03 Jan 2026 Search

The Threat from America by Carole Cadwalladr. This should precipitate a whole new global crisis. It’s an unprovoked military assault on a sovereign nation in breach of international law….How Europe and “the west” responds to Trump now and the actions that governments take downstream from that is going to set the path for 2026….Key to all of this is understanding that US companies are explicitly going to be used to enforce US national security interests. (More: The US Is Attempting Regime Change In Venezuela by Phillips P. O’Brien.)

Again: EuroStack is an Industrial Project by Cristina Caffarra. EuroStack is a mission to expand Europe’s capabilities and assets in tech. As an industrial project, to create alternatives, improve resilience and favour growth. Not an autarky mission. That’s it. (And you can’t spell #Eurostack without U—Eurostack is not Airbus for cloud computing—it’s an emergent system based on millions of decisions made by developers and managers at companies, government at all levels, open source organizations, and other NGOs. Decisions to take software and managerial risks that they can manage instead of political risks that are above their pay grade.)

Digital euro: what it is and how we will use the new form of cash by John Burns. You rely on infrastructure in which you have no say, and which could be closed at will. Almost no other jurisdiction is in that situation. Sweden [which retains its own national currency] has a sophisticated digital scheme that lets you pay everywhere. (Brazil’s Pix is another good example.)

Why Secondhand Is Now Better Than New by Ted Gioia. Used gifts are simply better—more meaningful and ethical. In fact, there’s a growing perception that secondhand gifts are classier than today’s mass-produced merchandise. That’s the dirty little secret the big retailers don’t want you to know. (The other advantage of used is that the product is more likely to be available at the post-rugpull price. My best guess for the reason that Apple can’t sell Vision Pro is that people aren’t valuing the device at what it can do now, but at the value it will have to them after Chief Enshittification Officer Tim Cook does his thing on it.)

2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop by Xe Iaso. I’ve been merely tolerating Windows 11 for a while but recently it’s gotten to the point where it’s just absolutely intolerable. Somehow Linux on the desktop has gotten so much better by not even doing anything differently.