Thomas Hawk posted a photo:
The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world
Continue reading...Voting is under way in Sweden in a high-stakes election that could lead to the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD) entering government for the first time. It comes after an unusually heated and polarised campaign punctuated by personal attacks between leaders, accusations of misinformation and Maga-inspired ads. The Guardian's Europe reporter and live blogger Jakub Krupa asks voters in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, what they're hoping for
Continue reading...Elkie Brooks looks back: ‘Before I went on stage I used to drink Guinness and a few shots of brandy’
The singer-songwriter on her rock’n’roll past, playing second fiddle to the Beatles, and the key to being an energetic performer in your 80s
Born Elaine Bookbinder in Salford in 1945, Elkie Brooks is a rock, blues and jazz singer known as the British Queen of Blues. She spent much of the 1960s on the cabaret circuit, during which time she supported the Beatles. She joined Dada in 1970, before forming Vinegar Joe with Robert Palmer in 1971. She went solo after their split, breaking through with Pearl’s a Singer and Sunshine After the Rain, scoring 13 UK Top 75 singles. A celebration of six decades in music, The Long Farewell Tour, is now on the road.
This is me in a white jumpsuit outside the Royal Albert Hall in London. I have very few memories of the gig, but I know I would have felt daunted as it’s such a large venue. To overcome the nerves, I’d have tried to focus on the music and remembered, “It’s just another gig.”
Continue reading...Conversations are supposed to be two-sided – but all too often we come up against someone who’s passionately, exclusively in love with the sound of their own voice. Time to fight back …
When I was in my early teens, I was often invited round to a schoolfriend’s house for dinner. Her family struck me as wildly progressive: they were Danish and indulged in all sorts of “out-there” activities – fondues, candle-making and, most terrifying of all, the talking stick.
Before the meal was served, someone would retrieve the sacred broom handle and it would be passed around the table. You could speak only if you had possession of the stick. Despite it being the most stressful thing ever (it meant being in the spotlight, and then remembering to keep quiet the rest of the time), I now frequently yearn for a more convenient version of that stick.
For example, I met a friend recently who I see infrequently but keep up with via voice notes. No sooner had we sat down than he launched into a long discourse about his new marathon training food plan. He only broke the flow to order an omelette: “Four egg whites, two yolks, is that possible?” (We were in my local greasy spoon, so the request was greeted with mirth.) When we left, 90 minutes later, he finally had the grace to turn to me and ask: “And how are things with you?”
Walking home, I felt a mixture of disappointment and irritation. Had he always been so self-absorbed? So uninterested in anyone else? I couldn’t help wondering if our one-sided virtual updates had played a part in the problem.
There is a name for this type of egocentric behaviour – “conversational narcissism”. Although it was coined by the sociologist Charles Derber in his 1979 book The Pursuit of Attention, the term seems more relevant than ever. “WhatsApp communication and voice notes are really a series of monologues,” says Charlotte Fox Weber, a psychotherapist. “In face-to-face situations, people are forgetting how to pause naturally, to make space to hear and listen. And people are chatting on the phone – an activity that at least requires turn-taking in a defined way – much less often.”
A lot of our communication online can feel weirdly transactional, focused on logistics or niche WhatsApp groups. According to Tamu Thomas, a life coach and author, this has damaged the art of improvised conversation. “People have less capacity for meandering conversations that don’t have a purpose,” she says. “A good dialogue is a back-and-forth between two people discovering new things about each other, even if they have known each other for years. Because there are now so many different channels available to stay in touch, some people are confusing communication with connection.”
Knowledge is power, though. If you can recognise the five types of common conversation hogger, it will be much easier to handle them.
Thirty years after a US ornithologist first sighted a jocotoco antpitta, the foundation he set up to restore biodiversity is a model for conservation globally
I have to confess that I rarely enjoy birding in montane cloud forests. The birds that live in these mountainous, cool and humid habitats are masters of disguise, usually passing themselves off as a leaf or other form of foliage. But if I want to see antpittas – elusive, ground-dwelling birds that rarely show themselves – then I have no choice.
So, on a cool, cloudy morning my guide, Juan Carlos Crespo, Fredy Ramón Castillo, a local ranger, and I are standing on a steep, muddy path close to Tapichalaca Lodge, 2,500 metres above sea level in the eastern Andes, waiting for the jocotoco antpitta to emerge from the undergrowth.
Continue reading...An unholy alliance is working toward an apocalyptic future from which only a chosen few will emerge unscathed. It’s becoming clear how we stop them
Continue reading...No matter how long you’ve had your licence, there’s always scope to improve your skills behind the wheel. Driving instructors share their tips on how to be a better motorist
Whether you have just passed your test or been behind the wheel for decades, driving skills can always be sharpened up. From dealing with road rage to traffic jams, tight parking spaces to hire cars, driving instructors share their tips on how to be a better motorist in the most challenging scenarios.
Continue reading...The subversive bacchanal for San Francisco’s eccentric underground is ageing out amid an influx of the super-rich
Burning Man, the infamous arts festival in the Nevada desert, turned 40 this year, and it’s showing some distinct signs of middle age.
It’s not just the tech billionaires who show up to party, the chartered flights straight to the desert or the HBO documentary about behind-the-scenes power struggles. The tens of thousands of people who assemble each year to create a tent city in the wilderness appear to be growing older, and it doesn’t seem that they’re being replaced by as many younger “burners”, as festival participants are called.
Continue reading...
Ik hoorde op NPO Radio 1 dat columns tegenwoordig vooral door AI worden geschreven. Ik schrok: dan kon ik wel inpakken.
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Door de warme en droge zomer was de muggenoverlast laag, blijkt uit meldingen van Muggenradar. Dat betekent niet dat het gevaar op overdraagbare virussen als westnijl afneemt, zegt onderzoeker Arnold van Vliet.
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Terwijl het zeewater in hoog tempo opwarmt, blijkt financiering van oceaanwetenschap onzeker. Vertrekkend NIOZ-directeur Han Dolman: „Ik denk dat we van de oceaan eigenlijk nog veel meer ellende kunnen verwachten.”
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MISANO (ANP) - Marc Márquez heeft in de Grote Prijs van San Marino zijn vijfde zege van dit seizoen geboekt in de MotoGP. De Spaanse wegracer nam met de winst op het circuit van Misano de leiding in de WK-stand over van zijn landgenoot Jorge Martín. De twee rijders hebben evenveel punten, maar regerend wereldkampioen Márquez heeft meer GP's gewonnen dit jaar.
De Italiaan Marco Bezzecchi zorgde voor de grootste sensatie in San Marino. Hij startte van poleposition en reed ook aan kop na de eerste bochten, maar tegen het einde van de eerste ronde ging de Italiaan hard onderuit op zijn Aprilia.
Zijn crash maakte de weg vrij voor Márquez op zijn Ducati. De zevenvoudig wereldkampioen nam de leiding over, maar moest nog wel zien af te rekenen met Martín en zijn jongere broer Alex Márquez. Dat lukte. Martín wist Márquez weliswaar even van de koppositie te verdringen, maar de rijder van Aprilia viel tegen het einde van de race terug en eindigde als vijfde. Alex Márquez drong wel aan bij zijn broer, maar kon hem niet bedreigen.
YANBU (ANP/RTR) - De uitval van een belangrijke pijpleiding in Saudi-Arabië dreigt te leiden tot een verlies van 4 procent in het wereldwijde olieaanbod. De oost-westpijpleiding is na droneaanvallen afgelopen vrijdag stilgelegd en daardoor kan er geen olie richting de havenstad Yanbu aan de Rode Zee. Daar is nog voor vijf tot zeven dagen aan exportvoorraad, melden bronnen aan persbureau Reuters.
De pijpleiding wordt normaal gebruikt om ruwe olie vanuit de Perzische Golf naar de Rode Zee te vervoeren. Dat was de afgelopen maanden extra belangrijk omdat olie-export vanuit de Perzische Golf flink is teruggelopen door de sluiting van de Straat van Hormuz.
Dagelijks worden er zo'n 4 miljoen vaten via de pijpleiding omgeleid naar Yanbu om vanuit daar geëxporteerd te worden. Als de pijpleiding binnen enkele dagen niet hersteld is, zal dat het wereldwijde energietekort verergeren en de brandstofprijzen verder doen stijgen.
DEN HAAG (ANP) - De A12 bij Den Haag is zondag vanaf 14.30 uur weer vrijgegeven voor verkeer na een blokkade van Extinction Rebellion (XR). Ongeveer dertig leden van de klimaatactiegroep liepen rond 13.00 uur de oprit naar de Utrechtsebaan bij het Malieveld op. Zoals bij eerdere acties gaf de burgemeester van Den Haag vrijwel direct de aanwijzing de blokkade te beëindigen.
Na ongeveer een uur begon de politie met aanhoudingen. Eerst werden zes mensen individueel uit de groep gehaald. Die begonnen volgens een politiewoordvoerder met het blokkeren van de snelweg. De rest van de groep werd vervolgens in een bus geplaatst. Als laatste werd een demonstrant in een rolstoel door agenten de bus in getild, was te zien op een livestream van de groep.
De blokkade van XR trok zoals gebruikelijk ook publiek dat vanaf de voetpaden boven de A12 naar de actie keek. Zeker twee mensen gooiden daarbij iets naar de demonstranten wat op etenswaren leek. Een persoon werd daar later op aangesproken door agenten, zag een verslaggever.
ozipital has added a photo to the pool:
We were out for an Uluru twilight light show when we noticed a beautiful sunset scene towards Kata Tjuta (The Olgas). I only had my phone as I wasn't expecting photography to be permitted at the show, but I think this worked out OK.
Even for 1982, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum had poor sound: a piezoelectric speaker that could beep. But you can do a lot with a single bit if you turn it on and off really fast. Michael Martin's Bumbershoot Software site has done some fascinating deep dives into several long-gone computer systems, including a whole series on implementing a game on the ZX Spectrum, starting in May with Giving the ZX Spectrum a Fair Shake. More recently, though, Martin turned his attention to the Spectrum's very limited sound capabilities. As we write, his newest post is Experimenting With 1-Bit Sound. The post concerns the original 16K and 48K ZX Spectrum models, not the Spectrum 128, with its fancy AY-3-8912 sound chip (also found in the US Timex Sinclair 2068). Even as devoted Spectrum enthusiasts, we didn't expect an article about the machine's limited sound hardware to lead to hours of listening pleasure. The Manic Miner intro music, after all, is a fair representation of early Spectrum chiptunes. (Turn your speakers way down before you listen!) The ZX Spectrum could play music from the outset – Steven Vickers' original Spectrum BASIC Manual includes the code for a tiny fragment of Mahler. As The Register reported in 2015, Matt Westcott's Mahler Project used a networked collection of original Spectrum computers to play all the parts of Mahler's First Symphony. Over at Bumbershoot Software, Martin is interested in programming the very limited hardware of these early home computers, and so his Spectrum audio post discusses audio-encoding methods, pulse-width modulation, and more in considerable depth. Toward the end, it links to a remarkable music demo called We are Vocoders. A discussion among Spectrum aficionados on Hacker News then led us to the astounding work of Tim Follin in the 1980s. (The Video Game Music Preservation Foundation has an excellent profile, including a contemporary photo. Dean Benfield's touching tribute to his brother Geoff has a more recent picture.) Follin hand-coded the music for Spectrum games such as Mastertronic's Agent X… And indeed Agent X II… And Raw Recruit… There are many more remarkable Follin tracks, including the music for Future Games, and the title music for Chronos. Follin achieved this without additional hardware such as the RAM Music Machine – which even impressed the great Aphex Twin. There are also some very impressive demos, such as Dark Fusion by the late Ben Daglish. Rich "Tufty" Hollins even created an entire half-hour album of one-bit audio, ON and OFF. You can listen to it in its entirety on Bandcamp, or accompanied by some Spec-tastic graphics on YouTube. ®
We zullen niet zeggen dat het een geweldig seizoen is, maar wat is het toch stiekem een geweldig seizoen. Goed ja ja natuurlijk zijn de auto's nog steeds aardig ruk en is het inhalen een kunstmatige aangelegenheid, MAAR we hebben op 2021 na heel wat jaren gehad met maar één allesverslindend topteam dat hele races in eigen hand had, en dat was ook niet alles. Dit seizoen is dat toch anders en zitten de teams, ondanks dat Mercedes in principe wel het nummer uno team is, vrij dicht op elkaar, waardoor we zelfs iemand als Gasly polesitter mogen noemen. Vandaag start de race op de Madring dan ook met vier verschillende teams in de top vier. Precies wat we wilden, precies wat we kregen. Daarom ploffen we deze zondagmiddag heerlijk relaxed op het bankie met één, twee of misschien wel drie versnaperingen op grijpafstand en gaan we gewoon lekker Formule 1 koekeloeren. Stijlloze voorspelling: veel safety cars, veel rode vlaggen en MAD MAX VERSTAPPEN WINT DUH!
Update - BOTSAUTOOTJES. Maar iedereen rijdt nog. Verstappen naar P2.
Update - HUH Verstappen moet kennelijk een plek teruggeven, leek toch dat hij moest uitwijken voor Hamilton.
Update - Verstappen levert twee plekken in, aan Antonelli en aan Hamilton. Onzin.
Update - VSC: Fijn moment voor Verstappen.
Feyenoord reist vanmiddag af naar Zwolle voor een uitwedstrijd tegen PEC. De Rotterdammers willen het goede resultaat van de overwinning in Nijmegen doorzetten, waar zij doordeweeks nog hard uitgleden in Camp Nou. Tegen PEC Zwolle heeft de ploeg van Giovanni van Bronckhorst dé kans om de rug te rechten. Om 16:45 uur wordt er afgetrapt in het MAC³PARK stadion.
