Het financieel uitgeknepen Nederlands Film Festival in Utrecht kreeg deze zomer veel kritiek. Met de relevante, maar zware openingsfilm ‘Downtown’ van Michiel van Erp kan het festival beginnen.

stan.jernigan has added a photo to the pool:

I took this photo of the pedestrian walkway along the waterfront at Nagasaki Seaside Park, known as the “Urakamigawa River Promenade,” with my iPhone 17 Pro Max during my visit to Nagasaki, Japan. The canal walk was calm, beautiful, and a delight to explore. It was one of the highlights of my visit…

Microsoft has ended 40 years of single-occupancy for Excel cells and is now allowing multiple values to inhabit the same home. "One of the oldest rules of spreadsheets: one cell, one value," said Jake Armstrong, senior product manager for Excel, in a LinkedIn post. "No longer!" "I’m excited to announce a set of new features: Lists, Arrays in Cells and Nested Arrays in Excel." For the time being, this capability is only available in Microsoft Excel for Windows and Mac Beta Channels. And it is opt-in. To make the case for lists in cells, Armstrong in a blog post explained that each Excel project can have multiple owners. "Traditionally, you'd need separate columns, helper tables, or text like 'Carlos, Henrietta, Jacob' packed into a single cell," he explained. "With lists, you can keep those values together in one cell while still working with each item individually. Project owners stay connected to the project they belong to, while remaining available for filtering, calculations, and analysis." And he goes on to cite the potential utility of arrays in cells and nested arrays for expanding the kinds of information that Excel spreadsheets can represent. Armstrong's enthusiasm for multi-value cells comes with a caveat that this is a preview feature and shouldn't be used in important workbooks until general availability. Among those commenting on Armstrong's LinkedIn post, several people suggested the change has the potential to break things and hinder auditability by making business logic less visible. External software libraries that expect cell.value to return only a string, number, boolean, or date may need to be updated to handle a new data type – though Microsoft hasn't yet published how lists, arrays in cells, and nested arrays will be represented in .xlsx XML. This includes libraries like openpyxl, pandas, and calamine. The same goes for applications that import Excel data and don't yet have any concept of multi-value cells, like CSV export, Google Sheets, LibreOffice, and older Excel builds. And users of Excel may need to flatten lists and arrays to make multi-value cells work with existing features like PivotTables, at least until those features have been adjusted to accommodate the new cell structure. ®

Bit barn builders can rejoice, because this week the US Department of Energy (DoE) announced $5.25 billion — including $1.9 billion of federal funds and $3.35 billion in cost-share funding — to support dozens of grid improvements across the nation expected to unlock an additional 23 gigawatts of capacity. The program, which spans 31 specific projects in 26 states, is part of the department’s Speed to Power through Accelerated Reconductoring and other Key Advanced Transmission Technology Upgrades (SPARK) initiative with federal funding made available under the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program. Uncle Sam sure does love his acronyms. “These investments will get more out of the infrastructure we already have, move more electricity across the grid, and help deliver affordable, reliable, and secure power that will fuel American prosperity for decades to come,” US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in a statement. Rather than bringing new power generation capacity online, the projects aim to unlock additional capacity by reconductoring or rebuilding more than 1,500 miles of transmission lines and deploying grid-enhancing technologies (GETs), like sensors, power flow control devices, and analytical tools across 21,000 miles of American grid infrastructure. Additionally, participants working in areas prone to natural disasters will work to improve grid resilience and mitigate wildfire risks. The agency claims the program will help improve reliability and lower electricity costs for roughly 100 million Americans. And, to quote former Senator Mitt Romney, “corporations are people, my friend.” And, of course, bit barns are run by corporations. While the program should help to address power constraints faced by datacenter operators as they attempt to cash in on the AI boom, it may not be enough. Earlier this month, financial services biz Moody’s warned that the pace of datacenter construction exceeds the speed at which the US grid can add the required capacity. By 2030, Moody's estimates US datacenter electricity consumption will reach 426 TWh, nearly double the 2025 figure. This reality has prompted a flurry of investment in alternative energy technologies, including small modular reactors, geothermal generation, and even the recommissioning of aging nuclear plants. Meanwhile, chipmakers like Nvidia are pushing hard for smarter, more connected, and by extension more efficient datacenters that can release capacity back to the grid when necessary. ®

Yes, criminals have job listings too. A Telegram user recruiting callers to work in an apparent Google Security Team voice-phishing scam told applicants that they weren’t allowed to read from scripts – in the same ad that also included the exact script they had to read during these scam calls. This and other true-crime tales of criminals making fools of themselves appear in the latest installment of the Trellix Advanced Research Center’s Dark Web Roast, which uses memes and mockery to troll criminals on the dark web. It also acknowledges: “While these incidents are genuinely amusing, they represent real criminal activities causing significant harm.” One of these incidents from August involves a Telegram user identified by Trellix as Derian (@crɑick) who posted an ad in the UK Fraudsters Telegram channel. “Hiring - Female/Male Mail Callers,” the advertisement said, seeking “USA/CA (white sounding)” applicants and, in bold, “NO SCRIPT READING.” The ad then proceeded to print the exact script the callers would read: “Good afternoon, this is [name] reaching you on behalf of the Google Account Security Team on a recorded line. Am I speaking with Larry Boyles?” The Trellix threat-intel analysts note that the “‘recorded line’ flourish is a nice touch, because nothing says legitimacy like a fraudster cosplaying compliance theatre. The pretexting playbook is depressingly effective, but the recruiter’s QA process is roughly as robust as the fake Google team it impersonates.” Burn, baby, burn. The Register previously spoke with Trellix VP of threat intelligence strategy John Fokker about the Dark Web Roast, and he said the idea came from a desire to take an "almost psyops" approach to covering the criminal underground. "We don't want to glorify them, what's the opposite we can do? We're going to roast them," Fokker told us during a conversation at RSAC. "I'm trying to spark a debate, or a healthy conversation, about what we can do as an industry," he said. "Everybody's glorifying threat actors, and that's not helping our customers or organizations. These are just individuals, they just use computers, and they just want to steal your data and make money. They're not mythical. They don't have superpowers." The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) recently reported its most damaging year for internet scams, with 2025’s data pegging reported losses at $20.87 billion, and English-language social engineering is among the most in-demand skill sets on underground forums. One report by threat detection and response firm ReliaQuest found the number of job advertisements posted on criminal marketplaces mentioning this particular talent more than doubled between 2024 and 2025. Plus, according to Google, voice phishing surged last year to become the second most common method used by cybercriminals to gain initial access to their victims' IT estate – and the No. 1 tactic used when breaking into cloud environments. So when these criminals do dumb things, we’re happy to see Fokker’s team call them out.®

Requiem for a dream, Sarah Theresa Lee

Succulent, Tom Leighton

Eraserhead, Ethan Llewellyn

What if America Went Completely Dark? “We came up with some very astounding numbers. If you knock out nine total substations among those three grids, you can black out the entire United States.” And it could last months?

DEN HAAG (ANP) - Het kabinet nodigt twintig steden uit om ook Regenboogstad te worden. Dat kondigde staatssecretaris Judith Tielen (Emancipatie, VVD) vrijdag aan. Momenteel zijn er 56 steden die zich in samenwerking met het ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschap inzetten voor lhbti-personen.

Welke steden worden uitgenodigd, is nog niet bekend. Maar volgens de woordvoerder van Tielen hebben verschillende steden al aangeboden om mee te doen.

Samen met de Regenboogsteden wil het kabinet zorgen voor betere veiligheid van lhbti-personen. Daarvoor stelt het Rijk 2,6 miljoen euro extra beschikbaar. De samenwerking tussen het ministerie en gemeenten wordt voortgezet tot en met 2029.

Negatiever

De uitbreiding komt mede door het rapport van het Trimbos-instituut en Universiteit Utrecht waaruit bleek dat Nederlandse jongeren de afgelopen vier jaar negatiever zijn gaan denken over homoseksualiteit, meldt de woordvoerder van Tielen.

Ook komen er tien nieuwe 'Veilige Steden' bij. Die werken onder meer aan een veiliger uitgaansleven.

KYIV (ANP/AFP/RTR) - Vijf mensen zijn om het leven gekomen bij Russische aanvallen op Kyiv, melden de lokale autoriteiten. De aanvallen vonden overdag plaats.

De afgelopen maanden zijn de drone- en raketaanvallen op Kyiv toegenomen. Russische aanvallen vonden traditioneel vooral 's nachts plaats, maar de afgelopen tijd voert Rusland vaker overdag aanvallen uit.

Ook nemen aanvallen met ballistische raketten toe. Deze zijn moeilijker te onderscheppen door Oekraïne. De door de VS ontworpen Patriot-luchtverdedigingssystemen zouden betrouwbaar de ballistische raketten van Rusland kunnen afweren. Sinds de VS en Israël in februari de oorlog met Iran zijn begonnen, meldt Oekraïne een tekort aan deze Patriots.

De Oekraïense president Volodymyr Zelensky benadrukte herhaaldelijk het belang van meer luchtverdedigingsmiddelen, met name Patriot-systemen. Hij deed dit afgelopen week nog tijdens zijn bezoek aan de VS.

Supreme Court restores Trump's mass voter verification system - "The Department of Homeland Security last year redesigned a federal database known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, ​or SAVE, used to verify a person's citizenship and immigration status. The revamp allowed users to search many records at a time and to conduct searches using individuals' Social Security numbers. Since then, several Republican-led states have compared their voter lists to the database, and some voters flagged as potential noncitizens have had their registrations canceled." (previously)

Advocacy groups that sued to block the revised SAVE system said that the new approach ‌has ⁠resulted in people who were wrongfully identified as noncitizens being kicked off voter rolls. They have argued that SAVE can be outdated, meaning immigrants who have become naturalized US citizens and are thus eligible to vote are sometimes labeled as noncitizens. The modified system's overall error rate is not publicly known. The Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department did not provide that information when asked.

Government can use Social Security data to identify noncitizen voters, Supreme Court rules - "The government acknowledged internally that the database could misidentify eligible voters as noncitizens and has an error rate of as high as 81 percent in some localities, the plaintiffs wrote in a filing with the Supreme Court." US Supreme Court lets Trump deploy voter database ahead of midterms - "Lawyers for the voting rights groups said the Trump administration had bypassed Congress and violated federal laws protecting Americans from government over-reach to build the master database. 'Disregarding these laws, the government has recklessly created an error-laden master citizenship database that endangers millions of Americans' privacy and voting rights,' they said." also btw...

• Republican Panic Sets In Over Prospects of a Massive Blue Wave - "The warning signs are coming in quickly from across the map—much on it from red states where President Trump won comfortably just two years ago. Outside groups backing the GOP are now spending in the millions on Senate races in once-safe territories like Nebraska and Kansas; South Carolina, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Arkansas are all drawing renewed attention amid fears of a historically massive blue wave."
• Cook nudges three Senate races toward Democrats - "In the latest Cook ratings, Kansas moved from 'Likely Republican' to 'Lean Republican.' South Carolina shifted from 'Solid Republican' to 'Likely Republican.' Georgia and the seat held by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) changed from 'Lean Democrat' to 'Likely Democrat.' There are six Republican-held Senate seats rated by Cook as a 'Toss Up' or better for Democrats. The Georgia shift makes a Republican pickup there less likely, while the Kansas move expands the map of competitive seats for Democrats."
• Republicans may have gerrymandered their way into a Texas-sized Latino problem - "A September poll of 1,000 Latinos in Texas conducted for Cook Political and TelevisaUnivision found that 18% of Latinos who voted for Trump no longer support him, and almost two-thirds of Latino voters would be less likely to vote for candidates who support Trump's immigration policies... The risk that redistricting backfires is particularly clear in the 15th District, which in its ⁠reconfigured form would have given Trump an 18-point win in 2024, compared with a two-point margin in 2020 and a 14-point loss in his first election in 2016."
• Texas Republicans Splinter as MAGA Candidates Test Party Limits - "Paxton is trailing Talarico in polls with less than six weeks until Election Day, and has been dogged by allegations of bribery, misuse of power, and adultery, as well as criticism from other senior Texas Republicans."
• 2026 Congressional Forecast - "FiftyPlusOne's election forecast model has Democrats at a 98% chance of winning the house & a 69% chance of winning the senate."
• 3 big questions as GOP nears moment of truth - "GOP groups had spent more than $450 million through Sept. 23, more than twice what Democrats had spent, according to campaign finance expert Rob Pyers. But Republican strategists say they aren't sure yet whether the barrage is working amid voter anger over high prices, data centers and Trump's war in Iran."
• Why are workers feeling so stressed? Maybe because labor's share of the economy is at a record low - "There was a brief moment at the tail end of the pandemic, already forgotten, at which it seemed that American workers had finally grasped the reins of power, with wage gains rising and organizing strength entering a new era. The moment is forgotten today because whatever leverage labor thought it had acquired evaporated rapidly. And recently it has been scraping along the bottom." (To Rule in Hell)
• Democrats running for office turn sharply against their own party - "This surge in political friendly fire reflects the extraordinary level of anger candidates are seeing from their voters toward the Democratic Party and the national political establishment."
• The New American Dream Is Enjoying Life - "About 72% across generations say they're willing to make slower progress on financial goals to spend time with family, take vacations and prioritize meaningful experiences. Seven in 10 Americans have privately opted out of something in the past year because of financial constraints, with 41% of Gen Zers saying they had claimed to be busy to avoid a get-together that they couldn't afford." (In the Land of Billionaire Barbarians, The rising price tag of romance)
• Americans' embrace of socialism reaches record high - "The share of Americans who feel positively about socialism jumped from 39% to 43% in the past year. That shift came entirely from independents: positive views of socialism rose 8 percentage points among that group since last year, to 45%. Since 2010, favorability has climbed among Democrats from 50% to 65%. Views toward socialism are lowest among Republicans (14%), but even that has ticked up since 2019 (9%)."
• YouGov poll: "likely voters prefer Democratic socialists over MAGA Republicans by an 18-point margin."

The Prix Goncourt has removed a book from its longlist. This is another in a growing series of AI-writing scandals. Earlier in the year it was the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. The Ai detection service used is Pangram, notable for its extremely low false positive rate. These awards required that the artistic works be human-generated. But what about outside the prize arenas? Should authors use Ai in their writing? Some have embraced it.

Chris Medland picks out five key things to keep an eye on when the lights go out on race day at the Baku City Circuit.

The drivers and teams report back on all the action from final practice and Qualifying in Baku ahead of the 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Lekker catchy nummer, paar gerenommeerde gastzangers, kek clipje… wat wil een mens nog meer op de vrijdag avond, dan Joseph, van Falling in Reverse?

Bij een aanrijding in Berkel en Rodenrijs is vrijdagavond een bestelbus door het hekwerk van een bedrijfspand gereden. Dat gebeurde na een botsing met een personenauto op de kruising van de Zeppelinstraat. Beide voertuigen raakten zwaar beschadigd.