people

In Spain there is a surname that was for centuries a social conviction. Today thousands and thousands of people use it

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In North Korea there is a word that marks the life of its 26.4 million inhabitants from the cradle: Songbuna term that is usually translated as “origin” or “seed” and that in practice works as A caste system based on the merits of the ancestors. If your grandparents and parents have a good file that translates into a good Songbunwhich guarantees facilities throughout life. Discol ancestors with the regime carry the opposite. In Spain Songbun It sounds distant concept, but for a long time there were certain surnames that complicated the future to those who took them, including an especially popular one that they share today tens of thousands of Spaniards. Surname question. Babies do not arrive with a bread bar under their arm, but they do with something that defines them much more: surnames. Its history is long. And complex. In Rome they already used the Tria payrolla system that identified citizens with several ‘labels’ (roster and cognomen) that went beyond the simple first name and revealed the family clan from which they came. With the passing centuries, surnames have evolved to the current system, sometimes with key changes, such as the driven In the sixteenth century by Cardinal Cisneros and that contributed to the fact that in Spain we have two surnames. But … And when are there no parents? Each of us we have taken surnames of our parents, but … What happens when that figure does not exist? What happens to ‘uprooted’ babies who were abandoned to the gates of churches and end up creating in orphanages, without a known family? In those cases it had to pull inventive, although it was not strange that the institutions resort to certain formulas standard that if for something stood out it was their total lack of touch. In even many children received surnames such as incognito, Diosdado, white or lying. In Catalonia, it was also resorted to Deulofeua formula that can be translated as “God did”. And that to quote only a handful of examples. On other occasions, more imaginative solutions were chosen, such as religious references or the place where the creature had been found, a frequent practice for example in Gipuzkoa for a good part of the nineteenth century. Antton Iparraguirre had a few years ago in Basque newspaper How between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries there were quite a few orphan from Pamplona who received the surname Goñi in tribute to Don Ramiro de Goñi, benefactor of the General Hospital. Distribution of the surname Expósito (as the first last name). The last name of the “abandoned”. Another helpful solution (much less discreet) was surname Expósitoa word that comes from Latin expositus, Exponowhich means “put out.” Expósito thus became the last name of the abandoned, those creatures that their parents disregard because they could not afford their parenting, for shame or because their parents had not recognized them as legitimate. His luck was to end up care of the State or the Church, breastfed by nodrizas. Only the luckiest ended up prohibited. More than a last name. “Expósito was and is more than a surname, it is a label that pointed to both the person who had unknowns, unknown parents, as well as their descendants, since it proclaims the four winds that at some point the origins are uncertain,” Write The genealogist Mireia Nieto in great -grandson. In Your essay On the abandonment of children between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the Pamplona orfelineo, historian Lola Valverde also recalls that the figure of the Expósito was presented in a way as that of “a condemned by society.” “As if he were guilty of his situation and to accept his destiny without rebeling, educational approaches are outlined,” he reflects. The last name exposed became a brand, a label that reminded them of for life (them and the rest of society) that were the result of abandonment. The echoes of your stigma can still be found in The regulation of the Civil Registry of 1958, in which the judges are recognized the power to manage changes of the surname “or other analogues, indicators of unknown origin”. A figure: 34,084. The times of the old orfeliners of the old regime, to which children arrived familically and terrified, which reduced their survival possibilities, are already behind, but not the last name exposed. Although it is not even from far as popular as “García”, “Pérez” or “González”, the database The INE shows that today identifies tens of thousands of people in Spain. 34,084 They use it as the first last name, especially in Lugo, Badajoz and part of Andalusia. 37,332 They use it as a second. There are even 382 that are named “Expósito Expósito”. And another Good handful of hundreds that are used. Images | Wikipedia and INE In Xataka | Why the Spaniards, unlike the inhabitants of other countries, we have two surnames

Eight people were locked in a mini-earth. The only ones who prospered were cockroaches

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In full desert of Sonora, on the American side of the border, a large glass building that looks like the scenario of a science fiction novel set on another planet is erected. We are not unchanged. Biosphere 2 is a complex of more than one hectare which houses a tropical jungle, a savanna and even an ocean with coral reef. Here, between 1991 and 1993, eight crew members known as the “biospheric” enclosed themselves tightly for two years. The mission. Survive self -sufficiently, cultivating their own food, recycling the water they drank and breathing the oxygen generated by their plants. An extravagant scientific experiment to better understand the complexity of our planet and prove if possible Create similar habitats To colonize the moon or Mars. The experiment, however, ended up becoming a logistics nightmare and a media drama. As Murphy’s law sends, “everything that could go wrong, went wrong.” In spite of this, Biosphere is seen today as a lesson advanced in his time, whose facilities are now a laboratory to study climate change and a popular tourist attraction. An Eden in an aircraft carrier. Biosphere 2’s idea was not born in a NASA laboratory, but in an ecoaldea in New Mexico. John Allen and other organic agriculture enthusiasts dreamed of creating a closed system to better understand the earth. The project was possible thanks to the financing of billionaire Ed Bass, which invested about 150 million dollars of the time (equivalent to more than 400 million dollars). The structure was a wonder of engineering. Above, biomes full of life; below, a “techno -sphere” of bombs, pipes and systems to control from temperature to moisture. One of the biosphericos described him as “the garden of Eden on top of an aircraft carrier.” In September 1991, eight people (four men and four women) crossed the air lock to embark on a two -year msion. It lacked oxygen. In A TED talkthe biosfical Jane Poynter described her experience as “visceral.” It took four months to make a pizza. He had to harvest the wheat, grind it, milked the goats to make the cheese and wait. “I was eating the same carbon again and again,” he recalls. “We ate so many sweet potatoes that I began to put orange.” But the small land had a much more serious problem: the chopped drop in oxygen levels. Oxygen went from 21% to 14.2% in 16 months, the equivalent of being at the top of a mountain of more than 4,000 meters. “We crawled through the biosphere,” says Poynter. “At night we had sleep apnea. I woke up desperate to take a breath.” The culprits were soil microorganisms. They had used a nutrient -rich substrate to accelerate crop growth, but this caused an explosion of bacteria and fungi that consumed much more oxygen than plants could replace. They were left over cockroaches. While humans had difficulty breathing, other living beings in Biosphere prospered. The pollinating species, such as bees, were extinguished, probably because the glass blocked the ultraviolet light they need to see the flowers. The plants did not do very well either. Some trees grew weak and broke through the lack of wind, which did not stimulate them to create tension wood to strengthen themselves. Without predators, ants and cockroaches became the queens of the place, invading everything. The situation became unsustainable. They had to pump oxygen from the outside, which for many media sentenced the project as a fraud. Personal conflicts between the eight inhabitants, isolated and under immense pressure, became Carnaza for the headlines. When a biosphical had to be evacuated by an accident on a finger, they were accused of cheating. Success or failure? Although the experiment was ridiculed in its day, today it is no longer seen as a failure. He crudely demonstrated how incredibly difficult it is to replicate the ecosystems that the earth provides us for free. And he put relevant who really govern the world: Microorganismswhose role in the regulation of the atmosphere had underestimated. For biosphericos, the experience was transformative. “Being in a small system where you see that your survival depends on the health of the ecosystems that surround you change your way of thinking to a very deep level,” he told BBC Future Mark Nelson, another participants. Today you can visit. After the end of the original mission, and after a second mission that was aborted shortly due to lack of financing, Biosphere 2 passed to the University of Arizona. Today, far from being a relic, it is a top -level scientific laboratory and a popular tourist attraction that has received more than three million visitors. Scientists use their controlled biomes as a time machine to simulate the effects of climate change. In the tropical jungle the effects of extreme heat droughts and heat waves are studied. In addition to testing the limits of coffee and cocoa culture. In the ocean, heat waves are simulated to prove the resistance of the corals to acidification. And fish banks are also created for their future reintroduction in their natural habitat. Biosphere 2 has completed the circle. He was born as an attempt to escape from the earth and has become one of our best tools to understand it and, hopefully, save it. As Jane Poynter concluded: In the end, we all live in a biosphere and we are connected by each breath we take. “They inhale deeply. There may be carbon of dinosaurs in this breath. The carbon that they exhale can now be in the breath of their tátara-tara grandchildren.” Image | Arizona University In Xataka | The bad news is that the oxygen of the Earth has an expiration date. The good is that we will not be here to see it

The strange buzzing that you can only listen to at an age. The frequency that Japan, the US and Europe uses against young people

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In 2009 IHe listened to listen for the first time in the streets of Tokyo. For years, the Kitikahama Parkin the district of Adachi, he had been recurring white of acts of vandalism, especially in public facilities such as bathrooms and urban furniture. Damage, mainly attributed to groups of adolescents who frequent the area at night, had meant a significant cost for local authorities. And since then, a Imperceptible noise For much of the population has been recurring. A sound that has its origin in Europe. The mosquito. Years before, in 2005, the New York Times spoke of the arrival of an invention to the United Kingdom. What began as a child auditory discomfort was transformed years later into an unusual solution for a persistent urban problem. Howard Stapletona British engineer, he remembered how, at age 12, upon entering a factory with his father, he was forced to go out immediately by an unbearable sound that adults did not even perceive. Decades later, that experience led him to create The mosquitoa device that emits a high frequency buzz perceptible only by young ears (mainly around twenty) and practically inaudible for those who have passed thirty. Its purpose was as direct as controversial: drill teenagers that congregate in noisy in front of stores, generating discomfort, intimidations and even episodes of theft and violence, without the need for direct confrontation. Personal idea to experiment. The first real mosquito test took place in Barry in 2005, a town in southern Wales, in front of a spar grocery storemanaged by Robert Gough and his family. Before the installation, the place suffered daily La presence of adolescents They smoked, drank, insulted customers and broke into the establishment. Gough had considered resorting to classical music to large volume, but never implemented it. It was Stapleton who offered to install the device testing. In a matter of little time, the usual congregation of adolescents disappeared. Some tried to resist, entering the store with their fingers in their ears and asking to turn off the buzz. Gough, ingenious, told them that the device was to scare birds due to avian flu. The result was a Radical transformation: Before conflicting teenagers now entered, bought, and they went without causing problems. Mosquito installation in a Philadelphia store It hurts, but it doesn’t exhaust. We talk about a device that emits a kind of chirp pulsating by Above 17 kilohertzup to 75/80 decibels, comparable to a noise of tinnitusIt is not painful, but very irritating. Stapleton said he tested different frequencies with the help of his own children to formula That “I did not harm, but it would bother enough to want to leave.” His intention was never punishing, but Simply dissuadecausing an discomfort that pushes the adolescent to retire on its own. While some adults can still perceive the sound, the device is designed thinking about behavior patterns rather than strict age ranges: hardly a 30 -year -old person is around the entrance of a store for hours. Professor Andrew King, an expert in neurophysiology at Oxford University, I recognized years ago To the Times that although the hearing of high frequencies decreases with age, that loss is gradual and, therefore, some adults could also hear it. Stapleton will consider it irrelevant: “The mosquito is not for them.” Cross borders. After its appearance, the mosquito It generated great interest. Stores, railway deposits, shopping centers and British local authorities They requested units. Stapleton, at that time, already contemplated more powerful versions Activable by panic button, designed to repel crowds that enter into mass to steal, which in the United Kingdom is known as Steaming. Its logic It was simple: “It is difficult to steal with the fingers in the ears.” From Europe and the US to Japan. Four years after the invention was established in different cities from the United Kingdom, then Europe, and finally the United Statesthe mosquito made the leap to Japan. Given the numerous acts of vandalism, the district of Adachi decided to resort to the controversial technological solution, but growing in popularity. Pilot test In Japan, some shops and They had implemented Previously after receiving complaints about garbage, noise and concentration of youth groups, but 2009 was the first time it was installed in A public park. The Adachi administration, which had hired the device to the Melc Co LTD company, based in Chiyoda, installed it in the area as part of an essay that would last until March 2010. Background: Vandalism costs in the 470 parks and public areas of Adachi in the previous years had overcome the 3 million yenso any solution that could reduce non -invasive figures represented an attractive option. According to Melc representatives, the objective It was clear: generate an environment uncomfortable for offenders without altering the tranquility of the rest of citizens or provoking neighborhood complaints. And in the trains. Although today the number of facilities of this type is unknown in Japan, in the social networks They abound videos and comments of young people alluding To this type of sounds. Bloomberg had that even a version of the mosquito has also been installed in trains stations. In many of them ultrasonic devices had been placed that emitted a high frequency sound only noticeable for children under 25 years. The devices, designed to discourage merodeus without confrontations, caused obvious reactions In students: discomfort faces, accelerated steps and complaints, without most knew where the sound comes from. Meanwhile, older adults walk imperturbable, unable to hear the signal. The technology, originally from Wales, had found in Japan its most systematic and culturally accepted use. Between defense and stigma. Counted in a long NPR interview to Stapleton that the mosquito has generated a debate about the Technological intervention limits in public space. While some celebrate their ability to restore tranquility in commercial and school areas without violence or clashes, others consider that their indiscriminate use It can be equivalent to criminalizing the default youth. Stapleton responded That the true enemy is not adolescence, … Read more

It will be normal for companies to win more money with fewer people

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Microsoft is at your best economic moment. At the same time, he is saying goodbye to Much of its template in different departments and key divisions such as Xbox and some of their European studies. The paradox of the company led by Satya Nadella is clear: it is completely normal for companies to win more money with fewer people. The layoffs. The Microsoft case is no exception, it is the new present in the Tech industry. In May fired more than 6,000 employeesabout 3% of its global workforce. In July, I added to the list other 9,000 workers. “Organizational changes necessary to better position the company in a dynamic market,” According to Microsoft spokesmen. The company carries cleaning template since January 2023an added to salary freezing and bonus cuts and incentives for its employees. The figures. Microsoft has closed its last fiscal quarter with income of 64.7 billion dollarsan interannual growth of 15% and a stock capitalization greater than 3.7 billion dollars at the time of writing this article. A you against Nvidia to be the most quoted company in the world. The paradox. Since 2023, the estimated total of dismissals in Microsoft exceeds 30,000. Meanwhile. Historical record in quarterly income. Record in net benefits. Record for action per share. Stock capitalization record. Microsoft is leading the company model towards which the technology industry is directed: more income, more efficiency and less workers. The context. Since 2022, layoffs are becoming usual. They do not arrive in a context of recession, they arrive in the midst of an increase in the valuations of technological actions. They are an integrated routine, in cases like Microsoft’s, in the company’s quarterly planning itself. Far away is the post -financial stage of 2008, with the United States keeping interest rates and investment in Big Tech absolutely triggered. A phenomenon that continued after Pandemia, with the great technology overcome and entering a war for talent. Image | Trueup.io Where are we going. Since 2022, great technology have stopped the Race for hiring and entered a completely different phase. It is forecast that about 200,000 technology employees will be fired in 2025. A figure still distant from The 400,000 that were recorded in 2023but symptom of a trend that will not be reversed. Mainly for three reasons. Because. In the years immediately after pandemic, technological ones launched themselves to an aggressive hiring strategy. Thousands and thousands of job offers in a context after which Andy Jassy himself, CEO of Amazon, admitted that had hired too much people. Superstar. Although the wave of dismissals sounds like a crisis for workers in the Tech sector (because there are), the sector giants are raffling the most specialized profiles. The focus is on attract talent to win in AIturning engineers In the new players. The division is clear: thousands of workers going to the street, and engineers signing with seven -digit salaries. And, along the way, companies earning more money than ever. In Xataka | 50 years later the amazing thing is not that Microsoft continues to exist. The hallucinating thing is that it remains (Tan) relevant

After saying goodbye to 9,000 people, an Xbox manager has a suggestion for the rest of its workers: AI as therapy

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Microsoft has been news again after announcing the Dismissal of 9,000 employees worldwide, a decision that has shaken both the company’s central departments and Xbox and their associated studies. The reason for this restructuring is not economic problems, but a Microsoft strategy to be more agile in the race for the development and implementation of AI. In this context, Matt Turnbull, executive producer of Xbox Game Studios Publishing, published a message in his LinkedIn profile aimed at those who had lost their job. In his statement, Turnbull encouraged his former partners, to use AI to how to cope with the impact emotional and mental dismissal. The message was not well received. Dismissed. Unlike the massive dismissals that occurred decades ago, the layoffs that are currently taking place in large technological ones They are not due to economic problemsbut to business strategies to flatten the structures of the companies to be more agile in the crazy technological career that the AI ​​is starring. That makes thousands of employees lose their job not because they will be replaced by an AI, but as collateral damage to their development. The news of the layoffs has coincided with Microsoft’s promise to invest 80,000 million dollars in AIwhich has generated even more debate on the priorities of the company and the impact of the Employment automation. Those affected, including Xbox Game Studios and other key departments, now face a technological scenario marked by labor cuts. An AI to cry. Amid This restructuringTurnbull published a series of recommendations for supporting their former employees and colleagues from Your LinkedIn profile: “These are really difficult times, and if you are going through a dismissal or even preparing silently for one, you are not alone and you don’t have to do it alone.” The manager was not referring to the fact that Microsoft will offer support to its employees. Invited them to rely on chatgpt to overcome the trauma of dismissal. Matt Turnbull’s original message capture “I have been experimenting with ways to use AI tools to help reduce the emotional and cognitive load that entails the loss of employment,” explained the manager in his publication. Turnbull’s recommendation soon generated controversy, since many considered ironic that a high position of Microsoft, a company that is reducing workforce to adapt to the AI ​​era, suggest to the dismissed use precisely those technologies as emotional support. Microsoft more “Severance”. The reactions in social networks to the publication of the Xbox manager did not wait. The controversy intensified on platforms like x and Redditwhere Some users They compared the situation with the labor dystopia of the “Severance” series when the “separations” of the company occur, while others criticized the lack of empathy of the manager for inviting those affected to face the frustration of a dismissal using a chatbot as a therapist. Touch the image to go to the original message The comments on networks indicated that Turnbull’s proposal reflected a disconnection with the emotional reality of those who lose their jobs. “It is not a tool for the one that can replace your voice or your experience lived,” recalled Turnbull himself in his message, although for many, the suggestion of resorting to AI in a moment of vulnerability lacked the empathy that requires the situation and the They qualified as insensitive And little successful. Following the wave of criticism for the lack of empathy, Turnbull finally eliminated his LinkedIn comment. A therapist without empathy. In its publication, the Turnbull invited Microsoft’s newly fired employees to seek emotional support in AI. Although more and more people turn to AI models designed to Offer psychological supportthese technologies They cannot empathize With the nuances of human suffering and its use can have negative consequences. They have Documented cases in which the use of chatbots such as Chatgpt has led people to anguish situations or worsen its emotional state, which calls into question the suitability of these tools As emotional support In critical moments. The AI ​​can help you find a job. Beyond the debate generated, Turnbull shared a series of suggestions to use AI as a personal assistant to find a new job, proposing Prompts Specific that could help with career planning, the update of the curriculum, the writing of messages to contact former partners. Points where AI can be of great help. There is the circumstance that personnel selection processes are increasingly conditioned to the algorithmic selection of profilesso a solution to overcome that barrier is to use more AI for Optimize the curriculum and generate presentation letters. In Xataka | Some employees sued their company for cutting the salary. The supreme has responded that being unpunctual is not a job Image | Pexels (Angel Bena)

China has resolved the mystery of why there are people who ruin seeing streams: the “榜一大哥”

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A 37 -year -old man has mortgaged his house, sold his shares and indebted to spending 16 million yuan (2.2 million euros) donating money to a streamer called Lili (name modified by the original source, Tencent Newsto preserve its anonymity). His wife has put a lawsuit to try to recover family heritage. Why is it important. Chen Ping’s, told by SCMP, It is not an isolated case. In the Chinese courts there are 302 civil lawsuits related to “Streamers“And” Donations of streaming“. A residual figure considering the 1.4 billion inhabitants of China, but striking as an emerging trend. Of the 67 most relevant sentences, most plaintiffs are women of compulsive donors trying to recover family assets. The Virtual Donations Market in China was already by 140,000 million yuan (about 17,000 million euros = in 2019 and it is projected to reach 417,000 million in 2025 (about 49,000 million euros). The context. The “榜一大哥” (‘Big Brother‘) They do not seek sex or a traditional romantic relationship. They seek to be important in a community where money determines status. The platforms have gamified intimacy: each donation increases your “level of closeness” with the streamerthat will treat you as someone special, remember your name and give you private access by chat, generating that false feeling of intimacy. In detail. Chen Ping, the protagonist of the case, began donating small quantities that climbed a lot in a short time. The platforms offered “Blind boxes“Where paying real money you manage to send random gifts to Streamers to open them live. On your part. Like a casino, but where the prize is not money but virtual social status, let’s say. The streamer Lili had private groups from WhatsApp only for his greatest donors. Chen became administrator of his room streaming. His wife discovered intimate conversations where he wrote “I wait for you in bed” and she sent him videos in underwear. Yes, but. Chen He insists that he was only looking for “friendship” and “be treated as someone important.” In real life he was a manager in his father’s company, but he felt too controlled. In the sTreaming It could be he who started and ends relationships. The figures: In 612 days, Chen spent 13.5 million yuan in his main account and 2.5 million in another high school (1.6 million and 300,000 euros respectively). Only Lili directly donated 1.87 million yuan (220,000 euros) in more than 5,000 transactions. The rest vanished in blind and miniguegos boxes. On the other side. His wife, Ou Qing, lost three judgments trying to recover the money. Chinese courts have no clear jurisprudence: Some consider “consumption” donations (unrecoverable, therefore). Others consider them “gifts” (recoverable if there is adultery). In the end, Chen and Lili never met physically, so legally there was no “inappropriate relationship.” Deepen. This phenomenon is not exclusively Chinese. The Streamers They have discovered that selling artificial intimacy is more profitable than selling content. Muraunth already reinvented line 906 pulling from chatbot. And three years ago we talked about addicts to donate on Twitch. For that false feeling of intimacy, a special talent is not even necessary, just maintaining the illusion that the donor is special. It is the gamification of male loneliness. In Xataka | China has won the data war without stealing any. We have given them to them Outstanding image | Xataka

People hate meetings. So they are sending their secretaries to take notes

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Last month Clifton Sellers attended a meeting by video call at his work. Everything seemed normal until he noticed the list of the attendees. Of the 16 who went to the appointment, Only six were human beings. The rest were sent to transcribe the meeting, take notes and summarize it. The surprising thing is that what happened to Sellers is no exception: the rule is increasingly. To this meeting I come with my chatbot of AI. Some of the people who attended that meeting made it accompanied by AI chatbots to take notes and transcribe that meeting. And without warning, as if it were something totally normal. However, other chatbots of AI came alone on behalf of other employees. Those bots could only listen, not intervene. And yet we have a problem. “I want to talk to people”. Sellers explained In The Washington Post How this type of meeting caused him rejection because “I don’t want to talk to a group of bots that take notes.” The situation is ironic, because he himself had sent to a bot to take notes to any meeting in the past. The situation is worrying, especially since video calls are deriving dangerously. More meetings than ever. Pandemia caused Zoom, Teams or Meet to become the ideal alternative to physical meetings, and over time the phenomenon has transformed our way of working. According to Pumbleafter the pandemic there are 12.9% more doors per person and 13.5% more than meetings attendees. The video calls have caused, yes, that the meetings are much shorter (20.1%), but it is also happening something else. Goodbye to social norms in video call. This predominance of virtual meetings through video calls is causing changes in the “label” of these meetings. In many work video calls employees Now they usually join without turning on the camera and with the silenced microphone. The second is more normal: that everyone has the activated microphone can end up causing distortions and annoying echoes while another person speaks. The camera is more delicate, although it is traditionally associated with that recent phenomenon baptized as “zoom fatigue” (“Zoom Fatigue”). People are even using Gitlab recorded video calls To pretend that it is busy. The AI ​​boom for video calls. The big platforms to make video calls (Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet) offer automated notes options using AI. There are also third -party solutions as Otter.AI that also enable these functions and raise a future in which meetings end up being very different from the current ones. And soon, meetings with digital twins. Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom, explained Recently that your company wants to offer the possibility that your “digital twin”, an IA assistant who can not only attend those meetings in your place, but also can intervene in it as if it were. Everything you say will be recorded. This intrusion of AI at meetings has caused a new concern for attendees. Everything they say will be registered, recorded and transcribed. That can restrain freedom when expressing points of view or opinions, especially since those statements can then end up playing against who made them. Allie K. Miller, CEO of Open Machine, explained in Wapo how in her meetings her bot of AI to take notes until there are five minutes left to finish because that “people open more and the real questions come to light.” Machine, gather for me. 55% of managers Recognize That has too many meetings a day, and 27% of employees share that opinion. There are more and more meetings – many They could have been an email– And the AI ​​can help soften its impact, but we go to a future potential in which no one goes to meetings in person except who must explain any topic. Who knows if in the end not even that person comes and everything is meetings full of bots. Image | Surface In Xataka | Not only meetings kill productivity: notifications eat half of our day

There are people using AI to “invent” their own memories from photographs. And that has opened a philosophical debate

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In the photo the kid smiles, abholly happy. His mother, also smiling, hugs him while looking at the camera. The photo could be that of any of us with our mother, but with this happens one thing: that an AI has made it a video. One that immediately has the potential to become a memory. A memory of lie. That photo shared it in x Alexis Ohanian, co -founder of Reddit, millionaire and entrepreneur. Ohanian – caught with Serena Williams since 2017 – told in that message how when he created that video innocently “I was not prepared for how I would make me feel this.” In his family they had no video camera, so he never had a video with his mother. So almost without thinking he used that photo in the newly released Midjourney video generator so that from it generated a video for AI. The result left him astonished. “This is how she hugged me,” he explained. “I have seen it 50 times again.” But with that message A great moral and philosophical debate was unleashed. One about how something like this can impact us individually and as a society. While Ohanian himself He defended himself Before those who criticized the idea (“I really don’t understand why you wouldn’t use AI for this”) others They explained to him that those memories were not real: “Creating a video for someone loved is not to create a memory of them. You are putting words they never said in their mouth.” As said Another user named Erich Thilow, “is (a memory). But seeing it will make it real in your memory. I am not a fan of something like that.” Other users took advantage of cinema as the center of the debate. A user named Vanillaelle shared A Harry Potter photogram revealing with a false memory of his parents in the mirror (which has inspired the image of this theme). Another user called Andro toward The analogy with ‘Matrix‘. In that movie, he explained, one to see her wondered why people would want to face reality. “Now he doesn’t have to ask him,” said said user. The era of false memories That new capacity of the generative AI Generate false memories It is disturbing, and it could well be part of that concept already studied in psychology. These lies memories did not happen or are the distortion of a real event, and according to experts, such as the American psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, it is possible to induce them such as hypnosis or with techniques such as the essay: repetitions of an event that was confirmed as fantastic. Upon listening or visualizing the same event, the person can begin to remember as if it had really happened. That idea thrown by this psychologist also collects it Francisco Taberneroclinical psychologist in Puertollano (Ciudad Real). According to him “memories are usually quite distorted”, but for him there is no special risk in that type of process that converts a photo into a souvenir of lie: “The general experience of memory will be subjective and more or less the same we had. I do not think that a few seconds of movement change the memory that you already had. At the emotional level the memory is all emotion, what causes you remains the same as what you have told to the AI.” Loftus – criticized by the pseudoscientific concept he created, the “false memory syndrome” – published A study In this regard, together with Ira E. Hyman Jr., and both explained how “memory is always constructive. People create the past based on the information that remains in memory, in general knowledge, and on social demand to recall situations.” Ethical and moral issues are definitely huge, and to talk about them we wanted to contact more experts. Santiago Sánchez-Migallón (The von Neumann machine) It is defined as a “philosopher of AI” and is usual collaborator of Xataka. For him, “we must understand the emergence of a technology as an opportunity and no, a priori, as something perverse only because of the fact that he treats a delicate issue as, in this case, the death or authenticity of memories.” Sánchez-Migallón makes it clear that the first thing is to make technology safe and that the user “can differentiate true and false memories”, but assured this, this expert thinks that with this technology it would be possible to help “erase traumas” and even imagine a not very distant future in which it was possible to gain procedural memories or skills: “Could we record in our brain the ability to play the piano or talk?” Darío Benítezpsychologist and co -founder of PSYCHOFLIX and of the podcast Validlyit is optimistic with AI, but you see “few or no advantage” to this type of application because “if you are reliving an image of a loved one you expose yourself to an emotion that you did not expect and that can rekindle a type of duel that you had already prosecuted.” Something like that, he indicates, can change the perception of your values ​​because this type of lies memories “can make you feel that you lived them and that that effectively happened.” It is like Ohanian’s own example. For Benítez it could happen that in the video generated the mother looked at the child with a subtle disdain and generated a reaction of the type “yes, it is true that my mother did not treat me at all well”, thus generating a hallucination that connects with another idea that perhaps had of her past, which in that case would be of the type “my childhood was not so good.” All that “would even more entangle things,” says this psychologist. The danger of being able to mold memory An technology also has another danger that we have already perceived in many other technological areas. Especially in mobile phones and social networks, which tend to isolate us and catch us in the doomscrolling. With these videos created by generative, “it could be … Read more

More and more young people speak Mandarin and venerate to China

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Sometimes, two apparently opposite worlds are irremediably attracted. Last year, commercial tensions between Beijing and the EU opened a new scenario for the Russian farmers and “your” pig. Shortly after, the Hype was in crescendo with the proliferation of Russian product stores In cities throughout China. And now, as communicating vessels, the Russians are folding the “Made in China” as their parents did in 1991 With the United States. They are even talking in Mandarin. China as a lighthouse. I told it The New York Times. In the Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, where Western sanctions They have broken decades of economic and cultural ties, China has begun to occupy the symbolic and material space that previously belonged to the Anglo -Saxon and European world. As? From thematic parks with traditional Chinese architecture, to university classrooms from Moscow where to learn Mandarin (I know They have returned), or in the decoration of the city to celebrate the New Year Lunar and in the Metro wagons decorated with proverbs XI Jinping, Chinese culture It has broken In Russian daily life with an intensity that, until recently, would have seemed unimaginable. A mirror. In that scenario the media had cases of young people such as ALYONA IYEVSKAYAfirst year student at the University of Moscow, who no longer dream of London or Paris, but with Shanghai and Beijing. China is not only admired for its accelerated development and its educational and labor opportunities, but also for its Diplomatic closeness with the Kremlin and its role as an economic support of an increasingly isolated Russia from the western world. The eastern turn. The transformation is not superficial. From public schools overflowing with the demand for Mandarin classeseven technical universities that incorporate it as Second mandatory languageChinese learning has become a progress tool for a generation that associates the future with the East. In fact, the medium underlined some incontestable data: Employment offers that require Chinese knowledge They have shotwhile Chinese Nannies They are hired by the Russian elite for their children to grow bilingual from the cradle. In bookstores, books about Chinese Confucius and Philosophy abound, theaters host montages Based on novels contemporaries of the country, and museum exhibitions They actively seek collaborations With cultural institutions of Beijing. Putin and Xi Jinping There is much more. Yes, because he Commerce also reflects This change: more than 900,000 Chinese cars were sold in Russia in 2024, multiplying for eight The 2021 figure. Although brands like Porsche and Mercedes continue to symbolize status, models like li xiang or haval They begin to fill the Moscow streets. Of course, this mass adoption is not free of internal tensions. A latent resistance. Despite state and media enthusiasm for Sinization From Russian tastes, resistances and contradictions persist. The preference for Western products Keep aliveas shown by luxury residential buildings that look like names such as Knightsbridge or Belgravia. He described the Times More clues of that resistance, such as jokes on Chinese cars in networks, the reluctance of some consumers and the failure in the box office of Sino-Ruses as Red Silksituations that reflect a gap between the enthusiasm promoted from above and habits rooted in society sectors. Even among the new generations, Asia enthusiasm It is not uniform: older adolescents still identify with the West, while the smallest, growing in a saturated environment of “Made in China” products, barely know European or American referents. Strategic affinity, non -cultural. It is another of the possibilities that are pointed out. For some Russian analysts, such as Sinologist Yulia Kuznetsovathis turn to China is not so much a structural transition as a transient alliance. Although economic exchange and geopolitical approach between Moscow and Beijing They have intensified (With Xi Jinping visiting Putin and Bilateral Commerce Beating records), the cultural barrier remains. China, with its centralized political system and its millenary history, is still seen by many Russians as A foreign civilization. Kuznetsova even argues that Arab culture, today visible in popular destinations such as Dubai, is closer for the middle Russian citizen than China. For her, Europe (despite fractures) remains the only cultural sphere with which Russia shares deep roots. Pragmatism without enthusiasm. Thus, the vision of families such as Aleksandr Grek’smagazine editor and father of five children, perfectly synthesizes this duality. While their teenage children still consume Western culture, the little ones grow surrounded by toys, technology and visual content from China. For him, sending his 14 -year -old daughter to spend the summer with a Chinese family is not an ideological act, but a strategic investment: “China is our only friend now.” Its reasoning is based on an economic diagnosis: China leads key sectors such as Artificial intelligence wave solar energyand Russia needs to align with that engine if you want to stay competitive. That logic has become a Dominant argument Among parents, businessmen and officials: it is no longer about cultural affinity, but systemic survival. China present. What seems more or less clear is that what is happening in Russia is not only a change of tastes or languages, but a deep displacement of the axis of cultural, commercial and symbolic influence. In absence of the West (blocked by sanctions, closed to tourism and stigmatized by the official discourse), China offers not only access to consumer goods and technological cooperation, but also A new story of greatness, resilience and development without liberal ties. Seen, it is, in many ways, an alternative version of what Russia would like to be: powerful, pragmatic, respected and authoritarian. And although, as we see, that model does not go equally in the collective imaginary, nor will nostalgia delete for the western past, Everything points To, at least for now, Russia orbit more and more firmly in the sphere of Chinese attraction (and vice versa). Image | Hippox, SvklimkinPresidential Executive Office of Russia In Xataka | China is filling with Russia products. The problem is that many of these products come from China itself In Xataka | Some Chinese cities are drowned … Read more

A bank convinced the people of a poor town in the US to spend their savings. Now it’s full of millionaires

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Stories of Lucky blows and Millionaires There are manybut they almost always have a common denominator: We speak in singular. Therefore, what happened in a small town in Florida whose families were going through serious difficulties to get ahead is so special. Even today, the enclave continues to look like a bland and inhospitable town. But do not deceive you, there is still a large number of millionaires among people. And all Thanks to Coca-Cola. Quincy and the banker. This is the name of the people of one of the most fascinating stories of the United States economy. There, in the midst of the great depression of the 20s and 30s and with part of the census in serious difficulties, a figure appears that was going to change everyone’s life. His name: Pat munroea cunning banker, a businessman who noticed a key detail to convince all citizens. It didn’t matter how impoverished they were in Quincy or how serious the financial situation of families was, the man observed that almost religiously, people spent until the last penny in a good glass of icy coca-cool. What if that devotion made it a blow of luck? Coca-Cola in the stock market. The sugary giant began to quote in stock market in 1919 to $ 40 the actionbut a conflict with the sugar industry and its bottlers caused a 50% drop soon, when it reached 19 dollars per share. In other words, there was a time in the story in which Coca-Cola quoted for less than the cash in the bank and its actions were extremely cheap. And among others, Munroe was at the right time. The bargain of the century. What did he do? Invest. The man He began acquiring Coca-Cola actions As if there were no tomorrow. However, he did not do it alone. He encouraged all his acquaintances and friends of acquaintances in the town to buy a participation in the company. Focusing on the final profits and the power of the brand, Pat Munroe continued and continued buying. And while doing it, he kept telling everyone who were willing to listen to him in Quincy who also bought. He took advantage of the confidence and respect that the community had towards him and undertook a crusade to get anyone who could go up to the Coca-Cola train. Loans for shares. The man was so sure of his success that every time a person went to his bank to ask for a loan, I encouraged him to accept another in exchange for actions. Farmers, shopkeepers, teachers: absolutely anyone who could spend money was tempted by Munroe. For the banker, that Coca-Cola’s action was at $ 19 each was an opportunity that no one in the city should escape. That is why he did not get tired of buying and, almost equally important, to stand firm in the decision regardless of the market fluctuations that occurred in the short term. The ball. Finally, the banker’s observations were a historical success. Quincy, an eminently agricultural city, not only remained afloat in difficult times thanks to Coca-Cola dividends, brought a wealth that is still studied in universities. In fact, the enclave became the richest city per capita in the United States for a while, and dozens of its inhabitants were nicknamed “the millionaire secrets of Coca-Cola”. People who trusted the good eye of Munroe and invested all their money (and the one they did not have), and who kneaded huge fortunes with those first actions, which then transmitted from generation to generation, making them the millionaire eponyms of Coca-Cola, some who, effectively, established whole dynasties of financial prosperity that transcended generations. How much we are talking. It is difficult to speak in total terms, but for us to get an idea of ​​money, in 2013 it was made An assessment study of what happened in Quincy. The results found that a single action with reinvested dividends were worth 10,000,000 dollars. $ 270,000 in cash dividends would be sent before taxes to the owner by sending a check worth $ 67,500 in March, June, September and November of each year. In this way, if the great -grandmother and great -grandfather on duty had acquired a round lot of 100 shares for between $ 1,900 and $ 4,000, depending on the purchase price, they would now have more than one billion dollars, excluding the effects of taxes on assets. Money for crisis. That investment has meant a lifeguard every time a hard time is approaching. When the local economy was supported by coca and the crisis arrived, tail dividends. In fact, these assets have supported the city in all recessions since then. When the crops failed, it was the money of the Coca-Cola that kept the people used. When the national economy collapsed, it was Coca-Cola’s cash that allowed people to remain in their homes. When the times were good and Coca-Cola was cheap, they bought more actions. Quincy today. It is a unique story, by unusual. All families that kneaded a fortune then passed it to their children and grandchildren, in some cases through direct donations and in others through the use of fiduciary funds. Even the bank where everything started has a Coca-Cola on exhibition And, until a few years ago, an amazing 65% of the fiduciary assets under administration were still invested in Coca-Cola shares. Quincy’s appearance today does not differ much from the era of great depression. It is still a quiet and eminently agricultural city with a population of less than 10,000 inhabitants. But do not fool your sight, some of the grandchildren whose families raised an empire, that of the secret millionaires of Coca-Cola. Image | Pxhere, Ebyabe, Pxhere In Xataka | The 100,000 million club: the exclusive group of 14 millionaires that has doubled its members in 2024 In Xataka | There are rich and ultra -ups: countries with more millionaires, centimillionaires and milmonarios of the world counted in a graphic *An earlier version of this article … Read more

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