Humanius

From my understanding a significant portion of asylum claims in Europe came from Syrian refugees.

In December of 2024 the former Syrian president Assad was deposed and the country has (seemingly) gotten a lot more stable since. So it makes sense that asylum claims would be down in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024.

This is a good development. Not only does it mean that people will be able to go home in relative safety, it also takes away a lot of the ammunition (the fallout from the refugee crisis that has been ongoing since 2015) that the right-wing populists and fascists all over Europe have been using to gain power.

The article speculates that the increase in pedestrian deaths is due to e-bikes and e-scooters. I’m not convinced that this speculation is based on actual data though.

After a bit of digging I found a government resource on road fatalities:
https://catalogue.data.infrastructure.gov.au/dataset/australian-road-deaths-database

This data does not seem to track the vehicle that caused the road fatality, unless that vehicle is a bus, heavy-rigid truck, or articulated truck. So there would be no way to determine from the data available whether the increase in fatalities is due to e-bikes and e-scooters.

Oops! We accidentally added Putin himself to our top secret summit Signal group-chat

It is not that funny when it is your home that gets blown up

I’m Dutch, but I don’t live in a place that is particularly affected by these explosions, nor am I an expert on the matter… but I’ll drop my two cents, based on my reading of the situation

These explosions are happening in cities like Rotterdam and the Hague. They are places that traditionally have gang/mafia activity.
From my understanding a lot of the explosions are related to underworld dealings. It’s possible that there is some petty conflicts as well, but the individuals are almost always connected to the underworld somehow.

It’s also worth noting that in the NL (as I imagine it happens in other places?) crime tends to come in waves.
Criminals figure out a new effective method to commit crime. The police and institutions scramble at first in order to deal with it. Then eventually they figure out an effective method in order the combat the issue. After which criminals lose interest and either the problem moves to a different location, or they change tactics.

Edit: The article also mentions that “the use and possession of fireworks generally are also laxer in the Netherlands.”
This is simply not true. The kinds of fireworks that are legal in the NL are much more restricted than they are in Belgium and Germany, and you can only legally purchase and use it leading up to New Year’s Eve.

The dangerous stuff is illegally imported from Belgium and Germany.

OS: Unraid

It’s primarily NAS software, with a form of software raid functionality built in.
I like it mainly because it works well and the GUI makes is very easy to use and work with.

On top of that you can run VMs and docker containers, so it is very versatile as well.

I use it to host the following services on my network:

• Nextcloud
• Jellyfin
• CUPS

It costs a bit of money up-front, but for me it was well-worth the investment.

I see. In that case I stand corrected.

To a certain extent I agree, but you can buy a book and still commit copyright infringement by copying its contents (for use other than personal use)

If this would go to court, it would depend on whether training an LLM model is more akin to copying or learning. I can see arguments for either interpretation, but I suspect that the law would lean more toward it being copying rather than learning

NS is not really responsible for housing policy though.

Yeah they should just sit back and do nothing while their government finishes the job! /s

That is not what the eligibility tool for the battery program is telling me.
And Google Support told me the same thing when I asked for clarification about how the eligibility is determined.

Edit: The email says Pixel 7a, but that is a mistake on their part. I have a Pixel 6a.

Not OP but it would appear that any phone that is out of warranty will be denied a repair or refund.

I’ve been emailing back and forth with Google support about this issue for the past two weeks, and thusfar the only information I’ve gotten is that the reason my phone is denied a repair or refund is because the warranty expired in 2024.

I don’t even have information on whether my phone contains a defective battery in the first place. Since the refund eligibility tool doesn’t say that, and I haven’t received an answer to that question yet from support.

Given that the Pixel 4a came out in 2020 and the Pixel 6a in 2022, with warranties generally lasting 2 years, most phones will be out of warranty.

Edit: This is the most recent response I’ve received from Google Support.
The reason why the terms “eligible” and “impacted” are used like this is because I was trying to figure out the reason for the inconsistencies between the terms on their support page

I am very disappointed with the way Google appears to be handling the issue. They ship their phones with defective batteries, and are now not really doing anything to properly communicate the problem and fix the issue.
Instead we get a mandatory update and no real information

Charging the battery for a moped is not nearly as demanding as charging the battery for a car.

I’m not entirely sure, but I believe that Vietnam is one of those countries where most people get around on a moped, and also one of those countries that has already been shifting towards electrifying their moped fleet. If that modal share doesn’t change they might not need major infrastructural investment in order to strengthen the grid.

Edit: Battery swapping stations are also quite common for mopeds in countries like Taiwan. Those can be trickle charged rather than fast-charged.

While I would normally agree that labeling a protest group as terrorists would be government overreach, I’m not sure if that is true for Palestine Action. Their protests have more similarity with terrorist actions than I would be comfortable with

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/4/palestine-action-what-has-the-group-done-as-it-faces-a-ban

Particularly the last bullet point in that article is a big one

In June 2025, the group carried out one of its most provocative actions to date: infiltrating RAF Brize Norton, the UK’s largest airbase. Activists used electric scooters to breach security and vandalised military aircraft with red paint.

You can’t break into a military base, vandalize property, and expect the government not to do anything about that.
I’m all for pro-Palestinian protests and standing with Palestine, but this is not it.

Google is not offering me a no-cost battery replacement.
I’m not eligible for any replacement or refund according to their own support page

Edit: Here’s proof.

On the one page they are talking about “impacted devices”, but on the other page they say I’m not “eligible” for a refund of repair.
So they do not confirm whether my phone is unaffected or not. They only say I won’t get a refund.

I’m highly skeptical when a massive corporation uses inconsistent language like this. Especially when they don’t clearly define what they mean with the terms “impacted” and “eligible”.

Are there situations where impacted devices may not be eligible?

I own a Pixel 6a, and I’m not happy about the whole situation for several reasons:

• The update is mandatory and instant the moment it is received. You don’t get a choice in the matter.
• The only reason I am aware of my battery being nerfed is because I had read this article and because I paid attention during the update. There is no clear indication after the update that they might have nerfed my battery life.
• Google is not communicating clearly whether my phone is one of the so-called “affected devices”. There is a tool that allows you to check “eligibility”, but it only reports eligibility for a refund. My phone is not eligible for a refund, so does that mean my phone is not an “affected device”? It doesn’t say.
• After calling support Im not much wiser. All they told me is that “if my phone gets warm sometimes, or the battery drains too fast” that might mean my device is affected. But clearly they should know whether my device is affected otherwise they wouldn’t be able to determine whether I’m eligible for the refund.

This is also not the first time Google burned me with a bad quality battery. This just strengthens my resolve that my next phone won’t be a Pixel. Which is a shame, because I like these phones otherwise.

The Fairphone is looking quite interesting.

Pro: It’s radical and cool and you get to shoot your gun! Pew! Pew!
Con: You occasionally have cases of innocent minorities getting shot by racists

The “racist” between quotes in the headline just means that that one word is a direct quote from someone or something, wheas the rest of the headline is paraphrased. In this case it’s a direct quote from a coroner’s inquest by Judge Armitage.

I’m not a fan of this style of quoting, since writing singular words between quotes could easily also be read as insincerity or sarcasm. But it seems to be pretty common in English language media.

Edit: Judge Armitage also writes that this police officer being racist isn’t just incidental, but rather that the police station he is working at apparently has a work-place culture that has normalised racism (as per the article)

My server has also not been liking the heat over the past month

Though in my case it’s because drive 3 is sitting in a slot that is possibly not getting enough airflow. It’s consistently running a bit hotter than the other drives in the system.

I really should get around to moving it to a different slot.

For context, before people jump to conclusions:

Russia is not party to this landmine treaty, and Ukraine having to adhere to this treaty is essentially forcing them to fight against someone who plays dirty while having their arm tied around their back.

Other countries that have announced that they will be withdrawing from the Ottowa Treaty are: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (Coincidentally all bordering Russia or Belarus)