RE: https://social.uibk.ac.at/@uniinnsbruck/117444826346872254
Til inspiration for 🇩🇰 uni-administratorer
Universitetet i Innsbruck åbner en ny instans for alle studerende 🎉 🎉 🎉
Efter personalet har nu alle tilknyttede ved universitetet adgang til Fediverse via lokale instanser, der er forbundet med universitetets loginsystem
It is wonderful to see that not all businesspeople are cowards.
Virgin's Richard Branson:
Considering the repeated calls to replace Starlink in the EU, followed by the usual snarky comments, mostly from Americans, about how SpaceX is "irreplaceable" and Europe is supposedly incapable of competing, I think it's worth looking at some facts.
First of all, EU countries have launched hundreds of satellites over the past decade, with annual deployments growing from just 16 in 2015 to 135 in 2025. Eutelsat OneWeb already provides continuous coverage across Europe with more than 600 satellites
On top of that, the EU is developing IRIS², a constellation of ~350 satellites, with the first launches scheduled for 2029. The EU's GOVSATCOM programme has already been operational since January 2026, pooling satellite capacity from member states for secure government communications.
Now, let's get to the actual argument. Is Europe behind SpaceX, with its thousands of satellites in orbit? Absolutely. At the moment, it's not even close. Starlink has significantly cheaper consumer terminals, much greater network capacity, a larger constellation and a far more accessible service for ordinary customers. No argument here.
But that's also part of the problem.
Starlink is simply a better and more affordable product for most consumers right now, so customers and government contracts naturally gravitate towards SpaceX, making it harder for European competitors to attract the revenue and investment needed to catch up.
Let's also not pretend SpaceX appeared out of nowhere. It benefited from decades of American aerospace infrastructure, NASA research, publicly funded programs and government contracts, alongside its own substantial private capital
Putting a European startup, or even a single country's space agency, against that entire ecosystem is a losing proposition from the beginning.
But why should it stay that way?
Europe already has the aerospace industry, launch facilities, technological expertise and financial resources to develop a competitive alternative.
To launch satellites successfully and cheap you need to decrease the launch cost. Currently, European rocket Ariane 6 is generally more expensive than Falcon 9, and Europe still lacks a comparable operational reusable launcher. But projects like Themis and Maia are already in development.
If Europe keeps pouring money into SpaceX, how exactly do you expect these European projects to become competitive?
The same applies to satellite terminals. SpaceX has excelled at mass-producing consumer-friendly equipment costing a few hundred dollars, while comparable OneWeb equipment can cost several thousand.
But that advantage comes from economies of scale, production efficiency, mass adoption and, sometimes, subsidising hardware to gain market share. You can't have mass adoption if you mass adopt Starlink
Europe doesn't need to replicate Starlink's entire global network to build a viable alternative. The objective is sufficient coverage, capacity and reliability across Europe and neighbouring regions, not necessarily every random island in the Pacific or remote village in the Brazilian Amazon - something that SpaceX does much better. That's a much more realistic objective than immediately matching Starlink worldwide.
There are several ways to achieve this: direct investment, research funding, initial subsidies, long-term government contracts and procurement policies prioritising European satellite providers wherever feasible, particularly for critical infrastructure.
In strategically sensitive areas, I'd go even further and eliminate dependence on SpaceX entirely wherever a viable European alternative exists.
Which brings us to national security.
Starlink is an American commercial system subject to US jurisdiction, while Starshield is specifically designed for US government and military customers. Starlink's own terms allow the company to suspend services following requests or orders from government agencies.
Now imagine a hypothetical scenario where the US attempts to annex Greenland militarily. Would you really want critical European communications infrastructure dependent on an American company that could could simply switch off everything on political demand? You simply cannot outsource your country's critical communications infrastructure to a foreign provider and pretend there are no strategic risks involved. I don't like writing it, but US is not a reliable partner.
And beyond security, it's also about money and long-term economics.
European money, investment and talent should stay in Europe, not continuously flow to America. Do you want European aerospace graduates to have actual career opportunities in Europe, instead of feeling they need to move to the US?
Do you want European companies building rockets, satellites, manufacturing facilities and research centres, creating skilled jobs and attracting investment?
None of that happens if your entire strategy is to keep buying American Starlink terminals while complaining that European alternatives are too expensive or technologically inferior.
There's a massive difference between saying Europe cannot fully replace Starlink today and claiming that Europe is fundamentally incapable of developing a competitive alternative, while quoting memes about muslim immigrants and plastic bottle caps.
And if Europe keeps financing its competitors instead of building its own capabilities, SpaceX will indeed remain "irreplaceable". Not because Europe can't compete, but because it is not committed to the competition.
Only 3 percent of Americans are on Russia's side. Three!
If Trump really wanted to win the midterms, the easiest job in the world would be to side with the clear majority who want Ukraine to win.
And yet Trump is aiming to please the 3 percent — AND claiming if he does not win the midterms, it must be election fraud.
Putin must really have some nasty stuff on the US president.
Mens europæiske 🇪🇺 politikere hævder at udvide #datacenter infra-strukturen i den #Digitalsovereignty navn, prioriterer datacenter-operatører at betjene de største multi-nationale cloud-udbydere, hvoraf de fleste er US 🇺🇸 -baserede
EU 🇪🇺 har brug for en grundlæggende nytænkning af sin tilgang til #datacenter – hvor mange der er behov for ? - og hvem der kontrollerer dem ?
https://www.somo.nl/eus-data-centre-expansion-will-fast-track-profits-and-power-for-us-big-tech-and-investors/
h/t What we are reading @info_activism nyhedsbrev https://tacticaltech.org/news/in-the-loop-newsletters/
RE: https://mograph.social/@dilmandila/117432072219819451
Please help finance GIMP, Inkscape and Krita instead of spending your money on trying to get Claude to make you a Photoshop clone.
https://www.gimp.org/donating/
https://inkscape.org/support-us/donate/
https://krita.org/fr/donations/
She is angry. Ukrainians are angry.
Our government has made itself an utterly untrustworthy partner. Congratulations, bad cop Republicans and good cop Democrats. You did it. It took decades since the Warren court and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but after the assassination of the left, the right marched right into fascism. Couldn't have done it without the party that embraced Henry Kissinger in 2020, and thought it would win because the right loves Henry Kissinger. The people who voted MAGA wouldn't know him from Adam. The party shuffled its feet over Trump. The party begs the billionaires for money (but they love us, and the billionaires are totally fooled).
This is a sick game. She's correct. It's betrayal, and it's deliberate betrayal of us by the 2 party system that begs us to trust its politicians.
RE: https://mstdn.social/@GeriAQuin/117439400242485272
There are "undeserving" people. Specifically, it's the people hoarding more wealth than they could ever even possibly spend while perpetuating a system that pits everybody else against one another just to survive.
Otherwise, yeah: I actually want everybody to have enough. To be safe, to be housed, to be fed, clothed, educated, receive all the healthcare they need, and all that good stuff. And libraries, of course. Lots of libraries.
I want every single child in the world to be fed and cared for. I wish that no parent would ever have to go to sleep again worried about how they're going to pay for food, doctor's visits, day care, or anything like that.
I'd like to stop having my taxes spent on surveillance, pointless and unnecessary wars, and being used as welfare for the rich.
Let GoFundMe go back to being all about pooling money to buy a really nice Christmas gift for Grandma and not crowdfunding medical care.
I will happily pay more taxes to make that happen. Put a line item on my pay stub that shows a deduction for "healthy society" with all the money going to the above things. I'll think, "Fuck yeah, that's outstanding."
In the past few days, the Trump administration has:
— Limited Ukraine's use of Starlink to receivers moving less than 100 mph — less than the speed needed by Ukraine's interceptors.
— Ended delivery of intelligence about incoming ballistic missiles.
— Required Ukraine to not hit Russian energy infrastructure even though Russia continues their attacks on energy infrastructure.
In the final days of Trump's reign, Putin wants to squeeze every last bit of support out of the wannabe king.
Træt af ikke at eje din data?
Den 28 Oktober fra kl 16 - 20:30
Vil der være et arrangement lokale d 35 på ZBC Ahorn Alle 3-5 Ringsted
Medbring kun computer hvis du har backup.
Ellers har vi det hele.
Erfaring er ikke nødvendigt, hvis der er interesse vil der komme flere af disse arrangementer, i skal nok få det lært.
Vi prøver altid af først inden skiftet.
Pånær mad i cafeteriet er det gratis.
Skriv til ssjlug@protonmail.com hvis du vil deltage.
Billedet er AI (sorry)
This is depressing. Perfectly good alternatives to all Adobe have existed for many years and are used at pro level, but someone hallucinates some code with claude (which I hear was trained on code of programs like gimp and inkscape) and suddenly everyone is raving about it being the end of Adobe, though the thing they praise is at best entry level stuff. But like other snake oil sellers, they claim it will get there, though their "in one month" is now "many months" #artcraft #foss
This would be funny if it weren't so horrible.
Reporter: "You said that Russia and Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire, but both sides say they have not agreed to that."
Trump: "Well they agreed. You know why? Because I said, 'You agree.' That's why."
CNN projects Democrats will win the Senate 54-46 on November 3.
That means full control of both chambers, and Trump's dictatorial rule will come to an end.
Dear Americans, please make that stick. 🙏🏽
"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of [Russian bots] suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced."
Ugens billeder 📸
#fotografi #photography
Det skulle vist ha' været en hemmelighed: Men specielt for jer, mine venner her i Fødiverset, kan I som de første afprøve løsningen 🙂 En ven i branchen har opsat en #CPR vasker, super relevant nu efter endnu en lækage.
#privatliv #undergulvtæppet #cprvask #pays #digitalisering #detfungerikke
https://www.cprvask.dk/
The "Party of Reagan" has the United States siding with Russian aggression against NATO allies and a brutal war on a European democratic US partner.
Yes, the whole party. If they didn't, they would impeach and remove the president who is blatantly breaking US law to help fund Russia's war effort.