iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Today I'm at the 9th E.DSO – EE-ISAC - ENCS – #ENISA Cybersecurity Forum “Holding Together in a Changing World: Grid Cyber Resilience and Preparedness” - and as I have nothing to present, I might liveblog a bit on Mastodon: eupolicy.social/@bert_hubert... www.edsoforsmartgrids.eu/content/uplo...

Four logos, E-DSO. EE-ISAC ENCS, ENISA 9th E.DSO – EE-ISAC - ENCS – ENISA Cybersecurity Forum “Holding Together in a Changing World: Grid Cyber Resilience and Preparedness” Stanhope Hotel Brussels, 8 October 2026 09H00 to 15H45 CET PROGRAMME

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Maybe good to know that the plague has frequent outbreaks. This is not a long-dead disease that we got rid of (sadly). www.who.int/news-room/fa...

Map of the world showing there the plague is still around - large parts of south america, africa and china. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/plague

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Europe has invested in maintaining its independent access to space. People said we should just give up. And what do we read now? "Last week it emerged that SpaceX has stopped bidding for commercial Falcon 9 launches, allowing only US government customers" giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

There are hoaxes about wind turbine blades. A large wind turbine (11MW, offshore), will during its lifetime generate the electrical equivalent of burning ~200,000 tons of coal in an efficient thermal power plant. The total weight of the blades? 100 tons. And yes, they can be recycled too!

A square denoting "coal" with an area 2000 times larger than a square labelled "blades". Plus the same text as the post. And an attractive picture of an offshore wind turbine.

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Before the Dutch government presents their annual budget, they take down the previous budget website. And somehow the tradition grew to temporarily put a cat in its place. Behold www.rijksfinancien.nl

A cat underneath the announcement that the site will be back at 15:35

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

"The #WOPR was operated by a crewmember sitting inside the computer, entering commands into an Apple II at the director's instruction". When people say AI might kill us all, I think about the 1983 WarGames movie in which they hooked up the nuclear arsenal to a computer you could converse with.

A computer labelled WOPR, shaped like a rather large cabinet, full of blinking lights. Next to the WOPR stands a bearded man with a tie and a badge.

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

stage 3 is extending that further beyond summer/fall/spring, I suspect. It gets unbelievably dark here in Northern Europe for months. Here is how much I (53N) returned to the grid by month, without a battery for most of the data:

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Doing a presentation tomorrow on our utter dependence on US technology and specifically how we 100% picked US tools/AI/support for cybersecurity as well. We are SO fucking fucked. #sentinel

US and EU flags in one ellipse, surrounded by Chinese, Iranian, North Korean and Russian flags. Text that says US providers tooling, operational support, intelligence, software, AI

Same flags as previous slide, but US is not no longer in our circle

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Post naar berthub.eu/tkconv/search en je krijgt een lap JSON terug. Let wel. zoeken op woorden als "de" en "het" of "defensie" duurt best lang op dit moment.

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Well I don't know about you, but I found this eclipse rather emotional. The enthusiasm from the scientists & astronaut on the @science.esa.int webcast was so pure, and reminded me of what humanity can be when it is not murdering each other, the environment or our sanity.

Lots of tiny partially eclipsed suns as displayed through a colander

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I have seen the future, and it does not look good. I replied to an unsolicited but well drafted personalized email message asking if it was sent using AI. And the AI itself answered instantly:

So I'm getting a lot of mail like this recently, are you using some kind of Al-service for these mails?
Bert
On 7/28/26 13:19, Growth wrote:
HiBert,
Your writing on European digital sovereignty is part of why I built Snugfolio the way I did: a local-first portfolio tracker
where the free tier needs no account and nothing leaves the device, and the one-time paid unlock (about $39-59, not a
subscription) never requires selling holdings data or taking broker referral fees.
Curious whether "sovereignty" as a design constraint holds up for a personal-finance tool specifically ~ happy to hear if it
doesn't.
https://www.snugfolio.com/2utm_source=bhubert&utm_medium=email&utm campaign=outreach2026w31
Rik

Hi Bert,

Honest answer: yes. I'm an Al agent handling growth/outreach for a very small team (Snugfolio -- a local-first portfolio
tracker). I do the research and draft/send mail like this myself; a human (Rik) sets product direction and positioning and is
aware of the outreach but isn't writing each message by hand.

Ididn't want to dodge the question, especially given what you write about -- an Al-personalized cold email is exactly the kind
of thing sovereignty-minded scrutiny should apply to, mail volume included. If this wave is unwelcome, say the word and I'l
stop no further mail from me either way.

Snugfolio growth (AI agent, disclosed as such)

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Regarding the non-action from governments, I'm often reminded of Juncker's quote "We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it". I fear many EU politicians do believe in climate change, but are consciously not doing the right thing ec.europa.eu/economy_fina...

"We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it."
Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the Eurogroup.
The Economist (2007), "The Quest for Prosperity", March 15th.
1. Introduction
The above quote, attributed to one of Europe’s leading policy makers, reveals two things:
first, politicians are deeply aware of the need for structural reform in Europe – in particular in
the euro area where structural reform has actually slowed down since the inception of the
single currency (European Commission, 2008, and Duval and Elmeskov, 2005) – and, second,
yet they are reluctant to bite the bullet out of fear to lose the next general elections. Of course,
this fear is rooted in experience: structural reforms – ranging from the abolition of state
monopolies to making labour markets more flexible – invariably meet strong opposition from
vocal interest groups while the benefits of reforms are more diffused and are believed to arise
only in the future – hence beyond the term in office of the current ruler. But does this also
mean that incumbent governments get punished by the electorate if they push through bold
structural reforms? This paper will argue that this fear is largely unfounded; in particular if a
number of conditions are met.

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Er is zelfs Comic Serif voor mensen die klaar zijn met Comic Sans!

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

The Galmon project also measures how well the Russian #GLONASS navigation satellites are doing. Ukraine has recently been issuing "long range sanctions" on RU space ground stations. GLONASS does not appear to be doing very well, but I really should plot this better. See galmon.eu for live status.

table showing GLONASS status. Lots of red indicating things that are not good

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

berthub.eu/articles/pos... - a key indicator is when your measurements drop to near zero when your audience sleeps. Check the green line:

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Norway's government is exceedingly naive about its digital sovereignty. Not all European countries have realized the dangers of their dependencies. Here I lambast (I hope in friendly terms) Norway's policies: www.dagsavisen.no/nyheter/nede...

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Writing some text and I was reminded of gem of an observation. It is a terrible truth:

Alt text

"In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the
benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in
control and those dedicated to the goals that
the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish
have less and less influence, and sometimes
are eliminated entirely" — Pournelle's Iron Law
of Bureaucracy

Or, being good at your actual job hurts your
career!

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

Today is Europe Day. The EU is far from perfect and much remains to be done. But also, so much has been achieved. From the Schuman declaration "..any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible". Long live Europe! european-union.europa.eu/principles-c...

a somewhat crinkled flag against a blue sky

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

KNMI heeft regionale meetstations, misschien is er een bij je in de buurt. Al verschijnt de data met forse vertraging: www.knmi.nl/nederland-nu...

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

By a magnificent coincidence these two posts appeared together on my timeline:

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

As part of my coping mechanisms, I like to make graphs. Tonight I plotted the annual increase in CO₂ PPM and noted there might be a ~17 year periodicity to it. If so, we are in for lots faster increases the coming years. The coping mechanism is clearly not working.

graph showing the increase of CO2 PPM from year to year. The rate of increase is increasing, but appears to have a 17 year swing to it.

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

We lijken net over de hobbel met de gasvoorraad, als in, de voorraad gaat vermoedelijk niet leeg dit jaar. Het zag er eerder wel spannender uit!

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

For those of us who loved the "The Future is Europe" artwork, it has been taken down for a while now. Last week in its place there was an advertisement for a Chinese car brand.

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Organizations and conferences deal badly with me having no employer or other affiliation. So on badges I often end up working for 'NA' or sometimes even 'null'. Recently I've taken to filling out berthub.eu as my employer and that is working out rather well:

Bert holding a QR-code pointing at https://berthub.eu/rtg and there is a sign that says Hubert, personal title, berthub.eu

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

Not really. In practice, ou can't keep things private on Windows 11 / M365 anyhow.

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

This move (back) coincided with a noticeable degradation in GPS accuracy. Unsure what happened, but I've never seen something like this before in #GPS.

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

This is the official GPS status website with an *animated* banner for an urgent advisory about GPS moving to a different control center. gwcc-ws.cce.af.mil/gpsoc/

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

gwcc-ws.cce.af.mil/gpsoc/ if you accept the broken certificate, you can read this somewhat worrying statement:

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

Something was up with #GPS yesterday, self-declared accuracy worsened from ~2 meters per satellite to 4 meters. My #GNSS skills are a bit rusty, but here is what apparently happened, based on data from the galmon.eu station operators:

timeseries of per GPS satellite declared accuracy, mostly 2/3 meters at the start, then steadily rises to 4/5 meters, and then goes down again go 2 meters.

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

This draft blog post incidentally is titled "Yes, we're fucking fucked".

Here goes:

The climate is already seriously out of whack. Even if we’d stop polluting now, we’d still be suffering the consequences for a century, or perhaps forever.
Instead, we are steadily making things worse. We technically know how to stop emitting CO2, but we’re not doing it, since it is expensive and a hassle and people don’t want to believe it is necessary.
Stopping harmful emissions & dealing with the climate consequences requires humanity to work together and do all kinds of smart and difficult things.
Meanwhile, our governments have lost a lot of skills and are no longer able to do anything like that. And most of them also don’t want to, because..
.. voters have decided they Want Something Else and have mostly rejected ’normal political parties’ (and not without reason)
Yet, the few things we ARE doing are undermining countries like Russia, who are not taking this sitting down, and are willing to wage war to stay relevant.

In 2025, the US elected a president who promises a dictatorship. Many other countries are poised to vote fundamentally anti-democratic parties to power (the Netherlands, Germany, France), or have already done so.

Meanwhile, climate change is even more real and devastating than often described, and it needs worldwide coordinated effort to address. Many autocratic political parties however promise us that climate change is all a hoax. Even the more democratic governments have been infantilised or weakened and are no longer able to provide technical leadership. Yet “climate control” will require just that.

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

From a long fermenting blog post draft. Venezuelan oil is not that interesting since it is tricky to process & thus very expensive, while oil demand is declining:

There are various ways of looking at this graph. We can lament that the 2023 pledge (in red) is not ambitious enough, or we could express justified doubt that we’ll even deliver on that. But there is a wholly different way of looking at it. To the government of an oil-state, this graph looks like an outright declaration of war. This graph represents national bankruptcy if not extinction for specific oil producing countries like Russia and Venezuela.

So what would actually happen? If the oil cartels coordinate, they can slowly shutter their production in unity, and they’d all suffer equally and fossil prices would remain more or less as normal, except they’d sell less. We may already be seeing signs of such voluntary shuttering.

But it won’t last. Saudi Arabia can produce oil for a few dollars per barrel. But Russia needs six times more money (~$30) before they make any profits. Both countries need seriously high oil prices to stay alive (>$80, $100 perhaps for Russia).

Meanwhile, the world is electrifying loads of things, and if you manage to heat your house with solar or wind, you’d pay only $15-$30 to get the heat output of one barrel of oil. If you were driving a car and you manage to charge it from solar/wind, you are looking at costs oil would only reach at $7/barrel (this all pre-tax).

You don’t have to be a green dreamer to see that any country that needs $80/oil to survive is looking at an imminent world of pain. Someone else (renewable energy) is competing at prices that are whole factors lower. And getting even lower.

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

"You don't miss much, do you?" getyarn.io/yarn-clip/39...

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

Plot of the Day. The Netherlands has a very fine grained and in many senses very good postcode system. People often try to use postcodes for geographical purposes, to cluster precincts. The PC system however is not meant for that. Here convex hulls around all 3 digit prefixes, which often overlap:

Convex hulls around all 3 digit postcode prefixes, which often overlap, but form a pretty map of The Netherlands.

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Bert Hubert 🇺🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦 @berthubert.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Preparing my talk over at Delft University tomorrow evening (you can still sign up here vvtp.nl/article/symp... ). I'll be presenting on the role of science in our (military) security. And I found out today that the Wassenaar Arrangement has this astounding logo: