The government’s postal service in Denmark is shutting down following a decades-long collapse in letter volume, to an average now of 18 per person per year. CC-licensed photo by দেবর্ষি রায় on Flickr.
You can sign up to receive each day’s Start Up post by email. You’ll need to click a confirmation link, so no spam.
A selection of 10 links for you. No cheques? I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.
The day I got a call from “Google” – Yascha Mounk
Yascha Mounk:
»
I was in Paris with one of my best college friends, a busy professional with a young child, enjoying a rare afternoon on which we could just walk around a beautiful city and debate the world. We were in the Marais, one of the most touristy neighborhoods—though my friend had brought me there to show me the conversion of a brutalist office tower he admired rather than to drink at one of the many wine bars—when my phone rang: “Google,” the display read.
My first instinct was to ignore the call. But I had never before received a call from Google. And then I remembered that I had gotten a strange request to approve a sign-in attempt via the YouTube app a little earlier in the day. I had assumed that this notification was one of those poor attempts at phishing you sometimes get, and wasn’t overly concerned about it. But the apparent coincidence made me think that I had better take the call.
The man on the other end of the line was very professional. In unaccented American English, he identified himself as part of the Google Safety Team. He started by checking my identity: “Are you Yascha [middle name] Mounk?” I confirmed that I am. “Do you reside at [address]”? I confirmed that I do. “Are the last four digits of your social security number [XXXX]?”1 I confirmed that they are.
“About half an hour ago, someone contacted Google with a copy of your driver’s license and other identifying details to regain access to an account you had supposedly been locked out of. We are calling you as a courtesy to ensure that this was you?” I explained that it had, in fact, not been me.
The caller proceeded to explain that he had feared this would be the case. The number and sophistication of phishing attempts had gone up significantly of late, he said. The attackers had managed to associate their Gmail address—he slowly spelled out a strange string of characters: besuvsjhcbc@gmail.com—with my account. As a result, the scammer currently had full access to all of my emails. Time was of the essence.
«
Excellent writeup of how scams happen: you’re not paying quite enough attention. The points to notice are the commonalities – the confident caller catching you while you’re off guard, the insistence on hurrying, the instructions to follow whose import you don’t understand. Point to note: the introduction of passkeys on Google accounts makes a lot of this far less possible.
unique link to this extract
New report warns of critical climate risks in Arab region • Inside Climate News via Ars Technica
Bob Berwyn:
»
As global warming accelerates, about 480 million people in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula face intensifying and in some places unsurvivable heat, as well as drought, famine, and the risk of mass displacement, the World Meteorological Organization warned Thursday.
The 22 Arab region countries covered in the WMO’s new State of the Climate report produce about a quarter of the world’s oil, yet directly account for only 5 to 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions from their own territories. The climate paradox positions the region as both a linchpin of the global fossil-fuel economy and one of the most vulnerable geographic areas.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said extreme heat is pushing communities in the region to their physical limits. Droughts show no sign of letting up in one of the world’s most water-stressed regions, but at the same time, parts of it have been devastated by record rains and flooding, she added.
“Human health, ecosystems, and economies can’t cope with extended spells of more than 50 degrees Celsius. It is simply too hot to handle,” she said.
The region in the report stretches from the Atlantic coast of West Africa to the mountains of the Levant and the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. It spans more than 5 million square miles, roughly the area of the continental United States west of the Mississippi River. Most people live near river valleys or in coastal cities dependent on fragile water supplies, making the entire region acutely sensitive to even small shifts in temperature and rainfall.
Egypt’s Nile Delta, one of the world’s lowest-lying and most densely populated coastal plains, is particularly vulnerable. The delta is sinking and regional sea levels are rising rapidly, putting about 40 million residents and more than half of the country’s agricultural output at risk.
«
That’s going to mean a lot of people on the move in the coming decades.
unique link to this extract
Apple’s chip chief might be the next exec to leave • The Verge
Terrence O’Brien:
»
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is reporting that Johny Srouji, senior vice president of hardware technologies, told Tim Cook he is “seriously considering” leaving Apple for another company in the near future. It was reported in October that Srouji was “evaluating his future at the tech giant.” While nothing is confirmed, it seems the executive is leaning towards not having a future at Cupertino.
If Srouji leaves, he would be just the latest in a string of high-profile shakeups in the company’s C-suite. COO Jeff Williams announced his retirement in July, which led to some shifting of roles. But things have only accelerated in December, with AI chief John Giannandrea stepping down, policy lead Lisa Jackson and general counsel Kate Adams announcing plans to retire, and UI design lead Alan Dye departing for Meta, all in the last few days.
«
A little bit of context. Apple pays its executives’ bonuses in October, which obviously gives them some runway afterwards to think about things. Dye’s leaving is no great loss; the others are all expected. But for Srouji to go would be a huge loss.
Some inside baseball on this. My journalistic instincts tell me Gurman’s source about Dye leaving was obviously Dye himself, who was keen to talk up how enormously important he was for Apple – a line that Gurman was happy to repeat. Perhaps part of Dye’s chat was that Srouji is also eager for change, and has told Cook so. But what does “change” mean? For me, it means Cook going, Ternus moving up, and Srouji having a more important role at Apple. OK, perhaps he wants to be somewhere else, designing chips for some other company. But would he really get the same range that he does at Apple: CPU, GPU, NPU, wireless, 5G modem, the real-time chip in the Vision Pro? Time will tell.
unique link to this extract
How the dollar-store industry overcharges cash-strapped customers while promising low prices • The Guardian
Barry Yeoman and Jocelyn Zuckerman:
»
On a cloudy winter day, a state government inspector named Ryan Coffield walked into a Family Dollar store in Windsor, North Carolina, carrying a scanner gun and a laptop.
Inside the store, which sits along a three-lane road in a county of peanut growers and poultry workers, Coffield scanned 300 items and recorded their shelf prices. He carried the scanned bar codes to the cashier and watched as item after item rang up at a higher price.
Red Baron frozen pizzas, listed on the shelf at $5, rang up at $7.65. Bounty paper towels, shelf price $10.99, rang up at $15.50. Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, Stouffer’s frozen meatloaf, Sprite and Pepsi, ibuprofen, Klondike Minis – shoppers were overpaying for all of them. Pedigree puppy food, listed at $12.25, rang up at $14.75.
All told, 69 of the 300 items came up higher at the register: a 23% error rate that exceeded the state’s limit by more than tenfold. Some of the price tags were months out of date.
…Dollar General stores have failed more than 4,300 government price-accuracy inspections in 23 states since January 2022, a Guardian review found. Family Dollar stores have failed more than 2,100 price inspections in 20 states over the same time span, the review found.
Among these thousands of failed inspections, some of the biggest flops include a 76% error rate in October 2022 at a Dollar General in Hamilton, Ohio; a 68% error rate in February 2023 at a Family Dollar in Bound Brook, New Jersey; and a 58% error rate three months ago at a Family Dollar in Lorain, Ohio.
Many of the stores that failed state or local government checks were repeat violators. A Family Dollar in Provo, Utah, flunked 28 inspections in a row – failures that included a 48% overcharge rate in May 2024 and a 12% overcharge rate in October 2025.
«
That is astonishingly sneaky. And of course the prices are never wrong in the customer’s favour.
unique link to this extract
Bombed Chernobyl shelter no longer blocks radiation and needs major repair, IAEA says • The Guardian
Guardian staff and agencies:
»
The protective shield over the Chernobyl disaster nuclear reactor in Ukraine, which was hit by a drone in February, can no longer perform its main function of blocking radiation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has announced.
In February a drone strike blew a hole in the “new safe confinement”, which was painstakingly built at a cost of €1.5bn ($1.75bn) next to the destroyed reactor and then hauled into place on tracks, with the work completed in 2019 by a Europe-led initiative. The IAEA said an inspection last week of the steel confinement structure found the drone impact had degraded the structure.
The 1986 Chernobyl explosion – which happened when Ukraine was under Moscow’s rule as part of the Soviet Union – sent radiation across Europe. In the scramble to contain the meltdown, the Soviets built over the reactor a concrete “sarcophagus” with only a 30-year lifespan. The new confinement was built to contain radiation during the decades-long final removal of the sarcophagus, ruined reactor building underneath it and the melted-down nuclear fuel itself.
The IAEA director general, Rafael Grossi, said an inspection mission “confirmed that the [protective structure] had lost its primary safety functions, including the confinement capability, but also found that there was no permanent damage to its load-bearing structures or monitoring systems”.
«
Apparently the modern – phonetic? – spelling is Chornobyl, but let’s use the older one for now. Might we suggest that Russia pays for the repair?
unique link to this extract
Dynamic Pong Wars
Marko Denic:
»
It’s the eternal battle between day and night, good and bad. Written in JavaScript with some HTML & CSS in one index.html. Feel free to reuse the code and create your own version.
«
Completely and utterly hypnotic. And unending – unless, as sometimes happens, the two opposing “balls” get locked reciprocally wiping out a single brick. At a guess, it’s impossible for it to ever end, because the square with the ball in can’t be wiped out by the opposing ball.
unique link to this extract
Denmark posts its last letters as hallowed national mail ends • The Times
Oliver Moody:
»
Four centuries ago, King Christian IV of Denmark issued a decree establishing one of Europe’s first modern postal services, following the examples of Poland and Portugal.
The routes, run by the guilds and the mayor of Copenhagen, stretched from Hamburg to Norway and were plied by the Amazon delivery drivers of their day, riders who were allowed a maximum of 45 minutes to cover each 10km stretch of the journey.
At the end of this month that long tradition will come to an end as Danes send their last round of Christmas cards through the post.
PostNord, the postal service that the country has shared with Sweden since 2009, will no longer deliver letters in Denmark from December 30. Its 1,500 remaining red boxes already started vanishing in June and a handful of them are to be displayed in museums.
As in so many countries, and especially in those that have made a decent fist of the transition from paper to digital screens, the use of letters has collapsed.
In the year 2000, PostNord Danmark carried nearly 1.5bn letters. Last year it carried only 110m. As the volume dropped, prices rose to the point where a standard postage stamp for a letter weighing less than 100g now costs 29 Danish kroner (£3.40).
A larger letter with express delivery sets Danes back the equivalent of £9.10.
PostNord described the decision as “difficult” but necessary. “Danes have become more and more digital, and what was once sent by letter is now received digitally by the vast majority of people,” it said. “This means that there are very few letters left in Denmark.”
«
Denmark has a population of six million, so that’s about 18 letters per person per year, or three every two months. Possibly a fair amount is commercial? Anyway, a logistics company will take it over. But this could be the first of many countries to close their obligatory postal services.
unique link to this extract
What a half-tonne of Amazon returns says about our spending habits • The Times
Tom Whipple:
»
Shortly before finding the multipack of brassieres, shortly after discovering two dozen picture frames, and at around the time I see a puzzled six-year-old inspecting a shiatsu massage chair, there is a moment of introspection.
Do I really need half a tonne of Amazon return goods?
That is when I come across a dog wetsuit and 60 golden forks and the question is answered for me. Of course I do. Adjusting my new floral tie and cravat, putting my new travel kettle in my new duffle bag, I start rummaging with renewed vigour. There are 300kg still to sort.
The idea for The Box began, as with so much that leaves one feeling inchoate self-disgust, on TikTok. There, you can watch viral videos of people who bid, sight unseen, on job lots of unsellable goods. They buy them by the pallet: things people have returned, things companies have written off. Now I have done so too.
But are we thrifty bargain hunters? Or vultures of capitalism?
My box comes from the website Jobalots.com. The company sells “pallets of unmanifested customer returns” through auction. How much are unmanifested returns worth? I decide to manifest £130 with my first bid. I have a wobble as the price tops £200. I stiffen my resolve. Whatever is inside is still less than 50p a kilogram.
A week later, I receive my mystery pallet. Or, rather, my parents do. When I had explained to my wife that I planned to, in her words, “fill the house with half a tonne of tat,” she looked at me with her divorce eyes. Then, she brightened. “Your mother would love it though.”
«
It turns out that companies which ship through Amazon sometimes want to get rid of stuff, or have returns they can’t (or don’t want to) process. Local schools can benefit. Or, of course, parents who have cellars to fill, as in the case of Whipple’s father.
unique link to this extract
EU fines X $140 million over ‘deceptive’ blue checkmarks • The Verge
Jess Weatherbed:
»
The European Union has served Elon Musk’s X with a €120m (about $140m) penalty for violating the bloc’s digital service rulebook, in part for the “deceptive design” of its blue checkmark. Today’s announcement marks the first time that a company has been fined under the landmark Digital Services Act (DSA) law for curbing “illegal and harmful activities” on online platforms, and follows the EU launching a multifaceted investigation into X in December 2023.
In July 2024, the EU ruled that X was failing to comply with obligations around advertising transparency, data access for researchers, and “dark patterns” — deceptive interface features designed to trick users. X’s blue checkmark system was specifically called out for deceiving users by allowing anyone to pay to be “verified,” making it harder to determine the authenticity of X accounts. In today’s announcement, the European Commission noted that while the DSA doesn’t require user verification, “it clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified.”
…The EU can charge companies up to 6% of their global revenue for DSA violations. As X is a private company — purchased by Musk for $44bn in October 2022 and again by his artificial intelligence company, X AI, in March 2025 for $33bn — it’s unclear what its potential maximum penalty could have been. X can appeal the fine, but now has 60 working days to inform the EU of the measures it will take to change the “deceptive” use of blue checkmarks, and 90 days for its planned fixes for the other violations. Failure to meet those deadlines could result in more penalty payments.
«
At a guess: any changes will be minimal, and/or X will claim that the system allowing people to look at where accounts are based satisfies the requirement, and will spin out the legal game as long as it possibly can. Meanwhile X’s first official response was to disable the EU’s official advertising account on the network. Yup, stop them spending money. That’ll definitely show them.
unique link to this extract
Number of ‘unsafe’ publications by psychologist Hans Eysenck could be ‘high and far reaching’ • Retraction Watch
»
A “high and far reaching” number of papers and books by Hans Eysenck could be “unsafe,” according to an updated statement from King’s College London, where the psychologist was a professor emeritus when he died in 1997.
A 2019 investigation launched by the UK institution found 26 papers coauthored by Eysenck and Ronald Grossarth-Maticek, a social scientist in Germany, were based on questionable data and contained findings that were “incompatible with modern clinical science and the understanding of disease processes.”
For example, the two researchers’ data showed people with a “cancer-prone” personality were more than 120 times as likely to die from the disease as were those with a “healthy” personality, Anthony Pelosi, a longtime Eysenck critic, pointed out in an article preceding the university probe.
Based on its review, the investigation committee recommended King’s inform journal editors that it considered the results and conclusions of the 26 papers “unsafe.” Several retractions, and dozens of expressions of concern, quickly followed, as we reported at the time.
«
Grossarth-Maticek died on November 16, and so can’t be interrogated about this either. But at least the doubt is being put out there. Social sciences’ replication problem is getting worse and worse. Maybe they need a couple of years of doing nothing but replication.
unique link to this extract
| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified
The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 