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Cake day: June 29th, 2024

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  • Spoken from a European perspective: within a few decades, the US will lose its status as a superpower as it slides into isolationism. You simply cannot be both isolationist and a military and economic superpower. Add to it that much tech is still in the US, but people are waking up to the inherent vulnerability in that. Think government data being on US servers.

    These developments will hurt the entire world in the short term and new superpowers will rise. Russia has had its day, but China and India will be the top dogs. I am not discounting Brazil either as a local superpower is South-America. We do probably not want it, but they have the people and the production capacity.

    The next four years will accelerate all that. I have already read the first questions about F-35 warplanes being a wise choice as the US could potentially disable them remotely. That would turn them into expensive paperweights at the whim of the US. If the US themselves are less than stable, that would be a very precarious situation.












  • I am not sure about ‘ever’ (I am old and have been reading for over 4 decades now), but a book I hate-read recently was Foucault’s pendulum by Umberto Eco. It is meant to be a satire on conspiracy theories and as such it is still a relevant book after 35 years or so. However, the point of satire is to get to the point eventually, preferably within 500 pages. It was pompously written and sometimes felt like a showcase of ‘look how much I know!’.



  • I recently hate-read Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. I had started reading it twice and stopped after a few chapters. I am aware that the book is meant to be satire, but the point of satire is to be to the point instead of having to slog through 600+ pages of drivel.