”It's going to take years for Europe to build up the arms and ammunition production capacity needed to both aid Ukraine and reequip national forces, Belgium's former deputy chief of defense said. “It’s not a joke, we’re in deep shit," The industrial fabric in Europe isn’t strong enough to support Ukraine."

Europe’s arms production is in ‘deep shit,’ says Belgian ex-general – POLITICO

"Do you think that if Russia establishes a puppet regime in Ukraine, like the one they have in Belarus, and Russian troops are on the Polish border, will we get out of trouble, or will we have bigger problems?" Borrell asked. https://kyivindependent.com/borrell-we-need-to-explain-to-europeans-what-it-means-to-have-russian-army-at-the-door/

”Other platforms only make RSS feeds available for listeners, whereas YouTube takes episodes from an RSS feed and turns them into YouTube videos. This benefits audio-first podcasters since YouTube automatically takes an uploaded RSS feed and creates videos with the podcast’s show art as a static image”

TechCrunch

Podcasters can now upload their RSS feed to YouTube | TechCrunch

Podcast creators can now submit their RSS feed to YouTube and YouTube Music, the company revealed in a video uploaded to its Creator Insider channe...

”Gemini Advanced is clearly a GPT-4 class model. The statistics show this, but so does a month of our informal testing. And this is a big deal … …it is roughly equivalent, though it has its own strengths and weaknesses. GPT-4 is much more sophisticated about using code and accomplishes a number of hard verbal tasks better - it writes a better sestina and passes the Apple Test. Gemini is better at explanations and does great job integrating images and search”

Google's Gemini Advanced: Tasting Notes and Implications

And then there were two.

”Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) have been demoted from standalone apps that use the whole screen to shortcuts that open within the default browser… This appears to solely affect users in the European Union, though your mileage may vary. …the breakage of PWAs is deliberate. The Register understands Apple's change will cause users to lose local data in existing web apps, because web apps and Safari have different storage locations, and it will also break notifications, because there's no way to enable notifications without app installation.”

Apple broke web apps in iOS 17 beta and hasn

PWAs demoted to OWB: Operating Within Browser

”A Russian disinformation campaign is deploying everything from high-ranking lawmakers and government officials to lifestyle influencers, bloggers, and powerful state-run media outlets to stoke divisions in the United States around the Texas border crisis.”

WIRED

Russia Is Boosting Calls for ‘Civil War’ Over Texas Border Crisis

An all-encompassing Russian disinformation campaign is using everything from bots to lifestyle influencers to powerful state-run media to sow divis...

Meta shares how the Threads feed algo works.

Instagram Threads Feed

”Bluesky has gained almost 800,000 new users (or, “newskies“). Now, the platform is slated to break 4 million total signups later today, whereas it hit 3 million only last week.”

TechCrunch

Bluesky gets nearly 800K new users in its first day open to the public, despite outages | TechCrunch

Bluesky opened to the public yesterday after launching in an invite-only beta last year. Getting on Bluesky might not be as exciting as it was when...

You can cross-post to Mastodon, Bluesky and Nostr simultaneously. If you add

X Connect

to the mix it can auto-post your Nostr posts to X. View quoted note →

”They have prioritized graphics fidelity and responsiveness, and taken the hit on battery life, weight, and heat. Given how important the experience is to Apple’s AR experience, this is probably the right choice for a first generation device.”

iFixit

Vision Pro Teardown—Why Those Fake Eyes Look So Weird

Welcome to the Vision Pro, Apple’s most complex piece of hardware yet. So complicated that we’ll need more than one teardown to tackle it. Firs...

”The platform has about 3 million sign-ups. Now that anyone can join, the young platform faces a challenge: how can it meaningfully stand up to Threads’ 130 million monthly active users, or even Mastodon’s 1.8 million?”

TechCrunch

Bluesky is now open for anyone to join | TechCrunch

Bluesky looks and functions like Twitter at the outset, but the platform stands out because of what lies under the hood.

Automated algos make no exceptions to founders

Wherever you get your Nostr “being able to say, "wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement. Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that's supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that's not owned by any one company, that can't be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience.”

“Wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement. - Anil Dash

A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

The age of innocence is over. View quoted note →

”A particular surge has been registered this month in an area stretching from Finland to Poland to the Black Sea region.”

Bloomberg.com

Russia Behind Spike in European GPS Jamming, Baltic General Says

Russia is likely behind an increase in instances of jamming satellite signals used by airlines, smartphones and weapons systems in eastern Europe, ...

Something for the EU to think about: Wealth is the set of possible physical transformations. It cannot be quantified as a number. If you solve the right problems you become wealthier in knowledge and resources. Are we building or consuming?

The Deutsch Files II — Naval — Overcast

"YouTube recently started slowing down its entire site whenever ad blockers are used. A new wave of slowdowns is hitting users, with the only resolutions being disabling the ad blocker or upgrading to premium."

9to5Google

YouTube begins new wave of slowdowns for users with ad blockers enabled

YouTube recently started slowing down its entire site whenever ad blockers are used. A new wave of slowdowns is hitting...

"South Korea unveiled plans by leading firms such as Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. to spend more than $470 billion establishing the world’s largest chipmaking cluster, joining a global race to safeguard domestic supply."

Bloomberg.com

South Korea Lays Out $470 Billion Plan to Build Chipmaking Hub

South Korea unveiled plans by leading firms such as Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. to spend more than $470 billion establishing the worl...

”The fact that rebuilding Ukraine could end up costing $1 trillion – more than three times the assets’ value – might mollify those who are still reluctant to use them to fund the reconstruction effort.” https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-seizing-russias-frozen-assets-is-the-right-move/

”Europe is more food dependent on Moscow now than we were before the war, with the bloc replacing energy dependency with fertiliser dependency”

Euractiv

EU increasingly food dependent on Russia, fertiliser company CEO warns | Euractiv

Europe is more food dependent on Moscow now than we were before the war, with the bloc replacing energy dependency with fertiliser dependency, the ...