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Jan 22, 2023

This has been another weird week. Our kids got strep throat and it was actually not easy to get antibiotics at the pharmacy, which made me wonder what this means for people who don’t live in the second biggest city of the fourth biggest economy of the world. I mean, if it is hard to get here, how hard most it be elsewhere?

After three weeks, this year feels like everything is running on full speed again. Business is picking up, but innovation budgets are still not were they used to be pre-COVID-19 and pre-war. Let’s hope the economy rebounds fast when the companies realize that there is no energy crisis in Germany as the government switched from natural gas from Russia to natural gas from Qatar, Norway, USA and elsewhere within less than a year.

This week was very much dominated by a discussion on German tanks. German history still dominates our policies and we don’t deploy tanks into war zones easily. I think we should, though. And we will. It just takes too much time. The discussion about Leopard 2 tanks unfortunately shows how little the public knows about military strategy and warfare. This is a good thing, as we have lived in prosperity and peace here in Germany, but it also shows that we totally forgot what it means to be ready to defend our democracy. On a side note, I’m still amazed how few tanks are being discussed right now. When I served at the German army some 30 years ago we had 55 Leo2 tanks in my batallion alone and this didn’t seem like a lot has the German army had over 2000 tanks at that time. Now we have 320 Leo2, but apparently our new Defense Minister is trying to figure out exactly what the number is. I sure hope the Leo2 tanks we have now are in better shape than the ones we had back then, which constantly needed repairs. And it was my duty to report the status to the brigade on a daily basis. Good thing my duty was two years after German reunification…

The war in the Ukraine has to end soon and Putin has to rot in jail!

The Sanctions on Russia Are Working

It’s really amazing how many countries stand together on this and effectively harm the Russian economy. Let’s hope that this will make it impossible for Russia to fight a long war.

Extremely Hardcore

I’ve been using Twitter since January 2007, which is quite a long time. The takeover by Elon Musk is like an accident where you cannot take your eyes off. Also, very bloody, indeed.

Why Ron DeSantis Won’t—or Shouldn’t—Run for President

Actually, for exactly the reasons the author discusses in the article, I’d like to see DeSantis run. This would be a shitshow for the Republicans.

AI Might Be Seemingly Everywhere, but There Are Still Plenty of Things It Can’t Do—For Now

Oh wow, there’s still hope our new AI overlords won’t be doing everything themselves in the very near future. But soon enough.

How Finland is Teaching a Generation to Spot Misinformation

Finland is not only the land where people are really happy, even though it is very cold there and booze is expensive, but Finland also has brilliant education policies and continues to do the right stuff, while Germany is looking at what Finland does, finds it amazing and then refuses to do the right things even though there’s a blueprint available just across the Baltic Sea.

Five Things