Marcelo Jenny

The fact that a Southern European state-owned railway company is entering the German rail market and credibly competing with Bahn is not only objectively funny if you grew up during the financial crisis, but also another clear symptom we now live in a world where more state-planning eventually wins.

Datacenters in space are a terrible, horrible, no good idea. There is a rush for AI companies to team up with space launch/satellite companies to build datacenters in space. TL;DR: It's not going to work.

an important read for at least 2 reasons:

1. shows how big tech operates on intuitions and vibes and not rigorous research

2. this is a masterpiece in how to breakdown complex scientific concepts in simple language and elegant pros that captivate the lay reader

taranis.ie/datacenters-...

Google CEO: Data Centers in Space Could Be the Norm in About a Decade Google's Sundar Pichai indicates the company sees orbiting data centers as a real solution, rather than merely a moonshot, to help address power-hungry AI systems.

uk.pcmag.com/ai/161773/go...

I gave a campus talk last night on Trump's first 100 days for the WUD Society & Politics group. A student asked me if I thought that, at some point, we might start to describe the US as a competitive authoritarian regime. I said that we were already there, it's just that most folks haven't noticed:

there is no legitimate definition of the term "democracy" under which maps like these are "democratic." this level of stovepiping is banana republic shit. this is effectively no different from stuffing a ballot box

What happens when you kick millions teens off social media? Australia’s about to find out | CNN In the next two weeks, social media platforms will start deactivating accounts for children under 16 in Australia under new laws designed to reduce harm online. Other countries are watching, but some ...

A reader of social science making an impact: "The origins of the ban are widely attributed to the wife of an Australian state premier who had read “The Anxious Generation” by US psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt and urged her husband to do something about it." edition.cnn.com/2025/11/29/a...

The Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research has published a paper on the impact of Brexit siepr.stanford.edu/publications...

The Culture Wars Came for Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales Is Staying the Course.

I take Wikipedia for granted. Reading this Jimmy Wales interview reminded me in our Fantasyland age what a remarkable and important creation it is. True pillar of civilization. Runs on only $200 million a year. Requires our support. So I’m finally donating. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/m...

Signs you might be a far right authoritarian party (#2891):

South Korea's Experiment in AI Textbooks Ends in Disaster The South Korean government's billion-dollar AI textbook initiative has been a complete failure from start to finish.

Who could have seen this coming except literally everyone

share.google/GFaMy3K2Jjlo...

Creative commons licenses and copyright may not stop academic work being used to train AI - Impact of Social Sciences Considering the legal standing of creative commons licenses & copyright, Martin Eve suggests legal protections for academic work are unlikely to be forthcoming.

The backlash from researchers whose work has been used to train #LLMs has re-opened questions around how scholarly works are licensed & the merits of open licenses.

But #CreativeCommons licenses & copyright may not stop academic work being used to train AI, writes @eve.gd @lseimpactblog.bsky.social

U17 Fussball Vize-Weltmeistertitel ist Top-Meldung der ZIB1 Nachrichten. Sport schlägt Innenpoltik.

Die Fotografie zeigt eine Frau bei der Stimmenabgabe am 25. November 1945.

Heute vor 80 Jahren: 94,3 % der Wahlberechtigten in Österreich gaben bei der Nationalratswahl am 25. November 1945 ihre Stimme ab. ➡️ Ein Rückblick auf die erste freie Wahl nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: https://parl.at/gJB-

Posmatrači obavijestili CIK o teškom kršenju izbornih pravila: "Porodično glasanje" na 23,7% biračkih mjesta Koalicija "Pod lupom" objavila je ključne nalaze posmatranja izbornog dana do 12:00h na osnovu izvještaja svojih posmatrača/ica raspoređenih na otprilike svakom...

Independent elections monitors in BiH claim serious instances of fraud at nearly a quarter of all voting sites to replace Bosnian Serb secessionist Dodik as president of the RS entity. The 2022 RS presidency elections too were rerun due to fraud. www.klix.ba/vijesti/bih/...

Warum Künstliche Intelligenz nicht als Suchmaschine taugt Die Hälfte der Deutschen verwendet mittlerweile ChatGPT & Co. als Google-Ersatz. Gleichzeitig arbeiten auch die klassischen Suchmaschinen immer mehr mit KI. Warum das ein Problem ist. Von Till Bücker.

"Schaut man rein auf die Korrektheit der Antworten, beinhaltet ChatGPT zu 51,5 Prozent, Copilot zu 45,4 Prozent, Gemini zu 50 Prozent und Perplexity zu 45,7 Prozent wesentliche Fehler oder Ungenauigkeiten."
www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/d...

A screenshot of a Facebook post where a person named Andy ask the Well now “What the hell is transgender?” The Royal Canadian Air Force account response with “That’s a pretty big question asked in a pretty small way, Andy. ‘Transgender’ putting describes someone whose gender – who they know themselves to be – doesn’t match the sex they were assigned at birth. It’s not new, and it’s certainly not a fad. People have lived this experience for as long as people have existed; we’re just finally talking about it openly. You don’t have to fully understand it right away, most learning takes time, but we can always start from a place of respect. That’s how decent folks handle things they’re still getting used to.”

Massive shoutout out to whoever handles the Royal Canadian Air Force’s social media account. They responded to every single comment on their already very solid Trans Day of Remembrance post and they responded like this…

I have an excuse for late reviews: I can't hand them in. Research progress is blocked because botnets are currently flooding the internet and blocking journal websites.

Das (sehr strenge) Vorarlberger Parteienförderungsgesetz sieht vor, dass die Parteien – für bestimmte fehlende oder falsche Angaben im Rechenschaftsbericht – die dreifache Höhe der nicht (korrekt) angegebenen Summen zurückzahlen müssen (§ 12 Abs 1 lit e: ris.bka.gv.at/eli/lgbl/VO/...). 1/3

„Ich glaube nicht mehr länger, dass Demokratie und Freiheit miteinander vereinbar sind.“

Dieser Satz kommt von Peter Thiel, dem Mitbegründer von #Palantir. Von solchen Typen sollten wir uns gerade mit Blick auf unsere Sicherheit niemals abhängig machen.

Blog: Landeszeitungen als Instrument politischer Kommunikation 05.11.2025: Sie landen still und unscheinbar im Briefkasten: Landeszeitungen. In mehreren österreichischen Bundesländern informieren sie über Projekte, Eröffnungen und politische Entscheidungen. Auf d...

Wie neutral sind Landeszeitungen wirklich? 🤔

Neuer Blogpost von Jörg Schmieder analysiert österreichische Landeszeitungen (2016-2023) mit quantitativer Textanalyse.

📖 www.uibk.ac.at/de/politikwissenschaft/kommunikation/powi-blog/schmieder-landeszeitungen/

This has not gotten much attention, but it should.

Virginia under Youngkin returned to an insanely harsh system where people convicted of any felony lose their voting rights FOR LIFE.

Dems' win this week mean they'll get to advance a constitutional amendment to end lifetime disenfranchisement.

What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure Franklin was no victim in how the DNA double helix was solved. An overlooked letter and an unpublished news article, both written in 1953, reveal that she was an equal player.

"She deserves to be remembered not as the victim of the double helix, but as an equal contributor to the solution of the structure."
Ein schöner Artikel, der die Ereignisse damals rekonstruiert und Rosalind Franklins essenziellen Beitrag zur Aufklärung der DNA-Struktur würdigt.

Gegen seinen selbst deklarierten Reichsverweser. Wenn der die Eigenbezeichnung ernst genommen hätte, hätte er die Rückkehr seines Kaisers begrüßen müssen.

⚡️DER HABSBUGER-SCHATZ⚡️

Oder die Frage: Was gehört wem? Es erinnert mich ein bisschen an die Causa #Mondsee. Viel Emotion. Wenig Recherche. Medien, die einfach drauflosschreiben. Expertise einholen? Zawos? Es ist ein trauriges Bild. In keinem Artikel wird die Rechtslage erklärt. Ein Versuch:

1/15

It can happen very quickly A long out-of-print book offers insights into the collapse of democracy in Austria’s First Republic. Today it is more relevant than ever.

G.E.R. Gedye lived in Vienna as Central Europe correspondent from 1925-1938. I had the privilege to write about his extraordinary yet forgotten book "Fallen Bastions", describing Austria's descent into dictatorship, for @datum.at. It's now also available in English:
www.esiweb.org/cafe-europe/...

🗳️ New study (w @jessicakuhlm.bsky.social) on AfD success in integration council elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany: AfD achieved significant results in councils elected exclusively by voters with migration backgrounds. It's not about economics—it's about political competition. (1/3)

US accused of threatening EU diplomats during bid to kill green shipping rules Negotiators at shipping talks in London were told both they and their countries could be punished unless they voted with the U.S.

European negotiators were personally targeted by their American counterparts during a brutal negotiation over green shipping rules, European Commission officials told POLITICO. 

This highly unusual gambit left diplomats shaken after the meeting. 

im Rahmen des jährlich stattfindenden Symposions "Sozialwissenschaften und Militär" ist beschämend. Ist es das, was das österreichische Bundesheer unter Sozialwissenschaften versteht?

Wie Österreichs Bundesheer zur Klickgranate in der Ufo-Szene wurde Bei einem Symposion der Landesverteidigungsakademie in Wien trafen sich Anfang Oktober Schwurbler und Skeptiker. In Esoterik-Kreisen wird die Veranstaltung gefeiert

www.derstandard.at/story/300000...

Sehr guter SZ-Newsletter von Alexandra Föderl-Schmid. Und ja: Andreas Babler hat völlig Recht, wenn er die Regierungsinserate abdreht.

nl-link.sueddeutsche.de/u/gm.php?prm...