Francesco Giuntoli

Non al denaro, non all'amore né al cielo.

[Francesco Giuntoli @giontoli]

Putin's invasion of Ukraine could be the death knell of the entire world order as we know it. But it can be saved, write John Micklethwait and @adwooldridge https://t.co/ybwtOltk3q via @bopinion

[Gianclaudio Torlizzi @TCommodity]

L’auto europea è morta

China’s EV exports rose 64% y/y to 338,166 units in July, according to China Customs.Exports to Belgium increased 57% to 35,789—the highest among all destinations. By region, Asia led with 141,182 (+38%), followed by Europe with 115,124 (+82%) and Oceania with 35,144 (+175%). Exports to the EU climbed 80% to 77,102 EVs.

[Flightradar24 @flightradar24]

We did it! 777 Boeing 777s. We’d like to thank all of the airlines and crews who made this arbitrary, yet auspicious moment possible.

[Lukasz Olejnik @lukOlejnik]

Remote code vulnerability found in Unitree robots and the scary part is that the exploit is wormable. That means one compromised robot could infect other vulnerable robots nearby, turning a single breach into a wide compromise. Could attackers then take control of entire fleets of humanoid robots? https://t.co/kyKMKKG9lE

[Crazy Ass Moments in Italian Politics @CrazyItalianPol]

IS THIS THE MOLIS-END?

Italy’s Council of State has officially unblocked a historic referendum process that could permanently alter the country's geopolitical map.

Citizens in the province of Isernia will soon be called to the polls to vote on a crucial question: do they want to secede from the Molise region and officially merge with neighboring Abruzzo?

The referendum initiative, driven by widespread public frustration over structural economic decline, collapsing healthcare services, and heavy local taxation, represents a desperate bid by local residents to hook their territory to a more prosperous and stable regional administration.

[World of Statistics @stats_feed]

Did you know that a single sperm contains about 750 MB of DNA information?

One ejaculation represents a data transfer of roughly 150 petabytes.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

[Palantir @PalantirTech]

Because we get asked a lot.

The Technological Republic, in brief.

1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.

2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.

3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.

4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.

6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.

7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way.

8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.

9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.

10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.

11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.

12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.

13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.

14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.

15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.

16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.

17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.

18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.

19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.

20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.

21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.

22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?

Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska

https://t.co/8igjazz1On

[🇦🇺Craig Tindale @ctindale]

Human 96 hr drinking water risk if desalination plants are significantly impaired

Kuwait: 3.0 to 4.0 million
Qatar: 1.0 to 1.8 million
Bahrain: 1.1 to 1.4 million
Saudi Arabia: 0.7 to 1.5 million
Iran Gulf coast: 0.5 to 1.0 million
UAE: 0.3 to 0.8 million
Oman: 0.1 to 0.4 million
Iran: 0.8 to 1.5 million

The highest-risk countries are not the biggest populations. They are the places with the worst combination of coastal concentration, desalination dependence, and limited fallback depth.

That puts Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar at the front of the queue. Saudi, Iran and the UAE become much worse if the disruption spreads from desalination plants into storage, transmission, and power. In Iran this looks increasingly likely the escalation to energy infrastructure is possible for all states .

[Brian McDonald @BrianMcDonaldIE]

A viral track repeating just two words,“Yanis Varoufakis,” is spreading across Russia's clubland.

Created by a Moscow DJ, the tune has taken off among zoomers, with critics linking its appeal to a revival of 90s/early 2000s techno. The irony is that most listeners likely have no idea who @yanisvaroufakis is, they just like the rhythm of the name.

[Francesco Giuntoli @giontoli]

[cit.] . A furia di alimentare un sistema politico-mediatico sotto il livello culturale di un cinepanettone, ora navighiamo letteralmente a caso nelle crisi globali in corso.

[Carambola 🟩🟨🟦 @CarambolaZico]

@IranTimes9

[Mariano Giustino @MarianoGiustino]

Ma lasciate stare il Diritto internazionale, tirato in ballo a sproposito! Studiatelo prima, invece di sparlare! Sentire invocare il Diritto internazionale per confutare l'operazione militare israelo-americana contro un regime orrifico islamo-nazifascista quale è quello della Repubblica islamica che massacra da 47 anni i propri figli, che occupa il paese illegittimamente e che ha come obiettivo quello di distruggere #Israele e dominare il mondo, è un assurdo dialettico ed è ridicolo! Tirare fuori il Diritto internazionale in questo caso è fare scudo a chi massacra, tortura, impicca, affama la popolazione inerme. Il non intervento militare a protezione della popolazione comporta la difesa del tiranno, del carnefice. In sostanza, se ne diventa complici. Il diritto internazionale diventa così un alibi ipocrita morale per non condannare un'orribile dittatura. Smettetela di utilizzare il diritto internazionale grattugiandolo come un tartufo su un piatto di tagliatelle fumanti.
@RadioRadicale #Iran #Turchia

[Flightradar24 @flightradar24]

An even bigger push from the jet stream over the North Pacific today. https://t.co/yvIS7ffoEk

[Luigi De Biase @LuigiDeBiase]

E anche quest'anno le uniformi olimpiche della Mongolia sono spaziali

[Mariano Giustino @MarianoGiustino]

Vi prego di non dire che la tragedia dei curdi è dimenticata da tutti, perché dite una cosa assolutamente non vera. @RadioRadicale è stata l'unica e la prima in #Italia che in una lunga solitudine, nel deserto di tutti gli altri media italiani, si è da sempre occupata della questione curda e lo ha fatto anche prima, durante e subito dopo quest'ultimo atto dell'odissea del popolo #curdo in #Siria con l'attacco subito dall'esercito di al-#Shara. Quando parlate del dramma delle popolazioni del medioriente, vi prego di ascoltare la voce di Radio Radicale che quotidianamente segue le turbinose vicende mediorientali.
@RaiNews @RaiUno @RaiDue @RaiTre @MediasetTgcom24 @OmnibusLa7 @La7tv @Corriere @LaStampa @repubblica @dicedeldebbio
@RadioRadicale #Turchia

[AZ Intel @AZ_Intel_]

As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on January 8 and 9 alone, two senior officials of the country’s Ministry of Health told TIME.

[Ian Ellis @ianellisjones]

Yesterday, POTUS said, “We’re watching Iran… We have a massive fleet heading in that direction.”

Ahead of operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025, the U.S. positioned an even larger fleet on Iran’s doorstep. For comparison, current force posture (left) vs last year (right).

[OSINTdefender @sentdefender]

Massive demonstrations tonight by Kurds in front of the U.S. Consulate in Erbil, Northern Iraq, protesting what they see as inaction by the United States to the ongoing offensive by the Syrian Army against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Northeastern Syria.

[Clash Report @clashreport]

NATO's SACEUR General Alexus Grynkewich on Arctic:

Chinese and Russian vessels are not studying seals or polar bears.

They are conducting bathymetric surveys and trying to figure out how they can counter NATO capabilities.

This is not for peaceful purposes.

[Cloudflare Radar @CloudflareRadar]

Now over a day into the shutdown, the #Internet in #Iran remains almost completely unavailable. Although some traffic appeared again around 10:00 UTC today, traffic levels are less than 0.01% of pre-shutdown peaks. Follow the latest status at https://t.co/uMVu3O31EG

[Faytuks Network @FaytuksNetwork]

Jamming of Starlink terminals began many hours before the internet blackout in Iran, with 30% of uplink and downlink traffic being disrupted in the early hours, rising to 80% by 10 PM local time. This kind of interference has "never been seen...the technology involved was likely supplied to [Iran] by Russia or China" - IranWire