Sinds februari is het oppassen geblazen voor treinmachinisten bij station Sliedrecht Baanhoek. Vanwege een verzakt talud moeten treinen zich aan een snelheidsbeperking houden van 40 kilometer per uur. In september is het verstevigen begonnen, maar het zal nog even duren voor de treinen weer met normale snelheid kunnen rijden: “Hopelijk het eerste kwart van 2027”.

Slachtoffers en nabestaanden van de enorme explosie aan de Schammenkamp in Rotterdam-Zuid zijn ontdaan door de vrijspraak van verdachte Jalal O. (37). Ze kampen nog altijd met de gevolgen van de ontploffing en hebben door dit vonnis geen recht op een schadevergoeding. Er lagen claims van meer dan een ton.

Met twee opvallende interviews bereidt de Oekraïense president Volodymyr Zelensky zijn land en de wereld voor op nieuwe gesprekken over vrede. Terwijl Trump de druk opvoert en Poetin op een overwinning rekent, maakt Zelensky duidelijk dat hij niet zal capituleren.

Op de Rotterdamse vuilniswagens staan al decennia dichtregels. Die werden deze maand tot Nederlands Immaterieel Erfgoed verklaard. „Sommige spreuken zijn goed gelukt”, zegt een van de chauffeurs.

Banenverlies en extra productiviteitswinst: de inzet van kunstmatige intelligentie kan de grondslag van het Nederlandse belastingstelsel aantasten. Moet arbeid nu niet meer worden ontzien en kapitaal zwaarder worden belast? Of moet toch de btw omhoog? Vier manieren om elders geld op te halen.

Het Openbaar Ministerie verdenkt een eigen medewerker van corruptie, schending van het ambtsgeheim en verkiezingsfraude. De man bekleedt een politieke functie in Oost-Brabant.

Het schrijverschap, dat weet wat. Erkenning en zelfs roem zijn mogelijk, maar laten soms lang op zich wachten, of blijven uit.

Rivierbeddingen worden schoongemaakt, afwateringen hersteld en huizen gesloopt. Toch bestaat de vrees dat de Keniaanse hoofdstad Nairobi onvoldoende bestand is tegen overstromingen. In de wijk Mathare bereiden bewoners zich zelf voor. „We weten dat we niet moeten wachten”.

PRRI’s 2026 American Values Survey reveals some, uh, interesting views on whether Americans think empathy is a good thing or not. Those respondents unaffiliated with a religion were much more inclined to think that empathy is “a foundational moral value that helps build a healthy society”.

With the exception of white evangelical Protestants (42%), around two-thirds or more of all major religious groups believe that empathy is a foundational moral value for a healthy society, including about eight in ten religiously unaffiliated Americans (83%), members of other non-Christian religions (80%), and Jewish Americans (77%). By contrast, a majority of white evangelical Protestants (54%) believe empathy can become dangerous when it leads people away from building a society guided by God’s truth.

Here’s the breakdown by party:

(Btw, “not strongly agree” seems to mean “agree, but not strongly” and not “disagree”. Grammatically correct but a little confusing if you don’t read it carefully…)

See also How empathy came to be seen as a weakness in conservative circles.

Tags: politics · religion · usa

Mejuri Promised Affordable Luxury. Then the Jewellery Giant Lost Its Shine.

The Annual Interactive Fiction Competition is a yearly festival that invites the world to share, play, and judge new works from independent text adventure creators. IFComp has been running since 1995, which makes it the world's oldest continuously operational exposition for non-commercial video games. This year there were over 75 entries. And the winners for 2026 are ... (spoilers) ...

1. SCAVS, by David Hunter
2. Tableaux Vivants, by Lamp Post Projects
3. The Count and the Communist, by Tristan Pun (Also winner of the Miss Congeniality and Rising Star awards)

Full results here. All games should be playable in two hours or less (some much less!). More history of the competition and past winners. This year has seen a huge variety of games, including a duck-themed social media site simulator, an educational game written in Hittite, and Ultraviolent Unicorn Deathmatch of Destiny 4 (set in the HR department). All these can be played for free, online, in a browser. For thousands more games check out the Interactive Fiction Database. (Previously: 2025, 2018, 2015, 2011, 2009, 2007, 2006.)

I first heard the Cramps courtesy of my friend Bill Hussey in 1985. He lent me the tape of the Cramps’ album Bad Music for Bad People. I loved the cover art, so I was intrigued to hear it. I vividly remember listening to”Garbageman” on my boombox for the first time as I was setting up a new skateboard. I was slightly unsure about the twanginess of it, because anything with a country flavor to it was seen as supremely un-punk. Fortunately, “Garbageman” began with the lyrics “You ain’t no punk, you punk… you wanna talk about the real junk”, which gave the Cramps enough punk cred for me to give their music a chance. Bad Music for Bad People is a definitive classic album with songs like “Human Fly,” “Love Me,” and “Uranium Rock.” I was also intrigued that the founders of the band, Lux Interior, and Poison Ivy Rorschach were romantic partners. There were not that many women in punk bands and Poison Ivy was as cool as they come… with beauty and style for miles! I love the Cramps’ distinctive visuals. From their cover art to photoshoots, the Cramps had a dark, campy Rockabilly goth image with a pinch of sexiness in lead guitarist Poison Ivy, who always wore fishnet stockings and never seemed to age. I saw the Cramps a couple times in Providence, including on their 1990 Stay Sick! tour. That show was one of the best I’ve ever seen, with lead singer Lux Interior climbing up the speaker stacks, humping them and, and jumping back to the stage, all while perfectly maintaining his black magic possessed Elvis vocals. Poison Ivy made perfect fuzzed out riffs look effortless and she happened to have her normally curly hair straightened on that tour. I feel very lucky that photographer Huib Rutten was willing to let me illustrate from his fantastic photo of Poison Ivy from the same era. I think the Cramps are one of the greatest bands ever and exuded a primal sleazy swagger with unique wit and style.
-Shepard

PRINT DETAILS: Poison Ivy of The Cramps. 24″ H x 18″ W. Screen print on 80# cream Speckletone paper. Signed by Shepard Fairey. Numbered edition of 550. $75. Available on Thurs, Oct. 29 @ 10 AM PDT at Obey Giant Store.

The post Poison Ivy of the Cramps – New Screen Print Available Thursday, Oct. 29th at 10AM PT! appeared first on Obey Giant.

U.S. First Lady Melania Trump said the ceasefire had been expanded beyond Oleshky within the wider Kherson region to allow safe passage for humanitarian convoys.

Four men on trial charged with sexually assaulting Joanne Young while she was sedated, restrained and blindfolded

A woman’s world was “tilted on its axis” when she discovered that for years her former husband had been drugging her and inviting men into their family home to sexually assault her while she was restrained and blindfolded, a court has been told.

Businessman Philip Young advertised his then wife, Joanne Young, on dating and swinging websites, presenting it as a “kink” for both of them, Winchester crown court heard.

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Whether using chatbots for childcare or taking up smoking, a new affliction is sweeping through the tech world. Here are the signs

In the least surprising news you’ll hear all week, Elon Musk has said he’s not entirely right in the head. “I’ve got a little bit of cyber psychosis,” the world’s richest and most irritating man explained during an event this month. “Maybe a lot actually.” Musk added that, over “various points this year”, he’s had “AI or SI psychosis probably half a dozen times”. SI, in case you missed the super-important memo, stands for “superintelligence” and it’s what Donald Trump wants everyone to call AI now, for reasons too stupid to explain.

While the phrase SI is still being used 0nly by weaselly tech bros desperate for Trump’s approval, you’ll probably have heard the term “AI psychosis” bandied around a lot. On the most serious level, it refers to delusional thinking induced or exacerbated by sycophantic chatbots. People who have ploughed their life savings into a ridiculous business idea, for example, because computer code told them they were the next Jeff Bezos. But the phrase has also been used more jokingly to describe overexuberance around artificial intelligence, and that seems to be how Musk was using it. The comments about his self-diagnosed bouts of cyber psychosis came as the tech mogul waxed lyrical about how great AI music videos have become, and how he believes artificial intelligence now “understands beauty and harmony”.

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Hisa-nori has added a photo to the pool:

Three Jizō statues stand quietly beneath the forest canopy, their vivid red bibs contrasting with weathered stone and deep green moss. Framed by the towering cedar, they seem to belong to a world where time moves a little more slowly.