longnights

Look at everything, do your best, make your own decisions based on the available facts. Also, If I follow or repost, it doesn't mean I support or endorse.

[Foreign Policy @ForeignPolicy]

“On the Psychology of Military Incompetence,” by British psychologist Norman F. Dixon, has long been considered a must-read. But today it is more relevant than ever.

Read FP's review for free: https://t.co/tu4NWwVd4D

[OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical]

Multiple Ukrainian attack drones struck Russia's Belgorod State Technological University tonight, per local channels, hitting a building that housed Russian drone development, testing, and operator training.

The development center suffered significant damage.

[Global Statistics @Globalstats11]

Global Hunger Index 1992 vs. 2018

[Foreign Affairs @ForeignAffairs]

“Beijing is overlooking the defining paradox of its own success: China’s rise remains tied to the openness of the economies it hopes to surpass,” write Enrico Fardella and @DrRadchenko. “Its road to a post-Western order still runs through the West.” https://t.co/qSR9TG9wwR

[McKinsey Global Institute @McKinsey_MGI]

In 1925, England was about as rich as India is today.

What came next had never happened before: a global economy 24x bigger, income per person up 6x, lives 40 years longer.

The question is whether we can do it again – and what it would take: https://t.co/lVBaNwBSZK

[CyberRobo @CyberRobooo]

It really looks like a cleaner. I think it could first be widely used in hotel,nursing home…

(by Tau Robotics)

[Jack Prandelli @jackprandelli]

🛢️Before oil can be stored or processed, the wellstream must be separated into oil, gas and water.

A three-phase separator does exactly that inside one pressurised vessel.

The video below shows how one of the most important pieces of surface equipment actually works.

[Australia Institute @TheAusInstitute]

Environmentalist and author Tim Flannery exposed how carbon offsets are being used to excuse fossil fuel expansion in Australia's Biggest Book Club!

Watch the full video here! ⤵️
https://t.co/pteyhG8yb5

[WarTranslated @wartranslated]

Russian air defense forces in Gelendzhik shot down a drone right on the beach. It is reported that at least three people were killed there.

[mete @VaderResearch]

Most valuable robot makers 🌍

🇺🇸 Figure AI | $39B
🇩🇪 NEURA Robotics | ~$7B
🇨🇳 Unitree | ~$7B
🇨🇳 AgiBot | $6.4B
🇰🇷 Rainbow Robotics | ~$5.6B
🇺🇸 Apptronik | $5.5B+

[Black Hole @konstructivizm]

???
Proof our planet isn't flat
By Negative1by12aura

[Global Strategy @World_At_War_6]

🇹🇼Taiwan could ignite the next great-power clash.

In a recent Fox News interview, Marco Rubio warned that China is expanding its influence at America’s expense - something the U.S. will never accept.

As the world’s two strongest economic and military powers, the U.S. and China can cooperate in some areas, but friction demands that America always put its interests first.

China refuses to stay in America’s shadow and sees Taiwan as a core matter of national pride. Determined to reunify it and reject permanent U.S. supremacy, Beijing has made the island the dangerous flashpoint where China’s ambitions collide with America’s determination to keep Asia’s balance of power from tipping.

Can the two powers manage this rivalry before Taiwan turns it into open conflict?

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

Artificial intelligence has turned everyone into a creator. From music to literature, we tracked how the technology is changing different fields. Discover the full story. Register to read for free https://t.co/1B6NkHlqd3

[Civixplorer @Civixplorer]

A visual map of the Mississippi River watershed's flow.

Ranked the 4th largest drainage basin globally by area, it spans from Montana to New York and ultimately drains into the Gulf of Mexico.

[Institute for the Study of War @TheStudyofWar]

MORE 🧵(1/2): Russian forces reportedly suffered the highest casualty rate of 2026 thus far in July, paying an increasingly high price for no significant increase in the rate of advance — despite the Kremlin’s cognitive warfare effort to deny this fact. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on August 1 that Russian forces suffered 42,860 casualties in July 2026, a new monthly high for the war. The Ukrainian General Staff’s data indicates that Russian casualties have been steadily increasing since February 2026, when Russian forces suffered 26,090 casualties. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on July 31 that Russian forces have suffered almost 700,000 killed in action (KIA) and about 1.6 million total casualties since February 2022. The Ukrainian General Staff’s casualty rates indicate that Russian forces suffered an average of 353 casualties per square kilometer of territory seized or infiltrated in July 2026, and a staggering 1,132 casualties per square kilometer seized.

[Rob Henderson @robkhenderson]

The farther I traveled from poverty, the more fashionable it became to romanticize the conditions I had escaped.

I grew up in poverty in Los Angeles and was taken from my mother when I was three. She had immigrated from South Korea, but her life unraveled amid drug addiction. I never met my father and learned only as an adult, through a genetic ancestry test, that he was Mexican. I spent the next several years moving through foster homes and chaotic circumstances.

At seventeen, I enlisted in the United States Air Force. After some setbacks, I arrived at Yale at twenty-five and studied on the GI Bill.

Along the way, I climbed nearly every rung of the American class ladder. I moved from poverty through working-class and lower-middle-class homes. In the military, I encountered the middle class. At Yale, I was surrounded by the upper-middle class and the wealthy.

Moving through these worlds, I noticed that beliefs changed with social class. At Yale, I heard ideas I had never encountered before: abolish the police, empty the prisons, promote polyamory, dismantle traditional marriage, and decriminalize drugs.

These ideas were popular among elites, but their costs often fell on communities like the ones where I grew up. I had seen addiction, abuse, neglect, abandonment, and disorder up close. At Yale and later during my Ph.D. at Cambridge, I studied research on class and social status. It helped me understand what I had witnessed and led me to some startling statistics about social class.

[OSINTdefender @sentdefender]

Ukraine's long-range drone campaign appears to have struck another Wildberries distribution center, this time in Novosyomyeikino, continuing a sustained effort to target Russia's largest e-commerce and logistics network. According to Russian officials, the strike ignited a fire at the facility.

This video from Telegram purportedly shows a massive fire at the facility following the earlier Ukrainian drone strike.

Wildberries is essentially Russia's equivalent of Amazon, operating the country's largest online marketplace with an extensive nationwide warehousing and distribution network. Ukraine argues the company supports Russia's war effort by selling dual-use goods and equipment used by the military, an allegation Moscow denies.

The attack is the latest in a broader campaign that has targeted roughly a dozen Wildberries facilities since mid-July, disrupting an estimated 10% of the company's logistics capacity and forcing the retailer to reroute shipments, compensate victims, and absorb significant financial losses. The strikes reflect Ukraine's increasing focus on economic and logistics infrastructure well beyond the front lines, aiming to raise the cost of sustaining Russia's war effort while disrupting everyday commerce.

[CyberRobo @CyberRobooo]

RobotEra’s M7 is handling package sorting, powered by the ERA-42 embodied brain (shown at WAIC 2026)

It’s already running at China Post’s Guangzhou logistics center.

[Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel]

Teenagers are spending as much time on social media as they would for a full-time job.

Girls are spending more than 35 hours a week on social media and boys are not far behind. If they keep this up, it means the average teenager will spend more than 10 years of their life doomscrolling.

This is why research on this topic is crucial. We still know very little about the long-term effects of this kind of exposure (most studies on the causal effects of social media are limited to a few weeks). https://t.co/VNpjWWe1a2

[UnveiledChina @Unveiled_ChinaX]

Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. is calling out public officials who side with Beijing in the South China Sea, telling them to resign or face the legal consequences.

At a Manila news forum, Teodoro made it clear that elected leaders endorsing Beijing's maritime claims are openly violating their constitutional oath. He pointed directly to the national Baselines Act and Administrative Order 29, which legally define the West Philippine Sea in line with the 2016 international arbitral ruling.

Teodoro challenged dissenting politicians to fight the policy in the Supreme Court instead of quietly undermining national sovereignty, noting that a legal challenge would finally "reveal their true motives" to the public. Rear Admiral Jay Tarriela, spokesperson for the Philippine Coast Guard on West Philippine Sea issues, strongly backed the stance, warning that advocating a foreign power's claims over domestic law breaches the oath of office.

This domestic showdown comes as Manila officially submitted nautical maps of Scarborough Shoal and extended continental shelf claims to the United Nations Secretariat. The CCP rejected the UN filings and responded by escalating coast guard and military patrols around the disputed waters.

When elected officials align with an aggressive foreign regime over their own nation's laws, where should a democracy draw the line between political debate and a breach of sworn duty?