RUTHFULLY YOURS

In a nutshell, Artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, 5G, IoT and others will require new approaches and understanding for cybersecurity as they offer uses for cyber-defenders but also cyber-offenders.

For example, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be able to help make decisions more effectively by prioritizing and acting upon data. Speech recognition, learning planning, and problem-solving are some of the fundamental tasks for which computers with AI are built. While AI and ML are valuable instruments for businesses, hostile governments, and malicious hackers are already using AI and MI as tools to find and exploit an organization’s cyber defenses.

Quantum Computing  operates by utilizing the unique characteristics of atoms and subatomic particles. It will allow for completely new forms of cryptography, analytics, and calculation at incredibly fast speeds. Unfortunately, the same computational capacity that makes it possible to tackle complicated problems can also be used to compromise cybersecurity. This is because current cybersecurity protocols usually encrypt sensitive data, like passwords and personal information, using pseudo-random numbers. However, quantum computers can break the techniques used by traditional computers to generate random numbers, which poses a serious risk to any organization that uses standard encryption tools.

5G will enable faster networks with greater capabilities and reduced latency or lag times will be possible for businesses thanks to 5G. For the business community, 5G will have enormous advantages. Higher traffic capacity and enhanced dependability are only two of the many advantages that advanced 5G and wireless networks will offer. The ability to access broadband will empower millions of people. Unfortunately, hackers will be able to use the speed and connectivity to their advantage too, enabling the rapid proliferation and targeting of malware.

The Internet of Things (IoT) includes all hardware and software that can be read, recognized, located, addressed, and/or controlled over the internet. The growth of the Internet of Things has totally changed how cyberattacks work and how big the attack surface is getting. Because IoT devices don’t have security built in, hackers have many ways to get past cyber defenses and steal data.

The myths about Franklin Delano Roosevelt live on.

For the Left, FDR was a champion of the working class and the oppressed, suffering abuse as a “traitor to his class.” He gave up the lifestyle of the Hudson River gentry to lead his country out of the Depression and to victory against fascism. For many on the Right, FDR was out of his depth on economics but provided Americans with the optimism and confidence necessary to prevail during the Depression and gain victory in World War II.

Debunking FDR: The Man and The Myths exposes the suppressed and distorted facts about FDR’s life and the legends about him (many invented by FDR himself!) promoted by generations of historians. Born into immense wealth and insulated from the struggles of everyday Americans, FDR’s young life was one of vast privilege and mediocre talents. Mary Grabar chronicles FDR’s path to the presidency: his second-rate studies at Harvard, his indifference to law school and the legal profession, and his steady, insouciant rise through the government ranks. You will not think of FDR the same way again.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/02/16/houellebecqs-annihilation-an-unlikely-antidote-to-nihilism/

French master Michel Houellebecq has said that his latest novel, Annihilation, will be his last. If that does prove to be true, his departure will deprive us of a rare literary voice.

There is simply no one quite like Houellebecq. Through his novels he is able to explore the mood of the times, our spiritual malaise, in a way few other writers can. Take his last great succès de scandale – his 2015 novel, Submission. It dramatised the self-induced decline of the West and the rise of Islamism. And it did so by convincingly presenting the seemingly impossible – an Islamist political party assuming governmental power in France – as something entirely predictable and chillingly banal. He painted a picture of a political and cultural elite all too eager to collaborate with and ultimately submit to an Islamist regime.

Submission quickly acquired a tragic poignancy. On 7 January 2015, the exact day the novel was due to be published in France, two French-born Islamist gunmen massacred the staff of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on the grounds it had insulted Islam. Houellebecq suspended all promotional activities and left Paris to lie low.

At the same time, in an echo of the themes of Submission, too few among the French political class were willing to stand up for free speech, a fundamental principle of Western liberal democracies. Instead, they criticised Charlie Hebdo for its mockery of Islam. French prime minister Manuel Valls denounced ‘hatred’ and ‘intolerance’ towards Islam and Muslims. Tellingly, he insisted that ‘France is not Michel Houellebecq’.

We’re now a decade on from the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Houellebecq’s Anéantir, originally published in January 2022, was finally translated into English and published as Annihilation in late 2024.

This delay in publishing the translation is striking. Houellebecq’s previous novel, Serotonin, was published in France in January 2019 and the English translation appeared just months later. Contractual difficulties reportedly played a role in the delay of Annihilation. But it’s hard not to suspect that the increasing provincialisation of the Anglosphere played a role, too. In the 1950s and 1960s, the films of François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, or the novels of Françoise Sagan and Marguerite Duras, were part of the culture here as well as in France. Today, the latest French novels or films barely register in the English-speaking world.

As the West struggles against attempts to destroy it from within and without, key lessons in resilience from its Jewish parent can enable both Christianity and civilization to survive.

Western civilization is facing a critical moment. Foreign enemies sensing its weakness are circling. Internally, the West is being consumed by division, decadence, and demoralization. The October 7 attack on Israel presented it with a choice between civilization and barbarism—a challenge the West has failed. But this damaged society is far from lost if it takes advice from an unexpected source. Western culture is based upon Christianity, whose own foundations in turn lie in Judaism. The unique survival of the Jewish people offers both the West and its struggling Christian church, as well as secular people who shun religion, priceless lessons in resilience that they must learn if their culture is to survive.

https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1982181281?

The #1 New York Times and global bestseller from Walter Isaacson—the acclaimed author of Steve Jobs, Einstein: His Life and World, Benjamin Franklin, and Leonardo da Vinci—is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating, controversial innovator of modern times. For two years, Isaacson shadowed Elon Musk as he executed his vision for electric vehicles at Tesla, space exploration with SpaceX, the AI revolution, and the takeover of Twitter and its conversion to X. The result is the definitive portrait of the mercurial pioneer that offers clues to his political instincts, future ambitions, and overall worldview.

When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.

His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive.

At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,” he said.

It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground.

For two years, Isaacson shadowed Musk, attended his meetings, walked his factories with him, and spent hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and adversaries. The result is the revealing inside story, filled with amazing tales of triumphs and turmoil, that addresses the question: are the demons that drive Musk also what it takes to drive innovation and progress?