2025-05-13
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Air traffic control has been in the news lately, on account of my country's declining ability to do it. Well, that's a long-term trend, resulting from decades of under-investment, severe capture by our increasingly incompetent defense-industrial complex, no small degree of management incompetence in the FAA, and long-lasting effects of Reagan crushing the PATCO strike. But that's just my opinion, you know, maybe airplanes got too woke. In any case, it's an interesting time to consider how weird parts of air traffic control are. The technical, administrative, and social aspects of ATC all seem two notches more complicated than you would expect. ATC is heavily influenced by its peculiar and often accidental development, a product of necessity that perpetually trails behind the need, and a beneficiary of hand-me-down military practices and technology.
Horseshit
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Universe expected to decay in 10⁷⁸ years, much sooner than previously thought
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Did You Shoot Somebody in Self-Defense? There's an Insurance Policy for That
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BM Boys: the Nigerian sextortion network hiding in plain sight on TikTok
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Lessons from the Roman Empire about the danger of luxury - Big Think
luxury, technology, and easy-living can ensnare us or box us in. In many ways, it’s a modern and relatable phenomenon, but it goes back at least to the Roman writer, Tacitus. It’s the idea that the trappings of civilization enslave us. How is it that, without even knowing it, those things we thought were helpful and time-saving became indispensable essentials?
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The tinkerers who opened up a fancy coffee maker to AI brewing
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Nations meet at UN for "killer robot" talks as regulation lags
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Traffic Fatalities Are a Choice—Asterisk
even relatively car-centric countries like Britain, Canada, and Australia cut road deaths by nearly half between 1979 and 2002. In the United States, they decreased by just 16% over the same time. What did Sweden, Spain, and other countries do that the US did not? Each of the countries that reduced their road deaths used the same method: they implemented a set of urban planning decisions — and a philosophy which informs them — now called the Safe System approach.
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'Everybody's Replaceable': The New Ways Bosses Talk About Workers
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If Everyone Has Trauma, Everyone Has Trauma
that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work. If you’re in a wheelchair and you physically cannot get into the post office because the build isn’t accessible, you invoke a special need and demand special accommodation, as well you fucking should. The trouble is that special demands can only remain special when they’re relatively rare. As I’ve said over and over again, society simply cannot provide reasonable accommodation if everyone starts seeking it.
I think a lot of people are growing discontented over the relentless ubiquity of trauma talk because they understand that trauma is supposed to be special. Fundamentally, at the bottom of all of it, to invoke your trauma rather than your pain or your unhappiness or your suffering or your struggle is to make the claim that what you’ve endured goes beyond human business as usual. It’s to ask the world to take your own suffering a little more seriously, to see it as something that transcends the ordinary. In modern life, we medicalize problems as a way to ensure that those problems are taken seriously. That’s why dubious illnesses like fibromyalgia and chronic Lyme have flourished, because as a society we have decided for some reason to treat mental exhaustion and physical discomfort as meaningful only when blessed by the medical establishment with formal recognition. Trauma is a notoriously capacious and vague concept, one into which all manner of human unhappiness can fall; that is, obviously, why it’s proven so popular, why it’s perceived to be so useful. Trauma is populist enough that everyone can claim it while still maintaining enough of a sheen of medical legitimacy to prompt various kinds of official sympathy.
celebrity gossip
Musk
Electric / Self Driving cars
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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Chegg to lay off 22% of workforce
The company, an online education firm that offers textbook rentals, homework help and tutoring, has been grappling with a decline in web traffic for months and warned that the trend would likely worsen before improving.
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Mark Zuckerberg: The Facebook app's "cultural relevance is decreasing quickly"
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Is the Next Great American Novel Being Published on Substack?
- "The Martian" was a blog before it was a book or movie...
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Dance Music Is Booming Again. What's Different This Time? A Lot
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Microsoft moved the goalposts once. Will Windows 12 bring another shift?
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Nintendo says your Switch 2 isn’t really yours even if you paid for it
According to its newly updated user agreement, Nintendo has granted itself the right to make your Switch 2 “permanently unusable” if you break certain rules. Yes, the company might literally brick your device. Buried in the legalese is a clause that says if you try to bypass system protections, modify software, or mess with the console in a way that’s not approved, Nintendo can take action. And that action could include completely disabling your system. The exact wording makes it crystal clear: Nintendo may “render the Nintendo Account Services and/or the applicable Nintendo device permanently unusable in whole or in part.”
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Some Reddit users just love to disagree, says new AI-powered troll-spotting algo
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Unending ransomware attacks are a symptom, not the sickness
We see only silence, deflection, and grudging admission as the undeniable effects multiply - which is a very familiar pattern. The only surprise is that there is no surprise. This isn't part of the problem, it is the problem. Like alcoholics, organizations cannot get better until they admit, confront, and work with others to mitigate the compulsions that bring them low.
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Apple Considers Raising iPhone Prices, Without Blaming Tariffs
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Training Solo: New Set Of Serious Security Vulnerabilities Exposed For Intel & Arm CPUs - Phoronix
"we describe three new classes of attacks against the Linux kernel and present two end-to-end exploits that leak kernel memory on recent Intel CPUs at up to 17 KB/sec. During our investigation, we also stumbled upon two Intel issues which completely break (user, guest, and hypervisor) isolation and re-enable classic Spectre-v2 attacks."
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Ticketmaster will show the full price of your ticket up front to comply with law
TechSuck / Geek Bait
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USENIX celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025. We celebrate decades of innovations, experiments, and gatherings of the advanced computing system community. And in the spirit of our ever-evolving community, field, and industry, we announce the bittersweet conclusion of our longest-running event, the USENIX Annual Technical Conference in July 2025, following USENIX ATC '25.
The problems that I had seen with respect to an overly academic conference seemingly metastasized, and for me, the conference drifted further and further from the shores of practitioner relevance. USENIX ATC did finally succumb, and I do view it as a casualty here, asphyxiated by the rough love of academic computer science and its inability to grow beyond the conference model of publishing.
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Economicon / Business / Finance
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I’ll describe why the development of the BNPL securities market will improve the current state of credit and lending. It’s a win-win-win-win-win. This process–underwriting individual loans, securitizing them, and creating indexes and derivatives–is a classic pattern in financial markets. So while “burrito bonds” sound absurd, absurdity is common at the frontiers of innovation. In this case, tech-enabled financial engineering leads to more efficient credit, granular risk transfer, and deeper markets. And that’s a win.
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CrowdStrike CEO Cuts His Voting Power by 92% with Unexplained Gifts
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Fidelity Customers Complain of Log-In Problems During Major Stock Rally
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Newsom Asks Cities to Ban Homeless Encampments, Escalating Crackdown
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Texas Senate passes bill requiring solar plants to provide power at night
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Rescission of Recordkeeping on Restricted Pesticides by Certified Applications
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Everything That Has Changed Since Congestion Pricing Started in New York
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Dark Money Hit a Record High of $1.9 Billion in 2024 Federal Races
dark money groups boosting Democrats put up about $1.2 billion to influence 2024 elections, while groups boosting Republicans accounted for about $664 million. Future Forward USA Action, the main dark money group supporting Joe Biden and then Harris, gave the most. The 501(c)(4) nonprofit poured more than $304 million into spending on ads and contributions to its closely tied super PAC, Future Forward USA. That means that $1 out of every $6 from undisclosed sources in the 2024 election cycle came through a single dark money group.
Trump
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Auction to Dine With Trump Creates Foreign Influence Opportunity - The New York Times
When the bidding stops Monday, the top buyers of a Trump family crypto coin will win a tour of the White House. Certain buyers, in interviews and statements, have said they bought the coins or entered the dinner contest with the intention of securing an action by Mr. Trump to affect United States policy.
- this kind of access for sale is supposed to be handled more discreetly; you have your relatives on the boards of companies, or selling "art" to the Right People. this sort of crass egalitarianism just makes a mockery of the whole system.
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Trump says he talked to Apple CEO Tim Cook after China tariff rollback
Democrats
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Bronx, Queens residents mock AOC as absentee 'rockstar' who's never in district
Her district offices in the Bronx and Queens offer little to justify the $1.9 million the congresswoman gets to run them — one is only open a single weekday and the other is closed on Fridays, with phones that go unanswered and constituents urged to discuss their problems “by appointment only.” AOC’s town halls used to be monthly events – now are only held once in a blue moon, there’s virtually no way to get in a question, and sometimes she only phones in and doesn’t bother coming in person, galled constituents said.
Left Angst
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America's Coming Brain Drain: Trump's War on Universities Could Kill Innovation
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The McMansionization of the White House, or: Regional Car Dealership Rococo: a treatise
Beyond hypocrisy, for years the common interpretation of Trump’s longstanding romance with 18th century gilded kitsch has been that, Trump, like other practitioners of so-called “Dictator Chic” (most of whom, like Saddam Hussein, have since been deposed) wishes to fashion himself in the style of the late Bourbon kings who ruled tyrannically and absolutely over their immiserated French populaces. But this ressentiment towards democracy is only a psychological analysis, albeit with aesthetic undertones.
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White House fires head of Copyright Office amid Library of Congress shakeup
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US Copyright Office found AI companies breach copyright. Its boss was fired
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Trump fires head of Copyright Office after rpt AI training may not be fair use
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US Copyright Office Has Thoughts on AI. Big Tech May Not Like It
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Director of US copyright office fired after release of AI report
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Two Men Claiming to Be Trump Appointees Blocked From Entering US Copyright Office | WIRED
A source familiar with the matter tells WIRED that the two men who tried to enter the Copyright Office showed security at the building a document stating that they had been appointed by the White House to new roles within the office. The source identified the men as Brian Nieves, who claimed he was the new deputy librarian, and Paul Perkins, who said he was the new acting director of the Copyright Office, as well as acting Registrar. It is unclear whether the men accurately identified themselves. There is an official with the name Brian Nieves currently employed as deputy chief of staff at the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, and a Paul Perkins is currently employed as an associate deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice, according to their LinkedIn profiles. The Department of Justice and the White House did not immediately respond to questions from WIRED about whether the two officials had been appointed to work in the Copyright Office.
The document the two men cited also stated that deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, who previously served as a personal defense lawyer for Trump, was now the acting Librarian of Congress. The Department of Justice announced Monday that Blanche would be replacing Hayden, who had been in the job for nearly a decade.
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The Academic Pipeline Stall: Why Industry Must Stand for Academia | SIGARCH
this isn’t about sides or ideologies. Support for education and research should be as fundamental as clean air or safe roads. It is part of the shared infrastructure that holds society together. When that foundation cracks, the consequences ripple far beyond the lab. where are those who benefited from America’s higher education? The tech giants whose founders and engineers were trained in these institutions, whose core technologies were incubated in these research environments? Universities are left to defend The Promise of American Higher Education alone. There’s no contingency plan for this disruption, no industry emergency fund to save labs, and no guidance on preserving student funding. Every department, PI, and institution is improvising, trying to patch over a pipeline cracking at every joint—a pipeline that sent talent streaming into industry coffers for decades.
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Trump to accept luxury jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One
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Trump Is Poised to Accept a Luxury 747 from Qatar for Use as Air Force One
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'cuz Boeing cannot deliver a new one after years and billions.
To be clear, I haven’t done a moment’s legal research on this subject, and frankly don’t intend to—life being short and all. But my instinct is that Bondi may be right that giving the United States a jet doesn’t violate the law, and that transferring ownership of that jet to a presidential library doesn’t either. The reason? Well, presidents often get gifts, and they are allowed to accept them in the name of the country. And then they tend to transfer them to entities like their presidential libraries. Sure, sure. Gifts to presidents normally aren’t luxury jets that he can use after he leaves office. And normally, when a presidential library owns an item. They don’t make that item available for the personal use of the former president.
According to ABC News, “The plane will initially be transferred to the United States Air Force, which will modify the 13-year-old aircraft to meet the U.S. military specifications required for any aircraft used to transport the president of the United States, multiple sources familiar with the proposed arrangement said.” In other words, we’re getting a used vehicle that needs a whole lot of work. That’s frankly beneath the national dignity of even our degraded status. Next issue: the attorney general shouldn’t be giving legal advice to the president on this matter. She represents the used car dealership—or at least, she did until recently.
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Doge worker's old creds found exposed in infostealer malware dumps
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Americans reconsidering having children or buying a home amid economic anxiety
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Paramount, Skydance must scrap DEI to pass FCC’s ‘public interest’ litmus test: sources
Skydance’s $8 billion purchase of Paramount and its CBS News subsidiary might just pass the FCC’s public interest litmus test — a loosely defined concept that involves promoting fairness in broadcasting and how companies are managed — if and only if the guys in charge of the new company ditch any allegiance to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies, On the Money has learned. In fact, as long as Trump appointee Brendan Carr remains at the helm of the FCC, getting rid of so-called DEI will be a prerequisite for any media deal that needs FCC approval, people with knowledge of Carr’s thinking add.
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Beware of Foreign Powers Bearing Gifts
The United States is cutting its defense budget (once you adjust for inflation) and eliminating 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs in the Defense Department, downsizing our intelligence community, and attempting to drastically cut Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Free Asia — our endeavors to send the truth, our message and worldview out across the globe. We’ve apparently decided that all these efforts, which are designed to increase our power and influence in the world, just aren’t worth the expenditure anymore.
I don’t care if Boeing is completing the next Air Force One at the speed of George R. R. Martin writing the next Game of Thrones novel; the president cannot accept a plane that he will fly on during his presidency from a foreign power, particularly not one described as “one of the world’s foremost proponents of violent Islamist movements and states.”
Sorry, MAGA fans, but the first half of this newsletter about the gobs of foreign money coming into the University of Pennsylvania was a lure to get you to read about all the shady stuff your guy’s doing.
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We’re sleeping on the most dangerous situation in the world
On the list of things that are under-discussed in the United States relative to their objective importance, the relationship between India and Pakistan is a perennial favorite. The (perennially underrated) mainstream media is, I think, actually doing a good job of offering earnest multi-faceted coverage of the issue. But as far as I can tell, none of that coverage is attracting much readership compared to tariff news or write-ups of Trump’s various bizarre statements. So there just isn’t very much coverage and certainly not a lot of social media buzz in the US.
Trump, personally, is not knowledgable about world affairs or inclined to dive into the details of things or expend significant amounts of time and energy working on problems. And beyond his personal shortcomings, he has a philosophical disagreement with the notion that the United States should play a constructive role in the world. So while obviously nobody wants this conflict to spiral out of control, it’s not clear that anyone with weight is working hard to avoid that outcome.
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So people can buy appliances that work? Why End Energy Star?
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Kennedy Is Right About the Chemicals in Our Food - The New York Times
The health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., believes toxic chemicals in food are behind the U.S. explosion in rates of obesity and a range of other chronic illnesses. “A facade of normalcy has masked this meteoric rise in chronic disease, and we can no longer ignore it,” he said recently. He intends to rid the U.S. food supply of nine chemicals — all petroleum-based, synthetic food dyes — in as soon as 18 months. Mr. Kennedy has deservedly earned a reputation for embracing pseudoscience and making hyperbolic claims about public health — autism, vaccines, fluoride. But when it comes to the chemicals in our food, the situation may be even worse than he describes. It’s certainly more mysterious than many of us appreciate when we sit down to dinner.
Mr. Kennedy may be sloppy on the details, but his diagnosis of the broader problem is spot on. Americans have the shortest life span among our industrialized peers, in part because of chronic diseases such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes. The increases in these diseases are not driven by changes in our genes but caused by changes in our environments — in this case, our food. Scientists believe food additives play a role, though it’s unclear which ones and how.
Mr. Kennedy admitted in a recent press briefing that he only has an “understanding” with the food industry that the food dyes he’s focused on will be phased out. Further reporting suggested that few companies have committed to doing this yet. He’s also imploring companies to replace synthetic dyes with natural alternatives. Last week, he announced that the F.D.A. approved three new color additives from natural sources to use in food. But according to Ms. Maffini, scientists also don’t know enough about the health effects of natural dyes in ultraprocessed foods to know if they’re a better option. That they’re safer is an assumption, based on the appeal to nature fallacy.
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Germ-theory skeptic RFK Jr. goes swimming in sewage-tainted water
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Several conferences relocate north of the border as Canadians refuse U.S. travel
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Three Faces of American Capitalism: Buffett, Musk, and Trump
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Farmers Sued over Deleted Climate Data. So the Government Will Put It Back
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First white South Africans arrive in US as Trump claims they face discrimination
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Leftwing pundit Hasan Piker: US border agents questioned him on Trump and Gaza
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
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US and China take a step back from sky-high tariffs, agree to pause for 90 days
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Joint Statement on China-U.S. Economic and Trade Meeting in Geneva
World
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Britain's cyber agents and industry clash over how to tackle shoddy software
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ENTSO-E panel initiates the investigation into the causes of Iberian blackout
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La Liga vs. Cloudflare war and what you can do about it
Javier Tebas, the president of La Liga (the Spanish football league), in his atempt to fight illegal football streaming sites, asked a judge to pass an order for all ISPs in Spain to instantly block any IP’s the company (La Liga) wants, at any given time, with the sole condition that they shouldn’t affect third parties (forshadowing…). This means that the La Liga team, when there’s a football match, identify a list of IPs from known piracy sites and passes them to all Spanish ISP’s to block said IPs. In principle this is all ok. The issue comes when the La Liga team has (or pretends to not have) any IT knowledge and sends over a list to block most Cloudflare IP’s, effectively blocking half of the internet in the country.
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Norway hands over Arctic Council intact after 'difficult' term as chair
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Argentina's Supreme Court finds m 83 boxes of Nazi materials in its basement
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Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on 'war crimes' by colleagues
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Earlier in the day, a specialized U.S. Nuclear Emergency Support aircraft touched down in Pakistan, reportedly to conduct a reconnaissance mission over the Sargodha region—an area heavily bombarded by Indian airstrikes in recent days.
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Germany is building spy satellites to help Ukraine watch Russia without the US