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There is a way to open the dishwasher incorrectly. This is bad news for your kitchen furniture.

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Practically half of Spanish homes have a dishwasher. And some of the most reputable manufacturers have had to come to the fore to explain why. it’s not a good idea Open the door as soon as the washing cycle ends. Don’t be craving. Opening the dishwasher as soon as the wash cycle is finished is not the best idea, according to the manufacturers themselves. Some, like Boschrecommend waiting for it to cool a little before opening the door so that less steam comes out of the opening. Others, such as Siemens, make exactly the same recommendation: let the appliance cool down slightly after the program ends before opening the door. Because. Opening the dishwasher at the end of the cycle is not particularly dangerous, but it can cause problems in your kitchen in the long term. Manufacturers point out that excess steam when opening the door when it is still quite hot can end up damaging kitchen furniture. Similarly, dishwashers use their own residual heat to help the correct drying process. All this without taking into account the most obvious detail: if we open the appliance when it is full of high-temperature steam, we run a greater risk of suffering a slight burn. How the dishwasher works. To understand why the dishwasher generates so much steam at the end of the cycle, it is worth doing a brief review of how it works. Basically, it is a closed circuit that allows hot water to be pumped into rotating arms. When you choose the program, the door closes. Water enters its base and the dishwasher heats it. When the water is hot, the pump pushes it under pressure into your arms. The water hits the dishes and drags away the dirt. The detergent is released and begins to break down grease and food debris. The residual heat dries the dishes little by little. The heat problem. Aware that opening the dishwasher as soon as it is finished is common practice in homes, manufacturers have been devising solutions for years to prevent excess steam. Some appliances of this type have an automatic opening system. The door opens just a few centimeters to let the steam out little by little, so that when we finish opening it manually we avoid that initial blow. Other systems, even more advanced, they use zeolites. Zeolites are microporous aluminosilicates (of mineral or synthetic origin) that have a crystalline structure with a huge internal surface area. When they absorb water molecules the process is exothermic, that is, they release heat. This allows part of the steam to be collected and used as waste heat for drying. Increasingly advanced solutions to address a problem as simple as it is common. In Xataka | A user bought a next-generation connected dishwasher. That’s where his nightmare began

to open Hormuz the US is no longer going to bomb, but rather something more dangerous

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In the Persian Gulf there is an enclave of just a few square kilometers that, despite its size, became bombed hundreds of times during the war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s while continuing to function as one of the main crude oil outlets in the world. Their history shows that sometimes the smallest places are also the hardest to replace. The war is changing the verb. Over the weekend, the arrival of a second amphibious group US launch into the Gulf, with thousands of Marines on board, is not just another tactical move but rather a sign that the war is possibly coming to a head. a new phase: to open the Strait of Hormuz, Washington is no longer thinking only of bombing, but of doing something much more dangerous, taking the key territory. How have we been countingKharg, the small island off the Iranian coast, concentrated near the 90% of exports of the country’s oil and has become the true center of gravity of the conflict, not because it is large or defensible, but because whoever controls it control the flow economy that sustains the regime. After weeks of remote attacks, the accelerated dispatch of amphibious forces indicates that the United States is preparing the option that involves boots on the ground, a qualitative leap that transforms an air campaign into a potential occupation operation. The plan is not new, it is from 40 years ago. I remembered the financial times this morning that what today seems like an improvised escalation actually has much deeper roots, because the idea of ​​taking Kharg is not new, but is part of a script that Trump had already outlined in the eightieswhen he openly argued that the United States should directly hit Iranian oil assets to force concessions. So talked about “go and take the island” as a response to any challenge in the Gulf, and four decades later that same scheme (ultimatum, economic pressure and decisive use of force) reappears almost no changes. The difference is that now it is not campaign rhetoric, but a very real option on the table, turning an old strategic intuition into an operational plan with global implications. The economic switch of war. The logic behind this move seems quite obvious: Iran has managed resist bombing and, at the same time, maintain its crude oil exports while blocking those of its rivals, turning the closure of Hormuz into an economic weapon that puts pressure on the rest of the world. From that perspective, for the United States, taking Kharg would break that dynamic by cutting off Tehran’s main source of income and striking back in the same area, the economic one, where Iran is trying to win the war. In other words, it is not so much about destroying as to control and taketo use the island as a negotiating lever to force the reopening of the strait and, ultimately, force the regime to accept imposed conditions from outside. The impossible operation. On paper, the capture of the island could be relatively fastsupported by previous attacks and the deployment of amphibious units capable of assaulting key points such as the airport and port facilities. However, the difficulty is not in conquering Kharg, but rather in holding it: its proximity to the Iranian coast makes it an exposed target to missiles, drones and constant attacks, while American supply lines would be vulnerable in an environment saturated with asymmetric threats. That is to say, the scenario looks less like the traditional blitzkrieg campaigns of the Americans and more like a war of attritionwhere holding a small island can become a large-scale strategic problem. The risk of escalation without return. Most analysts agree on the same diagnosis: the real danger is not only military, but political and economic. Such an assault operation would imply a direct escalation against the economic heart of Iran, with unforeseeable consequences: from regional attacks to energy infrastructures (Iran, in fact, has already warned with this) to a prolonged rise in oil prices and increasing pressure on the United States to exit the conflict. Furthermore, it must be taken into account that there is no guarantee that taking the island will force Tehran to give in. In fact, it could, on the contrary, further harden its stance and widen the conflict. In this unstable balance, Kharg Island has ceased to be just a military objective and has become a strategic bet high risk for Washington: a move that could change the course of the war… or trap it in an even more dangerous phase. Image | USN In Xataka | We wonder if it is safe to fly now that there are more drones than Ryanair planes: the answer is an Ockham’s razor In Xataka | The weapon to liberate Hormuz has fled 6,000 km from the war. And that just means the US is preparing for what comes next.

The US Navy already knows what is going to happen to the planet. The mission to open Hormuz is the closest thing to a suicide operation

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In the world there are only a dozen maritime passages capable of altering the global economy if they are blocked. Some are so narrow that, at certain points, they barely exceed 30 kilometers wide. However, millions of barrels of oil, huge ships of liquefied natural gas and a good part of the planet’s energy trade circulate through them every day. When one of those places goes into crisisthe impact it doesn’t take long to feel in markets, governments and homes around the world. And the Strait of Hormuz points to a unprecedented scenario. The impossible mission. Yes, the Strait of Hormuz has become the point most dangerous on the planet for global energy trade. Some 20 million barrels of oil daily (around 20% of global consumption) in addition to one fifth of liquefied natural gas that supplies numerous countries. The conflict with Iran has transformed that corridor into a war zone where attacks on oil tankers, drones, missiles and sabotage have paralyzed much of the traffic. But what is most revealing is not only the violence of the incidents, but Washington’s reaction: even the world’s largest naval power just recognized which is not prepared to escort oil tankers through the area. That delay is a clear sign of the magnitude of the problem, because if the US Navy needs weeks to organize convoys, and that is exactly the words they have usedthe implicit message for the markets is that the Gulf energy blockade may last much longer than many imagined. Convoys under fire. To understand it we must imagine the scenario. The idea of ​​accompanying oil tankers with warships seems, on paper, a direct solution. In practice, it is one of the riskiest missions that a modern navy can face. The convoys would need frigates and destroyers protecting the freighters while specialized units They search for mines and drones in an environment saturated with threats. The ships would be exposed to anti-ship missiles launched from mobile trucks off the Iranian coast, swarms of explosive speedboats, kamikaze drones and possible mines hidden in the strait. To completely eliminate these threats, some analysts they even propose something Washington would prefer to avoid: a ground operation to control the Iranian coast that dominates the sea passage. This scenario explains why military planners speak of a “very complicated” situation: reopening the strait does not depend only on naval superiority, but on neutralizing an entire ecosystem of asymmetric warfare. Iranian missile boat moments before being attacked The cheapest weapon to paralyze commerce. And among all the threats, one stands out for its effectiveness: naval mines. We are talking about simple, cheap and extremely disruptive weapons that can transform a maritime corridor in a death trap. Even a few mines in a narrow spot are enough to paralyze traffic, because shipping companies and their insurers simply refuse to take the risk. Iran has several types of these devices, from floating mines to models anchored to the seabed capable of detonating charges of more than one hundred kilos of explosives upon contact. Not only that. You can also display them in ways difficult to detect: from small boats camouflaged as fishing boats or by divers who attach them to the hull of the ships. History, in fact, has already demonstrated his powerbecause mines have damaged more American ships than any other weapon naval since World War II. Hence its true effect is not to sink ships, but to sow enough fear to block traffic. Map with the strategic location of the Strait of Hormuz The invisible lock. The paradox of this type of war is that it is not necessary to mine the entire strait to close it. In reality, it is enough the simple suspicion. The reason is simple: in such a narrow channel, the presence of a few mines requires inspection every meter of water with sonar, underwater drones and specialized ships. A slow and dangerous process, especially if the enemy continues to lay new mines or attack demining units. Plus: recent experience in the black sea has shown that even uncertainty about their presence can keep commercial ships away for months. And in the Persian Gulf the same thing happens: Thousands of ships wait for instructions while the risk of mines, missiles or drones turns each voyage into a gamble. Oil as a geopolitical hostage. There is no doubt, all this gives Iran a strategic power of large dimensions. Before the conflict, about a fifth of the world’s oil passed through Hormuz daily. With this altered flow, energy prices react immediately and governments release strategic reserves to contain the impact. The strait thus becomes a colossal geopolitical lever: Even if the war were to end soon, something that is currently a utopia, an Iranian regime still capable of launching drones, missiles or mines could keep threatening maritime traffic when it suits you. That means oil and gas can stay hostage of Gulf stability for a long time, something that worries both the markets and Washington’s regional allies. There is no easy way out. Under this scenario, the dilemma For the United States it is evident. Stopping the war too soon could leave intact Iran’s ability to blockade the strait and put pressure on global energy markets. Continuing it could require a major climbincluding land operations or prolonged naval campaigns to ensure the security of the sea passage. Meanwhile, the conflict has already demonstrated something truly disturbing: even in the face of a military power like the United States, Iran retains enough tools to disrupt the global energy system. That is why the real alarm signal is not only the closure of Hormuz, but the realization that opening it may be much more difficult (and expensive) than many thought at the beginning of the war. Image | US NAVY, Oils & Fats international In Xataka | China has just found a hole in the US’s quietest weapon: an algorithm has hacked its B-2s in Iran In Xataka | The great paradox of war: the … Read more

How to find free, open source or one-time payment alternatives to subscription services with this website

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Do you want to reduce the number of subscriptions you pay? Let’s tell you how to find the best alternatives to programs and applications that require a subscription. Among the alternatives you will have open source services, free or that only require a single payment. We are going to do this with one of those pages that should be saved in favorites. It’s about the web nosubscription.organd we are going to teach you how to use it to find your alternatives. The best alternatives to subscription services NoSubscription is a project with a manifesto in which they believe that users should own their toolsnot renting them with monthly subscriptions. For this reason, those responsible for the website say their mission is to find, verify and promote the best software and services that you buy with a single payment, free and open source. All you have to do is enter nosubscription.organd at the top use your search engine. In it, you can write the name of the subscription tool you want to replacebut also the category of the tool or application. When you type a name, the results will appear with the best alternatives. Notice that below the name it appears which services are alternatives for, because sometimes it can appear out of order. Then, The type of price will appear in green that is, as if it is free or even the total price if it is a single payment. And if you write a category, such as Socialyou will see that alternatives appear and in each one for which service or social network they are a substitute. you will also see What operating systems do you have apps for?with the logos of each one or a globe if used by browser. You can also look for alternatives to other applications popular ones, like Chrome, social networks, operating systems, whatever. When you click on one of the services you will go to its file. In it you will have a description and a list with its key features. On the right you will see its category, the type of application or service it is, where it is available and a button to go to the official website in case you want to find out more. In Xataka Basics | European alternatives to Gmail and Outlook: the best email providers made in Europe

Now that the most wanted cartel in Mexico has died, three disturbing possibilities open up. All with the US in the target

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For more than four decades, the relationship between Mexico and the United States has been marked by a shared war and asymmetric against drug traffickinga fight that has oscillated between open confrontation, silent cooperation and the reproaches mutual while criminal networks adapted, fragmented and strengthened in the heat of the demand for drugs north of the border and violence to the south. In this permanent pulse, each hit against a boss has not only been an operational successbut also the beginning of a new disturbing phase. The biggest blow in a decade. The death of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho”undisputed leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, represents the most important blow against organized crime in Mexico since fall of “El Chapo”. It is, not only because of the dejected figure, but because structural weight of the organization he directed, which became one of the most expansive, violent and with the greatest international capacity in the country. We are talking about an organization with presence in dozens of nations and a central role in the trafficking of methamphetamine and fentanyl into the United States. The definitive breakup. From the political side, the operation confirms the breakup with the stage of “hugs, not bullets” and consolidates a strategy based on intelligence, coordination and direct action against criminal leaders. In fact, the administration of Claudia Sheinbaum has multiplied arrests, seizures and deployments on the northern border. The internal message is crystal clear: the State seeks regain the initiative in the face of organizations that took advantage of years of limited containment to expand and professionalize. Immediate response that has paralyzed regions. There is no doubt, in an operation of this caliber, the reaction of the cartel has been lightning and coordinatedwith blockades, vehicle fires, attacks on infrastructure and suspension of activities in several states. Cities like Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta are experiencing panic scenes that are reminiscent of previous crises in Sinaloa after the capture of other leaders such as that of “El Mayo”. And, as almost always, the deployment of federal forces and the alerts to foreign citizens show a reality most uncomfortable: The group’s operational capacity does not disappear with the death of its leader. The great unknown and a risk. This being the case, and with the natural heir imprisoned in the United States, the replacement of the next great drug trafficker open a fight potential between regional commanders and key operators. They remembered in the New York Times that, if the chain of command is not imposed quickly, it is very possible that internal disputes will begin to arise that fragment or weaken the organization. The Mexican experience shows that these transitions usually translate in prolonged violence and territorial fights that affect entire communities. The first possibility looking at Washington. With this scenario, what happens in the coming weeks can greatly alter the security architecture not only of the United States, but from all over North America opening before him three most disturbing scenarios. First of all, a more than possible internal war due to the succession within the CJNG that destabilizes the organization and multiplies all types of sources of regional violence, generating in turn displacement, migratory pressure and greater disorderly flow of weapons and drugs towards the north of the continent. And the remaining two. Secondly, the equally plausible possibility opens up: that of a rival cartels offensive to dispute territories and the most strategic routes, a situation that could trigger a prolonged national conflict similar to the one that occurred in Sinaloaaffecting logistics chains, investment and, in general, border stability. Finally, the third way is that of rapid consolidation under a new leadershipone that, far from weakening the business, makes it more opaque and decentralized, maintaining or even sophisticating fentanyl trafficking to the United States and beyond, which would force Washington to rethink its cooperation, its political pressure and even the debate on direct interventions, with profound implications for Mexican sovereignty and regional integration. In short, with consequences for the entire North American security architecture. A turning point in relationships. The last thing that we have known of the operation has been that it was carried out by Mexican forces together with US intelligence, all in a context political pressure from the White House and millionaire rewards offered by the DEA, along with the review of commercial and security commitments. Plus: arrives after months of extraditionsconvictions and mass arrests linked to the capo’s entourage, suggesting that the operation has been a sustained strategy and not an isolated hit. Tactical success obviously reinforces cooperation, but it will also very likely raise expectations and scrutiny over actual results. If violence expands or the criminal business adapts and diversifies without losing any capacity, such as it has already happened In the past, the region could enter a highest voltage phase strategic that redefines the way in which both countries manage their border, their trade and their shared security. Image | Knight Foundation In Xataka | The cartels have a vehicle that looks like something out of Mad Max: it is called a “narcotanque” and it is a nightmare in Mexico In Xataka | There is a “cocaine of the sea” that is breaking the Chinese market. And that is a huge problem for Mexico.

Carrefour is going to open 750 stores in Spain in the next four years. But not as we know them

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Carrefour has announced 750 openings in Spain and not because business is going especially well. He has announced them because the model that made him great (the suburban hypermarket) has been losing steam for a while. This strategic plan until 2030 is, above all, an adaptation to the reality of the modern consumer. The background. Carrefour was one of those who popularized a way of shopping that dominated the retail European for a time: the hypermarket. A huge area on the outskirts, with free parking and the idea of ​​having everything under one roof. Saturday shopping as a family ritual. That model worked while life revolved around cars and rigid schedules. But habits have been changing, and with them the business. The contrast. The 750 planned openings are not hypermarkets. They are mainly small-format, urban convenience stores (Carrefour Express), many operated by franchisees. The kind of place where you walk in on the way home, grab what’s missing, and in ten minutes you’re done. Not where you spend much more time filling a car. In Spain, the only format that grew in 2024 was precisely this: 62 new Express stores compared to zero net openings in hypermarkets and large supermarkets. Yes, but. Growing in convenience is easier to announce than to execute. The margin per square meter is lower, the competition is intense, from Dia to the regional chains; and the franchise model involves relying on third parties to maintain standards. Alexandre Bompard, CEO of Carrefour, has admitted that part of the growth will come through acquisitions, because the Spanish market “is fragmented.” In other words: you have to buy to gain scale, and that costs money and time. Meanwhile, Lidl, with almost a 7% share, threatens to take second position from Carrefour in the Spanish market, where the French group has lost 0.7 points in a year and stands at 9%. Very far in any case from Mercadona. The big question. What is done with the 206 hypermarkets that Carrefour has in Spain? The plan talks about converting up to 10% of its surface towards growth categories, such as pets, personal care or financial services. It is a reasonable solution, but it patches the format more than transforms it. Carrefour’s real bet is to build a parallel business to the hypermarket, smaller and more urban, that grows while the large one stabilizes. If you succeed, you will have read the moment correctly. If not, you will have spent a lot of money chasing rivals who already have an advantage. In Xataka | Mercadona has a rival in its absolute dominance of supermarkets: the “ultra low-cost” of PrimaPrix and Sqrups Featured image | Carrefour

China needed space to power millions of homes, so it built a mega solar plant in the open sea

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That China is building power plants As if there were no secret, it is not a secret. Without going any further, in the last four years it has been able to replicate the power of the United States, the largest electrical grid in the West. And a good part of the blame solar energy has it. In fact, in 2023 it installed more solar panels than the United States in all of history, as reported by Bloomberg. Solar energy requires space, so China is finding the most varied gaps, from the tibetan plateau to the open sea, where from the end of 2025 It is already connected to the electrical network a mega solar plant that breaks records. In China there are solar panels even in the soup. The largest offshore solar plant in the world. We are talking about the solar plant located off the coast of Kenli district in Dongying city, Shandong province. This engineering project is carried out by China Energy Investment Corporation (CHN Energy) and has a nominal capacity of 1 GW. As explains People’s Dailythe official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is China’s first gigawatt-level offshore photovoltaic project and currently the largest offshore solar installation in the world. This is what the Shandong plant looks like. Via: People’s Daily The context: why at sea. Because land space near its large coastal cities is a precious commodity. The Chinese government has a policy of red line to safeguard land used for agriculture and solve the line “Hu Huanyong Line“: while its great solar and wind potential is concentrated in the west, in the Gobi Desert and Inner Mongolia, the megacities and their most powerful industrial fabric are in the east. China is already developing parks of renewables in their deserts, but running Ultra High Voltage lines is very expensive, involves losses along the way and crosses complicated orography. The logical but technically infernal solution is to jump into the water. Until now, floating solar energy was limited to calm waters, such as what Germany is doing with its lakesbut China is another story. The open sea brings salt corrosion, typhoons and waves. Why is it important. Because China’s coastal provinces such as Shandong or Jiangsu constitute large centers of industrial consumption. Generating energy right there avoids those transportation losses of thousands of kilometers from the Gobi desert. If it works within the expected design parameters and the maintenance costs are affordable, it will be a good boost to take advantage of the coasts within the energy transition process from fossil to renewables. The panels are simply colossal. Via: X from People’s Daily A prodigious work of engineering. We are talking about an area of ​​more than 1,200 hectares where 2,934 enormous marine photovoltaic panels are located with standardized dimensions of 60 meters long and 35 meters wide. And they are not drifting panels: it is a large infrastructure designed to withstand extreme conditions ranging from storms to freezing water. In addition, it is hybridized: under the panels the project integrates fish farms, that is, producing electricity above and fish below. This type of combination is not new, as in Guizhou province there is a giant solar plant in whose basement mushrooms are grown. Shandong is aquavoltaic and Guizhou is agrivoltaic. Some numbers that make you dizzy. This installed power of 1 Gigawatt is similar to that of a modern nuclear reactor, so that according to estimates, it will be capable of producing 1,780 million kWh of energy that will be fed into the grid each year and thus supply 2.6 million homes in the region. approximately 60% of your demand. According to the estimates of the engineering company behind it, 1.3 million tons of carbon dioxide will no longer be emitted. In Xataka | Germany has had a crazy idea to solve one of the problems of renewables: covering a lake with solar panels In Xataka | The great myth of solar panels: producing them emits hundreds of times less than coal and gas Cover | People’s Daily

In Tokyo there is a bookstore with only one book in the catalog. It has been open for ten years and works

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In an alley in the Ginza district of Tokyo, a small white-painted room houses what could be considered the most radical bookstore in the world. Morioka Shotenopened in May 2015 by Yoshiyuki Morioka, reverses the commercial logic of the book: while the Japanese publishing industry produces approximately 80,000 new titles each yearthis establishment only sells one, which is renewed every week. It is not performance. Morioka Shoten It is a business that works, selling multiple copies of a single work for six consecutive days. The interior is unusually bare for a bookstore (concrete walls, a piece of furniture used as a counter, a cable telephone) and serves as a canvas for displays inspired by the current book. It is a bit the absolute opposite of Amazon: from infinite offer to minimalism in choice. How it works. Each title remains on display for exactly six days, from Tuesday to Sunday, accompanied by artistic installations, objects or photographs related to its content. The space functions simultaneously as a gallery and a point of sale. The location of the project reinforces this symbolic dimension: the Suzuki Buildingbuilt in 1929 and protected as historic architecture, housed between the 1930s and the end of World War II the offices of Nippon Kobo, the publisher that produced the magazine ‘Nippon’, which many consider foundational for the modern Japanese publishing industry. The context. The opening of Morioka Shoten in 2015 comes at a critical time for the industry. Two decades earlier, in 1995, Amazon had begun operations, and the domino effect was inevitable: American independent bookstores went from more than 7,000 stores in 1994 to just 1,651 in 2009, a reduction of 76%. The physical bookstore model seemed obsolete given the speed of the Internet and recommendation algorithms. Morioka Shoten proposed just the opposite: concentration, deliberate scarcity and time to focus on a single work. The philosophy of issatsu, isshitsu. The Japanese expression issatsu, isshitsu It means “a room, a book.” For eight years, Yoshiyuki Morioka worked as an employee in second-hand bookstores in the Kanda neighborhood, a traditional bibliophile district in Tokyo. He later opened his own independent bookstore in Kayabacho, where he organized author presentations that multiplied sales. The question that it was done was: why maintain hundreds of works if the optimal experience was produced with just one? The Takram design studio developed the store’s visual identity based on a sketch by Morioka himself: a rhombus that condenses the double metaphor of the project, simultaneously representing an open book and a single room. The resurgence of indie. The proposal is part of a broader recovery of independent book trade. In 2015, a curious phenomenon occurred in the United States: American indie bookstores. They began to multiplyup to 49%. The study cited factors such as the feeling of community, the work of booksellers as curators and the capacity of bookstores as meeting points. The pandemic accelerated the trend: since 2020 The sector grew by 70%, in 2024, 323 new stores were inaugurated and in 2025, more than a hundred additional stores were opened in the first months of the year alone. Quality over quantity. The commercial results of the experiment confirm the viability of the model. Morioka Shoten has sold more than 2,000 works since its inauguration. The weekly catalog has ranged from comics by Tove Jansson to botanical photographs by Karl Blossfeldt, novels by Mimei Ogawa and short stories by Hans Christian Andersen, spanning fiction, non-fiction, manga and illustrated books. In an era that offers immediate access to millions of titles, abundance generates paralysis when it comes to decisions. From that point of view, Morioka’s radical limitation does not restrict, but liberates. In Xataka | The 24 most beautiful bookstores in the world

Vibe coding wants to help Open Source. But developers don’t want AI botches

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If you like Open Source software, vibe coding now gives you a fantastic opportunity: to take that code and modify it to your liking with the help of vibe coding and the AI ​​agents that program. Let them tell it to me. You may have good ideas and the AI ​​will solve them with new code generated with these tools, but there is a problem: the quality of that code may not be adequate. what has happened. Steve Ruiz (@steveruizok) is the creator and responsible for TLDrawa nice Open Source application that allows you to turn your browser into a canvas so you can easily draw whatever you want on it. On January 15, Steve posted a message on X in which he announced something very striking: he would stop accepting code contributions (pull requests, PRs) in the TLDraw GitHub repository. We don’t need low quality code. “Due to the influx of pull requests of low quality, we will soon close those requests to external contributors,” said the person responsible for a project in an additional post on the official blog of the project. The message was clear: although people’s intentions are surely good when trying to contribute their ideas to an existing project, this developer soon realized that the code contributed by new programmers, fans of vibe coding, was of low quality. Solution? Ban those contributions made with AI. AI-generated code can serve. In that article I indicated that this was not a measure against vibe coding, but against code (any code, human or AI) of poor quality. Ruiz explained how: “We already accept code written with AI. I write code with AI tools. I hope my team uses those AI tools too. If you know the project’s code base and know what you’re doing, writing great code has never been easier thanks to these tools.” AI Slop, but from code. Although we often talk about “slop created by AI“(AI Slop) in reference to low-quality text, images, music and videos, the term can also be applied to code. Ruiz explained how in September he began to detect many requests for code contributions that seemed correct but that after a deeper analysis, although they worked, could potentially introduce future problems and complexity to the project. I correct here, I correct there. In addition, many of the contributors had profiles in which they could be seen jumping from Open Source project to Open Source project and then disappearing. They simply contributed without following the policies or requirements of the project and moved on to another. This is a plague. In the debates that this decision generated in Hacker News and x Ruiz found himself with a surprise: people not only did not protest, but they valued the measure positively. He commented how “this seems to be the standard experience for all public repository maintainers right now.” He cited the example of Excalidrawanother similar project that “received more than twice as many PRs in the fourth quarter of 2025 than in the third” in your repository. More and more vetoes of low-quality AI code. Other projects are going through that same phase. ghosttya terminal emulator for macOS and Linux, recently published their “AI policy” in the site’s public GitHub repository with important notices. For example, that “PRs created by AI must have been fully verified with human use”, and further that “all use of AI in any way, shape or form must be disclosed.” That’s cheating. Curl, a very popular utility for command line users, had announced the opening of a bounty program to detect bugs and vulnerabilities in its code. What have many people done? Use AI to find them and take the money. Those responsible for the program have announced that They will close it this month in the face of the avalanche of low-quality vulnerability reports clearly generated by AI. Linus already said it. Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, admitted to using vibe coding tools for some small personal project. While recognizing that these tools can be great, he warned of the danger of all that AI-generated code: “AI will be a tool, and it will make people more productive. I think vibe coding is great for getting people to start programming. I think (the code it generates) is going to be horrible to maintain… so I don’t think programmers will go away. You’ll still want to have people who know how to maintain the output.” AI code works, but it is not usually “quality”. The developer community has been warning and experiencing this for some time. Although AI tools can help program and solve many routine tasks, the generated code must be reviewed by a human programmer to avoid future problems. It is reasonable to think that this code will be increasingly better and of higher quality, but today in many cases the situation is clear: it may work, yes, but that is not enough for many projects in production, especially when they are used by thousands (let alone millions) of people. In Xataka | Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds had been rivals for 30 years. The funny thing is that they just met and took a selfie

Qwen and open models

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Alibaba’s Qwen family of open AI models is quietly taking the world by storm. Until the current month of January these models have overcome and to 700 million downloads on the Hugging Face platform. The milestone is significant and confirms the supremacy of Chinese companies in this type of models. what has happened. Those responsible for the development of this family of models explain how Hugging Face data They don’t lie: these projects have become the most popular open models worldwide, at least if we look at the number of downloads. Unstoppable. In October 2025 the Qwen model family managed to surpass the previous leader in this segment, the Llama de Meta family of models. Two months later, the Qwen models had been downloaded so much that the total number exceeded the combined figure of the eight AI models next in popularity. That group is made up of the models from Meta, DeepSeek, OpenAI, Mistral, NVIDIA, Zhipu.ai, Moonshot and Minimax. Alibaba is a steamroller. Since Qwen launched in 2023, the advancement of the models in this family has been unstoppable. Although initially accessing them was more uncomfortableAlibaba has taken advantage of its infrastructure and its size to popularize them little by little, but above all its engineers have done something else: not stop launching models. The pace has been frenetic, but the models are also notable and comparable to proprietary models from major US technology companies. Qwen wants to be the Android of AI. The family’s model catalog is enormous. Hugging Face currently includes 300 different models that cover both slightly older versions and various variants of each new major version. For example, we have models specialized in visual data recognition (Qwen VL), in programming (Qwen Coder) or models in image generation (Qwen Image Edit) or “generic” models absolutely gigantic or others like Omni that already compete with Grok 4 or GPT 5 Pro. The intention is obvious: to be the “standard” AI models on the market. Even if it is due to saturation. Surprise: the most popular is not the most powerful. a study Published in October, it did provide surprising information on the growth in popularity of this family of models. One would expect that the most downloaded would be some of the versions of Qwen 3, the most modern and capable version. Actually the most downloaded is Qwen 2.5-1.5B-Instruct, a “light” model that can even run on modest mobile phones and laptops. Tiny but bully. Currently the Hugging Face list indicates that the most popular in downloads is Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct, more modern and somewhat less lightweight, but still “small” by today’s standards. It seems clear that there is notable interest in being able to run this model on mobile phones, tablets and computers with little video memory. Thousands of derived projects. The possibility of obtaining and using these open models in a simple way has made many developers and companies take advantage of them to customize them and adapt them to their own needs. That has made according to Xinhua That family has been used in more than 180,000 derived versions. Flame fades. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley confirms that its vision is different. Goal, what led this area initially thanks to Llama, has given a rudder stroke. The company is still expected to launch new versions of this model, but in the meantime most technology giants focus on their closed and proprietary models. Of course: they keep some models open with a promising future, as we have seen with Gemma (Google) Phi (Microsoft) or gpt-oss (OpenAI). Without forgetting that Mistral is a great European benchmark and also offers open variants. In Xataka | China and the United States have started an antagonistic race in AI through a simple question: whether to be open source or not

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