iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Jonathan O'Callaghan @astrojonny.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Also by me: Orbital data centers are coming. What does the future hold, and is there any hope for Earth orbit? Story by me in BBC Science Focus www.sciencefocus.com/future-techn...

sciencefocus.com

Why Silicon Valley is betting big on data centres in space | BBC Science Focus Magazine

Space data centres could be a new frontier for humanity, but can the promise live up to the hype?

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Schera Wyss 💀 SLUG HUMAN @scherawyss.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

This might be one of the most insane scandals in game history When Pokemon Go players scan PokeStops, theyve been unknowingly building a detailed visual model of the world which is being sold to a military contractor to build a no-GPS positioning for the new generation of unmanned killing machines

Screenshot of the article
(I'm sorry I don't have time to type this whole thing as alt text my poor thumbs owww)

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timko @timko.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

today's fieldwork: SuperReturn Tech Sovereignty conference

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Sense Hofstede @sensehofstede.nl · 11/06/2026

Nikkei Asia: Uncertainty plagues Taiwan’s drone industry after opposition’s budget cuts – ‘The worries are palpable in Taichung, a key industrial base for aerospace, defense and technology in central Taiwan that has become an emerging hub for drones.’

asia.nikkei.com

Uncertainty plagues Taiwan's drone industry after budget cuts

Experts warn stalled domestic procurement could impede cooperation with US partners

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timko @timko.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

start-up pitch competition featuring AI targeting systems, unmanned ground vehicles, and space weapons along with a sort of jovial game show-like atmosphere

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Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

"European confidence in an American “security guarantee” has hit a historic low, a survey suggests" "The survey...revealed 'deep European distrust in the US', the authors said."

theguardian.com

Only one in 10 Europeans now see US as an ally, survey suggests

Exclusive: poll across 15 countries finds ‘deep mistrust’, with majority doubting US would come to their aid in an attack

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timko @timko.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

today's fieldwork: Mission2044 ReArm Europe Summit

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Gerry Doyle @mgerrydoyle.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

hey quick question, am I having a stroke

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timko @timko.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

first stop: the New Age Defence conference

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timko @timko.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

just arriving in Berlin for some fieldwork on the EU defense technology scene and this is the very first thing I see

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Sven-Erik Volberg @volberg.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Japan’s ATLA has hit a major milestone: their ship-mounted railgun hit a moving target during sea trials. This transition from prototype to functional naval weapon marks a massive shift in maritime defense tech. #Railgun #JapanDefense #MilitaryTech 🧵 1/ www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2...

navalnews.com

Japan Successfully Fires Ship-Mounted Railgun at Target Vessel for First Time - Naval News

Japan's ATLA has announced its first successful test-firings of a ship-mounted electromagnetic railgun against a target vessel at sea.

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Leah Feiger @leahfeiger.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

NEW: Palantir Employees Are Starting to Wonder if They're the Bad Guys Interviews with current and former Palantir employees, along with internal Slack messages obtained by @wired.com, suggest a workforce in turmoil. read @makenakelly.bsky.social:

wired.com

Palantir Employees Are Starting to Wonder if They're the Bad Guys

Interviews with current and former Palantir employees, along with internal Slack messages obtained by WIRED, suggest a workforce in turmoil.

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War on the Rocks @warontherocks.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Most analysis of China’s military-civil fusion looks for firms that pivot to defense. The story of this Chinese robotics firm’s path from civilian to military use suggests a different dynamic entirely.

warontherocks.com

The Hidden System Turning Chinese Tech Companies into Military Suppliers

In October 2022, Unitree Robotics joined Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, and three other firms in signing an open letter pledging not to weaponize

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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Even if I were not a Zone Books completist, I’d be pretty stoked about this one.

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Defense AI Observatory @defenseaio.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

📢 Fragmented Efforts: Defense AI in Brazil🇧🇷 📚 Although Brazil gradually moves towards defense AI, initatives are limited in scope, driven by individual services and fragmented, write Joao Paulo Moralez and Santiago Rivas in our latest study. See defenseai.eu/daio_study26...

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Julián Posada @posada.website · 16/03/2026

With the cover now finalized, I am pleased to announce my forthcoming book: 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐦: 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞. Available this October from @ucpress.bsky.social s. 🧵 1/4

Book cover for "Platform Extractivism: Data Work and the People Powering Artificial Intelligence" by Julián Posada. Set against a bright yellow background, three vertical photographic panels at the top depict a crowd with digital bounding boxes over faces, a person coding at a computer, and a dense rack of glowing server cables. The title is in large, bold black text, followed by the red subtitle and the author’s name in blue at the bottom.

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Kjell Ericson @kjelldericson.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

**Postdoc positions** Kyoto University has opened up applications for the Hakubi Project, due May 17, 2026. This is a cream of the crop postdoc ("all fields, from basic to applied"), 5 (FIVE!) years, great research budget. Please apply or let others know! www.hakubi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/recruitme...

hakubi.kyoto-u.ac.jp

採用情報｜ Kyoto University｜The Hakubi Project

次世代を担う、優秀な若手研究者の育成プロジェクト

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Jonathan O'Callaghan @astrojonny.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Fun fact: The exact location of the first launch is now the 9th hole on a golf course, commemorated by a memorial. Image source: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mo...

Robert Goddard launch memorial on golf course

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timko @timko.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

poor guy has never considered he could just be a butterfly dreaming he's marc andreesen

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timko @timko.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

the astrofinancial imaginary

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The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 06/03/2026

To the surprise of some officials in Kyiv, no one from the U.S. bothered to ask Ukraine to share its expertise in how to defend against drones before starting the offensive in Iran, Simon Shuster and Nancy A. Youssef report. theatln.tc/AFPCstm6

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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 24/02/2026

This is a really key thing that people are just not getting: "VC" is simply *not venture capital* anymore. There is ZERO risk for A16Z and peers. They do not resemble the thing that regulators described when creating the category of venture capital. A cartel of ~4 firms runs the whole industry.

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s. e. smith @sesmith.lol · 24/02/2026

This is cool as hell: An app designed to ping people about nearby smartglasses. Also cool: The creator was inspired by @404media.co coverage, a great illustration of why their journalism is so essential. This kind of work is funded by paid subscribers so become one of those if you can.

404media.co

This App Warns You if Someone Is Wearing Smart Glasses Nearby

The creator of Nearby Glasses made the app after reading 404 Media's coverage of how people are using Meta's Ray-Bans smartglasses to film people without their knowledge or consent. “I consider it to ...

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Revolving Door Project @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

What's in a name? Our @dylangyauchl.bsky.social writes about why the term "tech industry" is incoherent and lends itself to serving Silicon Valley's techno-optimist PR campaign. revolvingdoorproject.substack.com/p/the-techno...

revolvingdoorproject.substack.com

The Technobabble Defense: The Tech “Industry”

What’s in a name??

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Protean Magazine @proteanmag.com · 21/02/2026

"Algorithmic management is 'a way of organising work in which workers are directed, tracked and assessed—all at once, in real time—by a computer system[.]' Tendrils of this managerial regime are now creeping into offices, universities, even hospitals." –Shane Boyle proteanmag.com/2025/12/23/t...

proteanmag.com

The Workplace Arms Race • Protean Magazine

Shane Boyle reviews Craig Gent's Cyberboss: The Rise of Algorithmic Management. "Rather than representing a step towards scientific perfection, algorithmic management is simply the latest episode in c...

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Michael Pettis @michaelpettis.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Kyle Chan: "China’s strength across multiple overlapping industries creates a compounding effect for its industrial policy efforts." open.substack.com/pub/highcapa...

open.substack.com

China's overlapping tech-industrial ecosystems

EVs, batteries, lidar, drones, robotics, smartphones, AI. China's progress across a range of overlapping industries creates a mutually reinforcing feedback loop.

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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right. Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement. This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.

The political effects of X's feed algorithm
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2
Received: 16 December 2024
Accepted: 4 January 2026
Published online: 18 February 2026
Open access
• Check for updates
Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m
Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects.
Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

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The Week @theweek.com · 11/02/2026

SpaceX is now focused on “building a self-growing city on the moon,” Musk said on X. That goal could be achieved in “less than 10 years,” whereas colonizing Mars would “take 20-plus years.”

theweek.com

Elon Musk’s pivot from Mars to the moon

SpaceX shifts focus with IPO approaching

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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

The SpaceX/xAI merger situation is actually pretty important and, I think, very bad. "Data centers in space" is a bit of a pipe dream, but SpaceX now dominates low-Earth orbit in a highly concerning way. Starlink is real and could monopolize a lot of things.Not Good! www.404media.co/this-spacex-...

404media.co

This SpaceX Situation: Not Good!

Elon Musk's political projects are combining into a highly concerning megacompany.

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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

"Drawing on a 20.3-million-query audit of ChatGPT, we map systematic biases in the model's representations of countries, states, cities, and neighbourhoods. From these empirics, we argue that bias is not a correctable anomaly but an intrinsic feature of generative AI”. ht: Dagmar Monett

journals.sagepub.com

The silicon gaze: A typology of biases and inequality in LLMs through the lens of place - Francisco W. Kerche, Matthew Zook, Mark Graham, 2026

This paper introduces the concept of the silicon gaze to explain how large language models (LLMs) reproduce and amplify long-standing spatial inequalities. Draw...

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Harry Stranger @spacefromspace.com · 20/01/2026

I tasked the UMBRA-10 satellite over LC-39B to capture SLS on the pad. The capture lasted 33 seconds (2026-01-20 04:20:43 - 4:21:16 UTC) so here it is turned into a short video.

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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

New: meet ELITE, the Palantir app ICE is using to find neighborhoods to raid. Map interface; officers search for immigrants; click person to bring up individual dossier. This is clearest link between what Palantir is building and ICE's activities on the ground yet www.404media.co/elite-the-pa...

404media.co

‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid

Internal ICE material and testimony from an official obtained by 404 Media provides the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activit...

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timko @timko.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

the exact same arguments were used to boost new space a decade ago

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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

"Srinivasan himself has started a 'Network School' on an artificial island near Singapore, where techno-optimists can work their day jobs remotely while living in a hotel together and learning how to 'bootstrap'... a new society [ — ] 'society-as-a-service'"

ft.com

Tech elites are starting their own for-profit cities

They want to escape from regulation and ‘failing’ democracy — but are they more opportunistic than libertarian?

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Tobias Harris @tobiasharris.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

This edition of Japan Daily Briefing looks at some things to watch this week, as well as the "radar lock" incident, a defense ministerial with Australia, and efforts by opposition parties to coordinate their candidates for the next general election. open.substack.com/pub/observin...

open.substack.com

Radar locked | Japan Daily Briefing

Japan protests risky encounter between Japanese and Chinese aircraft, while deepening defense ties with Australia

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Boone Ashworth @boone.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Scoop: Provisions of the NDAA that would ensure military members’ right to repair their own equipment are set to be removed from the funding act, replaced by language that will require the military to pay subscription fees to defense contractors via “data-as-a-service.” www.wired.com/story/subscr...

wired.com

The US Military Wants to Fix Its Own Equipment. Defense Contractors Are Trying to Shoot That Down

A push by military contractors could alter pending legislation that would have empowered servicemembers to repair equipment. Lobbyists are pitching a subscription service instead.

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Tim Fernholz @timfernholz.com · 11/11/2025

Palantir update via www.wired.com/story/alex-k...

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