Russia’s overnight barrage – 650 Shahed-style drones and 30+ missiles across 13 regions – killed at least three civilians, smashed key substations and forced emergency black-outs from Lviv to Odesa. Power operator Ukrenergo warned of “critical grid instability” as Poland scrambled jets when debris neared its airspace. (reuters.com)

Moscow’s winter playbook is clear: weaponise kilowatts when diplomacy inches forward. Gas futures in Amsterdam briefly spiked 6 % before easing, echoing the 2022 “energy blitz” that added €400 bn to Europe’s utility bills. Each drone costs roughly $50 k; replacing the destroyed transformers can exceed $2 m, a ruinous asymmetry that drains Ukraine’s coffers while sparing Russia’s.

Longer-term, the assault underscores a strategic shift from territorial grabs to infrastructural strangulation – a 21st-century siege that travels along power lines. As security theorist Ulrike Franke warns, “the true frontline now runs through every socket.” We ignore that electric frontier at our peril. — The Gist AI Editor

AI’s Off-Balance-Sheet Building Boom

The artificial intelligence boom is being financed through increasingly creative, and opaque, methods. Tech giants are shifting the colossal costs of data centers—the physical backbone of AI—off their primary financial statements. An estimated $120bn in AI data center debt has been moved through structures like sale-leasebacks and special purpose vehicles (FT). This insulates Big Tech’s balance sheets from the massive capital expenditure required, transferring risk to investors and specialized data center firms. Our take: This financial engineering mirrors pre-2008 strategies, privatizing the gains of the AI surge while socializing potential risks should the projected returns not materialize.

Autonomous Systems Learn the Hard Way

Alphabet’s Waymo unit is rolling out a fleet-wide software update after its autonomous vehicles stalled during a San Francisco power outage, causing significant traffic gridlock (WSJ). The incident on December 20th saw Waymo cars, programmed to treat dark intersections as four-way stops, freeze when a surge in such situations overwhelmed their remote confirmation system. The update aims to give the AI more context during regional blackouts to navigate more “decisively.” This underscores a core libertarian principle: innovation is an iterative process of trial and error, and real-world failures are often the most effective drivers of progress, not top-down regulation.

The Data Integrity Question

Underpinning the tech revolution is a crisis of confidence in scientific research itself. There is growing concern that a substantial portion of published findings may be false, undermined by publication bias and pressure to produce statistically significant results (Marginal Revolution). Rather than trusting individual studies, which can be flawed or fraudulent, a more reliable approach is to trust broad “literatures”—the collective, decentralized work of many researchers over time. For innovation to flourish, it must be built on a foundation of verifiable and replicable data, a distributed validation process that markets are uniquely good at fostering.

Stay tuned for the next Gist—your edge in a shifting world.

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— Marginalrevolution

Waymo to Update Software Across Fleet After San Francisco Power Outage
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Drone War Escalates

The technological front in Ukraine has intensified dramatically. Russia’s Ministry of Defence reported intercepting a massive wave of 172 Ukrainian drones overnight, with 110 downed over the Bryansk region alone (Ansa). At least two drones were destroyed en route to Moscow, according to the city’s mayor (Ansa). This represents a significant scaling-up of Ukraine’s asymmetric warfare capabilities, forcing a substantial Russian defensive posture far from the front lines. The operation demonstrates Kyiv’s growing capacity to project power and strain Russia’s air defense systems, a critical strategic development as heavy fighting continues with no sign of a Christmas truce (ZDF). The conflict is increasingly a war of technological attrition and innovation.

Germany’s Industrial Engine Sputters

A stark warning has emerged from Germany’s industrial heartland. After more than 14 years in office, Winfried Kretschmann, the outgoing Green premier of Baden-Württemberg—home to Porsche and Mercedes-Benz—has declared the state is “simply no longer competitive enough” (ZDF). This assessment from the leader of a key manufacturing hub validates growing fears about de-industrialization in Europe’s largest economy. Kretschmann’s parting words, ahead of state elections on March 8, underscore a crisis of confidence driven by high energy costs, regulatory burdens, and global competition (ZDF). It signals that structural economic problems are now a mainstream political concern, even within a governing Green party.

Catch the next Gist for the continent’s moving pieces.

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— ZDF

Europe’s year of Trump trade trauma
— Politico Europe

« Donald Trump est en train de prendre conscience de son obsolescence programmée »
— Le monde

Statt Weihnachtsfrieden toben schwere Kämpfe in der Ukraine
— ZDF

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New revelations about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor appear in latest Epstein files
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