homemade

A homemade drone has just exceeded 700 km/h. And with this he has put the official record on the ropes

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When we think of a drone, we normally imagine a device that takes off vertically, remains suspended in the air and allows us to record impossible shots quite easily. He Blackbird It’s not about that. Its objective is much more extreme: fly as fast as possible. In this race, stability in flight matters less than efficiency at high speed, and so a change in the propellers has given it a surprising boost. The official record remains in the hands of Luke Bell and Mike Bell. According to Guinness World Recordsreached an average speed of 408.60 mph, equivalent to 657.59 km/h, on December 11, 2025, with the Peregreen V4 in Cape Town. It was not their first time: Guinness points out that father and son had already achieved this same record in 2024, with 480 km/h, and in June 2025, with 580 km/h. With that bar on the table, the Blackbird attempt has a very specific reading: it does not replace the official record, but it puts it under pressure. Ben Biggs and Aidan’s drone reached 453 mph, approximately 730 km/hduring a test pass. That fact is the most striking, although it is also the one that needs the most context. For now, what we have is an unofficial demonstration with a huge figure and the question if it can be repeated under verified conditions. A record-breaking race played on the propellers Here is the nuance that separates a spectacular figure from a truly comparable measurement. On the 730 km/h pass there was a tailwind of 54.7 km/h, so the estimated airspeed was reduced to 674 km/h. On the upwind pass, the drone reached about 640 km/h. The average of the two was close to 684 km/h, and that is why that data weighs more than the maximum peak when we try to understand how far the project really went. The key is how those new propellers behave when the drone stops flying like a conventional quadcopter and starts moving like a controlled projectile. The carbon fiber blades have a high pitch angle and that allows them to be more efficient at high speed because they are more parallel to the air that the drone passes through. It is not a free advantage: on takeoff and at low speed they push worse, so the motors have to demand more from the battery in that initial phase. The other important detail is in the serrated leading edge of the blades. As they explain, this shape generates small vortices on the surface of the propeller and helps the air not to move laterally along the blade, but rather to come out backwards to push the drone. It also helps to stabilize the boundary layer, that film of air attached to the surface that influences drag. In practice, it allows working with steeper angles without the propeller losing efficiency and behaving more like a piece that removes air than one that generates thrust. The flip side of pushing a quadcopter to the limit is that problems can also arise. Blackbird lost connection at about 633 km/h, due to a combination of antenna geometry, Doppler effect and signal overload. In the second, the drone ended up damaged after a hard landing, when the batteries ran out a few meters from the ground. The official record remains that of the Peregreen V4, but the Blackbird has made it clear where the next attempt may be. The question, now, is obvious: will they call Guinness World Records to try to certify it? Images | Drone Pro Hub In Xataka | The US vetoed the largest Chinese drone manufacturer. Now 8,000 American pilots have a serious problem

No drones, no snipers. Wild boar hunters in Barcelona have a simpler natural remedy: a homemade recipe

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In 2022, a wild boar broke in on a terrace in Cadaqués and took several bags of food in front of dozens of tourists who recorded it with their cell phones while the animal walked between tables as if it had been living there for years. For many residents it was the definitive confirmation that wild boars were no longer occasionally entering the cities: they were beginning to behave like any other inhabitant. Barcelona and the impossible war. It we count a few days ago. Barcelona has been trying for years to contain the expansion of wild boars with health campaigns, population controls, forest surveillance and increasingly sophisticated protocols. However, the animals they keep moving forward street by street from Collserola to the urban heart of the city. The last episode has been especially symbolic: a specimen appeared calmly rummaging through garbage containers on Casanova Street, crossing the street for the first time. psychological frontier of the Gran Via and approaching the Raval. The image perfectly summarizes the underlying problem. While administrations and technicians deploy complex devices to control African swine fever and empty entire forest areas, wild boars continue to enter Barcelona attracted by something much more basic: easy food, accumulated garbage and urban waste converted into a permanent night buffet. The city as a new wild ecosystem. He Eixample case It reflects the extent to which the wild boar has stopped behaving like a strictly forest animal. Neighbors in the area had been reporting saturated containers for weeks, leftover food scattered on the street and a constant accumulation of dirt that attracted rats and other pests. The wild boar simply ended up occupying the last step of that urban food chain. The paradox is that, despite the thousands of copies captured and slaughtered around Collserola to contain swine feverthe city continues to offer exactly what these animals need to lose their fear of the human environment: easy access to food and the absence of predators. The result is a species increasingly accustomed to traffic, lights and densely populated neighborhoods, capable of crossing half of Barcelona during the early hours of the morning with absolute normality. The real secret remains the smell. The most striking thing is that, while Barcelona deploys health protocols, forest controls and institutional campaigns, many hunters have been using methods for years. much more rudimentary to attract wild boars. He viral success of homemade recipes based on anise, fermented corn, sugary soft drinks or sweet mixtures demonstrates the extent to which the animal’s behavior continues to be guided by extremely simple impulses. The strong smell of anise sprayed on cereal or the acidic aroma of fermentation act like a magnet for wild boars, which quickly locate any easy caloric source. This logic also explains what is happening in Barcelona: in the end, technology matters less than the ability to control access to organic waste. the city can deploy surveillance, sanitary sacrifices and mobility restrictions, but as long as there are points where garbage overflows and waste accumulates, it will continue to offer exactly the same stimulus as those improvised feedlots used in the mountains. Fauna altering a big city. I counted the weekend The World that the expansion of the problem is already beginning to have consequences that go far beyond neighborhood coexistence. The outbreak of African swine fever detected in Catalan wild boars has forced sanitary restrictions to be activated that have even ended up affecting the filming of large international productions. the movie The Last Druidstarring Russell Crowe, had to paralyze part of its production in Sant Cugat due to the limitations imposed in forest areas near the health outbreak. The episode illustrates the extent to which wild boar overpopulation has ceased to be a strictly environmental or agricultural problem and has become in a phenomenon with economic, urban and logistical impact. What began as the occasional presence of animals in the limits of Collserola is even beginning to interfere with industrial and cultural activities linked to the territory. Increasingly difficult coexistence. The big problem for Barcelona is that everything indicates that this situation It’s not temporary. Wild boars adapt extremely quickly to urban environments because they find constant food, less hunting pressure and relatively safe refuges in parks, open fields and peripheral green areas. At the same time, cities generate enormous amounts of accessible waste every night. The combination is explosive: animals increasingly trusting entering neighborhoods densely populated while administrations try to balance health control, animal welfare and citizen security. And there appears the great irony of the entire story. After massive campaigns, forestry devices and complex protocols, the battle against wild boars continues to revolve around something very ancient and elemental: the smell of food. Image | x In Xataka | The technological war that we see in Ukraine has an unexpected replica in Barcelona: this time the enemy is thousands of wild boars In Xataka | Lead has its days numbered in hunting. The problem is that no one really knows how to replace it.

We thought that 3D printing a gun was already disturbing. Now someone has gone one step further with a homemade guided “missile”

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Talking about 3D printing is no longer just talking about prototypes or industrial environments. In recent years, this technology has been established as a tool available to enthusiasts and creators who can design and manufacture complex objects from home with relative ease. That accessibility has expanded the possibilities of use, but has also opened debates about its limits, especially when it intersects with weapons development. The precedents of 3D printed guns They have been on the table for some time, and now a new project once again pushes that debate into even more delicate terrain. The disturbing jump. What has now put the focus on this issue is a video of just five minutes in which the amateur Alisher Khojayev shows a prototype that is reminiscent, at least in its approach, of portable anti-aircraft missile systems. The project includes a launcher, a projectile and several electronic systems designed to assist in guidance. What does it teach. In practical terms, what Khojayev shows is a set divided into three parts that the creator presents as a coordinated system. The launcher acts as the base of the system, the projectile concentrates a good part of the 3D printed components, and an additional node with a camera can be incorporated to reinforce tracking. How the system is laid out. The architecture proposed by the project is based on linking several devices through a wireless network that coordinates the flow of data. The first step is to connect the launcher with a control computer via WiFi, which analyzes the information received and calculates the trajectory. In a second phase, the projectile becomes part of that network and receives instructions to adjust its orientation using moving surfaces. The system combines ESP32 microcontrollers with sensors such as GPS, barometer, compass and an inertial measurement unit to estimate variables such as speed and position. The cost data. The project is not only presented as a technical demonstration, but also as a low-cost exercise. According to the creator, the entire system can be assembled for about $96 from commercial components and 3D printed parts. That, of course, doesn’t mean that anyone can make something similar at home, not least because such a development would probably be illegal in many parts of the world. But it does leave a broader reading: 3D printing is reducing barriers and costs in a growing variety of projects. Images | Alisher Khojayev In Xataka | We thought that the war in Iran was about missiles. Until Germany has started counting them: it’s about what will happen in May without them

AI has already bothered us to improve the PC. Now it is going to make it difficult for us to set up a NAS to create a homemade cloud

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It is the best time so that your PC does NOT break. Or the console. Wave Steam Deck. We have been talking for weeks about how the explosion of data centers for AI has made burst the consumer market of RAM. The SSDs were nextand it was logical to a certain extent because they share technology. What perhaps was not expected was that the new components to increase in price were conventional hard drives, HDDs. And in the midst of cloud fatigue, AI is going to claim a new victim: the NAS. Western Digital, the symptom. It was during the presentation of results for the second fiscal quarter of 2026 when Irving Tan, CEO of Western Digital, commented that the company had sold practically its entire catalog by 2026. We have already seen this with RAM memory, and it indicates that there are already confirmed orders for 2027 and 2028 (supporting the assertion of other authoritative voices in the industry that this crisis still has some time left). Components that do not exist for something that does not exist. The HDDs that WD is talking about are not those with 2, 6 or 8 TB for the consumer market, but rather those with 20 or 30 TB capacity. Onwards. For now, if you want another 4 TB to store games on your PC, you will have no problem finding a drive at an appropriate price/GB ratio. Now, when we talk about having “everything sold” it is not that there is not a single album left on the shelves, but that what they have not produced yet is already sold. This is something that is happening with other segments, such as with RAM itself (with hoarders) and with SSDs. To give a quick example: if Western Digital is capable of producing two million 30 TB HDDs per year and only the xAI data centers They buy two million 30 TB HDDs for a data center that they have not yet built, WD no longer has production capacity and the waits begin for the others. One of the bosses of SMICthe great Chinese foundry, dropped recently the issue that components that have not yet been produced are being sold to power data centers that have not been built to give life to a technology that no one knows exactly what it will be like in the future. Or if it’s even a bubble. The innards of an HDD. And that HDDs are running out is logical for two reasons. The first is because, just like the SSD and memory industry is dominated by three companies (Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix), HDDs are commanded by three others (Toshiba, Western Digital and Seagate). All three have begun a conversion to new technologies to create denser disks, which implies moving money from the “old” factories to the new processes. But it also means that if they have a certain production capacity, scaling up to create more isn’t as easy as clicking a button. Not so immediate either. The second reason is that there are HDDs that have a NAND drive inside as cache memory. That is to say: if there is a shortage of flash memory, there is a shortage for everything, and the companies that manufacture HDDs also experience the delays and price increases in the industry. Second youth. What is undeniable is that HDD manufacturers are doing well in this situation in terms of income. We told it a few months agowhen at the end of January it was already seen that the shares of Seagate and Western Digital were beginning to skyrocket by 148.38% and 156.09% respectively. The thing is that they have not stopped increasing since then because, although memory and SSDs are crucial in data centers, HDDs also have a lot to say. The price per GB makes the cost per capacity extremely attractive, and the AI ​​generates a lot of information that must be saved and for which a very high transfer speed is not needed. Also for the information you consume during training. That has to be stored somewhere, and HDDs are the best option. NAS. And you will tell me: and that doesn’t matter to me, as a user. And it’s a great question because yes: that 20 or 30 TB HDDs become more expensive may not matter to you if until now you thought of this component as the storage of a PC, but…and if you want to set up a NAS? A trend in recent months is to escape subscriptions. There are too many and increasingly expensive, and for everything, and a NAS is a great alternative. Basically, it is a PC with a huge storage capacity with which you can build a private cloud. Do your photos Google Photos? To the NAS. Your private Netflix digitizing your DVDs and Blu-Ray? To the NAS. ¿Your private Spotify ripping your CDs and vinyls? To the NAS. And all this accessible at any time, without paying subscriptions and without problems with data leaks. But of course, to have a private cloud it is necessary to have teras and teras of storage, and that is where those more “professional” hard drives can become impossible not only because of price, but because, at some point, they will no longer exist. Don’t let what we already have be broken. And the worst thing is that there is only one solution: go through the price hoop, unless you entrust yourself to what you believe in so that your PC, laptop or Steam Deck does not break (whichEU is also having supply problems due to the RAM memory crisis). As I said before, it is going great for companies because they are selling everything, but for users, although we assume a much smaller percentage of income, this situation has overwhelmed us like a freight train. If at least the train was loaded with RAM tablets and we could get some, it wouldn’t be bad. Images | Western Digital, Xataka In Xataka … Read more

A homemade tank that shattered half a town

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Lying with public administration can be tedious. Paper, dilated times and procedures that could be done in a couple of clicks online, but that we have to perform in person. At most, We can frustrate ourselvesangry and release some expletive like taking a bulldozer and you would get to knock down public buildings, knowing that you would never do something like that. The problem is that, precisely, that is what a man named Marvin Heemeyer did in 2004 in the town of Granby, in Colorado. Marvin Heemeyer. At the time of the events, Marvin was 52 years old. He was a veteran of the United States Air Forces and his profession was that of welder in the aforementioned Granbybut the story began much earlier. In 1992, Heemeyer bought Some land with the intention of renting them to a friend who wanted to set up a repair workshop. Those lands were owned by a family, the Docheff, and it seems that they were not very happy for Marvin’s victory in the auction. The price of land? $ 42,000 of the time and was very basic, since it did not have a solution for fecal waters and access depended on contiguous land. The City Council told him that he had to solve that, connecting to the sewer (another $ 42,000) or putting a septic tank. He refused and, meanwhile, the friend who was going to rent the land was disenchanted with the business, so Heemeyer himself opened there a silencer repair workshop. Culebrón. The Docheff did not forget the 1992 auction in which Marvin took the land and, in 1997, they attacked. As? Buying the lands around Marvin to create a cement plant. In principle, Marvin also wanted to buy, but he first requested $ 250,000, then another $ 125,000 and, when the Docheff got the land, Heemeyer raised the price to $ 450,000 again. There was no agreement, but the Docheff continued their plan. Heemeyer undertook an action to put the people against the cement plant claiming that it would be an ecological attack, but little by little he was losing support, especially when the city newspaper argued that he had a personal revenge against the Docheff. To attack. In 2000, the welder filed a lawsuit to block the project. He claimed that the construction would block access to their business, but local officials unanimously approved the construction and, although he appealed, nobody paid attention to him. He climbed the case to the Environmental Protection Agency, which also went from the matter. In 2001, almost in an act of pride, the Docheff made an offer to Heemeyer: if he withdrew the demand, they would provide a line of connection to the sewer of the new concrete plant without paying a dollar. Marvin did not take it well, precisely. The tank truck used to accumulate fecal waters was filled and its decision was to pump the waste to a plot attached to its own. Illegalities. It was also attempted illegally to sewage a neighbor, but they caught him and, because he was not connected to the service and other irregularities, it was fined with $ 2,500, about $ 4,400 today. The city had tired of Marvin and threw an ultimatum: either it was up to date or could not use the property for commercial purposes. The bulldozer in question ‘Killdozer’. Marvin felt that the city had laughed at him, that the administrations ignored him and that he had been marginalized. And nothing took it, but nothing right. In October 2002, he announced the closure of the business. Sold everything: materials, land and an excavator Komatsu D344a That had bought that same year. And yes, he placed part of his property for $ 400,000 (much more than for what he bought it ten years before), but there was something that failed to get rid of: the excavator. “Signal of God”. He saw him as “a sign of God” to carry out his revenge against the city. For months, Marvin worked by armoring the excavator. He did not hide and, in fact, he mentioned both the machine and his plans to use it destructively, but nobody paid attention to him. The excavator, known as’Killdozer‘And baptized as’ Marv’s Komatsu Tank’ by Heemeyer himself, he was unrecognizable. He had armored the entire cabin area with a steel layer of several millimeters thick, a concrete layer and another outer steel layer. It covered part of the Oruga system, but also the engine and the cabin in full. Or he ran out of gas, or it was unstoppable. In addition, he had placed cameras protected by almost eight centimeters of plastic abroad that sent two monitors in the dashboard, had fans to stay fresh and the most worrying thing: three nozzles with mounted weapons, ready to shoot abroad. And the ‘Killdozer’ 133 minutes of horror. With this makeshift tank, the desktop of June 4, 2004, Heemeyer began his revenge. And he did it against the Cody Docheff cement plant. The businessman thought that the vehicle was controlled remotely, so he began to shoot without causing any effect. The city police also fired several rounds against the excavator without being able to damage the cameras. It was unstoppable and the videos are spooky. Killdozer. The ‘Killdozer’ takes all that with what clashes with and, after attacking the concrete plant, Heemeyer headed towards the city. There it destroyed cars, the facade of the City Council, the Police Police Station and several Patrol cars, as well as a few businesses. The objectives were not casual: the aforementioned City Council, an office of a person who was part of the land requalification board, the police station, the local newspaper and other properties of people who would have been against Marvin in his peculiar dispute with the Docheff. “God built me ​​for this work”. During more than two hoursthe police followed the vehicle totally helpless. In some tapes sent to his brother Shortly before the attack, Marvin declared that he was surprised … Read more

The director of ‘The substance’ debuted 30 years ago with a homemade tribute to Star Wars that you can now see for free

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It is one of the most surprising films of the year: ‘The substance‘(What can you see In Filmin and Movistar Plus+) It is a history of neocárnico horror that satirizes the obsession of society to supervise the body of women. With absolutely star Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley and a display of absolutely demential effects, the film It is also a tribute to many forms and styles of horror cinemafrom the toxic avenger films to ‘Videodome’. That is, its director Coraline Fargeat is a devouring of all kinds of films. In fact, he already demonstrated it three decades ago and with only 17 years. Herself Account to Letterboxd I “did A small Star Wars movie. Using my family’s camcorder, I encouraged my toys in Stop Motion, I dressed my friends from Ewoks and Stormtroopers, and edited it in a VHS video (which was the fashionable device at that time!) “. The rudimentary images and the zero budget are apologized by Fargeat himself: “It was a fond thing, but Everything I liked to make movies was already there… It was the place where I felt free, passionate and alive, and capable of expressing myself fully. It was after making this little movie when I knew I wanted to be a director … today that I am nominated for best director, I can’t help remembering this little movie … Follow your dreams. “ The truth is that the result is absolutely adorable, and the shameless campaign at ease: infrahuman costumes, direct ripeo of plans and complete dialogues of the original film, sectional script twists … and of course, an absolute devotion for the act to create stories, even if they are second -hand. To do this, Fargeat puts the hands of the licensed toys that he had on hand and the soundtrack of John Williams, of course used without permission, as well as the portal of a building, shot as if they were the interiors of an imperial base. And, of course, a final Ewok party that lengthens more than reasonable. Now that Fargeat is a prestigious director and Oscar nominated What would she do if a new installment of ‘Star Wars’ fell into their handsa possibility not as far from reality as a few years ago. Surely we would see much more canteen, much more alien with tentacles and confrontations with infinitely more visceral imperial assault troops. It seems impossible for Disney to put a family franchise as ‘Star Wars’ in the hands of such a radical director, but for that Oscar win, right? Header | Letterboxd In Xataka | ‘Star Wars’: Where and what order to watch all the films of the saga

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