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The article by Henk van Ess covers the efforts of seven journalist students in uncovering some of the drone flights over airports and military bases. Their investigation centred around three freighters: HAV Dolphin, Lauga, and HAV Snapper, with their proximity to these drone flights and their ties to Russia. The main method of locating these freighters and their movements was through AIS data obtained from the Global Fishing Watch. The narrative being pushed by the author was that the authorities were not investigating or taking action, but also contradicted himself a few times in the article. It makes it hard to read, but it should not undermine the work done by the seven students. I'm glad I wasn't the only one to notice this as it was also talked about in replies on Mastodon where I first discovered this article.

Here's also some related reading about drones near the Dublin Airport around the expected time of Ukrainian President Zelensky's arrival.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor Antony Blinken's decision to adopt Calibri a "wasteful" diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters.

The department under Blinken in early January 2023 had switched to Calibri, a modern sans-serif font, saying this was a more accessible font for people with disabilities because it did not have the decorative angular features.

Surely it's more wasteful to undo two years worth of work, no?

Discovered via Cory Dransfeldt.

The story of a tech hub, Gaza Sky Geeks, in Gaza and West banch, their founding, success, and dispersion after the Israeli bombing in 2023. Despite the hardships the Gaza Sky Geeks never fully stopped operations. It's a sad piece but there is hope.

Discovered via Satyrs' garden.

On Wednesday afternoon one of Lisbon's funiculars slide down Glória killing 16 and injuring 21 others. It's a horrendous affair and I wish I was writing about these 19th century funiculars during a better time. Portugal declared Thursday a national day of mourning and have halted operation of all funiculars until an investigation is completed.

These layoffs surely must be a fad of the times, it can't be true that almost every major organization has over hired in the last few years.

The IRS is looking to revert their reduction in force program, which I discovered via TheMorningNews.

The Internal Revenue Service is no longer planning to pursue layoffs as it seeks to rebuild parts of its workforce. The tax agency is now working to plug staffing holes with hiring, reassignments and rescinding the administration’s deferred resignation offer for some employees upon finding mission-critical staffing gaps.

In other news, Trump issues an order to create the National Design Studio to improve government websites for the people. Seems good on paper until you realize DOGE shutdown 18F whose job it was too exactly this.

On the morning of 24 June, the first day of the NATO summit, a fire was put out by the fire brigade and ProRail contractors disrupting trains to and from Schiphol Airport and between Amsterdam and Utrecht. Roughly 30 cables were damaged on the Oeverlandeweg rail bridge which took the better part of the day to repair.

Later that day, the Dutch police released a notice asking for witnesses who may have been in the area when the fire started around 03:45. We also learned the report came in at 05:41, which is roughly two hours of burn time. Last week, the police put out another call for witnesses mentioning three cyclists and a taxi driver with a passenger who may have seen the crime. Along with the report were images of the fire and charred cables.

Andreas, from 82MHz, came up with a brilliant analogy to describe Musk and his actions. I had to share.

Imagine you bought a house and you find that there’s a weird electronic device attached to the wall. You have no idea what it is or what it does, so you just pull it off, cut the cord and throw it out. It was probably put there by an idiot anyway. Three months later winter arrives and you wonder why your house doesn’t get warm. Remember that weird thing you didn’t understand and you threw away? Turns out that was the thermostat for the heating.

That’s how Musk operates. It’s what he did at Twitter after he took over, and it’s what he’s doing now as the head of DOGE.

I try not to be negative in what I post online, for this reason, this will stay out of the main blog, and my Mastodon account, but I wanted to comment in some way so it will be a link post. Linked is a YouTube video from Mutahar on the incident with MKBHD, if you prefer reading here's a Verge article. I don't care to comment much on the ethicality of a full length sponsored video that seemingly positions itself as a review but what I don't have any tolerance or respect for is the egregious speeding especially in a residential area. The main speedometer was blurred out to cover the crime but the car had a passenger-side speedometer as well that showed Marquees drove up to 95 mph which converts to 152 kmh where the limit is 56kmh! Completely reckless to drive at those speeds at all, even more so in a residential area where a children playing sign was visible in the video. The video was quickly edited with a comment that said "Cut out the unnecessary driving clip that obviously added nothing to the video. I hear all your feedback on sponsored videos too." Good cover-up...

The linked video from Mutahar covers my views on the event.