passage

The emoji is now the only safe passage so that a “voucher” does not seem hostile on WhatsApp

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At some point, without anyone deciding, It is no longer acceptable to send a dry message in a WhatsApp group. “Ok” became hostile, “okay” became sharp and a simple “understood” was almost a declaration of someone seeking war. So we learned to quilt: To put the “👍” after the “ok”. The “😊” after a request. The “hahaha” before an opinion that could upset. Not because we felt laughter, approval or tenderness. But because the message without emoji is the message that must be interpreted. And in a culture like Spain, interpreting is dangerous. The emoji has become mandatory emotional punctuation. It doesn’t convey what you feel, but yespoint out what you don’t want the other to suspect. The “😂” rarely means that you found something funny. It means: this is a joke, don’t take it the wrong way, I’m not being rude, I’m still being nice. It is a safe conduct. A social insurance policy. Same with the “hahaha.” No one laughs when writing it, it’s just a tone marker, a way of saying: relax, this isn’t serious, we’re still friends. The more jots, the more eager the attempt to smooth out. “Ha” is dry. “Haha” is minimally polite. “Hahaha” is cordial. “Hahahaha” is nervous. “HAHAHAHA” is desperate. We have built a parallel language to avoid the conflict that never comes. Because there is almost never real conflict. Only the fear that there is. And that fear has inflated every message until it becomes a dance of false preventive emotions. The result is a hollowed-out language. When everything has emoji, none of them mean anything. When everything ends in “hahaha”, the laughter disappears. When all messages are warm, warmth becomes background noise. But we can’t stop. Because the first one to stop putting the “😊” will be the edge. The weird one. The one who “always answers dryly.” In the whatsapp groups Spaniards, cordiality is mandatory. And what is obligatory, by definition, is not cordial. It’s a perfect trap: To show that you are not hostile, you have to overact kindness. And when everyone overreacts, it is no longer possible to distinguish who is really nice from who is simply following the protocol. The emoji, which was born to add emotion to the text, has ended up anesthetizing it. Perhaps the clearest symptom is the “❤️”. A heart. The symbol of love, of deep affection. Today we sent it to confirm that we received a PDF. We use it to close a conversation without having to actually respond. It has become what “sincerely” was to the letters of yesteryear: a closing formula that means absolutely nothing. As the impersonal ‘Merry Christmas’ that any company sends you by email. In a few years, someone will study the WhatsApp groups of this era and believe that we lived in a society of overflowing affection. Emojis everywhere. Constant laughter. Hearts all the time. You won’t know it was the opposite. That we inflated words precisely because we no longer trusted them. That we filled the messages with emotion because we had stopped feeling it. And that “hahaha”, in the end, was our way of saying: I don’t know what to tell you, but I’m still here. Ha ha ha. Featured image | Xataka with Mockuuups Studio In Xataka | AI is transforming the relationship we have with our own ideas: we no longer create, we just “edit” ourselves

In 1845, John Franklin’s expedition set sail in search of the Northwest Passage. 180 years later his loss remains a mystery

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On the morning of May 19, 1845, Captain John Franklin and his expedition weighed anchor from the Greenhithe Harboralmost at the mouth of the Thames. They were looking for the Northwest Passagethe (at that time theoretical) maritime route that would link the Atlantic and the Pacific through northern Canada. They never came home. 129 men who never returned and who, for 170 years, have been one of the great questions of scientific and naval exploration. We now know why the men of John Franklin’s lost exploration died. There are those who insinuate that the trip started badly from the beginning. It should never have been in the first place. John Franklin. The first option William Edward Parryone of the great English explorers, but he had already traveled to the Arctic five times and “was tired.” So he declined the offer. Secondly, they thought about James Clark Ross. Ross has just arrived from Antarctica where he had explored the Ross Sea and Island. In fact, the ships on that expedition were the same as those that would be used on this mission (two of Ross Island volcanoes They are called Erebus and Terror in honor of the ships). But upon returning to England, he became engaged to his future wife and decided that great explorations were no longer for him. He was followed by James Fitzjames (discarded due to inexperience), George Back (considered too controversial) and Francis Crozier (who, well, was Irish and that was more than enough reason to rule him out). Seeing the yard, John Barrow, second secretary of the Admiralty, called John Franklin. To this day no one knows why Franklin, who was already a legend at the time and was almost 60 years old, he said yes. But the fact is that, as I said, they left the vicinity of London that day in 1845. They stopped in Orkney and the convoy formed by the two main ships (HMS Erebus and HMS Terror), the HMS Rattler (the first English warship with steam propulsion) and a transport headed to Greenland. There they sacrificed ten oxen and the expedition began its solo journey. The search for the Northwest Passage The travels of Marco Polo are a peculiar book. Not only does it remain a very interesting precedent for current anthropology, but it served as an inspiration for many during the era of great exploration. The image you can see above is precisely the annotated copy of ‘The Voyages’ that Christopher Columbus had. In one of its versions, the Italian one from 1559, a Chinese province called Anian. We assume that it was from there that the geographers and explorers who discussed whether America was a new continent or, on the contrary, an Asian peninsula, got the name of the Strait of Anian, the separation between Asia and America that would give access to the Northwest Passage. It is what we know today as the Bering Strait and for years it was pure mythology. But, first, Ferdinand Magellan and his crew turned around Cape Espiritu Santo and found themselves face to face with the southeastern passage; and, second, a Dane in the service of Russia, Vitus Beringrediscovered for the West the strait through which Semyon Dezhniov had already traveled sixty years before. The rest was geopolitics: the quick passage to the Pacific without having to pass near the Spanish territories in America was too juicy. In 1745, an English law promised 20,000 pounds to whoever discovered the pass and the boom began. I have tried to convert the amount to a current currency and I have not been able to do it accurately, but I have drawn one conclusion: it was a lot of money. Favorable weather In early August 1845, two whalers, the Prince of Wales and the Enterprise, encountered Franklin’s ships in Baffin Bay. They were waiting for favorable weather to enter the Strait of Lancaster. That was the last time they were seen. Two years passed. And, little by little, Lady Jane Franklin, some members of Parliament, and the fledgling British press began to ask the Admiralty to send someone to search for the heroes of Franklin’s expedition. The Government sent three expeditions: one by land and two by sea, one through the Atlantic and another through the Pacific. They failed. Fearing that they would be forgotten, Lady Jane Franklin composed her lament, the song you can hear just above. And, although I don’t know if it was for that reason, the truth is that was not forgotten. In fact, the search for the lost expedition “became nothing less than a crusade.” In 1850 alone, eleven British and two American ships tried to locate them. It was then that the first tombs were found. Over the years, the different expeditions found fragments, Inuit stories and objects from the expedition. In 1855, following the indications of some Inuit tribes, pieces of wood were found with the name of Erebus. In 59 two messages were found. The first, dated May 28, 1847, was from Franklin himself and read “Sir John Franklin, Commander of the Expedition: All Well.” It is the document on the right. It was a common practice at the time, documents were left in different places so that, in case of problems, they could be reconstruct the details of the trip. But in this case, something curious happened: on the edges there was another message, dated April 25, 1848, explaining that the ships had been trapped in the ice. Franklin and twenty-three other crew members were dead. And the rest, the survivors, had abandoned the ships looking for an exit to the south. In the next few years some objects, some rumors and some tombs appeared. Nothing else. The ships never appeared and we never, in 150 years, discovered what had really happened to Captain John Franklin’s lost expedition. One hundred and fifty years without news In the 1980s, the University of Alberta launched a project to track the expedition. The different possible routes were traveled … Read more

Spain vetoed Israel’s passage from the US. Spain will send its best fleet to the US to celebrate its independence

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Next year the United States will commemorate the 250th anniversary of its independence and will do so with a series of phases of enormous international projection in which the Spanish Navy will have A leading role. It is still contradictory as Spain as has vetoed the step of US fighters and warships to Israel. An unprecedented deployment. As we said, despite the fact that diplomatic and political relations between the Government of Pedro Sánchez and the administration of Donald Trump are going through more than notable tensions, especially around defense expense wave Palestine questionthe Navy has decided to get involved in the acts. As? Under the umbrella of the Dedalo Expeditionary Group, Spain will send New York to the Portaeronaves Juan Carlos iescorted by frigates and a combat supply ship, along with the ship-school Juan Sebastián Elcano. The operation will represent The biggest deployment of Spanish Naval Force in American waters in decades, a gesture that underlines that military cooperation remains solid beyond political friction. New York as a stage. The week of July 1 to 9 will become the epicenter of the acts on the occasion of the Independence Day. On July 4, the expeditionary group will participate in a naval magazine organized by the US Navy, while Juan Sebastián Elcano will parade through the East River in the company of the most emblematic sailboats-schools in the world, such as the Amerigo Vespucci Italian, the Swan Branco Brazilian or the Gorch Fock German. In addition, the calendar includes diplomatic receptions, such as the organized on board the transatlantic Queen Mary 2and a great fireworks show. The official motto of the US Navy, “For Navy and Nation!“, seeks to underline the historical role of the US Navy as guarantor of global maritime security for 250 years, reinforcing the international character of the appointment. Diplomacy for naval channels. While the American administration has constituted a specific commission, THE TASK FORCE 250to organize its celebrations, in Spain the proposal to create an interministerial commission It has been diluted for lack of consensus between exteriors, defense and culture. However, the Navy has assumed leadership of the Spanish representation, aware that anniversary is a diplomatic opportunity to remember the Decisive paper from Spain in the independence of the United States. Even King Felipe VI, in a speech in New York, recently stressed the historical importance of that link. Thus, through its presence in North American waters, the Spanish Navy tries to alleviate (or compensate) Government disinterest with a visible gesture and loaded with symbolism. Juan Carlos I The symbol: Juan Carlos I. The flagship of the Navy, the Juan Carlos I holder, has spent the last months in Navantia subjected to A deep modernization of its propulsion system, which forced to readjust the maneuver calendar to ensure its presence in the 2026 appointment. This will also be an opportunity to show the potential of the Spanish embarked aviation, still dependent on the Harrier fighters whose useful life tries to prolong beyond 2028 through the acquisition of spare parts of the American and Italian fleets. Government resistance To acquire the F-35 As a natural substitute and uncertainty Around the future European hunting FCAS, not available before 2042, give this deployment an air of technological and strategic claim. Between passivity and politics. The difference in approaches is evident. While Washington Ha launched the task force 250 With an ambitious program of activities, a communication campaign and a clear strategy to reinforce the national narrative, in Spain the attempt to coordinate an interministerial group has encountered With political divisions And finally it has been abandoned. The consequence, as we said, is that the weight of representation falls almost exclusively in the armadA, what a paradox reveals: the government opts for Punta from Punta For a historical anniversary that could have served to project the image of Spain, while the Navy acts as the main guarantor of the bilateral relationship in a field as sensitive as that of the defense. The Israeli paradox. We commented at the beginning. The deployment of the Navy in New York also coexists with another contradiction in Spanish politics. While the Executive has prohibited that American fighters or ships loaded with weapons to Israel cross territory or national waters in the framework of the Gaza War, the Spanish Navy will send Your best units to celebrate the American anniversary. The decision reflects the complex balance that Madrid seeks: Mark distance in very sensitive foreign policy issues for its electorate and, at the same time, maintain the solidity of the military relationship with the United States, an indispensable ally in NATO and last guarantor of Atlantic security. Military cooperation. Plus: Spanish participation will not be limited to the acts of July. In October, in Philadelphia, the Chief of Staff of the Navy, Admiral Antonio Piñeiro, will be present with delegations of more than 70 countries in the central acts of the 250 Anniversary of the US Navy. A presence that emphasizes again that, beyond the political divergences in international or budgetary matters, the bilateral relationship in defense remains fundamental. In fact, Spain houses in Rota and Morón apart from the American military device, as demonstrated by the recent Hammer operation against Iran, and maintains mutual interest in industrial matters, with an eye on the Navantia constructive capacity to supply naval production deficiencies in a context marked by strength Chinese navy. Spain and its projection. If you also want, the conjunction of the American anniversary with worldwide events, such as the 2026 World Cup, converts this event into A diplomatic showcase first order. The deployment of the Navy not only reinforces the image of Spain as a reliable ally in NATO’s bosom, but also Allows projecting The national maritime tradition through the presence of Juan Sebastián Elcano, Cultural Ambassador and symbol of historical continuity. Together, the effort represents the will of the Navy to maintain the strategic relationship with the United States in the military field, reaffirming that, even in times of political disagreementnaval … Read more

His passage through the United States has been a failure

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It began to glimpse since last April the ugly things were put on. Renfe’s adventure in the United States has ended. He does it without carrying out the great project they had and confirming millionaire losses even though no train ever shot. The project. A high speed line 386 kilometers between Dallas and Houston. That was the great project that Renfe had in mind to enter the US market, a market that seemed perfect because it lacks high -speed roads among large cities. Dallas and Houston are two of the cities that generate more money in the United States So in European eyes it seemed a round business. The intention was to launch a train that reached a maximum of 386 km/Hy joined both cities in less than an hour and a half with an intermediate stop. A not so good idea. But although the business seems evident to European eyes, the thing is not so simple seen from the American perspective. To have, throughout the United States there is not a single high -speed line that connect large cities as we understand in Europe or Asia. In fact, the highest speed is reached in a line in Florida (between Orlando and Miami) that, for just 32 kilometers, is traveling to a maximum of 201 km/h. Then, the speed falls again. And although there is various projects underwayUSA It is still a desert for high speed. Bye. After more than a five years, the project has been completed, the operations of Renfe of America have completed, they point out in electionomista.es. The company had created a subsidiary in the country to take the reins of a project that, they assured, could generate 5.3 billion euros before 2042. In Aprilhowever, it was already guessed what was going to be the end of Renfe’s American adventure. So be Duffy, Secretary of Transportation, confirmed with a statement that denied the help of 63.9 million dollars that was pending to surrender (it was already approved) because “the financing of this project is a waste of taxpayers’ funds and a distraction of the main mission of Amtrak to improve their existing deficient services.” That help was key to continue advancing in the high -speed railway corridor project of Amtrak Texas that Renfe had entered fully into 2021. More and more involvement. The origin of Renfe’s landing in the United States must be sought before. In 2018the company arrives as an advisor to carry out the project, imposing itself on other companies in the contest as a trainitalia. The initial contract required Renfe’s involvement for 18 months and, subsequently, the works would begin. However, with the project at the dead point, In 2021 the conditions were extended Initials and Renfe open their subsidiary in the country to gain presence in it, positioning itself as a commercial exploiter of the line. No more public money. However, the project still needed public money for construction, which did not finish please the country’s transport department. To support the withdrawal Of the more than 60 million public funds it was stressed that the project was born with an exclusively private vocation but threatened to assume the taxpayer an expense of up to 40,000 million dollars. Now, Renfe has ended up folding its operations, reflecting in its 2024 accounts extraordinary losses of 4.5 million euros and a 100% deterioration on investments undertaken for more than a five years, they point out in electionomista.es. Photo | Renfe and Aaron Burden In Xataka | China leads high speed trains. Your plan for 2030 shows a reality: it aims to be unattainable

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