invented

When an engineer wanted to cross Africa by car, he invented a wooden. It would be the beginning of its end

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In one of his picturesque life, Tony Howarth had a revolutionary vision: Create a perfect car for Africa. A cheap, resistant, easy to repair and that could be made locally with sustainable materials. His project, baptized as ‘Africar’, promised to change transportation in the African continent forever. However, what began as an altruistic dream It ended up becoming a legal nightmare which led its creator directly to prison. From a filmmaker to engineer with a mission: to manufacture the perfect car for Africa Image: Silodrome Howarth was not any businessman. Graduated in Engineering from the University of Cambridge, had developed since childhood A passion for mechanics which led him to build his own fuel injection system for his motorcycle when he was barely ten years old. However, it was his recognized career as a photographer and filmmaker that led him to devote himself to this peculiar project. And is that Howarth has traveled more than 130 countries, experiencing in the first person the difficulties of African land roads. During his trips through Africa in the 70s, Howarth realized that Western vehicles were not designed for the extreme conditions of the continent. Earth tracks, deep potholes and the lack of specialized workshops turned any breakdown into a capital problem. In addition, the programmed obsolescence of the Western car industry made the spare parts more and more difficult to achieve. An inspiration of the Ford Model T Image: Silodrome The concept of Africar was inspired by the legendary Ford Model T, a vehicle that had been designed precisely for the roads without asphalting from Rural America of the early twentieth century. Howarth understood that what Africa needed was something similar: A simple, durable and that could be repaired by local mechanics No need for sophisticated equipment. Its design was revolutionary for its simplicity. The chassis was built with stainless steel tubes to avoid corrosion, while body panels could be manufactured with local materials such as laminated wood impregnated in resin, aluminum or even plastic. The chosen engine was the Citroën GSA Boxer Propulor Refrigated by air that offered reliability and ease of maintenance. An expedition that changed everything Image: Lancslive In 1984, Howarth built three prototypes of Africar for an ambitious expedition that would be documented by Channel 4: A journey from the Arctic Circle to the African Ecuador. The three vehicles-a ranchera, a pick-up and a six-wheel model-demonstrated their worth crossing thousands of kilometers of extreme land. During the journey, Africar exceeded evidence that left a Land Rover Series III that accompanied them. Their long -running independent suspension and their high distance to the ground allowed them to overcome obstacles that stuck more conventional vehicles. The fatal error Image: Lancslive The success of the expedition opened the doors to investment. In 1986, Howarth founded Africar International Limited in LancasterEngland, and began to capture capital of private investors. However, He made a mistake that would end his project and, later, in prison. Concerned about the dependence of the Citroën engines, which could be obsolete at any time, Howarth decided to invest the money of investors in developing their own engine. It was a logical decision from the technical point of view, but catastrophic since the financial. The funds were exhausted before completing the development, and the clients who had paid in advance did not receive their vehicles. The situation became unsustainable when investors discovered that the prototype shown in a Christmas presentation of 1987 was actually an empty shell: without engine, with the doors stuck and still wet paint. A bitter ending and a legacy that endures Image: Silodrome In July 1988, the Police intervened and Africar International Limited ceased its operations. Howarth fled to the United States in a desperate attempt to get the financing that saved the project, but it was useless. In 1994 he returned to the United Kingdom, where He was arrested immediately. Tony Howarth declared himself guilty of a fraudulent crime and five to obtain goods through deception. Was sentenced to 15 months in prison. In his own words, the prison experience “was like being in a British boarding school.” Although Africar never manufactured in series (it is estimated that only one and six specimens of production were built), Howarth’s idea did not die with him. His concept has inspired other African entrepreneurs, such as the creators of the Mobius in Kenyathat resumed the vision of a car designed for the region, despite Its economic difficulties. Cover image | Silodrome In Xataka | The list of 2025 most reliable cars has left us the most unexpected surprise: the best car does not have Toyota or Honda

Until a couple of centuries ago, nobody had yet invented them

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It is one of those things that we give so however sitting that we may have never wondered: Why do books have chapters? The answer is, in reality, quite simple, and it has a lot to do with the way we have to tell stories and, above all, with a genuinely human aspiration, and whose origins date back to the beginning of time: make our lives easier. Chapter 1. We must clarify that when we talk about chapters, we are doing it in the broader conception of the term: we talk rather to divide a text into successive and organized points. As we are organizing this article, without going any further: in epigraphs headed by a title that summarizes the content of each section, he adds or clarifies it. But this was not always common currency. Nicholas Dames, author of the Book Scent. It is a legal tablet that dates back to the second century BC. According to Dames to An ABC podcastthe text had a “continuous law, but it was segmented and those segments had short titles.” That is, the first work of the chapters is to organize informative texts, to help the reader locate the information. This use began to spread, and thus we reached a parallel invention, the index: during part of ancient history, the most common support was the roll, sometimes it was accompanied by a list of chapters in a smaller scroll. Separate things. Dames explains That this separation in epigraphs was unheard of: two thousand years ago there was no current conception of writing and, for example, the words that appeared in the rolls were not separated, there were no spaces between them. The authors did not care about those things, the editors were in charge of the texts in the texts when undertaking a task called “capitulation.” It was these editors, sometimes scholars of the time, sometimes medieval monks, who divided the works into chapters to make them more understandable. The Bible, point and apart. What can attract attention, according to what countsIt is that the Bible was never divided into chapters, but that this action was carried out, in very different ways, between the fourth and thirteenth centuries. It was divided with innumerable ways, sometimes in long chapters, sometimes in short sections, which further confused the study and dissemination of a book that has already had a labyrinthine story. It was in the thirteenth century (or that is believed) when the one that would later be Archbishop of Canterbury, set the division into chapters that we know today. This division met critics as distinguished as the philosopher John Locke. And things changed. The Bible was a definitive turning point: for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the novel became an absolutely massive entertainment format, the authors They thought their stories with the division by chapters In mind, with attention placed on the rhythm. Subsequent forms of diffusion, such as deliveries novels or, at present, television series are already meditated from very first stages of the conception of the story with the division of chapters in mind. Header | Chapter VII of ‘Dracula’, Minotaur edition illustrated by Tomás son In Xataka | In Spain a book is published every six minutes. It is the symptom of a bubble that does not stop inflating

The Neanderthals invented it 125,000 years ago with their “fat factory”

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Although demonized for a long time, fat is one of the essential macronutrients for the correct functioning of our body. More recent studies and habits are putting the fats in their place placing some like Allied in healthy dietsbut thousands of years ago, who already knew the role of fat in the body were the Neanderthals. To the point that just discover A giant “Factory” of fat in Germany. Short. Neumark-nord It is an archaeological site that is southwest of Berlin and a few kilometers from Leipzig. It is a place not alien to researchers, since a study in the area a few years ago revealed How the Neanderthals already did what we are doing so well: deeply modify the landscape in which they live. Without leaving the customs of those Neanderthals who inhabited the area 125,000 years ago, we have new details about their customs. Posted in the magazine Science Advancesa new study shows how Our ancestors They had an “industry” around the processing of the bones of large mammals with a single objective: extract bone fat to consume it little by little. Fat factories. A study of more than 2,000 bone fragments and dozens of flint tools It has allowed researchers to observe in many of them signs of having used to crush, have been crushed and have an exposure to intense heat. In some specific areas there was a concentration of bones rich in marrow, as well as anvils and folk that would have been the Tools used by Neanderthals. This concentration reinforces the idea that the site was used as a kind of “factory” to extract fat in a rather laborious way. According to the researchers, to get that bone fat, they broke the bones of 172 mammals such as deer, horses or cattle. Once they reached the marrow, the small fragments in water crushed and warmed it to extract the fat. It was a planned, long and, the researchers affirm in Livescienceorganized to maximize the extraction of nutrients from animal remains. Bones damaged by a hammer Fighting “rabbit starvation”. Why complicate life so much to get fat? The reason is simple and we must return to the diet. Follow one balanced diet To be healthy it means that we must eat a certain amount of fats, proteins and carbohydrates. When one of the tables of the table decomposes, health problems appear. That they put so much effort to get fat in this way may mean that there were times (perhaps the coldest) in which Carbohydrates scarce and could not feed exclusively with proteins. A decompensation thus (which we now do with Diets like Keto) It is dangerous, above all, if it is accompanied by an intense rhythm of life in which energy is needed. Consuming too much protein without sufficient fat can cause something called “starring rabbit”, A potentially deadly condition that is caused by excessive consumption of lean meat without enough fat. And it is not that the rabbit is the animal that suffers it. It was baptized like this because Arctic Explorers They fed almost exclusively with similar rabbits and animals and fell seriously ill because our body cannot metabolize large amounts of proteins without sufficient fat. They only improved when they could hunt animals with more fat. Ahead of the clock. Our body may burn carbohydrates or fat to obtain energy, since Protein is not a good “fuel”and if the carbos were scarce, the Neanderthals turned to fat. Where from? Of what they had closer: the bones of the animals that had hunted to feed. That they realized this implies that perhaps we should stop seeing them as those little sophisticated “hunters” that we can imagine sometimes. It also indicates that They were organized and quite ingenious. And, more important than this consideration, that large fat factory in Germany advances the resource intensification industry clock in almost 100,000 years. Before this analysis, the oldest evidence of a similar industry Databa 28,000 years ago. Images | Athree23 In Xataka | The Neanderthals left a deep genetic footprint in us. The last example: the sense of pain

After the civil war, Franco wanted to colonize empty Spain. So 300 new villages were invented

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Throughout Spain there are more than 8,100 municipalitieslarge and small villages, coast, mountain, bathed by the waters of the Cantabrian, the Atlantic or of Mediterranean climate. There are also very old, such as Brañoserafounded in the ninth century, and others so recent that their first inhabitants can still tell us about their origins. This is the case of the 300 populations promoted by the Franco dictatorship as part of its colonization policy. The peoples “Invented” By Franco. A figure: 55,000. The idea is so crazy, so huge, that often It is said which motivated one of the population displacements most important of the Spain of the twentieth century. Between 1940 and 1970 The Franco regime founded around 300 locations in 27 provinces (half in Andalusia and Extremadura) that ended up causing the displacement of 55,000 familiespeople who a good day made their bags and left their native municipalities attracted by the promises of these new -wedge settlements. “Peoples of Colonization”. The colossal project was developed under the auspices of the National Institute of Colonization (the Incan entity created After the civil war To carry out the Franco agricultural policy) and their promises were of course suggestive: families willing to move to the new settlements were offered homes and wide irrigation lands in which a future is carved. All this in property. At least in theory. Input, the settlers had to meet certain requirements. The lots were supposedly distributed by raffle, although there are who holds That not all candidates started with the same possibilities: Ideally was that they were part of large families (with children willing to work) and adjusted to the archetype dreamed by Francoism: devout, laborious Catholics and to be possible Without links With reprisals. Nor did everyone start with the same conditions. As remember ABCin 1945 the government approved an order that regulated how the colonists could access the houses, something that depended on their savings. Under the tutelage of the INC. Who could advance part of the value of the land (20%) entered a phase that the INC called “access to property”. Then they had to pay the rest of the amount to become owners of their homes and farms. The thing changed for the humblest settlers. They had to spend five years in “Tutela period”, a stage during which the Institute supervised what they cultivated and remained a portion of the crops as payment. Villalba de Calatrava, a town of colonization of the Calatrava Campo (Ciudad Real) Campo. How long did they spend like this? Depends. ABC appointment A town where that tutelage lasted until almost the end of the 60s, a time to which the families had to add the “access to property” stage. The newspaper also speaks of 25 -year deadlines to finish paying the lands (30 in the case of homes) with more than considerable interests, 3% or even 7%. To complete the picture, the INC had a structure that was in charge of “guardianship” the families of settlers through intermediate charges. In the first place were the agronomists, authors of the plans. Its guidelines passed to the expert and below this was the Mayoral, who supervised the farmers. And what was the goal? With the new settlement the Franco regime pursued several objectives. The program served to boost the Agrarian transformation (With irrigation extensions), expand the cultivable area, repopulate and transform the Spanish field, but also had an ideological background. With the new settlements, many baptized with names that They mentioned to the new regime and its referents (Caudillo Alberche, Villafranco del Guadiana either Águeda del Caudillo), The dictatorship also sought to project a new image and feed its advertising. The expansion of the new villages coincided with The bet of the dictatorship by hydraulic infrastructure. “The political strategy of the new State replaces the redistribution of the land (objective of the Second Republic) with a colonization policy based on the transformation of the rural that allowed to settle in villages of colonization a self -sufficient peasant”, Remember from the Ministry of Agriculture, on which the National Institute depended after its creation, in October 1939. A program with lights … The colonization policy of Francoism had social, economic, agricultural and even “undeniable” repercussions, such as They recognize From the ministry. And not only because the creation of hundreds of villages for Repopulation of the ’emptied Spain’ and postwar. Among the displaced there were those who, upon their arrival at the settlements, found infrastructures and unimaginable services in the villas from which they came. “When we got here it was like dreaming awake,” He recounts The country A retired farmer who arrived in Villalba in Calatrava (Ciudad Real) with his parents in 1964, when he was 12 years old. “There was a bathroom, with its cup and sink. In those years that had no one! He was very small, but having something like that was out of series.” The idea was that in the new settlements the settlers could opt for a house in fertile property and lands, contributing in passing to the economy of postwar Spain and the conversion of fields into irrigation. … And also with shadows. Not everything was positive. Despite the promises of housing and lands, many settlers to reach the property cost them years of sweat delivering part of their crops. “We were slaves,” confesses a The country Another old settler of The Bazanawhere he arrived with just 17 or 18 years. In 2018, already after 85, he remembered: “They paid you what they wanted for the crops, and then there came a point where they stopped buying them because the beans from Badajoz were very expensive.” The cultivation of the new lands was not always simple, just as it was not to follow the guidelines marked by the engineers and major people of the town. Others left their lifelong locations to move to new wedge settlements in which they had no roots, they were surrounded by strangers and (sometimes) they met half -finished works. “When … Read more

A solar energy company has sued Google for the AI ​​of its search engine: it was invented that they were scammers

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Google’s search engine is not just a search engine. Since Google began to integrate the “ai overViews” function, it is also A chatbot with artificial intelligence that answers the questions of the users without clicking on any link. The problem is that the underlying technology, the great language models, work probabilisticly, so they tend to invent the answer when they are not clear how to answer. A credible lie. This time, an invented response from AI Overviews can end up sitting Google on the bench. The plaintiff is Wolf River Electric, a Minnesota solar energy company. And the origin of the lawsuit is, the redundancy is worth, a demand that never existed. In Xataka Chatgpt is taking some people to the edge of madness. Reality is less alarmist and much more complex According to the lawyers of the energy company, the search for the terms “demands against Wolf River Electric” in Google made it AI responded with defamations. They cite a case in which AI Overviews replied that Wolf River Electric had been sued by Minnesota attorney for “deceptive sales practices”, such as lying to customers about how much they will save and deceive the owners to sign contracts with hidden rates. The AI ​​presented the case with total confidence involving four of the company’s managers by name: Justin Nielsen, Vladimir Marchenko, Luka Bozek and Jonathan Latcham, coming to show a photo of Nielsen next to the false accusations. To support his statements, the AI ​​cited four links: three news articles and a statement from the attorney general. However, none of the links mentioned a lawsuit against Wolf River Electric. It is not the first time. This type of error It is known as “hallucination”and it is very common in language models for how their response are weaving through the prediction of the following words, sometimes dragging the initial error until it becomes a credible lie with all kinds of invented ramifications, as in the play of the pickled phone. When Google began to integrate Ai Overview in the search engine, he had to withdraw it from some searches, especially recipes and nutrition, because he recommended Add glue to pizza Or eat a stone a day to stay healthy. An answer per question. Wolf River Electric states that, due to what they read in the AI ​​Overviews, several clients canceled their contracts, valued at up to $ 150,000. The problem is that Ai overViews responses are personalized: they are inferred at the time, so it can vary from one consultation to another That to Wolf River Electric’s lawyers are not worried because they know it can happen again. “This demand is not just about defending the reputation of our company; it will defend equity, truth and responsibility in the era of artificial intelligence,” Nicholas Kasprowicz sayslegal advisor of the company. {“Videid”: “X7ZW3C2”, “Autoplay”: False, “Title”: “I cheated an artificial intelligence | Captcha 2×02”, “Tag”: “Artificial Intelligence”, “Duration”: “2958”} David against Goliath. The case was filed in March in a state court and has just been elevated to a Federal Court of the United States. Perhaps it ends up creating jurisprudence on whether a technology company must take responsibility for its generation and disinformation. The answer to this question could mark a turning point for AI companies, which for a long time have tried to avoid responsibility for the results of their language models. Google, in its defense, described the incident as a harmless mishap. “The vast majority of our AI overViews are precise and useful, but as with any new technology, errors can occur,” A company spokesman says. Google says he had quickly acted to solve the problem as soon as they had knowledge of him, in line with his Recent efforts for allowing users to correct the mistakes of the AI. Image | Google In Xataka | Google’s AI advises using pizza cheese glue. The source is a Reddit comment 11 years ago (Function () {Window._js_modules = Window._js_modules || {}; var headelement = document.getelegsbytagname (‘head’) (0); if (_js_modules.instagram) {var instagramscript = Document.Createlement (‘script’); }}) (); – The news A solar energy company has sued Google for the AI ​​of its search engine: it was invented that they were scammers It was originally posted in Xataka by Matías S. Zavia .

Despite never winning, England always had to have invented football. It is possible that now not that

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It is not necessary to go very far to know until Where they are capable If some English arrive when what is at stake is the king sport. Just 24 hours ago the Europa League final left in the city of Bilbao Scenes Barbaric that remembered other times with empires in between. Therefore, the last archaeological discovery should put Europe on guard. What would happen if the English discover that in the end they were not the inventors of football? Worse, what would happen if they discovered that they were their neighbors? The invention of football (and its rules). The truth is that the last finding adds to others that have questioned the authorship of the sport of the ball over the English. We have already told it before, the Maya They played footballor something very similar, and the same could be said of China thousands of years ago or of the Florentine calcium (As for the modern rules). Be that as it may, the last of the possible “inventors” is, perhaps, the one that can hurt the English. The friends Scottish They are behind. The beginning: pig. Let’s go with The English theory. For more than a century and a half, the official history of football has been unequivocally of them. The roots of the so -called “beautiful game” have commonly tracked to the chaotic and brutal games of the so -called Mob Football In medieval England, where crowds of peasants pushed and hit collective struggles without clear rules for the control of an inflated pig bladder. Over time, and to order chaos, a young London lawyer written in 1863 The first formal sport regulation, adopted by the Football Associationwhich consolidated England as the recognized cradle of modern football. That narrative, however, has now questioned a Archaeological finding in Scotland that could force to review the symbolic foundations of football as it is known. Mossobin’s field. The discovery, led by Ged O’Brien, founder of the Scottish Soccer Museumand a team of archaeologists of the Archaeology ScotlandIt consists of what could be the oldest organized soccer field: a rectangular extension of flat terrain in an old seventeenth farm in Anwoth, Kirkcudbrightshire. The key, apparently, is in A written letter between 1627 and 1638 by Reverendo Samuel Rutherford, Presbyterian pastor of the local parish, where regretted that his parishioners They played Foot-Ball on Sunday afternoon, instead of attending religious trades. As a deterrent, Rutherford ordered row To prevent matches, what archaeologists interpret as a kind of precarious sign of “forbidden to play.” Physical tests and context. The team excavated and analyzed the terrain, discarding any agricultural or livestock use for the line of stones found, and determined that he dated about 400 years ago. The alignment, the configuration of the field (about 85 x 45 meters) and the documentary evidence supports the hypothesis that there was played there The closest to football regularly and organized. O’Brien insists that this It wasn’t Mob Footballbut a more civilized and recurring version, practiced every Sunday with implicit social rules, such as avoiding excessive violence so as not to prevent players from working the next day. The continuity and function of the field suggest a sports practice with structure and periodicitywhich, if confirmed, would displace southern England as the only legitimate origin of organized football. National pride and shock. No doubt, the reaction from England has not been waiting. Steve Wood, representative of the organization Sheffield Home of Footballhe has responded With skepticismclaiming that you cannot know what type of “foot-ball” was played in Mossobin or establish a direct connection with modern football encoded in 1863. From that optics, the Sheffield FC Foundation In 1857 (recognized by FIFA as the oldest club in the world) it would continue to be the true starting point. But for O’Brien, that attitude is a more manifestation of English chauvinisma subtle way of belittling history and Scottish cultural contributions. “We weren’t too poor or too small or too stupid to play football,” He underlined. “What was played in Mossobin was the grandfather of modern football. And he was Scottish,” he settled. Rewriting a legend. Had the New York Times That, although it is unlikely that this finding immediately replaces the official narrative accepted by global football institutions, its symbolic value is enormous. It offers an alternative look at the evolution of king sport, showing that the impulse of kick A community ball was not a sudden invention of English boarding schools, but a cultural expression more widespread and old of what was believed. If you want also, the dispute goes beyond the pitch: a battle For historical identity of a worldwide phenomenon, in which a small but proud nation demands its place in history books. Thus, in the 21st century, the debate on the origin of football not only faces fans or historians, but becomes a more land between two visions of greatness diametrically opposed within the British islands. That trembles Europe. Image | James Kirkup In Xataka | The Maya played football. And now we know that under the courts they buried a hallucinogenic surprise In Xataka | Bilbao promised them very happy celebrating the final of the Europa League. Until two English teams were classified

Several newspapers published their 15 favorite books for this summer. 10 of them had invented the AI

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Summer approaches, and with it, the inevitable recommendations of the best books, series and films with which to invest our time. Lists that we understand that they are elaborated by experts in this type of suggestions, although it is not always so. In fact, they are sometimes elaborated by artificial intelligences. And sometimes, the results are as disastrous as delusions. It has been AI. This is what the ‘Chicago Sun-Times’ readers have found (and many other newspapers in the United States with that union content) in the supplement ‘The best of summer’, published last weekend. In it, an article with fifteen book recommendations for heat months: ten of them are false, although curiously, their authors are authentic. The person in charge, Marco Buscaglia, recognizes 404 average that has used AI To elaborate it: “Sometimes I use AI as support, but I always check the material first. This time I did not do it and I cannot believe that it would happen to me because it is very obvious. There are no excuses. The fault is mine one hundred percent and I am completely embarrassed.” A couple of examples. Among the most striking books recommended by the list is ‘Tidewater Dreams’ by Isabel Allende, who significantly has just published a book, ‘My name is Emilia del Valle’. The article also recommends the new Andy Weir, author of ‘The Martian’ who titled ‘The Last Algorithm’. It is interesting because the description made of the previous work of the authors is correct, and the synopsis that invents could be true. But they are not. The list of authors continues with people like percival Everett, Ray Bradbury or Jess Walter. Confusion to many levels. According to They have investigated in 404 averageGoogle’s AI gives as authentic that same false book of Isabel Allende (although at this time, the search for ‘tidewater Dreams’ throws, above all, results that report on the Chicago fiasco of Chicago Sun-Times). It’s about a significant fact: it has not transcended what the article elaborated with the article, but as It is increasingly patentthe search for documentation and reliable data between these systems that are feedback begins to be a real mines field. Multiple hallucinations. This is one of the first times in which these problems with the veracity of the results of the AI ​​transcend into the physical world. But Internet users have been suffering from it for a long time: a Reddit comment 11 years ago has traveled to the present, and Google’s AI recommended in a recipe Use pizza cheese glue. Before that, in 2023, Google’s primitive AI I dropped Alphabet for your incorrect answers. The stories are multiple, especially in Google searches (we do not enter the “hallucinations” of chatgpt): Present as real a story of the Day of the Innocents to Invent meaning for invented phrases. Read a lot, read anything. Under what is still a concatenation of capital errors and lack of professionalism not only at the level of the editor, but also to that of the Many intermediate stages that must approve that list, throbb another circumstance. Reading has soaked from cultural exhibitionism that we continue with movies, series or video games. It is no longer about reading what we want, but to mark the greatest amount of boxes on the list of “what you have to read” what We are commissioned by the Booktokers on duty. Reading is cool, even if the book is a lie. The phenomenon of Fomented Reading Clubs by Dua LipaSarah Jessica Parker or Reese Whitherspoon are the best proof that books are no longer a library mice. Reading is cool and sexy againbut it is not enough to experience it: you have to prove it. Like the Marvel movies or the fashion series this week, Read has become the topic of conversation of the momentand that generates monsters like this invented list: there are plenty of books because the SATURY INDUSTRY. But in case with that we fell short, we invented more books. Header | Marcel Strauß in Unspash

We usually assume that the Wright brothers invented the plane in the US. In Brazil they think they have evidence otherwise

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December 17, 1903. That morning, the brothers wibur and orville wright They got something apparently unpublished until then: A flight of only 12 seconds for posterity and just over 36 meters away that changed the world of aviation forever. They had achieved the first (controlled) flight of a machine heavier than the air, and the United States and the brothers would remain forever in the annals of the story. However, in Brazil they don’t have it so clear. A centenary rivalry. While in most of the planet there is consensus and the invention of the plane is attributed to the Wright brothers, in Brazil the conviction is kept alive that That was not like that. In fact, many think it was Alberto Santos Dumont who made the first flight considered real in 1906. The Brazilian narrative maintains that, unlike the Wright, Santos Dumont managed to take off its aircraft 14-BIS Autonomously and without mechanical assistance, raising before judges and journalists in Paris, without the need for catapults or favorable winds, which would make it, according to its defenders, the true “father of aviation.” To get an idea, he told the weekend The Washington Post That this version He has shown so deeply In the Brazilian culture, to the point that the image of Santos Dumont has figured in tickets, one of the main airports of Rio de Janeiro bears his name and his figure starred in the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games. Lula and the tests. Not just that. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has also put his grain of sand and has revived the debate During his current mandate, taking advantage of every occasion to discredit the US version and claim Santos Dumont as a pioneer. Lula accuses the United States of having imposed his story thanks to his Powerful film industry And he considers that denying Brazilian merit is a grievance to history and national self -esteem. For the politician and so many other defenders, the difference is very clear: The Wright Flyer In 1903 He needed catapultsconstant wind and auxiliary structures, while the 14-bis of Santos Dumont took off on its own, without any external device, flying 220 meters in front of the look of the public and the international press. Dumont’s 14bis The technical debate and science. And what do experts say? It is the big question, obvious. Historians and experts in aviation outside Brazil, Like Peter JakabEmeritus curator of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, they consider irrefutable that the Wright managed to fly before Santos Dumont. Under this premise, they argue that The use of non -disabling catapults The achievement, remembering that even today combat airplanes take off by catapults from aircraft carriers without its flight capacity. In addition, they emphasize that in 1905 The Flyer III of the Wright already made sustained flights up to 40 minutes and 38 km of travel, demonstrating a much more developed capacity than that of 14-bis. On the other sidewalk, for many Brazilians the crucial detail is not the duration, but The shape of takeoff: Without external aids and before witnesses. National background and mythology. In the end, the dispute has transcended the purely technical and has become a National Identity Question both in Brazil and the United States. For Brazilians, Santos Dumont represents not only a technological deed but A symbol of ingenuity and homeland pride. Its legacy goes beyond aviation: it is remembered for its simplicity, its contribution to the development of airships and its rejection of the military use of airplanes, cause that deeply affected it until its tragic end. In Brazil, in fact, its figure is more revered as A cultural hero that as a purely historical character, while in the United States it could be said that the history of the Wright brothers part of the founding story of the modern technological era. The dilemma: truth vs identity. One thing does seem clear: historical records tend to favor the Wright, although that has not prevented the debate from persists as a symbolic struggle between two nations with quite different visions about the history of aviation. In Petrópolis, saints city of Santos Dumont, its legacy is still alive, and its nephew-bisnieto, Alberto Dodsworth Wanderley, recognized in the post that the dispute has become more A matter of faith than verifiable facts. Polarization is such that, for each side, there are enough emotional and technical arguments to hold your position. If you want also, it is an obvious example (Another one) How nationalism can mold the interpretation of history. Image | John T. Daniels, Jules Beau In Xataka | In the 1960s the planes were going so fast that someone promised trips to the moon. And people bought them In Xataka | A piece of Wright Flyer I will fly on Mars, the NASA placed part of the world’s first plane in its naivety helicopter

A Venezuelan invented a city without law in the middle of an island. Now the millionaires who followed him do not know how to escape

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In recent history there are several examples of projects of private for profit that sought to redifing the concept of governance and economic development combining libertarian, neoliberal and corporatist principles in the same cocktail shaker. ShenzhenIn China, it began as a special economic zone in 1980 and grew from being a fishing village to a metropolis with a GDP of 482 billion dollars. And there we have Neom in Saudi Arabiaalthough it is about to see that this future is confirmed. In any case, none as prosperous. A radical experiment. Located on the island of Roatán, Honduras, Prospera It was conceived as A libertarian citywith an independent fiscal and regulatory structure Designed to attract investorstechnological entrepreneurs and defenders of the free market. Created by the Venezuelan Erick Brime, a former manager of Investment Funds, the community operates under its own legal code, minimum tax rates and a digital judicial system administered by Arizona’s retired judges. With a 1% corporate tax rate And without capital gains taxes, the enclave was presented as an alternative to the Honduran system, seeking to demonstrate that the free market economy and the minimum government intervention can generate prosperity. Millionaires to the race. As we said, since its foundation in 2017, the city attracted the interest of Silicon Valley investors. There, people like Brian Armstrong (CEO of Coinbase) and Peter Thiel, who saw in prosperous space for technological and financial innovation. The community also became a meeting point for Biohackers and cryptocurrency, organizing conferences with the motto “Make Death Optional” and facilitating the installation of biotechnology and nuclear energy companies. However, the ambition of the project soon crashed with the political and social reality of Honduras, triggering a crisis that now threatens to dismantle its existence. Millionaires who look so happy do not know how to get out. The collapse of the legal framework. Prospera’s existence was possible thanks to the Employment and Economic Development Law (Zedes), approved during the mandate of former president Juan Orlando Hernández. What happened? That Hernández was arrested and convicted in the United States for drug trafficking, and her successor, President Xiomara Castro, went on to qualify the project as a creation of a “narco-regime.” In 2024, the Supreme Court of Honduras declared unconstitutional the law of the Zedesquestioning the legality of Prospera. Given this threat, Brime sue Honduras for 11,000 million of dollars before an international arbitration tribunal, claiming that the revocation of its special status constitutes an illegal expropriation. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in Lobby in the United States Congress seeking to press the Government so that sanction Honduras if it does not protect investment Foreign in Prospera. The community is revealed. In addition, the problem for these “investors” was aggravated when the rejection of the central government of the “city” added local leaders and indigenous communities In Roatán. Moreover, the Crawfish Rock community, which borders Prospera, has denounced that the project represents A threat to its territory and way of life. Tensions about access to water and territorial expansion have resulted in clashes between prosperous employees and local residents. A regulatory paradise. If you wonder why so many millionaires came to Brime, the answer is in one of the most controversial prosperous aspects: Your self -regulation modelwhere companies can choose between regulations from 36 different countriesSo even create their own regulations, provided they hire civil liability insurance. Hence, it has become a refuge for high -tech and biomedicine sectors, including startups on extreme longevity and prohibited experimental therapies in the United States. Who is it? Bloomberg had A few days ago in a special about the city that among the companies that have established operations in Prospera Oklo stand outa startup backed by Sam Altman that develops small nuclear reactors, biotechnology companies, some dedicated to unregulated medical treatments, and a large amount of Investors in cryptocurrenciesattracted by the possibility of paying taxes with Bitcoin. In any case, and despite its success by attracting private capital, the lack of a clear tax framework has generated those Frictions with the local government. The mayor of Roatán, Ron McNab, has criticized that Prospera uses the island’s infrastructure Without paying municipal taxeswhich aggravates urban problems such as lack of roads, drainage and safety. Model expansion. As Prospera’s viability in Honduras has become more uncertain, Brime and businesswoman Magatte Wade have launched a new project: Africa prosperan attempt to replicate the model in African countries. Apparently, Sub -Saharan Africa is seen as a fertile land for this type of projects due to its rapid urban growth and high demand for private investment. Of course, Wade has emphasized that his intention is to avoid mistakes made in Honduras and work in collaboration with local governments. A libertarian utopia. Thus, which began as an experiment in self -government has evolved in A legal, political and social struggle With the Honduran government and the premises In “Weapons” against this invented city. While Brime and his allies press for the international recognition of Prospera, local resistance and government actions have turned their dream and that of investors into a nightmare with a figure to settle: 11,000 million dollars. The curious thing about this story is that, far from trying to put an end, Prospera’s fate could be replicated in other places and, if necessary, determine the future of other autonomous cities worldwide. If you manage to survive and give you the right, a precedent will sit for many other similar projects. If it fails, it will reinforce skepticism about The viability of these libertarian enclaves in countries with fragile political and economic contexts. What seems clear is that the confrontation between Prospera and Honduras is far from ending, exposing fundamental challenges of private cities: can a corporation replace a state? Or maybe the big question: how far does the right of a community come to self -govern? Image | Zaha Hadid In Xataka | How much money Elon Musk has: how the fortune of the man who plans … Read more

Venice invented an entry rate to stop mass tourism. It has come out so well that it will double the price

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Tourism is equal to massification in Venice. It is nothing new and, in fact, the enclave has been a pioneer in some regulations that have sought to put the hordes to combine the life of the premises and that their ecosystem does not end up engulfed victim of their own success. His geography simply does not give for more, and that’s why they have imposed Bumpers to large groups with fines Whoever passes, or even They have tracked phones. They also imposed A pioneering tollan entry rate that went so well that They doubled the days. Now also the price. The experiment is consolidated. As we said, Venice is a pioneer in the imposition of An entry rate for single -day visitorsand success has been such for the administration that They have decided to duplicate the rate in 2025, raising it from 5 to 10 euros for those who enter without accommodation reserve. In addition, and as we explained a few months ago, The measure will be applied in 54 days a year, almost twice the 29 days selected in 2024. The dates include a continuous block from April 18 to May 4, followed by every Friday, Saturdays and Sundays until the end of July. The collection will remain from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm, and those who reserve at least four days in advance may pay only 5 euros. What do politicians say. The Tourism Councilor, Simone Venturini, gave a track of the announced change. Apparently, at the Milan Bit fair, he said that the 2024 pilot project was so successful, achieving its goal of managing tourist flows and discouraging massive tourism of a single day, which they have decided to enhance it. In fact, International destinations such as Formentera in Spain either Kyoto in Japan They have shown interest in replicating the Venetian initiative. Impact on the tourist rate. In 2024, almost half a million tourists (485,062) paid the entry rate, that is, that They generated 2.4 million euros in revenue to public coffers (The cost of the system or the destination of the funds collected) has not been revealed. The registration data indicates that, after the Italians, the main tourists were Americans, Germans and French. In addition, the measure achieved a slight reduction in the number of visitors from the Véneto region, although the authorities have not given figures. We also remember that despite this tariff increase, access remains free for those who spend the night in the city, although They must register online in CDA.ve.it to obtain their exemption. Travelers who only transit Piazzale Rome, Tronchetto or Stazione Marittima, as well as those who visit the outer islands of the lagoon (Lido, Murano and Burano) without going through the center are also exempt. The future in Venice. It is the big question. The authorities admit that the rate alone is not enough to manage mass tourism, but they do consider that The created system feels the bases for future regulations stricter. Venice, that Receive tourists from 194 countriesremains one of the destinations most affected by tourist overexploitation, which has led to the implementation of increasingly restrictive measures in an effort to protect its fragile urban ecosystem and preserve its historical character. One more than difficult equation. Image | Hervé Simon In Xataka | Given the risk of extreme saturation and weather, Spanish tourism already knows where to grow: winter In Xataka | Italy Veta One of the great symbols of mass tourism: the use of keys to make auto check-in is prohibited

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