has reclaimed 25% of land from the sea and converts wastewater into drinking water

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There is a country in the world that, when it runs out of space, manufactures more. And when it doesn’t have water, it recycles it infinitely. It’s not science fiction: it’s Singapore, a city-state that surpasses the six million inhabitants concentrated on an island that was barely 580 square kilometers and that today it occupies 736 square kilometers. A growth of almost 25% in just over half a century. It is not ambition, but necessity: it does not have enough land or its own rivers or aquifers, so it has had to cook everything for itself. Since its independence from the United Kingdom, it has not only increased its surface area: it has also built one of the most sophisticated water management systems on the planet, capable of converting wastewater into drinking water. of superior quality to standards of the World Health Organization. Singapore’s territorial resilience. Singapore has understood that its land and water (scarcity) problems are not independent, so it is solving them jointly and in a long-term plan (its sewage system is literally designed to last 100 years). It is the urban resilience applied to territorial development in its maximum expression, that is, the capacity of a territory to face climate, demographic and economic change through its infrastructure. A concept promoted by organizations such as the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction of which Singapore is today the most advanced student. A living laboratory in real time. If those southern geometric shapes don’t seem natural, it’s because they aren’t. Google Earth Context. The quick response to why is Singapore doing all this? It is because it lacks land and water, but reality is based on three essential axes that invite urgency: Geography. Singapore is a small island (more than New York) with a brutal population density, it does not have mountains that function as a natural reservoir or large rivers or aquifers. The rain is abundantbut collecting it in such a small field is a challenge. Strategic dependence. Historically, it has imported water from Malaysia through different agreements (the last one expires in 2061) but that represents a strategic vulnerability of the first order. Also they have imported sand from neighboring countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia. Climate change. Singapore is especially vulnerable to the threat of sea level rise as 30% of the territory is less than 5 meters above mean sea level. How to gain land. We enter first-class public works engineering. The traditional method consists of dredging sand from the seabed, transporting it to where it is required and filling the hole. The problem is that Singapore has run out of sand to dredge and no countries to sell it to it. As own governmentcountries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Malaysia have banned sand exports to Singapore over the years citing environmental reasons. The second method is the dutch poldera construction that consists of setting up a dam to gain land, so that the water is then pumped outside and the soil is kept dry permanently with a drainage and pumping system, so that the land created remains below sea level. Less sand is needed, but it requires sophisticated and permanent hydraulic engineering. In any case, gaining land is increasingly expensive, complex and more delicate from an environmental point of view. Polder operation diagram. Dutch Water Sector Megaprojects to gain land. It is enough to look at a satellite map of the south of the country to see geometric shapes that do not exist in nature and that are geographical proof of their projects. And more specifically, a glimpse of some of the most impressive: Pulau Tekong. The best example of a polder is this project started in 2008 and completed in September 2025 from the hand of the Dutch Deltaresinvolved the recovery of 810 hectares of land located 1.2 meters below sea level. Jurong Island It is today a petrochemical hub, an industrial estate that was born from the merger of seven islands: Pulau Merlimau, Pulau Ayer Chawan, Pulau Ayer Merbau, Pulau Seraya, Pulau Sakra, Pulau Pesek and Pulau Pesek Kecil. Long Island It is his most ambitious and futuristic project. It will join three strips of land in the east (from Marina East to Tanah Merah) to gain 20 kilometers of coastline and about 800 hectares. How to gain water. Singapore’s water strategy is an absolute global benchmark and is carried out by the National Water Agency. Its strategy is articulated around four sources of supply (its four national taps): water from the local basin, imported water, desalination and NE water (from NEWater). The idea is simple but effective: diversify supply sources as much as possible so that, no matter what happens, the city’s supply is not compromised. And that no drop of water leaves the cycle without being reused. The first two consist of the local capture of rainwater in its network of 17 reservoirs and the agreement with the State of Johor (Malaysia), which began in 1962 and expires in 2061. For desalination they use reverse osmosis through membranes and have five plants in operation. But he tap More interesting is the NEWater, capable of covering 40% of the total demand of the country. How do they do it? With a three-stage treatment consisting of microfiltration, reverse osmosis and disinfection. The resulting water is so pure that it is used for industrial and cooling purposes. Megaprojects to gain water. Although we have already outlined the main lines of Singapore’s water strategy, there are truly impressive specific projects: DTSS (the deep tunnel sewage system): is a huge underground network for wastewater management 206 km long that is centralized in three recovery plants in Changi, Kranji and Tuas. The recovered wastewater is what is then passed to NEWater. Marina Barrage. A project that serves to get an idea of ​​the Singapore mentality: it is a reservoir built in the center of the city thanks to a 350-meter dam. It combines three functions: producing drinking water, keeping possible floods at bay … Read more

There is a neighborhood in Spain with so many Swedish tourists that it is already a “Little Sweden”. And it’s exactly where you imagine.

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Neighborhoods change, they transform. That has always happened. What is less common is that the change is accompanied by new accents, especially Scandinavian accents, which is what has been gaining strength in decades. Saint CatherinePalma de Mallorca. What was once a fishing neighborhood has mutated into something totally different: an area in which there are many businesses oriented to the hospitality and the real estate market and in which it is surprisingly easy to find expats arriving from cities like Stockholm. There are those who already refer to the neighborhood as “little Sweden”. ‘Little Sweden’. The transformation of Santa Catalina is not exactly new. In 2017 Mallorca Diary realized and how the Scandinavians had acquired so many stores and apartments that the neighborhood had earned the nickname “Little Sweden.” It was not a phenomenon exclusive to that specific coastal area (at expats They are attracted to Mallorca in general), but it is true that it was clearly visible in its streets. What is surprising is to see how the scandinavization of Santa Catalina has advanced in the last decade, something that makes it quite clear a chronicle published by elDiario.es. “There are few Mallorcans left”. Probably the best way to understand the change is to listen to its residents, like Antoni, a 79-year-old neighbor who, after a lifetime in Santa Catalina recognize that he hardly knows anyone anymore when he walks through its streets. “There are few Mallorcans left,” he resigns. His environment agrees with him. The man talk with the press in an area where it is not difficult to find recently renovated buildings and shop windows silk-screened in foreign languages, including English, German and Swedish. If you look a little, not far from there you can even find real estate agencies focused on the Scandinavian market and the sign of an old Swedish bakery. A neighborhood in full change. Antoni is not (far from it) the only local who notices the changes in the neighborhood. Tomeu confirm that “there are only some old businesses left” and Raúl, also raised in Santa Catalina, confirms that none of the friends he played with when he was a child no longer live there. That neighborhoods change over the decades (and that extends to both neighborhoods and businesses) is nothing extraordinary, nor exclusive to Santa Catalina, Palma or the Balearic Islands. What is curious is that this change has as one of its driving forces the landing of expats and capital of northern Europe. More than testimonials. The transformation of the neighborhood (Mallorca in general) can be followed through more than just testimonies and memories. The studies do not always allow us to go into detail about each district, but they confirm the profound changes that the archipelago has experienced in recent years. To begin with, the Balearic Islands are the region of Spain with highest percentage of foreign population. According to a report of the Funcas Foundation, 29.3% of its population was born outside of Spain. As a reference, in Madrid they represent 25.7%. In 2004, foreigners represented ‘barely’ 15.3% of the Balearic census. Expensive, but not ‘Stockholm level’. The Swedes they are very far away of being a majority group in the Balearic Islands, but for some time they have shown a special interest for the region. Almost a decade ago the local press explained that many discovered its islands as a vacation destination and, over time, chose to settle in the archipelago, attracted by its climate, quality of life and prices. “There are the small things, like having a coffee for example. In Stockholm it costs five or six euros,” recognized in 2017 Patric, at the head of a practice located precisely in Santa Catalina. “In Stockholm the square meter is around 10,000 euros and that is why Santa Catalina is still cheap. For the rest of the world the neighborhood is terrible, but for the Swedes it is quite cheap.” Agency pending. Another front that makes the transformation of the neighborhood clear is real estate. for your article elDiario has spoken with several agencies established in the area and more or less focused on the Scandinavian market, such as Mallorcabyrån Real Estatewhich presents itself as a “Swedish-speaking real estate agency in Mallorca”, or Svensk Fastighetsförmedlingwhose managers they boast of having “brought the reliable Swedish real estate model to Spain”. Escalating prices. Beyond the agencies, the Idealista portal also offers an interesting clue. The real estate portal specifies that right now the m2 in Santa Catalina-Son Armadans-Maritim is paid at 6,200 eurosfar from the 2,385 a decade ago. In fact, Idealista has registered a year-on-year increase of 14.3%. Things don’t get much better if we talk about the residential rental market. The m2 is paid at 19.7 euros5.6% more than a year ago. Rental options right now more economical In the area there is a 50 square meter apartment for which they ask for 1,100 euros per month and a 38 m2 studio for which they pay 1,150 euros. In this last case (a room without an elevator), yes, the advertisement clarifies that it is a “seasonal rental.” Why do prices increase? The transformation of the neighborhood is clear and can be followed both through testimony of its oldest neighbors as well as of the newspaper archive, which takes years strengthening the “little Sweden” label. However, not everyone is so clear that the rise in housing prices can be explained by the arrival of Scandinavian capital. “In general, the main factor behind the lack of housing at affordable prices in Palma is the shortage of supply, especially new construction,” claims Vivian Grunblatt, head of a real estate agency aimed, among others, at Swedish buyers. “In the last ten years the creation of new homes has been limited, which generates constant pressure on prices.” “And what are you doing?” There are also who raises it from another perspective, like Raúl, the horse who recognizes that there are no longer any of his childhood friends left in the neighborhood. In … Read more

the strange medieval epidemic that paralyzed Europe for two centuries

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At some point in the late 14th century, Charles VI of France stopped moving. Not because of paralysis or fear of his enemies, but because he was convinced that his body was made of glass, and that any touch could shatter it. It was not an isolated case. Those affected by this collective delusion believed that all or part of their body was made of glass. The phenomenon has its own name in the history of psychiatry: the crystal delirium. And his story says disturbing things about how the sick mind always speaks the language of its time. Charles VI, nicknamed El Loco for whatever he may be Charles VI inherited the French throne in 1380, aged eleven. When he turned twenty, he removed his corrupt uncles from power and restored stability to the kingdom’s finances. The people called him le Bien-Aiméthe Beloved. Twelve years later, his definitive nickname would be different: le Fou, the Fool. In August 1392, during a military campaign towards Brittany, the king (23 years old at the time) was riding through the forest of Le Mans when a page dropped a spear. The metallic roar was enough to trigger a violent crisis: Carlos attacked his own knights and killed four before being subdued. It was the first of dozens of episodes that would accompany him until his death in 1422. Pope Pius II wrote that there were times when Carlos believed he was made of glassand that was why he tried to protect himself in multiple ways to avoid breaking, going so far as to have iron rods sewn into his clothes. Something else happened shortly after the onset of the crystalline delirium. In January 1393, the king and several nobles attended a party disguised as “wild men,” wearing linen suits covered in pitch and branches. An errant spark ignited a costume and the fire spread among the men. Only the king and another companion escaped alive, in an event that inspired Edgar Allan Poe to write his macabre story ‘Hop-Frog’. The event went down in history as the Bal des Ardentsthe Dance of the Burning Men. Whether or not that trauma accelerated his mental deterioration is something that historians still debate. When his crises took hold of him, Carlos became a different man: He could sit still for hours and, if he moved, he did so with extreme caution. This had a tremendous political cost: the monarch instability It weakened the French court and allowed rival factions to vie for power, exacerbating the challenges France faced in the midst of the Hundred Years’ War with England. In 1415 his troops were crushed at Agincourt, and in 1420 he signed the Treaty of Troyes, by which he disinherited his own son. The crystal generation Charles VI was, according to historian Gill Speak probably the first documented case of someone believing their entire body was made of glass. But he was far from the only one. The first medical text that records delirium as a recognizable condition dates from 1561, work of the Dutch doctor Levinus Lemnius. The phenomenon belonged to a broader category called “scholar’s melancholy”, an ailment that mainly affected men of letters and nobles from the 15th to 17th centuries. The documented cases are as extravagant as they are revealing. A man was convinced that his buttocks were made of glass and that sitting down would make them burst, so he avoided leaving the house in case a glazier tried to melt it to turn it into a window. Another traveled to Murano, the Italian island famous for its glass, with the intention of throwing himself into a furnace and being transformed into a glass. Engraving of ‘The Stained Glass Licensed’ A third nobleman (always unemployed people, the core issue of the topic) believed he was a glass vessel and spent the day lying on a bed of straw. His doctor ordered the bed to be set on fire with the door closed: when the nobleman pounded on the door asking for help, the doctor asked why it had not shattered with so much fuss. The cure was brutal but, apparently, effective. Transparent glass was not, in the 15th century, an everyday occurrence. It was in that century when the Venetian glassmaker Angelo Barovier invented the cristalloa clear, colorless glass that was extraordinarily rare and was seen by many as something almost magical. Before this innovation, neuroses were different: men who believed they were made of clay and later, in the 19th century, people who believed they were made of cement. The content of delusions reflects the culture of each moment: glass was a new material and therefore became the object of delusions. Glass, specifically, offered transparency: being made of glass meant being precious and fragile, a form of grandeur and isolation at the same time. Miguel de Cervantes published ‘El licensed Vidriera’, one of his ‘Exemplary Novels’, in 1613. The protagonist, Tomás Rodaja, is a brilliant and poor student who, after ingesting a love potion, is convinced that his body is made of glass due to the delicacy and subtlety of the material, with an admirable and delirious internal logic. It is a clear sign that delirium has its corresponding literature at the time: Robert Burton cataloged the phenomenon in ‘Anatomy of Melancholy’ (1621) as a symptom of melancholy, and Descartes, in his ‘Meditations on First Philosophy’ (1641), used the “glass man” as an example of madness to distinguish his own philosophical doubts from the delusions of a sick brain. In Xataka | The Middle Ages have a reputation for being a dark period. Until you discover the names they had for their pets

What did the philosopher Marcus Aurelius mean when he wrote: "Receive without pride, let go without regrets"

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There have been many philosophers throughout history. What is no longer so common is to meet someone who also served as one of the most powerful figures of his time. This double dimension occurred almost 2,000 years ago in what is probably one of the classic thinkers. most popular and cited today: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 AD). If his status as a learned emperor were not enough to make him stand out, Marcus is also one of the great names of Stoicism, a school that enjoys a renewed youth. Among his many reflections collected in ‘Meditations’ There is one that stands out, both for its expressive force and for capturing a large part of Stoic ethics: “Receive without pride the goods of fortune, lose them without regrets.” Rereading the emperor. If Marcus Aurelius is a peculiar philosopher, his ‘Meditations’ are no less so. As the philologist Carlos García Gual recalls in the edition Published in the 70s by Gredos, the work is basically composed of “personal notes”, notes that the philosopher king was preparing during the last years of his life. Throughout the 12 volumes into which the work is fragmented there are profuse reflections. And there are brief ones, like the one we are dealing with here. Beyond their form, they all have something in common: they are a reflection of Marcus Aurelius himself “stripped of rhetorical artifices, concise and austere.” “We moderns would have liked to know what this or that paragraph of disgust or admiration refers to, and at what time of the night or in front of what cold Danubian landscape this or that meditation had been written. But, in his contempt for the mundane and the corporeal, Marcus Aurelius only notes the essential: the naked reasoning of the accessory and the moral incitement,” continue García Gual in his essay. A best-seller of almost 20 centuries. ‘Meditations’ probably has another merit. Few philosophical works are so cited today, both in media as in social networks and anthologies. It makes quite a bit of sense. First because of the popularity of Marcus Aurelius. Second for its format, brief, expository. And third because stoicism lives in a true rebirthrefloated by a wave that dates back to the last decades of the last century and has been growing hand in hand with a wide spectrum of voices that includes everything from gurus and cryptobros to solvent authors. What is the reason for this interest? Largely due to its practical dimension and its appeal to contemporary eyes. What Marcus Aurelius offers us, Seneca (tutor of another emperor, by the way) or any other of the many followers of the old school of Zeno of Citium It is a life guide to enjoy a good life, the eudaimonia. In other words, a formula to transform passions and appetites into a placid current of inner calm. Book VIII. 33. We said it before. The ‘Meditations’ They are full of deep reflections, but there is one in particular that is especially suggestive. We find it in point 33 of Book VIII and in it the philosopher king exhorts us to the following: “Receive without pride the goods of fortune, lose them without regrets.” Other versions translate it somewhat differently: “Receive without pride, let go without attachment” Why does that phrase stand out precisely, beyond its form and tone? Because it condenses many of the elements of Stoic ethics. In six words the author invites us to practice detachment, serenity and assume that there are circumstances that are beyond our control, but we can always decide how to face them. What does it mean exactly? To analyze the phrase you have to divide it into two parts. In the first (“Receive without pride the goods of fortune”) the philosopher encourages us to flee from pride and seek calm, a state of mental balance (ataraxia) away from passions and desires that clears the path to happiness. “Let serenity dwell within you, the absence of the need for external help and the tranquility that others seek. It is advisable to stay straight, not upright,” advises the philosopher in another passage of ‘Meditations’. His invitation connects with another fundamental concept of Stoicism, the apathythe liberation of passions that allows us to achieve that state of calm and inner peace. In Xataka Humanity has started 2026 wondering whether or not nihilistic penguins exist. And it makes perfect sense And the second half? The second part of the reflection (“Lose (the goods of fortune) without regrets”) links to another equally crucial idea: detachment and the dichotomy between what we can control and what escapes our reach. One of the pillars of Stoic thought, which goes back to its most basic roots, consists in fact of clearly distinguishing between both realities. “Of what exists, some things depend on us, others do not depend on us,” clarifies the philosopher Epictetus in his work ‘Enchyridion’. “If you consider what is slave by nature free and what is foreign your own, you will suffer impediments, you will suffer, you will be disturbed, you will make reproaches to the gods and to men.” With small print. What Marcus Aurelius invites us to do is to practice detachment, accept change and assume that not everything depends on us. As explains philosopher Jonny Thomson, this vital approach (which is by no means exclusive to Stoicism) is powerful, but it must also be handled with some caution. The reason? Avoid distortions that would adulterate your message. In an article published in Big Think Thompson asks himself a question: Is it always right to practice detachment and control pride? Let’s imagine that we suffer a very painful loss (a family member dies), isn’t it normal that we find it difficult to accept it? What’s more, wouldn’t it be harmful in some way to act as if nothing had happened? The answer lies in the nuances and in not missing the focus. {“videoId”:”x80pv1e”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”INSERT COIN with ANTONIO DIEGUEZ Philosophy and TRANSHUMANISM”, “tag”:”Philosophy”, “duration”:”1973″} “Spiritual escape”. Thomson remember that the … Read more

The big problem with nuclear energy has always been its waste. Russia can now recycle them up to five times

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A nuclear reactor operating for 60 years using a closed system of three circulating fuel loads, subjected to cleaning processes and specific recharges in each cycle. What until recently seemed like an unattainable technical utopia for the energy industry is the reality that Russia’s latest technological breakthrough points to. The historic Achilles heel of nuclear fission—radioactive waste—is about to take a radical turn to become an almost inexhaustible resource. The magnitude of the test. The press release of Atom Media explains that Unit 1 of the Balakovo nuclear power plant (operated by Rosatom’s energy division) has just made history. They have successfully removed the last three lead test assemblies from an innovative fuel dubbed REMIX. These groups have completed three operating cycles of 18 months each. We are talking about 54 months performing at maximum capacity in a Russian commercial reactor type VVER-1000, thus exhausting its standard useful life. This puts the finishing touch to a demanding pilot program which started at the end of 2021 when the first six experimental rods were introduced into the reactor core. The resounding success. The most impressive thing about this milestone is not just that the fuel works, but where it works. Unlike other experiments designed for new generation fast reactors, REMIX fuel can be used in light water thermal reactors already operating massively around the planet. And without the need to modify its design or add costly security measures. The rehearsal went flawlessly. Yuri Ryzhkov, deputy chief engineer of the Balakovo power plant, detailed: “After each cycle, the fuel rods and structural elements were inspected using the television camera of the refueling machine. No deviations were detected during operation; neutron, physical and service characteristics remained within the design limits.” The science behind REMIX. But what exactly is this material? REMIX comes from Regenerated Mixture (Regenerated Mixture). Instead of using the usual natural enriched uranium, Russian scientists have created a matrix pellet that mixes regenerated uranium and plutonium (both recovered from already spent and reprocessed nuclear fuel), seasoned with some fresh enriched uranium. The technical key to the process is in the proportion: it maintains a very low level of plutonium, up to 1.5%. Thanks to this exact formulation, its neutron spectrum is practically identical to that of standard fuel. For practical purposes, the reactor core behaves the same and does not even “notice” the difference. The cleaning process. It is the circular economy taken to the atomic extreme. The magazine World Nuclear Newyes explains that this recycling cycle can be repeated up to five times. With each pass, the industry reprocesses the material to separate the useful uranium and plutonium from the fission products, which constitute the true radioactive waste. This useless waste is extracted and vitrified (encapsulated in glass) to be permanently and safely buried in geological deposits, while the useful fuel mixture is reintroduced into the reactor. The vision of the balanced cycle. Now it’s time for the laboratory and certification phase, where the irradiated material, now resting in cooling pools, will travel to the Atomic Reactor Research Institute in Dimitrovgrad for exhaustive analysis. Alexander Ugryumov, Vice President of R&D at TVEL (Rosatom’s fuel subsidiary), He announced that after these studies They will be able to bring the product to the market. The next evolutionary step will be to test mixtures with depleted uranium and up to 5% plutonium. All this is part of what Rosatom has called the “Balanced Nuclear Fuel Cycle” (NFC). The goal is to drastically reduce the volume and danger of radioactive waste, solving the historic problem of long-term storage for future generations and guaranteeing a truly sustainable production system. An impact on a global scale. Although the technical success is undeniable and the operational milestone in a commercial reactor is demonstrated, the mass adoption of this technology on a global level will largely depend on the commercialization costs and the economic viability of large-scale reprocessing; factors that the industry must demonstrate after the current qualification phase. However, if Rosatom manages to market REMIX at competitive prices, the global energy situation could take an unprecedented turn. We are not talking about a niche experiment. The data provided by Atom Media illustrate this magnitude: TVEL currently supplies fuel to more than 70 power reactors in 15 countries. Today, one in six reactors in the world operates with its technology. Moving from a linear “use and bury” industry to a closed loop where nuclear resources have multiple lives would not only dramatically expand the planet’s energy reserves, but could forever redefine the ecological viability of nuclear energy. Image | atom Xataka | The US has to make a crucial decision in Iran: exit without destroying its nuclear capabilities or a terrestrial “armaggedon”

Stanley Kubrick’s brutal trick to film one of the most terrifying scenes in ‘A Clockwork Orange’: making it real

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In the 70s, the world of cinema experienced a period in which some directors pursued realism in ways that are unthinkable today: scenes were filmed without doubles, with extreme practical effects and with days that dozens could be repeated (or even more than a hundred) times until the desired result is achieved. That obsession with authenticity left unrepeatable moments… and also stories that are difficult to believe today. Real pain. At that time in history, the sector was going through a period of radical experimentation where some directors were willing to take its actors to the limit in order to capture something authentic on the screen. In that context, one of the most disturbing scenes of modern cinema, a sequence that not only sought to make the viewer uncomfortable, but ended up transferring that suffering directly to the body of the leading actor. Thus, what should be a representation of control and violence ended up becoming a extreme physical experience that would forever mark the person who played it. Along the way, he would extend the legend of a director: Stanley Kubrick. When perfectionism is risk. Stanley Kubrick was already known for his obsession with detail, but in this case he crossed an extremely dangerous line. As? Instead of simulating the most famous scene of Clockwork Orangedecided to make it as real as possible: the devices that kept Alex’s character’s eyes open They were not propsand the medical procedure wasn’t a cinematic illusion either. In other words, the search for absolute authenticity led to a situation in which actor Malcolm McDowell’s security was compromised. in the background compared to the final image, reflecting a way of directing where the result justified practically any means. The impossible scene: hours of open eyes. Yes, McDowell was literally tied to a chair with his eyelids forced to remain open while he watched violent images during long days of filming, exactly as happened to the character he played. a real doctorin charge of keeping his eyes hydrated, had to constantly apply drops to avoid irreversible damage. However, the situation became complicated when that same doctor received instructions to act on the scenedividing his attention between his medical function and his improvised role. The result was a disastrous environment where control was diluted just when it was needed most. An avoidable injury. The failure was as simple as it was disturbing: while the instruments kept the actor’s eyes open, the eyelids began to slide out of their position. directly scrape the cornea. Plus: under anesthesia, the actor could not feel the damage at that moment, which made the situation even more dangerous. When the effect wore off, the pain was immediate and extremeto the point of requiring urgent treatment with morphine. The most shocking thing was not the injury itself, that too, but its character completely avoidable: it was enough that the doctor had been focused on his role or that the scene had been filmed with simulated effects. The price of perfection. Far from stopping, filming continued. The director, dissatisfied with some plans, demanded to repeat the sceneforcing the actor to once again face an experience that he already knew was painful. That decision turned an accident into a conscious process of sufferingone where the anticipation of pain was as harsh as the physical damage itself. In short, if the scene that the viewer perceives was uncomfortable, it was because, to a large extent, he was not alone in front of a sublime performance (which also, of course), he was in front of a real reaction in an extreme situation. Kubrick and his actors. The truth is that the episode was not an exception, but part of a pattern. Kubrick’s method was based on countless occasions in repeating takes until the actor’s emotional defenses are broken and more authentic reactions are obtained, as also happened in another case famous with actress Shelley Duvall in The Shining. His way of working has been celebrated for the results, but also questioned for the human cost which it implied. In this case, the line between demanding management and unnecessary risk became especially blurred. The final paradox. For years, McDowell himself came to resent the film for what it had cost him, physically and emotionally. Over time, however, ended up accepting that had been part of an unrepeatable work. The great irony here is that one of the most iconic scenes in modern cinema owes part of its force to a suffering that should never have happened. If you will, it is also an uncomfortable reminder that, sometimes, behind cinematic perfection there is not only talent, but also errorsrisks and decisions that today would be difficult to justify. Image | Warner In Xataka | The wildest race on the Olympic tracks in Cortina was in 1981. A man launched himself dodging bullets and assassins on a motorcycle In Xataka | One of the best comedies in history turned this simple scene into the most expensive. 9/11 and a highway were to blame

60 years ago, NASA took a look at the Sahara from space and found a very strange “perfect eye”

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Although we tend to think that the unknown is in space and we focus our exploration on what is outside the Earth, our planet continues to surprise us: from the 50,000 volcanoes hidden in the seabed to shapes and constructions that seem too curious to have appeared out of nowhere… especially when we see them from space. It is the case of Great Dam of Zimbabwe (which by the way, is not a dam). We are not leaving the African continent because there is another scar of land with a shape so precise that it is disconcerting. It can’t be seen from the ground, but as you gain height it can be seen better. However, it is from space where it is best appreciated, as NASA has already photographed. There it is simply shocking: it is the inexplicable eye of the Sahara. It is a kind of giant eye that looks at the sky engraved in the rock of the Sahara, it is actually called Richat structure. As says French astronaut Thomas Pesquetalmost all astronauts have taken a photo of it from space simply because it can’t be missed. The Britannica Encyclopedia assures that World War II pilots used it as a reference point. Tap to go to the post After all, they are almost 50 kilometers in diameter. To get an idea, if we moved it to Madrid, it would cover the entire city and reach surrounding municipalities. However, it is in Mauritania, at the western end of the Sahara. More specifically, it sits on the Adrar plateau, on the northwestern edge of the Taoudenni basin, about 500 meters above sea level and in an inhospitable area. As a curiosity, the closest town is Ouadane, it is about 17 kilometers from the edge of the structure and it is not just any city: it was founded in 1147 by the Idalwa el Hadj Berber tribe and its old part has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996. The first time we “discovered” it (that is to say, because it was already there) was in the 1930s and 1940s and the person who studied it in depth at that time was the French geographer Jacques Richard-Molard. Later, astronauts James McDivitt and Ed White, aboard the Gemini IV mission, were the first to photograph it from space in 1965. However, the image that illustrates the cover was taken on July 10, 2020 by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station, during the Expedition 63 mission, with a Nikon D5 camera with a 50 millimeter lens. Richat’s structure from the inside. Clemens Schmillen What is the Richard Structure and how was it formed? From that orbital height the image shows something that would be impossible to capture from the ground: a series of perfect concentric rings, like the waves left by a stone when it falls into water, but petrified in the desert. The tones of that figure range from ocher to bluish gray, from almost pristine white to rusty red. Each color is a different rock and belongs to a different era. Surrounding the structure, a sea of ​​dunes: on the right, longitudinal dunes that stretch in long parallel tongues and on the left, transverse dunes, wider and more arched. The set is truly strange to have formed naturally. POT Because it is not a lake that has dried up over time. It is neither a volcano nor the crater of a meteorite (the hypothesis which was most popular initially). It’s something much slower but just as violent: is the result of millions of years of geological forces working silently beneath the planet’s surface. And although the group as such was formed about 100 million years ago, those rocks are up to 2.5 billion years old. Or in other words, the Eye of the Sahara was forged in the Cretaceous, but the rocks belong to the time when there were no animals, only bacteria and algae. The Richat Structure is a deeply eroded geological anticline dome that was formed by a subsurface igneous intrusion, which deformed the overlying sedimentary rock layers, exposing concentric rings with the oldest rocks in the center. In a simplified way, a bubble of rock that never burst: the magma from inside the Earth pushed up the layers of rock above it and cooled without reaching the surface. The passage of time eroded that bubble as if it were an onion, exposing the rings of each layer. The hardest rocks resisted and formed the relief, the soft ones disappeared. Hence the circles. The most recent studies They confirm that there was also hot water circulating inside the structure, which accelerated and modeled the final shape. In Xataka | A 2.5 billion-year-old geological wonder: Zimbabwe’s Great Dam seen by NASA from space In Xataka | This is the impressive interactive map to see the Earth in 4K live from space and monitor satellites Cover | POT

“Divide each difficulty into as many parts as necessary to solve it”

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Honesty above all. What I had in my hands last Sunday afternoon while reading on the balcony of my house was not the ‘Discourse on method’ of Rene Descartesbut ‘Jotadé’a (highly recommended) novel by Santiago Díaz. At a given moment in the story, however, one of its characters quotes one of the French philosopher’s maxims. He does not do so by sticking to literality or with the high epistemological purpose that his author wanted to give him in the 17th century, but there were Descartes’ words with all their burden of common sense: “Divide each difficulty into as many parts as necessary to solve it”. In the novel, the protagonist’s father, a troubled police officer, shares this reflection with his son at a time when everything seems to be going uphill for him. It is unlikely that when Descartes he wrote itfour centuries ago, did it thinking about life advice or bestsellers police, but the truth is that it fits into the novel just as well as it does into his philosophical treatise. Doubting everything Back in 1637, Descartes asked himself one of those impossible questions that seem condemned to dead ends: How can I be sure of the certainty of what I consider ‘true’? Are we humans doomed surrounded by doubts, without reliable handholds to lean on? How do I know that what I judge ‘real’ is not a deception of my senses, an erroneous idea that I have assumed to be true? To get out of such epistemological quagmire the philosopher made a curious movement. He used doubt against doubt itself. He assumed that he only had access to his own mind and confirmed the obvious: that he was in doubt. Then he pulled the thread to formulate what is probably his most famous phrase: “Cogito ergo sum”which is usually translated as “I think, therefore I am” or “I am because I think.” Another way of putting it is that if there is anything undoubtable, it is the act of doubting itself. In words from Descartes himself: “Considering that the same thoughts that we have when awake can come to us when we sleep, without there being any true ones in that state, I pretended that all the things that had entered my spirit were no truer than the illusions of my dreams.” “But I realized that, while I wanted to think in this way that everything is false, it was necessary that I, who thought it, be something. And observing that this truth ‘I think, therefore I am’ was so firm and so certain that the most extravagant assumptions of the skeptics were not capable of undermining it, I judged that I could admit it as the first principle of the philosophy I sought.” At that point, how to move forward? How to continue collecting valid knowledge? To get out of this new quagmire, Descartes, philosopher, mathematician and physicist, had a bigger idea: he developed the so-called ‘Cartesian method’. His system encourages us to carry skepticism as our flag and proposes a series of steps that are as valid for working in a laboratory as they are for facing personal problems such as those that concern Jotadé in Díaz’s novel. What steps are those? We quote back to Descartes. “The first consisted of not admitting anything as true without having known with evidence that it was so. That is to say, to avoid haste and to admit nothing more than what presented itself so clearly and distinctly to my mind that I had no reason to doubt it.“. “The second, to divide each of the difficulties to be examined into as many parts as possible and necessary for its best solution.“. “The third, in conducting my thoughts in order, starting with the simplest and easiest to know objects, to ascend little by little, gradually, to the knowledge of the most complex and even assuming an order among those that do not precede each other.” “And the last, to make in everything such complete enumerations and such extensive revisions, that one would be sure of not having omitted anything.“. Descartes basically encourages relying only on logical analysis or (even worse) relying on authority as an infallible source. What it invites us to do is to resort to observation and experimentation, to cultivate the methodical doubt and be thorough in pursuing knowledge. Its four rules are a valuable guide to develop critical thinking, but its application is not limited there. This was claimed a few years ago by the writer and professor Shaunta Grimes in an article published in Mediumin which he focuses precisely on the second step of Descartes’ method, the one that encourages us to divide problems. “The phrase alludes to his method of evaluating the logic of a statement, but its applications are much broader,” clarify Grimes. In his opinion, Descartes also offers a guide for facing problems that seem unsolvable. The tactic is very simple: think of a problem that worries you. Then think about how you can solve it. Complicated, right? But… What if you cut it apart? The challenge as a whole may seem insurmountable, but it is likely that it is actually a sum of smaller problems. If we can divide it into as many parts as possible, just like a big puzzlewe will surely find a first piece that will no longer seem so complicated. We exchange a seemingly unsolvable whole for manageable parts. Grimes illustrates it with an example. Imagine that a friend confesses to you that he is not feeling well. The logical thing would be to ask: “Why?” He may respond that he misses a family member, that he hasn’t played sports for a while, that he hasn’t slept much in recent weeks, or that he feels frustrated at work. Among these ‘pieces’ there are some that are relatively easy to deal with (if you sleep little you can go to bed earlier), others may not be so easy, but even in those cases they can break … Read more

They are a “product” and their CEOs treat them as such

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The endless story of managers determined to project that image of closeness and familiarity returns again and again, but it no longer works as before. On too many occasions, seeing them look for that unnatural naturalnessinstead of reinforcing the brand, opens the door to an uncomfortable conversation where each gesture goes viral and is overanalyzed. A few weeks ago it was Chris Kempczinski, CEO of McDonald’s, where in a viral video He takes a hilariously small bite of his new burger (or, as he insists ad nauseam, his new “product”). The result produces between laughter and discomfort and of course, and the worst thing for the brand, a zero desire to try that ‘Big Arch’. Of course, other leading fast food brands such as Burger King or Wendy’s slipped out and rushed to parody the scene, marking the distance and greatly enjoying their products in equally forced videos. From “prize food” to product In one of the first scenes of ‘The Killer‘ (2023), the thriller directed by David Fincher, its protagonist played by Michael Fassbender defines his personality before the viewer with a very simple gesture: he buys a one-euro hamburger from McDonald’s, takes away the bread and eats the meat for its caloric content and protein balance. What three years ago was an example of how meticulous a murderer was in fiction, has become a reflection of how we see fast food in a world where macros they direct our diet. Returning to Kempczinski, and beyond the anecdotal, the viral or the easy joke, there is something that appears quite clearly: we have gone almost without realizing it from seeing fast food as a guilty pleasure or a reward meal, to perceive it as a product designed and optimized. Gradually we have managed to separate the fast food of the traditional idea of ​​food; we have become Fassbender. What is striking on this occasion is that this delegitimization does not come solely from the consumer, but comes from above. So, what happens when not even those who produce these dishes really consider it “food”? We cannot know with certainty whether Chris Kempczinski’s statements, in which he claims to eat at his restaurants up to four times a weekthey reflect reality. What does seem evident is the contradiction: they sell products that they themselves avoid or delegitimize, in a very similar way to what happens with CEOs of large technology companies like Apple or Meta, who strictly limit the use of screens for their children despite the fact that they live off those same products. The first case was that of Steve Jobs’ children raised without an iPad in their hands, but this fact has been played non-stop in the Silicon Valley environment. A mismatch between the public image and private decisions that we now see in the restaurant industry. The change in terminology is not a whim of a CEO, but is directly related with social perception of fast food. What was once a modern, convenient and somewhat functional concept has become a food that is really criticized, observed, and consumed with greater suspicion, especially by millennials or Generation Z. These generations, more aware of the ingredients and the impact that these ultra-processed foods have on their health, have transformed the way we consume and relate to food. Supposedly food. (Unsplash) In the United States, for example, the popularity of slop bowls (what we also know as poke bowls), with customizable, efficient and, in principle, healthy salads and bowls, they demonstrate how food has sometimes become functional, aesthetic and even somewhat performative. From the illusion of the healthy bowls of chains like ‘Chipotle’ to spaces that are standard bearers of life healthy like supermarkets’Erewhon‘, with concepts such as macrobiotic diet and smoothies with spirulina that makes your wallet shake, consumption linked to a lifestyle more than the food itself is evident. Assembled food, not cooked If a few years ago concepts such as food were questioned and entered into continuous debate transgenicToday, in an era that is very aware of healthy living, what has been altered is our way of understanding consumption, nutrition and our relationship with the products that fill our plates. In parallel, the extreme industrialization food has also transformed what we eat; Although it is true that culinary tradition remains deeply rooted in many countries, certain foods or “products” such as slop bowls They seem more assembled than cooked, turning them into a functional product ready to be sold and consumed but completely removed from the experience of “feeding.” They are closer to what we could call food engineering, with a logic of optimization where they provide us with the necessary nutrients, with durability, but far from concern for flavor or culinary creativity; almost as if we were talking about “astronaut food“We find therefore that even foods that seem healthy They are designed for marketing. In recent years, a growing part of society has stopped associating these chains with “food” in the traditional sense of the word. In fact, European and American studies show that many consumers see ultra-processed foods as artificial and unnatural, mentally classifying them in a different category to “real” foods, even though they consume them occasionally for convenience or pleasure. McDonald’s or Burger King operate right in that field, where you consume for that very specific pleasure they generate. You don’t want just any hamburger, you specifically want what a Whopper or a Big Mac makes you want. Eat to create your identity Social networks also play an essential role in the perception of food as a product through an insatiable search for the viral, iconic or instagrammable. With different challenges or viral challenges, the attempt is to capture attention in seconds and for that product to be seen, shared and consumed. However, this search for virality is not the exclusive heritage of these fast food or ultra-processed food chains. The rise of the trend healthy has adopted exactly the same dynamics: from recipes with the label RealFood to healthy versions … Read more

so you can start it

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In addition to all the commercial AI language models that we have at our disposal (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claudeetc), there is a whole world of open source language models that can be used for a lot of applications, both at home and business level. I’ve been messing around with LLMs locally and the truth is that having one working without the need for an Internet connection can be really good for us. The thing is that install an LLM locally and on our mobile phone it is simpler than it seems. Today we can find tools that are very easy to use and have a very friendly interface for any user. Furthermore, you don’t need a smartphone with very high technical specifications to run a small model. Below this text I explain how to do it and what sense it makes to have a local AI on your mobile. What is PocketPal and what is the point of having an AI locally? One of the tools that makes this possible is called PocketPal AI, and the best thing is to install it and start it does not require technical knowledge. The app is free for iOS and Android and allows artificial intelligence models to be installed directly on the mobile phone, so that the user can use them without an Internet connection, with total privacy and without their conversations reaching external servers. The key to all this is to use reduced versions of some of the language models that we know. These small models are intended to run directly on the CPU or GPU of a consumer device. They don’t have the same reasoning capabilities as the most advanced OpenAI or Anthropic model, as that would be impossible right now on phone hardware, but they do. They are capable enough for a wide variety of everyday tasks: summarize texts, answer questions, translate, help write, generate simple code or simply have a conversation. The proposal is useful in more situations than it seems. Imagine that you are on the subway without coverage, on a trip abroad without data or in a rural area. With an AI installed locally on the mobile you always have at hand a kind of intelligent encyclopedia: someone to consult with, think out loud or resolve doubts in the moment. And what is equally important: with complete privacy. All processing happens entirely on the device. Conversations, prompts and data never leave the phone or are stored on external servers. What mobile do you need Before you start downloading the app, it is worth checking if your device has what you need. Running an AI model locally requires that the device have a series of more or less important technical specifications, although we do not need to go to the highest range of devices to run them. I myself am using PocketPal in a modest, but more than capable OnePlus Nord 2. AI models are considerably large files, so some free internal storage space is needed, and local processing demands hardware power. But wow, as long as you have a considerable amount of RAM and a CPU that’s not worth it, you’re more than enough. The requirements vary greatly depending on the model you want to install, but as a general guide: RAM: Minimum 6 GB for small models (1-3B parameters). For medium models with 7B parameters, it is advisable to have at least 8 GB. Free storage: Between 2 and 5 GB for the lightest models. A PocketPal AI model usually takes up between 1 and 4 GB per installation. Processor: Any upper-mid range from the last four or five years works. For more demanding models and with more parameters, a very powerful processor is recommended. Operating system: To use PocketPal specifically, Android 7.0 (Nougat) or higher is required on Android, and it is also available for iPhone starting with iOS 15.1. The good news is that lighter models, such as Qwen2.5-1.5B, They can work even on more modest devices. The PocketPal team itself recommends it as a starting point. The thing is to try. For example, I installed Qwen3-4B and it works quite well on a 5-year-old mid-range phone. How to install PocketPal step by step To have PocketPal working correctly on your mobile you don’t have to do much. Below these lines we tell you how to do it step by step: 1. Download the app PocketPal AI is available on both the Android Play Store and the Apple App Store. Links for Android and for iOS. 2. Download an AI model Once inside, the app will ask you to download a model to get started. In ‘Models’ a list of available models appears. On that list you will not find names like Gemini or GPT, which are proprietary models. Instead you will see their open source versions: Gemma It is the open version of Google’s Gemini; Calls It is the Meta model, the same AI that WhatsApp and Instagram use; Phi It is Microsoft’s open model; and qwen It is from Alibaba, among others. If you are new and want to try, perhaps one of the most recommended and lightest is Qwen2.5-1.5B. It gives good results for simple queries and is quite fast (if your phone’s hardware is more or less up to par). If your phone has more than 6 GB of RAM and plenty of free space, you can try models with 3B-4B parameters such as Llama 3.2 3B, which offers more elaborate responses. The good thing is that also you have the entire Hugging Face repository to test by pressing the button in the lower right corner. Here we can install any model directly from Hugging Face, such as Qwen3-4B-Instruct, which is the one I installed on the Nord 2, or try others from DeepSeek or Mistral. Everything works from the app, without leaving it. Important: Downloading the model does require an Internet connection. You just have to be connected at that first moment. From there, everything works locally. 3. Load … Read more

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