2025-11-14 Fri
Published:
- Trump’s national security strategy “reads like openly fascist rantings”
- ICC to ditch MS Office for European open source alternative
- “The large-scale conversion of Norse societies between the tenth and twelfth centuries is best understood not as a sudden attraction to Christian doctrine, but as part of a long transformation tied to state formation, economic integration, and sustained contact with Christian Europe. “
- “Man with a machine can be a slave or a free man.” (Henry Ford)
- “Technology affects society by affordances, constraints, preconditions, and unintended consequences.” (Baym, N. K, 2010).
- “In the late 1800s alien ‘engineers’ altered our world forever.”
News
Trump’s national security strategy “reads like openly fascist rantings”
Inside Trump’s Far-Right New National Security Strategy
h/t to @mehdirhasan.bsky.social on Bluesky: Zeteo scoops on a “bonkers” national security strategy draft.
There is so much about the draft papers that have caused some who’ve seen it to privately complain that it reads like openly fascist European rantings from the first half of the 20th century.
…highly unusual in its specificities & grievance peddling…
One notable NSS was produced by the George W. Bush administration post-9/11; the document highlighted a willingness for preemptive war and served as a quiet prelude to the disasters and international horrors that would soon follow.
ICC to ditch MS Office for European open source alternative
Euractiv: International Criminal Court to ditch Microsoft Office for European open source alternative:
The International Criminal Court (ICC) will switch its internal work environment away from Microsoft Office to Open Desk, a European open source alternative.
Trump has repeatedly lashed out at the court and slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.
Earlier this year, the AP also reported that Microsoft had cancelled Khan’s email account, a claim the company denies.
Open Desk is developed by the German Centre for Digital Sovereignty of the Public Administration (Zendis), a publicly owned company.
Zendis is part of an EU-level organisation that four EU countries founded on Tuesday with the aim of building sovereign digital infrastructure.
Other stuff
Why did the Norse turn to Christianity?
The large-scale conversion of Norse societies between the tenth and twelfth centuries is best understood not as a sudden attraction to Christian doctrine, but as part of a long transformation tied to state formation, economic integration, and sustained contact with Christian Europe.
Henry Ford about machines
“Man with a machine can be a slave or a free man.”
Henry Ford
How technology affects society
Technology affects society by affordances, constraints, preconditions, and unintended consequences.
Baym, N. K. (2010). Personal connections in the digital age. Polity. https://archive.org/details/personalconnecti0000baym
Aeon: In the late 1800s alien ‘engineers’ altered our world forever
The apparent discovery of aliens on Mars a century ago reveals that the consequences of an encounter with alien life may be less traumatic but also more far-reaching than science-fiction authors have imagined.
Indeed, in a sense, ‘aliens’ have already altered our world.