Right On Photography has added a photo to the pool:
Overhead shot of the pedestrian and boat bridge at Sea Rocks. The water colours are awesome
braart has added a photo to the pool:
The famous shipwreck on Victoria's 90 Mile Beach is the Trinculo, an 19th-century iron barque that ran aground in a gale in 1879
Keith Midson has added a photo to the pool:
Bicheno, east coast of Tasmania.
"And I just hope that I’m not too far gone
To remember this tomorrow
The stone that sends the circle travelling on the ripple chain effect
Epiphaneous moment
The one basic revelation
This may be, great epiphany my one great epiphany
I knew that there was something wrong inherent in repeat behaviour
And I’ve learnt my lesson well
The lighthouse warns of coming danger
Snaps me out from staring blankly at the picture frame
You see the words writ large, things I don’t believe in
All the things I don’t believe in
This could be that one sure-fire significant moment
The last carnival adventure
The one that wipes the trail of tears away and then turns them into song…" - David Bridie, 'Epiphany'
Trial had been set for Monday over claims by Alabama that TikTok misled parents about tools meant to shield children from harmful content
TikTok has agreed to pay Alabama at least $100m and enact time limits and other restrictions for teenage users, avoiding a trial with a settlement that was modelled on Instagram-owner Meta’s recent agreement with US states.
Alabama described it as a “first-in-the-nation settlement” with a state in the sweeping litigation over social media’s affect on teen wellbeing.
Continue reading...The creators and stars of Slam Frank on their off-Broadway production - which reimagines the Holocaust victim as a pansexual rapper
It’s difficult to not invoke the term “woke” when discussing Slam Frank, the 2025 musical that reimagines Anne Frank as a pansexual Latina. Controversial even before its first performance, it giddily satirizes identity politics through its show-within-a-show structure, in which a progressive theatre company attempts to modernize the Holocaust victim’s story by paralleling it to the struggles faced by marginalized people today. Here, the mother of “Anita” is Black, her father is neurodivergent and, while hiding in Amsterdam, they are very much immigrants.
Creator Andrew Fox recognizes “a temptation to categorize it as anti-woke art”, but points readily at the show’s fans and detractors, who fall across every conceivable party line, and cautions against one-note interpretations. “I think the piece is just trying to grapple with the last 15 years of cultural and intellectual upheaval and get some comedy out of it.”
Continue reading...Defeatist narratives abound. Yet Germany’s latest elections suggest voter dissatisfaction is benefiting the left as well as the right
Germany held three regional elections this month and, although each of them had a unique result, much of the media and political commentary reduced them to: “German chancellor clings to power after latest loss to far right. Since 2016, the year of Brexit and Trump, “embattled mainstream threatened by emboldened far right” has become the overarching narrative about Europe. But while these elections were important, this reductive take both oversimplifies the complexities of contemporary European politics and drives a defeatist “end of democracy” narrative.
Saxony-Anhalt’s election on 6 September was a global news event – understandably, given Germany’s history, economy and place in Europe. The international media had speculated for months about an outright majority for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). The party came close, setting a record score with 43.8%, but it has so far failed to form a government, despite the amenable position of the “left-conservative” Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance.
Continue reading...As winter approaches, Kyiv fears disruption to vital networks that keep banks, payment systems and public services running
Russia has opened a new front in its campaign against Ukraine, hitting several datacentres and internet providers in Kyiv this week in an apparent attempt to weaken the digital backbone of the economy.
About 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding region suffered temporary internet outages after strikes on Wednesday and Thursday, according to Ukraine’s digital transformation ministry.
Continue reading...
Bobby Fischer heard a knock at the door. It was sometime after ten A.M., Thursday, June 29, 1972. Three days before the first game of his match with Boris Spassky for the world chess championship. Eleven hours before the plane left for Iceland. How that famous chess championship almost didn't happen.
Two major resolutions were in front of the party's 31 members -- 13 of whom were absent -- on Wednesday. One, written by former District 4 supervisor Gordon Mar, called for the city to impose increased guardrails for Flock's automated license-plate readers, and to consider suspension of its contract with the city.
The other, written by committee chair Nancy Tung and District 6 supervisor and former police spokesperson Matt Dorsey, asked the group to affirm its trust in the city's existing use of Flock cameras. [...]
At Wednesday's San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee meeting, a majority voted to reject Mar's resolution and pass Dorsey's. Dorsey's measure received 11 votes in favor, 4 votes abstaining, and only 3 against. [...]
Both sides acknowledged that the city's Flock camera data was illegally accessed more than 1.6 million times in 2024 and 2025, with lots of those searches reaching out-of-state agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And, more recently, the San Francisco Police Department admitted around 300 out-of-state illegal searches had happened in the last year. [...]
Mar raised another concern: Two of the committee's current members -- Lily Ho and Trevor Chandler -- work for Flock. Last month, the San Francisco Standard reported that a prior version of Mar's resolution was removed from the party's agenda by a subcommittee chaired by Ho.
Neither Ho nor Chandler offered to abstain from voting on Wednesday. The committee does not have rules related to conflicts of interest for issues like this one, Tung told Mar. They then proceeded to count both Ho and Chandler's votes.
Today these so-called hacker houses are driven by missions, like the advancement of humanity, and have become critical nodes for the AI industry. Residents are often startup founders or engineers working at OpenAI or Anthropic. Rent can hit $10,000 a month for a room. [...]
Parties featuring psychedelic drugs and sharing of sexual partners are common, the people said. One house threw lavish events for the AI community so often that its owner claimed more than $200,000 of damage, including for a rodent infestation.
At the mansion in Hillsborough known as AGI House -- named for "artificial general intelligence" -- local police have logged 37 incidents since 2022. At least 17 were related to complaints about large parties and events, according to the reports. The others included an episode in December when a woman called police and told them that a male AGI House resident had pressured her to have sex; she climbed over a gate to escape. Last year, police were also asked at least four times to perform welfare checks, which typically happen when people experience mental health issues or are considered unsafe to themselves or others. [...]
Nixon said he planned to make AGI House even bigger. His concept involved "20 AI hackers, living in the same epic house for three months, 20 weekend hackathons, daily dinners with AI royalty, ship code again and again and again," according to Nixon's notes, which were released in court.
"This is a new golden age," Nixon said, according to the court documents.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously. 
Double crested cormorant; wolverine; rhesus macaque; marbled polecat
SCHINNEN (ANP) - Op de A76 ter hoogte van Schinnen is in de nacht van vrijdag op zaterdag rond 03.00 uur een persoon om het leven gekomen. De politie meldt dat het slachtoffer op het stuk snelweg tussen Heerlen en Geleen is geraakt door meerdere voertuigen.
Wat er precies is gebeurd, is nog onduidelijk. "We houden nu nog rekening met meerdere scenario's", meldt de politie. Door het politieonderzoek naar de toedracht is de snelweg in noordelijke richting afgesloten.