Russian forces captured more than 5,600 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory last year, according to an AFP analysis.

The AI era needs more juice

The AI-fueled datacenter boom continues apace, with Google parent Alphabet moving to acquire energy and infrastructure biz Intersect, while Elon Musk's xAI is reportedly planning to expand beyond its already huge complex in Tennessee.…

Gemeenten in stad en land strooiden zand om het wegdek te beschermen, huurden beveiligers in en overlegden sinds de zomer. Toch begon 2025 verre van rustig. Of een vuurwerkverbod veel gaat helpen, wordt betwijfeld. „Er moet een plan voor de handhaving komen.”

Ook in 2026 kwamen met Openbaarheidsdag tienduizenden stukken vrij in het Nationaal Archief. „Vooral de meisjes”, signaleerde de geheime dienst, „schijnen gevoelig te zijn voor de jazzmuziek”.

When furniture maker Terry Facey began repairing historical pieces, his work often centered around 17th-century examples, thanks to an antique dealer who regularly brought him new items. Over time, the practice instilled a love for the beauty and precise craftsmanship of these centuries-old objects. And one day, he decided to try making one himself—only his iteration was really, really small.

Facey works out of his shed, set up much the same as any other wood shop, except that everything is optimized for making scale miniatures. Recently, the V&A commissioned him to replicate an ornate, 17th-century table in its permanent collection at 1:8 scale. “It’s a piece that I’ve always loved,” Facey says. “It’s got the most wonderful barley twist legs, lovely inlay top with olive wood on six-sided pieces. It’s quite unique. I don’t usually see pieces with that configuration of veneer.”

To begin, Facey takes measurements of the original c.1674 marquetry table at the V&A in London Kensington. He then forages for twigs straight enough for carving an itty bitty version, and salvages 300-year-old oak from an old drawer because the old-growth wood has a grain that’s tighter, sturdier, and easier to work with than the modern oak one can buy at a home store, for example. “The old oak in this (drawer) is so fantastic,” Facey says. “To be able to use this as opposed to modern oak is just chalk and cheese.”

Armed with chisels and saws that are very sharp and fine, Facey meticulously cuts dovetail joints and carves the replica twisted legs on a tiny lathe. He creates the tabletop from slices of the foraged twigs, reveling in the patterns that emerge from inside a seemingly unimpressive branch. Even tinier pieces are sliced from the heartwood to recreate the six-sided veneer pieces.

Facey’s construction sheds light on the intricate process of furniture building, especially the art of elaborate veneer, no matter the scale. He says, “The olive wood table in the V&A, the fella who made it—or the people who made it, because they’re probably more than one—they used almost identical techniques [to] the techniques that I’ve used.”

See the video, and more like it, on the V&A’s YouTube channel.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Terry Facey Painstakingly Replicates a 17th-Century Marquetry Table at 1:8 Scale appeared first on Colossal.

SCHIPHOL (ANP) - Op Schiphol worden zaterdag naar verwachting nog eens honderden vluchten geannuleerd door het winterse weer. Ook verwacht de luchthaven honderden vertragingen door onder meer sneeuwbuien, het ijsvrij maken van vliegtuigen en de ongunstige windrichting.

Vrijdag waren er om deze redenen ook al honderden annuleringen en vertragingen.

DirtyGlassEye has added a photo to the pool:

Just like my excuses to keep posting photos of torii halls, it just keeps going because I have way too many. I believe this is my 8th post on this if I've been counting correctly.
So essentially I've told all the stories I could of this place, I won't drag this out. This is an ascent closer to the lake at the middle of the mountain. I didn't have to go the summit just to get every angle at night, especially considering the fact that there were boars around, I didn't want to overstay my welcome or stray too far from the entrance. All I wanted was a disappearing stairway, (Vanishing point group, I swear to gosh you better accept this).
In editing, I did the regular fix of a higher saturation and stronger shadows. I slightly blurred the pathway in order to give the gates more power over the image, simultaneously invoking the image to be more mysterious. The path to divinity is at the end of the day still individualized. If it means walking through sacred ground of another religion with the potential presence of hostile wildlife, who knows maybe that changes some things.

Ghana has decided to deal with the viral spread of prophetic content on social media by setting up an official reporting mechanism for sensitive predictions, a move triggered by the August 2025 helicopter crash that killed the country's defence and environment ministers along with six others.

After the accident, TikTok clips circulated showing pastors who claimed to have foreseen the disaster before it happened. Elvis Ankrah, the presidential envoy for inter-faith and ecumenical relations, now asks prophets to submit their predictions for review.

Charismatic preacher-prophets have been a fixture of Ghanaian public life since Pentecostalism arrived in the 1980s, but social media has amplified their reach and made their claims increasingly outlandish. Police have threatened to arrest prophets who cannot prove their predictions eventually came true. Some two-thirds of Ghanaians favor giving divine intervention a role in politics. Ankrah recently declared that most prophecies submitted to him are "total bunk."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.