Fed up with AI, a programmer created a chat where 16,000 people pretend to be ChatGPT so they don’t have to use it

I don’t need to tell you that the old internet is long dead: first, centralized in social networks and their respective algorithms. Then, with artificial intelligence: There is already more content generated by artificial intelligence than by humans. In fact, even the omnipresent Google search engine gives you the answer in its AI mode whenever it can. What times were those when the best of human wisdom was condensed in a forum thread in a disinterested way and how authentic content created by humans is missing in an internet increasingly dominated by material made by machines but, yesIf you can’t beat him, join himso if the AI ​​is stealing your work, why not become a ChatGPT with legs and steal it from it? This ChatGPT is very human. Is called “Your AI Slop Bores Me” (your AI garbage bores me) and it is a real call to quality, intention and human effort: a chat interface in Comic Sans, a box where you can ask your question or draw for the AI ​​and a “model” behind it that has the mission of answering you in less than 60 seconds. Except for one small detail: behind it there is a person who has decided to adopt that role because this is a parody of the many chatbots with AI that exist and we often use. Although hey, since you part with a couple of credits to ask and they run out quickly, sooner rather than later you will have to turn the tables and become a fast, responsive AI (Larp mode). Be careful, the answers receive evaluation. It’s a kind of reverse Touring test. This web game created by Mihir Maroju became a phenomenon: it was launched in March of this year and in its first week there were already 16,000 concurrent users in real time, like pick up Fast Company. In fact, its dev explains that the success was such that he had to update servers. The only thing missing is that you need your own data center. Your AI Slope Bores me interface Why is it important. Because if the internet brought us the word spam, AI has done the same with “slop”: that filth vomited without care. And boy do we complain: according to an analysis by TRG Datacentersmentions of the term ‘AI slop’ on networks grew to reach 2.4 million this year. The Merriam-Webster he chose it Word of the Year 2025. But this experiment is proof that the old internet is still alive: people who don’t gain followers, likes, or money for helping and still continue to respond. It is, in a way, a way to recover the dynamics of internet forums before the attention economy of networks: places where help was not measured by engagement. Context. The game has more to it than it seems because it gamifies a real problem on today’s internet. At the beginning of the year, Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube, declared that reducing slop and detecting deepfakes were absolute priorities for the platform. And it is no wonder: a recent investigation by New York Times has uncovered that after watching popular children’s content on YouTube, 40% of the videos recommended below were AI slop. Low-quality content generated by artificial intelligence is already a reality that floods everything and not even the academic world is spared. Now, in AI mode. Your AI Slope Bores Me In detail. The tutorial on how to play It is a veiled criticism of AI and its ways of writing. Thus, he recommends starting the texts with the now mythical “As an AI language model”, the use of excessively polite phrases or directly hallucinating. The game turns the systemic flaws of LLMs into playable mechanics. The design of the website is deliberately minimalist and tacky, it does not require a download, it works on any browser and device and works in real time and multiplayer. But there is a phenomenon under this game that was unexpected and yet it is happening: that chat format and anonymity, because there is no need to create an account and there is no history, encourages people to ask more personal questions and on the other side there are people willing to answer just because, altruistically. Yes, but. The game has certain limitations: that credit mechanic creates some friction and imbalance, because if there are too many people running in AI mode and not enough people sending questions, you can be left fallow for a long time. On the other hand, and although it is done with humor, today it is increasingly difficult to distinguish what an AI has written and what not: looking for the tickling of the models is increasingly complicated due to their training and debugging. Finally, the experience is somewhat marred by ads. In Xataka | Sam Altman laments that the internet is full of AI and bots: the irony is that he is one of the most responsible In Xataka | 20 years later, if you want to find something on the Internet you search for it on Reddit Cover | Your AI Slop Bores me with Gemini

“I would rather 20,000 employees be happy and well fed than a few become millionaires”

Three Kings’ Eve in 1914 appeared in The New York Times a surprising announcement: Henry Ford, Head of Ford Motor Company, will distribute ten million dollars among his employees throughout 1914. He will do so semi-annually and it will be an addition to the salary of each of the workers. The figure of 10 million dollarsas Henry Ford himself would confirm to the newspaper in an edition a few days later, was an estimate. He planned to distribute that amount at the end of the year but it could rise to 12 million dollars. Or it could be less. Those 10 million represented half of the profits expected at the end of the year. The day after the publication of the announcement, The New York Times echoed the madness: 10,000 employees showed up at the door of the Ford factory in Detroit to get a new job. That day, the company was already paying another 15,000 employees for whom entering the factory was more complicated than ever. “I think it is better for the nation, and much better for humanity, for 20,000 or 30,000 people to be happy and well fed than for a few to become millionaires,” Ford himself assured the journalist who went to cover the news. The announcement caused such commotion at the time that many changed jobs to form lines on the Ford Model T assembly line, as explained at the beginning of that same article in which the case of a 16-year-old boy who changed fields from the factory is told. But it also raised eyebrows among the competition to the point that it was questioned whether the owner of the company was not engaging in some type of anti-competitive action, they state in Barrons. “If Ford wants to have fun, so be it. He can afford it. Others can’t,” noted rival automaker Joseph J. Cole on Five Dollar Day. Five Dollar Day On Three Kings’ Day 1914, the day following the appearance of the aforementioned advertisement in The New York Timeshe Detroit Free-Press He referred to it as “Five Dollar Day”. This exemplified that Ford would pay at least five dollars to its employees with this new measure, double what it had been doing until now. As we said and as Henry Ford himself tried to explain in the article in The New York Times, It was not a salary increase. The worker continued to earn the same amount but, he calculated, this is what he would earn if a dividend of 10 million dollars was distributed among everyone. Ford was asked if he was a “socialist” for distributing profits among his employees, which was immediately denied. But he presented his theory: if workers performed at a good level, they should enjoy part of those benefits. And if they had the incentive to win it, they would work better. Furthermore, no exceptions were made, the sweeper and the person in charge of his line would collect the dividends that corresponded to them. That is, a payment strategy for objectives without distinctions. What Henry Ford discovered is that chain assembly was essential to impose his car on the competition. The higher the production volume, the lower the cost for the brand and the lower the cost for the customer. If the worker was attracted by the salary, there were more possibilities of attracting workers and continuing to feed the production chain. The result is that in a market where no one else could produce their cars at that rate and price, the Ford Model T became the best-selling car in the world. In fact, It is still among the 10 best-selling cars in history despite the fact that the production process has been perfected to the point of satiety. Car mass production completely changed the industry. He fordism It laid its foundations by rewarding workers. Much has been written about it, about Henry Ford’s intention to create a new middle class and for them to be the consumers of the products they manufactured. In Forbes They cast doubt on this theory repeated over time. By increasing the money to be received, they explain, what Henry Ford intended was to establish a workforce committed to the company and with a very low turnover. Employment was tough and in 1913 alone more than 52,000 people passed through the company despite the fact that 13,000 people worked in the factory. This high turnover prevented the assembly line from operating at full capacity because replacements had to be found and employees had to be retrained. They even claim that the assembly line came to a standstill due to the number of employees who left their jobs in search of a different job even though at that time charging just over two dollars was already good money. Doubling them and growing them to five dollars was a promise that was difficult to believe but also difficult to reject. Forbes He points out that Ford even hired people who went to employees’ homes to certify that the worker was behaving “in the American way.” That is to say, he kept himself from bad company and from getting drunk outside of office hours. And alcoholism was one of the biggest problems that the company’s assembly line was dealing with. Whether or not the corresponding part of the bonus was delivered depended on the verdict of these people. What they explain in this medium is that the theory that Ford wanted its own employees to buy its products is not true because, simply, it would have a very small impact on the company’s final accounts, but they do highlight that, sometimes, the quickest way to reduce costs is to increase salary costs, as paradoxical as it may sound. They say that John R. Lee, Ford’s advisor, defended his position by pointing out that “a man who comes from a well-balanced home, who does not fear for the basic necessities of life of those he cares for, who does not live in constant … Read more

Fed up with paying almost 8 euros for a Guinness, someone thought of setting up an index to find cheap beer

How delicious is that little beer that you drink right after leaving work or after a paddle tennis game and how angry it is when you find out that they have raised the price. Matt Cortland He paid €7.80 for a pint of Guinness in Dublin in March 2026 and didn’t like it one bit (the price, not the beer). So instead of criticizing the waiter or posting a review on Google complaining like some people do, he adopted another strategy that was slightly more laborious but much more effective (judging by its results): a very complete price index where he would know where to drink the best and at what price. Because revenge, like beer, is served cold. The project. Is called Guinndex and is independent of the very famous Irish beer brand. You go to the website, enter a pub, a city, a county or a postcode in the box and it returns pubs and the cost of a pint, as well as useful information such as its location or its score. Or you zoom in on the map to see with a traffic light map which taverns look cheaper than others. A good way to save if you travel to Ireland and fancy a pint of Guinness. In fact, it has very diverse rankings ranging from how long it takes to earn a pint (depending on salary) to pubs named after animals or the best pub names (praise be the “Hairy Lemon”). Today it has almost 6,500 registered pubs in the 32 counties of the country and almost 1,300 prices verified and rising thanks to anonymous contributions from users. The price index for Dublin. Guinndex Why is it important. Because the Irish Central Statistics Office stopped tracking the price of a pint since 2011, leaving a data gap of more than a decade in a country where Guinness is much more than a beer. And although Guinness is almost a religion in Ireland, it is the same everywhere: no one knows for sure if they are overcharging you compared to the standard price or how much extra. The Guinndex fills that gap with real, verified data, not estimates. Furthermore, it does so publicly and for free, so that it allows obtaining an objective reference so that consumers have information and can put pressure on prices. It’s the market, friend. On the other hand, and leaving aside the anecdote of finding where to drink cheaper, what it shows is relevant: that the cost of carrying out a complex idea has plummeted and streamlined so much that a single dev is capable of setting up a project of this magnitude in just 48 hours when before it took weeks of work, a certain budget and a team. Context. Matt Cortland likes AI, data and Guinness, as he himself admits on the project website. He is an American engineer based in London with strong ties to Ireland: his partner is irishlived and trained there with the George Mitchell scholarship and course the Creative Digital Media master’s degree from TU Dublin. He is not just a tourist they are trying to scam. The project came at a critical time: Diageo, the company that owns Guinness, had applied several price rises in a row and some pubs had taken the opportunity to inflate margins. If you’re not careful, you can pay up to €11 for a pint, although the average price in Dublin is €6.94 and €6.06 nationwide. How has he done it. With an AI agent named Rachel who looked human, understood Irish humor, and had a Northern Irish accent (after several tests, she concluded that this worked best), as its author tells. The task was simple and quick: call, ask the price of a pint of Guinness, say thank you and hang up. Few people discovered that it was a chatbot and there were all kinds of responses, even waiters who offered to buy him a round. During the St. Patrick’s weekend he called 3,000 pubs, answered more than 2,000 calls and more than a thousand pubs provided a price: he already had the Guinndex base. The technical stack was jack, knight and king: the Google Maps API, ElevenLabs for the voice and agent logic, Twilio for making the phone calls, and Claude for extracting Guinness prices from the transcripts. Cortland explains What cost him the most was time, since he only invested about 200 euros. The consequences. The most immediate impact is behavioral: Cortland account that the owner of a pub lowered the price of his Guinness by 0.40 euros and then updated the information in the Guinndex himself. When there is price transparency and it is available to everyone, it is capable of changing behaviors. However, the biggest consequence is the technological moment in which we live: three APIs, 200 euros and a weekend are enough to build a project from scratch, with real utility and that is already changing prices. The bottleneck is no longer money or infrastructure: it is knowing what problem is worth solving. In Xataka | Spain can tell itself as many times as it wants that it hates Cruzcampo. The figures say a very different thing In Xataka | We humans like beer. The big question is whether we like it enough to have invented agriculture Cover | Guinndex and Christopher Zapf

People are so, so fed up with AI in Windows 11 that a developer has created an app to eliminate it

A GitHub user named zoicware ended up so fed up with the presence of AI tools in Windows 11 that he ended up making a decision: eradicate them from the operating system. And since doing it by hand was hell, he came up with something that made his life easier and that can also make it easier for those who are in that situation: create an app called RemoveWindowsAI to remove all those functions. Enough with AI, Microsoft. The Redmond company wants Windows 11 to be full of AI, and for some time it has been adding more and more functions that allow you to take advantage of this technology natively both in the operating system and in some applications. We begin to see it with the controversial Windows Recallbut later that obsession was transferred to the native Copilot app, to Copilot integrated into Edge or to the Creator option of the legendary Paint application. Nobody asked for this. Pavan Davuluri, current president of the Windows division, published in X a message in which he explained that “Windows is evolving towards an agentic operating system.” Microsoft’s intention is clear, but the reception of the message was just the opposite of what the company would have expected: people simply You don’t want those AI options because you didn’t ask for them.. An app to leave Windows 11 without AI. A few months ago a GitHub user named zoicware published a unique project there called RemoveWindowsAI. In the tooltip this developer explains how “The current 25H2 build of Windows 11 and future builds will include more and more AI features and components. This script is aimed at removing ALL of those features to improve the user experience, as well as privacy and security.” What RemoveWindowsAI does. The script, which can be downloaded and then run as administrator from a PowerShell console, is responsible for removing the following components and functions: Disable Copilot Disable Recall Disable Input Insights and typed data collection Disable Copilot in Edge Disable Image Creator in Paint Remove AI Fabric Service Disable AI Actions Disable AI in Paint Disable Voice Access Disable AI Voice Effects Disable AI in Settings Search But there is still more. In addition to those actions, the script disables the reinstallation of packages related to AI features so that they are not offered again, hides those components in Windows 11 Settings, and also disables other features such as the new AI rewrite option in notepad. There are some AI features that cannot be removed with the script, but its creator also indicates how to get rid of them manually. Even a video of use. This developer also wanted to facilitate access to this tool adding documentation written and posting an 11 minute video in which he reviews the objective of the project and explains how to use it. bad signal. The criticism of Microsoft’s intention to turn Windows 11 into an operating system full of AI is clear, and this script is the latest demonstration of this. It does not seem that the company is going to reverse this trend. Mustafa Suleyman, head of the AI ​​division at Microsoft, explained in X I was amazed that people weren’t impressed by being able to talk to their PC calmly thanks to AI. “I grew up playing Snake on a Nokia phone!” he explained. Curiously, Elon Musk replied indicating that his argument seemed good to him. In Xataka | There’s a reason AI PCs aren’t hurting Apple: Nobody asked for AI PCs

We have been fed up with spam calls for years and operators are finally going to do something: MasOrange will be the first

We have talked about countless methods to try to deal with incessant spam calls; tricks to identify themas record them to be able to report… Operating systems have protections such as Google call filter and even The Government has promoted regulations to finish them off. It is striking that, given this panorama, we have not seen initiatives promoted by the operators themselves until now. MasOrange lays the first stone Image: MasOrange The operator has been the first to launch a tool to protect your customers from spam calls and fraudulent, it is a call filter that works directly on your network. To do this, MasOrange has teamed up with Hiya, a company specialized in caller identification using AI. The function It’s called ‘Visible Call’ and what it does is identify incoming calls suspected of fraud or spam. Through a notice on the screen, customers can decide whether to pick up or not. The functionality is free and will be activated on all terminals that have the function VoLTE. MasOrange’s proposal is very similar to other call filters such as Truecaller or the one that is integrated into the Android Phone app. The difference here is that it works directly on the network, so it will not be necessary to install any app. The first proposal to a problem that comes from afar The problem of spam calls is not something that started the day before yesterday; We have been suffering from them for years and it is not only about annoying business callsin recent years Telephone frauds have skyrocketed. The situation was such that we should have taken action on the matter much earlier. The operators They started blocking fraudulent calls and SMS this yearbut it was not on his own initiative, but as a consequence of the package of measures promoted by the Governmentwhich includes blocking calls from international origin and prohibition on making commercial calls using mobile numbers. According to an OCU survey from June of this year, 92% of respondents claimed to receive spam calls. This was before the new regulations came into force, but currently things are not looking much better. According to Facuaas of October of this year 4 out of 10 consumers continue to receive commercial calls. MasOrange brings its first proposal to a problem that, despite the obstacles, continues to find cracks through which to sneak through. Now the rest of the operators need to follow in their footsteps. Image | Pexelsedited In Xataka | Apple introduced the SPAM call filter as the star feature of iOS 26. It took me a week to deactivate it

Fed up with excessive luxury, social media users turn to normality: creators with everyday lives

A recent television controversy with the content creator @supaa97 has put on the table a series of issues that are perhaps at the opposite end of the topics we always talk about in reference to the influencers (fortunesluxuries, excesses): can content be created from absolute normality? Is that close to normalizing precariousness? And if it does, is it a problem? The Suyapa case. The controversy started, just as Suyapa says (which is his real name), when he agreed to do an interview for ‘Public Mirror’ to comment a video of your profile in which she told how she lived in a single room with her husband and son, and was classified as a “Poverty Influencer”, along with users who make videos with unboxings of government aid. Suyapa has stated that she is far from that type of content, and although it is true that she lives in very modest conditions in a single room, she earns her living by working as a cleaner and without resorting to aid, so she could not be included in a category of poverty. The appeal of normality. Suyapa makes a type of content closer to normcore (which is still a label created from top to bottom): these types of profiles share ordinary activities (from choosing simple and functional clothing to routines such as making a coffee, taking care of a pet or sharing morning tasks) moving away from the cult of luxury or drama that predominates in other digital spheres. They embrace simplicity and naturalness in both fashion and lifestyle: basic garments, discreet brands, homey environments and a staging that is not aspirational but friendly and accessible. He normcore as a label. This type of content is sometimes, as we say, a reaction to more luxurious and frivolous creators. If it arises spontaneously, because the creator does not ascend the social scale even if he wants to (as happens with Suyapa), or as a voluntary limitation, it is another question where you can talk about posture. That is to say, sometimes normcore is a false normality that arises as a reaction to luxury saturation. A more relaxed visual narrative is artificially sought, where the emotional connection is based on trust, identification and everyday honesty, but sometimes it is also a pose that seeks, paradoxically, to convey an image of coherence and credibility. What did they think it was? What ‘Espejo Público’ alluded to and where it mistakenly included @suyapaa97 was in a different type of phenomenon that we know as “pornomiseria” or “poverty porn”, which has two aspects: on the one hand, influencers on social networks that viralize acts of charity towards people in poverty to monetize these contents through likes, views and donations. One of the best known cases is that of Jimmy Dartswho with more than 12 million followers on TikTok, makes videos with homeless people, testing their honesty or proposing challenges. It is a controversial format that has a large number of ethical implications, even though influencers reward the people they portray with a large amount of money, as detailed this article. Something similar happens with amateur journalists who, under the pretext of portraying poverty and misery, create sensationalist content, a format whose origins date back to the seventies and that again has very complex moral connotations. Yonfluencers: from normality to luxury, and back again. Recentlythe rejection of social media consumers to the exaggerated and elitist display of luxury into which many have fallen influencers has made me think in how the perception we have of this type of content creators has changed. Many of them began as a daily reflection of our lives and as they earned money and followers, they distanced themselves from reality, generating a certain aversion from those who followed them for being a close and identifiable replica. That’s why content creators like Suyapa work, who have to overcome obstacles that are easy to identify with: tightening their belts to make ends meet, juggling time off from work or looking for affordable forms of leisure are some of the problems that the vast majority of people face. In Xataka | The influencer María Pombo defends her right not to read. And by the way, it raises an interesting controversy about habits

There are American and Europeans fed up with the lack of “traditional values” of the West. So they are moving to Russia

Surprising data were known last May: more and more Americans sought to leave the country to Live in Europe. The problem: that the old continent seemed to be closing its doors with migratory policies stricter. What very few anticipated is a new migratory current: that of Westerners who, seeking to recover the “traditional values” that have been lost … and end in Russia. The attraction for the Russia of War. I told it last week The Financial Times. In full invasion of Ukraine and under an increasingly repressive regime, a group of Westerners has chosen to move to Russia in search of what they perceive as “traditional values” in front of a west who consider decadent. Among the most notorious cases is Derek Huffman’san Arizona welder and father of six children, who emigrated with his wife and children alleging rejection of “LGBT indoctrination”, immigration and insecurity in the United States. To accelerate the obtaining of Russian citizenship, he decided to enroll in the Army and fight in Ukrainedefending Even on YouTube that he did to gain respect and a future in his new country. His extreme case has received criticism and also media attentionbecoming a symbol of a reduced but very publicized phenomenon. The “visa of shared values”. Moscow launched in 2024 A special visa For disenchanted western, which facilitates permanent residence to about 150 people per month, a measure that reminds of Soviet propaganda that opposed a corrupt West to a supposedly moral Russia. Although in numbers they are just A few hundredtheir stories receive great diffusion in YouTube channels with Professional productionseveral of them linked to Russia Today According to researchwhich suggests a state effort to amplify the narrative of Russia as a refuge for the conservatives of the West. Examples and integration networks. There are many more cases in addition to the Huffman, such as The one of the Feenstraa Canadian family with eight children who settled on a farm in Nizhni Nóvgorod and reached almost 200,000 subscribers On YouTube, or Stephen Shoresan American computer scientist turned to orthodoxy who claims to feel freer in Russia against the “culture of cancellation”, although he lives under the threat of Ukrainian drones. At the institutional level, figures such as Maria Butina (former Russian agent deported in the United States) and businessmen such as The German Jakob Pinneker They help these immigrants to integrate, facilitating their installation and extolling the “family order and values.” Contradictions and realities. While the Kremlin exhibits these cases as proof of its appeal, the reality is that tens of thousands of Russians They have fled since 2022 to avoid mobilization, political repression and international isolation. In the country itself, thousands of people fulfill condemns for protesting against war or publicly disagree with the regime. The paradox It is evident: Those who come from the West Echoes of the Cold War. What we see today has clear historical parallels with the Soviet strategy during the Cold War. At that time, the USSR I tried to attract to intellectuals, artists and western militants who felt marginalized or frustrated with the capitalism and politics of their countries. Many communists and supporters They traveled to Moscow convinced That there they would find equality and social justice, some even acquired Soviet citizenship or were used in propaganda campaigns that showed the “exploitative west” against “socialist paradise.” The most emblematic case was that of The deserters North Americans who, after the Korean or Vietnam War, sought refuge in the USSR or allies like Cuba and North Korea, converted in trophies ideological. Strategic background. The flow of Westerners to Russia is minimal in figures, but useful in the propaganda plane. Under the official narrative, it reinforces the idea that Russia is not isolated and that even citizens of the Western enemy seek refuge under their flag for reasons of values ​​and morals. In the geopolitical plane, it points to an attempt to counteract the story of a country in crisis and project the image of cultural strength against a fragmented West. Of course, social also reveals the existence of disenchanted minorities In Europe and the United States that, not finding lace in their societies, becomes something very similar to useful pieces for Moscow’s speech. Image | RakoonDerek Huffman/YouTube In Xataka | More and more Americans want to live outside the US but they have a problem: Europe is closing its doors In Xataka | Digital nomadic visas: the countries hook to attract the best digital talent without paying the cost to keep them

A YouTuber fed up that the mobiles were bored and theirs was built. The result is gloriously absurd

An American youtuber named Marcin Plaza, boring from the lack of innovation in the design of our mobile phones, wanted to prove to create one that adapted to their needs. He succeeded, of course, although the final result has raised some controversy because more than innovative what he has achieved is a “retroinnovator” mobile. What happened. This youtuber is known for its “Frankenstein” device experiments, and a few months ago he published a video in which he explained how he managed to replace the keyboard of his Lenovo Yoga laptop for a mechanical onecreating a unique combination. Now he has returned to the streets, but with a singular experiment: to take advantage of his Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 To create your own mobile. That physical keyboards live. Plaza decided that he would take advantage of the outer display of Z Flip 5 and combine it with the physical keyboard of an old Blackberry Q10 of 2013. The idea was simple to get that keyboard to become a sliding keyboard that is hidden under the screen of its Z Flip 5 broken. But of course, one thing was to say it, and another to do it. An infernal process. In the video in which the entire Plaza process begins, it begins by destroying the Z Flip 5 and checking which components could save. He then designed a housing to print it on a CNC machine – only numerous tests with a 3D printer – and also created a small circuit using an Arduino Pro micro controller that allowed him to adapt the old blackberry keyboard. Looking for solutions. The difficulties did not end there, and to allow the opening of all applications on the small front screen Plaza ended up using Samsung’s Good Lock application and its multistar module. This unique user even ended up adding a magnetic ring for wireless load. This mobile sounds to me. After numerous additional digital DIY tests and operations, Plaza managed to create what he expected: a “Frankenstein” mobile with a small frontal screen and a sliding keyboard underneath. The curious thing – or maybe not – is that this mobile had already been invented 15 years ago. It did the same company from which he took his keyboard, because we are talking about The BlackBerry Torch that first launched in 2010. A hardly replicable experiment. The creator of this curious mobile has shared Some of the project detailsbut it is difficult to replicate it because the only guide to do so is the video he has published on YouTube. Be that as it may, the final result is surprising – especially, because it works – but also paradoxical: the title of the video is “I built my own mobile … because at present innovation is sad”, but its mobile has little innovative. That doesn’t really matter too much: achieving something like that is certainly remarkable. In Xataka | Telephone cabins are disappearing from the world. So an enlightened one has installed one at home

Italian producers are fed up with the Parmesano stolen. So they are putting microchips

Gouda, ManchegoCheddar, Roquefort and Parmesano, of course. All have in common that they are Cheese typesbut also that, together with many others, they represent something more important: culture, tradition and even a country. Such is the importance of certain foods that the European Union created the DOP seal, A quality system To protect them. But outside the EU, products are still confused under the DOP that have a lower quality. In Italy they have tired have decided to take action on the matter armoring the Parmesan cheese. As? Inserting microchips. Parmesan. Parmesan is one of the most ‘copied’ cheeses in the world. And it is not due to its flavor, but to something that interests the industry much more: its prestige and the high value of it. Parmesan is used in recipes as dear as Pizzas Or a certain type of pasta, and if you have ever bought a Parmesan, you will know that the price is very different from other wedges. Out of Europe is the jungle. It is one of those cheeses with the seal of Denomination of Protected Origin And, although the European Union prohibits the use of the name “Parmesan” for products that are not ‘Parmigiano Reggiano Dop’, the problem is that there are markets, such as the American, in which a cheese ‘parmesan’ is sold that nothing has to do with Parmesan. Apart from the United States or Latin America, there are versions of ‘ParmesanReggianito‘Argentine after World War Ithat it was consolidated so much that it caused the creation of the Reggiano Parmigian consortium. It is estimated that this imitations market moves around 2,000 million dollars annually. To put it in context, the authentic Parmesan moved 3.2 million in 2024. The bark is like a huge barcode And the detail of the QR where the microchip goes A Burrada. Estimates point to 90% of products labeled as “Parmesan” that are not really Parmesan. These are cheese made based on cheaper cheese mixtures, with extreme cases of some stuffed with wood fibers. And, as you can imagine, it is something that entails several inconveniences for the DOP, such as direct damage to the consumer being a lower quality product, but with a high price. And also affects Parmesan’s own industry, eroding its cultural value. The Italian consortium He has managed to block some attempts to parmesan cheesebut it has not been enough and manufacturers have gone to action. Microchips in food. For a few years, the Parmesan cortex (which is a part that is not usually consumed, although it is very good to make a cream or to some popcorn) incorporates QR codes. They allow a traceability of the product and are “printed” based on dairy proteins. If you want to eat the bark that carries that QR, there would be no problem. The wheel also has a system of points that act as a kind of identity document. However, the volume of fraud forced the sector to look for new solutions. There the microchips come into play. Developed By the American company P-chipthis microchip is somewhat larger than a salt grain and is inserted into the casein label. Each has A unique code that stores all cheese information: Origin. Production date. Place of production. Origin of milk. Protecting the denomination of protected origin. It is something that allows producers and distributors to verify the authenticity of that piece and, of course, gives a guarantee to the consumer, who knows that he is paying a high price for the product he wants to buy. According to security tests, and how we can read in The Guardianalthough the chip is in contact with the food, it does not leave toxic waste and can be easily removed at home because yes or yes it is in the QR code. This began to be implemented in 120,000 of the four million wheels annually in Parmesano, but the Reggian Parmigian consortium wants this technological solution to become a standard in its industry. Beyond Parmesan. In the end, it is a measure for Protect the economic value of the product And, if the DOP seal does not say – not protect – nothing outside the European Union (a seal that shares cheeses such as Manchego or Roquefort), which at least between QR and microchips There is a traceability and a fight against “falsifications”. The objective, according to account The president of the PRC, “is to transmit the value of our product globally and distinguish it from products with similar names in the market that do not meet our strict production and area of origin.” And, precisely, the Reggian Parmigian can teach the way to other products with denominations of origin such as the Padano Grana or the aforementioned Spanish and French protected cheeses. Images | Parmigianoreggiano, Udo Schröter, Morgan Cheeses In Xataka | Bodegas have been labeling their bottles with all kinds of animals for years. It turns out that they are key to choosing wine

Many heterosexual women say they are fed up with men. There is a theory that explains it: “heterofatalism”

In a city like New York – or Madrid, or Buenos Aires, or any city where a woman with quotes history and good Internet connection reevalu Spin-off Less glamorous of Sex and the city. One where the stories do not end in Manolo shoes and kisses in the rain, but in Ghostingsexcuses for anxiety and group therapy in dinner format. And it is not that Carrie Bradshaw did not warn something similar. In more than one episode, their columns revolved around a question today very close to what many women formulate from a more critical and collective place: heterofatalism. A term that describes the disenchantment, irony and resignation with which their love experiences with men look at. But it is a ismIs it a theory or just another bad appointment with academic name? Heteropesyism It was coined in 2019 By the columnist ASA beings, describes an attitude of hopelessness and resignation to heterosexual relations, especially from the perspective of women who, although disappointed, do not abandon those relationships. As He explained an article in The Conversationthis position “does not necessarily imply violence or hierarchies”, but rather “a worldly but persistent disappointment.” However, beings propose a more extreme version: heterofatalisma kind of resigned acceptance of heterosexual failure. As explained by Jean Garnett In an extensive article for The New York Timesis “the feeling that the men I want do not love me with enough clarity, urgency or commitment.” An amplified term There is a political and social context that exacerbates disenchantment. As Marie Solis points out in The New York Timesmany of these speeches intensified after the choice of Donald Trump and the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, perceived figures as symbols of sexist impunity. The #MeToo Movement, Although transformativedid not change the most daily dynamics of the appointments. In addition, social networks have amplified this narrative. Tags like #boysober, #selfpartnered or growing interest In movements like 4b (Rejection of relationships, sex, marriage and maternity with men) portray a generation of women who, although they do not always renounce men, have lost faith in the promises of heterosexual love. According to sexual Health Alliancethis gap is linked to how men have been socialized: with difficulty verbalizing emotions, Fear of vulnerabilityand in some cases, a rigid masculinity that associates desire with domination or detachment. Professor Ellie Anderson Talk about “hermeneutical work”a form of emotional exploitation in which women are responsible for interpreting the confusing signs of little communicative men. It also mentions the “masculine regulatory Alexitimia”, a structural emotional difficulty in many heterosexual men. For her part, the psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin Talk about the “paralyzing complementarity”: When both parties in a relationship feel that they cannot gain recognition without losing power. All this composes an emotional scenario where, as Ironiza Garnett“A woman asks for clarity and is punished for ‘being too intense.” In a Newtral article, the journalist Noemí López Trujillo Lo has explained quite clearly: Connect the rise of heteropesis with a stretch of female sadness. Speaks of Femcelcore As a cultural current where women are portrayed as broken creatures, dressed in black and away from men as the only self -protection strategy. This romantization of the love duel, however, can fall into a sterile nihilism, which avoids all political or transformative action. ORna exclusively feminine experience? Although heterofatalism has been mainly theorized since the experience of heterosexual women, some authors warn that it is not completely unilateral. The Times points out that While women express this pessimism with irony and memes, heterosexual men are also experiencing a crisis, although with very different consequences. While they retract, they take refuge in communities Like incels or PERICAderiving his frustration in misogyny. In this context, in recent years the proliferation of male communities that feed a growing anxiety towards relationships and a replication towards the idea of “traditional love” has become more evident: stable couples under rigid gender roles, and a nostalgia for an alleged “golden age” – the 50s and 60s— 60— in which, with a single salary, “the woman stayed at home, they had three children and they were all happy.” This imaginary, reinforced by online forums and conservative speeches, Not only does it idealize an unequal pastbut it presents it as a remedy against current confusion and disenchantment. For her part, the Poppy Sowerby journalist, In The Timeshe warns that when women hold all men for their disappointment, without nuances, heterofatalism becomes the reverse of the Incel discourse. In both cases, the heterosexual relationship is presented as a tragic destination and without exit. There is a disjunctive present in this whole situation: is the desire the problem or the roles that frame it? One of the most relevant criticism of heterofatalism comes from within feminism. As Health Alliance has detailed sexualthis speech can end up naturalizing misogyny by equating it directly with heterosexuality. The problem, they argue, are not the men per se, but the gender roles that both – men and women – reproduce without questioning. Rachel Connolly, In The Guardianhe sees heteropessimism as “a conservative vision disguised as radical criticism.” Really all we can expect is that our partners do not throw their dirty socks? What kind of imagination do we have if we assume that heterosexual relationships are convicted by nature? Shon Faye, In his book Love in exileproposes something different: stop waiting for a couple to be everything. It raises a reorganization of relationships based on the recognition of our diverse needs –sex, conversation, care, finance – as potentially distributable, and not necessarily contained in a single romantic link. In short, the panorama that is presented is ambiguous. On the one hand, there is a growing awareness of the failed dynamics of heterosexual love. On the other, there is a scarce exploration of real alternatives. The challenge, According to Jessica BenjaminIt is not the resignation, but the encounter. To do this, it proposes the concept of “intersubjective third”: a mutual recognition zone where both parties are seen as subjects with desire, agency and vulnerability. It is … Read more

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