thexiffy

Last.fm last recent tracks from thexiffy.

The Glimmers - Intro + Frantic

The Glimmers

The Bug - Invasion of Privacy

The Bug

Bekkou - Ek Tai

Bekkou

Manu Chao - L'automne est las

Manu Chao

Slashdot

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Paramount Considers Leaving California Amid Antitrust Suit

Paramount CEO David Ellison is threatening to begin moving the studio out of California on October 1 if state Attorney General Rob Bonta refuses to enter settlement talks over the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. The company would reportedly move its Los Angeles headquarters first and shift most studio jobs out of the state over five years, with Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee under consideration. Variety reports: Ellison's threat to relocate Paramount in retaliation for California's Bonta leading the charge to kill the WBD deal -- a move that would include much of its studio operations, over time -- was first reported by industry newsletter Puck. In response, Bonta called Ellison's planned exit from the state an "attempt to blackmail the state into letting an illegal deal through."

"Paramount has lost the plot as it continues to lose in court," the attorney general wrote in a post on X. "It didn't work the first time -- on the eve of our July lawsuit -- and it won't work this time." Bonta has not publicly said what concessions from Paramount-WBD he would consider acceptable enough to take the lawsuit off the table. But the Democratic attorney general has said any remedies would need to be "structural" (i.e., divestments) rather than "behavioral" (e.g., imposing certain production quotas).

Oct. 1 is when Paramount will begin accruing a "ticking fee" payable to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders of $7 million per day. The trial in the state AGs' lawsuit is scheduled to start March 2, 2027, roughly five months after that, so Paramount would be on the hook to pay around $1.2 billion to WBD shareholders by the time the trial is scheduled to conclude. (Paramount's ticking-fee payments to WBD are not due until the deal closes.) At the Aug. 5 meeting on Paramount's lot, Ellison told his 12-member senior executive team he expects Paramount to prevail in the antitrust case against the states. However, he also said that if Bonta balks at talks, Paramount will start packing up and moving out of the Golden State in less than two months.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

England Set To Eliminate Hepatitis C

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: England is on track to become one of the first countries in the world to eliminate hepatitis C, a dangerous virus that attacks the liver, figures show. The target of treating 80% of all known cases has already been met, and deaths from the virus have fallen by 36% in the last decade, just short of what is needed by 2030. Taking antiviral tablets for 8 to 12 weeks can cure more than 95% of cases. Initiatives including A&E blood tests, GP registration testing and free at-home tests have helped to find people who were previously undiagnosed, says NHS England.

NHS England says that since 2015, more than 100,000 people have been diagnosed and treated for hepatitis C, meaning the country is already meeting that target. Another goal -- a 65% reduction in hepatitis C-related mortality compared with 2015 levels -- has yet to be met, but might be before the 2030 target date. Around 50,200 adults are living with hepatitis C, figures for England in 2024 suggest. Estimates indicate 84.6% of those living with hepatitis C have been diagnosed -- just short of the 90% target. The Hepatitis C Trust says England is "on the cusp" of one of the most significant public health achievements in our country's history.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

France Bans Unsolicited Telemarking Calls

Starting today, unsolicited telemarking calls are banned in France unless consumers explicitly consent to them. Companies that violate the law can face fines of up to 375,000 euros per call, though existing customers can still be contacted with related offers. Le Monde reports: The government says the law is a response to years of consumer complaints. Authorities estimate that about three-quarters of people in France receive at least one unsolicited sales call every week, and many receive more. In 2024, 11 consumer organizations issued a joint call for a ban, denouncing "relentless harassment of consumers through countless unwanted telemarketing calls to both landlines and mobile phones -- an intrusion that has become a regular part of their daily lives."

Now, "businesses are prohibited from contacting consumers without their prior consent," said Alice Vilcot, chief of staff at the Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Prevention of Fraud. "That consent can be withdrawn at any time." [...] Previously in France, people who wanted to avoid marketing calls had to register their number with a government-run service, but consumer groups said some call centers ignored the list. Vilcot noted that an Ireland-based company was fined 6 million euros ($6.9 million) last year for violating France's previous telemarketing rules by calling people on the no-call list.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

VK: Voorpagina

Volkskrant.nl biedt het laatste nieuws, opinie en achtergronden

Golf AI-hacks: zien we AI hier een eigen wil krijgen, en wie is verantwoordelijk als het weer misgaat?

Roemenië vernietigt twee drones bij booreiland op Zwarte Zee

Formula 1 News

Formula 1® - The Official F1® Website

Damon Hill's 1996 title-winning season remembered

F1.com Senior Editor Greg Stuart looks back at Damon Hill’s title-winning season, 30 years on.

xiffy

Public posts from @xiffy@mastodon.nl

@BOK
Ja, je jan me op dit moment er voor wakker maken.
Op de jij buis staat ook een live registratie met philharmonisch orkest. youtu.be/eqNYOHrbSoM?is=dnpyV1

Wel.nl

Minder lezen, Meer weten.

Dag voor zonsverduistering nog veel vraag naar eclipsbrillen

DEN HAAG (ANP) - Veel mensen zijn dinsdag nog op zoek naar eclipsbrillen om de gedeeltelijke zonsverduistering woensdagavond te kunnen aanschouwen. Bij winkels op tal van plekken zijn de speciale brillen uitverkocht, bij sommige winkels waar ze nog wel te koop zijn, stonden mensen in de rij.

Onder meer bij kledingwinkel Getdrezzed in het centrum van Almelo stonden belangstellenden in een rij om een eclipsbril te bemachtigen, zo is op beelden van het ANP te zien. Het Haagse museum Museon-Omniversum meldde dinsdagmiddag dat de vraag naar eclipsbrillen "vele malen" groter is dan het aanbod van de museumwinkel. Het raadde daarom mensen af om nog te komen.

Ook bij de ANWB-winkels wilden mensen dinsdag een eclipsbril scoren. Dat was tevergeefs, laat een woordvoerster weten. De ANWB verkocht de speciale brillen online en die waren zondag al uitverkocht. Volgens de woordvoerster was er veel vraag naar en zijn er vele duizenden verkocht. Maar mensen zijn volgens haar nog altijd "naarstig op zoek".

Sterrenwacht Limburg in Heerlen laat weten dat vanwege de enorme vraag ze dinsdagavond ruim een uur open zijn om eclipsbrillen te verkopen. Het observatorium heeft er zeshonderd op voorraad. Tijdens de zonsverduistering zelf is de sterrenwacht niet open, omdat het fenomeen vanaf de locatie in Heerlen niet zichtbaar is.


Steenbergen zwom 'geen perfecte race' op weg naar Europese titel

SAINT-DENIS (ANP) - Marrit Steenbergen zwom "geen perfecte race" bij het behalen van haar tweede Europese titel op de 100 meter vrije slag. "De eerste 50 meter gingen niet zoals ik wilde. Er lag veel druk op de finale, iedereen verwachtte dat ik zou winnen en dan moet je het ook nog doen. Ik ben heel blij dat het gelukt is en hier heb mogen winnen", liet de 26-jarige Friezin weten via de zwembond.

Steenbergen verbeterde in juni het wereldrecord op het koningsnummer naar 51,68, een tijd waar ze nu ruim boven bleef (51,90). "Mijn tijd is oké. Het gaat in de finale om winnen. Ik voelde me goed. Ik denk dat het geen perfecte race was en dat heb je wel nodig om een wereldrecord te zwemmen. Ik heb alsnog een 51'er gezwommen", zei Steenbergen.

De tweevoudig wereldkampioene kreeg landgenote Milou van Wijk, die verrassend tweede werd, mee op het podium. Van Wijk (21): "Ik ben ontzettend blij. Dit is waar ik op hoopte en het is het uiterste dat ik momenteel kan halen. Deze tweede plek achter Marrit is hartstikke mooi."


The Guardian

Latest news, sport, business, comment, analysis and reviews from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice

Birmingham 2026: European Athletics Championships day two – live

Highlights are men’s 100m and women’s 100m hurdles
Hodgkinson up and running | Ticket backlash | Mail Billy

Here’s what’s coming up this evening in Birmingham, with medal events in bold. All times BST.

7.05pm – pole vault (women) qualification

7.10pm – hammer throw (men) final

7.25pm – 5,000m (women) final

7.55pm – 100m hurdles (women) semi-finals

8.16pm – long jump (men) final

8.32pm – 100m (men) semi-finals

9pm – 400m (men) semi-finals

9.30pm – 100m hurdles (women) final

9.47pm – 100m (men) final

Continue reading...

Bumble drops women-first chat rule as dating apps seek engagement boost

Since Bumble’s launch in 2014, only women ‌could initiate conversations in heterosexual matches on the app

Bumble on Tuesday said it would begin allowing either person ⁠in a match to send the first message, dropping the women-first messaging rule ⁠that has ⁠been ​a defining feature of the dating app since its launch in 2014.

The move ⁠comes as dating-app companies across the globe grapple with user fatigue toward traditional swipe-based platforms and slowing ⁠growth, prompting some, including Bumble and Tinder-owner Match Group, to ​roll out new ‌features and artificial intelligence-powered ‌tools aimed at improving engagement.

Continue reading...

PEILING. Bijna twee derde van de Nederlanders voor terughoudender transgenderzorg, 'Dutch Protocol' gaat te ver

'Het grootste medische schandaal van deze tijd'

Social

Er wordt wel heel veel over transgenders gesproken maar nooit eens mét transgenders. O wacht, dat gebeurt natuurlijk wel. Een gesprek voeren over de transgenderzorg in Nederland gaat vaak wat lastiger. Soms levert dat schrijnende doch indrukwekkende topics op, maar het transfobieverwijt ligt in veel gevallen al snel op de loer. De staat van die transgenderzorg is als volgt: ons land liep jarenlang 'voorop' omdat het 'Dutch Protocol' (lees er hier uitgebreid over) wereldwijd school maakte, bekend en bekeken werd en het Europese pro-transitiebeleid voor minderjarigen met genderdysforie vormgaf. Zo werden puberteitsremmers en hormoonbehandelingen op zeer jonge leeftijd 'normaal'. Een medische behandeling, terwijl er vaak veel meer problemen spelen bij die minderjarigen en een psychische behandeling meer op zijn (haar/hen) plaats is. Uiteraard werd er veel kritiek geleverd op die huidige manier van behandelen, en niet louter als kanonschot in de zogenoemde cultuuroorlog. 

Nee, kritiek die hout snijdt, omdat de risico's van het Dutch Protocol groot zijn en de gevolgen verstrekkend, en het gebrek aan bewijs dat de voordelen opwegen tegen de nadelen zou te denken moeten geven. In veel landen dachten ze daarom dus na, zodat het Dutch Protocol werd losgelaten. Zo niet in Nederland zelf, waar de Gezondheidsraad eind juni concludeerde dat de Nederlandse transgenderzorg voor minderjarigen 'zorgvuldig is ingericht' en niet drastisch hoeft te worden veranderd. De Omtzigtman en vele artsen waren al bang voor deze conclusie en riepen op tot veel meer terughoudendheid in een uitstekend stuk in Trouw. Voor de Dogfather aanleiding om eens te peilen wat de Nederlander nou eigenlijk vindt van óns Dutch Protocol. 

Uit het onderzoek van Maurice de Hond blijkt dat maar 19% denkt dat artsen kunnen voorspellen of de wens van een kind om in transitie te gaan blijvend is. Gevraagd naar de soort behandeling ziet 75% meer in een psychologische dan in een medische behandeling. De verdeeldheid is echter groter bij de vraag wat het zwaarst moet wegen bij de behandeling. Voor een kwart is dat het voorkomen dat kinderen te lang moeten wachten op hulp, 28% vindt het belangrijkst dat kinderen leren hun geslacht te accepteren en voor maar liefs 35% weegt het zwaarst dat niet te vroeg moet worden gekozen voor een behandeling met blijvende gevolgen. Ook werd gevraagd wie nou zou moeten beslissen over het gebruik van bijvoorbeeld puberteitsremmers. Bijna de helft vindt dat ouders dat voor hun kind moeten kunnen, voor 35% is het aan het kind zelf mits dat 16 jaar oud is en 8% vindt dat het kind al vanaf 12 jaar zelf zou moeten kunnen beslissen (hieronder uitgesplitst naar politieke voorkeur).

De belangrijkste vraag is of Nederland nu eigenlijk op de rem moet trappen met de huidige vorm van transgenderzorg. Daarover toch meer eensgezindheid: twee derde van de Nederlanders zegt: JA, trap op die rem. Wat maar aangeeft dat de Dutch niet zo fan zijn van het Dutch Protocol. Het onderzoek maakt sowieso veel inzichtelijk, zeker ook bij het bekijken van de uitsplitsingen naar leeftijd, opleiding en politieke voorkeur. De ramkoers van de Gezondheidsraad lijkt echter niet bij te sturen. Terwijl het van groot belang is, voor kinderen en ouders, dat dat wel gebeurt. Hoog tijd dus dat dit 'zorgvuldig ingerichte' Dutch Protocol in transitie gaat.

Doei Dutch Protocol?

onderzoek genderzorg maurice de hond rem erop

Naar politieke voorkeur

onderzoek genderzorg maurice de hond

Naar leeftijd

onderzoek genderzorg maurice de hond leeftijd

Naar opleiding

Moeten ouders het recht hebben te beslissen?

onderzoek genderzorg maurice de hond

404 Media

404 Media is an independent media company founded by technology journalists Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox.

No Bosses: Ancient Engineering Marvel Was Built Without Rulers, Study Suggests

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No Bosses: Ancient Engineering Marvel Was Built Without Rulers, Study Suggests

Ancient people of Colombia used collective labor to build a massive canal network that spans 2,000 square miles, a discovery that challenges the assumption that colossal works require top-down hierarchical social organization, reports a study published on Monday in Communications Sustainability.

From the first century BC to the 11th century, Colombian peoples living in the La Mojana  lowlands sculpted their wetland environment by building raised fields, ridges, and canals, which are today referred to as the Zenú hydraulic systems after the culture that built them. These multipurpose structures absorbed water during heavy rains and released it during dry seasons, creating a water management system that prevented both flooding and droughts. The vast network also provided water to communities for plant cultivation and access to fish.

For years, researchers have debated whether the immense work was built through top-down social organization at the direction of elite leaders, or if people could have collectively labored to construct it through bottom-up organization. 

Now, a team of scientists has used satellite imagery to map a 1,200-acre patch of the system in unprecedented detail. With that sample, they built a model to estimate the population and labor costs of construction in that area. Assuming that about 1,600 people inhabited this area and half of them were part of the workforce, the structures could have been built in under six weeks, about half the dry season, which is a low labor cost that would not have required top-down organization.

“La Mojana is a special case study, in that it is the first to demonstrate in concrete, quantitative terms that these massive works are compatible with bottom-up, community-driven organisation,” said Jasmine Vieri, a research associate at the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge who led the study, in an email with 404 Media. “But it is also part of a much broader paradigm shift in how archaeology interprets evidence for hierarchy or top-down power.” 

“As human beings, we tend to understand the world through our own lens, and many of us now live in hierarchical societies, where large-scale infrastructure, monumental architecture, or luxury goods are often commissioned by, or concentrated in the hands of a few,” she continued. 

“Archaeological evidence from other regions and periods keeps revealing cases where people came together to achieve ambitious, collective goals through cooperation rather than coercion.”

The team’s sample included roughly 1,600 ridges and 63 housing platforms, most of which were about 4.5-feet tall when they were initially constructed. Though the exact dates of construction are unclear, these systems were constructed before the emergence of metal tools, such as shovels, though they may have used wood tools. 

Based on this level of technology and workforce numbers, the team estimated that the largest raised ridge in the sample, which stretches for a third of a mile, would have taken a family of five months to complete, whereas a workforce of 800 could have built it in a matter of hours. But some of the smaller ridge structures could have been built by a single family over the course of a few days. The results suggest that the whole system in this sample could have been renewed once a generation, with just a few days of annual work.

 

“We entered the project with an open mind, although we did consider collective labour one feasible model from the start,” Vieri said. “However, when we did obtain the estimates, even we were surprised at how low they were, running through them several times just to confirm they were correct.”

The study was co-authored by Fernando Montejo Gaitán of the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History, who has spent decades researching these ancient waterways and is part of REVERSEACTION, a project funded by the European Research Council focused on complex technologies in stateless societies. 

Understanding how these people built such massive works is not just a matter of reconstructing the past, it’s also an adaptation strategy for the future, according to the study.

“Instead of focusing on futile attempts at blocking water, policymakers should consider borrowing the pre-Hispanic solution of working with the inundation rather than against it,” Vieri said. “Modern dikes built by the Colombian government are intended to prevent seasonal flooding, but are often breached by high-volume currents, destroying human lives and livelihoods.” 

“In contrast, the pre-Hispanic raised fields functioned to redistribute the flow of water, enabling human settlement and cultivation above the water level throughout the wet season,” she continued. “Raised fields simultaneously buffer against severe droughts by storing and gradually releasing water during the drier months.”

For more than a millennium, people in this region used this strategy to go with the flow, without the need for top-down direction. Hopefully, future work might uncover more insights about the role of social organization in massive works, and the possibility that large structures might have emerged from small collectives.

“Answering these questions would contribute much to broader archaeological debates on the relationship between infrastructural scales and political organisation,” Vieri said. “In fact, a key outcome of our research is an open-source pipeline that can be readily be applied to the study of agricultural systems in other regions, enabling cross-comparative research into testing the strength of the evidence for bottom-up, multi-scalar, or top-down social organisation across different time periods or communities.” 

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horsepower

conspectus_bs posted a photo:

horsepower

Kodak Ektar 100 with Mamiya 645 Pro and Sekor 35 mm

Webb opens a Treasure Chest filled with stars

James Webb Space Telescope posted a photo:

Webb opens a Treasure Chest filled with stars

What animal do you see in this Webb image?!

A bird? An elephant? A giraffe? Let your imagination run wild!

This is Webb’s infrared view of part of the Carina Nebula, a star-forming region also home to the Cosmic Cliffs, which was one of the first images released by Webb. Here Webb captures a different aspect of Carina, a feature called the “Treasure Chest,” which is an object known as a cometary globule. A cometary globule is an isolated cloud of gas and dust with a dense, dark head and a sweeping tail. These clouds often somewhat resemble comets, but the Treasure Chest looks distinctly like a wooden chest with its lid wide open…or the plumes of a space chicken! Inside is a compact cluster of young and massive stars, wrapped up in dust, some of which are surrounded by disks that may one day produce planets.

Just outside the field of view, just 39 light years away, is Eta Carinae, a well-known star system containing at least two stars, one of which is 100 times more massive than the Sun - and 5 million times more luminous. Between massive stars external to the nebula, as well as the ones buried within, its dust and gasses are being carved out by stellar radiation and winds.

Read more: esawebb.org/images/potm2607a/

Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Reiter
Acknowledgement: M. H. Özsaraç

Image Description: A region of space filled with bright stars and clouds of gas. In the center, the densest clouds form the shape of a chest with its lid open. The chest appears to glow from within. At its base it breaks apart into long pillars of thick gas. Many of the gas clouds in the background are dark orange globules, while others form large, pale hazes. A few brightly shining stars lie in the foreground, the biggest and brightest in front of the chest’s lid.

Ziek, verward en zonder zorg: 62.500 cliënten leven buiten het zicht van de ggz door een ‘draaideur in de acute zorg, een wachtlijstspiraal en een bottleneck in beschermd wonen’

Zieke mensen met een ernstige psychische aandoening zijn te vaak aan zichzelf overgeleverd, waarschuwt de ggz. Dat komt doordat hulp stopt op het moment dat iemand van zorg, woning of instantie verandert. De voorzitter van de branchevereniging: „Iemand mag niet ineens alleen komen te staan.”