Malls/shopping centres take the idea of a walkable neighbourhood, put it in a box, replace the natural light with artificial light, and make it feel like only people who are there to spend money are welcome.

It has taken four months but Rob Jetten has finally been sworn in as Dutch PM, leading a D66-VVD-CDA minority government. Here's hoping the cabinet is more stable than Schoof's. PVV will oppose everything for not being hard right enough and PvdA/GL will no doubt try to drag each bill leftwards.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... Some top class journalism behind this story. It turns it wasn't just "an Amazon driver relying on satnav just drives into the sea" although safety governance of gig-economy drivers and managers (inc. use of satnav) is an important part of the story.

What does RFK Jr think of this? Does he agree that a changing climate and increased emissions are no danger to public health?

The first congratulations are rolling in from around the country. #libspill

Those sour patch kids Oreos taste okay but they smell exactly like Mortein (an Australian bug spray).

Tomorrow, my daughter starts school in the suburbs of an Australian city. In Amsterdam we had a good routine of when to leave home and the cycle there took more or less the sane time every day. She's now too big for a seat on my bike and isn't yet skilled enough to ride the whole way by herself.

Apparently to turn off Bing's AI search results I need to sign in with a Microsoft account but it won't let me set one up with my work email and I'm not logging in to my personal email on a work laptop just to turn off AI. So anyone using Edge without logging in and disabling it is forced into AI?

Have settled into two rhythms with my commute. It's either cycle 1km to the train then transfer to a short bus ride and walk down the hill or cycle 4km to a 20 minute express bus ride through a road tunnel and busway and then walk up the hill.

Just to update everyone on this, it was absolutely delicious.

"This appears to be a long document. Save time by reading a summary using AI Assistant". It's an 18 page project plan. Lord almighty give me the strength to break the algorithmic looms that have spread their foulness across workplace software.

Ringing in the new year with a 50-year banger of an album.

All five grandkids 5+ at our family Christmas-New Year brought their tablets with them but apart from the beach and pool the most popular activities have been playing with my nearly one-year old's bucket of blocks and doing tattoo pens with stencils on each other.

Bought 2kg of brined (but not smoked) pork shoulder to turn into our Christmas ham this week. Went to a butcher around here that I've known about but never been to before. A 2kg piece ended up costing $16.60 (£8.20/€9,40). An absolute steal. It's going to get a marmalade, mustard, maple glaze on it

I have a bike. The integrated front hub needs adjusting because it is not spinning fast enough, and there's a bunch of nuts that need tightening, but I have a bike.

Borrowing my dad's bike in suburban Brisbane. It's clearly for recreation not transport as there's no lock. Front tube got a puncture in the last few days but there's no pump here and the nearest bike shop or even petrol station isn't within walking distance. Time to hit up Facebook marketplace.

Today's Lifeline Bookfest haul includes "Practische Recepten", a 1949 Dutch cookbook that has multiple recipes for mayonnaise, a few for coffee, an entire section on stamppot, other classics like oliebollen and kaasbroodjes, and a recipe for Siberische Omelet (which I think might be Baked Alaska).

The UK is discussing a digital ID. the Dutch one was very straightforward to use despite there being some difficulties in setting it up as a non-EU citizen. Now that I'm having to deal with Australia's myID I am having no end of trouble linking multiple government services to it

Doing my Dutch lessons in Drops and I'm not such a fan of the words in the apocalypse movies session being overwhelmingly about epidemiology.

Totally forgot that coffee ceases to be available after about 3pm in Brisbane.

Broken bike crank and a traffic collision just in front of the tram I took instead this evening means I got home at 7pm and have done ~22k steps.

And now it's gone. metro.co.uk/2025/11/20/b... Good riddance to bad design.

The footway parking ban in England consultation closed 5 years ago tomorrow. The Tories' inaction is now Labour's inaction. www.gov.uk/government/c...

Me when a non-Australian expresses the smallest bit of interest about The Dismissal

Alright, time to start the next phase of the job hunt. Oh. Bum.

www.seek.com.au/job/88156697... Today on "actually interesting stuff from old job alerts" I know a handful of LSHTM MSc Health Data Science grads who'd be perfect for this. Alas it requres applicants to be Australia/NZ residents (including international students already in Australia).

With Klaver reelected as GL-PvdA leader it's a big day for two groups: those who are hopeful for a D66-Kabinet that includes GL-PvdA and VVD; and Resse shippers.

Some days you just need to walk and walk and walk to get your baby to stay asleep.

The recent Dutch election, especially the use of TikTok by D66 and their supporters, has turned my wife into a Resse shipper.

We can't fix car dependency because people are dependent on their cars!!!!

Fingers crossed for a D66+VVD+PvdA/GL+CDA government out of all of this. I know they have their differences but a coalition that has groups from slightly either side of D66, with a D66 Minister-President could work.

This is on a post from a state government road safety account from about how travelling faster than 50kph around pedestrians increases the risk of them dying if a collision occurs. Apparently pedestrians should take personal responsibility but asking drivers to is over-regulation.

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet. After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

"Over half of the e-cargo bike mileage ridden during trials substituted for car use." doi.org/10.1016/j.jc...

She's had the book less than an hour and is already customising Tolkien's maps.

My kid has already done more geocaches than me. I have done one to their four.

Passing a series of structals which is actually the same data frame multiple times to a udf so that it can be executed with a window function in pyspark is certainly a thing you can do.

Your Comeback Guide to all the Anti-Cycling Arguments You’ll Hear This Year. momentummag.com/your-comebac...

In the event of my death as a result of some driver, please DO politicise the hell out of it.

Gemeente has just replaced two or three nearby street parking spaces with enough bike storage for about 50 bikes. That ought to help the residents out given the alternative is dozens of bikes being left on the narrow footpath. Bonus is that the freshly relaid pavers will be level.

How much of the USA right's insistence on thoughts and prayers being all that's needed in the wake of high profile gun violence is down to a Lutheran/Calvinist focus on Paul's letters about how salvation is achieved through faith and His grace rather than through works? (i.e. you don't earn heaven)

Recently finished reading some King Arthur stories to my four year old as her bedtime stories. So of course it's on to the next classic English story, Lord of the Rings. She wanted to know about Hobbits at dinner time as I'd mentioned that I'd read "The Hobbit" to my youngest brother at bedtime.

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

The internet is an amazing tool because I can keep in touch with friends from home and practice my Dutch with them. They're in Australia, they're not Dutch, and we all have English as our first language.

The internet is an amazing tool because I can keep in touch with friends from home and practice my Dutch with them. They're in Australia, they're not Dutch, and English is our first language.

Worf says "I've never been on a Federation ship with a cloaking device" in Star Trek DS9 S04E01-02 as they are setting off yet in Star Trek TNG S07E12 the Enterprise-D is temporarily fitted with the phasing cloak from the USS Pegasus. Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

Nothing quite like knowing you're responsible for at least 5% of the listens for a track on Spotify. If anyone's curious it's "Hey Rain" as sung by Australian-English folk singer Danny Spooner, live with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Amsterdam is reorganising its tram and metro lines to reduce complexity on the section of metro between Centraal and Spaklerweg/vd Madeweg and increase overall frequency and improve connections between tram lines. And yes even in such a forward thinking city for transport people resist change.

If only I had reviewed and resubmitted my paper based on my honours thesis I'd have an Erdos number of 4 rather than 5. I suspect that my appearance on a children's science programme makes my Erdos-Bacon number much lower than many of my colleagues though.

“The United States, with its enormous highways, sprawling suburbs and neglected public transport systems, is one of the most car-dependent countries in the world. But this arrangement of obligatory driving is making many Americans actively unhappy, new research has found.” Via @theguardian.com.