het kattenvoer gemixt met het bijtende van de allesreiniger haar ‘guilty pleasure’. Ondertussen gaan er steeds meer geruchten rond over de motivatie achter Geuzes foodtips.

Volgens een anonieme bron uit kamp Geuze wil de influencer steeds verder gaan om te zien hoeveel macht ze precies heeft. “Ze heeft mensen al massaal tomatenpuree direct uit een tube laten eten. Daarnaast lopen door haar allemaal hippe lui ineens weer rond oordopjes met draad. Vlak nadat ze zag dat er mensen door haar toedoen chocoladerepen met pistache voor 20 euro kochten, is ze volledig in de ban van haar eigen macht geraakt.”

Dezelfde bron vertelt ook dat die Monica Geuze onlangs maniakaal lachend aantrof terwijl ze in haar handen wreef en plannen voor haar volgende video’s deelde. Als de kattenvoer-TikTok een succes blijkt, dan komt er naar verluidt volgende maand een video waarin Geuze zegt dat ze het woest aantrekkelijk vindt als mannen het roze-koeken-spel spelen.

De snacktip over het kattenvoer met allesreiniger lijkt in ieder geval aan te slaan: de A-merken natvoer zijn bij veel winkels al compleet uitverkocht en voor de Blokker staat een TikTok-rij met mensen die allesreiniger met citroensmaak willen.

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