Up in the #grasslands of the #palani #hills, where #warm #sunlight drips off the #hillside and down into the #plains.
#Kodaikanal, #2025
#photography #landscapes #mountains #warm #clouds #sky #skies #grasses #Hiking #sunset
Repost: Kenyan President William Ruto has criticized the United Nations for excluding Africa from the permanent membership of the UN Security Council.
Addressing the UN General Assembly, he emphasized that Africa, despite bearing the greatest burden of instability, contributing some of the largest peacekeeping forces, and strongly aligning with the UN’s agenda, remains unfairly and unjustly sidelined, raising serious questions about the organization’s credibility.
It should be noted that while, as @pluralistic points out, the #AI bubble does this worse than ever, they didn't invent these bullshit accounting tricks.
Particularly since the 80's, financial sector regulation has been almost entirely absent, leading it to create deals & instruments amounting to nothing more than "this equals billions of $$$ because we say so", repeatedly derailing the world economy with rickety cobwebs of nonsense...
“AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations”
Another great quote:
"AI cannot do your job, but an AI salesman can 100% convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job..."
Tajani, FI chiederà il candidato sindaco di Verona - Notizie - Ansa.it
https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/politica/2025/09/28/tajani-fi-chiedera-il-candidato-sindaco-di-verona_26544471-ee44-4c7d-8cf7-ccc6bb96e1c8.html?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Pubblicato su Politica @politica-AgenziaAnsa
Tajani, FI chiederà il candidato sindaco di Verona - Notizie - Ansa.it
"Pensiamo di chiedere il candidato a sindaco di Verona, dove l'ultima volta abbiamo perso perché eravamo divisi". (ANSA)Agenzia ANSA
pressenza.com/it/2025/09/una-n…
Il Comitato Internazionale per Rompere l’Assedio di Gaza ha annunciato sabato 27 settembre il lancio di una nuova ondata di imbarcazioni verso Gaza. La flottiglia comprende dieci imbarcazioni civili in partenza dal porto di San Giovanni li Coti a Catania.…
Redazione Italia
Una nuova flottiglia di dieci navi salpa per rompere il blocco di Gaza
Il Comitato Internazionale per Rompere l'Assedio di Gaza ha annunciato sabato 27 settembre il lancio di una nuova ondata di imbarcazioni verso Gaza. LaRedazione Italia (Pressenza)
Serie D, la capolista Tau va a Foligno. Seravezza a caccia del riscatto
La squadra di Masitto "Buon Riposo" riceve l'Orvietana. Il Camaiore è ospite del forte Grosseto, il Ghiviborgo se la vede fra le mura amiche con il Poggibonsi.
New film photos are in the pipeline!
Finally, I have been well enough to get out and about and take some film photos! I spent a week in Guájar-Faragüit and a week in Capileira taking photos with my #Mamiya C220 and #Pentax #Spotmatic. I am now back, developing and scanning the films.
I am taking this opportunity to review my workflows and websites, so there are a lot of changes. Further updates soon...
New comic strip found:
Crabgrass by Tauhid Bondia
Crabgrass - 2025-09-27 gocomics.com/crabgrass/2025/09…
Crabgrass by Tauhid Bondia for September 27, 2025 | GoComics
Read Crabgrass—a comic strip by creator Tauhid Bondia—for today, September 27, 2025, and check out other great comics, too!www.gocomics.com
⏳️ : 2025-09-23
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✦✧☾⋆ LINKS :
📸 nikaiavaldis.square.site/
📷 youpic.com/nikaia
💌 paypal.com/paypalme/nvmoon
✨ amazon.ca/hz/wishlist/ls/ZJKS6…
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#photography #urbanphotography #urban #landscape #truck #autophoto #vehicle #urbex #rust #explore #wheatfield #canada #photographyisart #fediverse #pixelfed #sharecangeo
About | NIKAIA VALDIS
Romantic moments found in wild places—Canadian freelance photography with heart, soul, and a maverick's eye for wonder.NIKAIA VALDIS
Christian Buggischs Blog: Alles hat seine Zeit buggisch.wordpress.com/2025/09…
#Blog
Alles hat seine Zeit
Schon wieder Herbst. Blicken wir zurück auf diesen September …Christian Buggischs Blog
boston, massachusetts
june 1958
traffic policeman
flickr.com/photos/dboo/5230597…
flickr.com/photos/dboo/1737000…
part of an archival project, featuring the photographs of nick dewolf
© the Nick DeWolf Foundation
Image-use requests are welcome via nickdewolfphotoarchive [at] gmail [dot] com
#photography #film #blackandwhite #bw #streetphotography #boston #massachusetts #police #policeman #metropolitan #trafficpoliceman #directingtraffic #1950s
0601258 22
boston, massachusetts june 1958 traffic policeman intersection of park drive, brookline ave, and boylston street part of an archival project, featuring the photographs of nick dewolf © the Nick DeWolf Foundation Image-use requests are welcome via …Flickr
Ardra Shephard had her life planned out—then an MS diagnosis at age 23...
#socialmedia #blogging #blogger #healthcentral
boston, massachusetts
june 1958
traffic policeman
flickr.com/photos/dboo/5230597…
flickr.com/photos/dboo/1737000…
part of an archival project, featuring the photographs of nick dewolf
© the Nick DeWolf Foundation
Image-use requests are welcome via nickdewolfphotoarchive [at] gmail [dot] com
#photography #film #blackandwhite #bw #streetphotography #boston #massachusetts #police #policeman #metropolitan #trafficpoliceman #directingtraffic #1950s
0601258 22
boston, massachusetts june 1958 traffic policeman intersection of park drive, brookline ave, and boylston street part of an archival project, featuring the photographs of nick dewolf © the Nick DeWolf Foundation Image-use requests are welcome via …Flickr
Staffetta 10x1 Ora, la corsa solidale a Lucca. Foto e classifica
La gara, che ricorda Marino Nelli, prevede squadre di dieci atleti che corrono un’ora ciascuno. Le foto di Regalami un sorriso
Il Sassuolo batte l’Udinese per 3-1 al Mapei Stadium
Seconda vittoria in campionato della squadra di Grosso [.....]
sassuolonotizie.it/notizie/il-…
Il Sassuolo batte l’Udinese per 3-1 al Mapei Stadium
Seconda vittoria in campionato della squadra di Grosso […..]Sassuolonotizie.it
securityaffairs.com/182706/mal…
#securityaffairs #hacking
SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 64
Security Affairs Malware newsletter includes a collection of the best articles and research on malware in the international landscapePierluigi Paganini (Security Affairs)
Cybersecurity & cyberwarfare reshared this.
“Sparate alla Meloni”: scritta minacciosa a Prato, la Porta denuncia - LiberoReporter
Una scritta con la frase “Sparate alla Meloni” è comparsa a Prato. La deputata Chiara La Porta denuncia l’atto e parla di clima di odio diffuso in cittàBre-news (LiberoReporter)
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#photographie #photography #color #nature #flowers #bourdon #bicycle #bike #vélo #cyclo #cyclophoto #Quebec #Canada #silentSunday
Why America Is Seen as a Superpower
The United States is widely known as a global superpower, a position it has held for decades. This reputation comes not only from its economic might but also from its unmatched military strength, technological leadership, and cultural influence. The image of America as a dominant power has been shaped by history, diplomacy, and a consistent ability to set the tone of global affairs.
For much of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the United States has been central to the design of the international system. From its leadership in the aftermath of World War II to its role in shaping digital globalization today, America has combined hard power and soft power to remain at the top. While challenges from China, Russia, and other regional powers continue to rise, the United States is determined to adapt its strategies to maintain its influence.
Economic Power as the Foundation
America’s economic dominance has been one of its strongest pillars. With one of the world’s largest GDPs and the dollar serving as the primary global reserve currency, the United States has unparalleled leverage in international markets.
The Role of the Dollar in Global Trade
The dollar’s position as the world’s leading reserve currency gives Washington extraordinary influence. Nations across Asia, Europe, and Africa use the US dollar for trade settlements, debt, and reserves. This dominance allows the United States to shape global trade rules and even enforce sanctions that ripple across economies. For example, American sanctions on Iran and Russia highlight how economic tools are deployed as instruments of geopolitical control.
Economists note that this system has created both benefits and vulnerabilities. On the one hand, it ensures global demand for dollars, strengthening the US economy. On the other hand, it pushes rival states such as China and Russia to explore alternatives, including digital currencies and bilateral trade arrangements outside the dollar system.
Innovation and Global Companies
Silicon Valley has become synonymous with technological innovation. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Tesla have shaped industries worldwide, from smartphones and cloud computing to electric vehicles and artificial intelligence. The US government supports these sectors with research funding and tax incentives, ensuring that innovation remains at the core of its economic strategy.
At the same time, American companies have built cultural empires. Streaming platforms, social media giants, and Hollywood productions export American values, lifestyles, and trends to billions of people. This intersection of economic power and cultural influence gives the United States a unique advantage in shaping perceptions globally.
Military Dominance and Strategic Alliances
Another cornerstone of American superpower status is its military strength. The United States consistently spends more on defense than the next several nations combined, maintaining a vast network of alliances and overseas bases.
Global Military Footprint
With military bases in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, the United States maintains a presence that ensures rapid deployment capabilities. NATO remains one of its strongest tools, providing a collective defense network across the Atlantic. In Asia, partnerships with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines are central to America’s strategy of countering China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific.
American military power is not only about numbers but also about technology. Advanced missile defense systems, stealth aircraft, nuclear submarines, and space capabilities ensure that the United States remains far ahead in deterrence. The recent establishment of the US Space Force highlights Washington’s recognition of space as the next frontier of defense.
Use of Force and Diplomacy
Military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya illustrate the United States’ willingness to project power when necessary. Critics argue that such interventions have sometimes weakened America’s credibility, but supporters maintain that they demonstrate Washington’s unmatched capacity to act decisively.
Alongside military strength, diplomacy remains a critical tool. The United States often combines the threat of force with negotiation, using its position at the United Nations Security Council and influence in institutions such as the IMF and World Bank to shape outcomes favorable to its interests.
The Road Ahead: America’s Global Strategy
Looking forward, the United States faces both opportunities and challenges in sustaining its role as a superpower. Domestic divisions, rising debt, and shifting global dynamics test Washington’s capacity to lead. Nevertheless, its strategies are clear.
Competing with China and Russia
The rivalry with China defines much of America’s foreign policy. From trade disputes to technological competition, Washington is determined to limit Beijing’s global influence. Efforts include securing semiconductor supply chains through the CHIPS and Science Act and strengthening alliances in the Indo-Pacific.
Russia remains another major concern. The war in Ukraine has intensified tensions, with the United States providing military and financial support to Kyiv. Analysts argue that this conflict is not only about territorial sovereignty but also about the future of European security and the credibility of Western alliances.
Transition to Green Energy and Technology
Domestically, the Biden administration has emphasized a shift toward clean energy, electric vehicles, and digital infrastructure. By investing in renewable technologies, the United States hopes to lead the global transition to a sustainable future. This strategy is also geopolitical: controlling supply chains for critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt will determine who dominates the energy economy of the future.
Artificial intelligence is another battlefield. Washington is accelerating regulations and funding for AI development to ensure that American companies remain leaders in this domain. The goal is to prevent rivals from controlling the technologies that will shape the global economy in the next decades.
The United States continues to be seen as a superpower because of its unmatched combination of economic scale, military power, technological leadership, and cultural influence. Its ability to project both hard and soft power remains a unique feature that few nations can replicate.
While challenges are mounting, America shows no signs of stepping back. Instead, it is adapting its strategies to face a multipolar world. Whether through economic tools, military alliances, or innovation in technology and energy, the United States aims to secure its role at the center of global affairs.
For readers who want to explore more about global politics and shifting power dynamics, continue reading related coverage on Olam News.
Wir müssen reden, Andy #Grote. Bereits 10 getötete Radfahrer:innen in #Hamburg in 2025. Das Töten muss endlich aufhören! Mehr Sicherheit und Platz für ungeschützte Verkehrsteilnehmer:innen jetzt
Jetzt Start Ride of Silence vor der Innenbehörde
#stopkillingcyclists #hhrad #fahrrad #radverkehr #visionzero
Pleased to have been invited (and accepted) to join as an #Editor the Editorial Board of the #journal #Law #Ethics & #Technology via #China #University of #PoliticalScience & #Law
elspub.com/journals/law-ethics…
Home | Law, Ethics & Technology | Journal | ELSPublishing
Law, Ethics & Technology is an interdisciplinary journal focused on the ethical and legal issues of the environment, society, and humanity that arise from emerging technologies.www.elspub.com
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I posted this on LinkedIn a couple of years ago, but some recent posts made me think it was worth reposting on a platform that people actually read.
No, you don't need to hire more women
You can't solve any problem until you understand the problem that you're trying to solve and diversity and inclusion (D&I) is no different. I was Director of Studies for Computer Science at Murray Edwards (an all-women Cambridge college), have been Chair of the Microsoft Cambridge D&I Committee and sat on the D&I Council for Microsoft Research (worldwide), so this is a topic that I find myself discussing a lot.
A lot of the D&I-related conversations that I've had over the last few years have begun with someone telling me that their group needs to hire more women (or members of some other under-represented group - feel free to mentally substitute any other such group as you read this post) and asking me how to do it.
The number of women in an organisation is very rarely the underlying problem. It is a trailing indicator of an underlying problem, a spot health check, not an optimisation goal. If hiring more women is really the most important requirement, it's easy to solve: walk into any unemployment office and you'll find around half of the people there are women looking for jobs. Of course, most won't have the skills that you need (that, after all, is why you have a hiring process involving CVs, interviews, and so on) and hopefully that gives you a hint that just hiring people because they are women isn't actually the right solution.
It's very easy to set up metrics about number of women in each organisation and drive evaluation of culture based on that. This can often make inclusion worse for your company. Imagine being a woman in an all-hands meeting when someone in a leadership position puts up a graph of the number of women in the org and congratulates the leadership on the fact that it's going up. Your first thought will probably be something along the lines of 'was I hired just to meet some quota?' Your second (more worrying) thought may be 'do all of my co-workers think I was hired to meet some quota?' Now, you're immediately second-guessing your own competence and expecting other people to think you're underqualified.
So why should a company care about the number of women in a group? If just hiring more women doesn't solve the problem, that suggests that what we really want to do is hire and retain the most qualified people; if a particular group is underrepresented, that may be because your hiring and retention favours or disadvantages some people for reasons other than competence. If the best candidates are self-deselecting before you even get them to interview, that's a problem. If the best candidates are being filtered out because HR doesn't really understand the job, or because your hiring process magnifies implicit biases, that's a problem. If the best people are leaving because of your team culture, that's a problem.
When I've talked about D&I, I've often been approached by people afterwards saying that D&I is great, that helping disadvantaged people is nice, but that they need to focus first on business impact. This misses the point. Companies don't engage in D&I activities to be nice or to help people. Companies engage in D&I activities because hiring and retaining the best people has a greater business impact then hiring and retaining the best out of an arbitrary subset of the candidate pool. It's important to keep that in mind with diverse hiring: you are not doing diverse candidates a favour by hiring them, they are doing you a favour by allowing you to benefit from their skills and unique perspectives.
Various studies have shown that teams with diverse perspectives do better. It's easy to focus on a single dimension here but a team of male, rich, white, Eton-educated, Oxford PPE graduates will not get much benefit if they start hiring female, rich, white, Eton-educated, Oxford PPE graduates. Diversity of viewpoints comes from a large number of axes, including education, interests, gender, ethnicity, and so on. Optimising for a single dimension will not give you the desired results.
Even though the root problem for your company is not the number of women that you employ, that statistic is still an easy metric to give us a quick culture health check. In the last few years, the number of women graduating from computer science degrees in the UK has remained at around 20%, so at first glance you should expect an organisation that hires computer science graduates to be about 20% female.
That high-level stat doesn't tell the whole story though. As a middle-class white boy, there are a lot of conversations I never had. No one told me I shouldn't be interested in computers because they're a girl's thing. No one called me a race traitor for being interested in mathematics because it's not a white thing. No one told me 'boys can't code'. No one ignored me as a possible candidate for extra classes in a STEM subject because I was a boy. In my time at Murray Edwards, I heard stories like these from countless (female) STEM students about their time at school.
Any woman who even made it into the first year of an undergraduate computer science programme overcame far more obstacles than someone like me. By the age of 18, they've already shown a passion for the subject that let them push through these barriers. The fact that many will have left the field in spite of their aptitude is a separate problem that schools need to solve. As an employer, are you more interested in the candidates who care deeply about the subject, or the ones that coasted through looking for a well-paid job? If it's the former, then you should probably expect more than 20% of your candidate pool to be women. A lot of under-represented groups are far less under-represented in the top 10% of a field than in the field as a whole. That still doesn't mean that's the metric that you should optimise for, just a suggestion of where your ballpark culture health check should be.
So why is your group less than 20% female? It might be simply a small group. For a team of five people, assuming that 20% of the qualified candidate pool is female and that you hire at random from that pool, you have around a 33% chance of being an all-male team. If you're hiring for a particularly rare skill set, there's a good chance that this will be higher: you're relying on candidates being available on the job market at the same time that you're hiring. The same probabilities work with respect to the available candidate pool: if there are only three qualified candidates on the job market at any given time, there's a >50% chance that they'll all be male. Groups that can hire speculatively (bring in competent people as they become available, rather than needing to hire someone this month) have a big advantage here, by being able to hire the most competent people when they're available.
Does your hiring process favour a particular group? I'm not going to go into detail here because there's a staggeringly large amount of research on this topic. Whoever designs your company's hiring process needs to read a decent selection of this research and consciously design the process to minimise implicit bias. If no one has done this for your company then there's a very good chance that implicit bias is the dominant factor in hiring outcomes. This isn't limited to decisions made by humans. Amazon famously tried to use machine learning for hiring based on their current employee profiles and it learned that being male correlated strongly with being a good hire, so used that as the key metric.
Do your culture or your HR policies favour retention of a particular group? The biggest single improvement that you can make for retaining women is, somewhat counter-intuitively, to improve paternity leave. If you offer six months maternity leave and six weeks paternity leave, then a mother in your team will be four and a half months behind a father. Worse, every manager of a team will have a higher expectation that women on their team may disappear with short notice for longer than men. There are lots of other subtle ways that team culture can favour groups, such as promoting people who speak a lot in meetings and so on.
Gender breakdown isn't the only misleading metric. A lot of gender pay-gap reporting is nonsense because it shows that men and women of the same grade are paid the same, but doesn't account for promotional velocity or the relative expertise of people at a particular grade. If you're using any such metric then you need to be very careful that you treat it as a diagnostic indicator, not as an optimisation goal.
Having a particular group under-represented in your workforce is almost certainly a symptom of an underlying problem but if you try to treat the symptom without treating the cause then you will fail.
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Seychelles to hold rerun presidential election after no outright winner
https://www.africanews.com/2025/09/28/seychelles-to-hold-rerun-presidential-election-after-no-outright-winner/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Africanews @africanews-euronews
Seychelles to hold rerun presidential election after no outright winner | Africanews
With no outright winner in Seychelles’ presidential electio n, the country will hold a rerun vote between the two main contenders, the electoral authority said Sunday.Africanews
C-TOUCH & DISPLAY SHENZHEN 2025
C-TOUCH & DISPLAY SHENZHEN 2025 will be held from October 28 to 30, 2025, at the Shenzhen World Exhibition & Convention Center, China.China Business Forum
「私たちがここでしているのは、人間性がまだ残っていること、そしてすべての手段が尽きたときにも立ち上がろうとする人々がまだいると示すこと」
「ですが、これは最後の手段です。本来、この任務は存在しなくてもよいはずなのです」
「ガザに近づくほど事態がエスカレートし、攻撃が増える危険性が高まります。ここ数週間、私たちの任務に対する攻撃が激化し、複数の船が損壊しました。
ドローンを使って爆発物や化学物質、正体不明の物体を船やその周辺に投下するという、私たちを脅し、パレスチナと連帯する人々を沈黙させて怖がらせ、さらにパレスチナ人を非人間化しようとする必死の試みが続いています」
グレタ・トゥーンベリさん「恐れているのはイスラエルではなく、人間性を失ったように見える世界」
huffingtonpost.jp/entry/story_…
グレタ・トゥーンベリさん「恐れているのはイスラエルではなく、人間性を失ったように見える世界」
ガザへ支援物資を届けに向かう「グローバル・スムード船団」への妨害と攻撃が続く中、政府が船団への支援を表明する動きもある。國﨑万智(Machi Kunizaki) (ハフポスト)
credo valga la pena conservare quel podcast, lo trovate anche qui
grafton9.net/tmp/raiplay-centr…
ricordatevi: quando trovate qualcosa di interessante sul web, scaricatelo, copiatelo, diffondetelo. e conservatelo a casa, offline.
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#photographie #photography #color #nature #flowers #bourdon #bicycle #bike #vélo #cyclo #cyclophoto #Quebec #Canada #silentSunday
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Weapons is interesting. I will say I heard Katya's cackle through the entire movie.
Not horror, very thriller.
Altbot
in reply to n8zug • • •Das Bild zeigt ein Smartphone mit einem lockeren, gemalten Hintergrundbild. Im Vordergrund befindet sich eine leuchtend orange Karotte mit einem grinsenden Gesicht, die auf einem grünen Rasen liegt. Im Hintergrund ist eine malerische Landschaft mit sanften Hügeln, einem schmalen Weg und einem Baum mit roten Äpfeln zu sehen. Der Himmel ist mit einem spiralförmigen Muster gestaltet, das an Van Goghs Stil erinnert. Die Uhrzeit auf dem Bildschirm lautet 15:28, und der Tag ist Sonntag, 28.09. Der Text "Zum Entsperren nach oben..." befindet sich am unteren Bildschirmrand.
Bereitgestellt von @altbot, privat und lokal generiert mit Ovis2-8B
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