usatoday24

everything you can do with it (and what you can’t)

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We are in full heat wave and in many homes andThe air conditioning is not enough. In addition to make our electricity bill go up in summerair conditioning gives us something else: water. Most people throw it away directly, but there are things you can do to take advantage of all those liters of water so that not everything is a waste. The amount of water expelled by the air conditioner depends on several factors such as the type of equipment or the temperature outside, but it is estimated to be between 1 and 2 liters per hour. In my case I have a 5 liter bottle at the water outlet and yesterday I emptied it twice, so I ended up wasting 10 liters of water. Taking into account that we have been in a heat wave for more than a week, I will have about 70 liters wasted. What to do with air conditioning water and what is best to avoid The water that comes out of the air drain is produced by condensation, so it is pure, demineralized water without salts (like distilled water). This makes her perfect for some uses: Clean: one of the uses that we can give to this water is cleaning. As it does not contain any minerals, it is perfect for cleaning windows or shiny surfaces where limescale usually leaves visible marks. Iron: If you iron clothes, you can save distilled water for ironing. This water will also not leave any trace of lime on the fabrics. for the car: Another ingenious use that has to do with cleaning is to use it to refill the water tank for the windshield wipers. If you wash your car by hand, you can also use it to give it the final rinse so that the typical droplets do not remain. We have seen that the absence of minerals is good for some things, but it is also not recommended for others. In addition, it must be taken into account that the water passes through the machine filter and the ducts, so may contain dirt. This is what is not recommended to do: Water the plants: Plants need nutrients and air conditioning water contains none. You can use it to water as long as you supplement it with a fertilizer, but if you only give this water to drink without anything else, in the long run your plants will suffer from a lack of nutrients. Drink it: It is not recommended, nor is putting it on pets. It is not drinking water and as we said, it may contain dirt and bacteria present in the device’s circuit. Cook: It is evident that if it is not recommended for drinking, it is not recommended for cooking either. If we boil it we eliminate possible germs, but it is still better to use drinking water. An even more valuable resource when it is on a large scale What at a domestic level is a few jugs of water, in large buildings can become an important water resource. Rice University in Houston has been collecting condensation water since 2008 of your air conditioning system and reusing it for cooling systems of your power plant. They estimate that the savings are 12 million gallons of water per year, which is equivalent to more than 45 million liters. At the Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Building in Chicago as well They installed a similar system and they calculate a saving of half a million liters per year. There are also other industrial uses, such as using that condensation water. to feed toilet cisternssomething common in many hotels. In airplanes it is also often used to Image | Xataka In Xataka | Showering with cold water before sleeping in a heat wave seems like the best idea. Science warns that it is a big mistake

00 in the third Q&A with editors. Only for Xataka Xtra members

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Is there a better way to close the month of June than with a good virtual meeting between xatakeros and Xataka editors? probably not. One of the many benefits included in your subscription to Xataka Xtra It is the participation (voluntary, needless to say) in the monthly Q&A, online meetings in which there are no predefined topics or agenda, but rather we talk about what you feel like. The session will take place today, June 30, at 5:00 p.m. Spanish peninsular time. As on previous occasions, the meeting will be held through Google Meet. The link will arrive in your email in just a few hours, as long as you have the “Xtra Community” box checked in your member area. We leave you a small executive summary with the key data: Day: June 30. Hour: 17:00, Spanish peninsular time (16:00 in the Canary Islands). Assistants: Alejandro Alcolea, Rubén Andrés, John Tones, Javier Pastor, María González and Jose García. Connection link: We will send it to you by mail in a little while. How Q&As work The Q&A are online conversations between xatakeros and in-house editors. They are part of the set of advantages included in Xataka Xtra and its format is very simple: there is no agenda or predefined topics. In these meetings we talk about whatever you want, be it the tech news of the week, the price of the Steam Deck, GTA VI coming out without a disc or the latest tool you have made with AI. It is not a serious meeting by any means, but rather a hangout. chill to see each other, talk and disconnect after a day of work. Like meeting for coffee and catching up, exactly the same. Like previous times, the meeting will take place through Google Meet, so there will be no need to download software. We will send you the link by email in just a moment. Needless to say, using the camera or microphone is completely voluntary, as is participation. If you don’t feel like it or it doesn’t work for you, absolutely nothing happens. As for the participants, we do a rotation in each Q&A so that we can all participate and you can get to know us better. For this third meeting we will have Alejandro Alcolea, Rubén Andrés, John Tones, Javier Pastor, María González and yours truly, Jose García. In Xataka | Subscribe to Xataka Xtra

The Ferrari Luce has sold all its units in China. And that is the best sign for Chinese manufacturers

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Ferrari Luce in China. With the Luce, of course. The Maranello electric car has posted the “all sold” message on the door of its dealerships. 88 units at almost $600,000. A very high figure for a Chinese market that has also lowered the prices of luxury vehicles. Despite everything, Ferrari is Ferrari. whatever they want. They can sell whatever they want. It is the conclusion defended by multiple analysts and pickup in Xataka during the presentation of Ferrari Lucethe company’s first electric car that created enormous controversy for its design that even surpassed that of having launched an electric car without a trace of gasoline smell. Just a few days later we learned that Ferrari had sold each and every one of the units that I had planned in a first print run. Many or few? It really is not entirely clear because Ferrari’s production capacity is limited and only with the passage of years will we be able to know if the car has been a success or not. What is certain is that Ferrari, by the simple fact of being Ferrari, shows that it can sell whatever it wants. 88 units for China. With a waiting list that already extends until 2027, the Ferrari Luce has had the reception that could be expected. Even though the company has assured that does not force its more traditional clients to buy the car as a preliminary step to get the most special units. Of that waiting list that has already been completed, 88 of those units will go directly to the Chinese market. These Ferrari Luce, ensure in Car News Chinahave been sold with a starting price of $586,600 (almost four million Chinese yuan at the exchange rate). The figure is, they explain, 7% lower than the price sold in Europe. Very important. That sales are advancing at a good pace is huge news for the brand since China has been very quickly turning to its local manufacturers and turning its back on foreign ones. In fact, Ferrari only sold 584 units in 2025 in the Asian country. The fall was serious because in 2024 it signed 814 units and in 2023 it placed 1,221 supercars. That is to say, placing 88 units at once in China has already allowed it to sell 15% of the same amount that it signed last year. Without a doubt, a cushion that allows you to cushion the fall in a market that is clearly moving towards electrical products and, above all, to local ones. Big money. When analyzing car sales in China, in CarNewsChina They talk about “extra luxury” to refer to cars that cost more than a million yuan (just over 120,000 euros at direct exchange rate). It is a market where, curiously, only European cars dominate. The twentieth place last year was the Mercedes-AMG GLS with 83 units. In one fell swoop, Ferrari would have already surpassed it. But this list is not dominated by European cars because they do things better, it is because Chinese manufacturers have entered into a price war that has managed to place the price ceiling of their luxury cars below that million yuan. That is why it is surprising that Ferrari is capable of placing 88 units of a car that multiplies that cost by four. It must be taken into account that only BYD with the Yangwang U8 and its long variant U8L managed to sneak into this list. The rest of the supercars do not appear because, among other things, they cost less money than that million yuan border. Much more for less money. To show what we are talking about, the Huawei Maextro S800a luxury sedan that is half-manufactured by Huawei and the automobile conglomerate JAC, started last year at just over 700,000 Chinese yuan (about $100,000 at the exchange rate) and its top range barely exceeded that million yuan. Only in the last month of December 2025, This car outsold the BMW 7 Series, the Porsche Panamera and the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class. which were consolidated as the next three best-selling cars. While the Chinese car sold 4,376 units, the European options totaled 4,140 units. Chinese manufacturers are offering cars that are more technologically advanced inside than any other European company. The Huawei Maextro S800 has triple screen inside between 15 and 16 inchesendings in wood inside with space to store champagne bottles, individual seats in bucket format in the rear seats, the most advanced ADAS systems and, of course, full integration with the Huawei ecosystem. The path to choose. They assure Ferrari that the Luce is a car that is not aimed at its most classic clients. “It is designed for a different customer profile, not for historical customers to buy, who, obviously, can do so if they wish,” assured Enrico Galliera who has just left his position as the company’s head of marketing. As we said in Xataka It is clear that Ferrari is looking to carve out a niche for itself among a new type of customer. Although it aims at a global market, this was essential in China where the preferred car among the rich also seems to be electric and Chinese but, above all, it aims to be something different from what we traditionally know as a car. That Ferrari has sold all the units there allows it to position itself as a modern company, capable of doing different things. For example, this opinion from a Chinese buyer of a Porsche Taycan in statements to Bloomberg: “It was just an electrified Porsche. That’s all.” In the article, he described the purchase as “terrible” because, simply, it did not provide any differential value. For now, the numbers seem to say that Ferrari is moving on the right path in China. Photo | Ferrari and Sou Jest In Xataka | “It shouldn’t be in a car”: Legendary Apple designer thinks we have a problem with touch screens

Experts already claim that the Chinese GLM-5.2 model is as “dangerous” as Anthropic’s

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The technological gap between the US and China continues to narrow. At least, if we pay attention to what they say the latest analyzes on the GLM-5.2 model. Two independent cybersecurity companies have made their own assessment and their data reveals that in terms of cybersecurity, GLM-5.2 is as good as Claude Opus 4.8. That has notable implications, especially considering how the US government is now restricting access to Anthropic and OpenAI’s frontier models. AI in the face of the threat of cybersecurity. Since Claude Mythos Preview appeared, the discourse on AI has changed significantly. Suddenly the world realized that these models could become weapons with which to find vulnerabilities in all types of systems to exploit them. Anthropic has already warned that Mythos was too dangerous to be publicly available, and it did not matter that it released hidden versions like Fable 5 shortly after: the US Government has temporarily vetoed them and the same has happened with GPT-5.6. The situation is unusual. Beware of Tulongfeng (or not). Last Wednesday, a Chinese cybersecurity company called 360 Security Technology (Qihoo 360) launched a new vulnerability detection tool called Tulongfeng. According to its creatorsTulongfeng is comparable Mythos in this task. The company this on the US “Entity List” since May 2020 and its CEO, Zhou Hongyi, stated that Mythos is equivalent to a “cybernuclear weapon.” The Sputnik moment with GLM-5.2. But the real recent protagonist of the Chinese AI industry is the GLM-5.2 model from the startup Zhipu.ai (Z.ai), which is becoming very popular by demonstrating performance comparable to the best models from US companies. Its fundamental advantage is that it is an open weights model: any person or company can download it, modify it and run it on their own hardware (although it requires a huge amount of video/unified memory to be able to use it, it is a model with 744B of parameters). But he is not only good at programming or at agentic tasks. Better than Claude in cybersecurity? The cybersecurity firm Semgrep stated in a recent analysis that GLM-5.2 was superior to Claude Opus 4.8 regarding cybersecurity and pointed out that “we have a Mythos at home.” Another independent study from Graphistry stated basically the same thing when comparing it with Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5. Not only that, it achieved excellent results at a fraction of the price: one-sixth of what it cost to run tests with Claude Opus 4.8, for example. Axios revealed little cited a cybersecurity researcher who explained that GLM-5.2 is capable of chaining exploits “in the same way that an elite human attacker would.” Chinese mythos before 2027. Jie Tang, CEO of Z.ai, responded to a Twitter thread in which it was pointed out that at this rate, China would have an AI model at the level of Mythos or Fable by the end of 2026. Elon Musk himself intervened saying that in his opinion this Chinese model with such performance would arrive in the first quarter of 2027. Jie Tang was forceful and replied to Musk saying “it won’t take that long.” And we also have Sakana Fugu. These days we also learned the news that Sakana AI, a Japanese AI startup, had launched Fuguan AI model that is actually not so much an AI model as it is a router or orchestrator of other models. What it promises It is to perform at the level of the best models in the US, taking advantage of different models, both open and closed. The internal benchmarks are promising, but some independent analysts they explained Although the idea is not bad, its performance and cost are not as striking as the company claims. While the US blocks its models, China advances. The situation is paradoxical, because what China is doing is precisely taking advantage of a unique moment. The US is restricting the deployment of the most advanced AI models from Anthropic and OpenAI to avoid cybersecurity risks. And while that happens, Chinese companies are apparently closing the gap with truly remarkable open models. In Xataka | The prompt engineering fashion is over. Now what is important is loop engineering

The best deals on televisions at the PcComponentes PcDays with mini LED, OLED models and more from 369 euros

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PcComponentes has started its PcDaysan offers campaign in which we can find discounts on many products. There are many sales on televisions with very reasonable prices (even on OLED models), so we are going to review the best deals we can find right now. LG OLED55C57LA by 869 eurosthe television that we most recommend for its excellent quality-price ratio. Philips 65PUS7000 by 399 eurosan inexpensive television with a very large screen. TCL 55P7K by 369 eurosa smart TV that has a good balance in its specifications. Philips 55MLED920 by 529 eurosa good TV that has the brand’s particular technology. LG OLED55B56LA by 779 eurosan OLED television with a very reasonable price. LG OLED55B56LA (55 inches) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links LG OLED55C57LA The LG OLED55C57LA (LG C5) is the television that We highly recommend it for its quality-price ratio.and it is a model that, for the price of 869 euros that you have now, we find a panel with OLED technology and 55-inch diagonal. It also reaches a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz through VRR which, added to its HDMI 2.1, is ideal for current generation consoles. In addition, it is compatible with both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. It should be noted that right now it costs only 20 euros more than what we saw on Amazon Prime Day. LG OLED55C57LA (55 inches) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Philips 65PUS7000 On the other hand, if what you are looking for is a cheaper, and also larger, television, the model Philips 65PUS7000 Right now it is at a price of 399 euros. It is a TV that incorporates a 65-inch diagonal screen and is compatible with both HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos (it is not compatible with Dolby Vision). Its refresh rate is 60 Hz and it works with both Alexa and Google Home. Philips 65PUS7000 (65 inches) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links TCL 55P7K If we look for another television with a lower price, the TCL 55P7K has dropped in price at PcComponentes to 369 euros. It is a particularly interesting model for everything it offers: QLED screen with a 55-inch diagonal, Google TV operating system, compatibility with Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and Dolby Atmos and a 60 Hz refresh rate. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Philips 55MLED920 We can also find the smart TV on sale (and at a very good price) Philips 55MLED920which remains for 529 euros. We are talking about a QD Mini LED television with a 55-inch QLED screen that comes with Ambilight from Philips, a technology that captures the colors of the screen and reproduces them through the LEDs located on the back of the television. In addition, it offers a refresh rate of 120 Hz (up to 144 Hz via VRR) and is compatible with HDR10+, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Philips 55MLED920 (55 inches) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links LG OLED55B56LA Finally, if what you are looking for is an OLED television that is cheaper than the LG C5, PcComponentes has the model right now LG OLED55B56LA (LG B5) for a price of 779 euros. It is a television with a 55-inch OLED panel that has a 120 Hz refresh rate and is compatible with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. LG OLED55B56LA (55 inches) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | PcComponentes y Compradicción (header), LG, Philips, TCL In Xataka | Best home theater projectors. Which one to buy and five recommended models from 299 to 18,000 euros In Xataka | Mega-guide to set up a home theater: projector, screen, sound system and more

what they are, what they are for and how to reserve yours

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Let’s tell you what it is and how to request your WhatsApp usernamewith which having to give your phone number to contact someone will go down in history. This is a feature that we have been waiting for for a long time, and that has finally begun to roll out. Let’s start by explaining to you what exactly usernames are, so that understand what they are for. Then, we will tell you how you can reserve yours step by step. Usernames cannot be used yet, but you are now starting to be able to reserve them. This reservation function is being deployed gradually so it will gradually reach all of us, but not all of us will be able to do it yet. What are usernames and what are they for? WhatsApp usernames are a unique identification method so other people can find you. The idea is that each person who uses WhatsApp has their own username, which will be unique and no one else can have. Usernames will be used to no need to give your phone number when you want someone to write to you. Therefore, it is an alternative to giving your number. This will allow you to have an extra layer of privacy. Until now, the only way for someone to contact you on WhatsApp was to give them your phone number, something quite personal and which can even be dangerous. Now, with a username you won’t need to give your number. The way it works is simple. If I tell you that I would like to write to you on WhatsApp, you will give me your username. So when I click on the write a new message button, By writing your user number I will get your contact. In addition to this, it will also be used to log in to the account. Each user may have a single name, but The first one to set it up will keep it.. This means that if you have a common name, like Maria, the name @maria may fly very quickly, and you will have to add other characters such as numbers or additional letters. Here, remember that your username will be foreverso you will have to look for one that identifies you so that it is as personal as possible. Ideally, it would be easy to type so that they can find you, but in a service with billions of users this will end up being difficult. How to reserve your username Image: Javi Márquez To reserve your username you have to enter the settings of your WhatsApp account. To do this, you have to click on the top right on Android to see the settings option, and on iOS you just have to click on the tab You. Once inside, click on the section Account that appears in the main menu with a key icon. Once inside, click on the option User name what you will see in the section Your account. You will go to a screen where the function is explained, and where you must click on Create username. Image: Javi Marquez This will take you to a menu where you will have to write the username you want to use. This is the most complicated part, because the names cannot be repeated. Therefore, you will have to try names until you find one free. For example, if you type “pepito” you may see a red indicator saying that it is busy. Then, you will have to add characters or change letters until you find one that is free. As we have been able to provesome usernames will only be able to be reserved with WhatsApp Business, so in some cases you will have to make the jump to this modality. You will also have to be original to find a free one, although you must try not to make it overly complicated so that others can write it by hand. Once you have chosen the username, you will have to configure who can contact us with it. You can make it so that all WhatsApp users can do so, but you can also generate a password so that only people who have it can contact you, something that serves to cut off massive messages from random people if your username were to be spread. In Xataka Basics | Send WhatsApp messages to yourself: How to do it and 11 uses for the function

the humanoid robot Figure 03

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In October 2025, Figure showed us what his new humanoid robot was capable of. The Figure 03 boasted a new design and much more precise dexterity, allowing it to move around the house and do such delicate tasks as picking up dishes or folding clothes. Although it is not for sale at the moment, Figure 03 has already started its first work. The chosen place has been the BMW factory in New Jersey. It is not the first time that BMW integrates humanoid robots in their factories. In fact, this new pilot program is the continuation of a first phase in which the previous model, the Figure 02, was supporting the production of the BMW X3 and previously They also had Figure 01 “in practice”. A very technological warehouse boy Figure 02 spent ten months at the BMW plant in Spartanburg, specifically in the body department. His job was to load the sheet metal panels that dress the BMW X3. Specifically, it helped the production of more than 30,000 vehicles. Now, Figure 03 has a totally different job that takes advantage of its new capabilities. The department where Figure 03 operates is assembly logistics. Here they receive the components in large, messy containers. Your job will be to collect them and sort them into carts that are sent to the assembly line in a specific order. In its first job, Figure’s robot had a very specific task in that it always picked up the same pieces, but now it must pick up pieces of different shapes, weights and sizes, which requires greater adaptability and precision. Figure 03 introduces important improvements compared to the previous generation, such as a design with soft parts that makes it safer, cameras in hands that improve the grip of objects and much more sensitive touch sensors. A key test This pilot is part of the initiative BMW iFactoryits global production strategy that seeks to promote digitalization starting with warehouse number 52 of the Spartanburg plant. The BMW X3 is produced here and the BMW iX5 electric. In this plant, technologies such as 3D simulations have already been implemented to optimize processes and vision and sound systems based on AI that provide real-time feedback to operators. Unlike the first pilot, this time they have chosen a more complex task in the sense that it undergoes changes and does not always follow the same pattern, which makes traditional industrial robots not the best option. If Figure 03 manages to maintain the precision and rhythm of the assembly line, it will be the litmus test to see whether humanoid robots can go from being a laboratory demonstration to a real worker. Images | bmw In Xataka | Humanoid robots will be truly ready when they manage to summit Everest. And they are already at it

Europe has realized that nothing matters in technological sovereignty if it does not spend money on something crucial: defending its submarine cables

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There is a type of technological infrastructure that is invisible, but that has become essential in recent years: submarine cables. Conflicts like those of the Red Sea either the ukrainian war have shown that the seabed is a new battlefield. Damaging submarine cables havoc can be wreaked, and the European Union has just outlined its plan to strengthen the security and resilience of these cables. The goal? Track and stop threats in real time, but also repair underwater cables that enemies have attacked as soon as possible. Plan of action. In recent months, Europe has been weaving a plan to protect its submarine cables. These cables carry most of the world’s Internet traffic (an estimated 99%), but also other essential goods such as energy, vital when we want to tackle offshore energy. Hence the importance and, obviously, why the attacks also focus on them. Only in the first months of 2025 were more than a dozen submarine cables cut which seem few, but it really is something that can wreak havoc. And, therefore, Europe started to define an Action Plan with four main categories of action: Prevention: carry out risk assessments coordinated by countries and prioritize the financing of “smart” cables with redundancy. Detection: improve the monitoring capabilities of sea basins such as the Mediterranean or the Baltic to obtain a situation picture in real time. Response and recovery: strengthening rapid repair capacity and improving EU crisis protocols to act in a coordinated manner when a cable is damaged. Deterrence: use diplomacy and ultimately sanctions to respond to hostile acts. With global partners, promote a pact to encourage “cable diplomacy.” Repair of a cable Quick response. But of course, if deterrence does not work, we must act, and more recently, the European Commission has announced the steps to reinforce that strategy that aims to ensure that a damaged submarine cable causes as few headaches as possible. With an allocation of 40 million euros, the Commission seeks to guarantee a rapid and effective response to disturbances of submarine cables in emergency situations through adaptable modules. These modules, like repair kits, will be strategically positioned in various sea basins so that, in the event of a cable break, the ships repairing the cables will have quick access to these modules. It is one more step in a strategy that already had a first pilot call for 20 million euros a few months ago and whose objective was to finance modules in the Baltic Sea. Booster. Another measure will be the installation of the first two regional cable centers. In the Baltic, a Regional Center will be opened that will be responsible for strengthening surveillance and response mechanisms. The idea is that, with an allocation of 2.5 million euros, the information exchange platform and the capacity to both detect and prevent threats to maritime infrastructure will be improved. Finland will be the coordinator of the center together with Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Latvia and Sweden. On the other hand, in the Mediterranean, another center will be supported with 3.3 million euros. The task will be to make decisions, exchange information in real time and the same as in the Baltic: anomaly detection and coordinated response to incidents. Italy will be the coordinator together with Greece, Cyprus and Malta. With the first regional cable centers, Europe moves towards enhanced capabilities, strengthening our ability to detect threats, act faster and respond together – Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice President for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Next steps. In the end, these two strategies are part of a much larger plan in which they had already been assigned 595 million euros to 74 continental connectivity projects. In February of this year, the Commission also advertisement a package of some 347 million euros exclusively for submarine cable projects (construction, monitoring and repair), which shows that it is a strategic, basic infrastructure that fits in with the technological sovereignty plan that Europe is pursuing after seeing associations with allied countries weakened in recent years. Image | What’s Inside? In Xataka | A third of the world’s population cannot read this: the UN reveals that 2.9 billion people have never accessed the internet

“They considered those lands as if they had no owner, since they counted their inhabitants as nothing”

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Just take a walk through Malaga to come across dozens of little blue signs with two letters, “AT”. That is, “tourist apartments”. This has been the case for a long time, but in recent years tourist pressure has become increasingly intense. Maybe that’s why, on almost every AT poster, you can see stickers that say “Before this was my house”, “Mayor Your dead”, “To Your fucking house”, “I stink like a tourist”. And it is interesting to look at them because they are a very precise x-ray of how the same problem is channeled in completely different ways. That distinction has been written for 230 years and the nuance marks everything. When Kant kicked out all the tourists Königsberg. Anyone who knows anything about Kant You will know that he was not exactly a revolutionary. The German philosopher barely left his city on the shores of the Baltic and, in fact, was famous for following a routine so exact that neighbors could adjust the clock time with their walks. Of course, he didn’t have the blood in his veins to throw anyone out of Königsberg. However, in ‘On Perpetual Peace’ (1795) He developed an idea that, brought to our days, can help us understand the limits of tourism: that of hospitality. Hospitality? Yes and, believe me, it is a slippery concept. Historically, this same concept served the theorists of the School of Salamanca to justify the conquest of America and Kant to drive people out of his city. The devil, as always, is in the details. After all, any philosophically developed concept of hospitality focuses on limits: it focuses on recognizing that the stranger has the right not to be treated with hostility as long as he comes in peace. That is, you have the right to visit, to sightsee in our cities. But (and here is the heart of the artichoke) what you do not have the right to do is to rearrange the site to your liking. Kant uses the idea of ​​’inhospitable conduct’ to condemn the Western powers: ‘visiting’ or ‘trading’ meant for them to treat the lands as if they had no owner and its inhabitants as ‘nothing’. ‘Hospitality’ cannot become a way of remaking the place you arrive at to your advantage. And why are we interested in this? Because Spain Spain broke its record in 2024: 93.8 million international tourists, 10.1% more than the previous year. Only in July 2025 11 million people arrived. That pressure is changing cities to serve tourism. But is that wrong…? To understand the contemporary nuances, it is worth bringing up the philosopher Lea Ypi and her update of the Kantian concept of colonialism. In his works on this topicYpi points out that the problem is not the origin of the visitor, nor that the natives have a kind of ‘ownership’ over the territory: the problem is the dynamics that deny the locals a relationship of equals with the visitors. That is to say, touristification is not bad because it fills cities with foreign tourists, but because it is a phenomenon that, taking refuge in lack of definition, reorganizes the city for the benefit of outsiders and, along the way, expels those who live in it. The moral problem is not the immigrant or ‘expat’ who arrives in a community and integrates into it to strengthen it; The problem is that it erodes it and puts it at its service (even if it is not with armies and cannons, even if it is with an asymmetry in economic relations). As the theorist recalls Margaret Moore“residents” is defined by having a life tied to a place, not by being born there (or having property there). The unfaithful trustee. Because yes, in many cases this touristification is only possible thanks to the necessary collaboration of many ‘natives’ who are enriched by it. However, that argument often forgets that, although these people have concrete property rights that they are entitled to exploit, they also have a fiduciary responsibility for the common good. The owners who indiscriminately put groups of tourists into neighboring communities until they become uninhabitable are not exercising their right, they are ignoring their responsibilities towards the community of owners and the city in which they carry out this activity. That is, it’s not the who, it’s the what. The distinction is fragile, it is true. But it is useful to understand “what is wrong” with touristification. And for something written over 200 years ago by a very troubled guy from Königsberg (who, as far as we know, never set foot on a beach) it’s not bad at all. Image | Xataka In Xataka | What did Immanuel Kant mean when he argued that patience is not “a force of resistance, but rather one that hopes to make suffering satisfactory?”

In the nineties many people had a cactus next to their computer. It wasn’t for decoration, it was to protect yourself from radiation

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A few days ago we were talking about a myth circulating that says that if you put a coin on top of the router improves WiFi. It’s as stupid as a temple, but it’s the typical easy-to-do trick that ends up going viral. In the nineties we did not have social networks and the word viral had a completely different meaning, but myths of dubious credibility were also spread, such as the one that said you had to have a cactus next to your computer to absorb its radiation. The origin of the myth. It is believed to come from from an observation made at the geobiology institute in Chardonne, Switzerland, in 1987. It was not a formal experiment, but rather the perception of the institute’s employees who claimed that placing a cactus next to the monitor reduced their symptoms of fatigue and headache after spending many hours working. To that anecdote was added, without links or details, the reference to “a NASA study.” There is no evidence to support any of this, but the use of institutional names was enough for the myth to spread with a semblance of scientific rigor that it never had. Fear of radiation. The word radiation acquired a very negative tone especially after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. However, not all types of radiation are harmful. “Bad” radiation is ionizing radiation, such as x-rays or gamma rays, but in the case of a computer, it is low-frequency electromagnetic radiation, non-ionizing and incapable of altering our cells. This and other myths (such as related to 5G) arise from the false belief of associating any type of radiation with something dangerous and harmful. Why a cactus. The fact that a cactus is recommended and not any other plant has to do with the fact that they have a high water content and of course, like water absorbs radiation since it is assumed that the cactus will also do it. It can absorb radiation, yes, but no more than any object: by that rule of three, a watermelon or a jug of water next to the computer would achieve an even greater effect. In addition to the fact that the electromagnetic field that a computer can emit is not harmful, it goes out in all directions, so to protect us from it, we would have to surround the entire machine with cacti, not place one next to it and that’s it. Efficacy not found. In 2018, a group of Turkish scientists set out to check if changes occurred in the electromagnetic field by placing a cactus nearby of the screen. They were made with LCD monitors and old tube monitors, as well as different varieties of cacti, including some large ones. They measured the electromagnetic field by placing the cactus in various positions and came to a clear conclusion: the effect was null. Although this trick has been refuted, the popular belief has remained and there are those who have taken advantage of it. Who is it? The cactus sellers. Image | Magnificent In Xataka | We could assume that the plant world was one of the last AI-free corners. we would be wrong

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