paint

“they paint a lot for the Mediterranean communities of Spain”

by

Between July 15 and August 15 the worst of the summer is concentrated. And it’s not a figure of speech: the hottest June day never registered in Spaindoes not even reach the top 20 of the hottest days ever recorded. Those four weeks are hell: the letters that the weather hands us every year. That is, the dog days. There is nothing new here if I tell you that it will be hot. What is new is that we arrived with two heat waves, 1,682 deaths attributable to heat and meteorologists like José Miguel VIñas warning that “They paint a lot for the Mediterranean communities of Spain“We arrived, then, with our tongues hanging out. What has happened to the dog days in the last 50 years? That’s a good question: if we go to the studio Heat waves in Spain since 1975 from AEMET, we found very interesting things. In general terms, the 75 heat waves that we have experienced in recent years follow a distribution very similar to that of decades ago. The window has not widened too much: it has moved forward somewhat, but (above all) it has filled up. The number of days of heat waves has multiplied by 2.3, but the only substantial thing that has changed is that: where there was heat before, there is now much more. The least obvious consequence… is that the traditional alarm calendar and the real risk calendar have become decoupled. If we look at the MoMo (mortality estimates from the Carlos III Health Institute), May left 123 deaths due to heat; June, 1,031; and the first week of July (which coincided with the second heat wave), 622. We have already borne a large part of the ‘bill’ of a normal summer and the worst part has not yet begun. And what can we expect? Right now the least risky forecast is simple: “a powerful ridge of African air, dry, very warm and dusty” will cause temperatures to skyrocket in the coming days. The situation is so extreme that, always according to the available models, there are some areas where temperatures close to absolute records are expected. And we must not forget that we are already close to 40 in many parts of the country (the provinces of Lleida and Zaragoza They scored 39 or more the day before yesterday and Valencia stayed close). A push of heat on this situation is just what we don’t need. Are we really going to reach 45 degrees? It is very difficult to make temperature estimates for so many days (even more so when it seems that there will be haze), but the possibility is on the table. They are alsothe hellish nights. Whatever happens in the next few days, it makes sense for us to start preparing. Image | BenBaso In Xataka | The networks are filling up with maps that promise the end of the heat. One thing is what we would like and another, very different, is what we know

The emir of Qatar’s superyacht needed some repairs. Just giving it a coat of paint already costs 13 million euros

by

The most luxurious yacht in the Persian Gulf has just returned to the water after missing for months. Nobody knew much about where it had been during all that time or what they did to it, even the manufacturer of the Emir of Qatar’s superyacht. he published it on his Instagram profile. It is only known that it left a German shipyard and that, when it reappeared off Gibraltar, it looked like new. As and how I collected Luxury Launchesbehind that “like new” there is a bill that few ordinary owners could assume: more than 35 million dollars. And we’re talking about giving it little more than a lick of paint. Once again, millionaires show us why only they can afford have these superyachts. A tune-up for a 500 million yacht. He Al Lusail belongs to the sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thaniemir of Qatar, and is one of the largest private yachts on the planet. It is 123 meters long and has capacity for 36 guests served by a crew of 56 people, as collected Yacht Bible. The emir ordered it to the manufacturer Lürssen in 2017, so after almost a decade sailing, it was time to give it a coat of paint. That’s why the yacht mysteriously disappeared from the marinas of the Spanish coast by which he used to be seen before summer. now we know that, during the last seven months, the Al Lusail has been at the Lürssen shipyard in Bremen undergoing maintenance, and returned in time for the summer season. What it really costs to take care of an 8,489-ton ship. According to Lürssen in your publicationthe work included technical reviews, hull inspection, propeller and rudder maintenance, and HVAC system upgrades. Nothing very flashy, but essential on a ship that weighs nearly 8,500 tons. The shipyard did not give exact figures, although according to estimates Luxury Launchesthe price of the full service could rise to about $35 million. Of that amount, a good part goes just in paint. Repainting a yacht of this size requires first removing all hardware, steel railings and window seals. According to they explain responsible for specialized shipyards Boat Internationalpreparation (sanding, treating corrosion, leaving the surface perfect) represents 70% of the work. The paint job, itself, is the easy part. 13 million euros in painting. On a medium-sized boat, the job of repainting the hull would cost, at most, a few hundred thousand euros. But he Al Lusail It is not an average ship, it is the height of a six-seven-story building. Its six decks, enormous glass facades and the curvature of its hull complicate the work and that shoots the final price above 15 million dollars (about 13 million euros), just to leave the exterior impeccable. To that figure must be added the rest of the maintenance work, engine and electrical system checks, renewal of fabrics and furniture in the cabins, etc. In summary, the Al Lusailhas complied with the rule that says that the maintenance of a yacht involves an average of 10% of its price of purchase. Taking into account that its price is estimated at around 500 million dollars, the Emir of Qatar even found this revision cheap. An owner for whom this is pocket change. Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, current emir of Qatar, is a descendant of one of the most influential dynasties of the Arab world and presides over one of the sovereign funds largest in the world that manages assets for about 475,000 million dollars. The emir himself donated one of the Boeing 747s that used as private jetsto serve as Temporary Air Force One in the United States. The truth is that now, with the hull shining and the engines ready, the Al Lusail is ready for another summer in the Mediterranean. And its owner probably won’t even have noticed the damage he left in the box. In Xataka | A single millionaire spent the equivalent of 10,000 tourists on his luxury vacation in Mallorca: the Emir of Qatar Image | Wikimedia Commons (Khamenei.ir), YatchCharterFleet

Centuries ago someone thought it was a good idea to paint over a Rembrandt painting. The question is why the devil erased a man with a turban

by

The fact that he has been dead for more than three and a half centuries does not prevent him from Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijnone of the great geniuses of baroque painting, continue to surprise historians. And in the most unexpected ways. In 2014, one of his youthful works appeared by surprise at an auction held in Cologne. Now, with your attribution already confirmedthe experts in charge of cleaning the canvas have had another surprise: under a subsequent layer of paint they have discovered a man with dark skin, a black beard and a large turban. It was once painted by Rembrandt himself, but someone decided to retouch the figure to turn it into a venerable old man with a white, wrinkled face, gray beard, and a traditional Dutch cap. The question is obvious: Why? Isn’t that a Rembrandt? The painting Let the children come to me It was probably painted around 1627, when Rembrandt was 21 years old. However, it did not rise to fame until almost 400 years later, well into the 21st century. To be more precise, we must go back to May 2014, when the canvas was included in an auction held in Cologne with a fuzzy business card. Its owners presented it as a piece of the “Dutch school” dating back to the mid-17th century and sold it for 1.5 million euros. It was a good pinch, but it ended in pocket change when some time later it was confirmed that in reality that anonymous 125 x 109 cm canvas (with frame) was neither more nor less than a work from Rembrandt’s youth. Recently Sotheby’s he put it up for auction again with an estimated value of between 9.3 and 14 million of euros. The work before the restoration, with the added modifications. And the (other) surprise arrived. Such a record would have been enough to give the painting a prominent place in Rembrandt’s legacy. Recently, however, Sotheby’s revealed that the canvas hid another secret. What we have seen so far was not exactly what the Leiden artist painted, but rather a version adulterated by a hand less skilled with brushes, a contemporary artist by Rembrandt. There are those who even have a name: Claes Cornelisz Moeyaert. Given that experts believe that the Dutch painter left the work “partially unfinished”, working hard on the upper part of the painting and sketching the lower part, it is understandable that someone would want to finish it. The intriguing thing is that in doing so that anonymous hand did not simply follow Rembrandt’s design. In addition to finishing the canvas, he repainted it, erasing, adding and modifying it to taste. We know this because in recent years technicians have studied the work with X-rays and have dedicated themselves to carefully eliminating overlapping layers. Does things change that much? Yes. It comes with taking a look at the photos that were released on the day of the painting and those disclosed by Sotheby’s following the last auction to prove it. The motif of the painting is the same: the biblical scene, collected in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Lucasin which Jesus uttered his famous phrase: “Let the children come to me.” If we look closely, however, differences can be seen between its status in 2014 and 2026. The elimination of the repaintings changes the color, has made some figures emerge and eliminated others. A boy in the foreground who was wearing an ocher suit now looks how Rebrandt must have seen him, with his back bare. However the most powerful alteration It is another: we now know that one of the central figures in the scene was a dark-skinned man with a turban who the artist who retouched the work completely modified, turning him into a venerable old man. For some unknown reason, the original exotic turban ended up becoming a red Dutch hat and the black beard became a long, gray beard. The work already restored and as presented by Sotheby’s. More than a detail. That detail has attracted attention of media from half the planet. And it’s normal. There are those who believe that if Rembrandt initially opted for a man with a turban, surely Muslim, it was not for an aesthetic reason. He wanted to capture what he saw in part in his own country in the 17th century, a multicultural environment, marked by religious rivalries, the coming and going of thousands of refugees and the social tensions that this generated in the streets. As remember historian Andrew Graham-Dixon, “in 1627, when Rembrandt began the painting, Leiden was going through a humanitarian crisis.” “The Thirty Years’ War was at its peak and hundreds of thousands of people arrived as refugees in the Dutch Republic,” he adds. It is estimated that in 1626 alone approximately 10,000 refugees arrived in Leiden. …and more than paint. Was that context transferred to Rembrandt’s canvas? Did you want to capture the spirit of what you saw on the streets of your city, the position that in your opinion should be maintained towards refugees arriving from other places? “It depicted a mass scene of Christ welcoming children and families. It was very controversial at the time. There were people in Leiden who did not want to receive them,” Graham-Dixon abounds. “What we gather is that Rembrandt was on the side of humanitarian aid. So I think this is more than just a painting. It’s a statement of his moral stance.” The truth is that in the work we see a crowd in which religion is represented. Jewish and Christian. “It looks familiar”. The figure wearing a turban is not the only surprise. Experts have identified in it a self-portrait of Rembrandt himself, who represented himself at the top, as a young man who appears to be looking at the scene perched on a pillar, although in reality he is looking at us. “His physiognomy is familiar to us thanks to the numerous painted self-portraits, drawings and engravings that he made over … Read more

We believed that air conditioning was the only way to beat the heat. A Mexican architect has been cooling houses with paint for decades

by

In 1973, during the oil crisismany countries suddenly discovered that cooling buildings had become an energetic luxury. Bioclimatic architecture then returned to the center of the debate and many looked to old solutions: patios, thick walls, shade and cross ventilation. Curiously, decades before, an architect had already built houses following that logic, obsessed with something that today sounds strangely modern: that a home should offer serenity and refuge from the aggressiveness of the outside. Heat also enters through the eyes. For decades we have assumed that fighting the heat at home involves a almost automatic gesture: lower blinds and turn on the air conditioning. It is a mechanical, direct and, above all, solution. face. Long before that became the norm, the architect Luis Barragan Another idea was already working in Mexico City: that the temperature of a house does not depend only on its degrees, but on how the body perceives it. Its architecture, built between pink, yellow, blue walls and dense shadows, had spent decades exploring something that neuroarchitecture is beginning to support today: color, light and matter. alter physical sensation of space. They don’t cool the air, but they can cool the experience. House-Workshop of Luis Barragán Barragán understood the importance of color. In the Barragán’s workcolor was never decoration. Studies on his architecture show that he treated it the same as a wall or a window: as a structural tool of perception. Its pink, ocher or blue surfaces were designed to react to changing light of the day, transforming the depth, closeness and visual temperature of the space. A pink wall under the intense Mexican sun seems to radiate heat, while a deep blue patio prolongs the feeling of sky and distance. That rrelationship between color and light It was a central part of his work. The architecture moved with the sun, and with it the sensation of the inhabitant also changed. House-Workshop of Luis Barragán The house as a sensory laboratory. His best example remains the Luis Barragán Studio Housebuilt in 1948 and today protected by UNESCO. There everything is designed to modulate the bodily experience: thick walls, closed patios, interior gardens, water, darkness and color. UNESCO stands out precisely that deep dialogue between light, space and matter as one of the great contributions of the 20th century. The house is almost a manifesto of how a home can appeal to all the senses at the same time. Barragán saw it as a living organism, constantly evolving, and in that organism comfort did not depend on technology, but on balance. nterior of the Gilardi House, in Mexico City The half light as a refuge. Barragan distrusted of modern glass architecture and total transparency. While much of the 20th century celebrated large windows and abundant light, he argued for the opposite: the “half light”. He believed that human beings need spaces with shade and darkness to rest, think and concentrate. He said that too much light generates anxiety. In their houses, the windows are reduced, hidden or filtered with colored glass. The light never enters all at once; is dosed. This decision not only changes the emotional atmosphere, it also reduces the thermal load and softens the visual harshness of summer. It is an old and simple solution, almost forgotten in many contemporary homes. Patio of Barragan’s studio house The colors of the weather. The famous Barragán palette It did not come from an abstract theory. Its colors were born of the Mexican landscape. The pink of the bougainvillea, the red of the tabachin, the violet of the jacarandas, the ocher of the earth and the blue of the sky. Everything was part of a natural continuity between architecture and environment. In fact, the call “Mexican pink”developed together with the artist Jesús Reyes, became one of his most recognizable signatures. That color, present at the entrance to his studio or in patios like those of the Gilardi Housegenerates a feeling of calm and depth that continues to surprise those who visit it. Its architecture demonstrates that color can be an emotional regulator of space. Eduardo Prieto Lopez House Tradition already knew this trick. In reality, Barragán did not invent all this from scratch. Much of his work includes centuries of vernacular architecture in Latin America. Painted stucco houses, interior patios, thick walls and breathable materials were part of a climatic logic before electricity. Stucco, for example, allowed the walls they will breathe better in hot climates. Painting them prevented the glare of the white surfaces under the harsh sun. In many places, color not only gave identity, it also helped to better inhabit the heat. Barragán took that tradition and brought it to modern language. San Cristobal block Science explains it. Yes, because recent studies about emotional architecture and embodied perception help put words to what Barragán intuited. Today we know that light regulates circadian rhythms, affects mood and modifies thermal perception. We also know that certain colors can make a room feel cooler or warmer without changing its real temperature. The body first processes a sensory impression and then translates it into comfort or discomfort. Barragán worked precisely on that point. He designed spaces where perception and physiology intersected. An old idea for a new problem. Thus, in the era of air conditioning and skyrocketing thermometers, when cities overheat and energy consumption skyrockets every summer, Barragán’s architecture returns to read with other eyes. Their houses remind us that cooling does not always mean cooling the air. Sometimes means control the light, tame the shadow, reduce glass, use appropriate materials and choose a color well. Are slow solutionssilent and long before modern domestic technology. In that sense, his work seems less like an aesthetic relic and more like an open conversation with the present. Image | Anna BerthoFrancesco Bandarin, Ulysses00, Ymblanter, Steve Silverman, Sarunas Burdulis In Xataka | In 2020, a Chinese billionaire bought the most expensive and luxurious home in London. Then his nightmare began. In Xataka | In 1972 Italy wanted to put an … Read more

A single programmer, simple mechanics, crappy graphics and Paint interface. And he has earned ten million in a week

by

Characters that are generic puppets, aseptic to the point of being experimental, elements in the sets that seem to come from a free library for programming learners, an interface that has completely renounced any hint of design or usability and that seems to come from a ‘Paint’ type application… ‘Meccha Chameleon’ has, however, almost ten million dollars earned in one week on Steamand the only reason is not its extremely low price. The milestones. On June 9, Japanese developer lemorion_1224 launched the game on Steam at a price of only $4.99. Today it has sold more than two million units, that is, it has earned about ten million dollars. Discounting the 30% that Valve keeps, the developer has made 6.9 million in less than a week. And it’s all the work of this solo programmer, in approximately two months. How to play. The central mechanic of ‘Meccha Chameleon’ is simple: at the beginning of each round, some players hide and others look for them. The difference with other hide-and-seek games is that hiders can paint themselves to blend in with their surroundings, like chameleons do (sometimes with hilarious results that content creators are fond of). exploiting thoroughly). The more elaborate the camouflage, the harder the player will be to detect. That is, the ability to replicate the pattern of a wallpaper or a painting comes into play. Those less skilled with the brush have another option: look for dark corners of the map where uniform camouflage is sufficient. The precedent. The game collects ideas from ‘Prop Hunt’, a mode that was born in the mythical and highly cult ‘Garry’s Mod’, and that was later incorporated into franchises such as ‘Call of Duty’. The mechanics are the same: some players start as hunters, the chameleons hide, and those who are discovered go to the opposite side. An option can be activated with which those hidden whistle from time to time to give clues about their position. What is original about this new iteration of the idea is the layer of paint that allows for more effective camouflage. But… who is Lemorion_1224? Certainly not a newcomer. This developer had been experimenting for years with hiding mechanics within ‘Fortnite Creative’, the development platform integrated into ‘Fortnite’ that allows you to publish your own modes and accumulate players at no cost. Among these There is a game where players hide by making themselves extremely thin and another where they disguise themselves as NPCs. Lemorion_1224 has also experimented with mechanics inspired by ‘Dead by Daylight’ and ‘Peak’. ‘Meccha Chameleon’ is, therefore, the distillate of several years of testing. Friendslop it. Meccha Chameleon belongs to what in recent years has been called “friendslop”: cheap games, with a very simple, even tacky, visual finish, designed to be played in a group and shared on social networks. That is, games like ‘Peak’, ‘Lethal Company’ or ‘REPO’. The common denominator is the price (below six dollars in most cases), the viral potential and an approach that can be explained in thirty seconds. But to say that ‘Meccha Chameleon’ is part of a viral trend is to understate it: it had a peak of 200,000 simultaneous playerssomething that many AAAs never achieve. ‘Meccha Chameleon’ is another of the very triumphant successes of the medium that reminds us that issues such as graphics or technical neatness are completely accessory aspects to generate fun. In Xataka | This game has been programmed by only one person, and it is already being talked about as one of the great shooters of the year

Russia is hiding its vehicles with paint

by

The scene is a of the most remembered of the First World War. It happened when the British Navy began painting their ships with huge stripes and geometric shapes in 1917, when many thought they had gone crazy: instead of hiding them, they made them more visible. However, that idea ended up spreading to thousands of ships because it achieved something much more important than hiding them: making it difficult for the enemy to know where to aim. War is no longer just against humans. The evolution of drones in Ukraine is pushing the battlefield into increasingly strange. For centuries, camouflage had an obvious objective: to deceive enemy soldiers, observers or pilots. Now Russia is recovering the technique born in World War I for a completely different purpose. Your trucks Ural and KAMAZ are appearing covered by geometric patterns black and white, similar to used by ships that were trying to confuse German submarines, but this time the recipient of the deception is not a person looking through a periscope, but an algorithm trained to recognize vehicles from the air. When the enemy is an AI. The proliferation of Ukrainian drones equipped with artificial vision systems is changing the rules of the game. These devices already do not depend exclusively of a human operator to identify targets in real time, but they can learn to recognize, classify and track vehicles using image recognition algorithms. The Russian bet consists of visually alter the appearance of their trucks to the point that the software cannot identify them with enough confidence to authorize an attack. It is an unprecedented form of war: physically modifying the world to exploit the limitations of artificial intelligence. USS West Mahomet in dazzling camouflage, 1918 The new race between drones and countermeasures. The painting is only the latest chapter in a long chain of improvisations that emerged during the war. Before and as we have been saying, they arrived metal cages about the armored ones, the so-called “turtle tanks”the protective netsthe structures spiked and even the placed logs on vehicles as improvised armor. Covered Russian bombers also appeared with old tires and warships painted with special patterns to break their silhouette seen from above. All of these solutions respond to the same phenomenon: drones have become such a ubiquitous threat that any method capable of making its identification difficult deserves to be tested. Vehicles are no longer safe in the rear. The importance of these measures reflects the extent to which drones are expanding the scope of the war. Thanks to artificial intelligence, attack systems can autonomously search for targets in huge areas, distinguish active vehicles from destroyed ones and even operate in coordinated swarms. Thus, logistics trucks that could previously move relatively calmly away from the front can now be located and attacked dozens of kilometers away. The rear has become an extension of the battlefield and every moving vehicle is a possible target. A battle between programmers and painters. The big question is whether these paints will really work. Algorithms can be quickly retrained and learn to recognize new patterns, while sensors such as infrared could be seen less affected than conventional cameras. However, even temporary effectiveness would have value if it forces the adversary to devote time, resources, and computing power to solving the problem. That is perhaps the most striking conclusion of the latter and rocambolesca History: The drone war in Ukraine has reached a point where combats no longer only pit weapons against weapons, but also anti camouflage softwareengineers against engineers and algorithms against paint stains designed specifically to fool a machine. Image | X, Wikimedia In Xataka | Thousands of elderly Ukrainians are isolated at the front. An army of drones is coming to your rescue In Xataka | Ukraine has been left without thousands of drones: an error classified them as electric cars and the Treasury has fried them with taxes

Wind turbine blades are a deadly danger to birds. The solution: paint them like poisonous snakes

by

One of the great drivers of the global energy transition are wind turbines. Of course, they have been carrying a silent problem for decades: they kill animals. Wind turbines kill 368,000 birds a year in the United States and Canada alone, according to this study published in PubMed. The data for Europe is more fragmented and varies greatly by country and type of facility: in Germany for example place mortality between 100,000 and 250,000 birds per year and SEO/BirdLife esteem that between 1.2 and 4.6 million birds die per year (data from 2023). Given that the expansion of wind power seems unstoppable, the question is how to minimize these deaths, e.g. with self-adaptive speed blades. A research team from the University of Helsinki and the University of Exeter has just publish a proposal unexpectedly simple but effective (judging by its results): painting the blades with the colors of poisonous animals, appealing to one of the most solid principles of evolutionary biology. Those dangerous snake-painted wind turbines. The research team exposed birds to videos of turbines spinning in four color schemes: standard white, a black blade, red-white stripes, and a red-black-yellow biomimetic pattern that was inspired by coral snakes and dart frogs. The result was clear: the birds systematically avoided the blades with the biomimetic pattern and moved closer to the white ones. The remarkable thing about the discovery is why it works. It was not necessary for the birds to learn in the experiment to associate those colors with danger like Pavlov: They were already learned from home. The key is in aposematism, just the opposite of camouflage: signaling danger with colors, something that has been engraved in the nervous system of birds for millions of years. The team simply transferred that evolutionary signal to a huge steel structure. Why is it important. The United States Renewable Energy Institute calculate that per megawatt installed the turbines kill between two and six birds and between four and seven bats, figures that seem small but are considerable on a global scale: the world’s wind capacity already exceeds 1,000 GW installed, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. Reducing the death of animals is the main reason, a good practice that is even more relevant if the species in question has a small population. If the solution is also something as cheap as changing the paint color, the cost-benefit in terms of conservation is difficult to ignore. Context. Aposematism is a documented evolutionary mechanism for almost two centuries: The idea is that certain toxic or dangerous animals warn of their danger with bright colors. The winning combination to scare you is red-black-yellow, universally recognized as a sign of toxicity among vertebrates. What this study does is apply this principle outside of the natural world by projecting it onto an industrial infrastructure. It is not a pioneer: there is a previous investigation in Norway in which they tried painting a blade black to break the optical illusion of a “still hole” created by the spinning turbines and the results were already promising. This new study goes a step further by actively exploiting the perception of danger. How it works. The birds process color in a radically different way from humans. They have four types of photoreceptors instead of three, which gives them tetrachromatic vision and allows them to detect ultraviolet. In short: they appreciate contrast better than humans, so apostematic signals are extraordinarily striking to them. For the experiment they used touch screens designed specifically for birds, so that they interacted with them by moving closer or further away from the stimuli, thus allowing them to precisely quantify how they behaved in response to each pattern. The biomimetic pattern was the most avoided of all. Yes, but. As the research team acknowledges in the paper, all tests were carried out in the laboratory, with birds in front of screens, not with wind turbines spinning in the open field. Perception distance, approach angle, flight speed or weather conditions are variables that the experiment does not replicate. Taking it to the real world can be a very different story. Furthermore, the study was carried out with a limited number of species. Aposematic responses depend on the evolutionary history of each lineage and whether that group has coevolved with those dangerous species in its territory. Come on, what may be useful for birds native to an area may be useless for migratory raptors or for species affected in specific wind farms. In Xataka | There are cannibalistic rabbits on a farm in Valladolid. His rancher is clear about the reason: wind turbines In Xataka | Spain’s bats live in uncertain times. The reason, according to the CSIC: the wind turbines Cover | Gonz DDL and David Clode Alfonso Castro

The world wants to verify the age of children so that they do not access social networks. Children’s solution: paint a mustache

by

The United Kingdom presume to have one of the strictest legislations in the world when it comes to protecting minors from social networks. The curious thing is that young people are managing to demonstrate that age verification technology has a unique Achilles heel: an eyebrow pencil. Look, I have a mustache. The British country has been forcing platforms to implement age verification measures in accordance with its Online Safety Act for months. However, a recent study from the NGO Internet Matters reveals that the limits imposed by these platforms are surprisingly easy to overcome. In fact, one of the methods is especially striking, because some children simply use an eyebrow pencil to paint a mustache and thus look older than they really are. Children 1 – Machines 0. This agency surveyed 1,000 children and parents in the United Kingdom and although it showed positive effects after activating these measures, it also made it clear that many children saw these systems as an easy obstacle to overcome rather than as a way to keep them safe. 46% of minors believe that the measures are easy to overcome. Only 17% believe that they are very difficult to avoid, while 19% say they do not know. Source: Internet Matters. Cheating machines is trivial. 46% of the children surveyed indicated that These age verification systems are easy to overcomeand only 17% found them difficult to avoid. There are several methods to overcome these systems, but most are simple. For example, using video game characters like ‘Death Stranding’ to show them in front of cameras trying to verify their age. Also show IDs of other people when asked, or simply use false birth dates. (At least) One in three skips the controls. But not everyone uses these methods: although the aforementioned 46% say that it is easy to overcome these systems and another 17% say that they are neither easy nor difficult, “only” 32% admit to having used some technique to overcome them. Of course, it is one thing that only 32% admit it and quite another that these figures are representative taking into account that they are confessing that they are doing something that they should not do. Methods vary, but many use fake birth dates or log in with their parents’ or siblings’ accounts. Complicit parents. The effectiveness of the Online Safety Act depends largely on the family environment, with data suggesting that at least a quarter of parents are uncooperative. The study indicates that 26% of parents have allowed their children to ignore or overcome these age verification systems, and in fact 17% admit have actively helped their children to evade these controls while 9% simply turn a blind eye. It’s not that big of a deal. Many parents justify this “help” by indicating that they understand the risks of their children accessing these platforms, but prefer to supervise the use of services such as TikTok or video games themselves. The idea: allow your children to bypass restrictions to play with friends or stream, but theoretically under your supervision. The failure of putting doors to the field. It’s not just that age verification systems are easy to overcome: The thing is that they do not eliminate risks completely either. In the Internet Matters study, almost half of the minors surveyed (49%) indicated that they had recently encountered toxic material on the Internet. This makes it clear that even children who do not try to bypass these controls still encounter inappropriate content. There are those who advocate going further and push for the end of online anonymity. Image | Jeremiah Lawrence In Xataka | The EU has just ready its app to verify age on the internet. And Ursula von der Leyen warns: “There are no more excuses”

paint a road red

by

There is nothing like installing a speed radar (or simply warning it) to make a driver take their foot off the accelerator. But there is a more effective method: painting the road. It has been proven that when we see colors, lines and shapes painted on the asphalt, drivers slow down. So in India they have not thought twice. That’s why they painted the road red. Because? Madhya Pradesh is known as “the Heart of India”. The region has been growing at a good pace for some time, especially supported by tourism that is attracted by its ruins, its temples and a truly striking nature. But this region is also famous for something else: tigers. And those tigers are the reason India is building “the first red road”. Or what is the same, two kilometers where the asphalt has been painted a striking red color with the aim of alerting drivers and reminding them that they are traveling through a space where tigers, one of the protected animals in the area, roam freely. Veerangana Durgavati Tiger Reserve. A wildlife sanctuary. This is how they define the website from this reserve to the area in which the road we are talking about is located. An area of ​​about 2,339 km² where tigers but also bears, leopards and wild dogs roam. The problem is that the NH-45 highway also runs through that space, a road that connects Bhopal and Jabalpur, two cities with a total of more than four million people if their metropolitan areas are added. Click on the image to go to the original post A road painted red. One of the solutions devised has been to paint the road red to signal to drivers that they are passing through a particularly sensitive space. The road has been renovated to redirect animal traffic to 25 underpasses and 11 cameras control that they do not sneak onto the asphalt. However, one of the most effective measures is to paint the road with huge red squares. And although various measures can be taken to reduce speed on a road, painting the asphalt is one of the simplest in terms of effort and money invested. In Spain, the DGT is trying to paint some sections with a huge red line. In Catalonia (the DGT has no powers there), try the same with circles at the entrance to curves to warn motorists. And in the United States it has been proven that painting the streets is a good method to protect children and prevent accidents. Our brain. In this case, in addition to being painted, the squares also create a small noise in the tires to convey to the driver a greater obligation to take their foot off the accelerator. However, it’s just about tricking our brain. When a road is painted with squares of this type or a red line is added in the center, the perception we have as drivers is that the lane is narrower and, almost immediately, we lift our foot off the accelerator a little when we perceive that it is more unsafe to travel at the same speed than on an asphalt that has not been modified. It is, simply, a sensory illusion. Playing with the shapes and their sizes is enough for the driver to understand that something is happening there and that he should take his foot off the accelerator. In some Spanish cities like Madrid they have what are known as “dragon teeth” on streets with schools or hospitals to create the sensation that they are narrower and make drivers lift their feet. and it works. The most surprising thing is how something so simple delivers results. In Bloomberg pointed out a long time ago that the city of New York implemented Asphalt Art Initiativeto draw enormous murals at the most conflictive intersections in the city. After painting them, drivers began to pass more slowly and the number of serious injuries after a hit went from 50% to 37%. Something similar was used in a Beuné crossing (a town located near Angers, western France). There, his neighbors, tired of the town’s road being crossed as if it were a highway, decided to paint the ground. The result was immediate, the cars took their foot off the accelerator. Photo | Veerangana Durgavati Tiger Reserve and Google Maps In Xataka | A huge red line: the DGT’s experimental measure in one of the most dangerous stretches in Spain

In the war between Spain and Ryanair for hand luggage, the European Union has already sent a message. It does not paint well for Spain

by

At the end of last year, Spain sanctioned Ryanair and four other airlines with millionaire fines for the collection of hand luggage. Since then, the Irish company has been defending that the sanction is illegal because they are not breaking any regulations. The case has climbed to the European Union … And things do not paint well for Spain. Gathered. In person or by video call, which begins to give an idea of ​​positions. At the end of last week, Apostols Tzitzikostas, European Transport Commissioner, He scheduled a meeting with Michael O’LearyRyanair CEO. Yesterday, Pablo Bustinduy, Minister of Consumption, met with that same commissioner by video call. The digital meeting arrives days after the reception to the maximum leader of the company and thousands of kilometers away. A first approach that gives an idea of ​​where the positions are. Affinity. From the meeting between O’Leary and Tzitzikostas they have not transcended holders but in Spain they already begin to fear that the positions between them are closer to Spanish positions, they explain in The country. To start because Bustinduy requested to have that meeting before Ryanair’s CEO met with the European leader but there was no success. And, second, because from the European Transport Commission they have clear that their positions are close to those of low -cost airlines in terms of hand luggage. Your last proposition It does not differ much from what, until now, Ryanair was allowing. 4 liters. It is, according to BBC The increase in space Ryanair assumed with its new measures for hand luggage. The company has gone from 40 x 25 x 20 cm with those that was handled until this summer to some innovative 40 x 30 x 20 cm. Those five centimeters are those that are calculated, increase the size by four liters. As we count a few months ago, the decision comes after the Airlines For Europe (A4E) association of which Ryanair is part of, will sign an agreement to establish a minimum in 40 × 30 × 15 cm bags. A movement that actually serves to make lobby and create a new European standard. And, before the fines, Ryanair herself has pressed so that exact minimum sizes allowed are defined. On the side of the low cost. The A4E agreement arrives just when the European Union has decided to close, at once, the hand luggage chapter. Right now, airlines have to ensure that you can travel with “the essential” in a backpack. But there are no minimum measures. In that strip and loosen to get a new regulation of travelers, The Council of Europe has proposedexactly, that the measures to be collected are those 40 x 30 x 15 cm. That is, Ryanair would already be complying with the minimums. And the Transport Commission also bets on the same measures although it emphasizes that this backpack must be free (and It has discrepancies on other aspects). The fine, in the air. Although there is no record that Ryanair has climbed the disagree to European magistrates, what we do know is that the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid He has suspended the sanction Economic, pointing out that if applied, a hard impact on the treasury of these companies will be generated, for what has applied, for the moment, precautionary measures. In fact, in Spain justice has been shown in favor of users and the airline in contradictory sentences for the same fact. In Salamancathe courts have considered that the free size allowed by Ryanair is not enough for the passenger to carry the “essential” luggage. In SevilleHowever, they do not have the same opinion and have failed in favor of the company. Summarizing. At the moment, the Ministry of Consumer faces a complicated role. Has imposed a millionaire fine to Ryanair (the highest in the history of our country) Justice has caught the sanctions precautionary The company has pressed in the European Union European leaders have previously received the company’s CEO than Spanish leaders (and have done so by video call) And Europe seeks to carry out a new regulation to travel with hand suitcases … with more restrictive measures than those Ryanair offer from this summer. Photo | Nejc Soklič and My Random Photo In Xataka | Lack of a hole, prize on the payroll: Ryanair will upload the prize for employees who discover too large handbags

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.