impossible

New York has discovered that its highest paid employee is not the mayor, it’s a plumber. It seemed impossible until they checked their schedule.

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In 1927, Al Capone’s accountants were not the ones who ended up putting him in court. They did it own financial records. When investigators began to review income, schedules and money movements, they discovered that the accounts told a very different story than the official one. Because many of the most striking investigations did not begin with a complaint, but with something simpler: carefully looking at a time sheet. The highest paid employee. The story begins last yeara time when, to everyone’s surprise, the highest-paid municipal employee in New York was not the mayor, nor the police chief, nor the head of the firefighters. No, it was Jakub Markowskia plumbing supervisor for the municipal public housing authority who entered $465,000. The figure immediately attracted attention because it practically placed him at the top of a workforce of some 350,000 public employees. A possible explanation and something more. The first investigations confirmed that a good part of that salary came from the crazy figure of almost 2,560 overtime hours accumulated during a single fiscal year. Translated into practice, it represents an average close to seven extra hours a day for an entire year, an extraordinary workload even for a service used to dealing with urgent breakdowns. However, when reviewing the municipal documentation an unexpected detail appeared: during that same period there was also at the head of two private companies plumbing workers who worked on dozens of jobs spread across some of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the city. It’s not the salary, it’s the time. That discovery completely changed the focus of the case. The New York Department of Buildings is now investigating whether the compatibility between both activities respected the regulations municipal and whether Markowski had the necessary authorization after being promoted in 2024 to a supervisory position related to fire safety. Not only that. Investigators are also analyzing whether he could exercise the direct supervision required by law in especially sensitive jobs, such as gas installations, while accumulating such a volume of activity. More and more doubts in the hours worked. The investigation also tries to clarify how their companies really worked. counted the new york times that, although Markowski was listed as a licensed plumber, several contractors recalled dealing primarily with another businessman, Robert Tarnawa, whose exact relationship to the work remains under scrutiny. Precisely this point is especially relevant because New York legislation requires that certain works be supervised directly and continuously by a licensed plumber. A case at the worst moment. The context doesn’t help either. The New York Housing Authority manages more than 240 residential complexes where nearly 300,000 people live and has a huge investment deficit for repair badly damaged buildings. In recent years, furthermore, the organization has been involved several scandals related to bribery, extortion and fraud overtime, which has increased scrutiny over any possible irregularities in the management of its resources. More questions than answers. To date, Markowski has not been formally accused of any wrongdoing and authorities insist that the investigation remains open. Nor has the details of the specific tasks that justified his thousands of overtime hours been made public, information requested by the own The New York Times through transparency legislation. What has become clear is that the story of New York’s highest-paid public employee has ceased to be that of an exceptional salary and has become that of an agenda that the authorities are examining minute by minute. As shared in the Times Attorney April McIver: “Allowing a single person to run a private plumbing company while serving as a city supervisor and logging more overtime than any other city employee is not only wasteful, it raises serious questions about the integrity, safety and oversight of the New York Housing Authority’s operations.” Image | sam valadi In Xataka | New York has launched its new and revolutionary garbage containers. Spain has been using them for years In Xataka | For decades we climbed this New York skyscraper without knowing that the screws that held it in place could not hold.

with this price that is impossible

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Valve has tried again with the Steam Machine and, although his proposal is much more convincing than which launched in 2015has ended up leaving a bittersweet taste for both users, enthusiasts and specialized critics. And practically the entire conversation revolves around at the hefty priceconsequence of a component shortage unprecedented. The Steam Machine was the promise of bringing the PC into the living room in the most convenient way possible. And although it fulfills its purpose because of how wonderful it is Steam OSdue to its compact shape, and the comfort it offers, most specialized media point out that the price has ended up ruining everything. What Valve has launched on the market. The Steam Machine starts at 1,039 euros for the 512 GB model and goes up to 1,359 euros in the 2 TB version. Both without remote control included; if you want the new one Steam Controlleradds another 69 euros. Inside is a six-core AMD Zen 4 processor, a custom RDNA 3-based GPU with 28 compute units and 8GB of GDDR6, and 16GB of RAM. The system boots directly into SteamOS and can also function as a full Linux PC. From a design point of view, practically all specialized media agree that it is a beautiful, silent product that fits in the living room like no other PC has done so far. Why does it cost so much and who is to blame. The company recognized to PC Gamer that its original price target is “no longer viable” due to the memory crisis. The skyrocketing demand for RAM chips by large artificial intelligence companies has absorbed the production capacity of Samsung and SK Hynix, which manufacture approximately 95% of the world’s DRAM. According to the media, the prices of DRAM contracts that companies obtained have risen more than 170% between the announcement of the Steam Machine last November and its launch now in June. Valve’s initial goal, according to several sources, was around $750. Now, that rising market has added $300 more to the Steam Machine, something that has seriously harmed the company’s strategy. What the analyzes say. Opinions have generally been bittersweet, more sour than sweet. Digital Foundry describe the Steam Machine as “beautiful hardware”, praises SteamOS and places the GPU performance somewhere between an RX 6600 and an RX 7600, that is, a card perfectly capable of running games in 1080p and 1440p, but with obvious limitations in 4K with ray tracing activated. He also adds that the system performs below a base PS5 in most of the games analyzed. IGN had a more positive evaluationwith its analyst saying that it was “the best living room PC I have ever used”, but also pointing out that the price was a determining factor in knowing who to recommend it to. PC Gamer he put a 62 out of 100 and described the device as “an expensive curiosity rather than a gaming device for the masses.” Linus Tech Tips he titled his video dedicated as “Even Valve is disappointed”, a phrase that the channel itself attributes to what the company’s engineers conveyed to them. Tom’s Hardware, for its part, gave it 3.5 stars and has celebrated its design, but also highlights the poor performance of the machine compared to PCs that cost more or less the same and the software bugs that Valve is still ironing out. What do you have for that price or less?. The Steam Machine costs more than one PS5 Prowhich is now around 899 euros (after several increases), and according to benchmarks it offers lower performance than this console. GameSpot counted that at $750, the Steam Machine made all the sense in the world. At 1.039, the equation breaks down. And for that price, a user can buy a desktop PC with a more powerful dedicated GPU, or opt for a PS5 Pro. On the other hand, Valve has insisted that It is not subsidizing the hardwareunlike Sony or Microsoft, which usually lose money at the launch of each console and recover it with the games and their service offering. Speculation. To have a more or less fair launch, Valve designed a random reservation system. Those interested could sign up before June 25, and the company raffled off access. Only one unit per household, Steam account in good standing with at least one purchase prior to April 27, 2026, and cross-verification of payment methods and addresses. Unfortunately, Valve has not been able to prevent some people who found a place to obtain a unit from starting to sell it on eBay. According to Tom’s Guidethere are reservation lists (not for the device, but for the time to buy it) from 1,600 to more than 2,500 dollars. TweakTown and Notebookcheck They have confirmed seeing prices of up to $3,500 for the 2 TB model with controller. Community alternatives. Jacob Terkelsen, AMD engineer, published in X the “Terk Box v1.1”, a Mini-ITX PC inside a 3D printed case, with a RTX 5060a Ryzen 5 5500, 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. Print files are available for free at Printables. According to Tweaktownthe result surpasses the Steam Machine in performance, although it requires a 3D printer and technical knowledge, and at the moment it cannot run SteamOS officially because Valve has still made its system compatible with NVIDIA GPUs. They have also appeared comparisons in media like Windows Central with preconfigured PCs between $849 and $1,000 that include an RTX 5060 Ti and more RAM than the Steam Machine. Valve, aware of this, allows you to install SteamOS on any PC with AMD GPU so that anyone can replicate the experience without paying the price of official hardware. ¿Qto whom does it make sense? The Steam Machine is not a bad product. It’s probably the best attempt to date to get a real PC into the living room without making it look like a PC. According to reviews, SteamOS runs smoothly, Steam’s verified catalog is huge, and its compact and quiet design … Read more

with this price that is impossible

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Valve has tried again with the Steam Machine and, although his proposal is much more convincing than which launched in 2015has ended up leaving a bittersweet taste for both users, enthusiasts and specialized critics. And practically the entire conversation revolves around at the hefty priceconsequence of a component shortage unprecedented. The Steam Machine was the promise of bringing the PC into the living room in the most convenient way possible. And although it fulfills its purpose because of how wonderful it is Steam OSdue to its compact shape, and the comfort it offers, most specialized media point out that the price has ended up spoiling everything. What Valve has launched on the market. The Steam Machine starts at 1,039 euros for the 512 GB model and goes up to 1,359 euros in the 2 TB version. Both without remote control included; if you want the new one Steam Controlleradds another 69 euros. Inside is a six-core AMD Zen 4 processor, a custom RDNA 3-based GPU with 28 compute units and 8GB of GDDR6, and 16GB of RAM. The system boots directly into SteamOS and can also function as a full Linux PC. From a design point of view, practically all specialized media agree that it is a beautiful, silent product that fits in the living room like no other PC has done so far. Why does it cost so much and who is to blame. The company recognized to PC Gamer that its original price target is “no longer viable” due to the memory crisis. The skyrocketing demand for RAM chips by large artificial intelligence companies has absorbed the production capacity of Samsung and SK Hynix, which manufacture approximately 95% of the world’s DRAM. According to the media, the prices of DRAM contracts that companies obtained have risen more than 170% between the announcement of the Steam Machine last November and its launch now in June. Valve’s initial goal, according to several sources, was around $750. Now, that rising market has added $300 more to the Steam Machine, something that has seriously harmed the company’s strategy. What the analyzes say. Opinions have generally been bittersweet, more sour than sweet. Digital Foundry describe the Steam Machine as “beautiful hardware”, praises SteamOS and places the GPU performance somewhere between an RX 6600 and an RX 7600, that is, a card perfectly capable of running games in 1080p and 1440p, but with obvious limitations in 4K with ray tracing activated. He also adds that the system performs below a base PS5 in most of the games analyzed. IGN had a more positive evaluationwith its analyst saying that it was “the best living room PC I have ever used”, but also pointing out that the price was a determining factor in knowing who to recommend it to. PC Gamer he put a 62 out of 100 and described the device as “an expensive curiosity rather than a gaming device for the masses.” Linus Tech Tips he titled his video dedicated as “Even Valve is disappointed”, a phrase that the channel itself attributes to what the company’s engineers conveyed to them. Tom’s Hardware, for its part, gave it 3.5 stars and has celebrated its design, but also highlights the poor performance of the machine compared to PCs that cost more or less the same and the software bugs that Valve is still ironing out. What do you have for that price or less?. The Steam Machine costs more than one PS5 Prowhich is now around 899 euros (after several increases), and according to benchmarks it offers lower performance than this console. GameSpot counted that at $750, the Steam Machine made all the sense in the world. At 1.039, the equation breaks down. And for that price, a user can buy a desktop PC with a more powerful dedicated GPU, or opt for a PS5 Pro. On the other hand, Valve has insisted that It is not subsidizing the hardwareunlike Sony or Microsoft, which usually lose money at the launch of each console and recover it with the games and their service offering. Speculation. To have a more or less fair launch, Valve designed a random reservation system. Those interested could sign up before June 25, and the company raffled off access. Only one unit per household, Steam account in good standing with at least one purchase prior to April 27, 2026, and cross-verification of payment methods and addresses. Unfortunately, Valve has not been able to prevent some people who found a place to obtain a unit from starting to sell it on eBay. According to Tom’s Guidethere are reservation lists (not for the device, but for the time to buy it) from 1,600 to more than 2,500 dollars. TweakTown and Notebookcheck They have confirmed seeing prices of up to $3,500 for the 2 TB model with controller. Community alternatives. Jacob Terkelsen, AMD engineer, published in X the “Terk Box v1.1”, a Mini-ITX PC inside a 3D printed case, with a RTX 5060a Ryzen 5 5500, 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. Print files are available for free at Printables. According to Tweaktownthe result surpasses the Steam Machine in performance, although it requires a 3D printer and technical knowledge, and at the moment it cannot run SteamOS officially because Valve has still made its system compatible with NVIDIA GPUs. They have also appeared comparisons in media like Windows Central with preconfigured PCs between $849 and $1,000 that include an RTX 5060 Ti and more RAM than the Steam Machine. Valve, aware of this, allows you to install SteamOS on any PC with AMD GPU so that anyone can replicate the experience without paying the price of official hardware. ¿Qto whom does it make sense? The Steam Machine is not a bad product. It’s probably the best attempt to date to get a real PC into the living room without making it look like a PC. According to reviews, SteamOS runs smoothly, Steam’s verified catalog is huge, and its compact and quiet design … Read more

a mix between ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘Mission Impossible’

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If you like cinema Jackie Chanthere is news that you will like as much as it will disconcert you. The popular Chinese actor returns at 72 years old to one of the sagas that established him as a star: ‘Armor of God’. Because although in the West we knew him more for ‘Conflicts in the Bronx’ in 1995 or, above all, for ‘Rush Hour’ in 1998, the actor was already a legend in Hong Kong martial arts cinema. As they point in Variety, Chan is preparing for ‘Armor of God IV’, the fourth part of an adventure saga that It perfectly condenses the actor’s style: martial arts, adventure and that hallmark of physical humor that launched him to stardom. And if you don’t know these movies, the truth is that the mix is ​​a difficult cocktail to miss when mixing Jackie Chan,’Indiana Joness’ and ‘Mission Impossible‘. And, thinking about it, it could be one of the great inspirations from ‘Uncharted’. Jackie Chan is back (if he ever left) In the cinema we live in constant nostalgia, and this summer could not be a better example. There we have ‘toy story 5‘, a film that has been considered unnecessary (after the also considered unnecessary fourth installment) and Universal has just released the first teaser trailer for ‘Shrek 5’ (with slaps by users). Going back to ‘Armour of God’, the first film from 1986 introduced us to… well, Jackie, the “Asian Falcon” or the “Condor”, depending on the region, a treasure hunter similar to Indiana Jones who travels the world looking for relics and historical objects with an almost mystical value. Out of nowhere, he finds himself involved in the kidnapping of a friend’s girlfriend by a cult and that premise gave rise to a sequel (‘Operation Condor’ from 1991) and a third part that was not very well received (‘Chinese Zodiac’, from 2012, the most similar to a ‘Mission Impossible’). They are less well-known films than those first international blockbusters that made him rise to fame in the West, but you are surely familiar with a video that appears in every compilation of videos of actors doing stunts. Like Tom CruiseChan usually performs his stunts. During the filming of ‘Armour of God’, there was a moment in which he had to jump to a tree branch to escape, but the branch broke and the actor hit his head on a rock. He fractured his skull and, as a gift, he received partial hearing loss in one of his ears. They are entertaining films (like many of the actor’s films, in short), and Variety points out that It will be this July when the filming of ‘Armor of God IV’ beginswith Robert Kun directing and Jackie returning to the role of Asian Hawk, but not repeating behind the cameras (yes, he also directed the previous three). The premiere is expected in the second half of 2027 and we will have to see if, at 72 years old, he continues to swing between the branches of the trees. In Xataka | Nolan has a reputation for being one of the directors who takes the most care of his films. But the IMAX format of ‘The Odyssey’ raises doubts

the impossible fighter “Christmas tree”

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In the summer of 1955, Nevadans began reporting strange objects flying at impossible heights. Decades later, declassified CIA documents revealed that a large part of those supposed UFOs were actually secret prototypes that were tested at Groom Lake, the facility that would become known worldwide as Area 51. A blurry image and a forgotten idea. It all started a few days ago with a thermal capture taken near Groom Lake, the facility better known as Area 51. The image showed an oddly shaped aircraft, apparently tailless, with large front canards and unconventional wings. The video quality makes it impossible to identify with certainty what exactly it is, but it was enough to trigger a avalanche of theories. The most striking thing is that the silhouette has led several specialists to rescue an idea that seemed buried for more than forty years: an experimental stealth fighter concept designed in 1983 that received the informal nickname from “Christmas Tree Fighter” or Christmas tree hunting. Thermal image appeared near Area 51 The return of the impossible fighter plane. That 1983 design was created by Darold Cummings, one of the engineers who would later participate in the development of the YF-23. At the time, Northrop was looking for radical ways to build a fighter jet with an extremely reduced radar signature. cummings proposed the DP-21an aircraft with such extreme geometry that many considered it impossible to fly. Its configuration sought to achieve a highly coveted feature in stealth design: a structure of only four large main radar reflections, something similar to what was achieved by the B-2 bomber. The problem was that the flight control technology of the 1980s couldn’t safely handle a device so unstable. That’s why the concept was shelved as a technical curiosity rather than a real project. “Christmas tree” fighter project Why has a photo aroused so much interest? The aircraft observed near Area 51 presents some features that vaguely remember to that DP-21. Particularly noteworthy is the shape of the front section, which in certain images seems to draw a kind of double arrowhead. The absence of traditional tail surfaces, the presence of large canards and a general distribution of wings and fuselage that departs from conventional designs also coincide. Nobody claims that it is a direct evolution of the Cummings projectbut the comparison is inevitable because the image seems to recover aerodynamic solutions that for decades were considered too complex or risky to become an operational aircraft. The clues point to the F-47. The dominant theory is that the aircraft could be related to the technological demonstrators of the NGAD program, from which the future F-47 United States. The general shapes match several elements visible in the few official designs published so far: large canards, very set back wings, absence of vertical stabilizers and a configuration optimized for stealth. Furthermore, some researchers have pointed out that the silhouette appears to have been hidden in plain sight for years. An official patch from the office responsible for the F-47 included a stylized figure that, upon closer inspection, striking similarities with the device captured in the thermal image. It wouldn’t be the first time a top-secret program leaves seemingly innocent visual clues. on insignia and emblems internal. Decades of hidden experiments. The possible aircraft also appears to draw influences from other experimental programs developed by Boeing and its predecessors. Among them the X-36 stands outa tailless demonstrator designed to explore new forms of maneuverability, and the Bird of Preyone of the most secret projects of the nineties. Both opted for extremely unconventional configurations and to reduce the radar signature as much as possible. They remembered on TWZ that the technologies tested in those programs never really disappeared, but continued to evolve within classified projects. The catch obtained near Area 51 could be the first public evidence of how far that evolution has come. An unsolved mystery. The reality is that no one outside the most restricted circles of the Pentagon knows what exactly it shows the recording. It could be an F-47 demonstrator, a prototype related to the future F/A-XX naval fighter, a Northrop Grumman project, or even a completely different experimental platform. The only thing evident is that the image has achieved something unusual: bring an idea to the foreground born in 1983 which many considered a footnote in aviation history. Forty years later, the supposed “Christmas tree hunt” is relevant again because a shadow caught in the Nevada desert sky seems to suggest that some of the strangest ideas of the past may have finally found the technology needed to become a reality. Image | X, DAROLD CUMMINGS In Xataka | In September, an unidentified aircraft crashed very close to Area 51. The real mystery began right after In Xataka | The US has just achieved the “holy grail” of air combat: an F-35 not only detects the enemy, but also gets rid of it on its own.

It seemed impossible to surpass Qatar as the worst organizer in the history of the World Cups. The US is getting it

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Can a democratic country offer a starker image than an authoritarian one when organizing a sporting event? The United States seems to be searching for the limits. With the connivance of FIFA, of course, which in recent years has awarded its most media and important sporting event to Russia and Qatar and which will repeat in this series of controversial awards with Saudi Arabia. And it has found in the United States a country that has stepped on the accelerator to catch up with what we consider authoritarian regimes. It is true that the World Cup has been used as a weapon of sportwashing since long before we knew what this meant. This has always implied a certain opening of the most reactionary policies during the time the event lasted to offer a friendlier image to the outside world. That is why it is even more surprising that the United States has barely made concessions in its way of doing politics. The competition hasn’t started yet and we already have a referee who has had to return home, public searches of players as if they were terrorists. A team that has tried to be expelled. And the constant threat towards its own citizens. Welcome to the 2026 Soccer World Cup. The World Cup in Canada, Mexico… and the United States. Hold my cubata, Qatar Standing on the shoulders and cheered by thousands of people in a packed stadium. The images of Omar Artan received as a national hero They surprise. They are surprising because Omar Artan is a referee. And I don’t think a referee has ever received such a welcome back to his country. The reason: being rejected by the United States. And Artan, a Somali, will not referee in the 2026 World Cup because one of the host countries He has not let him cross the border. The United States prohibits entry to citizens of Somalia. And he has made no exception with Omar Artan, who was going to be the first referee from his country to officiate a World Cup match and one in which, according to The CountryFIFA’s director of refereeing, the Italian Pierluigi Collina, had high hopes. The reason for the rejection?: “Concerns in the background check.” There are no more details. There are no more reasons. With those words the United States Customs and Border Protection Service (CBP) has settled the matter. Although it has been known that FIFA has tried to mediate in the matter, the organization has only issued a weak statement in which it points out that they do not have any type of influence on the migration policies of the host countries. The Artan case is the latest in a list of controversial decisions that continues to grow. In March, Donald Trump tried to intimidate the Iranian team football team, assuring that their safety could not be guaranteed if they went to the United States. Iran’s first two games are being played in Los Angeles and the third in Seattle, and the United States has toyed with the idea of ​​banning players from entering, citing national security risks. In April it was put on the table that it was Italy, out of the World Cup for the third consecutive time, which Iranian will take over but it was rejected by FIFA. In May, Donald Trump assured that he would allow the Iranian team to enter in statements in which he assured that Gianni Infantinopresident of FIFA who has been very close to the president of the United States until now, would have given him carte blanche to accept or not the Middle Eastern team. Finally, Iran will play in the United States. Yes, but his players will have to concentrate in Mexico, 15 members of the delegation have been rejected and Their fans will not be able to go to the stadium. Click on the image to go to the original tweet Click on the image to go to the original tweet Obviously, Iran is the most striking case but by no means the only one. According to BBCmore than 25% of the countries participating in the World Cup have border restrictions with the hosts. This has led to intense searches of the Uzbekistan and Senegal teams in which metal detectors, dogs and controls on the airport runway itself have been used before giving them the go-ahead. From the official account of the Senegalese team on X They assure that this procedure was carried out on the airport runway to speed up airport control procedures. However, the country’s own soccer federation indicated a few months ago that They would not send fans to the United States on an official trip because the applications had been rejected. Entering the United States is increasingly complicated for a greater number of travelers. Since 2016 to the Spanish It is not possible for us to travel to the United States without a visa if we have previously visited Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen since 2011. And from 2023 the same thing happens with Cuba if we have passed through the island in the last five years. These types of measures are those that on other occasions have been omitted in favor of give some sense of normality in sporting events that take place in authoritarian countries. In Spain we know well how the whitening of authoritarian regimes through sport works, How to bring the Spanish Super Cup to Saudi Arabia and even defend the regime and equate it with Spain, like Xavi Hernández did as coach of FC Barcelona in 2023. FIFA will take the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia, with the approval of FIFA, which created an adhoc competition for the country to win the award and overlooked any risk of attacks on human rights to the point that the candidacy has been the best score in history in a selective process. Some human rights which they also seem to want to omit with the United … Read more

Ukraine has turned military bridges into impossible targets. Russia just responded with a Frankenstein on wheels

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In World War II, six soldiers could carry parts by hand of a Bailey bridge and build a passage for tanks in a matter of hours. Eight decades later, the real challenge is no longer building the bridge: it is making it survive long enough to enter service. River crossings are a nightmare. Crossing a river has always been one of the most delicate operations for any army. Crossing points are predictable, vehicles must be concentrated in a small space, and engineers need time to deploy bridges or pontoons. In Ukraine, however, the problem has become a new dimension. Drones constantly monitor roads, accesses and banks, detecting any preparation for a crossing long before it occurs. This means that forces attempting to cross a river can be attacked even before reaching the water. What for decades was a complex engineering operation has been transformed into a race against time under permanent surveillance. A problem since the start of the war. Russian difficulties in crossing rivers they are not new. One of the most remembered episodes occurred in May 2022, when a Russian tactical group was practically destroyed during an attempt to cross the Siverski Donets. More than three years later, the problem remains unresolved. They remembered in Forbes That even relatively modest obstacles like the Vovcha River can slow down entire operations because the challenge is no longer just overcoming the water, but surviving the deployment process. Every bridge, every pontoon and every engineering vehicle automatically becomes a priority target for Ukrainian drones, artillery and other precision strike systems. The strange “Frankenstein”. Thus a scene has taken place that has remained recorded on video by Ukrainian forces. It happened when one of the most peculiar vehicles seen in the war appeared. A Russian unit built an improvised system using military truck chassis, probably Ural or KamAZ, transformed into a kind of articulated pontoon. The structure was made up of a drive section and a large adapted trailer, creating a set long enough to cross narrow sections of the river. Its appearance was so rudimentary and strange that Ukrainian observers compared it to a creation straight out of a Mad Max movie and they baptized as a four-wheeled “Frankenstein”. More than a visual curiosity, the vehicle reflected the need to find alternative solutions to a problem for which conventional means seem increasingly less effective. A mission observed from start to finish. The broadcast images by the Ukrainian Wolfhound unit show the complete route of the vehicle towards its objective. The group advanced at high speed through Vovchansk in an obvious attempt to reduce the time of exposure to possible attacks. During the trip, the trailer repeatedly left the road, knocked down an electrical pole and activated several mines without being disabled. Even so he managed to reach the river bank. However, Ukrainian air surveillance had followed their every move. As the soldiers began to deploy the system and the forward section began entering the water, several attack drones They destroyed the vehicle before he could complete his mission. A deeper problem. The most striking thing about the episode is that Russia has specialized teams capable of carrying out this type of operations. Systems such as launchable bridges MTU-72 or the PMP pontoons They were designed precisely to allow the passage of troops and armor through rivers much larger than the Vovcha. For a unit to resort to a such an improvised solution suggests that these means were not available in that sector or that the losses accumulated during the war have reduced their presence on the front line. It also reflects an industrial reality: the current priority is on producing tanks, armored vehicles, drones, ammunition and artillery, while engineering equipment receives much less attention and replenishment. Modern warfare forces us to reinvent everything. He “Frankenstein” by Vovchansk fits into an increasingly visible trend within the Russian military. In recent years, protected armored vehicles have appeared with anti-drone cagesvehicles covered with netsmodified robots for new features and all types of adaptations carried out directly by combat units. The speed at which threats evolve often outpaces militaries’ ability to develop and deploy new solutions. Although the makeshift pontoon was destroyed, its existence is revealing. It demonstrates the extent to which drones have disrupted a military task as basic as crossing a river, and how soldiers are attempting to fill the gap between battlefield needs and the ability of military machinery to respond with ingenuity, recycled parts, and emergency solutions. Image | x In Xataka | Russia’s enemy in Ukraine is basically an AI. So you’re painting your tanks CAPTCHA color In Xataka | Thousands of elderly Ukrainians are isolated at the front. An army of drones is coming to your rescue

Hubble made us believe that this exoplanet was impossible. James Webb just explained why we were wrong

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In 2014, the exoplanet WASP-94A b was discovered, a hot Jupiter with an anomalous amount of oxygen and carbon in its atmosphere. The first observations pointed to hundreds of times more of these two gases than in the atmosphere of the Solar System’s Jupiter. This did not fit with standard models of planetary formation. It could be that there is some error in the models. However, according to what has just been verified with the James Webb Space Telescope, the problem was rather that the right telescope was not being used. Closer observation has shown that oxygen and carbon levels are actually much lower, consistent with known physics. Also, as a tip, something very curious has been discovered: that the planet has rocky clouds during the day that disappear when sunset arrives. A very useful transit. The authors of a study recently published in Science They took advantage of a transit of the planet in front of its star to study its atmosphere with the James Webb telescope. Previously, observations were made with the Hubble telescope. With it, the light spectra coming from the atmosphere could be analyzed and, with them, their composition could be established. However, since it was not a telescope capable of distinguish clouds from the rest of the atmospherethe calculations were an average of the gases of everything together. Said by one of the authors of the studywith Hubble the result was something like looking through a foggy window. Now, after giving the window glass a good look, they have been able to see exactly the composition of both the atmosphere and the clouds. Tidal lock. This exoplanet is tidally locked. This means which takes the same time to orbit its star as it does around itself. The result is that it always has the same face facing the star, so on half the planet it is always day and on the other half it is always night. It’s something like what happens to us on Earth with the Moon, which always has a hidden side for us. Despite having perpetual days and nights on each face, on this type of planets you can distinguish between sunrise and sunset, depending on the flow of gases in the atmosphere. The limit at which cold gases from the night side pass to the day side is considered the dawn of the planet, while the limb in which the opposite occurs is sunset. Different compositions. When observing the planet in full transit, the day side could not be seen, since it was looking towards the star. On the other hand, the James Webb has been able to capture the emissions from the two limits with the night side, considered sunrise and sunset. In this way, he has been able to verify two important pieces of information. On the one hand, what we mentioned: the levels of carbon and oxygen in the atmosphere are only five times higher than those of Jupiter. It is something that corresponds to other hot Jupiters and does not defy known physics. On the other hand, it has been seen that on the sunrise side there are clouds composed of silicates. That is, rocky clouds. However, these dissipate until they disappear on the evening side. Thanks to this duality, it has been possible to explore the pure atmosphere, with hardly any clouds, in the area of ​​the planet close to sunset. Unknown causes. The authors of the study do not know what causes this strange behavior of the clouds. However, they have two hypotheses. The first would be something similar to the process that gives rise to fog on Earth. The clouds would form in the darkness on the night side, then enter the intense heat of more than 1,000 degrees on the day side. The substances that make up the clouds would boil and the clouds would vaporize throughout the day, disappearing completely at night. Then, on the night side, the process begins again. The other hypothesis, on the other hand, suggests that there may be intense winds on the planet that are dragging the clouds into the interior of the planet and taking them out of sight by sunset. And now what? These scientists are already studying other hot Jupiters. At the moment, they have already detected two others with the same distinctive cloud cycle: WASP-39 by WASP-17 b. There is nothing like a good sample to properly study any scientific phenomenon. The more planets that are detected with the same circumstances, the better the reasons can be clarified. Image| John Hopkins In Xataka | The James Webb has broken another historical record: a supermassive black hole older than expected

Bringing wind energy 100 km from the coast seemed impossible. Until China has thrown away its new metallic “heart”

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A 25,000-tonne mass of steel, with the surface area of ​​a football field and the height of a 15-story building, is currently crossing the ocean aboard an immense semi-submersible ship. The latest great milestone in Asian engineering is already underway. This colossus has just set sail from the port of Nantong, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, on a 1,090 nautical mile journey to southern China. The protagonist of this monumental journey is called “Hai Feng Zhi Xin“, which translated into Spanish means “heart of the sea wind.” As highlighted in an official statement collected by the agency PR Newswireit is the largest offshore converter station in the world, built by the state-owned Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (ZPMC). Its destination is the waters off the city of Yangjiang, where it will connect to the mammoth Qingzhou V and Qingzhou VII offshore wind farms, operated by the corporation Three Gorges. The “bottleneck” of offshore wind. To understand the magnitude of this project, you have to understand the historical problem that the wind sector faced. As the news agency explains XinhuaUntil now, the development of offshore wind energy has hit a physical wall. Conventional wind turbines produce electricity in alternating current (AC). The problem is that transmitting this alternating current through submarine cables over long distances causes severe and unaffordable energy losses. This technical limitation forced engineers to build wind farms in relatively shallow waters and very close to the coast. However, the wind resource is much stronger, stable and constant the further you go into the open sea. That’s where the technological solution of this new project comes into play as it acts as the largest power adapter on the planet. It collects the energy generated by no less than 163 wind turbines, increases its voltage and converts that alternating current into direct current (DC). So why is this a game changer? Because direct current can travel hundreds of kilometers underwater with minimal energy loss. The platform boasts a record unit capacity of 2,000 megawatts (MW) and operates with a flexible ±500 kilovolts (kV) direct current transmission system. In addition, it is a pioneer in the use of ±525 kV submarine cables for these distances. This technical conversion unlocks access to high-quality wind resources located more than 100 kilometers offshore, making ultra-deepwater wind finally commercially viable. When at full capacity, this metal “heart” will pump out 6 billion kWh of clean electricity a year, a vital boost to the decarbonization efforts of the industrialized Guangdong region. A 25,000 ton giant. Building a power plant in the middle of the raging deep ocean is not a viable option. The project was approached as a gigantic set of modular parts. Assembly, integration of all equipment and installation progressed in parallel onshore (Nantong), demanding an unprecedented level of supply chain coordination. Yan Bing, Senior Specialist of ZPMC cited by PR Newswireexplains that they adopted an integrated construction model of “land assembly, transportation as a single unit, and float-over installation.” This offshore installation method is overwhelmingly complex, requiring millimeter-level adjustment precision amidst strong ocean currents to fit the superstructure. Once locked into place, the platform’s working environment will be unforgiving. As detailed Xinhuawill operate completely autonomously, without a permanent human crew, controlled through intelligent maintenance and remote monitoring systems. Inside, a dense network of electrical, ventilation and fire control systems has been specially armored to resist the very high salinity and corrosive humidity of the deep ocean. The urgency of this megaproject. This feat is within China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030). The Asian country has set the goal of reaching 100 gigawatts (GW) of installed offshore wind energy capacity by 2030. China’s problem is that its nearshore wind resources are quickly becoming saturated. Just in February this year, the country connected the first 20-megawatt offshore wind turbine to the grid in Fujian province (made entirely from domestic components), followed by the installation of the world’s largest floating wind platform in Yangjiang. The 100 kilometers from the coast are no longer an unbreakable border. With the imminent ignition of its new energy node, China not only alleviates the energy hunger of its coastal areas, but also establishes a replicable technical model that demonstrates to the entire world that the future of clean energy inevitably requires losing sight of the shore. Image | Xu Congjun/Xinhua Xataka | Japan has realized that it cannot depend on gas, so it is going to set up a mega wind farm on the coast of Tokyo

Anthropic is about to achieve something that seemed impossible for a large AI company: make money

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In a data leak published by The Wall Street Journalthe artificial intelligence laboratory founded by the Amodei brothers has informed its investors that it will close the second quarter of 2026 with revenues 130% higher than those of the first quarter of the year. It is a colossal achievement that also achieves something unusual for these companies: they will have an operating profit of 559 million dollars. They earn more than they spend. According to these data, the company will reach $10.9 billion compared to $4.8 billion in the first quarter. Its quarterly growth rate already exceeds Zoom during the pandemic or those that Google and Facebook had before their stock market increases. It is quite a breath of fresh air for an industry accused of being a gigantic bubble. The rivals, fatal. While Anthropic gives the big surprise, the rest of the competitors are still in a good financial situation. For example, OpenAI confessed to its investors that does not expect to see benefits until 2030. It didn’t work out well for xAI either, which carries losses of 6.5 billion due to investments in data centers. How did they achieve it?. To achieve this milestone, Anthropic has differentiated its strategy from the beginning. It has focused mainly on companies that pay for the intensive use of its agentic tools (Claude Code) and its APIs (Claude Opus/Sonnet 4.7). It also uses chips from manufacturers such as Google and Amazon, and has managed to optimize its spending in the cloud. It is therefore more focused and it is more efficient than its rivals, and that has had a clear effect on its balance sheet. Mythos as reputational success. In recent months Anthropic has fought several political and media battles and seems to have emerged victorious from all of them. Have Pentagon attempt rejected By controlling how its AI models were used was a clear boost to that brand image. But also the launch of its Mythos model It has been especially striking because although it is not publicly accessible, it does not stop giving headlines that seem to confirm that what Anthropic said (“it is so good that we better not release it”) was true. But. Although the figures are promising, there are nuances in these estimates. Not being a public company, Anthropic uses accounting methods that benefit it in this forecast. For example, it includes as direct revenue the sales of its models through its partners, such as AWS or Google Cloud, something that OpenAI does not do. In addition, it excludes stock compensation for its employees and these results do not guarantee that this profitability will be maintained throughout the year. We will see more quarters in red. The profit achieved would be extraordinary for many companies, but it is pocket change for Anhtropic. The company recently committed to spending $15 billion in SpaceX computing capacity using Colossus clusters. At the moment everything indicates that these benefits will be temporary and the company will return to red numbers. And yet, its evolution is currently more positive than that of OpenAI, against which it has not stopped winning battles for some time. In Xataka | Nvidia’s financial results are simply dizzying. And it still hasn’t sold a single chip in China

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