exist

The shadow name behind the US tariffs that have collapsed the markets is rum. The problem is that it does not exist

by

Peter Navarro He has been the main commerce and manufacturing advisor with Trump twice, once in each mandate. His role in 2025: main architect of the Tariff policies implemented, advocating those significant rates about imports in virtually all countries, now and for a few hours, mainly to China. Behind the economy expert was a figure in the shadow, a name that had repeated in his books to justify the planetary impact of tariffs: Ron Vara. The only problem is that Vara … does not exist. Invent. History, as we will see, actually It is not newor not at all, but it has been the gossip of US media Thanks to Rachel Maddowwho explained in his television program that Vara is not only a non -existent figure, but his name is a “Navarro” anagram, a deliberate alteration that allows us to understand this creation as a kind of Ideological reflection of its author. According to Maddow, Navarro It was not limited To mention it once: he quoted it “again and again” as a reliable source in economic matters, and even attributed a memorandum that circulated in Washington after Trump’s victory, where Ron Vara affirmed that the then president could “ride the tariffs until victory.” The creation of a fictitious voice. The story goes back to 2019. Until then, Navarro, an economist with a doctorate at Harvard and a key figure of the most radically protectionist wing of the Trump government, had been a reference for years in the Anti-China Economic Speech In the United States. Author of multiple books, articles and documentaries, their influence grew in the heat of a rhetoric that presented Beijing as a systemic threat, both for the US economy and for its national security. However, in A revelation That caused perplexity in both the academic and politician world, it was discovered that Navarro had invented the character of Ron Vara, presented for almost two decades as his legitimate and reliable source of economic wisdom. Ron Vara was not a real person, but an anagram of the surname “Navarro” that the author used as a literary alter ego in at least five of his thirteen books. That invention, which was presented to the public without any clarification, was Discovered by Tessa Morris-SuzukiEmerita Professor of the National University of Australia, who, when investigating Navarro’s claims about China, noticed the recurrence of this alleged expert, of which there was no verifiable record. Navarrese Evolution of the fictional character. I counted then The Times that Ron Vara first appeared in 2001, in the book If it’s raining in Brazil, Buy Starbuckswhere he describes him as a veteran of the Gulf War with Economics Formation by Harvard, exactly as Navarro himself. Since then, the character was summoned as a source in later books, always with sharp, ironic or scathing phrases, which seemed to provide color and popular authority to the author’s argument. Over time, even ideas that Navarro had signed as their own were attributed retroactively to rod in later books, Like the warning “Don’t Play Checkers in A Chess World”, which appears under the voice of the character in The Well-Timed Strategy (2006) and Always to Winner (2009). As Navarro focused his attention on The conflict with ChinaVara also acquired an increasingly nationalist and alarmist tone, participating rhetorically in attacks against the Chinese productive and consumption system, and serving as a narrative bridge between academic discourse and a pseudocomic voice of common sense loaded with slogans. Vara as spokesman for truth. As Navarro’s writings became more ideological, Vara became a resource to reinforce ideas that bordered the conspiracy. In The Coming China Warsfor example, counted the times that cited him in a chapter dedicated to the alleged toxicity of the Chinese food chain, With phrases like “You’ve Got To Be Nuts To Eat Chinese Food.” In Death by Chinathe book and documentary that consolidated the image of Navarro as the great ideologist of the “Chinese danger” within the Trump administration, Vara appears with sentences that seem to synthesize the general thesis, as (Times appointment): “The manufacturing dragon is voracious.the colonial dragon is rementless. The American Eagle is Asleep at The Wheel.” Apparently, this stylization of the character not only sought to simplify complex messages, but also provide them with a varnish of popular authenticity. Instead of invoking studies or external sources, Navarro created its own voice that functioned as a catalyst for its arguments, disguising a personal opinion as an alien and validated observation. The reactions. When the truth was uncovered a few years ago, that Ron Vara was simply an invention, he not only caused reactions in the academic world, where the legitimacy of an author who hid fiction under the clothing of the dissemination would be, but also Among the colleagues themselves from Navarro. Glenn Hubbard, former presidential advisor and co -author of Seeds of Destructionhe declared that he totally ignored the fictitious nature of the character. Michael Pillsbury, expert in Chinese politics of the Hudson Institute and personal friend of Navarro, also SHe showed surprised: “I always knew that Peter was creative and imaginative, but I underestimated it seriously.” For its part, the University of California in Irvine, where Navarro worked as a professor before assuming his role in the White House, He demarcated of the matter indicating that the author no longer represents the institution, and declined to comment. Navarro’s response. Faced with the discovery, Navarro showed no regret or offered justifications. In statements To The Chronicle of Higher Educationcompared Ron Vara with Alfred Hitchcock’s cameos in his films, qualifying him as A “private joke” Finally discovered. Even in a later message Sent to New York Timeshe invoke his alter ego again: “As Ron Vara would say, ‘Relax and have fun reading the books.” Between fiction and reality. This carefree reaction contrasted with the seriousness of the act in the context in which it occurred: books presented as serious, often academic works, and with strong impact on the formulation of public policies. The line between the … Read more

50 years later the amazing thing is not that Microsoft continues to exist. The hallucinating thing is that it remains (Tan) relevant

by

Does 50 years Two young people called Bill Gates and Paul Allen They created the one that has become the largest software empire in history. That April 4, 1975 was born Micro-Soft. The name occurred to Allen, what years later I didn’t remember why he used the script and that capital. The detail has remained in anecdote. One of the thousands which are already part of the history of a company that has managed to be relevant and toe for half a century. There are not many in the world of technology that can boast something like that. How did you do it? Windows 10: 9 very useful and little known tricks Reinventing himself. Microsoft has been lifted after each fall. And there have been many. And very important. But it was not so at the beginning. Microsoft, like all the big ones, was loved long before being (deeply) hate. Gates and Allen were in the right place and moment, but they also knew how to take advantage of their opportunities. The first arrived in 1980, when they reached an agreement with IBM to provide the operating system for its PCs. It is curious how history is repeated again and again, because that is just what would happen to that operating system that would end up calling themselves. Gates and Allen did not create that operating system: they bought the original, QDOS/86-dos, for $ 50,000, and modified it so that it could be used on the IBM PCs. Apple did the same with Nextstep (based on FreeBSD) When he bought Next and ended up turning that operating system in Mac OS X. years later Google would buy a small startup called Android Inc. to take advantage of an operating mobile system that he had created. That said. The story ended up. But those are other stories. That agreement with IBM was a turning point, but above all it was for its terms. Microsoft received $ 430,000 for that product – very less than Ibm hoped to have to pay – but Microsoft maintained the ability to sell its operating system to other companies. From that moment Microsoft was a rocket. One controlled by a Gates implacable and fierce. With their lights and their (many) shadows, Gates and his company would soon begin to achieve the goal that They had marked and that a priori seemed impossible: put a computer in each home. It did not matter others doing things in a different or better way: Microsoft always managed to impose itself. He did it with MS-DOS and of course he did it with his long and erratic Light of Windows operating systems or with its office suite, Office, today maximum expression of the intention of how everything can (but should not) become a service in the cloud. For 25 years, Microsoft was no one to cough him, but then the earthquakes began to arrive. First, Internet, browsers, search engines and social networks. Then the smartphone. Redmond’s company lost all those wars. Always late and bad, and he was convicted of that Innovative dilemma in which David wins the game to Goliath. But there is the really amazing. Microsoft fell and lost those wars, but he got up again and reinvented. Even those that had won – like that of the browsers, With Internet Explorer– He ended up losing them, but we insisted: it didn’t matter. There we saw the true strength of Microsoft. It didn’t matter if the general public hated her: they did not give up and tried one, and another, and again. They failed with bing in search engines, they had to spend 26.2 billion dollars to “compete” on social networks and also shipwrecked (Too bad) With Windows Phone. And once again, it didn’t matter. Faced with these failures, new successes. Not only that: definitive reinvention. After the arrival of new contendliere NadellaMicrosoft changed the image and of strategy. Of being hated and almost ignored it was relevant and even loved. He got it shyly In the mobile segment, but where he has achieved an exceptional triumph has been in the cloud, where Azure marks the pattern with his great rival, AWS. And since then and along the way, many more stories, many smaller and large failures and also many small and large hits. It is impossible to put them all here, but it is also inevitable not to mention legendary products. Among them the Xbox, pillar of a very forty bet But not especially fortunate For the video game segment. Or also the successes that the company also achieved with the devices of the Surface family. The Hololens were Another failureYes, but one that at least showed that the company always tried to reinvent himself. In those is precisely now Microsoft, but this time not to lose what may be the most important train in history: The artificial intelligence. His reaction thus has been faster and more ambitious than on other occasions, but still the unknowns about the result of that bet are enormous. Whatever happens, it will probably give the same. And it will give the same because Microsoft will end up doing what you have always done. Reinvent yourself. Happy 50, Microsoft. In Xataka | Bill Gates has told how he made Microsoft into the giant that is now: “I focused my life only on a single job”

All solar panel technologies that exist and which are more efficient, in a graph that goes 1975 until today

by

The fastest energy transition in history is not the industrial revolution, as many think, but the one that is happening now With renewable energies. Renewables are being installed at a rate five times greater than all other combined energy sources. And although the great habilitator is the worldwide commitment to zero net emissions, it is the brutal evolution of solar panels that has allowed to reach this point. Photovoltaic panels have been so much that solar energy Start leaving wind energytraditionally more efficient. Throughout the last decades, solar cells have experienced a radical transformation, driven both by advances in material engineering and in innovations in manufacturing techniques; mainly from the Chinese industry, although Japan is trying to lead The next generation. The National Renewable Energies Laboratory (NREL) has Published a graph that illustrates at a glance How each photovoltaic technology has advanced since the 70s and which cells are more efficient today. Traditional cells: crystalline silicon Crystalline silicon cells The crystalline solar cells of silicon (blue in the graph) have dominating the market for several decades. The polyristaline silicon (the one used in solar panels with bluish crystals) is cheaper, but monochronic silicon (with black crystals) is the current standard of the industry thanks to continuous improvements in purification and production processes, which have approached their efficiency to an ability to convert 27.6% of sunlight into energy. Thin film technologies (green in the graph) emerged as an alternative to the crystalline silicon for facilities that require greater flexibility, lower weight or a large -scale manufacturing. The most efficient thin film cells are currently those of copper, Indian, Gallic and Selenium (CIGS) with an efficiency of 23.6%, closely followed by those of cadmium teluro (CDTE). The emerging: organic and perovskitas Emerging technologies cells Red in the graph, they are the photovoltaic cells that have tried to remove the throne from the silicon. Organic cells and coloring sensitized cells (DSSC) use organic compounds to absorb light. Its efficiency is modest (around 19%), but they have the advantage of their low cost and the possibility of integrating them into flexible devices and buildings with varied colors. One of the most revolutionary innovations in recent years has been the development of Perovskita cells (red with yellow filling in the graph). Thanks to its crystalline structure inspired by the mineral of the same name, these cells have been achieving exponential increases in efficiency in a short time, even if they were invented in Japan in the 80s. Perovskita cells are already as efficient as silicon, with an efficiency of 27%, but they have the problem of degrading much earlier. The tandem, the best of both worlds Tandem two materials cells The photovoltaic cells that make up silicon and perovskita in tandem are the most promising for generalized use today. The secret of combining both materials is that the upper perovskita layer absorbs high -energy wavelengths and the lower silicon layer captures the rest of the spectrum. With an efficiency of 36.1%, Tandem cells (brown in the graph) have left behind the theoretical limit of traditional silicon cells (33.7%). Although in the laboratories we still try to look for alternatives to the silicon, which is a more expensive material and with a supply chain controlled by China. All photovoltaic cells and their evolution By the latter, triple or more layers (multijunction) unions are the cells that have reached the greatest efficiencies in laboratory conditions: up to 47.6%. Its cost is high and its production is complex, but these cells are useful in solar concentrators, where maximum performance is sought. Images | NREL

Trump has determined to obtain a piece of the rare earths of Ukraine. The only problem is that they may not exist

by

Trump has begun this new legislature under an idea of ​​appropriating everything that can get an economic revenue and is not under his jurisdiction. It started with Greenland And now he wants to do it with Ukraine, but as happened with the first, in the Eastern country he will not find anything he thinks. Short. Donald Trump has declared that Ukraine has vast reserves of rare earths, but is far from reality. In fact, This statement is disassembled with the American geological service that does not include the East country as a significant deposit holder of these minerals. But why this obsession? As soon as he assumes the position as president, Trump He established that he wanted to “buy” Greenland as a strategic zone within the geopolitical framework and for its mineral wealth, which according to energy experts Javier Blas and Richard Milne It was not as the current president of the United States states, despite being an area with a large extension capacity. However, all this obsession behind rare earths is to ensure access to strategic resources that, for the most part, They are dominated by China. Control of these resources It is crucial For advanced technological applications and weapons production. Ensuring rare earth supply could have significant geopolitical implications, and in a context of rivalry with China, it could be part of its strategy to diversify the sources of these elements. And why now Ukraine? The analyst Javier Blas details it well for Bloombergsince the issue began when the Ukrainians presented to Trump a “Victoria Plan” highlighting the country’s mineral potential. This led Trump to speak publicly about the rare earths of Ukraine on several occasions, even mentioning a surprisingly high amount in dollars that the US could obtain from these resources, without basis on geological reality. The energy expert considers that the confusion probably arises from a misunderstanding or error of Trump by linking Ukraine with rare earths, when in reality the country does not have large deposits of these minerals. It could also have been confused with other mineral resources that Ukraine does, such as titanium and Gallium, which are valuable but not of the same strategic magnitude as rare earths. The misinformation is everywhere. However, it should be noted that this confusion by President Trump has also been fed by erroneous reports or conspiracy theories that circulate in the political sphere, which mention minerals such as lithium, beryllium or even uranium, which sometimes They are wrongly included in “rare earth” lists. In fact, this report It was published in December last year by the NATO Energy Security Excellence Center, a Autonomous organism Affiliated with the Military Alliance and that uses its name and logo. However, as Blas details, if these are the source used by Trump’s advisors, it is an important problem for global policy. The strategic point. Although Ukraine does not have vast mineral reserves, the country is in a very important geopolitical location, since it is a country of containment against Russia. For years, Ukrainian gas pipelines They have been essential For Russian gas supply to Europe, becoming a constant source of tension. The European Russian Gas Dependency has generated energy crisis and geopolitical disputeswhich further reinforces the relevance of Ukraine on the international board. In this context, the obsession with its mineral resources is not only an economic issue, but also an attempt to reinforce the geopolitical and energy security of the western bloc. Under threat. Before all this situation, in recent statements, Trump has attacked Zelensky calling it “dictator” And warning that, if he doesn’t act quickly, Ukraine could disappear. In addition, he has criticized the lack of previous agreements to avoid war and the high cost of the conflict for the United States. Within these recent statements, he also suggested that Europe should assume a majority of military spending, since it considers that war affects Europe more than the United States. Image | The White House and Unspash Xataka | Trump wants to apply tariffs of more than 25% to chips and that means one thing: much more expensive laptops

A study has simulated what would happen on Earth if Asteroid Bennu ends up impacting in 2182. The climate we know would not exist

by

The chances of crashing an asteroid of “large” category on our planet They are, on average, 0.001%. Therefore, everything that begins to raise that figure begins to be “less” normal. Hence Let’s talk about 2024 YR4 and its 1.6%. That said, and although there are less possibilities that it will occur, due to its size, The Bennu Asteroid It would be one of the most dangerous of the solar system. How much? That is precisely what they wanted to find out in South Korea. Potentially dangerous. The Bennu Asteroid, an object close to the land of approximately 0.5 kilometers in diameter, has been identified as one of the greatest known space threats. His orbit brings him closer to our planet every six years, and although the risk of impact is extremely low (right now it is 0.037%), the possibility of colliding with the Earth on September 24, 2182 has led the scientific community to the scientific community analyze in depth its possible effects. An unprecedented recent study, Posted in Science Advances By researchers at the IBS Institute of Climate Physics of the National University of Pusan ​​in South Korea, it has modeled for the first time the climatic and ecological consequences of an impact of a medium -sized asteroid such as Bennu. The results, of course, are not the best. The legacy of an ancient asteroid. Scientists believe that Bennu detached himself from a larger asteroid, rich in carbon, between 700 million and two billion years ago, progressively approaching the Earth’s orbit. Its composition is of great scientific interest for a simple and fascinating reason: contains key elements for lifewhat motivated NASA’s Osiris-Rex mission to explore it in 2020 and bring samples to Earth in 2023. However, and beyond its scientific value, Bennu represents a real risk that, although unlikely, cannot be ignored. Impact simulation. As explained in the study, South Korean researchers designed Detailed models to analyze how that possible impact of Bennu would affect climate, biodiversity and food security. What did they find? The most extreme scenario revealed that the impact would inject into the atmosphere between 100 and 400 million tons of dust. In other words, more graphic: it would block sunlight and plunge the planet in abrupt cooling. As for the effects, the simulation showed a certainty: They would be global and devastating. Namely: reduction in the average planet temperature in up to 4 ° C, a decrease comparable to the eras glaciers, 15% drop in rainfall, affecting the water supply and agriculture, loss of 32% of the ozone layer , exposing life on Earth to dangerous levels of ultraviolet radiation, and the decrease in photosynthesis by 20-30%, both in terrestrial and sailor ecosystems, which would cause a serious crisis in food production. In short, these combined effects would trigger, according to the study, A winter of impact that would last between three and four yearscausing global famine and an ecological crisis of enormous proportions. Comparison with past events. While a Bennu impact would be devastating, the truth is that the earth has faced major threats. The best known event occurred 66 million years ago, When an asteroid of 10 kilometers in diameter hit what is now Chicxulub, Mexicocausing the extinction of dinosaurs and climatic alterations that endured thousands of years. In comparison, Bennu is significantly smaller, but large enough to cause mass destruction and deeply alter the biosphere. Not just that. Other studies suggest that medium -sized asteroids such as bennu collide with the earth approximately every 100,000 to 200,000 years, indicating that Our prehistoric ancestors could have experienced similar events with impact on human evolution and global biodiversity. Impact on the oceans. Despite the catastrophic effects, Bennu’s impact could generate an unexpected reaction on the oceans. The iron released in the stratosphere would be deposited in the sea, stimulating the proliferation of phytoplankton and zooplanktonessential organisms for the marine food chain. According to the study, while land ecosystems would take two to three years to recover, Marine life could recover in just six monthsand even exceed their levels prior to the impact due to the increase in nutrients. Planetary Defense Strategies. Despite the low impact risk, NASA and other space agencies work on the development of planetary defense technologies. For example, the Dart mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test)carried out in 2022, he successfully demonstrated the human ability to divert the trajectory of an asteroid, opening the door to future mitigation strategies. And besides Bennu, there are other more immediate threats. For example and as we have explained these days, Asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 1.6% probability of impacting the Earth in 2032which reinforces the need to continue with research and develop effective prevention systems. What does seem clear to this last study is that not only reveals the vulnerability of our planet to cosmic events, but also highlights that need to advance surveillance and planetary defense technology. While the possibility that Bennu or any other asteroid impact the earth is minimal, geological history demonstrates that events of this type have shaped the evolution of life and could happen again in the future. Image | Ghost presentNASA In Xataka | All DNA bases and 14 of 20 amino acids: NASA has found molecules linked to life in Bennu samples In Xataka | Physicists have been looking for a fundamental “fifth strength.” Bennu may have approached us to find her

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.