RSS Feeds

Total of 804 confirmed dead and more than 3,000 missing amid threat of fresh inundation

• ‘Their whole village has disappeared’: frantic hunt for survivors in Kathmandu hospital

Rescuers in Nepal and Tibet have battled through leg-sucking mud amid the threat of fresh flooding to search for thousands of people still missing after a deadly wall of water swept through the Himalayan border zone, engulfing entire villages.

The latest updates on Sunday put the number of missing at 3,048, including hundreds of foreigners. There was a total of 804 confirmed deaths across Nepal and Tibet, and reports of some bodies swept downstream possibly as far as India.

Задумывались ли вы, как в стране без банковских карт и интернета деньги ходили между предприятиями? Завод в Челябинске отгрузил трубы, совхоз под Ташкентом купил технику, инженер в Новосибирске получил зарплату — и всё это должно было сойтись в единый баланс. Причём сойтись с точностью до копейки: за копейкой в Госбанке следили строже, чем за иным секретным чертежом.

В прошлых статьях мы разобрали, как ЭВМ заходили в советскую промышленность, и посмотрели на сами машины — лампы, поколения, «Уралы». Продолжаем. Сегодня три сюжета: деньги, медицина и образование. А на десерт — история одной машины, которую сгубила её собственная необычность. Но о ней в самом конце.

Dawn was crowned fattest marmot by popular vote.

(Image credit: Eric Philips)

Campaigners welcome plan to bring IPP sentences to a close but say the move is long overdue

Campaigners have hailed Andy Burnham’s pledge to bring an end to indefinite jail terms as “a day that thousands of families have spent years fighting for”.

The prime minister has said he will “end the injustice” of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences during this parliament, meaning people will no longer be trapped indefinitely under a sentence abolished more than a decade ago.

Record crowds, premium seats and an unchecked resale market are transforming the self-styled people’s slam – and leaving ordinary fans fighting to get through the gates

It takes a truly exceptional affordability crisis to put Bill Ackman and Zohran Mamdani on the same side of the barricade. Yet this month the billionaire hedge fund manager and New York’s democratic socialist mayor found common cause over an unlikely grievance: the cost of getting into the US Open.

Ackman took objection to the cost of a grounds pass listed for $363. Mamdani responded to the broader uproar by securing 1,000 tickets for New York residents at $100 apiece, prompting more than 336,000 people to apply for them. Somewhere between the two sits the uneasy economics of the modern US Open, where a $65 ticket with no guaranteed seat on any court can fetch more than five times that amount on the tournament’s resale marketplace.

Привет, читатель! Посмотрим, как древнючий Broadwell аж из 2015 года выжимает все соки из своей подсистемы памяти (напомню, что это 1150 сокет с DDR3 оперативной памятью), приближаясь по её латентности к более современным решениям.

Автор, это явно какое‑то противоречие! Как процессор, работающий с оперативкой, старше многих школьников, умудряется догонять те же Skylake вроде i7-6700K?

Ответ кроется в той самой подсистеме памяти, а вернее в L4 кэше. Он же — eDRAM

eDRAM (embedded Dynamic Random Access Memory) изначально создавался как быстрый буфер, созданный для повышения ПСП (пропускной способности памяти) для встроенной графики Iris Pro 6200. Но если бы все было так просто...

Представьте картину: вы руководитель склада на пищевом производстве, вам нужно распечатать и раздать сотрудникам задания, а рабочий МФУ в очередной раз уходит в «циклическую кому». Добавьте в уравнение ещё одну переменную: в компании попросту нет не то что ИТ‑отдела — эникея, которому можно было бы поручить дебаг. И эта вакханалия происходит изо дня в день у всего нашего офиса.

Справочник на 119 тысяч товаров, из которых поиск видел 39 страниц. Разбираемся, как одно условие в шаблоне заперло полтысячи адресов и что дал белый список карты сайта.

Обычно ко мне обращаются с похожим запросом: поставил Obsidian, посмотрел видео, разложил папки как показывали, дальше не пошло. Одна клиентка описала это так - поставила программу под большое научное исследование и утонула в роликах о том, как ею пользоваться.

Я собираю персональные системы в Obsidian на заказ. Работа начинается с таблицы: слева боли, сверху предполагаемые решения, на пересечениях отметки. Ниже - как её заполнить и что в ней потом видно.

На связи Дмитрий, в Сайткрафте отвечаю за стратегию и экономику проектов. Есть грубый, но честный тест на здоровье маркетинга онлайн-сервиса: выключите платную рекламу на один день. Если заявки встают в тот же день до нуля, весь спрос вы выкупаете на аукционе прямо сейчас, и запаса у вас нет. Ниже на замерах из реального сквозного дашборда разберу, почему на длинном цикле одной рекламы перестаёт хватать, почему при этом растёт стоимость заявки и что с этим делать. Если вы отвечаете за платный трафик в SaaS или на онлайн-платформе, дальше без общих слов, с цифрами и формулами.

Исследователи увидели, что клетки водорослей подо льдом, когда первые фотоны весеннего солнечного света проникли сквозь темноту арктической полярной ночи, поглощают свет при интенсивности, равной теоретическому минимуму для фотосинтеза — менее одной стотысячной части света солнечного дня.

Большинство жизненных процессов работает на солнечном свете. Фотоны проникают сквозь атмосферу и с жадностью поглощаются организмами, использующими свет в качестве источника энергии, такими как растения и водоросли. В процессе фотосинтеза частицы света запускают клеточную реакцию, в результате которой вырабатывается химическая энергия (в виде сахаров), которая затем передаётся по пищевой цепи в сложной взаимосвязи между травоядными, хищниками, падальщиками, разлагающими организмами и другими участниками экосистемы.

В яркий солнечный день фотонов хватает с лихвой. Но что происходит при слабом освещении? Биологи давно интересуются тем, при каком минимальном количестве света может происходить фотосинтез — или какое количество фотонов с какой скоростью должно поступать, чтобы фотосинтетический аппарат клетки мог преобразовывать углекислый газ в кислород и энергию. Расчёты показали, что теоретический минимум составляет около 0,01 микромоля фотонов на квадратный метр в секунду, или менее одной стотысячной доли от освещённости солнечного дня.

На протяжении десятилетий этот расчёт оставался теоретическим из‑за сложностей, связанных с изучением фотосинтеза в условиях слабого освещения. Никто не мог подтвердить его в полевых условиях, хотя на Земле существует множество мест, куда свет едва доходит. Например, каждую зиму в Арктике на высоких широтах солнце, скрытое из‑за наклона оси Земли, исчезает на несколько месяцев. Метровые слои снега покрывают морской лёд и блокируют поступающий свет, оставляя ледяной океан внизу таким же тёмным, как пространство в гробнице. Биологи предполагали, что фотосинтезирующие микроводоросли, обитающие в воде и льду, на время сезона переходят в состояние покоя и ждут возвращения тепла и света.

Record inundations wrecked homes and took seven lives but Trump has not approved emergency aid and the state has cut funds for environmental agencies

It’s been 10 days since the floodwater receded from Cambridge City’s main street and yet signs of disaster are all around.

Abandoned cars, toilets and bathtubs are strewn across parks and side streets on a recent visit to the city. Garages have been lifted from their foundations and moved by the rushing water. Dumpsters up and down the street are overflowing with people’s belongings, with red paint sprayed on homes indicating which houses have been cleared by water rescue teams.

State and city lawmakers push to boost regulations after two outbreaks of the disease over the last two summers

New York lawmakers are now trying to better protect residents from the deadly legionnaires’ disease by increasing regulations and inspections of cooling towers after two outbreaks of the infection over the last two summers and a raft of new lawsuits.

Legionnaires’ disease is a serious pneumonia caused by a bacterium called legionella. It often comes from large air-conditioning systems, like those used in hotels, hospitals and high-rise buildings, because the cooling towers contain water to remove heat. If not well maintained, the liquid can foster the bacteria, which can then be swept into fans and circulated through the air.

Несчастные случаи, приводящие к производственному травматизму, считаются серьёзной проблемой в мире, в том числе и в России. Зачастую произошедшее ЧП заканчивается либо потерей дееспособности работником, либо смертельным исходом. Внедрение ИИ в систему видеомониторинга за строительной площадкой позволяет снизить вероятность несчастных случаев на объекте. С опорой на статистические данные рассмотрим, как это происходит.

Решил начать с сферы строительства тк разбираюсь в ней очень хорошо и считаю, что это одна из важных сфер применения ИИ. Здесь, помимо самого процесса строительства, важен процесс мониторинга за объектами, персоналом и техникой. Современные системы работают с несколькими инструментами:

В этом дайджесте надежное выполнение фоновых задач в iOS и детекция лица в реалтайме для биометрии в Android, забавные анимации с меш-градиентами в Jetpack Compose и кастомизация пейволов с Apple Foundation Models, Kotlin Coroutines Channels и Actor‑модель, фоновые задачи в KMP с API как у WorkManager, разработка на Авроре под Аврору, двуногий робот в форме утёнка от Hugging Face и многое другое. Заходите!

The indulgent, pleasantly mouth-puckering Floridian dessert in nine easy steps

Beautiful as the Florida Keys are, with average August temperatures topping 30C and with hurricane season looming, I think I’d rather enjoy their most famous culinary export in the calm of our own more temperate isles (well, usually, at least). Cool and creamy, with a refreshingly sharp, citrus tang, this is the perfect make-ahead dessert for any bank holiday festivities.

Prep 20 min
Cook 15 min
Chill 3 hr+
Serves 6

State and city lawmakers push to boost regulations after two outbreaks of the disease over the last two summers

New York lawmakers are now trying to better protect residents from the deadly legionnaires’ disease by increasing regulations and inspections of cooling towers after two outbreaks of the infection over the last two summers and a raft of new lawsuits.

Legionnaires’ disease is a serious pneumonia caused by a bacterium called legionella. It often comes from large air-conditioning systems, like those used in hotels, hospitals and high-rise buildings, because the cooling towers contain water to remove heat. If not well maintained, the liquid can foster the bacteria, which can then be swept into fans and circulated through the air.

As Americans face an affordability crisis and war with Iran, the president is focused on … changing the names of things

Is it a key policy move which will “recognize the extraordinary contributions of the American people”? Or “real foolishness”?

Whatever the impact of Donald Trump unusual decision to retitle Lake Ontario as Lake America, days after Canada’s prime minister refused to be cowed by Trump’s punitive tariffs, it has certainly divided opinion – but perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

Quite a few music artists are in their flop era right now. Think about it: Drake hasn’t been the same since Kendrick Lamar knocked him out in their 2024 beef. Katy Perry once dominated the charts, but her recent releases haven’t been fireworks. And there was once a point where it felt impossible to step foot in a workout class without hearing Lizzo, but her latest album fizzled out. 

Some examples, in other words, are obvious. But what does it really mean for a song to flop? According to Tom Breihan, executive editor at StereoGum and author of the book The Number Ones Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music, it’s all relative. 

“There’s a million songs on Spotify that nobody will ever hear,” he told Vox. “Those songs are not necessarily flops because they did not necessarily come with expectations. When a major artist does not reach whatever benchmark they or their fans or their label expect for them, it can be embarrassing. People love to seize upon that embarrassment and take off running with it.”

Why do some songs flail while others succeed? And how does an artist bounce back from those unmet expectations? We find out that and more on this week’s episode of Explain It to Me, Vox’s weekly call-in podcast.

Below is an excerpt of my conversation with Breihan, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545.

Are the songs that flop bad? Is that why they’re flopping? 

In some cases, yeah. You can definitely pick out a few and be like, “That wasn’t the one.”

A lot of it is just timing and luck. Sometimes an artist comes along at the exact right moment and builds up goodwill and puts out the right song for themselves. Sometimes they misread the room in sort of howlingly, clangingly obvious ways, and they end up not doing well. 

It’s happened to plenty of great people. Plenty of stars have bounced back from having flops, but it does happen. 

What are some really good songs that have flopped? 

As an online indie music critic, my prototypical example is Emotion by Carly Rae Jepsen. She had had this gigantic global breakout smash with the song “Call Me Maybe.” The album that she put out after this is this brilliant, layered, excellent pop record that became, I would say, influential upon the idea that you could be a pop star who was a cult artist, like an indie rock band or an underground rapper. But it didn’t sell. It didn’t do numbers. So in its moment, it was a critically beloved flop. 

How much of becoming a hit is about the music itself and how much of it is about virality and marketing? 

Those things are so bound up with each other. A lot of the time, artists are making songs that are engineered to go viral, or they’re making songs that comment on their own public perceptions. 

When someone like Lizzo comes along and puts out a record that doesn’t do well, it becomes a bigger story than just, “Oh, people weren’t feeling this song.” It becomes, “Oh, people don’t like this person,” or “This person has run out of goodwill.”

Like a Lizzo song: You hear her persona jumping through the speaker, whether the song does well or not. So the song and the artist become inextricable from each other. The song and the marketing become inextricable. 

There is another example of an artist who has gone from really high highs to very low flops that I would love to get into, and that’s Katy Perry. I feel like we’ve come a long way from Left Shark at the Super Bowl. What happened there? 

Katy Perry has had the career that pop stars used to have, where they have a crazy dominant stretch where they’re knocking out hit after hit after hit, and they’re unstoppable. Then everything kind of tails off over time. One album has five No. 1 hits. The next album has two No. 1 hits. The next album has no significant hits at all, but a couple top 10s. 

She put out an album right at the beginning of the pandemic. You can say, “Well, that one didn’t do well, and that’s not her fault.” Then she spent a long time on American Idol as a judge; she spent a long time playing Las Vegas residencies. And then she was like, “That’s it. I’m quitting American Idol. I’m coming back. I’m being the pop star that you all want me to be.“

She made a bad album. She also reunited with Dr. Luke, who was the co-writer and producer of lots of her big hits but who, in the time since she stopped working with him, accusations were made. Kesha, who was friends with Katy Perry when she came up, was the person making those accusations. So there’s a lot for the internet to glom onto there.

That’s how a song goes from being a bad song to a notorious flop — when not only does the song not perform, it actually burns up a lot of the goodwill that this person has had. 

What songs did everyone maybe expect to be huge, but then bombed? 

It is possible for a song to be a No. 1 hit and still a flop. Especially now, a song can debut at No. 1 based on streams and conversation, and then it can disappear from the charts. 

In 1996, Michael Jackson released “You Are Not Alone.” The song debuted at No. 1. It fell pretty quickly. The album didn’t do that well. The song ultimately is not remembered that well, and has really entered the notorious shadow zone over the years. 

Are there examples of songs that critics hated initially, and then over time became classics?

So many. The songs that were hits and were universally regarded as irritating in their time have a great hit rate. People were annoyed by “MMMBop,” by Hansen, or “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls. 

There were certainly critics who understood ABBA when they were popping off, but they were, I would say, widely regarded as a punchline. Now that is just an impeccable, beautiful, influential pop catalog. 

A song like the Quad City DJ’s “”C’mon N’ Ride It (The Train)” was not a song the critics were really lining up to praise in the 1990s, but as a person who was a child then, I can tell you that song goes so hard and never stopped going hard. 

What’s the biggest misconception people have about pop music success? 

I think the biggest misconception is the idea that a label or a corporation can engineer a giant hit. They can observe trends. They can put their money into promotion. But you never know what people are going to actually grab onto and what they’re not. 

There are things that they can do to create the impression that something is connecting, but you need to have real sustained success to have everybody be like, “Okay, no, this actually is huge.”

How do artists tend to respond if they’ve entered a flop era?

There’s a grand, beautiful history of artists who instead of trying the same thing over and over again, they become behind-the-scenes figures. They write songs for other people, or they produce, or they become managers. 

Max Martin, who is now ahead of John Lennon, but behind Paul McCartney in terms of songwriters with No. 1 hits, he was the lead singer for a Swedish band in the ’80s that was trying to be Bon Jovi, and they never caught on. His band was called It’s Alive. You can look their songs up online. They’re not that great, but he wound up making all these incredible records with all these different people. 

There’s a lot of that. That has happened many, many times throughout pop history. It’s certainly one way to deal with the flop problem.

• Premier League updates from the 2pm (BST) kick-offs

• Live scoreboard | Mail John and follow us on Bluesky

Mark Slater gets in touch: “I will be following the Chelsea vs Brighton match particulary, but am happy to see a Joy Division quote in the opening paragraphs. In Chelsea’s case, Brighton and Hove Albion, Manchester City, and Aston Villa most recently...”

Tom: “A+++ for getting Joy Division into the Sunday MBM.”

Не секрет, что первый советский реактивный пассажирский самолёт Ту-104 – суть модификация бомбардировщика Ту-16. Казалось, чем не повод для анекдотов про «мечи на орала» и «мирный советский трактор», тем более, блин действительно вышел скорее комом. То ли дело «Боинг-707», что чуть запоздал, зато чётко попал в классический облик реактивного лайнера. Но если зарыться в родословную «американца», то и у него можно откопать воинственных предков…

Девять месяцев назад я начал запускать таймер каждый раз, когда сажусь за конкретную задачу. За это время одна категория “студия” превратилась в систему проектов, ролей и описаний, а тайм-трекинг стал способом оценивать работу не по ощущениям. Рассказываю, как я веду Toggl Track, почему отдельно считаю управление, разработку и созвоны, что помогает не забывать про таймер

Project in Zambia shows how teaching young women to negotiate better can have a long-term impact on their prospects

Women making their way in patriarchal societies down the ages have always had to wield their meagre economic power deftly. New evidence from a fascinating research project in Zambia suggests that’s a skill that can be learned.

A team of female US academics have been gathering data for more than a decade, which shows that teaching young women to negotiate better can have a long-term impact on their prospects.

• Slovenian awaiting surgery on collarbone after fall

• Mas extends overall lead by winning ninth stage

Tadej Pogacar, who was dramatically forced to withdraw from the Vuelta a España on Saturday after a heavy fall, has shared a photo of himself from hospital accompanied by the Bee Gees’ song Stayin’ Alive.

Pogacar, the clear leader of the Vuelta until his crash, greeted followers on his Instagram account with a photo showing him in a hospital bed wearing a neck brace. The Slovenian five-time Tour de France winner could also be seen with a plaster near his right eyebrow, as well as on his right hand, which he held in his usual gesture of raising his index finger and little finger.

City firms tapped for case studies to try to convince global watchdog that London has cleaned up its act

The government is asking bankers and lawyers to provide feelgood stories about how they blocked dirty money from entering the UK, as ministers try to prove the UK’s money-laundering controls are working.

The Treasury’s call for evidence is meant to illustrate that the UK has upped its game when it comes to preventing financial crime, particularly since its last dismal assessment by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) global crime watchdog in 2018, which fuelled allegations that London had become a hub for “dirty money”.

More than 100 undercover officers spied on tens of thousands of mainly leftwing activists over decades

Prosecutors are examining whether to bring criminal charges against 12 former police officers who were involved in spying on political groups.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is examining a file of evidence that the officers may have committed wrongdoing while working in controversial undercover operations.

A growing number of people are rediscovering their love of plastic bricks in later life and boosting the Danish company’s bottom line

In a cosy cafe in Kingston upon Thames on the outskirts of London, nine people gather in the early evening to drink and talk. To the casual observer it may look like a book club, but when the friends reach into their bags it’s not paperbacks they produce – but packs of Lego.

Geoff Lay, who organised the gathering, worked in software development before recently starting Noble Brick, a Lego-focused events organisation.