personal

This engineer found 1,351 loose photos in his grandmother’s house. He ended up building a personal Wikipedia of his entire life

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It all started with a closet full of old loose photos. Last year an engineer named Jeremy visited his grandmother’s house for the first time since the pandemic and unknowingly came across a treasure. 1,351 on paper, without order, without dates and without context. Some were in black and white, from when his grandparents were 20 years old. Others were from his mother as a baby. The last ones were from him in high school, just before smartphones arrived and everything moved to the cloud. What began as a family organization exercise became a fascinating project over the weeks: a personal encyclopedia. A Wikipedia of his own life. First, the physical photos and the grandmother. The first problem he encountered when starting his project is that physical photos do not have EXIF metadata. There is almost never a capture date (although some cameras superimposed it), there are no GPS coordinates and there is no information that allows them to be easily sorted. What Jeremy did was resort to a much more direct solution: sit down with his grandmother and ask her about the photos. Remembering that it is a gerund. In that conversation she rearranged the photos of their wedding and narrated the details while he took notes. Names, places, who was sitting where, what each ritual meant. With those notes, he set up a local instance of MediaWiki, the same software that Wikipedia uses, and wrote a page about the wedding following the same format that was used on Wikipedia to royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011. Within two afternoons I had a complete article with scanned photos, captions, links to empty pages about each person mentioned, and links to the real Wikipedia to give historical context to the events. Digital photos and Claude Code to get the job done. Jeremy realized that things could get worse and took the opportunity to do tests with digital photos, which do have EXIF data with date and time and even GPS coordinates. With that information he wanted to see how far he could go without interviews, so he took 625 photos from a family trip to Coorg (India) in 2012, put them in a folder and opened Claude Code in that directory with a simple instruction: compose a Wikipedia page by browsing the images. The model used ImageMagick to create contact sheets that allowed him to process multiple photos at once, and the magic of AI did the rest. The result was a detailed draft chronicling the trip organized by time of day. Without location data, just with timestamps and visual content, the AI ​​model was able to identify the places that appeared in the photos, including some that Jeremy himself had forgotten. It even detected the means of transportation used between destinations just with what it saw in the images. When AI starts remembering for you. Then came the most ambitious experiment, when he wanted to go further with a trip he took to Mexico City in 2022. He had 291 photos and 343 videos taken with an iPhone 12 Pro with GPS coordinates in the metadata, but he also exported his Google Maps location history, his Uber trips, his banking transactions and his Shazam history. By including all that data and sources, the model was able to cross-reference banking transactions with location data to identify the restaurants where he had eaten. For example, he found images of a soccer match in the photos but did not remember which teams were playing, but he found out that information by crossing those photos with bank transactions in which he found a Ticketmaster invoice with the name of the tournament and the teams, and incorporated them into the page. He also used Shazam’s history to describe the music playing in each location. From photos and memories to a personal encyclopedia. A wonderful project that now anyone can replicate thanks to the whoami.wiki website. First the trips, then the friendships. What started as a travel documentation project evolved into something more personal. The Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp archives contained some 100,000 messages and several thousand voice notes exchanged with close friends over a decade. The AI ​​model managed to convert all this information into a unique biography, identifying vital episodes of the protagonists, then converted into pages that, according to Jeremy, “read as if they were written by someone who knew us both.” When he shared the pages with those friends, they couldn’t stop reading those stories and wanted more. MediaWiki as a master ingredient. One of the most interesting decisions of the project is the choice of software. MediaWiki, Wikipedia’s engine, turned out to be an extraordinarily suitable tool for that use case. AI models understand this perfectly because they have been trained with millions of Wikipedia pages and know their structure and functioning. Discussion pages serve to control the development of those pages, categories group pages by topic, and revision history monitors the evolution of each page. All of this infrastructure already existed, and it was not necessary to create a new platform to organize the information that Jeremy was providing. Surpriseyes. At the end of his story, Jeremy explains that after the process: “I realized that I was no longer alone working on a family history project. What I had been creating, page by page, was a personal encyclopedia. A structured, navigable, interconnected record of my life compiled thanks to the data I already had around me.” Documenting her grandmother’s life revealed things she didn’t know: her years as a single mother or the decisions she had to make, for example. Going through the history of his friendships allowed him to recover moments that he had almost forgotten and made him call some of them to remember them together. “The encyclopedia not only organized the data, it made me pay more attention to the people in my life,” he explained. you can do it too. The project has been so rewarding for him that he … Read more

AI chatbots are more flattering than humans giving personal advice. And that’s a problem

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Before, to create your echo chamber you could only follow like-minded people on networks, now you can create your own personalized echo chamber with an AI. A Stanford study has thoroughly analyzed the excessive adulation of LLMs and the result is clear: if you want to be told what you want to hear, it is better to talk to the AI ​​​​than with a person. The study. The Researchers analyzed eleven language models, among which were the most popular ones like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or DeepSeek, and they fed them with data sets about personal dilemmas. In addition, they included 2,000 prompts taken from the Reddit community. Approximately one-third of all scenarios included harmful or outright illegal behavior. Then, they compared the LLM responses with human responses to see who tends to agree with the user more. In a second part of the study, they recruited 2,400 participants and had them chat with flattering and non-flattering language models. We like to be proven right. Chatbots tend to be much more flattering than a human when giving personal advice, but not only that, people generally prefer these types of responses. The models endorsed the user’s position 49% more than humans in general dilemmas and endorsed harmful behavior 47% more. In the second experiment, people who chatted with different models considered the sycophantic model more trustworthy and preferable. Furthermore, she came away more convinced that she was right and less willing to apologize or repair the conflict. Why is it a problem. According to the authors, LLMs can reinforce egocentrism and make people more morally dogmatic. According to Myra Cheng, co-author of the study, “By default, AI advice does not tell people that they are wrong or give them a reality check (…) I worry that people will lose the ability to deal with difficult social situations.” In addition, there is another worrying fact and that is that users perceived the models as equally objective, which suggests a lack of critical vision to be able to distinguish a flattering AI from a non-flattering one. AI is not a person. It is obvious, but the reality is that every day we address AI chatbots as if they were one. Thank him and ask him for things please It is a harmless symptom of our mania for anthropoformize everything. However, when We use AI as a substitute for a psychologist or when we establish intimate relationships with a chatbotthat’s where we start to step in swampy terrain. The authors of the study consider it urgent that companies introduce safeguards to reduce the excessive complacency of LLMs and advise avoiding using them as a substitute for a person to deal with personal conflicts. The counterpoint. There are voices that argue that AI is not generating these echo chambers, at least not with as much intensity as we have seen with social networks. According to John Burn-Murdoch in Financial Timeslanguage models tend to raise consensus with experts and generate more moderate opinions than networks. Their argument is that the economic architecture of networks rewards inflammatory and polarizing content, while chatbots compete to offer reliable answers to users who use them to make important decisions. It is not just an opinion, it has also done an experiment in which it has simulated thousands of political conversations between users with extreme positions and several of the main chatbots on the market. Based on electoral surveys and data on the use of these tools, it measures how positions would move if a part of the citizenry used AI to inform themselves. The author concludes that, on average, the models tend to push the most radical ones towards more temperate positions closer to the expert consensus, also validating many fewer conspiracy theories than those that routinely circulate on social networks. In Xataka | AIs have become accompanying tools against loneliness. For some researchers it is “junk food” Image | Zulfugar Karimov in Unsplash

a personal AI agent for Zuckerberg

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Mark Zuckerberg spent millions hiring the team of engineers who would lead Meta to compete head-to-head with the AI ​​giants. While we are still waiting for that to happenthe company is advancing in another area that they consider critical and that is the adoption of AI within its own company. This includes a personal agent for your CEO. A personal agent. Zuckerberg imagines a future in which all Meta employees have their own AI agent to help them be more productive, and he’s starting with himself. According to an exclusive from Wall Street JournalMeta is developing a specific AI agent for its CEO. The goal is for Zuckerberg to be able to obtain information faster, avoiding having to go to different people in different departments to get it, like a kind of AI secretary. Target: AI-native. Meta has 78,000 employees spread across countless departments. Having such a complex structure is a disadvantage compared to startups that have much smaller staff in which, in addition, the adoption of AI is present from day one. Zuckerberg believes that having his employees use AI in their work is critical to the company’s future success. During the last earnings call, he said that “We are investing in tools designed specifically for artificial intelligence, so that Meta employees can be more productive. We are enhancing the role of individual collaborators and simplifying the structure of teams. If we do that, I think we will achieve much more and it will be much more fun.” It is evaluable. As reported Business InsiderMeta has included the use of AI within employee performance evaluations starting in 2026. Although it was not mandatory in 2025, employees were highly encouraged and even compensated for those who achieved exceptional results thanks to the use of AI. Additionally, they introduced an “AI Performance Assistant” that helped them write their evaluations. AI Culture. Meta has an internal messaging platform where employees share how they are leveraging AI to be more productive. Some of the tools they are using are My Claw, a kind of OpenClaw who has access to your chat history and can communicate with other colleagues’ My Claw on your behalf. There’s even a group on the internal messaging platform for agents to communicate with each other, which is very reminiscent of Moltbook, the social agent network that Meta recently bought. Another of the tools they are integrating into Meta is called ‘second brain’ and is a hybrid between chatbot and agent. It was created by an employee with Claude and is a kind of “AI staff manager” with whom you can consult documents for projects. Enthusiasm and doubts. On top of all this, the company is also providing AI training and holding hackathons where employees are encouraged to create their own tools to boost their productivity. They say in the Wall Street Journal that while some employees find it “stimulating and fun,” others believe that this insistence and so many changes could be the prelude to new layoffs. And the models? That’s what we would like to know. Meta spent a real million on sign the best AI talentsis building gigantic data centers and at the moment they have launched a total of zero models. The latest information points because the launch of their models has been delayed because their performance is not yet at the level they want. Yet, company results continue to improvemainly thanks to its advertising business. Images | Goal, Unsplash In Xataka | Meta has tried to kill the metaverse after a resounding failure. To his surprise, he has met resistance

Donating cash to children is exempt from personal income tax for parents. It is not free for children

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Young people do not have it easy to get ahead in a context of very tight salaries and with him housing prices skyrocketed. Therefore, helping children or a family member financially becomes the natural impulse. However, this willingness to help may have tax consequences What is important to know before making the transfer. In a binding query Addressed to the General Directorate of Taxes (DGT), a body dependent on the Treasury, a person raised the possibility of helping his family financially through a cash donation. The consultation made it abundantly clear: anyone who donates cash has nothing to fear on their tax return. The same cannot be said about the person who receives it. ​What the Treasury says about the donor’s personal income tax. The General Directorate of Taxes responded to a person who wanted to donate cash to his mother. The DGT pulled the file and argued its response in a previous binding consultation, in which a father raised the tax consequences of donating cash to his children. The Treasury’s response establishes that “for the donation of money, no capital gain or loss will be computed for the donor,” which implies that on the part of the person who gives that money there is nothing to declare or pay in the Income Tax. The technical reasoning is quite logical and simple. When money is donated, there is no difference between the value at which it was acquired and the value at which it is transmitted, so there is no alteration in the donor’s assets that justifies paying taxes on it, as established in article 33.1 of the Law on Personal Income Tax. When the gift is not money, the story changes. The organization itself takes advantage of the consultation to remember that the exemption from personal income tax taxation Applies exclusively to cash donations. That means that if parents They donate a home to their children that they bought 20 years ago for 100,000 euros, and that at the time of donation its value is 200,000 euros, must pay personal income tax for that increase of 100,000 euros in its value between the date of purchase and the donation. The same occurs with shares or other assets with market value that may increase in value between the purchase price and the donation price. The most curious thing is that this principle does not apply in the same way if that same property had lost value since its purchase, the donor would not be able to deduct that loss. Children do pay the Gift Tax. It should be noted that the fact that the father does not pay personal income tax for that donation does not mean that the transfer of assets has no consequences for the person who receives it. The child who receives the money is obliged to declare the donation and settle the Inheritance and Donation Tax. This tax falls on the person who receives the donation, not on the donor. The amount to be paid for the child or family member depends on factors such as the amount received, the degree of relationship and, above all, the autonomous community where the recipient resides for tax purposes. Depending on what requirements are met, the amount to pay may be close to zero euros, but it is necessary to complete the procedure. If the donation is not declared within the established period, the Treasury may impose penalties and interest. A tax that depends on the communities. The Inheritance and Donation Tax is partially transferred to the autonomous communities, which means that each community sets its own bonuses, reductions and tax rates. This generates very notable differences between paying this tax in one community or another. Madrid and Andalusia, for example, apply a 99% bonus on donations between parents and children, which in practice means that the recipient barely pays taxes when making this type of donation. At the opposite extreme, communities such as Catalonia or the Valencian Community have more demanding tax systems, with progressive rates and fewer bonuses. A particularly striking case is that of Extremadura, which has extended the exemption up to 200,000 euros in donations for children to buy their first home. In Xataka | The Great Wealth Transfer: the movement from boomers to millennials that will transfer millions between generations Image | Pexels (Kaboompics.com)

Marie Curie died 92 years ago. Your personal notebooks are still buried under layers of lead for a good reason

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If you visit the basements of the National Library of France (BnF) and you want to look at some of the bibliographic gems that are kept there, you will most likely be forced to respect a series of measures, such as wearing gloves or handling the books in perfectly controlled conditions. The objective is obvious: protect the volumes. From you, from excessive exposure to light, from degradation. Things change if what you want to read is one of the notebooks that Marie Curie scribbled in her laboratory. In that case it is you who they must protect. Literally. The fact that there are dangerous publications may be a controversial statement that may or may not be shared, but in the case of the folios handwritten by the famous Franco-Polish scientist, it leaves little room for debate. Despite Madame Curie He died in 1934, almost 89 years ago, his notebooks continue to cause concern among archivists. and it is quite normal so be it. When Marie Salomea and her husband, Peterinvestigated in their laboratory with uranium, little was known about the potential damage of radiation, so they did not apply the basic safety measures that govern any radiological task today. So things—supports the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH)— “no wonder his workspace and notebooks became contaminated.” Pierre and Marie Curie, in the laboratory, around 1904. To avoid possible risks, the handwritten notebooks are kept in the basements of the National Library of France inside special boxes, made up of several layers of lead. Not only that. As detailed in 2021 by the BBC networkthe French institution requires researchers who want to handle the notebooks in person to first put on some protective suits specials and, of course, that they sign a document in which they exempt them from any responsibility. Is such misgivings justified? When reading requires a special suit For their research, which led to the discovery of polonium and radium, the Curies accumulated, crushed and manipulated enormous quantities of minerals containing uranium in their laboratory. He knowledge about natural radioactivity It was very recent at the time and the couple, who contributed to their research, were unwittingly exposed to its harmful effects. Themselves and, of course, all the material they used. Including notebooks of notes. To understand the conditions under which they worked, it is good review the notes by Marie, collected by Philipp Blom in ‘The years of vertigo: Europe, 1900-1914’: “One of our joys was entering the workshop at night; everywhere we saw the faintly luminous silhouettes of the capsule bottles containing our products. It was a beautiful sight and always new to us. The glowing tubes looked like dim fairy lights.” It was not strange, they say, that the pair of scientists carried flasks with polonium and radium in their coat pockets or kept them in their desk. Marie herself ended up dying in 1934 from a aplastic anemia which was probably caused by his frequent exposure to radium samples and polonium. “Taking into account the half-life of 1,600 years of the radius and the sensitivity of current radiation detectors, it is also not surprising that this contamination is still detectable today,” comments the ACSH in an article dedicated to the topic. The experts, BBC specifiescalculate that given that on average radium atoms take about 15 centuries to disintegrate, it is not unreasonable to think that the notebooks should remain in their lead box during that period. The National Library of France is in any case not the only one to preserve Curie’s notebooks. The Wellcome Collection It also has a volume, digitizedwith notes on experiments and radioactive substances and sketches. The volume dates from between 1899 and 1902 and was written in Paris. To avoid scares in 2014 The Aurora firm examined the material and concluded that it was contaminated with radius-226. The ACSH states in any case that the volume “does not represent an appreciable risk.” Fortunately, the notebook can consult now from homeonline, or even downloaded in PDF. The theme of “the contaminated notebooks” of Curie generate so much interest that it even has your own entrance on the website Marie-curie.eu, focused on the figure of the two-time Nobel Prize winner, and numerous articles have been written on the subject. Notebooks are not the only ones in a similar situation. The BBC explains that the house south of Paris where Marie Curie worked until 1934 is also affected by the radiation levels generated during her experiments. The block has even earned the ironic nickname of “Chernobyl on the Seine”. When he was buried in Paris Pantheoneven Marie Curie herself ended up in a lead sarcophagus almost an inch thick. Image | Aurora In Xataka | In 1968 a man had the idea to create the first tablet in history. The problem is that he was decades ahead of his time. In Xataka | The first hard drives in history were gigantic. Then a miracle happened: miniaturization

It took a hacker two and a half hours to steal thousands of personal data from Endesa customers. Endesa took a week to notify

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Endesa Energy has confirmed a cyberattack on its trading platform that has exposed critical information of millions of customers. The breach includes identity documents, bank accounts and data from electricity and gas contracts, which places those affected at risk of fraud and identity theft. What exactly happened. A cybercriminal has managed to circumvent the security measures of Endesa’s commercial platform and access sensitive customer information related to their energy contracts. According to has recognized the company in communications sent to those affected, during the security breach contact information, ID and IBAN numbers from bank accounts would have been extracted. The company ensures that the access passwords have not been compromised. The magnitude of the incident. The hacker responsible, who identifies himself as “Spain,” posted on January 4 on BreachForums, a popular forum in the dark webdetails of the attack claiming to have obtained more than 1 TB of information corresponding to more than 20 million people, according to reported the Digital Shield medium. The cybercriminal assured this medium that he had gained access in less than two and a half hours, and has gone so far as to leak data samples from a thousand clients to demonstrate the authenticity of the stolen information. What type of data is at stake. The hacker claims to have obtained basic personal data (names, surnames, postal addresses and contact information), financial information (IBAN, billing data and account history), energy data (CUPS, active electricity and gas contracts, supply point information) and regulatory data. The risks for clients. Although Endesa considers it “unlikely” that the theft will result in “a high-risk impact on the rights and freedoms of users,” the company warns of several real dangers in its official statement. Cybercriminals could try to impersonate customers, post the data on digital forums, or use it for phishing and spam campaigns. Josep Albors, Director of Research and Awareness at ESET Spain, explains that “the risk does not end with the notification of the breach” and that the exposed information can be reused for months or years to launch targeted fraud. Endesa’s response. The energy company has taken almost a week to publicly acknowledge the incident since the leak became known. The company claims to have immediately activated security protocols, blocked compromised access and notified the competent authorities of the case. In addition, it has enabled telephone lines to resolve doubts: 800 760 366 for Endesa Energía customers and 800 760 250 for those of Energía XXI, its distributor in the regulated market. We have contacted the company to find out more information about it, so we will update the article in case of news. What should those affected do? The problem with this security breach is that the data is surely used for advertising campaigns. phishing and targeted spam. As explained by ESET, the first thing we should keep in mind as affected parties is to distrust any communication that appears to come from Endesa and that includes links, attachments or urgent requests, always contacting the company through official channels. This has not been the case, but it never hurts to frequently review bank accounts to detect unauthorized movements and change passwords, even if the company claims that they have not been compromised, activating security protocols whenever possible. two factor authentication. Free and useful websites like ‘Have I Been Pwned‘ allow us to check if the data has appeared in other known breaches by entering our email. The extortion attempt. According to account According to Escudo Digital, the hacker has tried to negotiate directly with Endesa through emails, although at the moment he has not set a specific ransom figure. The cybercriminal, who says he is not affiliated with any group of ransomware known, has received offers from third parties of up to $250,000 for half of the database, although he claims to have not sold anything yet. “I prefer to wait for Endesa to decide,” he told the media. A worrying trend. Just like they count From the media Expansión, this attack places Endesa on the growing list of large Ibex 35 companies that have suffered cyberattacks in recent months. Companies such as Iberdrola, Iberia, Repsol and Banco Santander have been victims of similar incidents that have compromised customer data. And they have not been the only ones, since cyberattacks and data leaks They are now much more common. In the case of Endesa it seems that we will have to wait for the company to offer more information on the matter. Cover image | Endesa In Xataka | OpenAI just assumed an uncomfortable truth about AI browsers: there is one type of attack that is impossible to block

A bad spell devastated my kitchen. The most useful personal finance tool has saved me

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They say that misfortunes never come alone and, when it comes to appliances, that is a more than likely reality. In the last year, all the appliances in my kitchen have been falling apart one by one. First the washing machine, then the dryer, the coffee maker, a couple of months ago the refrigerator, and now the microwave is starting to beep randomly. He’s asking for the time. Being an adult was this. For an average economycope with replacement of all those appliances In a single year it represents a significant setback. However, we have been able to face this important unforeseen event thanks to a key tool in personal finances: the emergency fund. Concern in Spain about unforeseen events The concern about not being able to face an unexpected expense is very present in Spanish households. a study from the neobank Nickel points out that 64% of the people surveyed are concerned that their savings are not enough to cover an unforeseen event, five percentage points more than what was stated in the same study from the previous year. The same report shows that 28% claim to have planned their savings well, while 8% claim to have not no savings available. Furthermore, the impact is not the same for everyone: 5% of men say they do not have savings, compared to 12% of women, and only 35% of those over 65 consider that they have a cushion large enough to deal with an unforeseen event. Why an emergency fund matters The case of my appliances being damaged is a good example of what it is and the importance of having an emergency fund. Financial institutions define the emergency fund as an amount of money saved only for unforeseen events, different from savings for goals such as trips or renovations. It is used to cover, for example, a car breakdown, a boiler that breaks down or a sudden healthcare expense, without upsetting the entire month’s budget. Having this mattress provides two clear advantages: on the one hand, it reduces stress because it allows face unexpected expenses without making hasty decisions, and on the other hand, it protects you from falling into debt that later becomes difficult. How much money do you need? Ok, it is useful and necessary to create “a little corner” for unforeseen events, but how much money would we be talking about? Factors such as inflation, rising prices from the shopping cart or wage stagnation makes saving a utopia. According to a report Elaborated by Triodos Bank, 19.4% of those surveyed say they are never or almost never able to save, while 36.9% can only do so some months. Only 43.7% claim to be able to save regularly. Therefore, it is understandable that the idea of ​​saving, when you have a month left at the end of your salaryit becomes difficult for you. Don’t panic. Some banking entities match in which the fund should cover between three and six months of monthly fixed expenses, adjusting the figure to the financial situation of each person or family. If you have variable income or self-employment, some experts recommend expand that margin by covering six to twelve months of fixed expenses. The result will be your goal saving for emergency fund. To establish a specific savings figure, you must calculate how much you spend each month on housing, supplies, food, transportation and other basic expenses, and multiply that amount by six or twelve months, depending on each situation. There is even calculators that help you to establish that figure. Tricks to build the emergency fund without stress Once the savings goal has been established, it is time to start the plan to make it possible. It is not necessary to spend a large amount of money monthly for this fund, although it is advisable to establish an affordable monthly fee. They can be 10, 20 or 50 euros. It depends on your economy. The important thing is to start contributing. When it comes to money, the flesh is weak and the temptation to skip the monthly contribution will be very strong, so it is best to establish a savings strategy. Automate monthly savings On the one hand, physically separate that emergency fund from the rest of your savings. For example, in a new account. By separating it from your savings or checking account, it will be much easier for you to know how much money you have saved in it and adjust your savings plan. On the other hand, on a psychological level, seeing how that amount grows will serve as motivation to achieve the goal. In order to avoid temptations, it is best to automate the monthly transfer of the amount you have established as a quota for your emergency fund. That way, as soon as your salary is credited to your account, that fee will be reserved for emergencies without you having to do anything. If you are not obliged to manage that money every month, you will not be tempted not to reserve it. It’s not what you save, it’s what you don’t spend When the savings capacity is limited, it makes a lot of sense to review the so-called “ant expenses“: coffees away from home, impulsive purchases on apps, subscriptions to services you never use or frequent low-cost cravings. Redirect those small expenses Frequent trips to your emergency fund can make a difference over time, transforming money that slips away almost without realizing it into a cushion that protects against fines, repairs or unexpected bills. Another key to making the emergency fund grow without realizing it is to redirect all or a good part of any unexpected incomesuch as tax refunds, extra payments, bonuses, smaller prizes or cash gifts to your fund instead of your checking account. After all, it is a income you didn’t count onso nothing better than dedicating it to an equally unexpected emergency. When to use the emergency fund? It seems like a truism question, but when you have a certain … Read more

Adam Driver contacted Soderbergh to make a more “personal” film about Kylo Ren. Until Disney stopped them

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It is the eternal tension between creativity and corporate control that grips a Hollywood devastated by the presence of franchisesand which especially suffocates Disney, which either fails to get some of its most iconic brands to overcome the feeling of wear and tear (Marvel), or fails to get them to take creative flight (Indiana Jones, ‘Star Wars‘). The last test, the cancellation of a project that could have been a bubble of fresh air in George Lucas’s galactic saga. The return of Ben Solo. In one interview with The Associated PressAdam Driver revealed that Disney rejected a sequel film focused on Ben Solo, better known as Kylo Ren), titled ‘The Hunt for Ben Solo’, which he developed with director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns for two years. Despite enthusiastic support from Lucasfilm, including Kathleen Kennedy and Dave Filoni, the project was vetoed by Disney CEO Bob Iger and co-chairman Alan Bergman, who argued that they were not sure Solo would still be alive after his redemption and death in ‘The Rise of Skywalker‘, from 2019. How it was going to be. The project was born from Driver’s personal interest in closing the arc of Kylo Ren, a character whose evolution he felt was incomplete. Originally, Driver had believed that there would be a reverse arc to that of Darth Vader that we saw in the prequels, but the trilogy produced by JJ Abrams did not develop it as the actor expected. After a call from Kennedy in 2021, Driver teamed up with Soderbergh to create a more intimate, character-driven film, inspired by the somewhat more twilight tone of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. How would I resurrect? Driver insists in that the apparent death of Ben Solo was just that, apparent, and that Disney was carried away with a literal vision of the films. And with this he left aside the tradition of the ‘Star Wars’ universe of resurrecting characters through clones, spirits, time travel or mystical forces, as happened with Emperor Palpatine himself in ‘The Rise of Skywalker‘.​ Driver suggests with his statements that, once again, instead of betting on imagination and betraying expectations, Disney embraced linear and conventional narratives. The shadow of Han Solo. In Marvel only in recent times and with very specific cases, such as ‘The Marvels‘, ‘Eternals‘ either the latest installment of Captain AmericaDisney has encountered box office failures that, in any case, have not been resounding either. On the other hand, we have been six years since the last ‘Star Wars’ film, and this despite the notorious success of the last trilogy. The reason may have been how poorly received proposals such as ‘Han Solo‘ or ‘Rogue One’, which tried to propose narratives outside the Skywalker Saga. Stage fright. However, that saga has ended and Disney seems paralyzed by a stage fright that could be reinforced by the poor reception of series like ‘Obi Wan Kenobi‘ either ‘The Acolyte‘. The success of parallel projects with a certain radical component such as ‘Andor‘ do not seem to encourage the company to pursue alternative paths for the franchise, knowing that it has to invest a disproportionate amount of budget and marketing in selling new films in the series, and that is the reason why in recent years we have seen more cancellations than ideas coming to fruition. Maybe things will change with the (for now) film starring Ryan Gosling that seems well underway. Although until the time comes, we may see a few corpses along the way like this ‘The Hunt for Ben Solo’ In Xataka | One thousand euros for the Star Wars Death Star: the most expensive Lego set to date does not make all fans happy ​

Kim Jong-un’s health has become a state secret. So on your trips something is never missing: your personal toilet

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When one travels normal, it is that a suitcase full of clothes, perhaps a camera, a laptop, a few books or a tablet to watch a couple of movies during the flight. In the case of Kim Jong-un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, things are somewhat different. His luggage incorporates something that the common of mortals does not usually carry with us: A trusted wader ‘. Sounds weird, but it has its logic. Visit to China. The visit a few days ago Kim Jong-un made China to participate in the ceremony of the 80th anniversary From the surrender of Japan, he left a good handful of photos and the occasional headline for the story. After all, he agreed with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, among others world leaders. The appointment allowed Beijing to make a blunt military power and (equally important) diplomatic influencebut it will be remembered for something else: the zeal with which Kim Jong-un assistants cleaned the chair in which their leader had sat down while chatting with Putin. In A video Disseminated by CNN and allegedly taxed by an accredited reporter in the Kremlin, an operator is seen passing a cloth to the table and the armchair that had used Kim shortly before. Click on the image to go to Tweet. Cleaning … and something else. The news about the zeal of Kim Jong-un to erase any trace of its passage (literally) by China coincided with another that goes in the same line. A few days ago Nikkei He revealed something curious: North Korean travels with personal toilet. One has one in Taeyangchothe luxurious train that usually uses to move and to which He has resorted too During his visit to Beijing, but it is not strange that when Kim must travel far, he does it with a ‘trusted’ bath. Beyond what happened in China, where Kim had the bathroom of his train-fortress, Nikkei assures that there are precedents. According to its sourceswhen the supreme leader visits factories or even military bases in North Korea, a personal toilet usually has available. Something similar happens on your trips abroad. When in 2018 he participated in A summit On the South Korean side of the border, his team took a toilet. And something similar happened that same year in The meeting With the US held in Singapore. A toilet for Kim was also mobilized. And why do you do it? The big question. Why does Kim Jong-un demand that wherever there is a toilet for his trust? Are you related to the zeal of your employees for meticulously cleaning the chairs in which you feel or the tables on which you support? The key was given It makes popco Reuters: where we see fingers, hairs, grooves and dust (also feces) North Korean power sees a valuable source of information that is not willing to leave available to intelligence services of other nations, no matter if friends or enemies. Is it something exceptional? No. such security measures (applied with greater or lesser rigor) are not exclusive to Kim. Reuters remember That the protocol dates back to his father’s times and in recent days have not lacked media that ensure that there are other leaders who share the same zeal. Financial Express assures That Putin moves with a team whose mission is to recover and eliminate his waste while abroad. And he is not the only one who has echoed that rumor, widely collected by means of everyone. The Latest news On the alleged team responsible for watching Putin’s detritus start from the summit he had recently maintained with Trump. The power of feces. Maybe it sounds crazy or eccentricity, but it has its logic. A button, a cup of dirty coffee or a hez are waste, but also a potential source of information that could reveal data on the physiology of its ‘owner’. Perhaps unknown diabetes, hypertension or perhaps a hobby not revealed by alcohol. And that, in cases like Kim’s, on whose health they have run ink rivers (and speculation), is something to take into account. “The special toilet and the garbage bags necessary for waste, waste and butts serve for a foreign intelligence agency, even a friend, cannot obtain a sample and analyze it” Explain A Reuters Michael Madden, expert in North Korea of ​​the Stimson Centerbased in the US. “It would provide information on any medical condition that affects Kim Jong-un.” “He worries especially”. North Korea seems to have taken that effort to erase traces (for small or more inconsequential that seems) to a new level. In 2019 it went viral A brief video in which Kim is seen smoking while the train on which he was traveling in Nanning, to the south of China. The reason? It shows how her sister holds an ashtray to allegedly prevent the ‘DNA) from the’ beloved leader ‘to end up in unwanted hands. During the summits It is not strange either See how your staff disinfects furniture or North Korean uses your own pen to sign agreements. “The health and biometric information of the supreme leader are a very well -stored secret and are associated with their safety,” Confirm to South China Morning Post (SCMP) Peter Ward, a researcher at the Sejong Institute specialized in North Korea, who is not surprised at the image that was seen a few days ago in China. “Probably what they were cleaning were sweat skin cells, in addition to other possible biomarkers that could reveal health problems.” Images | Trong Khiem Nguyen (Flickr) 1 and 2 In Xataka | We knew that North Korea has been infiltrating workers in companies in the West. Now we know how they do

Connecting to unknown networks can be risky for your personal data. Protecting you don’t cost even 2 euros per month

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It is a reality: cyber attacks have become increasingly common. There is a lot of undesirable loose looking to get sensitive information, whether large companies or a user like us. If we work from home or we usually connect with our network we have a safety layer, but what if we use ourselves A network on which we don’t have any control? The good news is that there are several ways to protect our Internet traffic, wherever we are. The simplest, useful and effective way to do so is to use a VPN, and if we can afford it, better bet on one of payment. In fact, There are very cheap: Surfshark’s barely costs 1.99 euros a month. Protect your traffic and IP with a good VPN As we say, it exists A good variety of free VPNperfect if we need to use something at a timely moment. The problem they have is that, in addition to being little safe, They work limitedly in terms of traffic or speed volume. For this reason, the ideal is to bet on a payment like this Surfshark, which also has a great price. One of the advantages that this has is that We can install it in an unlimited number of devicesideal to take it in the laptop, on the mobile or on the tablet (or everywhere at the same time). With this, we can protect our Internet traffic, thus gaining a greater dose of privacy. Moreover, it also helps us hide our IP, information that is better to keep away from undesirable. Surfshark VPN is included in its Starter Plan, which also comes with another tool called ALTERNATIVE ID. With it, we can create a series of fictitious data to use them on web pages where we do not want to enter our real information. That way, we keep our personal data at a good collection. As we have commented before, for 1.99 euros A month we have a quality VPN. That means that its two -year plan comes out for a total price of 47.76 euros, a fairly affordable price to have this tool with us for a long season. There does not end the thing, because we will also receive three extra monthsin such a way that we will have surfshark for 27 months instead of 24. You may also interest you NORDVPN – Basic Plan (Monthly) * Some price may have changed from the last review Some of the links of this article are affiliated and can report a benefit to Xataka. In case of non -availability, offers may vary. Images | Chase Chappell in Unspash In Xataka | In Xataka |

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