iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:
iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:
iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:
banzainetsurfer has added a photo to the pool:
Oyama Shrine is known for its unusual gate, which was designed by a Dutch architect, using elements of European and Asian religious themes. While the first story displays a mixture of Japanese and Chinese influence, the upper stories once served as a lighthouse and feature a Dutch style, stained glass window.
Source: www.japan-guide.com/e/e4203.html
xthylacine has added a photo to the pool:
On a photo workshop w/ Lukasz Palka of Eye Explore www.youtube.com/@EYExplore (Highly recommended!)
Ikebukuro, Tokyo, Japan
Kyiv working on better jamming capabilities, interceptors for Shahed drones and ballistic missiles that can reach Moscow. What we know on day 1,684
Ukraine will increase its attacks on Russian oil refineries, but won’t target civilians, because of a new policy of airstrikes by Moscow designed to force people to abandon Kyiv and other cities, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said. Ukraine’s intelligence service has obtained documents showing the Russian ruler, Vladimir Putin, has issued a new doctrine of military attacks on a much broader range of civilian targets ahead of winter, Ukraine’s president told Reuters. “We saw documents and we know that they allow them to attack infrastructure, logistics, and especially to attack in the cities, in the villages, everywhere, roads, schools, hospitals,” he said. “To pressure people to leave the capital, leave different cities: this is the goal of the operation.”
“We have to respond in any way [we can]. With their attacks on our energy, we have to respond on their energy. First of all, oil refiners: what gives money to them for this war,” Zelenskyy said. “But we will not respond, of course … on any civilian objects.” Russian attacks on Saturday in Ukraine killed at least six people and damaged Kyiv’s Northern Bridge, disrupting traffic for a third day in Moscow’s latest effort to complicate life in the Ukrainian capital. Previously, it has hit apartment blocks, supermarket warehouses, gas stations, datacentres and other civilian targets.
A continuing Ukrainian counteroffensive dubbed Vivaldi had recaptured about 140 sq km (54 sq miles) of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, Zelenskyy told Reuters. It is a setback for Putin who wants Russia to completely control the Donbas before agreeing to any peace deal. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was working to offset low supplies of ammunition for its fighter aircraft – F-16s and MiGs – that bring down about 60% of the Russian jet-powered drones. He said Ukraine was working to boost its jamming capabilities; and in the second half of October it would receive a first shipment of small, cheap air defence missiles capable of hitting new jet-powered Shahed drones. Ukraine had begun to deploy its own domestically made ballistic missile – the FP-7, which has a range of about 250km (155 miles), said Zelenskyy. It hoped to have a longer-range model, the FP-9, ready by autumn.
Exit polls from Latvia’s parliamentary election published on Saturday night favoured prime minister Andris Kulbergs’s centrist, pro-Ukraine United List party, suggesting the country will maintain its pro-European and pro-Ukrainian course. But populist parties also had a good night after an election campaign dominated by fears about neighbouring Russia and the cost of living at home. With 72% of ballots counted, United List was on 36.5%, followed by the populist, Maga-style Latvia First on 13.0%. Kulbergs told journalists his party would not cooperate with any parties that were pro-Russian: “Our strong position is that any economic ties with Russia makes us weak; Russia would exploit this.”
Baltic countries have warned for months that Russia is mounting sabotage, cyber and other hybrid attacks across Europe to erode support for Ukraine and sow fear, although some western officials doubt it is capable of launching a direct assault on Nato, of which Latvia is a member. Throughout his campaign, Kulbergs promised more anti-drone capabilities for Latvia and to maintain defence spending at 5% of gross domestic product, one of the highest levels in Nato. His pro-Kremlin rivals said Latvia should stop any aid to Ukraine and instead focus more on cost-of-living issues, particularly among the country’s Russian-speaking minority.
Continue reading...Police confirm investigation into period the man reportedly spent in Australia before alleged attempted terrorist attack
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Australian security agencies have launched an investigation after it emerged that the flydubai co-pilot who allegedly tried to hijack an Israel-bound flight spent about two years in the country as a student.
Disaster was narrowly averted on Wednesday when passengers and crew intervened to stop the co-pilot’s attempt to take control of the flydubai flight to Tel Aviv, which had 182 people onboard and plunged 16,625 feet (5,067 metres) in just over 30 seconds.
Continue reading...New York film festival: Paul Rudd, Paul Giamatti and Tatiana Maslany lead an excellent ensemble in this dramatization of a failed conference on climate change
In late October 1980, days before the election of Ronald Reagan, Congress summoned 20 experts in various fields to a beachfront hotel in Florida. Their mandate was simple: figure out how to address the dire threat posed to the climate by fossil fuel emissions, then deliver their recommendations to Congress in the form of a statement.
Every word said during four marathon sessions over the next 36 hours – every disagreement or digression, tirade or truce – was recorded by a stenographer for posterity into a single document, hundreds of pages long, that stands as an artifact from a time when expertise was trusted, before corporate greed and political expediency mired “debate” about rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere in a haze of misinformation and inaction. The fact that this meeting took place at all – that experts in climate, energy, law, philosophy, politics and more agreed on the fundamental facts, yet struggled to reach consensus on what to do about them – is fascinating, if perhaps not the most natural fit for a movie. This was, after all, a conference room of specialists sharing evidence via overhead projector.
Continue reading..."A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched from Florida Thursday night on a classified mission for the National Reconnaissance Office, America's spy satellite agency... The NRO has previously flown payloads on 22 Falcon 9 rockets but this is the first time it has used the heavy-lift Falcon Heavy, which consists of three Falcon 9 boosters and an upper stage, topped by a payload fairing.
The powerful rocket, which lifts off under the power of 27 Merlin 1D engines, was introduced to great fanfare in 2018 and made its 14th flight Thursday night... NROL-97 was SpaceX's third Falcon launch of the day. In addition to the Crew 13 mission, the company launched 130 payloads on the Transporter 13 rideshare mission from its West Coast pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. It was the first time the company has landed four boosters in a single day.
CNN reports:
As Starship flights ramp up, SpaceX has made clear that the company will phase out the use of two of its most iconic creations: the Dragon spacecraft, which ferries astronauts and cargo to and from the International Space Station, and the Falcon 9 rocket, which for a decade has dominated the global launch market.
These vehicles not only revolutionized the space industry in their own way, they're also still very much essential to ongoing work in Earth orbit, without clear backup options in place. The prospect of this loss is already spurring panic among some satellite operators, said Caleb Henry, director of research at analytics firm Quilty Space... Henry said he expects that most of the remaining space on board Falcon 9 rockets has already been sold and — beyond early 2029 — such flights may be reserved solely for the US government. Even NASA, which currently counts the Dragon capsule as the only US-made spacecraft capable of getting its astronauts to and from the ISS, has also acknowledged the looming retirement of SpaceX's workhorse vehicles....
Despite the success of Falcon and Dragon, a peek at SpaceX's business book may hint at financial reasons for retiring the vehicles. In its first quarterly earnings report, SpaceX revealed its space segment — which includes Falcon, Dragon and Starship — lost $542 million. By comparison, its Starlink internet and connectivity business made nearly $1.7 billion. Starship is expected to continue to cost SpaceX untold millions as it moves out of the prototyping phase. But one reason SpaceX is willing to bet big on Starship is that it's simply "much better" for achieving the company's own long-term goals, said SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell at a recent conference. So it makes sense to shift resources toward the megarocket's future....
This rocket supply crunch has been looming since 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine — which immediately removed Russia's Soyuz and Proton rockets from the commercial market, Henry noted. On top of that, Amazon — which is deploying a space-based internet constellation to rival SpaceX's Starlink — stepped in to buy more than 100 launches from various rocket makers.... Though some satellite manufacturers are hopeful that space onboard future Starship launches will be offered to satellite operators, it's not clear when or if that will happen.... It is possible that a launch supply crunch could be averted, noted Micah Walter-Range, a space analyst and contributor to the VettaFi Space Index. But satellite operators may be wary because newer rockets that have for years promised to step up to compete with the Falcon 9 have not yet begun flying with any regularity.
"The space industry hates uncertainty, particularly when it comes to planning of launches," Walter-Range said.
The article notes that Rocket Lab, Firefly Aerospace, United Launch Alliance, and the Jeff Bezos-founded Blue Origin "have not yet reached the scale or launch cadence that the industry is demanding."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
When The Washington Sun called the number minutes after Trump's post, a recording said the mailbox was full and could not receive messages...
[Senator Tom] Cotton has long detested the idea of making daylight saving time permanent. In a Senate floor speech last year, Cotton said doing so would "make winter a dark and dismal time for millions of Americans," particularly harming kids. The Senate was only able to unanimously pass the bill in 2022 because Cotton was reportedly unaware the vote was taking place, though the measure stalled out from there. The Arkansas Republican didn't back down in a post on Saturday. "Arkansans don't want their kids going to school in the pitch dark, and I'll always put Arkansas first," he posted on X.
Trump continued his tear against Cotton soon after. "If Tom Cotton were putting Arkansas first, he would give them an extra hour of daylight and, more importantly, they wouldn't have to run all over their houses, farms, work places, and everywhere else, twice a year, having to change their Clocks, and often forgetting to do so," he posted on Truth.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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