Teruhide Tomori has added a photo to the pool:

Location : Hokoshima, Fukui pref.

鉾島園地 / 福井県福井市（越前海岸）
越前加賀海岸国定公園

xthylacine has added a photo to the pool:

Shin-Okubo, Tokyo, Japan

We've had our parklet for 15 years, and now SFMTA says they're going to fine us $500/day if we don't demolish it in two weeks.

We have spent nearly two years trying to negotiate with them to figure out some rational way to satisfy them, and they have been 100% unwilling discuss any alternatives. In their view, they can demand whatever they want and we just have to suck it up.

Over the last few months, we have reached out to Mayor Lurie, and to District 6 Supervisor Dorsey (through various channels) and have gotten no response of any kind.

Protecting local small businesses (and a Legacy Business at that) from the predations of petty bureaucrats is supposed to be what this business-focused administration is all about, is it not? That's what I've read. But they won't return our calls.

We love our parklet. We love all parklets. Probably you do too. Probably you also believe that the San Francisco street-scape should be a place for people, rather than solely used as free parking for Ubers and autonomous robo-murdercars.

If you have any pull with anyone in this administration and could get someone to return our calls, that would be extremely helpful.

I'd hate to have to resort to an emailing campaign, since those are annoying for everyone involved, but I guess that's next on the agenda if we can't get someone to talk to us.

Basically SFMTA's demand is that there be a new bus loading zone right smack in the middle of where the parklet is; directly in front of the entrance to DNA Pizza.

When we asked questions like, "Would sliding the parklet South by ten feet solve the problem?" they just keep repeating, "The loading zone for a 60' bus has to be here and it has to be 5' wide and 8' deep." Then we say, "I understand that, but how would you recommend we reconfigure our parklet to accommodate that without destroying it entirely?" And they just go back to, "the loading zone for a 60' bus has to be here." They won't discuss it. They just demand it be gone.

What we are asking of you:

• Help us find someone in the Lurie administration who will return our calls. (415-626-2532)
• Get the local press to make noise about this.

What we will be asking of that official:

• Pause these ursurious, debilitating fines until we find a solution.
• Convince someone to negotiate a solution with us in good faith rather than just telling us "fuck you, no".

Here's an email I sent to the Mayor nearly two months ago. No response of any kind:

From: Jamie Zawinski <jwz@dnalounge.com>
Subject: Please help us keep DNA Lounge's parklet
Date: August 1, 2026 at 9:42:37 PM PDT
To: daniel.lurie@sfgov.org
Cc: Devon Dossett <devon@dnalounge.com>

Dear Mayor Lurie,

I am the owner of DNA Lounge (one of San Francisco's oldest and most well-known nightclubs, at 41 years, and a Legacy Business) and we need your help.

SFMTA is currently threatening to completely destroy DNA Lounge's 15-year-old parklet.

This will have a hugely deleterious effect on our business. The parklet is beloved and heavily used by our customers, and by customers of other businesses on 11th Street. It brings life to the street, and helps keep the sidewalk clear. It provides much-needed shelter from rain, wind and sun.

THE PROBLEM:

Our parklet was installed in 2011. In 2017, in order to accommodate a sidewalk reconfiguration, we were forced to rebuild it and reduce it in size. In 2017, SFMTA approved the current configuration of our parklet, and at the time, all communication with them referenced a bus stop supporting 40' busses.

Now they are telling us that it was never "really" approved, and, surprise, now it has to support a pair of 60' busses instead, so our parklet must be destroyed.

This is straight out of "Brazil" -- "Oh, we may have said that, but your form isn't stamped, you see."

Nine years after we re-built the parklet to their specifications, at great expense, they have come back and told us that they're moving the goal posts.

WHAT WE WANT:

To keep our existing parklet at its current size and location. It is highly valued by our community, and very helpful to our business. Having already spent $15,000 on this gift to Eleventh Street, we do not look forward to losing it, or to having to spend even more money to make it worse and move backwards.

I hope you can help us with this, and cause saner heads to prevail.

Thank you for your time.

Jamie Zawinski

PS:

A slightly longer version of the timeline:

• In 2011, we received permission to install a parklet in two parking spaces in front of DNA Lounge. It was enthusiastically supported by our neighbors. Though it cost over $11,000 to build and install, we were able to crowd-fund that from our local community.

• In 2015, SFMTA told us that our parklet would have to move, due to a sidewalk widening.

• In 2016 through 2017, SFMTA approved our parklet in front of DNA Lounge. All communication, drawings, plans and permits referenced a bus stop supporting 40' busses. Reconfiguring and re-installing the parklet cost over $4,000. But again, we were able to crowd-fund that, because our local community values it so highly.

• In 2025, SFFD told us that our parklet would need to be removed entirely because (they falsely claimed) it is encroaching things that it demonstrably is not.

• In 2026, SFDPW told us that our parklet would need to be removed to support the loading of 60' busses. We pointed out that all discussion with SFMTA in 2015, and all permits, referred to 40' busses. That's what they designed, and that's what we built. But they claim that that doesn't matter because suddenly, after all this time, we were "not fully permitted" so they can do whatever they want.

• SFDPW are now making threats about "enforcement action".

And yesterday, SFMTA finally tacked up a poster on our parklet saying that in two weeks they plan to start fining us $500/day. We didn't even get the courtesy of an email.

And to add insult to injury, they started this a week before the Folsom Street Fair, our busiest weekend of the year. We do not have time to deal with this right now!

Sing that Ramones song with me: "SFMTA wants to take our parklet away".

Our parklet is 15 years old; it nearly pre-dates the parklet program itself, and that's part of the problem: because it has been nearly-first-of-its-kind and special-cased multiple times, there's not much of a paper trail. There were a bunch of phone calls and in-person conversations where people pointed at things.

And this city is dead-set on doubling back on every possible good thing that came out of the pandemic. How many parklets have been destroyed over the last couple of years due to massively increasing fees and bureaucratic intransigence like this? I don't have a precise number but it is "a lot". There are years of articles about this pattern: "Business and their community are sad about their now-former parklet, how could the city let this happen?" Apparently the Lurie (and Breed) administrations don't even consider this to be bad press. They just don't give a shit.

Aaron Peskin back in 2021: "It's the most uncoordinated, messed-up, insulting display of government incompetence. It's breathtaking."

From a dangerous new bioweapon to total societal breakdown, is a ‘superintelligent’ AI capable of wiping out humanity?

Earlier this month, artificial intelligence researcher Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic after just four months. In an announcement on X, he stated: “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

A senior member of Anthropic’s staff, Evan Hubinger, actually agreed with Coxon, adding he personally thinks the chance of this happening in the next decade is more than 10%.

Continue reading...

Meeting on sidelines of UN general assembly, Ukrainian leader says Kyiv open to deal not to attack energy targets if Russia agrees. What we know on day 1,673

Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed with Donald Trump on Tuesday efforts to end the 4-year-old war with Russia, ⁠including a potential bilateral ceasefire ​on energy-related targets. “We are ready for any kind of format of energy ceasefire” if Russia agrees to “not attack our energy system,” Zelenskyy told journalists after meeting with Trump at the UN headquarters in New York. The Ukrainian leader expressed hope the “American side will find a way … to bring them to any kind of negotiations.” Zelenskyy said that he also was ready to meet the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, ​at a trilateral meeting with Trump.

Trump insisted he was working with both sides to end the war, despite little evidence of Putin being open to any settlement. “It’s going to happen, I think, more quickly than people understand,” Trump said in his UN speech. Efforts led by Washington to broker a deal to end the hostilities, which have raged since Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, have stalled in recent months as the US has shifted focus to its war against Iran.

Zelenskyy claimed the war with Russia would end if Trump applied more pressure on Putin, and if China and India stop buying oil from Russia. “It’s enough to stop them, they will not have enough money,” Zelenskyy told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. Zelenskyy said Russia’s energy sales to China, India and Turkey were propping up Russia’s economy. During the same interview, Zelenskyy said that Trump on Tuesday did not ask him to stop bombing Russian oil refineries. However, he acknowledged the issue has been raised before by American partners over concerns of rising energy prices.

Zelenskyy also met with the UK prime minister, Andy Burnham, in New York, who said he lobbied Trump ​to press for a Ukraine-Russia energy ceasefire in his meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart. Burnham promised further financial support to Kyiv for infrastructure.

Putin is becoming “increasingly cavalier, dangerous and risk accepting,” as his war in Ukraine drags on and as he seeks to divide western allies, Nato’s deputy commander in Europe said Tuesday. Air Chief Marshal Sir John Stringer spoke to The Associated Press at a security conference in Estonia amid warnings from some European leaders that Moscow is planning to test Nato’s collective defence pact with bolder attacks that have already included sabotage and espionage. Stringer warned that Nato members need to be aware of the “febrile environment” and be careful in their response because Putin would like to provoke the alliance into an “overreaction”.

Officials in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Russia, have been more cautious about the prospect of a serious escalation. “Ukraine is fighting. Russia is absorbed in Ukraine. We do not observe any buildup near our borders. And from that part, I think that most would agree that the perspective of direct military attack is not correct,” Latvian president Edgars Rinkevics told reporters on the sidelines of the UN meeting. European countries have already faced multiple incursions of Russian drones – and several missiles – as well as a campaign of covert Russian disruption which began after the war.

Ukraine has continued to press the US for more Patriot interceptors to defend against Russia’s ballistic missiles, but is yet to get any confirmation, Zelenskyy told reporters. “They are positive to help us, but I didn’t get the very concrete answer,” he said. Defence experts say the US has been experiencing a global shortage of Patriot interceptors because many have been expended to defend against Iranian attacks on US and allied bases in Middle East. Zelenskyy spoke of the urgency of needing the weapons, which can shoot down Russia’s more advanced ballistic missiles. The shortage in Ukraine has left Kyiv and other cities increasingly exposed to devastating attacks.

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Islamic State-inspired bombings of churches and hotels in 2019 was one of the country’s worst ever attacks

A court in Sri Lanka has convicted 15 men over their involvement in the 2019 Easter bombings that killed 267 people, and sentenced them each to at least 200 years in prison, meaning they will spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

Nearly 600 people were wounded in the suicide bomb attacks on 21 April that targeted three churches and three hotels across the country during Easter services and celebrations. The bombings, which were inspired by the Islamic State (IS) group, were among the deadliest attacks in Sri Lanka’s history.

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SYDNEY (ANP/DPA) - Vanaf medio 2028 vinden er voor het eerst commerciële directe vluchten plaats tussen Sydney en New York. Dat heeft de Australische luchtvaartmaatschappij Qantas bekendgemaakt.

De allereerste non-stopverbinding tussen de twee wereldsteden zal ongeveer 18 uur duren. Daarmee wordt de totale reistijd met meer dan drie uur verkort, aldus Qantas, dat met de nieuwe verbinding tegemoet zegt te komen aan een toegenomen vraag. Momenteel voert de maatschappij een dagelijkse vlucht uit tussen Sydney en New York met een tussenstop in de Nieuw-Zeelandse stad Auckland.

De vluchten zullen worden uitgevoerd met twaalf speciaal voor de lange vlucht ingerichte Airbus-toestellen, die ruimte bieden aan 238 passagiers, verdeeld over vier cabines. De toestellen worden voorzien van een extra brandstoftank van 20.000 liter. Hiermee kunnen de vliegtuigen meer dan 16.000 kilometer afleggen en tot 22 uur onafgebroken in de lucht blijven.

De vluchten kunnen naar verwachting vanaf augustus 2027 worden geboekt.

SYDNEY (ANP/DPA) - Vanaf medio 2028 vinden er voor het eerst commerciële directe vluchten plaats tussen Sydney en New York. Dat heeft de Australische luchtvaartmaatschappij Qantas bekendgemaakt.

De allereerste non-stopverbinding tussen de twee wereldsteden zal ongeveer 18 uur duren. Daarmee wordt de totale reistijd met meer dan drie uur verkort, aldus Qantas, dat met de nieuwe verbinding tegemoet zegt te komen aan een toegenomen vraag. Momenteel voert de maatschappij een dagelijkse vlucht uit tussen Sydney en New York met een tussenstop in de Nieuw-Zeelandse stad Auckland.

De vluchten zullen worden uitgevoerd met twaalf speciaal voor de lange vlucht ingerichte Airbus-toestellen, die ruimte bieden aan 238 passagiers, verdeeld over vier cabines. De toestellen worden voorzien van een extra brandstoftank van 20.000 liter. Hiermee kunnen de vliegtuigen meer dan 16.000 kilometer afleggen en tot 22 uur onafgebroken in de lucht blijven.

De vluchten kunnen naar verwachting vanaf augustus 2027 worden geboekt.

iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:

iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:

Stueyman has added a photo to the pool:

Signage at Pinjarra Station.

iain.davidson100 has added a photo to the pool:

On academic mentoring platform Nova Learning, Computer Science and AI, "once the dominant choice among students... is losing ground fast, while Engineering has nearly doubled its share." It's a small survey, but "The steepest proportional decline is in Software & Data Science, the most traditional 'learn to code' pathway, which lost 44% of its 2025 share. AI saw the largest absolute drop of any single subject in the survey, down 6.2 points.

"The category did not decline uniformly. Students moved away fastest from the pathway most associated with entry-level software work, while the more applied and human-facing subfields held their ground better."


Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes:


Nova Learning says the share of surveyed middle and high school students naming Computer Science and AI as their primary academic interest fell from 42.3 percent in 2025 to 27.9 percent in 2026, while Engineering rose from 11.9 percent to 23 percent. The biggest gains came from Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering...

[B]roader enrollment data points in the same direction. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported declines in Computer and Information Science enrollment at four year institutions, even as Engineering grew. AI coding tools are not proven to be the cause, but as software development changes and AI handles more coding tasks, students may be starting to rethink what a future in technology should look like. [Undergraduate enrollment in CS programs at four-year institutions fell 8.1%, to approximately 606,000 students.]

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Despite a July open letter from AI company employees calling for frontier AI labs to slow their pace of development, a message echoed by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei earlier this month, major model releases continue to appear at quite a clip. Anthropic and OpenAI each released new versions of their Claude and GPT models on Tuesday: Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Sol and Luna. "We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models," said Amodei in an online post on September 12, 2026, reiterating the message from AI staff who put their names to "Pacing the Frontier." Ten days later, Anthropic celebrated the arrival of Opus 5.5, calling it "the strongest-performing model we’ve tested to date." The model arrives just 21 days after the release of Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1, which followed Opus 5 by 39 days. Overall, the cadence of Anthropic model releases has accelerated from roughly every quarter in 2025 to almost monthly in 2026. OpenAI's release cycle slowed somewhat after a flurry of releases early this year. The upstart delivered several model variants in February and March, followed by GPT-5.5 in April. 77 days later, on July 9, GPT-5.6 reached general availability. GPT-6 Astra debuted September 3, 2026, followed by GPT-6 Sol and Luna 19 days later. The competitive releases from the two rival companies arrive as both prepare for initial public offerings. For Anthropic, that could happen before the end of the year, while OpenAI isn't expected to go public until 2027. Opus 5.5 performs better than its predecessor on software tasks, according to Anthropic, which said the model allows speedy code migrations and can reduce software load times. Artificial Analysis puts Opus 5.5 on par with GPT-6 Astra for agentic work. The Claude model has taken the top spot in the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index with a score of 58, based on performance on 10 different benchmark evaluations. With great power also comes great responsibility – Anthropic says Opus 5.5 is comparable to Mythos 5.1 in cybersecurity and biology, so it too can fall back to earlier models when safeguards kick in. The new Claude family member is also cheaper than its predecessor. "Our tests show that at default settings it will cost 40 percent less than Opus 5 on typical workloads," Anthropic said in its announcement. "Input and output tokens are $4 and $20 per million, 20 percent less than Opus 5. Cache reads are $0.20 per million tokens, 60 percent less than Opus 5. Opus 5.5 also generates output more than 30 percent faster than Opus 5." That's welcome news as cache reads make up the majority of agentic and coding work costs. OpenAI also addressed costs with GPT-6 Sol and Luna, by leaving high performance workloads to Astra. "Improvements in caching and inference let us serve these models at lower cost, and we’re passing those savings directly on to users and customers by reducing API prices for Sol and Luna by 50 percent compared with their GPT‑5.6 promotional pricing," OpenAI said. Artificial Analysis found GPT-6 Sol (max) costs $1.06 per task compared to $1.99 per task for GPT-5.6 Sol, while GPT-6 Luna (max) costs $0.07 per task compared to $0.18 for GPT-5.6 Luna (max). OpenAI clearly believes it can win business from its rival through better pricing. "On AutomationBench, a test of business workflows across apps, GPT‑6 Sol at xhigh effort outperforms Claude Opus 5 at max effort at just 9 percent of Opus 5’s cost per task," the GPT-maker said. Anthropic and OpenAI claim their models improve alignment and safety, though Anthropic's defenses are at least in part intended to protect its business from copycats. Opus 5.5 comes with "preserved thinking," a defense against model distillation – a method of model copying through interrogation – that was introduced with Fable 5.1. It prevents API customers from editing Claude's prior context in order to obtain the model's chain of reasoning. ®