Dion Chan SIM has added a photo to the pool:

Since we were in Tokyo during summer season, we decided to explore Ueno Park which is supposedly a great place to visit for the blooming of lotus flowers. While it was still in early blooming season, we were surprised by the large sizes of the lotus flowers.

Peter Breedveld Ik was een beetje gemeen tegen Millennials en GenZ’ers, dus sorry daarvoor, maar dat hun werkethiek verschilt van die van Boomers en GenX’ers is evident en onderzoek toont dat ook aan. Peter Breedveld Illustratie: Tomoe Gozen door Kitao Masayoshi. In mijn stuk over Ruben Brekelmans, en dat hij er iets tegenover zal moeten stellen als hij wil dat we meer gaan werken, haalde ik in een terzijde uit naar Millennials en GenZ’ers en daar waren wat mensen – niet één Millennial en niet één GenZ’er – door in hun kuif gepikt. Iemand wierp tegen dat haar Millennial-dochter en al haar vriendinnen zich drie slagen in de rondte werken en een Boomer schreef me dat we geen generaties tegen elkaar moeten opzetten. Een andere mailer verweet me mijn eigen generatie, GenX, op het schild te tillen en beweerde dat het wetenschappelijk is bewezen dat generatieverschillen niet bestaan. Dat laatste intrigeerde me, want dat lijkt me onhoudbaar, maar daarover straks meer. Ik wil wel toegeven dat het een beetje gemeen was om die Millennials en GenX’ers een veeg uit de pan te geven, want ik ken heel wat luie Boomers en GenX’ers. Luiheid is niet generatiegebonden, zeker. Ik ken ook […]

Het bericht God zij gedankt voor Millennials en GenZ’ers, maar ze zijn wel…. anders verscheen eerst op Frontaal Naakt.

prbimages has added a photo to the pool:

The end of autumn in Melbourne.

Sony A7C / ILCE-7C
Sony FE 20-70mm F4 G
70mm; 1/125 sec; f/4; ISO 640

niggyl :) has added a photo to the pool:

The late afternoon sun lighting up a fast right hand breaker just a bit to the north of Trial Harbour's northern reef. Very fast and not for the faint-hearted...

Swell off the Southern Ocean was westerly at around 4-1/2 ft and decreasing. Wind was a hard NNE, ~35kts increasing to 45-60kts NNW overnight and backing to WNW 25kts by morning.

Trial Harbour is the home of the gale.

Sony A7C II, Super Multi Coated Takumar 135mm f/3.5, 1/1800th sec at f/11, ISO 200

Nice to give the tip shop SMC Tak a run. I gave away my old 135mm preset Tak when I picked up the fungus riddled (then CLA'd) SMC with slightly better coatings for $15 :-)

Stueyman has added a photo to the pool:

On the Murray delta.

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

Midas was a well-known muffler replacement business.
Andrew Street, Adelaide
Back alley between Franklin and Grote Streets, Adelaide CBD

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

Andrew Street, Adelaide
Back alley between Franklin and Grote Streets, Adelaide CBD

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

Andrew Street, Adelaide
Back alley between Franklin and Grote Streets, Adelaide CBD

Darren Schiller has added a photo to the pool:

The Bristol Tavern was first licensed in 1855 by George Hulbert, who originated from Somerset where Bristol is located, and it was most likely given this name for that reason.
The hotel was extended in 1883,and then rebuilt in 1910-1911 to the design of architect Garlick, Sibley & Wooldridge. In 1912 a verandah/balcony was added.
The hotel was the meeting place of the United Trades and Labour Council (UTLC) which held its inaugural meeting there in 1884.
South Australia was the first place in the British empire outside Britain to legalise trade unions in 1876. This opened the way for the United Trades and Labor Council of South Australia to be formed. Fortnightly meetings continued until 1896 when the Trades Hall was purpose built in Grote Street. In 1940, the hotel was renamed the Hotel Franklin.

The world reconsiders America - "America is shedding its status as the default choice for foreign governments to park money, buy weapons and send students... Hungary and Poland were the only two of 10 countries polled where majorities still view the U.S. as a reliable partner. Majorities in all 10, including two with right-wing populist leaders, say they lack confidence in Trump to do the right thing in world affairs."

Poll shows rising trust in global institutions, less comfort with US as global leader - "The poll showed that the people surveyed were not comfortable with the United ​States or China as a global leader, and 61% supported countries working together without the participation of either of the world's two largest economies."

Canada received the highest ​level of comfort for taking a leading role in world affairs at 60%, followed by Japan (58%) and Australia (55%). The European Union and Britain were closely behind, with 55% and 54%, while ‌the United ⁠Nations stood at 52%. By contrast, just 39% were comfortable with the United States taking a leading role and 37% with China. Russia was viewed even more negatively, with just 26% comfortable.

• 'Hostile act': Trump threatens EU with tariffs over Canada associate-membership proposal - "Canada is already the only non-European country in the EU's SAFE instrument — an initiative that provides Canadian firms with preferential access to defense procurement — and has a free-trade agreement with the bloc, eliminating tariffs on roughly 99% of goods, though that deal still requires ratification by 10 EU states." (Canada to seek EU Associate Membership)
• EU single market needs 'fifth freedom' to reverse loss of economic dynamism - "Encompassing research, knowledge and talent, as well as an 'approve once, sell everywhere' regime, to help close the widening gap with US and Chinese innovation led growth... The proposed 'fifth freedom' is a nod to the EU single market's foundations' 'four freedoms': movement of goods, services, people and capital."

How Trump's war on EVs derailed America's auto-factory revival - "A wave of manufacturing investment promised to revive struggling heartland towns and build a U.S. supply chain for electric vehicles and batteries. But policy changes since Trump's return to office have upended the boom, costing thousands of jobs." Trump Has Made More Trades Than All of Congress Combined - "Most Americans support a ban on lawmaker stock trading. Trump is in favor of a prohibition that doesn't apply to him." Trump considered dangerous, corrupt by majority in new poll - "A slight majority of registered voters describe President Trump as corrupt and dangerous, a recent poll found, while just 14% say he isn't divisive."

"Corrupt" (53%) and "dangerous" (51%) led the list of descriptors voters applied to Trump in the Sept. 11-14 The Economist-YouGov poll of 1,461 U.S. registered voters.

• Those words were followed by "out-of-touch" (47%), "cruel" (46%) and "bold" (45%).
• Just 18% said they'd use the word "steady" to describe the president.

Democrats are testing an anti-corruption midterm message as Americans' perceptions of government corruption hit a 20-year high, per Gallup's trend, and polls show Americans believe the president has inappropriately profited from cryptocurrency while in office.

• The results broke sharply by party — 91% of Democrats and 62% of independents said Trump was corrupt, compared with 10% of Republicans.
• Republicans weren't universally positive: Less than half (49%) said they'd use the word "honest" to describe the president. Just 10% said it didn't describe him, while 41% had no opinion.
• Similarly, 38% of Republicans said he was steady, while 53% said they had no opinion.

also btw...

• Baal out: Top diplomat's worry about pagan god elicits eye rolls - "The second-most powerful man at the State Department put the brakes on a U.S. international exhibit featuring a bull statue because he worried it might look like Baal, a pagan god some associate with Satanic child sacrifice."
• FBI's Patel defends change in 'bestiality' hiring practice as lawmakers seek answers - "Why would you even get ​into bestiality?"

• Texas nominees' racist, vulgar remarks receive mixed GOP reaction - "Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized."
• Texas Republican's post on Asian Americans at UT Austin sparks accusations of racism - "Hate is one of the easiest means of organizing."

• US billionaires line up to bankroll Republicans' election push - "Ultra-wealthy overwhelmingly back Donald Trump's party over Democrats as money floods into midterms race."
• U.S. Senate Race in Michigan: Full Debate - "While Rogers declined the invite for the debate, El-Sayed showed up."

What's the first thing you do when you get into office should you become a senator? El-Sayed: Work to get money out of politics to end Citizens United. Corporations are not people. Their money is not speech. They should not be able to buy politicians. We need to end that. And then it's working to pass the PRO Act to make sure that we can organize unions in every sector of American life. And finally getting Medicare for All done. So we free people from medical risk.

• Russian businessman financed Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding celebrations - "Umar Kremlev paid for two nights of celebration after the wedding, Donald Trump Jr. and his wife confirm."
• What we know about the Putin ally who allegedly funded Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding - "According to a ProPublica investigation, Umar Kremlev's deep ties to Vladimir Putin allegedly created a personal financial link between President Trump's oldest child and prominent Russians while the U.S. attempts to broker peace with Ukraine."

• Somaliland's president puts everything on the table for Trump - "The breakaway territory is offering Washington access to its port, minerals and potentially military facilities in exchange for recognition."

• The public wants a say in AI development - "Democratic and Republican voters agree that the American public should decide the future of AI development, not billionaires in Silicon Valley, according to new polling shared first with Semafor." (Behind the curtain: It's not too late)
• Scoop: Trump pollster gives GOP a data center survival guide - "This converts the candidate from a defender of technology companies into the person imposing rules on them."
• First, "validate" voters' concerns about higher utility bills, the power grid and water use.
• Second, "draw the line" by vowing not to support projects that force families to subsidize them or allow tech companies to harm surrounding communities.
• Finally, argue that projects should move forward only if companies provide their own power, protect ratepayers and safeguard local water.

• US admission of orbital weapons seen as landmark moment in race with China, Russia - "The U.S. acknowledgment this week that the Pentagon is operating weapons in Earth's orbit marks a landmark moment in space militarization aimed at ​deterring what U.S. officials describe as aggressive orbital activities from China and Russia, officials and analysts said."
• China warns US space weapons could fuel arms race - "China urged the United States to halt its military build-up in outer space after Washington acknowledged it ​has weapons deployed in orbit, while Chinese state media ‌warned the move could fuel a global arms race."

• China imposes new restrictions on overseas travel - "To stop cutting-edge technology and top-flight researchers from leaving, taking a step closer to a regime that had characterized a more closed-off China of decades past."
• Why Seeing China as a Normal Rising Power Misses the Point - "China isn't authoritarian but totalitarian. In an ordinary authoritarian state, however brutal, some independent institutions survive—be they a church, a temple, a nongovernmental organization—so long as they stay out of politics. A totalitarian party allows none of it. Every organization must be controlled by the party."

--- *EK-FF: Why I Can't Stop Thinking About 'The End of History'

AMSTERDAM (ANP) - Uitzendorganisaties in Nederland kampen met structurele personeelstekorten en strengere regelgeving, terwijl technologische ontwikkelingen hun resultaten onder druk zetten. Daarnaast worden uitzendkrachten door de nieuwe uitzend-cao duurder en minder flexibel, staat in een donderdag verschenen rapport van ING.

Om de stijgende kosten op te vangen, verhoogt de flexbranche haar uitzendtarieven dit jaar naar verwachting met gemiddeld 6,5 procent. "Uitzendkrachten zijn begin dit jaar aanzienlijk duurder geworden door de invoering van de nieuwe uitzend-cao. Hiermee is een belangrijke hervorming van de uitzendmarkt ingezet", staat in het rapport.

De economen van ING zien dat kleinere en gespecialiseerde flexbedrijven groeien, terwijl veel van de grotere uitzendorganisaties het nog altijd moeilijk hebben. De bank verwacht dat het aantal gewerkte uren in de flexbranche in 2026 met maar 1 procent groeit. Volgend jaar komt de groei uit op 1,5 procent, denken de economen.

BERLIJN (ANP/BLOOMBERG) - Duitse bedrijven die projecten voor groene energie ontwikkelen staan aan de vooravond van een grote saneringsronde, na jaren van snelle groei. Verslechterende economische vooruitzichten brengen een groeiend aantal bedrijven in financiële problemen.

Het in Hamburg gevestigde zonne-energiebedrijf Enerparc, een van de grootste exploitanten van zonneparken in Europa, vroeg deze maand faillissement aan. De groep heeft ongeveer 3 miljard euro aan schulden. Dit volgt op het faillissement van windenergieontwikkelaar Sowitec Group. Tegelijkertijd zijn andere Duitse bedrijven, waaronder BayWa r.e. en ABO Energy, begonnen met reorganisaties.

De problemen betekenen een omslag voor een sector die jarenlang snel groeide dankzij goedkope financiering en stimulerende subsidies. Bedrijven hebben nu te maken met hogere financieringskosten en lagere rendementen op nieuwe projecten. Die druk is ook voelbaar in de hernieuwbare-energiesector in de rest van Europa.

JAROSLAVL (ANP/RTR) - Bij een Oekraïense droneaanval is een olieraffinaderij beschadigd in de Russische stad Jaroslavl. De brand die door de aanval uitbrak, is geblust, aldus de regionale gouverneur Michail Jevrajev op Telegram.

De omvang van de schade is niet direct duidelijk. De raffinaderij ligt op ongeveer 240 kilometer ten noordoosten van Moskou en was eerder doelwit van Oekraïense aanvallen en zou daarbij eveneens schade hebben opgelopen. De raffinaderij is van Slavneft, dat onder controle staat van staatsbedrijven Rosneft en Gazprom Neft.

"Vandaag hebben we een grootschalige aanval van vijandelijke drones afgeslagen. Er zijn vijfenzestig drones neergehaald. Er zijn geen doden of gewonden gevallen", aldus Jevrajev. Volgens de gouverneur beschadigde puin ook verschillende flatgebouwen en voertuigen.

Het betreft een zeldzame erkenning door de Russische autoriteiten van aanvallen op olieraffinaderijen. Eerder deze week beloofden Rusland en Oekraïne de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump geen energiedoelen van elkaar meer aan te zullen vallen. Beide landen meldden daarop echter al gauw dat ondanks de afspraak energiedoelen aangevallen werden.

Today we have more of a representative comment, from Watson. This comes from some GPL licensed code published by everybody's favorite evil empire, Oracle.

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 2013 2013 2013 Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
 * published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the
 * License.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 * Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
 * 02110-1301  USA
 */

Line breaks added to really show the swamp.

What was the last year this file was released, I wonder? Clearly some sort of autogeneration gone wrong, but it doesn't exactly give me a lot of faith in the rest of the code in this file.

Fujitsu will start selling its Monaka processors, and servers packing them, in November. The Japanese giant started talking about Monaka way back in 2023, when it teased the processor as being derived from the silicon it designed for the Fugaku supercomputer, but adapted for datacenter use. Fugaku was the world’s most powerful supercomputer from 2020 to 2022, and remains in ninth place on the Top 500 list six years after its debut. Who wouldn’t want the tech that powered that behemoth in their datacenter? Yet as The Register reported earlier this year, Monaka diverged significantly from the silicon inside Fugaku. It’s built on Broadcom’s 3D-chip stacking tech and use the Armv9 ISA. The chip features a quartet of 2nm compute dies, each packing 36 cores. Also inside the chip are four SRAM 5nm chiplets, and it’s all connected by a central I/O and memory die with 12 channels of DDR5 and PCIe 6.0 connectivity. For years, Fujitsu told the Monaka-curious that the chip would see the light of day in 2027. Earlier this week Fujitsu announced it will start selling the chips, and servers that use it, from November. The company will sell the chip to cloud operators and server manufacturers. The latter will have to compete with Fujitsu itself, which has created three servers that use the CPU: A 1U server that can pack one or two processors, running at either 2.1GHz or 2.9GHz, room for eight E3.S SSDs and two M.2 SSDs, and the ability to run in both air-cooled environments where the temperature hits 40C and cope with 45C when using liquid cooling. A 2U server with a pair of CPUs running at 2.1GHz, four E3.S disks and two M.2s, and supporting only air cooling. A 2U, dual-CPU model designed to be used for multi-node deployments, four to a rack, running at 2.9GHz, packing just two E1.S SSDs and the two M.2s, and requiring liquid cooling. This is the model Fujitsu thinks will suit HPC and academic users. All the servers use a 144-core processor. Fujitsu hasn’t named a price, at least in public. It is of course touting it as a strong option for inferencing workloads, thanks to a claimed ability to handle double the inferencing output of rival CPUs. That quality alone will gather some attention from AI giants, hyperscalers, and neoclouds, if only because silicon supply chains remain fragile and any new source of inferencing power is worthy of investigation. The fact that these machines can run in quite hot air-cooled datacenters won’t hurt. Whether any server-makers beyond those who supply hyperscalers buy in is less certain. For nigh-on a decade now, vendors of Arm CPUs have touted their low power consumption as a must-have, but manufacturers have made only token efforts to deliver products that host Arm chips. Interestingly, Fujitsu is pitching its smaller servers as a sovereign solution, in part because it’s making the machines in Japan. Europe, the other market into which Fujitsu will initially sell the boxes, is also increasingly interested in sovereign tech. ®

Sluiproutes van navigatie-apps bij files en wegafsluitingen zijn provincies en gemeenten een doorn in het oog. Dat meldde RTL nieuws vorige week. Overleg blijkt niet mogelijk, ondanks dat officiële omleidingen niet als voorkeursroute worden getoond. Vandaar de betonblokken bij wijze van code-as-law.

Het bericht zet Vijfheerenland centraal, dat vlak bij zowel de A27 als de A2 ligt waar vele files of werkzaamheden zijn. De navigatie-app vindt dan een snelle sluiproute, maar daar zijn die gemeentes niet blij mee. Want die keuze gebeurt op doorlooptijd voor de automobilist en niet op wat de gemeente aangeeft dat de officiële omleiding is.

Volgens [minister Vincent Karremans van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat] moet het belang van verkeersveiligheid zwaarder wegen. Hij zegt daarover in gesprek te willen gaan met de navigatiediensten. “Ik kan ze niet dwingen, maar ik ga kijken hoe ik gemeenten kan helpen. Nu ben ik minister van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat. Misschien nemen ze nu wel de telefoon op.”

Sinds 2010 (herzien 2023) is er een Europese Richtlijn voor realtimeverkeersinformatiediensten, aangevuld met een Verordening die regels stelt voor uitwisseling van gegevens inzake realtimeverkeersinformatiediensten (RTTI).

Artikel 6 lid 4 van de RTTI is vrij helder:

Dienstverleners verwerken en integreren in de relevante diensten die zij aan eindgebruikers verstrekken, zonder extra kosten, gegevens over alle tijdelijke verkeersbeheersmaatregelen die door de bevoegde autoriteiten zijn ingevoerd en via het nationale of gemeenschappelijke toegangspunt in een digitaal machineleesbaar formaat toegankelijk zijn gemaakt.

Probleem: Die verplichting houdt echter nog niet in dat Google zijn routekeuze moet laten samenvallen met de door de gemeente gewenste route. Specifiek daarvoor is er geen wettelijke plicht in die RTTI regels. Oostenrijk is bezig met een wetsvoorstel dat wel expliciet eist dat officiële routes gevolgd moeten worden.

Google Maps specifiek is sinds een tijdje een zeer groot online platform onder de DSA. Dat is juridisch voor “je bent te groot en daarmee te gevaarlijk om zelf te mogen bepalen hoe je je dienst inricht”.

Concreet betekent dit dat ze verplicht zijn zogeheten systeemrisico’s in kaart te brengen en te mitigeren. Haar laatste rapport laat zien hoe dat gaat, maar focust (p.82) eigenlijk alleen op het online stuk: reviews en omgang met persoonsgegevens. Nergens wordt ingegaan op de route-vaststelling en haar impact.

Voor VLOPs zoals Maps is de Europese Commissie exclusief bevoegd. De ACM kan (ook op verzoek van de minister) de Commissie vragen hier handhavend op te treden, met de data van de gemeenten als onderbouwing. Maar als we zelf iets willen doen, moet daar een aparte wet voor komen. Of meer betonblokken.

Arnoud

 

 

Het bericht Machteloze gemeenten zetten betonblokken in om sluipverkeer via Google Maps te voorkomen verscheen eerst op Ius Mentis.

Lords’ report faces criticism from lobby groups after suggesting ban would be ‘most effective’ way to reduce public harms

The UK should introduce a ban on almost all gambling advertising to protect public health, a cross-party group of peers has urged, prompting fury from the lobby group for bookmakers and casinos.

In a 173-page report, the House of Lords liaison committee said the government had been “too passive” in response to an explosion of digital advertising and social media influencers promoting the gambling sector.

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The Bradford Pennine Gateway Trail, launching this weekend, aims to ‘change perceptions of Bradford’ by taking in the moors and the area’s new national nature reserve

A grainy photograph, dated 1938, hangs in a frame on the downstairs wall of my B&B. It shows 100, perhaps 200, elegantly attired trippers sitting on the green at Shipley Glen in West Yorkshire. They’re picnicking, chatting, taking the air and enjoying the sunshine, while admiring the rocks and woods that frame the deep gully below. It’s local, low-carbon, cheap-as-chips tourism before the jet age – and also a model for how we may travel in the future.

I arrived here thanks to a new trail, launching on 19 September, that runs through the also newly established Bradford Pennine Gateway national nature reserve – astonishingly, the first reserve of this kind to be created in West Yorkshire. The trail uses almost the same name and is a savvy bit of sustainable planning, connecting the three towns of Ilkley, Saltaire and Haworth but, by appealing to walkers, hopefully inspiring people to explore beyond the confines of these honeypots.

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A bereavement memoir mingles with speculative fiction, in a wise and ragged examination of grief from the author of The Power

In his Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, Ludwig Wittgenstein alludes to an incident that followed the death of Franz Schubert. He recalls that Schubert’s brother cut several scores into small pieces, each consisting of only a few bars of music, and handed them out to Schubert’s favourite pupils. This, Wittgenstein argues, was a totally understandable act of grief. He goes on to suggest, however, that if, in his grief, Schubert’s brother had left the scores untouched, or even burned them, then that too would be equally legible to us. Such is the disorienting nature of loss – in its wake, anything goes.

In The Strangers, Women’s prize-winning author Naomi Alderman tests this thesis to its limits. How about dealing with grief by writing an uneasy memoir/speculative fiction hybrid about the sudden appearance of a new species of quasi-badgers that seem to improve the quality of local soil?

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