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how long it usually takes for your 2026 return and what they can review if it takes them long

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Let’s tell you When are they going to pay you the refund? of Income 2025, which is what we do in 2026 to catch up on the last fiscal year. According to the Income calendarthe period to submit the declaration ends at the end of June, but if you have already done it and you get a refund, it is normal that the Treasury has already paid you. The in-person declaration It started in June, so it is normal that returns are not being made yet. But if you have made the rent online either by phone In the past few months, perhaps you should have received it by now. Therefore, we are going to try to clarify the times for you. How long does the Treasury take to pay? The normal thing is that the Treasury takes a little time to pay you once you present a tax return that you have to return. In fact, it could be a week or two if everything goes well and they haven’t detected anything. However, there are times when Payment may be extended due to additional checks what the tax agency has to do. In these cases, the Treasury has a period of six months since the declarations end on June 30. In other words, returns can be extended until the end of the year. There are some factors that can accelerate the process. For example, submit the declaration as soon as possible, since they are usually processed in order. Also confirm the draft without changes, although you should ALWAYS review it to avoid errors. And if you attach your correct bank details with an account in your name, delays due to verification are also avoided. Why it may take them a while to get your money back If you detect that your return has been returned, but several weeks have passed and the Treasury has not yet made the payment, it may be because They are reviewing some points of the declaration or making some checks on aspects that are not clear. To find out if the delay is due to this, you can check the status of your declaration from the web or from the mobile app. If the status shows that it is under verificationthis means that the delay is effectively due to the fact that they are carefully reviewing the information you have submitted, and that is why the return is being delayed. One thing you should know is that when the Treasury starts to look at something closely, You may receive a request for information. This will be a postal letter that will arrive asking you to provide invoices for deducted expenses, tax certificates, money movement information, or whatever they consider necessary. These are the main reasons why the Treasury may be reviewing your data and sending you a request: Deductions: There are a large number of income deductions through which you can save money on your tax return, from renovating your car to buying a car or spending money on glasses. But there are some that vary depending on the autonomous community, and if you have deducted something in the declaration that does not correspond or something for which you have not provided the necessary information, they will require invoices or more information to verify it. Housing rental. When you rent a home you have income that is not billed as such, so at the beginning of the rental you may be asked for the contract and payment receipts so that the deduction can be applied correctly. It will be verified that everything is as indicated on the papers. Cryptocurrencies. The Tax Agency increasingly checks the movements you can make with cryptocurrencies, and it is very important that you declare them properly in your Income Tax to know the benefits you may have had with them and that the corresponding percentage of Personal Income Tax is applied to you. Debts with the administration: On some occasions, even if the declaration is correct, the return may also be delayed in the event that you have a debt with the Treasury, Social Security, your town hall or even unpaid fines with the DGT. If so, these will be deducted from your deduction. If any of these cases occur, the Tax Agency officials will take extra time to check your data, and will send you a request to ask for additional information if they see it necessary. The Treasury has until December 31, 2026 to make returns, so they may take it easy. In Xataka Basics | Income Guide 2025: calendar, previous steps and how to prepare for the 2026 declaration

The US opened the door to Nvidia’s H200 chip in China. The Chinese army has been waiting for a long time on the other side

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Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, has been forced to “fight” with the US Department of Commerce for months, but he has achieved what he wanted: your company can now deliver some of its Chinese clients its chip to artificial intelligence (AI) H200. As we explain to you On May 14, Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and JD.com are four of the ten Chinese companies that already have access to this powerful GPU. And they have it because the US Department of Commerce, which is the institution that grants or denies export licenses, has authorized at least ten Chinese companies and several distributors, including Lenovo and Foxconn, to acquire the second most powerful AI chip that Nvidia has. This decision has come almost two months after the US Government confirmed which was going to allow the company led by Jensen Huang to deliver its H200 chip to its Chinese customers. However, Nvidia likely won’t have time to savor this victory. Once again, dark clouds are gathering over it that threaten to compromise, once again, its business in China. And, according to Bloombergat least seven Chinese universities linked to the country’s armed forces and defense industry are trying to obtain H200 chips. This disclosure comes from China’s public procurement records, so it is presumably reliable. Remote rental: the avenue that the Department of Commerce still does not know how to close In the US there is a pressure group that opposes the sale of advanced American AI chips in China. Chris McGuire, senior fellow on China and emerging technologies at the Council on Foreign Relations, holds that “any deal that allows Nvidia to sell more chips to China means fewer Nvidia chips for US companies and a smaller US advantage over China in AI.” Besides, McGuire argues that “it is surprising that President Trump continues to allow himself to be convinced to put Nvidia’s interests before those of America.” Chinese entities increasingly resort to renting airtime on servers equipped with restricted Nvidia chips What is happening right now with Chinese universities is the ideal breeding ground to reinforce the theses of this pressure group in the US. Two of the institutions that have expressed interest in H200 chipsBeihang University and Northwest Polytechnic University, are among China’s “Seven Sons of National Defense”, a select group of universities dedicated to supporting the People’s Liberation Army. Both have been included in the blacklist of the US Department of Commerce for their involvement in the advancement of Chinese military capabilities. And public procurement records reveal that the Beihang School of Cyber ​​Science and Technology, which claims to have “national defense characteristics and aerospace advantages,” is attempting to rent the use of Nvidia chips. Northwestern Polytechnic University’s School of Cyberspace Security is also trying to rent access to H200 chips, according to those same records. Chinese entities are increasingly resorting to time of use rental on servers equipped with restricted Nvidia chips as a way to access prohibited hardware without having to import it directly. This is the strategy that the US Government will surely try to dismantle. What is not clear at the moment is how he is going to do it. Image | Nvidia More information | Bloomberg In Xataka | The US remains committed to stopping China. Now it has targeted the second largest Chinese chip manufacturer

The giant jugs of Laos have long baffled science. A “death jar” has solved the riddle

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The heart of Southeast Asia and scattered throughout the mountains of Xieng Khouang province in Laos, rest thousands of monumental stone vessels. Some of these reach three meters in height and weigh several tons, and that is why this place received the name ‘Plain of Jars’. However, this landscape has been a great mystery for all the experts because it is not known who carved them, nor how they moved them nor what they were for. Resolving. Now, a new archaeological study seems to have finally found the key piece of the puzzle, revealing a mortuary tradition much more complex and macabre than previously thought. The discovery of a huge “death jar” has confirmed that these stone colossi were not isolated monuments, but the protagonists of a sophisticated multigenerational funerary ritual. A secret. The key to this puzzle is based precisely on the analysis of a single, gigantic vessel that hid inside no more and no less than the bone remains of at least 37 different people. But the most interesting thing of all is that this “overcrowding” is not the product of a hasty mass grave or a sudden catastrophe, since the study shows that we are dealing with a practice known as secondary burial. How they did it. This practice, the truth is, is very far from our current customs, since instead of burying the deceased directly, the ancient culture that inhabited the area allowed the bodies to decompose first. Once cleaned of meat, the bones were transferred and deposited inside these monumental jars, being a process quite similar to the one that continues with Spanish royalty in the Royal Pantheon of Escorial. But the presence of the remains of so many people in a single jar suggests that these were reopened and reused over several generations, functioning as authentic family or community pantheons. Ritual recycling. This article does not come out of nowhere, but already in 2023 investigations at “site 1” of the plain had found signs of secondary burials around the stones, but this new discovery consolidates the hypothesis that the jars themselves were main containers of this mortuary tradition. The most fascinating thing about this research is the time lag that the dating has revealed since scientists have discovered that the history of the Plain of Jars is made up of overlapping layers. This shows that the human remains analyzed date from between the 9th and 13th centuries, but the gigantic stone jars are, according to geological and archaeological estimates, much older. What does it mean? Basically, the landscape was the subject of a profound “ritual recycling.” The medieval inhabitants of Laos did not carve the jugs; They came across a pre-existing, mysterious and monumental megalithic landscape, and decided to appropriate it for their own funerary rituals. In other words, the site was not built for a single function or at a single moment, but rather had an unusually long lifespan, being resignified by different cultures over the centuries. Images | Wikipedia In Xataka | We still don’t know where Tartessos was, but we do know where we are going to solve the enigma: in Badajoz

If the question is how long do we have to use AI to become lazy, the answer is: a sigh

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Ten minutes. It is the time it takes for AI to have a negative effect on our ability to reason and solve problems, or at least that is what they have concluded in a new study in which they have measured how the use of AI assistants not only improves immediate performance, but also reduces persistence and worsens performance when we do not have access to AI. The study. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon, MIT, UCLA, and Oxford have published a randomized, controlled experiment that measures the impact of using AI on the ability to solve problems independently. In total, more than 1,200 people participated in three different experiments. The researchers’ conclusion goes in the direction of what we have seen in other previous studies: using AI enhances our productivity, but It has a cognitive cost. The experiment. A first experiment was carried out with 354 participants in which they had to solve twelve simple fractions. Some of the participants had a side panel with an AI assistant (GPT 5) that they could use to solve the operations. The curious thing came when their access to the chatbot was removed and they had to answer three more questions without the help of the AI. The result was that people who had used AI made more mistakes in their answers than the control group. The gray part of the graph was when the AI ​​assistant was retired. Fountain: AI Project Confirming results. The researchers did a second experiment in which they duplicated the participants (667) and did a pretest to measure the level. In addition, they added a “placebo” side panel (without AI) to the control group participants, so that there were no interface differences. The results again showed that people who used AI failed more than the control group. There was a third experiment in which reading comprehension problems were asked with 201 participants and the same thing happened again: when AI was removed, that group performed the worst. The key nuance. There is an important detail of the study and that is that they measured how the participants used AI. 61% used it to give them answers directly, while others used it to give them clues or clarifications. The results of this second group were more similar to those of the control group. On the other hand, those who asked for AI solutions as they were failed much more when it was withdrawn. This suggests what we have said above: the negative effect of AI on our cognition. It depends largely on how we use it. Copying answers without questioning is not the same as using them as support in the cognitive process. The new silly box. The fear that technology makes us stupid is not something that has arisen with AI, it happened with the calculator, it has happened with television, with video games and it is happening with cell phones. Although there are studies that point in that direction, there is no clear evidence that technology damages our cognition. However, it is also true that until now we had not had access to technology to which we could delegate all our thinking. Cover image | Xataka In Xataka | Young programmers no longer know how to program: AI is now causing the same thing that the calculator did half a century ago

‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ is simply a very long advertisement for fashion brands

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Twenty years ago, the click of heels echoing through the offices of runway It was enough to make us tremble and laugh in equal measure. The original 2006 film emerged as a scathing critique, a sharp portrait of a frivolous world ruled by a toxic, hilarious and biting boss. However, two decades later, the industry has decided to betray its own work. The relentless public relations campaign of The Devil Wears Prada 2 suggests that the story’s original satire has been “defanged” and deliberately sanitized. What was once a clever mockery of the fashion industry is today a giant, shameless promotion for luxury brands like Dolce & Gabbana, Balenciaga and Dior. The sequel has been stuck in an uncomfortable limbo, torn between the hypocritical sanitization of its own mythology and the absolute glorification of that amoral universe that, paradoxically, gave it success in the first place. The film as a luxury catalogue. The hype that has surrounded this sequel is unprecedented, transforming the plot into a mere vehicle to sell products and experiences. As the criticism of Le Mondeproduct placements and cameos They are much more elaborate than the script itself; the parade of outfits orchestrated by the wardrobe department matters far more than any narrative thread the film attempts to weave. disney has worked for years to secure partnerships with top-tier brands, with the goal of building the best marketing program ever launched. Executives boast of having created a “fashion collection” where each brand fits perfectly. And the celluloid is the least important thing; the premiere has been conceived like a huge playground for advertisers. We see Starbucks create menus inspired by characters, while giants like Diet Coke, Samsung and Lancôme engulf the narrative of the universe runway. The paroxysm of this bargain sale reaches pharmacy productsstamping the movie logo on Tweezerman brand nail clippers; an ordinariness that the real Miranda Priestly would never have tolerated. When consumption devours fiction. The industry has crossed the Rubicon: brands no longer make a simple product placement In essence, they now demand a “full narrative participation”. The film’s intellectual property has been hijacked as a long-term sales strategy. All this perfectly represents what the philosopher Guy Debord defined in his work The Society of the Spectacle. For Debord, “the spectacle is capital in such a degree of accumulation that it is transformed into an image.” The film is no longer fiction, it is a commercialized social relationship, mediated by images designed to sell. The world we see on screen is purely and exclusively the world of merchandise, confirming that all human and social life has been reduced to simple appearance. The spectator enters the cinema believing he is consuming culture, but becomes a “consumer of illusions”where the merchandise is the only thing that is actually real. Visual coldness: cinema without soul. This commercial colonization requires a corresponding aesthetic, that is, aseptic and prefabricated. Today’s romantic comedies have no soul because They operate under financial profitability algorithms. We’ve lost the real, imperfect characters of the ’90s and ’00s, replaced by mannequins holding cell phones. On a visual level, the screen oozes coldness. Modern films abuse darkness and blur, using shallow depth of field and an excess of digital effects (CGI) that make environments appear a plastic decoration. For the theorist Fredric Jameson, in his essay on postmodernismthis cultural phenomenon reflects a new “lack of depth” (depthlessness) and a “fading of affections” (waning of affect), where the flat surface and the culture of the image or simulacrum replace historical reality and genuine emotion. The film looks dead because, narratively, it is. The nostalgia trap. Where does this model take us? Directly to a “capitalist necromancy”. Hollywood, mired in an alarming creative drought, resurrects dead franchises like cultural zombies, stripping them of their original risk to squeeze the box office. We’re stuck in what Jameson calls “nostalgia mode.” in the magazine The Drum They argue that this extreme dependence of brands toward nostalgia is diluting genuine emotional connections, trapping culture in an amnesiac loop unable to imagine anything new. As he explains Mackenzie Groffcommodified nostalgia is a trap that deceives us into believing that the lost past can be recovered simply through consumption. It is the era of “pastiche”, a term that Fredric Jameson uses to describe the neutral imitation of dead styles or masks of the past. Unlike the original parody, which had a critical and satirical purpose, the pastiche of this sequel is a “blank parody” lacking conviction, condemning us to consume a mirage of our own past through prefabricated pop images. They sell us the illusion of recovering the comfort of the 2000s, but they only give us a purchase receipt. The triumph of ‘fandom’. Despite the obvious lack of soul and visual flatness, the machinery works. The paradox is that the general public continues to buy the illusion. The sequel has achieved an outstanding rating A- in Cinemascore, far surpassing the rating that the original installment obtained from viewers. The premiere sparked a wave of massive digital conversationdemonstrating that talent (Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway) and nostalgia are unmatched organic communication assets that brands know how to capitalize on perfectly. psychology behind this blind success: fan phenomena (the fandom) provide avenues for escapism, emotional regulation, and identity formation. These parasocial connections with fictional worlds and characters are deeply satisfying for an audience seeking refuge from an increasingly uncertain world. The triumph of the two-hour spot. The real tragedy is that the machinery works. The public, anesthetized by the fan phenomenon, continues to flock to theaters, seeking refuge in nostalgia from an uncertain world, and giving outstanding ratings to a product designed in a boardroom. The sequel to The Devil Wears Prada It is the definitive and obscene triumph of our era. We no longer laugh at consumerism; We give in to him. Today we gladly pay for a movie ticket to sit in the dark and binge a 120-minute infomercial. If the film is perceived as empty, it is not due … Read more

Salmon have never taken so long to reach Asturias. And yes, it is as worrying as it seems

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14 days. That is, two weeks after the season opened, we are still waiting for the capture of the ‘campanu’the first salmon to be traced by any of the five Asturian salmon farms. Whatever appears when it appears, it will be the latest campaign in history. No one is surprised that the Ministry have requested an expert report to decide whether to classify the species as “endangered.” What has happened? On Saturday, April 18, 2026, two weeks later than the traditional date, the season opened. The counseling deliberately delayed the start to “accumulate more salmon entries” (in the same way that reduced the number of specimens that can be caught to 154): after all, last year only 472 specimens were detected in the entire Principality. And the problem is not only Asturian. In Cantabria (where 38 salmon can be caught) none have been caught either. Although it must be pointed out that in the Cantabrian rivers the ban opened this May 1st. And in Galicia a total ban was declared for 2026 (although some exceptions have been made). Why is all this happening? The causes are well known: we are talking about things like river fragmentation, pollution (agricultural, industrial and urban), the effects of aquacultureuncontrolled repopulation, invasive species and, of course, climate change. So, are we going towards a total ban? The truth is that no one can know. Especially because we have a very close precedent: Spain has repeatedly refused to ban eel fishing despite the fact that all scientific reports say that it must be done. In favor of the salmon it plays that, thanks to the farms, the money that the wild moves is rather symbolic. But the paths of agricultural regulation in an election year are inscrutable. What is clear is that these are not good times for wild salmon. Not in Spain, not anywhere. In Norway, for example, only 323,000 wild salmon were observed in 2024. The previous year, the figures They amounted to 481,463 copies. In Scotland, another of the great salmon-growing countries, the population of wild specimens has fallen by 80% since the 70s; and, in the Faroes, the total ban is on the table. As we said recently, there have never been more salmon in the world. And, for that reason, this species has never been closer to disappearing in the wild. Image | Brandon In Xataka | We are drugging the salmon with cocaine and anxiolytics. And that’s causing them to behave strangely.

At 11 km long and with a roof with a light show, China’s longest underwater tunnel has become a tourist attraction

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Under the waters of Lake Taihu, in the Chinese province of Jiangsu, lies the longest underwater tunnel ever built in China. Although it serves today as a great solution to decongest one of the most dynamic regions in the country, it has also become, almost by surprise, a tourist destination on its own merits. The reason: a majestic ceiling full of LED lights that change color and an architecture almost designed more to be contemplated than to be functional. A key point. As we mentioned, the tunnel extends under Lake Taihu, in Jiangsu province, about 50 kilometers east of Shanghai. It aims to connect the expressways of Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou to relieve traffic pressure in the lakeside cities, while also serving to boost economic development from the Yangtze River Delta region. It is also a segment of the highway that connects Shanghai and Nanjing, the former national capital. For this reason, it is a key piece in China’s infrastructure network, but its design and light show have also led to it being transformed into a whole tourist experience. Figures. With 10.79 kilometers in length, the tunnel had a cost of about 9.9 billion yuanabout 1,230 million euros. Work began in 2018 and lasted almost four years. To build the two-way tunnel, with six lanes and 17.45 meters wide, more than two million cubic meters of concrete were used. For ventilation, there are three complexes distributed along the surface of the lake that guarantee air circulation inside. The challenge of building under the mud. It was not a simple work. The bed of Taihu Lake is formed by large accumulations of clayey silt, which made it impossible to use conventional excavation methods with tunnel boring machines. The engineering team opted for a cofferdam system: the route was divided into nine sections and, in each one, a temporary dike was built to “create solid ground” and work dry. Once that section was finished, it was filled with water and moved on to the next. According to collect Tunnels & Tunnelling, one of the biggest challenges was waterproofing the structure, since at some points the tunnel is 20 meters below the lake bed. Thes LED lights yesThey always improve everythingeither. Their figures and the work that had to be done for something of such magnitude to materialize is impressive. But the tunnel has attracted more and more attention for a clear reason: its roof. Those responsible They installed LED lights on the roof of the tunnel to combat driver fatigue during what would otherwise be a very monotonous journey underground. The panels do not simply project a uniform color, but rather show images that change. Ventilation and architecture. But the LEDs on the ceiling are not the only eye-catching element. The three ventilation points that emerge on the surface of the lake have been conceived as sculptural pieces. According to China Dailythe one located in the center of the tunnel was transformed into an artificial island 150 meters in diameter; that on the western side, near Mashan, is shaped like a conch; and the one on the eastern side, next to Nanquan, evokes the silhouette of an ancient boat. The most striking is the one known as “Jade Snail”: 45 meters in diameter and 39 meters high, it is equipped with 174,000 LED light points. A tunnel that generates tourism. The CCCC construction company points out that the Taihu tunnel is now the second highway between Shanghai and Nanjing, and has increased the number of visitors to the tourist enclaves of Lingshan and Nianhua Bay by 50%. The Mashan area, directly connected by the tunnel, is home to the Lingshan Great Buddha, one of the largest in the world and a pilgrimage destination for millions of people. Liu Xiaoyu, head of Wuxi National Taihu Lake Tourism Resort, pointed out told China Daily that “the tunnel will bring more tourists to the Lingshan Scenic Area and hotels in the area.” recordd. At almost 11 kilometers, the Taihu is the longest underwater tunnel in China, but it is not the first in the world. The title of longest underwater road tunnel remains with the Norwegian Ryfastwith 14.3 kilometers, connecting the city of Stavanger with the municipality of Strand. On the other hand, if we talk about underwater tunnels in general, the Eurotunnel (which links England and France by rail) retains the absolute record with 37.9 kilometers of submerged section. Images | CGTN In Xataka | Xiaomi or Xpeng car factories are so advanced that they have become the favorite destination of Chinese schools

In Spain we have glorified the long nap. In scientific studies they have a different opinion on the matter.

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The siesta is, for many, a fundamental pillar of the Mediterranean lifestyle and an essential pleasure during the afternoon to be able to endure the rest of the day. However, scientific evidence has put this habit under the microscope, especially when naps last several hours and even give you time to dream several times. And the duration, frequency and especially age have a lot to say about the impact on health. The border of time. The current scientific consensus draws a fairly clear line between the classic power nap and the nap of putting on your pajamas and getting into bed for several hours. Because the barrier is marked precisely at the half hour mark, meaning that whoever passes it may begin to notice changes in their health. Here, a recent study from the University of Murcia analyzed to more than 3,000 adults in a Mediterranean environment to analyze the effect of naps. And the reality is that spending more than these 30 minutes was associated with having a higher BMI, a higher incidence of obesity and also being more likely to have a metabolic syndrome such as, for example, diabetes or hypertension. And there is more. When it comes to cardiovascular health, the reality is that the heart can suffer. Here the European Society of Cardiology presented In 2023, different data associated naps longer than 30 minutes with almost double the risk of developing atrial fibrillation. But also the American Heart Association took data who supported this point by pointing out that naps lasting longer than an hour increased the rate of cardiovascular disease by 1.82 times. The age factor. In this sense, one of the most important studies published is found in JAMA, that after following 1,338 older adults for 19 years and objectively measuring their sleep, they were able to see the effect it had. Here it was seen that sleeping more during the day, doing so more frequently or concentrating the nap in the morning was associated with with higher mortality from any cause. Specifically, each extra hour of daytime sleep increased the risk of mortality by 13%. There is much left to investigate. Among the studies that are currently available, no clear correlation has been found, that is, that someone who takes a three-hour nap a day should not have any problems. The only thing that is pointed out is that having the need to sleep excessively during the day can be a consequence of a poor night’s rest because there is a disease that is beginning to see the light, such as sleep apnea. You can take a nap. Although it may seem that we are demonizing the nap, the reality is that it has an important beneficial component when it comes to naps. less than 30 minutes. Here we are achieving an improvement in cognitive performance and it is also a way to recharge our energy a little for the rest of the day. But from here to actively planning a nap that can last for hours, there is a long way that should undoubtedly be avoided. Images | Unsplash In Xataka | Sleeping four hours a day and performing at your best is not a myth, it is a genetic rarity of 1% of the population

Long before Real Madrid, the Roman Empire had already invented VIP boxes. And they ended in disaster

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In the first century, the emperor Nero ordered that some shows will include giant awnings to protect the most privileged attendees from the sun, while the rest of the public endured the heat in the upper stands. That seemingly trivial difference reflected the extent to which the experience of attending an event was already marked for money and status long before modern stadiums existed. Show business in Ancient Rome. Long before modern stadiums like the Bernabéu turned sport into a crazy revenue machine, the Roman Empire had already understood the economic potential of gathering crowds and charging for access. At that time, amphitheaters were not only leisure spaces, but political and commercial tools where prestige and money mixed openly. In fact, businessmen like Atilio They saw the games as a direct opportunity for profit, betting on filling venues at all costs and maximizing every available seat. In that context, the logic of squeezing capacity (with privileged areas for the elites and crowded stands for the rest) not only existed, but was central part of the model. Raised to make quick money. In this context, it is born the Fidenae project with a clear idea: build a lot, quickly and cheaply to start earning money as soon as possible. Attilius, a freedman with entrepreneurial ambition, decided to build a huge wooden amphitheater on the outskirts of Rome, reducing costs in the most critical elements. The structure was supported on unstable ground and was assembled with poor joints, while more seats than planned were added to increase revenue. The result was a building that appeared grand from the outside, but was actually designed more to maximize profits. that to ensure safety of those who were going to occupy it. Spectacle turned into tragedy. What happened? That the inauguration attracted tens of thousands of people who came with the expectation of witnessing gladiatorial combats after a period in which these spectacles had been rather rare. That amphitheater was filled to the limitthere was no room for a pin, with the public distributed by social classes and areas, replicating a hierarchy that also had its economic reflection. Thus, in a matter of seconds, what seemed like a festive day he happened to enter sadly in the Guinness Book of a total sporting catastrophe when the structure began to give way and collapsed simultaneously inwards and outwards. It was not just an accident, since the magnitude of the collapse trapped both those who were inside and those who were trapped. were in the surroundingsleaving a balance of victims that, according to sources, ranged between tens of thousands of dead and injured. The worst sports disaster in history. From then until now, because of its scalethe collapse or collapse of Fidenae was not only a local tragedy, but the biggest sports disaster that has ever been documented, surpassing even many modern episodes in number of victims. The figures, although imprecise at the time, point to a catastrophe comparable to major battles in terms of human losses (they were counted about 50,000 deadsome lost their lives instantly, while others were buried under the rubble), something totally exceptional for an entertainment event. The speed of the collapse, the absence of evacuation measures and the fragility of the construction made any reaction impossible, turning the amphitheater into a mousetrap, a death trap in a matter of seconds. What should have been a profitable business ended up being the most extreme example of how the search for profit can multiply risk to catastrophic limits. From greed to the first rules. There is no doubt, the impact of that disaster shook the Roman Empire and forced an institutional reaction that marked a before and after in the construction regulation. The Senate persecuted the person responsible, Attilius, and sent him into exile, but, more importantly, established rules that They demanded economic solvency to those who wanted to organize shows and forced them to build on safe land. Those measures can be considered one of the first attempts to regulate structural safety in public spaces, born directly from a tragedy caused by negligence. Ultimately, the episode left a lesson that is still very valid: when business prevails over security, the show not only cannot be guaranteed, it can end up becoming in his own catastrophe. Image | Wikimedia C. In Xataka | In 1995, South Korea suffered one of the great architectural disasters of the century. The culprit: the air conditioning In Xataka | If you’re hot at home, remember that Disney made an auditorium with a huge mistake: turning a neighborhood into an unbearable oven

Memory prices have started to fall in some markets. There is still a long way to go to close the AI ​​crisis

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There is a scene that repeats itself every time the market gives a truce, even if it is minimal: it is enough for the price of a key component to begin to fall for the feeling that the worst is over. This is exactly what is happening now with DDR5 memory. In recent weeks falls have been recorded in the retail channel of several markets, and that has reactivated an inevitable question among those who have been following the evolution of prices for months: whether we are facing the beginning of the end of the memory crisis or simply a one-time adjustment. An extended pressure. To understand what we are seeing now, it is advisable to broaden the focus and look at the recent path of the market. The rise in memory prices It has not only hit the user who wants to update their equipment, but also manufacturers, distributors and assemblers, in a context marked by supply and demand tensions that have been conditioning purchases and strategies for months. Therefore, we are facing a pressure scenario that has ended up affecting a good part of the hardware market. Where and how much prices are falling. Beyond perception, what there is right now is a measurable change in some shop windows. TrendForce aims to clear declines in the retail channel in several regions. In Europe, the German market recorded a monthly drop of 7.2% in March 2026, while in the United States there have been discounts of more than 20% on specific 32 GB DDR5 kits. The most striking case is China, where 16 GB modules have fallen between 25% and 30% from the peaks at the beginning of the year. A correction. Behind this adjustment there is a much more earthly explanation than it might seem. According to the analysis firm and the industry sources it cites, the main factor is less traction in consumption after months of high prices, which has led many buyers to delay decisions and distributors to accelerate the release of inventory. Added to this is a common lag between the spot market and contracts, which can take between one and two months to translate into actual shipments. The noise around TurboQuant. In parallel with this correction, an element has appeared that has fueled the debate in the market. TurboQuanta compression algorithm from Google, has been interpreted in some recent coverage as a sign that the pressure on RAM could relax. However, the most prudent readings They point in another direction, pointing out that this is an incremental improvement and not a change capable of alone altering structural demand, especially in memory for servers and loads linked to artificial intelligence, which remains high. End of the crisis? All this fits into an idea that the sector itself repeats quite clearly. From Taiwan-based memory manufacturers, contract prices have remained stable despite volatility in the retail channel, and demand in segments such as servers, DRAM and HBM remains strong, partly supported by multi-year agreements with large customers. In this context, the current correction is interpreted as a specific adjustment, not as a sufficient turnaround to consider the current episode of tension resolved. Caution and more caution. What we are seeing in some markets is a temporary relief for the consumer, yes, but everything indicates that it is a correction within a cycle still stressed by underlying factors that have not disappeared. The most optimistic forecasts speak of a progressive normalization towards the end of 2026 in some segments, while others place it even further. With this scenario, ending the memory crisis would be getting ahead of events that, for now, are still far from being confirmed. Images | Andrey Matveev In Xataka | AI urgently needs memory, so Samsung and SK are going to inject $1 billion into China

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