Mr Mikage (ミスター御影） posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Misschien zit u nu wel in Spanje (aan de Costa). Of in Zuid-Frankrijk (aan de Côte). Voelt u het dan, hoe dichtbij het ineens allemaal komt? Nee niet die bosbranden, DE FINALE! Die komt er nu, na ongeveer om en nabij plusminus een maand voetballen, nu echt aan. Maar eerst nog even de halve finale. Kylian Mbappé trekt met zijn Napoleontische oorlog rap over de trottoirs van dit wereldkampioenschap en bestormde al heel wat Bastilles, alleen vindt hij nu voor het eerst een ware matador op zijn pad: Lamine Yamal. En weet u, dat is een confrontatie waar je U tegen zegt. Dé wedstrijd voor dé kans op de Coupe du Monde dan wel de Copa del Mundo. Naderhand zal Deschamps dan wel De la Fuente zeggen: de halve finale was de finale. Stijlloze voorspelling voor deze toppot: 3-2 voor Mbappé en zijn garçonnnetjes. Laat ons nu genieten, het maakt helemaal geen mallemère uit of u nou van Frans bier (bleh) of van Spaans bier (bleh) of van Franse kaas (yum) of van Spaanse worst (yum) houdt, vanavond pleuren we alles bij elkaar op een heerlijke plateau met buikbeugel en gaan we lekker kijken naar een schitterende halve finale op het WK Voetbal!
Update - Nog een beeeetje aftasten de eerste quatorze minuten hè.
Update - HIJ GEEFT EEN PENALTY. Domme Digne geeft Yamal een schop onder z'n hol.
Update - OOOOOOOOOYARZABALBALBALBAL knalt m binnen! 0-1 Spanje. Wel goed voor de wedstrijd dat Spanje eerst scoort. 
Update - Cervezatijd.
Update - RUST

Frankrijk?

Social

Of Spanje?

Social

Maar 't mag natuurlijk ook gaan over Ali B of Trump of padel!

Eindelijk eindelijk eindelijk. De NS stelt orde op zaken en rekent voorgoed af met vertragingen tuig dat praat in de stiltecoupé tuig dat NS-personeel mishandelt tuig dat meurende rijstwafels of een broodje gekookt ei eet in een volle trein tuig met een koptelefoon die zo hard staat dat iedereen in de coupé zijn kutmuziek moet aanhoren tuig zonder kaartje asielzoekend tuig zonder kaartje tuig dat keihard zit te bellen tuig dat links stilstaat op de roltrappen tuig dat daar iets van zegt station Almere Centraal station Almere Muziekwijk station Almere Oostvaarders alle andere stations in Almere grote groepen scholieren grote groepen bejaarden dagjesmensen mensen die voor hun werk met de trein reizen mensen in het algemeen treinen in het algemeen autisten die treinen cool vinden autisten met treinen op zolder mensen met Joden op zolder mensen die Joden op de trein willen zetten Kedeng Kedeng Wouter Koolmees TUIG DAT HUN TAS OP EEN STOEL NEERZET. Mag niet meer. Ook niet als het helemaal niet druk is in de trein. Dus denk erom, anders krijg je tikken van de de NS-BOA. FOEI!

We kennen islamitische scholen natuurlijk als bakens van vreedzaamheid, kennis, kunde en wat aap noot dies meer zij, dus als stoute leerlingen die vreedzaamheid bedreigen, dan moet er soms worden ingegrepen. Maar islamitische basisschool De Vijf Pilaren zou er wat straffen betreft nogal wat eigenzinnig, om niet te zeggen middeleeuws in staan. De vader van een 12-jarige leerling heeft namelijk aangifte gedaan van LIJFSTRAFFEN door de juf van groep 8: "Hij had slagstrepen op de zijkant van zijn buik," zo vertelt de vader aan Omroep West. Voorzitter van het College van Bestuur van onderwijsstichting Yunus Emre reageert: "De veiligheid en het welzijn van onze leerlingen staan voor ons voorop. Iedere melding over mogelijk grensoverschrijdend handelen wordt daarom serieus genomen en zorgvuldig onderzocht." 

Maar de vader hoort naar eigen zeggen helemaal niks meer van de school en het OM bevestigt wel dat de aangiftes zijn gedaan maar ziet te weinig aanknopingspunten voor strafrechtelijk onderzoek. Tja, komt juffie Ans of Bouchra wellicht zomaar weg met dergelijke hekserij. Misschien dat de inspectie eens een kijkje kan nemen om te zien of die Vijf islamitische Pilaren niet toevallig bestaan uit: 1. Kinderen beuken met bezems. 2. Jongens en meisjes gescheiden ingangen aanbieden. 3. In Allah geloven. 4. Democratie en de vrije westerse samenleving afwijzen. 5. Moskeescholen als voorbeeld nemen.

New York has become the first U.S. state to impose a moratorium on large new data centers, pausing construction for one year over concerns that AI-driven data center growth is raising utility bills, straining water supplies, and burdening communities. "As data center development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it's my responsibility to take action and lead," said New York Governor Kathy Hochul. She will also pursue legislation to repeal sales tax exemptions for large data centers, Hochul added. Reuters reports: The construction ban will apply to data centers that use 50 megawatts or more of power, officials in the governor's office said. During the moratorium, the state's Department of Environmental Conservation will not issue any discretionary permits not already deemed complete, the governor's office said. Instead, Hochul directed state officials to develop a Generic Environmental Impact Statement to ensure that new data centers coming online are held to "consistent standards," as well as examine the potential environmental impacts of the construction and operation of data centers in the state. The ban will be lifted once the state finalizes those standards, according to Hochul's office.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: StubHub and its CEO, Eric Baker, have been hit with a proposed $5-million class-action lawsuit in the United States over the company's ties to large-scale scalpers -- connections reported by CBC News last week. The suit, filed Monday by New York ticket buyer Louis Sanquini, alleges deceptive practices and fraudulent misrepresentation over StubHub's promoting itself as a "marketplace for fans to buy and sell tickets." The online ticket resale giant has faced a storm of customer complaints after cancelling thousands of World Cup tickets. The company has repeatedly said it is simply a technology platform that does not buy, sell or possess tickets. However, CBC reported last week that Baker disclosed in recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that he runs Andro Capital, a hedge fund that engages in large-scale resale of millions of dollars' worth of sports and concert tickets on the StubHub resale platform.

Sanquini filed the proposed class action in the Southern District of New York, arguing consumers were kept in the dark and that he believed StubHub was a "neutral" marketplace. Lead counsel Kevin Steinberg told CBC News in an emailed statement that "consumers deserve honesty and transparency." A CBC investigation found that the CEO of online ticket reseller StubHub owns and manages a hedge fund that scalps millions of dollars of its own tickets. "While what StubHub is alleged to have engaged in and perpetrated upon millions of patrons is unfathomable, this case is about transparency and consumer trust. If companies make representations to the public, consumers are entitled to expect that those representations are complete and accurate," he said.

The claim reads: "Defendants' failure to disclose this conflict of interest, while affirmatively marketing StubHub as a fan-to-fan marketplace, deceived Plaintiff and the Class and caused them to pay prices, and accept terms, they would not have accepted had the truth been known." Sanquini argues that had he known StubHub's CEO held a financial interest and that the company was helping finance professional resellers, he would never have used the resale site to buy tickets to see rock band Kiss in 2023 or to attend a New York Red Bulls-New York City FC Major League Soccer match in 2024.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Tuesday paused incomplete state environmental permit applications for large datacenters while officials work out new rules, a process expected to take up to a year. The order makes New York the first state to enact such a moratorium amid growing concerns over AI datacenters' impact on utility rates and public health. “New York has always been at the forefront of innovation and change but we’ve also always guaranteed that New Yorkers benefit. As data center development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it’s my responsibility to take action and lead,” Hochul said in a canned statement. The order specifically targets large hyperscale datacenters capable of consuming at least 50 MW, subject to exemptions for manufacturing, research, education, and medical facilities. Prior to the AI boom, 50 megawatts would have been considered a large cloud campus. While datacenter campuses now often demand gigawatts of power, the moratorium doesn't preclude all AI bit barns. Fifty megawatts is still enough power for roughly 20,000-30,000 modern GPUs. The moratorium won’t last and is instead aimed at providing state officials time to develop and enact rules designed to ensure large-scale buildouts don't hurt New Yorkers. The portable generator units used while bit barn builders wait for grid connections and improvements have come under fire due to their impact on air quality. Elon Musk's Colossus 2 DC is now facing legal challenges over alleged Clean Air Act violations tied to the use of these generators. Over the next year, the executive order directs New York's Department of Public Service (DPS) to develop a generic environmental impact statement (GEIS). Officials will use this to evaluate proposed datacenter projects' environmental, public health, and grid impacts. The order directs the state's economic development agency, Empire State Development, to develop a framework to help local communities negotiate benefits like infrastructure improvements or financial support for community programs in exchange for letting bit barns in their backyards. Finally, DPS will consider establishing a fund that datacenter operators may be required to pay into, including a possible insurance pool to protect ratepayers from stranded grid costs tied to projects that are delayed, scaled back, or never materialize. The effect of datacenters on utility bills has become a national issue as several US states launched an inquiry into why, despite claims to the contrary, ratepayers are still paying more. US President Donald Trump isn’t keen on AI infrastructure making life more expensive for voters either — at least not any more than his infatuation with tariffs and the US war with Iran already have. In January, the president demanded Big Tech take responsibility for the power their datacenters consume. Alongside the moratorium, Hochul has promised legislation to end sales tax exemptions for datacenter. New York isn't the first to pursue a moratorium on new datacenters. Earlier this year, Maine became the first to pass a statewide moratorium on new bit barns, only for the measure to be vetoed by Governor Janet Mills. Going forward, New York's moratorium may now serve as a blueprint for other states to push back against the spread of datacenters. Having said that, capping datacenter campuses at 50 megawatts may not stop developers from pursuing multiple smaller sites across the state. While massive datacenters are needed to train frontier models, once they have been trained, those models can be served by much smaller facilities. There is also the potential for multiple smaller, but physically disparate datacenters to be stitched together using high speed, low latency interconnects like Nvidia’s Spectrum-XGS switches. These devices are designed exactly for this purpose. ®

Google DeepMind boss Demis Hassabis is calling for the US to establish a robust frontier AI model review process because, according to him, artificial general intelligence (AGI) “is probably only a few short years away" and we've got to figure it out before it's too late. That “probably” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in Hassabis’ lengthy, early-morning Tuesday post on X. Like commercially viable fusion power and practical fault-tolerant quantum computing, AGI seems perpetually asymptotic to the present moment, with needed technological advancements always the next step in the process. No amount of hyperbole - not even a Nobel laureate with skin in the game predicting an impact “perhaps 10x of the Industrial Revolution at 10x the speed” - makes the AGI timetable any more certain. Recall that Hassabis predicted in the beginning of 2025 that human trials of AI-designed drugs would come that year, and that still hasn’t happened either. Regardless of the questionable prognostications, the main argument in Hassabis’ essay – that we need to establish international standards for classifying AI safety and risk – is worth serious discussion, and his arguments for it are sensible. “I’m confident that mitigating the technical risks related to AI is a challenge we can collectively address, but only if we give ourselves the time and space to get this next crucial step right,” Hassabis said. “Currently, as a field and as a wider society, we aren’t doing that.” He’s got that right, at least. Hassabis proposes that the US ought to create a new standards body to evaluate frontier AI models in the same vein as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the private, industry-funded self-regulatory organization that oversees US broker-dealers under SEC supervision and is charged with protecting investors and safeguarding market integrity. The DeepMind CEO’s vision for an AI industry regulatory authority would begin with a board of tech experts and open-source representatives funded by the AI industry itself – a move that would “attract world-class technical talent” and ensure the body had enough hardware to run its various frontier model tests. FINRA is funded in a similar manner by the industry it purports to regulate, which has opened the door to criticism that it's basically a toothless insiders' club. Funding and conflict-of-interest concerns aside, the main task of the AI standards body Hassabis proposed would be to establish an assessment protocol for frontier AI models, and to determine what qualifies as a frontier model based on benchmarks it would also be responsible for setting. “Organisations with ‘Frontier Models’ as defined by those benchmarks would be deemed ‘Frontier Labs’, and be encouraged to adopt best practices, such as publishing model cards with technical details, maintaining strong internal cybersecurity, vetting key personnel, and providing sufficient resourcing for safety and security research, and more,” Hassabis explained. Hassabis proposed that submitting to such evaluations would be voluntary for frontier labs, at least at first – the model he proposes would give labs the option to voluntarily submit models for review 30 days before release until whatever assessment protocol the group makes up proves to be effective. He further proposes that frontier labs should be allowed to help the standards body develop those benchmarks – again, at least for a while until it gets up to speed. “Eventually the Standards Body should build up the technical capacity to create its own held-out tests independent of the Labs to prevent overfitting.” The hope is that this US-led effort would eventually lead to international frontier AI assessment standards, though whether the international community would stomach another imposition of US rules on the global stage is questionable at this point. The Trump administration has already proposed something similar for testing frontier AI models before their broader release. President Trump signed an executive order in early June directing the National Institute of Standards and Technology, alongside several other federal agencies, to develop a voluntary framework that would allow the government to review covered frontier models for up to 30 days before they are shared with select trusted partners. The effort is primarily aimed at evaluating advanced cybersecurity capabilities, and the order also calls for the development of classified benchmarks for assessing frontier AI models. Some critics argued the framework could give the government undue influence over which companies receive early access to frontier models, pointing to provisions governing collaboration with "select trusted partners." An independent standards body could avoid some of those concerns. Given concerns that financial industry pressure affects the outcome of FINRA work, however, even an independent AI standards body may not be enough to prevent financial influence from skewing its decisions. “The future is not yet written,” Hassabis concluded in his note. “We must use this precious window before AGI arrives to shape this technology for the benefit of all humanity.” Whether or not AGI is actually coming, the AI industry definitely needs someone to kick it into shape. The question of who can do it fairly – the industry itself or the government – isn’t one that’s been adequately answered yet. ®

De neerslag die komende week verwacht wordt, is onvoldoende voor „het verlichten van de droogte-effecten”. Dat schrijft Rijkswaterstaat dinsdag in de wekelijkse droogtemonitor.

Tijdens werkzaamheden dinsdagochtend brak brand uit in een leegstaand woon- en werkgebouw in de Belgische hoofdstad. De brand leek onder controle te zijn gebracht, maar spreidde zich uit naar de liftschachten waar werklui bezig waren.

De bestuurder is in juridische zin niet schuldig aan het ongeval in de zomer van 2020 waarbij de 14-jarige Tamar omkwam, aldus de rechtbank. Hij had gezien de omstandigheden niet ‘redelijkerwijs’ kunnen vermoeden dat hij een persoon had aangereden.

De grote natuurbranden die sinds zondag woeden in het bos van Fontainebleau, een ecologisch en cultureel belangrijk woud nabij Parijs, hebben 2.050 hectare natuur verwoest.

Sánchez was aangeklaagd vanwege een omstreden benoeming tot hoofd van twee conservatoria, volgens de aanklagers op voorspraak van zijn broer. De rechter verwierp de beschuldiging van corruptie.

De halve finale woensdagavond is voor zowel Argentijnse als Engelse fans beladen. Vooral oudere Argentijnen willen wraak om de jonge militairen die „als vogeltjes” zijn doodgeschoten tijdens de Falklandoorlog, de Engelsen vanwege de onbestrafte handsbal van Maradona. En ze willen Lionel Messi „op respectvolle wijze” met pensioen sturen.

In het waterschap Brabantse Delta is sinds deze dinsdag overdag een onttrekkingsverbod van kracht, zodat alle boeren ’s nachts over genoeg water beschikken.

MUSICAL HOLDOUTS is a 1975 documentary featuring musical cultures that remain distinct from the "melting pot" of mainstream American popular music. Without voiceover narration, it primarily showcases the musicians themselves with some interspersed interviews.

The first segment features Gullah Geechee clapping games/songs. Also included are bluegrass banjos, cowboy ballads, and singing by members of several tribes including Kaiwa, Pawnee, Wichita, Comanche, and Cheyenne people. The film closes out with some lovely old time and folk music by itinerant musicians. There's more information here on the incredible Folkstreams website. All of these musical cultures still exist in one form or another. This a testament both to the resilience of ordinary, often marginalized people, and evidence of the beautiful durability of music in all its forms. Music is infinite.

If you like graffiti, 50s advertising characters, stencils, and you don’t like the war… you’ll LOVE “Mr. Spray”!

This Mr. Spray letterpress is an image I originally created during the Iraq war, and unfortunately, not much has changed except one letter (it’s Iran now). “Make Art Not War” is a message I always want to promote along with an endorsement of expressing your beliefs by any means necessary! The streets and elsewhere are begging for you to exercise your First Amendment rights!
-Shepard

PRINT DETAILS: Mr. Spray. 13″ H x 10″ W. Letterpress on cream cotton paper with hand-deckled edges. Signed by Shepard Fairey. Numbered edition of 450. Obey publishing chop in lower left corner. Comes with a Digital Certificate of Authenticity provided by Verisart. $65. Available on Thursday, July 16th @ 10 AM PDT at https://store.obeygiant.com/. Max order: 1 per customer/household. International customers are responsible for any applicable import duties, taxes and customs fees due upon delivery, except for UK orders under $160 USD and EU orders. All Sales Final.

The post New Mr. Spray Letterpress Available Thursday, July 16th at 10AM PDT! appeared first on Obey Giant.

De datum stond al maanden rood gemarkeerd in de agenda van wielerploeg UAE: 14 juli (14 يوليو) is een bijzondere dag voor de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten, dus hoopte het oliestaatje vurig op een zege van één van haar UAE-renners. Vorig jaar ging de zege naar een Deen, Jonas Vingegaard, maar vandaag flikte Tadej Pogacar het voor de chauvinistische Arabieren!

Elke dag vieren de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten de grote welvaart in hun land, vooral dankzij de export van olie en gas. Dat doen ze op 14 juli óók. "Dat maakte het extra bijzonder om op deze dag te winnen", vertelde Pogacar na afloop van de tiende etappe aan de wielerpers. "Het was in 2024 en 2021 al een fantastisch gevoel om de Arabische Emiraten zó te verenigen op 14 juli. Daar gingen we vandaag ook weer vol voor. En morgen, overmorgen, en de dagen daarna óók."

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