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Visionary Realist

[Rothmus 🏴 @Rothmus]

China added a Germany-sized low carbon electricity grid last year.

Nearly 500 TWh more generation, almost all solar and wind, built in factories that still burn coal. Carbon payback came in under two years and power sector emissions still fell.

Germany already had zero carbon nuclear power.
It shut the last plants down in 2023 because ideology demanded it. Higher prices and more coal and gas backup followed.

One country scales clean energy through ruthless pragmatism. The other commits economic suicide and calls it environmental virtue.

The West is economically self-destructing by submitting to blue haired lesbians on SSRIs.

[Hassan I. Hassan @hxhassan]

Dozens of young, impoverished Israelis were enlisted via encrypted apps to spy for Iran, without really understanding what they were doing. It’s a new kind of spycraft, and it’s not limited to Israel, writes @lisang in @newlinesmag. https://t.co/HnHPi6dSpL

[zerohedge @zerohedge]

"Chinese Empire Is Next": Townsend Warns Beijing's Energy Dominance Is Rewriting The Global Order https://t.co/sXD5qElcFe

[Evan @StockMKTNewz]

Elon Musk and SpaceX $SPCX have agreed to acquire AI coding startup Cursor for $60 Billion

[Holger Zschaepitz @Schuldensuehner]

Good Morning from Germany, where the entire Dax – the 40 largest listed companies – is barely bigger than SpaceX, now valued at $2.1tn. One rocket company versus corporate Germany.

[Rhodium Group @rhodium_group]

Chinese overseas clean tech investment is growing but not as large as some headlines suggest, according to new data on FDI by Chinese companies abroad across the EV, solar PV, and wind turbine value chains.

[Gregory Waters @GregoryPWaters]

New for @CSNS_UK: My detailed analysis of Syria's new Ministry of Interior, tracing its evolution from origins in Idlib to the robust institution it is today.

The paper examines how the ministry responded to internal & external challenges & the impact these decisions had on the country.
https://t.co/BUhJSbLztw

[John Scott-Railton @jsrailton]

NEW: malware developers added nuclear & biological weapons text to to their spyware.

Goal? To trigger LLM safety refusals... so that their spyware wouldn't be analyzed by an AI security scanner.

Cleanest practical example I can think of for why over-indexing on first order safety alignment is risky.

When closed (and open) models ship with aggressive refusals, they will be sprinkled with second-order blindspots that attackers will discover...and exploit.

We are only in the earliest days of attackers leveraging these features, and it wouldn't surprise me if users systems that need to handle complex cybersecurity issues demand that models be less safety-blunted.

In the weeds: @SocketSecurity's post also shows why intention matters in how you design a malware analysis pipeline to avoid prompt manipulation.

H/T to colleagues that shared this with me https://t.co/f3Aj9TYxU4

[Cathy Roberson @cmroberson06]

The newest Patriot surface-to-air missiles take more than two years to build & cost around $4 million each.
Lockheed counts more than 400 companies that provide parts for its missile. Can you imagine having to manage that many suppliers? https://t.co/vjrBsBHQ2m

[Foreign Affairs @ForeignAffairs]

“Mao described U.S. military bases as the nooses that would eventually strangle the American empire. But as Beijing presses outward, it may discover that its global interests tighten into a snare of its own making,” writes @samchetwin.
https://t.co/A0hnVN8ozs

[Nicolas Krassas @Dinosn]

ThinkPad firmware reverse-engineering toolchain: archived Lenovo BIOS → named SoC pads, EC analysis, CVE diffs, coreboot/OpenCore port scaffolding https://t.co/diaaGki82i

[U.S.-China Commission @USCC_GOV]

"Subsea cable security is not a future risk. It is a present and accelerating danger. Subsea fiberoptic cable carries roughly 97 percent of global intercontinental data traffic."
- Jason Hsu, Senior Fellow, @HudsonInstitute

📺Hearing on U.S.-China Competition Under the Sea

[Jukan @jukan05]

China already has a NAND market share comparable to Micron and SanDisk....

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇸🇦 Saudis are using one of the most advanced AI surveillance systems in the world to monitor millions of pilgrims in Mecca

Tracking crowd movements in real time and analyzing density patterns

Managing crowds at this scale is a security challenge

[WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 @WarMonitor3]

Watch as American airforce aircraft have to fly around Austrian airspace today as the ban on US military overflights related to the Iran war continues.

[Robin Brooks @robin_j_brooks]

The EU Wall of Shame - Eastern Europe edition
https://t.co/T6v2dCibRY

[Interesting things @awkwardgoogle]

Indian factory workers wearing head-mounted cameras to record hand movements for training AI systems

[Rory Johnston @Rory_Johnston]

Very cool seeing the wave of empty tankers heading to the US to pick up some desperately needed crude for Hormuz-starved markets.

All the tankers on the map below are empty VLCCs (~2 million barrel capacity each) currently heading for the US Gulf Coast.

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

BREAKING:

Ukrainian forces are attacking Russian vessels in the Mediterranean Sea out of new bases they’ve established in Libya.

200+ Ukrainian soldiers have arrived in Libya according to Radio France Internationale (RFI).

The French public broadcaster's article reveals details of a covert Ukrainian military presence in Libya as part of a broader "shadow war" between Ukraine and Russia on the African continent.

More than 200 Ukrainian officers and technical experts have deployed in western Libya with the explicit approval of the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) led by Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah.

They operate from three main sites:

- The Air Force Academy in Misrata

- A drone launch facility in Zaouia

- A coordination center near Tripoli International Airport

In exchange for their being allowed to hit Russian ships, Ukraine provides drone training to Libyan forces, with potential longer-term deals on arms supplies and investment in Libyan oil.

The presence is linked to Ukrainian operations targeting Russia’s shadow fleet.

RFI sources claim Ukrainian forces launched attacks from Libyan territory on March 3rd, striking the Russian LNG tanker
Arctic Metagaz and in December 2005, striking the oil tanker Kandil, which RFI links to the death of a high-ranking Russian intelligence officer Andrey Averyanov and several other Russian intelligence officers on board.

[George Friedman @George_Friedman]

Russia is more exposed than ever. After the fall of the Soviet Union, former satellite states in Central Asia and the Caucasus became independent, and Moscow lost much of its influence in Eastern Europe. Its efforts to reclaim it culminated in the invasion of Ukraine. Looking at a modern map will indicate that Russia is much smaller and more vulnerable than it was before.

Meanwhile, China and Russia were more or less hostile during the Cold War. Mao even once accused Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev of being a “revisionist” who was betraying communism. Several battles were fought along their border. Beijing abstained from the U.N. vote to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Beijing has since said eastern Russia, including Vladivostok, is part of China and, as such, should be reclaimed.

Given that China could have simply remained silent on these issues, Russia cannot dismiss the matter.