Ongezellige toestanden in de Rotterdamse gemeenteraad gisteravond, waar de voorgedragen Eva Heijblom (D66) gekozen zou worden als wethouder CULTUUR en Mobiliteit. Dat liep even anders omdat minstens één lid van de coalitie, bestaande uit PRO, VVD, D66, CDA en Volt, anoniem tegen wéér zo'n witte vrouw van D66 stemde en vóór de zwarte vrouw van D66 Joan Nunnely. Zodoende werd Nunnely gekozen terwijl Heijblom (wit weggetrokken of juist vuurrood) de hele tijd met haar gezin had klaargezeten voor het feest. Iedereen heette pardoes haas en was totáál verrast. Zo verrast kan men echter niet zijn geweest daar de onvrede nota bene bij D66 alsook bij andere partijen (DENK spreekt van 'withouders') zich al langer toespitst op Heijbloms capaciteiten HUIDSKLEUR. Saillant genoeg reageerde de nieuwbakken wethouder Nunnely, die dus ook in extremis van kleur kan zijn verschoten op het stembiljet, eerder nog als volgt op de voorgedragen wethouders: "Een stadsbestuur met vrijwel uitsluitend witte mensen is wat mij betreft onacceptabel in 2026." Alleen maar witte mensen = ONACCEPTABEL. Vooralsnog is het een mysterie wie zich nou tegen Heijblom keerde(n), maar iemand wegstemmen wegens haar huidskleur is wat ons betreft onacceptabel in 2026.

Nunnely na de stemming: "GA JE MIJ NU AANVALLEN?"

De Rotterdamse rite

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Fabio Bruna posted a photo:

Mooie structuren in een kwal. Strand Meijendel.

Fabio Bruna posted a photo:

Werken aan de sloot, Ypenburg.

De impact van de coronapandemie is tot op de dag van vandaag voelbaar, zei Robèr Willemsen, destijds voorzitter van Koninklijke Horeca Nederland, deze vrijdag tegen de…

Ze zijn alomtegenwoordig in de digitale wereld: influencers die met hun content mensen opzettelijk woedend maken. Ontzet reageren werkt averechts. Serieuze media moeten zich niet uit hun tent laten lokken, waarschuwt Bas Heijne.

‘Te nat’ was een understatement voor de ramp die zich in de zomer van 2021 voltrok: flinke delen van het Geuldal liepen onder, de financiële schade in Limburg was naar schatting 1,5 miljard euro. Vijf jaar na de woeste, kolkende Geulvloed moeten de meeste maatregelen nog komen.

Actrice en schrijver Nadja Hüpscher probeert met haar twee zonen (13 en 14) over alles te praten. Alleen gaat dat nooit zoals ze wil.

Dankzij de cruciale rol van de Nederlandse hightechsector schermt minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma van Buitenlandse Handel met grootmachten China en de VS over ASML-machines en eerlijker handel met Europa. „We boksen ver boven ons gewicht.”

Meta may have breached the European Union's Digital Services Act by designing Facebook and Instagram to keep users glued to their screens, with Brussels saying that features such as infinite scroll and autoplay should be switched off by default. The European Commission on Friday published preliminary findings accusing the social media giant of failing to properly assess or mitigate the risks posed by what it describes as the addictive design of its platforms. The investigation centers on infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and the highly personalized recommendation systems that determine what users see next. The Commission argues that Meta underestimated the effect those features can have on users, particularly children and vulnerable adults. Its preliminary findings say recommendation algorithms, autoplay, and infinite scrolling encourage people to keep consuming content, nudging them into what the Commission calls "autopilot mode" and fostering unhealthy habits and compulsive use. The Commission also says Meta ignored evidence showing how long minors spend on Facebook and Instagram at night, and failed to account for how products such as Reels and Stories could encourage excessive use. Brussels was equally unimpressed with Meta's attempts to fix the problem. It found the company's time management tools, including those enabled by default for teenagers, "can be easily dismissed and do not lead to a meaningful reduction and control of the usage of the service." It also questioned the effectiveness of Meta's parental controls, arguing they require too much technical knowledge and effort from parents to work as intended. The Commission ultimately wants Meta to redesign both platforms, including disabling autoplay and infinite scroll by default, introducing effective screen-time breaks, and making its recommendation systems less focused on maximizing engagement. "Protecting the physical and mental health of Europeans must be a priority for social media platforms," said Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy at the Commission. "The Digital Services Act provides a clear framework to hold platforms accountable for the addictive design and effects of their services." The findings are preliminary, and Meta will now have the opportunity to respond before the Commission reaches a final decision. If Brussels ultimately concludes that the company breached the DSA, it can impose fines of up to 6 percent of Meta's worldwide annual turnover, which comes in at approximately $12 billion. The case adds to a growing push to rein in social media's impact on younger users. Earlier this year, outgoing prime minister Kier Starmer said the UK government was considering new measures “that will give us the ability to crack down on the addictive elements of social media, stop the auto-play, the never-ending scrolling, that keeps are [sic] children hooked on their screens for hours, and stop kids getting around age limits.” Meta did not immediately respond to The Register's request for comment. ®

Capita has yet to agree to reimburse the UK government for the full cost of recovering the failing Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS) it administers. In a testy Parliamentary hearing in which Capita was called to account for its performance since taking over the CSPS, Adolfo Hernandez, group chief executive, refused to be drawn on whether the company would pay the full amount that the government had invested in emergency support. Capita's CSPS went live in December last year, after which The Register exclusively revealed problems with its online systems. By January, it was clear the service was seriously failing, leaving some retired civil servants struggling to make ends meet. Capita won the seven-year, £239 million contract to oversee the CSPS in November 2023, taking over from MyCSP, which ran the scheme on behalf of the Cabinet Office under a £238 million contract first agreed in 2012. Speaking to MPs this week, Minister for the Cabinet Office Nick Thomas-Symonds said the government deployed 140 officials in a pensions recovery team on January 13, but was determined Capita would pay for it. "I will not have a situation in which public money is funding corporate failings, so I will fight relentlessly to ensure that we recover every single penny of the cost of the surge interventions from Capita," he told a joint meeting of the Public Accounts Committee and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. Later in the meeting, Angela MacDonald, Permanent Secretary and Deputy Chief Executive at HM Revenue & Customs, estimated the total investment in the government's recovery program, which includes 40 people beyond the surge team, would amount to £12.5 million for the 2026-27 financial year. Hernandez refused to say whether Capita would pay for any earlier spending in the previous financial year, which ended in April. "In the first place, we never intended to have a surge team," he told MPs. "I made a commitment to… the Cabinet Office that we would start picking it up from April." Aghast, PAC chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, interjected. "Let me stop you there. The minister said that was completely unacceptable, and that you have to pick up the entire bill for the surge team from February, when it started." "I heard him say that," Hernandez replied. "We have not had that conversation yet. I made an offer." To the clear amazement of MPs, Hernandez plowed on. "There are a lot of decisions that need to be made; there are no isolated decisions," he said. "There are decisions that pertain to this particular investment. There are decisions about others. I think we need to have a commercial discussion and put them all together. I hear you loud and clear. I heard the minister loud and clear. I heard the permanent secretary loud and clear. I know what is being asked of us. When we sit around the table, this will be taken favorably, but we have not sat around the table." The meeting heard that Capita promised to get CSPS back to normal service levels by the end of June, a deadline it has now missed. The company told MPs it would return to normal service for all but the most complex cases by September. The government said it had penalized Capita £10 million in payments for its performance during the transition of the pensions service and was negotiating further penalties. Hernandez had earlier apologized for Capita's performance on the CSPS. ®

Danish ecommerce company Miinto admitted an intruder has been looking at its order data, according to emails it sent to customers this week. The emails, seen by The Register, do not comment on the scale of the data accessed by the perp or how exactly the breach occurred, although UK-based customers of the Copenhagen-HQ'd biz have received them. “We are writing to let you know about a security incident that may have affected some of the personal data associated with a purchase you made on Miinto,” the email states. “We have reported this to the police and to the relevant data protection authority, and we are contacting you directly so that you know exactly what happened and what to watch out for. We know a notice like this can be unsettling, and we want to be as clear and transparent with you as we can.” “An unauthorized party gained access to our internal order management system, and the perpetrator may have retrieved order data where your order data is potentially included,” it adds. Miinto, an online marketplace for fashion brands, confirmed that names, email and physical addresses, and phone numbers were among the data types exposed to crooks. Customers’ payment methods were compromised too. The email explained this would reveal whether customers paid using a card, and what type of card, or pay-in-three services like Klarna, but the attack did not expose details such as card or verification numbers. Miinto warned customers of the risk of phishing attacks that impersonate the brand and use the details swiped from the breach to make communications seem more convincing. “We have taken this incident extremely seriously and have worked quickly to contain it,” the email states. It removed the intruder from systems and improved its security measures, increasing access controls on its order management system. “We sincerely apologize for any concern or distress this notice may cause,” Miinto wrote. “Protecting the information you entrust to us is a priority we do not take lightly. “We have already strengthened the security of our systems, and we are continuing to invest in measures designed to reduce the risk of anything like this happening again.” The company did not disclose the attack via public channels, nor did it respond to The Register’s request for comment. Founded in 2009, Miinto operates in 14 countries and in January reported annual revenues soaring 86 percent to 869 million kr ($132.9 million). ®

​Meerdere mensen die maandagavond overlast veroorzaakten bij de noodopvang in IJsselstein, hebben een gebiedsverbod gekregen voor IJsselstein. Online vragen mensen zich af of we dit soort gedrag wel moeten belonen.

“Ze zetten de hele boel op stelten, en dan ga je ze dus nog belonen door ze toegang tot IJsselstein te ontzeggen ook. Dat is de omgekeerde wereld. Ze zouden dat tuig een IJsselsteingébod moeten geven”, aldus een man uit de Randstad.

“Nederland is veel te soft voor dit soort raddraaiers”, vindt een ander. “Als dit is hoe het werkt in dit land, dan ga ik volgende week auto’s in de fik steken in Meppel.”

Opvallend genoeg zijn ook de overlastgevers ontevreden. “14 dagen maar, wat is dat voor termijn. Daarna mag ik gewoon weer naar Brasserie De Kloostertuin, zeker. Lekker dan. En ondertussen gaan die asielzoekers lekker naar de grote steden. Klootzakken.”

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Uncle Juff revisits the age-old Juggalo question. (SLYT Juff)

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

Light reflecting off the larger building to the right lighting up this wall in sunset colours.
Little Grenfell Street, Kent Town, South Australia

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

Little Grenfell Street, Kent Town, South Australia