Luc Van Braekel

European by birth, American by choice | Tech Entrepreneur | Innovation Enthusiast | Free Speech & Markets Advocate | Atlanticist | In Dutch on @lucvanbraekel

[Geoff Russell Ⓥ @csiroperfidy]

Again, 5.30am in France and nuclear is keeping the lights on just about everywhere in Europe for just 34 gms-CO2/kwh. Meanwhile Germany, after 25 years of trying and failing to decarbonise with renewables is running on coal & wood at 435 gms-CO2/kwh. Its wind farms are becalmed

[spor @sporadica]

Everyone that hates data centers has unfortunately fell for a deep Chinese psy-op and they have no idea. And, as any good psy-op does, it’s done so well it now has unwitting people/orgs/governments doing its bidding without asking. You are all being played for fools by the CCP.

[Wayne Christian @ChristianForTX]

One of the biggest misconceptions about data centers is that they won’t benefit the communities where they are built.

If we hold developers to their promises, the billions of dollars in local investment from data centers could transform communities that desperately need it.

Here’s the truth: Rural Texas is dying. Much of the state faces aging infrastructure and stagnant or declining population growth.

The resource scarcity concerns are real, but they are solvable. Texas needs a plan that addresses water, power and infrastructure challenges without sacrificing the immense economic benefits that investment, jobs and growth can bring to rural communities.

Not every project should be built, and Texans have the right to decide how they want to shape their communities.

But Texas should find solutions, not slam the door on opportunity.

Read my op-ed on this very stance in @statesman here.

https://t.co/hWgLmkobCh

[𝗝𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗺𝘆 𝗗. 𝗞𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗻 @JeramyKitchen]

Data centers have become a convenient scapegoat for problems policymakers should have addressed long ago.

- Grid capacity? Build infrastructure.
- Water scarcity? Fix water policy.
- Transmission costs? Make those creating the costs bear them.
- Corporate welfare? End it for everyone.
- Property conflicts? Protect property rights & enforce nuisance laws.
- Regulatory concerns? Establish neutral rules through the Legislature.

Economic growth requiring more infrastructure isn't an argument against economic growth.

Data centers aren't the problem. Bad policy is.

[Sruli Broocker @srulibroocker]

Boomers control legacy media. Zoomers control social media.

X’ers and Millennials are painfully underrepresented in every sphere of communication and information exchange.

It’s sad because people in their 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s make up a huge part of the voting public.

[Luc Van Braekel @lvb]

True! It's bad because exFAT has no journaling: a power loss during writes can corrupt the filesystem. If compatibility and reliability are key, go for NTFS. On macOS, buy an NTFS driver from Paragon or Tuxera. If performance is key, stick with your OS's native filesystem.

[Valentin Ignatev @valigo]

So, exFAT is still your only choice if you want to have an external hard drive that you use across all major operating systems. How is this still a thing in 2026

[Luc Van Braekel @lvb]

@valigo True! It's bad because exFAT has no journaling: a power loss during writes can corrupt the filesystem. If compatibility and reliability are key, go for NTFS. On macOS, buy an NTFS driver from Paragon or Tuxera. If performance is key, stick with your OS's native filesystem.

[Robert Zubrin @robert_zubrin]

I oppose Trump.
But the U.S. must not lose this war to Iran.
There is a way to win it.
1. Stop negotiating!
2. Maintain the blockade on all Iranian exports and imports.
3. Distribute arms to the Iranian people.
4. When the regime collapses, give air support to the rebels.
@RLHeinrichs @FDD @StrickerNonpro @ClaireBerlinski

[Benjamin De Kraker @BenjaminDEKR]

Starlink was / is great because it leapfrogged a service that was woefully terrible: satellite internet

Conventional sat internet (HughesNet, Viasat) and other last-mile internet services were PAINFULLY bad before Starlink made them irrelevant.

But... that's *not* the case for current cell service.
The reality is, with few exceptions, existing 4g / 5g cell coverage is very usable or even great in most populated parts of the U.S. and all modern countries.

The speeds are good, the plans are good, there's lots of competition and options for consumers to choose from.

I pay like $35 / month for unlimited 5g and have not wondered about switching providers in many years.

In other words, the market conditions that allowed Starlink to succeed (solving a real pain-point) simply do not exist for everyday phone use.

This is not anti-Starlink at all (I was an early Dishy beta user and now have a Mini) but an observation.
Am I wrong?

[American Debunk @AmericanDebunk]

All it took to collapse an entire sect of gender ideology was two alpha males declaring they identify as women and entering the WNBA draft.

I’m going to show you the genius of what they just did.

The two ex-NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White didn’t argue against the absurd premise that gender is fluid. That’s a losing play.

The better play is to enter the illusion and destroy it by taking the illusion to the logical extreme. So that’s exactly what they did.

They embraced the premise that gender is fluid and took it to the logical extreme by declaring for the WNBA draft. Now they are forcing liberals to face the absurdity of their own ideology.

Gender ideology’s core claim is that sex is irrelevant and identity is sovereign. “Trans women are women.” Self-ID is enough.

Now the WNBA, which is in many ways a major liberal institution, faces a big dilemma. They have to either:

A: Allow the two to enter the WNBA draft. Admit “woman” is just a feeling (This is absurd and destroys the product).

or

B: Draw a line and say they don’t qualify. That concedes self-ID is not enough and biology matters. This would be a public abandonment of the liberal doctrine.

Either path burns the ideology to the ground, which is hilarious.

Take notes everyone. Two dudes literally just made one of the greatest persuasion plays of the decade.

[PanEuropeanMovement @EuropeanPan]

You can call it "cringe", you can call it "simping", but at the end of the day a bunch of crazy French guys managed to get the attention of the richest man in the world to build a Prometheus-statue at his rocket base to glorify Western Civilisation, and honestly that is just fucking cool.

[Rob Henderson @robkhenderson]

Did you know if you demoralize the populace, dismiss the importance of law enforcement, and reduce spending on police, people will give up on calling the cops and the statistics will then indicate crime is down and you can declare victory? A neat trick. https://t.co/UjJN7QTgca

[Patrick Hedger @pat_hedger]

First it was fracking. Then it was 5G. Now it’s data centers.

What they all have in common:
1. Subject to enormous disinformation campaigns.
2. Critical upstream technologies that enable the rest of the US economy to function better.

[YIMBYLAND @YIMBYLAND]

It has become abundantly clear that America’s Shenzhen *IS* being built here.

[nic carter @nic_carter]

With some very minor exceptions, the data center buildout is happening in red states (historically some purple but on a go forward basis, red).

The data center question is entirely a red on red issue. It’s impossible to build in blues and power is expensive, hence no one is even planning to build there

🚨this is why the left is poisoning the well on datacenters 🚨

They have nothing at stake. Nothing to gain, nothing to lose. They will run the Greta / fracking playbook on DCs.

The right must avoid being useful idiots for the left and China at all costs.

By all means, debate the merit of the DC buildout. But don’t fall into the slopulist trap of being against them “because everyone is” or because the left manufactures consent via the press and NGOs.

The left is not participating in the DC buildout; they should not have a seat at the table. Assume that they will try to play spoiler to ruin what is a massive reindustrialization opportunity in Americas heartland, creating skilled jobs that have been missing for so long. It’s entirely rational for the left to ruin this for red America. Don’t let them.

[Hunter Weiss @Hunter_Weiss]

Anyone else following the DARPA Lift Challenge?

$6.5M in prize money to build a drone that can:

- Stay under 55 lbs
- Take off with a 110 lb minimum payload (4x its weight)
- Fly 4 nautical miles loaded (12 laps)
- Drop the payload
- Fly 1 more nautical mile empty (3 laps)
- Finish inside a 30-min window

Top 3 teams split the full prize as long as they clear the 4:1 ratio.

Most heavy-lift drones can barely lift their own weight. DARPA wants 4x. That's never been done.

[Ole Lehmann @itsolelehmann]

i’m fully convinced AI + robotics will unleash the greatest aesthetic renaissance human civilization has ever seen

the cost of building beautiful things is about to collapse

we just need to care about beauty again.

[Aidan Gold @MrGoldBro]

The scale of what Elon is building in Bastrop is not well understood.

[Trung Phan @TrungTPhan]

@OpenAINewsroom Apple legit mixed up two Changs and a Wang

[Peter Hague @peterrhague]

There will be a job in the future where they lock you in a library with absolutely no electronics, just food, water and sanitation, and you must read and learn and write about what you have learned.

This will be the only way to produce fresh human corpus for the LLMs to devour.