literally

Europe is months away from registering a demographic milestone that has not occurred since the Black Death: it is literally shrinking

by

In June the latest Eurostat data putting the EU median age at 44.7 years (and growing). The reading then seemed more or less clear. Europe’s demographic collapse was bringing it closer to an invisible threshold that was once unthinkable: the Middle Ages. 50 years old. Half a year later, the data has not improved. Historical contraction. Yes, Europe is heading towards a demographic turning point unprecedented since the black plague from the 14th century. After decades of sustained decline in birth rates, the population of the European Union will reach its maximum next year and it will start after a prolonged fallthe first of its kind in centuries. This is not a temporary adjustment, but rather a deep structural change that threatens to redefine the economy, the welfare state and the social balance of the continent. The alarm does not arise only from the total number of inhabitants, but from the aging speed and the thinning of the working-age population, on which the pension, health and care systems built over generations rest. Political panic and a race. counted the Washington Post that, given this panorama, governments of all ideological stripes have entered into a race against time to see if a combination of economic incentives, public policies and cultural messages can reverse (or at least stop) the decline in birth rates. In the Nordic countries, for decades exhibited as a model of conciliation and well-being, commissions of experts have been created to understand why their systems did not prevent the collapse of fertility. In France, the discourse has acquired a almost military tonewith calls for “demographic rearmament” after a drop of 18% in births in just ten years. In the east and south of the continent, especially in countries governed by nationalist forces, the response has been more direct: money, tax advantages and an explicit exaltation of the traditional family as a pillar of the nation. Incentives and results. Italy offers bonuses to working mothers with two or more children. Poland has increased notably the monthly transfers per child and has expanded tax breaks for large families. On paper, these policies seem compelling, even enviable from countries like the United States, where the cost of raising children is systematically cited as the main brake to birth. However, the European experience shows a repeated pattern: even the most ambitious programs barely succeed in slowing the decline, don’t invest it. The problem is not the lack of public effort, but the magnitude of the phenomenon they face. Hungary, the laboratory. No country better embodies the ambitions and limits of this strategy than Hungary. For more than a decade, the government has deployed a support system of a generosity comparable to that of Scandinavia, allocating around 5% of its GDP to family policies, a higher proportion than the United States dedicates to defense. The range of measures it’s wide: leave for grandparents, subsidized mortgages for young married couples, loans of up to $30,000 that become subsidies if the family has three or more children, and lifetime tax exemptions for women with three children, extended to mothers of two children under 40 starting next year. The message is clear: having children is not only desirable, it is a matter of national survival. Initial successes. They remembered in the post that for a time, the data seemed to prove this bet right. Hungary’s fertility rate went from one of the lowest levels in Europe to figures that suggested a sustained recovery. But the relief was short-lived. In recent years, the trend has been reversed and the country has practically returned to the European average. For some demographers, the program did not generate new births, but rather advanced decisions by those who were already planning to have children. Others point out that, although the impact on fertility is limited, the policies have coincided with an increase in marriage, a reduction in child poverty and greater female labor participation. The key question is whether these collateral benefits justify the enormous public spending. State limits. Beyond the checks and exemptions prosecutors, the decision to have children remains deeply personal and increasingly complex. The rise in housing prices, persistent inflation and job insecurity they weigh as much or more than any incentive. Added to this is a factor that is rarely recognized in the political debate: many of the drivers of the decline in birth rates are social advances that no one wants to reverse. Widespread access to contraception, decline in teen pregnancy, and increased education and career opportunities for women have transformed motherhood and fatherhood in a late choice, carefully calculated and, for many, expendable. Modernity as a trap. The fertility drop has spread so widely that many experts interpret it as a consequence inherent to modernity. Parenthood is delayed until one’s thirties, when one has achieved job and economic stability that comes later and later. Social media idealizes a life focused on the individual, travel, and personal freedom. dating apps multiply apparent options, but they make lasting commitment difficult. And a generation raised in small families has less daily contact with babies and children, fueling overly negative perceptions about the sacrifice involved in raising children. A politicized debate. Not everyone considers the population decline to be a tragedy. Some defend assuming it as a gradual transition towards more sustainable societies, questioning apocalyptic visions who talk about “demographic collapse.” In the long term, even in the most pessimistic scenarios, Europe would still have hundreds of millions of inhabitants. But these global figures hide a much more immediate structural problem: the imbalance between workers and retirees. In just a few decades, the ratio of people of working age to each elderly person will increase. will have drastically reducedputting under strain systems designed for a demographic pyramid that no longer exists. The fragility of immigration. For years, immigration has been presented as Europe’s demographic lifeline. However, this option is becomes more uncertain as fertility falls across almost the entire planet. Even countries that until now were large demographic reserves … Read more

60 years ago they had to literally “slice” code into punched cards

by

Nowadays, programmers have countless resources when developing their creations. It was even before the revolution of AI and vibe coding. “Click code” is complex, but at least it is relatively comfortable thanks to modern integrated development environments (IDE) that facilitate programming in all types of languages. Not only that: programming is free, and any relatively modest PC can do it, although AI assistants have increased costs. Half a century ago things were very different, and those who dedicated themselves to programming did so with significant obstacles. There were no personal computers, access to mainframes and servers was only for the privileged and there were not even monitors on which to see how you programmed. Everything was much more artisanal and uncomfortable, and punched cards are the legacy of an era that shows that any past time was not always better. Who needs a screen? I explained it in a Foone Twitter threada technology collector and historian who recounted how programmers got by in 1962. To begin with, those programmers had a very different image than the young people who today create giant companies from scratch with flip-flops in their college dorm room or a garage. These programmers tended to be adults who also dressed in a jacket and tie: the ways were different because to access this world one had to work for large companies, the only ones where you could have access to a mainframe of the time. The example that this technological historian gave was that of IBM 7090one of the first computers based on transistors and not on vacuum tubes, like its predecessor, the IBM 709. That was a revolution in power, because the performance of the previous one was multiplied by six and the IBM 7090 managed to execute 100,000 floating point operations per second. But as we said, to program that computer there was no interface like the current one: you did not write while seeing the code on the screen. They were also not multi-user or multi-threaded systems, so only one person could use “all” that power at a time. That made these machines very precious and very expensive assets that IBM actually rented. In 1962 he rented one of these computers for a month It cost $63,500.which with inflation would be equivalent to $421,000 today. If we do a simple division (a month has about 44,000 minutes), each minute of use of that computer would cost about 10 current dollars. In a couple of hours one had spent the same amount that a good PC or laptop costs today, for example. This imposed clear restrictions when using these machines, because time was money in them. That’s where punched cards came into play, which had a capacity of 80 characters each, the maximum size of a line, although curiously the normal thing was to use only the first 72 characters and not go beyond there. The IBM template allowed you to program on paper without going overboard. To punch the cards, a special machine was used, which for example was manufactured by IBM itself and which could be mechanical or, if they were more modern, electromechanical. The idea was simple: the characters that someone typed on that machine were “translated” on the punched card, where perforations were made according to the characters on each line. To program, you didn’t sit down at that electromechanical machine and start typing commands without stopping. Instead the program was written by hand or typed. IBM had prepared templates that made it possible not to get lost and to avoid exceeding the number of characters per line. Wait, it took a while to run your program This meant that a program with all its lines ended up occupying a stack or deck of punched cards on which were all the instructions of the program, which also had to be perfectly ordered in the appropriate sequence. That deck of punched cards was given to the computer operators, who inserted them along with a task control card that told the system how and for how long it had to be executed, for example. Other programs could be in run queue (remember, it was one job at a time, and other programmers also used the same system), so it wasn’t just arriving and executing. This is what a computer program looked like in the 60s. That program could take a long time to complete its execution, so the programmer did not wait for the result to appear, but rather the operator left both the deck and the printed result in a small cubicle where the programmer could then access to pick it up. The problem, of course, is that the program could be wrong, not work or give an unexpected output. In that case, the error had to be detected, the punched card or cards that caused the error corrected, and the program run again. There were striking advances at that time such as being able to convert punched cards into stored programs on magnetic cassette tapessomething that made the reading of those punched cards faster. That was basically the process that programmers followed in their daily lives, who usually used FORTRAN or COBOL in their programs. These machines were used, for example, for the development of projects such as CTSS (Compatible Time-Sharing System), one of the first operating systems that was programmed by the MIT Computing Center. They were also used by NASA for the Mercury and Gemini space missions, and in fact an IBM 7904 was also used to run the flight planning software on the Apollo missionsbecause it had not yet been programmed for the new System/360 that had been acquired for NASA. There were also more curious applications that are still being explored today: in 1962, mathematicians Daniel Shanks and John Wrench were pioneers in using these computers for mathematical calculations and calculated the first 100,000 decimals of π. A year earlier, another mathematician, Alexander Hurwitz, used an IBM 7090 to discover the two largest prime numbers … Read more

James Bond is literally dead. And apparently that’s a problem for his next movie.

by

James Bond has not been an easy franchise for years, decades perhaps. The latest incarnation of 007, played by Daniel Craig, took a turn from the classic incarnation of the character, ending in 2021 in ‘No time to die‘ and tragically. Now that Amazon owns the rightsis encountering a considerable obstacle to launching a new installment. He died. The death of James Bond in ‘No Time to Die’, the last incarnation to date of the character, has generated an enormous creative challenge for Amazon MGM Studios, current owners of the rights. For the first time in sixty years, 007 died on screen after a missile attack and poisoning by nanobots. Now Steven Knight, creator of ‘Peaky Blinders’must find a way to continue the franchise while respecting that final death. What seemed like a bold ending has become the biggest obstacle to Bond’s future. Dead end. According to sources close to the production, the franchise’s producers are “pulling out hair“because Bond did not disappear or fake his death, as he has done in other installments. He was literally torn to pieces before the viewer. To Anthony Horowitz, author of three recent Bond novels, It is not difficult to believe in these difficulties: “The last time we saw Bond he was poisoned and torn to pieces. It was a mistake, because Bond is a legend.” Why is it a problem? There are authors who talk about the fact that a death scene as explicit as the one seen in the latest Bond film undermines the legendary nature of the character, who has lived an impossibly long arc of time (he fought in the Second World War, but remains fit today) and has changed his face as his performers rotated. This gives 007 a halo of a mythological hero, in the style of the classics, which clashes head-on with the idea of ​​him dying. Furthermore, it is a decision with an economic ingredient: a reboot It would open the door to continuous and unconnected versions, which would devalue the brand. We must bear this death. Where is the franchise? There is still little known information about this new installment: Denis Villeneuve, director of ‘Dune’, will direct this twenty-sixth Bond adventure, with Knight as screenwriter. In March 2025, Amazon MGM obtained complete creative control of the franchise after an agreement with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, ending decades of control by the Broccoli family, and the studio aims for a premiere in 2028. Casting is paralyzed until the problem of Bond’s death is resolved, but names like Tom Holland (finally discarded), Jacob Elordi and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (also discarded). Possible solutions. With the franchise in danger, many fans and experts have provided possible solutions. The first is an idea that has always been floating around since it became clear that the character’s longevity was meaningless: “007” and “James Bond” are code names given to the best agent, and when one dies or retires the next one receives the title. Of course, there is the possibility of a complete reset. You can also propose a prequel and set the film, for example, in the sixties, showing Bond’s rise in MI6. EITHER use the already canonical character of Mathildethe daughter that Bond has with Madeleine Swann in ‘No Time to Die’, and changing the character’s gender. In Xataka | These researchers have watched all the James Bond movies to see how exposed to infectious agents a 007 is and the result is nonsense

Funko literally produced more dolls than it could afford. And now it faces the biggest crisis in its history

by

It seemed that this moment would never come, but it did: the Funko Pop They are in crisis. In popular culture everything is cycles, and if now it is an inevitable topic in the conversation the “superhero fatigue“, after having lived through years in which it seemed that there was going to be nothing but superheroes in the cinema, now it is the turn of the Funko Pop. All after an overwhelming success, which has turned these dolls cut from the same pattern into inevitable passengers in any conversation about the pop panorama. The data. The company recognized in its last quarterly report that there are “substantial doubts” about its ability to continue operating for the next twelve months. Funko carries $241 million in total debt while maintaining just $39.2 million in cash reserves, a ratio that puts the company on the brink of the financial abyss. In the second quarter of 2025, Funko lost $41 million, and although the third quarter showed an improvement with losses of less than one million, these contrast with the $8.9 million profit in the same period just a year earlier, in 2024. The reasons. Sales fell from 292.8 million to 250.9 million year-on-year, a 14% drop that originated mainly in the US market. In 2023, the company destroyed between 30 and 36 million dollars in excess inventory, literally sending millions of figures to landfills because it was cheaper to eliminate them than to pay for storage. The crisis has multiple culprits: the Trump administration’s trade tariffs have hit toys with the nature of Funko hard: cheap items made abroad. But the fundamental problem is structural: overproduction. Funko has systematically and for years produced more than the market has been able to absorb, believing that demand would be infinite. This has led to the company’s debt growing from 182.8 million at the end of 2024 to the current 241 million, an increase of 32% in less than a year. The signs told us. There were different crises that made it clear that problems could come for Funko Pop. In 2021, the pandemic led to a boom and the company achieved record sales of one billion dollars, an increase of 58% over 2020. But like the entire economy that emerged during the pandemic, it was temporary. The post-pandemic drop (losses in the fourth quarter of 2022 of $47 million) should have served as a warning. Then, in 2023, the massive destruction of inventory confirmed that Funko Pop was generating material beyond its capabilities. 40 different Grogu dollsIf nothing woke us up before, it should have been a warning to sailors. And what about collectors? The company crisis is not just a problem of corporate mirage: it is the collapse of a dangerous aspect of collectingwhich is done by mere accumulation of assets that it is believed that it is going to revalue in the future. We have seen exclusive figures for the San Diego Comic-Con that They were resold for 200 or 500% above their original price (and the same phenomenon repeated at the recent Comic-Con in Malaga). And we have seen sets reach impossible prices (especially mythical isWilly Wonka quele in 2022 which reached $100,000). Now, second-hand sales platforms show Funkos that sold for $200 languish at $10. Even discontinued figures can be found at bargain prices, all due to overproduction, which made the “exclusive” or “limited release” label lose its value. There are those who compare what is happening with the phenomenon of Beanie Babies, highly coveted a couple of decades ago by collectors in the United States, and whose bubble ended up exploding. Plastic mountains. AND eye on environmental impactwhich goes beyond a few (many) collectors with shelves full of products that have lost their value. The aforementioned between 1.4 and 3 million vinyl figures that were sent to landfill They were only the first phase of mass destruction. The material Funkos are made of, PVC, can remain in landfills for centuries because it is not biodegradable. And hundreds of millions of units are produced every year, which in the United States are deposited in landfills perfectly legally (in countries like France, companies were prohibited from destroying unsold non-food merchandise, forcing them to donate or recycle). Header | Photo of Z Graphica in Unsplash

Spain still has dozens of reservoirs that cannot be used because literally no one has laid pipes

by

It was inaugurated in 2015, cost 57 million euros and has a capacity for 30 hm3 of water, but the Siles dam in Jaén hasn’t been used for a decade because no one has made the necessary pipelines to irrigate the Sierra del Segura. It is not an isolated case. An example. The Rules dam was inaugurated a little earlier: in 2004. Today, while the province of Granada is at 29% of its capacity, the Vélez de Benaudalla reservoir is close to 70%. The secret is the same: going 20 years without pipes that allow us to use water. These flagrant cases, but there are many more: Alcolea in Huelva, Mularroya in Zaragoza, Castrovido in Burgos… Is there anything more Spanish than making reservoirs and taking years—or decades—to build the pipelines that make them useful? The house on the roof. In a country like Spain, each useless cubic hectometer is not only de facto lost water, it is also a tremendous ecological damage inflicted on river channels for no reason. And, if that were not enough, it is economic nonsense. It makes no sense to mobilize all the resources necessary to launch a reservoir and then leave it forgotten. Above all, because (whether we like it or not) we live in an agricultural giant that needs water security that we cannot guarantee. The opportunity cost of delaying the pipelines necessary to launch these reservoirs impacts the economic and employment development of entire regions. A Spanish problem? To tell the truth, we cannot say that it is a purely Spanish problem either. Portugal, France or Italy have had similar problems. What happens in Spain is that there is an enormous fragmentation of powers that means that, when any problem appears, everything comes to a standstill. In our case, the central State designs and finances the main dams and key sections. However, it is the autonomous communities, the hydrographic confederations or the municipalities that they must run the secondary networks. And in determining what is the main or secondary tranche (and who should pay the bill) most problems arise. But not the only ones. And it is that, as the processes become eternallicenses expire, works are not awarded, litigation drags on, environmental requirements become stricter and solving the problem becomes impossible. In the end, the dams are what is striking (what is politically profitable). The “last mile” (that whole set of pumping stations, pipelines and treatment plants) is much less striking, as crucial as it is. When problems become entrenched, there are no good solutions and administrations prefer to put the issue aside rather than make decisions. The country of a thousand preys. Because yes, it is true: Spain has many damsbut dozens of them remain vats of water without any use. And as much as the causes are clear, it is still striking that not even water crises like those of recent years manage to solve this. Image | Red Zeppelin In Xataka | “In the next ten years, Spain and Latin America are going to suffer (a lot) with water,” Robert Glennon (University of Arizona)

There are foods that literally hijack your brain.

by

A potato chip crunches, the salty flavor mixes with the sweetness of the soda, and the brain asks for more. It’s not a coincidence. What seems like a simple craving is actually a programmed reaction: a dopamine rush as powerful as that caused by some drugs. More and more scientists argue that certain foods are hooking us. A new approach? For a long time, obesity and eating disorders were seen as simple matters of will. However, advances in neuroscience are changing that perception. Psychiatrist Claire Wilcox explains thatlittle by little, scientists agree on something surprising: some foods activate the brain almost the same as drugs like nicotine or alcohol. “Eating certain products—cookies, soft drinks, industrial pastries— activates the brain’s reward centersgenerating a feeling of immediate well-being. And the more we repeat that stimulus, the more we need it,” he details. The problem is that, unlike tobacco or alcohol, we cannot stop eating. What happens in our head? addictions They share three brain systems clue: The reward system, which releases dopamine when something gives us pleasure. The stress response system, involved in tolerance and withdrawal. The executive control system, which regulates impulses and helps make rational decisions. When we eat very tasty foods, the brain releases dopamine into the reward network. Learn to associate that flavor with a pleasant sensation and seek to repeat it. Over time, the circuit is “rewired”: more is needed to feel the same effect, and rational control decreases. Wilcox explains it like this: “Over time, damage to areas of executive control becomes more difficult to resist cravings, just as it is with drugs.” The science behind the debate. In recent years, research into food addiction has exploded. An article from Nature Medicinewhich analyzed almost 300 studies in 36 countries, concluded that ultra-processed foods can “hijack” the brain’s reward systems. The result: cravings, loss of control, and persistent consumption, even when there are negative consequences. Neuroscientist Mark S. Gold and psychologist Ashley Gearhardt, from the University of Michigan, they go further: “We don’t get addicted to apples, but to products designed to hit the brain like a drug.” However, medical consensus has not yet arrived. Neither the WHO nor the American Psychiatric Association recognizes food addiction as an official diagnosis. “Eating is a physiological need —remembers teacher Elisa Rodríguez Ortega—and the boundaries between addiction, bulimia or binge eating remain unclear. In the center of the bullseye. For years, sugar was identified as the great villain of the modern diet. Today, studies point to a more complex scenario: it is not just sugar, but the combination of ingredients, textures and additives in ultra-processed foods. which can make them addictive. These products—industrial blends of fats, salt, sugars, and flavor enhancers—are designed to generate immediate pleasure and encourage repeated intake. According to the Nature reviewthis “hyperpalatable” composition activates the reward system more intensely than natural foods, which would explain why it is so difficult to stop after the first bite. For its part, sugar continues to play a key role. Research, cited in JAMA Internal Medicineshow that an excess of added sugars not only increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, but also alters the dopaminergic response, reinforcing dependence mechanisms. Qero nor we are all equally prone. Psychologist Michelle S. Hunt, a specialist in food addictions, details that there is a combination of genetic, emotional and environmental factors. “Foods rich in carbohydrates, fats or sugars activate the same areas of the brain as drugs or alcohol. Over time, the brain adjusts its receptors and requires higher doses to feel the same well-being,” he points out. Stress, anxiety and early exposure to ultra-processed foods are other triggers: the brain learns from a young age to associate pleasure with highly tasty products. “People who use food to deal with discomfort are the most vulnerable,” Hunt warns. The border with other types of disorders. Distinguishing food addiction from other eating disorders is not an easy task. According to the Eating Disorder Hope portalin both cases similar signs appear: loss of control, guilt, anxiety and, often, social isolation. a study published in Nature observed that people with bulimia or binge eating episodes present similar changes in the areas of the brain that regulate dopamine. That suggests there could be a common neurobiological basis. Dr. Mark S. Gold sums it up clearly: “Obesity and binge eating are not just behavioral problems; they also share brain mechanisms with other addictions.” For this reason, current treatments combine cognitive-behavioral therapy with cessation programs and emotional support. Reeducation with food. Unlike drugs, total abstinence is not possible: we all need to eat. For this reason, current treatments seek to reeducate the emotional relationship with food. Psychiatrist Kim Dennis runs a clinic where it combines models of addiction and eating disorders: patients learn not to restrict calories extremely – to avoid the rebound effect – but to identify the so-called “trigger” foods, those that unleash uncontrollable cravings. In parallel, drugs are also opening new avenues. Dr. Gold highlights the use of medications such as naltrexone and bupropion, or the newer GLP-1 (such as Ozempic or Mounjaro), which interrupt the link between pleasure and consumption, reducing both food intake and the desire for addictive substances. The final question. Although science has not yet settled the debate, the evidence is increasingly clear: some foods not only nourish or make you fat, they also shape the brain and habits in a profound way. Each bite leaves a mark on the pleasure circuits and the way we learn to eat. It is not about demonizing food or denying pleasure, but about accepting that eating today is an act conditioned by factors that go far beyond appetite. In a world where every flavor is optimized for hooking, true willpower may lie in knowing how to stop before the next bite. Image | Unsplash Xataka | When it comes to meat, science knows there’s something better than protein shakes: lean pork

literally live inside them

by

If they told us 10 years ago that the houses were going to be about such crazy prices that even the “guiris” were going to resign frightened of their golden retreats in the Balearic Islands or the Canary Islands, few would have believed it. but so things are. In 2019 someone did a simple sum: empty stores and expensive apartments gave a logical result. What then was an experimentliving in commercial premises, is now becoming the norm in the town councils of Spain. A new housing policy. Móstoles has decided look at the closed basement as an urban housing reserve: a Special Plan makes the change of use of empty premises more flexible to incorporate them into the residential stock, cuts license times, reduces the ICIO, limits the prohibitions only to strategic commercial axes and pursues a dual purpose (creating more affordable housing and at the same time avoiding the visual and functional degradation of streets where commerce has died). This is not an isolated occurrence: the City Council itself frames the measure in a larger package than will add thousands of new units via urban developments, although the decisive gesture is that it recognizes as legitimate and necessary a route that, until recently, many municipal governments ruled out due to regulatory, reputational or political fear: exchange dying trade for housing effective and fast on already built surface. Live in a place. The logic that Móstoles has turned into structural policy todayhad surfaced before as a tactical response in municipalities under acute pressure: Petrer (Alicante) rewrote its PGOU to accept the change of use in areas where commerce had become extinct, with 42 premises already converted in habitual residence and strict control to avoid substandard housing. The idea is not born in the political center but in the edge where scarcity is experienced as an operational urgency. In those places the discussion “if it should” was replaced by “how to do it without making basements”, and the city council acted on the only level it controls: the urban planner. The Canary Islands confirmed the drift. In Arrecife, the technical office has authorized this year 39 conversions taking advantage of Decree Law 1/2024, which accelerates changes of use if habitability and ventilation are accredited. The argument reproduces the same reasoning: extract supply from where commerce will not return, reduce rental pressure and, simultaneously, revive depressed urban fabrics. This is not “experimental” housing but rather legally consolidated housing under the accelerated rule: a preview of how the State and the Autonomous Communities seem willing to cut procedures if the housing benefit is immediate. Zaragoza provides critical mass. The Aragonese capital demonstrated shortly after that the phenomenon was not marginal: 177 authorized homes since 2021, 36 licenses in 2025 alone, expansion to neighborhoods where it was previously prohibited after making the PGOU more flexible and minimum technical conditions adjusted to noise, surface and ventilation. Here, the relevant figure is not the absolute volume, but the conceptual leap: the change in use is recognized as a stable instrument of residential policy, deployed on empty stock and correlated with the fall of physical commerce. Plus: the City Council does not present it as an exception, but as ordinary tool treatment of built heritage in the consolidated city. Something more than politics. Ultimately, the success of all these reconversions does not depend on political speeches but on follow clear rules: that the PGOU allows it, that the premises have sufficient size and height, natural ventilation, a project approval and construction and first occupation licenses, in addition to its registration. By standardizing and accelerating these steps, what was once exceptional becomes a repeatable procedure. The difference between city councils is not one of ideology, but rather of friction: how long it takes, what they require and on which streets they allow or prohibit the change of use. The turning point. If you like, the 2025 scenario has followed a more or less logical line: what in Petrer tried himselfin Reef accelerated and in Zaragoza was systematizeduntil finally Móstoles converted it in strategic leverage with fiscal incentives, administrative priority and a desire for scale within a broader housing production agenda. That a large metropolitan municipality adopts this logic means that reconversion stops being a kind of peripheral repair and becomes a central policy of offer on already built land. By reopening the debate on what to do with the exhausted trade in Spain, Móstoles pushes other municipalities to choose: or accept the inertia of those hundreds of dead stores as scar urban, or convert them into housing to alleviate the housing bottleneck. Hence the question has shifted: it is no longer whether it should be done or not, it is directly how to do it, and that is probably the true structural change that is now seems to spread in Spain. Image | Pexels, Pexels In Xataka | In its accelerated touristification, Madrid has taken another step: converting commercial premises in the center into paid bathrooms In Xataka | Houses are so expensive in the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands that they are expelling even Germans and British people from the market.

There is literally nowhere to put more soldiers.

by

He housing problem It is an endemic disease that reproduces in practically the whole planet. What was more difficult to imagine is how far the tentacles of the crisis. Germany thought several decades ago that wars were a thing of the past. And now you have encountered a problem rearmament announced of his army: literally, he lacks houses to accommodate so many recruits. Rearmament and housing. The German offensive to rebuild a military capacity that it dismantled for decades has come up against an immediate internal cost: there is no space to house the soldiers that Berlin wants to reincorporate. The Heidelberg case is already a symbol. There, a former US base (abandoned after the end of mandatory military service and Washington’s partial withdrawal) was being converted into a new neighborhood. for 10,000 residentsin a country besieged by a structural shortage of housing. The Government’s idea of reactivate that same base shows the shift in priorities from civil urbanism to defense, pushed by two simultaneous actors: an openly Russia revisionist in the East and an American ally politically volatile. Strain. It we have counted before. The rearmament, furthermore, it is not doctrine on paper: Germany wants add 80,000 soldiers In five years, he considers reintroducing some conscription form and has decided to freeze the civilian conversion of bases, reexamine barracks under state control and reactivate military soil wherever it is useful, even at the cost of tension with local governments and voters. A reduced army. For years, Germany delegated its security to NATO and practiced “checkbook diplomacy”. Namely: commerce, rules and checkbook, but without hard muscle. Bloomberg recalled that the abandonment of recruiting in 2011 left behind an inventory of surplus facilities: 31 bases were closed and some land was sold to cities with housing shortages. Plus: the partial American withdrawal multiplied those gaps. This territorial liquidity made it possible to alleviate a strangled real estate market in medium-sized cities. like Heidelbergsandwiched between hills and with limited supply. The war in Ukraine has reversed the equation: Berlin assumes that the external umbrella is no longer enough and that military shortages It is structuralnot circumstantial. The arithmetic of space. Furthermore, and as analysts point outthe collision is physical and political: each re-militarized base is one less neighborhood in a country with skyrocketing rents and exhausted voters. In fact, researchers warn of an inevitable internal conflict because two legitimate goods (credible defense and affordable housing) compete for a non-expandable resource: land. The Government has already suspended the civil conversion of military properties, accelerated military work (+20% in 2024) and plans 270 new barracks for 40,000 troops from 2027. The modernization of military infrastructure exceeds 67,000 million until the 2040s, and the Bundestag processes a fast-track package with flexibility of procedures and exemptions low threshold of 1 million to gain speed. Negotiation window. Heidelberg still hopes to save its macro-project if the Defense considers the base inadequate for military use or if a kind of hybrid (barracks + neighborhood) is agreed upon that makes it possible to make security and urban fabric compatible. The municipal team admits who miss the economic footprint of US bases, but emphasize that civilian urbanization alleviates the housing bottleneck. There is no doubt, the current clash distills the German transition from the era of peaceful dividends towards a defense economy that requires redo what was dismantled: money, people, land and social consensus to rebuild against the clock. Fracture of the social contract. If you want, the impasse The current situation also reveals a temporal crack: Germany urbanized and planned as if geopolitics had been abolished after 1991 (end of the USSR and end of the Cold War), reallocating military land to housing under the premise of an environment without major wars in Europe. That assumption (which also ordered budgets, mentalities and territorial planning for three decades) collapsed the February 24, 2022. Today the country operates with institutions, urban planning laws and citizen expectations designed for a post-war era that no longer exists, while it is seen forced to reinsert in a scenario with infrastructure, densities and land uses inherited from prolonged peace. The clash between barracks and floors is not only physical: it is the clash between two historical calendars that coexist in the same territory, that of civil normality and that of abrupt return. of strategic risk. Image | Markus Rauchenberger In Xataka | The US no longer has to worry about Spain or the rearmament bill in Europe. Germany had a plan B In Xataka | The most pacifist city in Germany lived off its legendary train factory. Now they will make it from a gigantic tank factory

literally running out of hot water by 2027

by

Brussels has started a new wave of rules designed to protect public health and harmonize standards throughout the Union, and the measure has put manufacturers, regulators and consumers alike on edge… while technicians discuss lists and scientific evaluations in offices and committees, workshops and assembly lines nervously observe the implementation schedule. Therefore, what on paper seems like an unimportant technical detail can lead to something much bigger. A bureaucratic failure. I told it this week the financial times. A cut in a technical list of authorized substances in the European Union – part of an ambitious reform to protect the quality of drinking water that comes into force in 2027 – has unleashed the real possibility that millions of Europeans will become face cold showers. Apparently an administrative omission hafnium and zirconiumkey elements in the enamelling of hot water tanks, do not appear among the recognized substances, and without that authorization more than 90% of current accumulators (water heaters) could be excluded from the European market. What in Brussels is a technical file translates into towns and cities with failing boilers, paralyzed factories and an immediate effect on prices and domestic supply if it is not urgently corrected. Why hafnium and zirconium matter. Hafnium and its “brother” zirconium are not accessories: they participate in the vitrification process inside the tanks and prevent the enamel from cracking. Without them, the protective cover of the tank comes off and the result is obvious and practical: water that does not heat up or premature losses of the equipment. Furthermore, these metals are also used in heat pump varnisha critical component in the thermal electrification that accompanies gas withdrawal. The Times remembered that putting them on the positive list is not a favor to the industry but rather a technical condition for the equipment to work and last as expected. The real economic cost. Replacing hafnium or zirconium with alternatives such as steel or copper would increase the manufacturing cost between four and five timesaccording to the manufacturers, an increase that would inevitably fall on consumers already affected by the energy crisis. For companies the ability to compete on price and supply product in Europe would be at risk facing non-EU rivals that do not face the same regulatory labyrinth, which increases the threat of relocation or loss of industrial investment on the continent. Complexity and absences. The episode reveals two institutional problems: on the one hand, the Commission’s regulatory roadmap did not precisely consider that hot water tanks are part of the drinking water circuit, and on the other, the mechanism to correct the oversight is slow and technocratic. The Commission maintains that it is the Member Statesthose who must notify the need to authorize these substances, and none has done so so far. There are alternative routes (toxicological applications or temporary national authorizations), but the industry considers them too slow and expensive to avoid an interim shortage. Solutions and limits. In practice, there are three exits: a rapid amendment at EU level to include hafnium and zirconium on the list, temporary national authorizations to sustain production while the European assessment is processed, and accelerated toxicological assessment procedures required by the Commission. Each option has its costs and trade-offs: the amendment requires political will and speed in Brussels, the national route can fragment the market and raise costs, and rapid scientific processes must preserve security without becoming an excuse for indefinite delays. In other words, none of the three are perfect, but inaction is possibly the worst alternative. What is at stake. If you also want, the problem is not only domestic or purely technical: it touches on the European ambition of decarbonize heating through heat pumps and electrical appliances. If the regulations induce manufacturers to abandon investments or produce outside the EU due to lack of certainty, the European energy transition would lose momentum and industrial sovereignty. Likewise, the error regulates a greater tension: how to make legitimate health standards compatible with the need to maintain strategic industrial chains and the competitiveness of the European productive fabric. Quick and coordinated correction. I remembered the medium in his report that the solution that best preserves public and private interests involves an expeditious correction in a community key accompanied by scientific safeguards: provisionally authorize use with technical conditions (traceability of supply, quality controls and periodic reviews), accelerate toxicological evaluations and, above all, establish a preventive mechanism for the Commission to integrate the voice of the industry in the technical lists when the standards touch critical industrial processes. Without this coordination, the regulatory shortcut not only aims to cause a equipment cost increase and job losses, but will send the wrong signal to investors considering returning production to Europe. That’s without taking into account the topic nuclearbecause the delay is not only technical, but tangible: it is the difference between a hot shower and a useless radiator. Image | Pixnio, PXHere In Xataka | We are the third country that takes the most showers in Europe. There are scientists trying to find out if this is good news In Xataka | There are people who want to change your life thanks to a cold shower: what science says

In 2026 there will be so much that we will not literally have where to put it

by

Nothing new under the sun, could be the slogan of these last months around oil. On Sunday, October 5, the OPEC+ reopened the tap with an increase of 137,000 barrels per day from November. According to the official poster statementthe measure seeks to “keep market stability” in the face of “healthy foundations” and a “stable global economy.” However, the markets did not interpret it that way. Brent’s crude more than 8% fell After the ad, closing below $ 65 per barrel, its lowest level in three months. The political message, despite the rumors of more production, was clear: Saudi and Russia do not seem willing to give ground. In the words of Jorge León, Rystad Energy analyst: “The decision did not focus on the barrels, but on signaling.” An oil tsunami. “The oil market is directed towards an immense surplus at the beginning of 2026 “, Analyst Javier Blas warns. According to the Macquarie Bank, the magnitude of excess will be “Cartoonish”, that is, almost caricaturescas proportions. When production exceeds demand, the market adopts a peculiar form: future prices become higher than those of the present. Is what operators call A countyan incentive to buy raw now, store it and then sell it at a higher price. The problem, according to Blas himself, is that this time storing oil will be much more expensive. With US interest rates above 4% – 1% in 2020 -, finance the storage of millions of barrels will be “more difficult and expensive than in any other count of the last 25 years”. In other words: oil will be left over, but saving it will be expensive. It is not the result of chance. The current situation is not explained only by market dynamics, but also by a complex network of geopolitical and financial decisions. For years, Riad led production cuts to sustain prices, but the Saudi government has now decided to relax those restrictions. As they have detailed in New York Timesthe change responds to the fatigue of producing below its ability to benefit countries that do not always comply with agreements. “The Kingdom has reassessed the cost of sustaining the profits of other producers,” said Helima Croft, of RBC Capital Markets. In addition, Mohammed Bin Salman seeks Maintain a fluid relationship With Donald Trump, who prefers lower prices for American consumers. As Bachar El-Halabi, an analyst at Argus Media, explains: “The Saudi understand that the United States is their most important strategic ally.” The real increases have been modest and that analysts interpret the maneuver as a “proof of the limits of demand”, rather than a price war. In fact, the International Energy Agency (IE) estimates that OPEC+ He added 1.5 million barrels per day from the first quarter, well below the promised 2.5 million. For some analyststhis figure indicates that the market has absorbed the new volumes without shocks and that the demand could be stronger than expected. China, Factor X. In parallel, from Beijing they have become the shock absorber of the global excess. The country has bought 150 million more barrels than you consume, spending about 10,000 million dollars in oil that does not need immediately. A new energy law forces to maintain strategic reservations in both the public and private sector, the Asian giant has filled up to 90% of the measurable world storage. The reason, The analysts sayit is double: take advantage of moderate prices and guarantee their energy security to a possible conflict for Taiwan. As long as the excess continues, the global market will remain afloat. But the day China reduces its purchases, the overoferta will go to the surface with force. Interest rates change the game. In previous times – as 2008, 2014 or 2020 – the traders took advantage of the counting to store oil and obtain insured benefits. But now, with the most expensive money, the business is complicated. According to calculations cited by Bloombergif the types are kept at the current levels, the count must widen at least one dollar per barrel to compensate for the financing cost. In simple terms: so that saving oil will be profitable again, future prices will have to climb even more. Effects on all fronts. On the one hand, prices are under pressure due to the excess so large. In this way, crude oil prices could fall below $ 60 a barrel. Blas warns that“The threshold of 60 dollars seems extremely vulnerable to the approximate supply tsunami.” For consumers, this would be good news: cheaper fuel and lower inflationary pressure, but for producing countries – especially those most dependent on oil – would involve a blow to their fiscal income. Saudi Arabia You need close prices at $ 90 per barrel to balance their public accounts, while Emirates can do it with 50. On the other hand, international policy adds uncertainty. The Trump administration He has authorized For the first time the delivery of intelligence and long -range missiles to Ukraine to attack Russian energy infrastructure. If refineries or pipelines become objectives, the global supply could be altered just when the markets are already saturated. Paradoxically, too much oil and too much war could coexist at the same time. The future scenario. The crude market advances towards an uncertain 2026. Analysts draw several possible paths: The oil that no longer fits. For years, fear was to run out of oil. Today, the problem is the opposite: we will not know where to keep it. As Javier Blas has summarized: “A counting is coming; the only doubt is how deep it will be.” When that curve is invested and the tanks are filled, the world will discover that excess can also be a form of crisis. Oil, once again, not only moves the economy: it marks the pulse of global power. Image | Unspash Xataka | In a crucial Ukraine agreement he has given the US his best weapon. In return he has received something unpublished: a map to knock Russia

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

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

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

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