Ach ja. ENGELAND - CONGO kijken

Mensen we liggen eruit. Koeman is weg. Frenkie is op vakantie. Virgil denkt na. Cody rouwt. De materiaalman ruimt op. De penaltynemers treuren. Maar we moeten toch iets kijken en we moeten toch iets kiezen. Afellay koos, wij kiezen ook. We zijn niet voor Duitsland, want Duitsland ligt er al uit, en anders waren we ook niet voor Duitsland. We zijn niet voor Frankrijk, want Frankrijk is zo goed. We zijn niet voor Marokko, want dan wordt de boel weer gesloopt. We zijn niet voor Canada, want dat is een saaie ploeg. We zijn niet voor Brazilië, want Vinicius is zo'n gare gast. We zijn niet voor Paraguay, want we zijn niet gevlucht. We zijn niet voor Mexico, want ze zeiken nog steeds over die pingel. We zijn niet voor Noorwegen, want Haaland is een beest. We zijn niet voor Ghana, want die schoppen zo veel. We zijn niet voor Colombia, al zijn we wel fan van hun exportproducten. We zijn niet voor Argentinië, want we zijn het nog niet vergeten. We zijn niet voor Egypte, want Caïro is zo goor. We zijn niet voor Australië, want ze kunnen niet voetballen. We zijn niet voor Algerije, want wij hebben rapper Boef al. We zijn niet voor Zwitserland, want daar is het zo duur. We zijn niet voor Portugal, want Ronaldo is een draak. We zijn niet voor Kroatië, want daar zijn ze zo oud. We zijn niet voor Spanje, veel te frivool. We zijn niet voor Oostenrijk, daar gaan we al skiën. We zijn niet voor Bosnië, want Dzeko is over de heel. We zijn niet voor de VS, zij mogen lekker gaan basketballen. We zijn niet voor België, want we zijn 1830 niet vergeten. We zijn niet voor Senegal, want die lopen van het veld. We zijn niet voor Kaapverdië, zij hebben Rotterdam al. We zijn niet voor Engeland, hun fans zijn zo stom. Wij zijn voor: CONGO. Nu live, Engeland tegen CONGO. Hup Congo!

MetaFilter

The past 24 hours of MetaFilter

Large flock of rare swift parrots seen near Port Macquarie

Large flock of rare swift parrots seen near Port Macquarie. The sighting of critically endangered parrots is seen as really exciting after hardly any were seen across New South Wales last year. But a bird expert warns the species still faces significant threats.

osanpo_1958

gnsk has added a photo to the pool:

osanpo_1958

The Guardian

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

Andy Burnham says ‘nothing off table’ in case of Rochdale grooming gang leader

Labour leader-in-waiting wants to close loophole preventing deportation of sex offender

Andy Burnham will explore “all possible options”, if he becomes prime minister, to close a legal loophole that prevented the deportation of a “vile” Rochdale grooming gang leader.

In his first significant intervention as Labour leader-in-waiting, Burnham said nothing would be “off the table” in the case of Shabir Ahmed, 73, who is expected to be released from prison on Thursday.

Continue reading...

England has just had its hottest June on record, Met Office data shows

Chief scientist says dangerous heatwaves, which are getting more likely, ‘bring home the implications of climate change’

The month of June was the warmest in England on record, driven by a searing heatwave in the final days of the month, which for the first time had red heat alerts for three days, according to Met Office data.

The Met Office said provisional statistics showed Wales and the UK as a whole had recorded their second-warmest June since 1884.

Continue reading...

Bayeux tapestry tickets generate nine-hour online queues as public scramble for access

Reports say up to 80,000 people waiting by mid-afternoon for chance to see historic artwork at British Museum

People keen to see the Bayeux tapestry faced online queues of up to nine hours when tickets went on sale for the first time on Wednesday morning.

The British Museum, which is hosting the wool-on-linen artwork from September, saw huge traffic to its ticketing website as a scramble for access began.

Continue reading...

At least 3.3m people were victims of Dutch enslavement, research claims

Figure is more than five times the widely used 600,000 figure widely cited in apologies by king and politicians

At least 3.3 million people were enslaved in the Netherlands during the transatlantic slave trade, research claims – more than five times the 600,000 figure widely used in history books and cited in apologies by the king and politicians.

King Willem-Alexander referred to the more than 600,000 people who were brought from Africa on Dutch ships to be sold as enslaved people when he apologised three years ago for the role of the Netherlands in the transatlantic slave trade.

Continue reading...

thexiffy

Last.fm last recent tracks from thexiffy.

Vive La Fête - Tout va Continuer

Vive La Fête

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Hostias

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

DJ Krush - Shin-Sekai

DJ Krush

kottke.org

Jason Kottke's weblog, home of fine hypertext products

You know sometimes you learn some ancient lore and...

You know sometimes you learn some ancient lore and suddenly some contemporary pop culture thing snaps into place? Anyway, I found out how Isadora Duncan died and now I better understand the “no capes” thing in The Incredibles.

VK: Voorpagina

Volkskrant.nl biedt het laatste nieuws, opinie en achtergronden

Pentagon moet NYT-journalisten zonder begeleiding toegang geven tot gebouw, oordeelt rechter

Trekkers keren terug naar Den Haag voor stikstofdebat: ‘Waarom wil je de boeren weghebben?’

Grapperhaus zette met grote tegenzin handtekening onder avondklok, maar vindt het achteraf wel ‘het goede besluit’

Wel.nl

Minder lezen, Meer weten.

Tennisser Sinner met de nodige moeite naar derde ronde Wimbledon

LONDEN (ANP) - Tennisser Jannik Sinner heeft zijn jacht op titelprolongatie vervolgd met een zege op de Portugees Nuno Borges in de tweede ronde op Wimbledon. De Italiaanse nummer 1 van de wereld had het niet gemakkelijk, maar won uiteindelijk met 7-6 (4) 7-6 (2) 6-4.

Sinner speelt in de derde ronde tegen de Amerikaan Jenson Brooksby, de mondiale nummer 81. De Italiaan veroverde vorig jaar voor het eerst de titel op Wimbledon. Daarnaast won hij de Australian Open twee keer (2024, 2025) en de US Open een keer (2024).


Gezin dat helemaal geen slachtoffer toeslagenschandaal was kreeg toch 7 ton

Een gezin dat in de hersteloperatie rond het Toeslagenschandaal bijna zeven ton aan compensatie ontving, blijkt volgens de rechtbank Midden-Nederland „met de kennis van nu” geen slachtoffer van vooringenomen handelen door de Belastingdienst te zijn. Hen was niets aangedaan; ze kregen toch heel veel geld, ontdekte NRC

Een gezin dat tienduizenden euro’s aan kinderopvangtoeslag moest terugbetalen en later ruim 690.000 euro schadevergoeding kreeg van de staat, is volgens de rechtbank Midden-Nederland niet vooringenomen behandeld door de overheid. Het oordeel volgt uit een zaak die twee inmiddels meerderjarige kinderen tegen het ministerie van Financiën aanspanden, omdat zij extra compensatie eisten bovenop eerder toegekende bedragen van 8.000 en 10.000 euro.

De Belastingdienst vorderde tussen 2006 en 2009 tienduizenden euro’s aan kinderopvangtoeslag terug van de moeder, die de toeslag had aangevraagd. In de eerste jaren leverde zij de benodigde bewijsstukken te laat aan, in 2008 en 2009 ontving zij bijna 50.000 euro toeslag zonder dat volgens de Belastingdienst kon worden aangetoond dat de kinderen daadwerkelijk naar de opvang gingen. De moeder maakte geen bezwaar tegen de terugvorderingen en betaalde het bedrag gespreid over acht jaar terug. Kennelijk vond ze het redelijk.

Tijdens de hersteloperatie Toeslagen werd de moeder toch als slachtoffer aangemerkt, omdat de overheid ervan uitging dat haar toeslagen zonder waarschuwing waren stopgezet. De rechtbank volgt nu echter het ministerie, dat stelt dat uit een interne brievenadministratie blijkt dat de Belastingdienst tussen 2007 en 2009 herhaaldelijk brieven stuurde met verzoeken om bewijs van het recht op toeslag. Omdat dat bewijs uitbleef, mocht de dienst de toeslagen volgens de rechters terugvorderen; de invorderingen waren hoog, maar niet onrechtmatig.

De zaak staat niet op zichzelf: NRC onthulde eerder dat duizenden ouders in de hersteloperatie mogelijk ten onrechte een schadevergoeding kregen, omdat jarenlang werd aangenomen dat hun toeslag zonder voorafgaande waarschuwingen was stopgezet. Volgens de landsadvocaat werd de onderliggende brievenadministratie pas in 2025 door de Auditdienst Rijk onderzocht en „juist en volledig bevonden”. Advocaat Cyriel Spiertz, die de kinderen bijstaat, noemt de redenering van de rechtbank „te kort door de bocht” en kondigt aan dat hoger beroep waarschijnlijk is.

Het vonnis voedt een ongemakkelijke vraag: hoeveel ‘slachtoffers’ van het Toeslagenschandaal blijken achteraf toch geen slachtoffers te zijn?


Zelensky verwacht vooruitgang EU-lidmaatschap onder Ierland

DUBLIN (ANP) - De Oekraïense president Volodymyr Zelensky verwacht dat de toetreding van Oekraïne tot de EU onder het voorzitterschap van Ierland zal worden voortgezet. Dat zei hij bij de overdrachtsceremonie van het halfjaarlijkse EU-voorzitterschap in Dublin.

De EU-toetredingsonderhandelingen bestaan in totaal uit zes onderhandelingsclusters, met ieder een eigen thema. Het eerste cluster dat nu wordt behandeld gaat over de rechtsstaat, mensenrechten en de rechterlijke macht in het land.

Een paar weken terug gingen de EU-leiders ermee akkoord dat het eerste zogeheten onderhandelingscluster tot EU-toetreding werd geopend voor Oekraïne. Zelensky dankte de leiders nogmaals en zegt erop te rekenen onder het Ierse voorzitterschap vooruitgang te boeken. "We kunnen nog vijf clusters openen. António, wat denk jij?", vroeg hij aan voorzitter van de EU-leiders António Costa. Costa antwoordde lachend dat hij het daarmee eens was.

Ierland neemt het voorzitterschap over van Cyprus.


Vijlbrief staat open voor extra toezicht bij worstelend UWV

DEN HAAG (ANP) - Minister Hans Vijlbrief (Sociale Zaken) staat open voor extra toezicht bij uitkeringsinstantie UWV. Dat heeft de D66-bewindsman gezegd in een debat met de Tweede Kamer, waar grote zorgen leven over de hardnekkige problemen bij de uitvoering van met name de uitkering bij arbeidsongeschiktheid (WIA).

Vijlbrief meldde vorige week dat de wachtlijst voor een WIA-beoordeling, ondanks ingrijpende maatregelen om de druk te verlichten, de afgelopen tijd weer langer is geworden. Het is om "moedeloos" van te worden, zei D66-Kamerlid Stephan Neijenhuis in het debat. "Ik heb nog niet het vertrouwen dat het goed gaat komen." Hij pleitte voor extra toezicht.

PRO-Kamerlid Mariëtte Patijn herhaalde haar pleidooi voor de aanstelling van een regeringscommissaris bij UWV. Vijlbrief sprak zich eerder uit tegen dit voorstel, maar erkende nu toch dat zo'n extra paar ogen van meerwaarde kan zijn. "Handig om daar iemand neer te zetten die er verstand van heeft." Hij beloofde snel na het zomerreces een aantal opties op een rijtje te zetten.


‘Honderden Nederlandse wetenschappers citeren onbestaande bronnen, toename hangt samen met opkomst kunstmatige intelligentie’

De stijging van zogenoemde spookreferenties nam een vlucht met de opkomst van kunstmatige intelligentie. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van De Groene Amsterdammer. Het fenomeen duidt op „onzorgvuldig gebruik” van AI, stelt het weekblad.

Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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Pluralistic: Technocarcinization (01 Jul 2026)


Today's links



Two crabs dance with their claws entwined; one has the Google logo on its back, the other, the Apple logo. Their audience is a much larger crab, bearing the Meta logo. The scene is set on a dune.

Technocarcinization (permalink)

"Carcinization" is a curious biological phenomenon: given enough time, across many environments, many species will evolve into crabs. The body-type of a crab, with its low center of gravity, sideways gait (useful for evading predators), ease of concealment and protected organs is suitable to many different environments:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation

Lately, I've watched the American Big Tech platforms as they underwent their own form of technocarcinization, which is when every tech company turns into Facebook.

A 2x2 grid. The vertical axis is labeled 'more surveillant.' The horizontal axis is labeled 'more control-freaky.' The top right quadrant has the Google logo. The top left, the Facebook and Instagram logos. The bottom left has the Apple logo. The bottom right has a Free Software Foundation Gnu.

For a long time, it seemed to me that you could make sense of the tech platforms by placing them into one of four quadrants on a 2×2 grid, in which one axis denoted "control freakishness" and the other, "surveillance."

Each quadrant had its own canonical company. The most surveillant/least controlling company (top left) was Google. They would let you roam the whole wide internet and exert no control over your conduct, but would spy on you wherever you went. The least surveillant/most controlling company was Apple, who imprisoned you in its manicured walled garden, but promised never to spy on you. The non-spying/non-controlling option is free/open source tech (of course), which doesn't care what you do, and doesn't watch you do it. And the most spying, most controlling company was Facebook, a company whose products did everything they could to imprison you within their virtual walls, from which vantage they could effect maximal surveillance.

I've used this comparison many times over the years. I included in my 2023 book The Internet Con, along with the joke that Tiktok's position on the grid was so far up and to the right (maximum surveillance and control) that we'd had to put its logo on the back cover. Enough people took this joke seriously and wrote in to complain that they'd gotten a misprint without the logo that we added it to the paperback:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

The grid was useful, until technocarcinization started to push all the tech companies into that top right quadrant. Apple is no longer the company that protects you from surveillance – they're the company that spies on you, having secretly added a total surveillance system to the iPhone to target ads to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Apple can't even claim to protect you from third-party surveillance. Sure, they block Facebook from spying on you, but they have barred ICE Block, an app that tells you if there are ICE chuds hunting in your neighborhood, looking to kidnap you and send you to a concentration camp. Apple declared ICE mercenaries to be a "protected class":

https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/06/rogue-capitalism/#orphaned-syrian-refugees-need-not-apply

And thanks to Apple's control-freakery – which prevents you from overriding Apple's decisions about your own devices – once Apple decides to spy on you or sell you out to fascist goons, there's nothing you can do about it:

https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

Then there's Google, the company that ran a free-range livestock operation in which you could roam wherever you liked, because they could always find you when it was time for the slaughter. For years now, Google has been moving inexorably to the kind of control-freak nonsense that you used to only find in one of Apple's crystal prisons.

For example, every year or two, Google floats a proposal to use secure hardware in your device to rat you out if you've got an ad-blocker, privacy blocker, or other aftermarket add-on that lets you choose how you experience the digital world:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

It's an idea they just can't quit, despite the fact that it's fucking abominable and everyone hates it:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/12/compelled-speech/#quishing

Google used to pride itself in its ability to send you to the open web, viewing search as a conduit to other peoples' resources. Now, with AI search summaries, Google is harvesting the open web and then eating the seed corn, keeping searchers inside of Google's walled garden:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/29/arsonist-firefighters/#im-feeling-lucky

Google also took the idea of a free/open browser and ran with it, rehabilitating some discarded Apple code and turning it into Chrome, the internet's most dominant browser – by far. Now, Google is nerfing that browser's plug-in architecture in a way that blocks all kids of user-tunable options, including and especially ad-blocking:

https://protonprivacy.substack.com/p/google-is-finally-killing-ublock

And Google has also announced that they're going to turn Android into an iPhone, making it both technically challenging and radioactively illegal for you to install software of your choosing on your own property:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/google-will-block-sideloading-of-unverified-android-apps-starting-next-year/

Google is adopting every one of Apple's worst practices, and Apple is adopting all of Google's worst practices, and so they're both turning into Facebook: technocarcinization!

What's driving this technocarcinization? Well, the obvious answer is that the more Facebooklike a company becomes, the more ways there are for it to rip you off. Surveillance can be monetized by selling your data, by ad targeting, and by surveillance-based pricing and wage-suppression:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/21/cod-marxism/#wannamaker-slain

Control lets platforms block competing products, extract massive junk fees to the businesses they connect you to, and control repair and end-of-life, forcing you to replace hardware by blocking parts and independent service:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/10/markets-are-regulations/#carney-found-a-spine

It turns out that "if you're not paying for the product, you're the product" is only half-right. The other half is, "even if you pay for the product, you're the product." Pay, don't pay: companies will productize anyone they can. And thanks to our enshittogenic policy environment – where the worst ideas of the worst people make the most money – you can always be productized:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/10/say-their-names/#object-permanence

This is independent of the kind of person running the company. Facebook is run by Mark Zuckerberg, a cringe halfwit whose only successful idea was to offer Harvard bros a way of nonconsensually rating the fuckability of female undergrads. Everything he's done since was an acquisition (Whatsapp, Insta) or a flop (metaverse, Libra), or both (Oculus). Zuck owns the majority of the voting stock in the company, which means he has total control over its actions. He can ignore or fire his board members at will. He is the move fast/break things guy, whose every foolish whim can become policy that impacts billions of people.

By contrast, Google and Apple are no longer run by their flamboyant founders, who were every bit as prone to folly as Zuck. They were constrained by their shareholders, which meant that the blast-radius of Steve Jobs's worst ideas (like treating his otherwise curable cancer with green juice) were confined to his own person.

Today, Apple and Google are run by bloodless business sociopaths who go to enormous lengths to project an air of sober adulthood. And yet, these people – who would never be caught dead bow-hunting their own livestock or climbing into an MMA cage – have steered their companies into Facebook's quadrant on our enshittification 2×2.

I think this shows just how much the enshittification of tech is a matter of the policy environment, not the personalities of the people involved. Sure, the worst people imaginable run these companies, but the reason they're able to yield to their most venal impulses and succeed is because the world has been re-arranged to make sociopathy and greed into fitness factors. We get technocarcinization because the most fit organism for a landscape without consequences is a zuckerbergian techno-crab:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

What can we do about it? Well, we're going to have to remake the landscape to punish (rather than reward) enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition

And in the meantime, there is one inhabitant of the 2×2 that hasn't drifted up and to the right: free and open source software. It's still snugly nestled in the low-surveillance/low-control box, and if you live in that box, your life will be much, much better for it.

There's no better time to make the switch: with RAM and storage prices through the ceiling and OSes growing ever-more bloated with AI and spyware (but I repeat myself), this is the moment to rehabilitate that old computer with Linux:

https://www.fosslinux.com/158206/linux-on-older-hardware-revival-guide.htm

The alternative is to be tormented by crabs no matter what you're trying to do or where you're trying to get to.


Hey look at this (permalink)



A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#15yrsago Print-on-demand and donations - report on DIY publishing business models https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/cory-doctorow/article/47858-with-a-little-help-heuristics.html

#15yrsago Brazil rises up for free speech in 40 national demonstrations https://globalvoices.org/2011/06/30/brazil-freedom-march/

#10yrsago Grandad builds miniature backyard Disneyland https://abcnews.com/Lifestyle/grandpa-builds-disneyland-inspired-backyard-theme-park-grandkids/story?id=40276633

#10yrsago Elizabeth Warren on monopolies in America, including Apple, Google, and Amazon https://washingtonmonthly.com/2016/06/30/elizabeth-warrens-consolidation-speech-could-change-the-election/

#10yrsago White House plan to use data to shrink prison populations could be a racist dumpster fire https://www.wired.com/2016/06/white-house-mission-shrink-us-prisons-data/

#10yrsago Even if Moore's Law is "running out," there's still plenty of room at the bottom https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/05/13/245938/moores-law-is-dead-now-what/

#10yrsago Black-hat hacker handles are often advertisements https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2016/07/web-semantics-modern-german-black-hat-hacker-handles/

#10yrsago Spotify threatens to report Apple to competition regulators over App Store rejection https://web.archive.org/web/20160630220301/https://www.recode.net/2016/6/30/12067578/spotify-apple-app-store-rejection

#10yrsago Researchers find over 100 spying Tor nodes that attempt to compromise darknet sites https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-24/dc-24-speakers.html#Noubir

#5yrsago Exxon lobbyist confesses to his crimes https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/01/basilisk-tamers/#exxonknew

#5yrsago When the Sparrow Falls https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/01/basilisk-tamers/#rage-against-the-machine


Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.



A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)



A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)



A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027



Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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