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THIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this album took place in Florida and New York between 1972 -- 1977. Out of respect for the dead, the story has been told exactly as it occurred.

date stamped on slide February 1977

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

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Waarom zijn goede vrienden zoveel meer dan alleen gezellig gezelschap?

We denken bij vriendschap vaak aan samen lol maken, maar uit steeds meer wetenschappelijk onderzoek blijkt: vriendschap is een onmiskenbare pijler voor onze mentale én fysieke gezondheid. Lange tijd was eenzaamheid vooral iets voor ouderen, maar sinds de coronapandemie voelt een recordaantal jongeren zich emotioneel alleen. De gevolgen? Die zijn groot: somberheid, stress, minder zelfvertrouwen én zelfs een grotere kans op vroegtijdig overlijden.

Typische gedragingen van mensen zonder hechte vrienden

Experts noemen deze gedragingen het vaakst:

• Sociaal contact vermijden, omdat het ongemakkelijk voelt
• Overdreven onafhankelijk willen zijn (‘ik heb niemand nodig’)
• Moeite met gesprekken voeren of luisteren (teveel over jezelf praten, of juist te stil)
• Anderen moeilijk vertrouwen, uit angst voor teleurstelling
• Angst voor afwijzing en snel denken ‘ze zitten niet op mij te wachten’
• Moeite met hulp vragen als het even tegenzit
• Geen initiatief nemen om vriendschappen te onderhouden

Vaak zijn deze gedragingen onbewust: wie langere tijd weinig vrienden heeft, ontwikkelt een soort zelfbeschermende barrière: ‘dan kan ik ook niet gekwetst worden’. Maar deze beschermingsmechanismen houden isolement én het gemis aan verbinding in stand.

Eenzaamheid: de stille pandemie onder jongeren

De cijfers zijn alarmerend: volgens recente metingen voelt 43% van de Nederlandse jongeren zich nu enigszins of sterk eenzaam. De kwaliteit van vriendschappen is belangrijker dan de kwantiteit, maar zelfs de aanwezigheid van één goede vriend(in) kan een wereld van verschil maken. Zonder die verbinding ontstaat al snel een gevoel van leegte, piekeren en – niet zelden – depressieve klachten.

Virtuele vriendschappen, fysieke afstand

De opkomst van sociale media lijkt het probleem eerder te verergeren dan op te lossen. Online vriendschappen vervangen zelden het diepgaande, fysieke contact dat nodig is voor écht hechte relaties. De Zwitserse psycholoog Thomas Spielmann waarschuwt: te veel tijd online maakt het steeds lastiger om emoties te herkennen en uit te spreken, laat staan om jezelf kwetsbaar op te stellen bij anderen.

De ‘mokita’: de waarheid die niemand uitspreekt

Is er in jouw familie of vriendengroep een onderwerp dat iedereen kent, maar niemand benoemt? In landen als Papoea-Nieuw-Guinea noemen ze dat een ‘mokita’: een onuitgesproken waarheid. Volgens psychologen werkt zoiets als een langzaam vergif. Praten we onze spanningen weg of houden we pijnlijke thema’s liever stil? Het antwoord bepaalt of een relatie hecht blijft – of geleidelijk afbrokkelt.

Wat kun je doen tegen sociale isolatie?

• Stap uit je comfortzone: zoek contact, ook als het ongemakkelijk voelt.
• Wees eerlijk over gevoelens, ook of vooral tegenover jezelf.
• Stel kleine doelen: stuur eens een berichtje, plan een koffiedate, bied iemand hulp aan.
• Accepteer dat het tijd kost om nieuwe vriendschappen op te bouwen én te onderhouden.
• Blijf niet hangen in het denken dat niemand op jou zit te wachten – mensen (her)kennen eenzaamheid vaker dan je denkt.

Kortom: Wie geen vrienden heeft, loopt het risico zichzelf steeds verder af te sluiten. Alleen verandering – hoe klein ook – kan die vicieuze cirkel doorbreken. Taboes moeten we doorbreken, eerst bij onszelf en daarna samen. Juist dat maakt het verschil tussen chronische eenzaamheid en werkelijke verbondenheid.

In Nederland wordt het waterpeil zelfs in de verste sloot tot op twee centimeter nauwkeurig geregeld. En dat terwijl we meters onder het zeeniveau leven. Heel vernuftig! Maar nu hoosbuien toenemen en chemicaliën overal rondzwemmen, loopt ons wereldberoemde watersysteem tegen zijn grenzen aan. Wat nu? Duw het water niet meer weg, hoor ik bij het waterschap.

cate♪ has added a photo to the pool:

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Spotify was found publishing AI-generated songs on the official pages of deceased artists like Blaze Foley and Guy Clark -- without permission from their estates or labels. The tracks, flagged for deceptive content and now removed, were uploaded via TikTok's SoundOn distribution platform. "We've flagged the issue to SoundOn, the distributor of the content in question, and it has been removed for violating our Deceptive Content policy," a Spotify spokesperson told 404 Media. From the report: McDonald, who decided to originally upload Foley's music to Spotify in order to share it with more people, told me he never thought that an AI-generated track could appear on Foley's page without his permission. "It's harmful to Blaze's standing that this happened," he said. "It's kind of surprising that Spotify doesn't have a security fix for this type of action, and I think the responsibility is all on Spotify. They could fix this problem. One of their talented software engineers could stop this fraudulent practice in its tracks, if they had the will to do so. And I think they should take that responsibility and do something quickly."

McDonald's suggested fix is not allowing any track to appear on an artist's official Spotify page without allowing the page owner to sign off on it first. "Any real Blaze fan would know, I think, pretty instantly, that this is not Blaze or a Blaze recording," he said. "Then the harm is that the people who don't know Blaze go to the site thinking, maybe this is part of Blaze, when clearly it's not. So again, I think Spotify could easily change some practices. I'm not an engineer, but I think it's pretty easy to stop this from happening in the future."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is proposing (PDF) to roll back key Biden-era broadband policies, scrapping the long-term gigabit speed goal, halting analysis of broadband affordability, and reinterpreting deployment standards in a way that favors industry metrics over consumer access. The proposal, which is scheduled for a vote on August 7, narrows the scope of Section 706 evaluations to focus on whether broadband is being deployed rather than whether it's affordable or universally accessible. Ars Technica reports: The changes will make it easier for the FCC to give the broadband industry a passing grade in an annual progress report. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's proposal would give the industry a thumbs-up even if it falls short of 100 percent deployment, eliminate a long-term goal of gigabit broadband speeds, and abandon a new effort to track the affordability of broadband.

Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act requires the FCC to determine whether broadband is being deployed "on a reasonable and timely basis" to all Americans. If the answer is no, the US law says the FCC must "take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition in the telecommunications market."

Generally, Democratic-led commissions have found that the industry isn't doing enough to make broadband universally available, while Republican-led commissions have found the opposite. Democratic-led commissions have also periodically increased the speeds used to determine whether advanced telecommunications capabilities are widely available, while Republican-led commissioners have kept the speed standards the same.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air grounded all flights Sunday night due to a major IT outage, prompting a system-wide FAA ground stop that lasted until early Monday. Although operations have since resumed, passengers are still facing delays and residual disruptions. Gizmodo reports: The airline requested a system-wide ground stop from federal aviation authorities at about 11 p.m. ET on Sunday night. That stop remained in effect until around 2 a.m. ET Monday, when the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed it had been lifted. But disruptions didn't end there. Alaska warned passengers to brace for likely delays throughout the day. [...] The FAA's website listed the stop as applying to all Alaska Airlines aircraft. Gizmodo notes that the incident comes nearly a year after the massive 2024 CrowdStrike crash, which has become known as the largest IT outage in history. "The July 2024 outage brought down an estimated 8.5 million Microsoft Windows systems running CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor software, disrupting everything from hospitals and airports to broadcast networks."

"There's no word yet from Alaska on whether the outage ties into a broader software problem, but the timing, almost exactly a year after the CrowdStrike crash, isn't going unnoticed on social media, with users wondering if the events are related."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fat Burns ☮ has added a photo to the pool:

Many thanks for your visits, faves and comments. Cheers.

White-faced Heron
Scientific Name: Egretta novaehollandiae
Description: The White-faced Heron is mostly light blue-grey in colour, with a characteristic white face. In flight, the dark flight feathers of the wing contrast with the paler grey plumage, making this bird easily identifiable when viewed from below. It has a long, slim neck and a pointed grey-black bill. The legs are long and dull yellow in colour. Sexes are similar. When breeding, the birds have long feathers (nuptial plumes) on the head, neck and back. The White-faced Heron has a slow bouncing flight. Young White-faced Herons are similar in appearance to the non-breeding adults (no nuptial plumes), but are duller, with little or no white on the face. They often have a reddish colour on the underparts.
Distribution: White-faced Herons are the most commonly seen herons in Australia. They are found throughout the mainland and Tasmania, and most coastal islands. They also occur in Indonesia, New Guinea, New Caledonia and New Zealand.
Habitat: White-faced Herons can be found anywhere where there is water, from tidal mudflats and coastal reefs to moist grasslands and gardens.
Feeding: The White-faced Heron feeds on a wide variety of prey, including fish, insects and amphibians. Food is obtained in a variety of ways, such as walking and disturbing prey, searching among damp crevices or simply standing in the water and watching for movement.
Breeding: White-faced Herons may breed outside the breeding season in response to rainfall. Both sexes share the building of the nest, incubation of the eggs and care of the young. The nest is an untidy structure of sticks, placed in a tree. Normally only one brood of young is raised in a year.
Minimum Size: 60cm
Maximum Size: 70cm
Average size: 65cm
Breeding season: October to December
Clutch Size: Three to four, occasionally up to seven.
(Source: www.birdsinbackyards.net)
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© Chris Burns 2025

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This image may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying and recording without my written consent.

De wielrenners van de Tour de France rijden vandaag de Mont Ventoux op. Die legendarische berg werd voor sportredacteur Thijs Niemantsverdriet een vijand.