playing

there are people playing for hours to feed the online betting houses

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At 4:30 in the morning, an “Amsterdam” goalkeeper leaves the field to recover a lost ball on the next court. In the next room, separated from the previous one simply by a curtain, another game is played, with other teams. In a while he will also play there, perhaps with another team. There is no emotion or expressiveness on his face, he simply picks up the ball and returns it to his court. We could be looking at a suburban sports center, but there is something liminal and dystopian in mechanical gesturesalmost official, with which this athlete faces the game. Because to begin with, the result is the least important. The important thing is to never stop. The panorama. The collective Bellingcatin collaboration with the football research magazine Josimarpublished on October 21, 2024 a article about 1xBetthe Cyprus-based sportsbook that broadcasts thousands of amateur matches a year live from audience-free gyms in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The analysis detected 1,297 “short football” matches (a variant of indoor football played by teams of between two and five people) in a single 24-hour period in September 2024. It is more than the Bundesliga, the Premier League and LaLiga play together, in a full season. Every year, 1xBet’s figure is around half a million matches. The important thing is to participate. The players change shirts between games: “Barcelona” becomes “Manchester City” half an hour later, and teams with the name of a European club that do not actually exist compete against each other. A Russian football blogger, Viktor Kravchenko, had already denounced in 2021 that these footballers were recruited to play in shifts and that the matches were agreed in advance. Josimar collected the testimony of a young man who received cash for playing from nine in the morning to two in the afternoon, one game after another, for the 1xBet cameras. The other porn. Ismail Vali, then CEO of the analysis firm Yield Sec, explained to Bellingcat why 1xBet remains active a machinery that hardly moves any money: almost no one bets large amounts on a Ukrainian children’s basketball game at three in the morning. These matches serve to keep the user hooked and push them toward products with a higher margin, and we are not just talking about sports bets that, legal or not, yield between 9% and 10%. The casino, however, brings up to 50% profits for the bookmaker. “Crime only invests in more crime,” says Vali, even though legal gambling is not technically a crime. Nothing morbid here, everything normal. Bellingcat traced three of the headquarters to specific locations. One is the Alexander Stepin football school, in the Russian city of Bryansk, which according to the website was active in 2024 (today it is missing), had links with the ruling United Russia party and with Gazprom, the state energy company. In photos published on the web, children posed with weapons in the same facility where the games were recorded. 1,700 kilometers away, in Severodvinsk, Bellingcat identified a party of floorball feminine in which girls of 14 and 15 years old played; There is no way to know if they knew that the match fueled a betting market. In Saransk, the same sports center that hosts matches for 1xBet is also used for weapons training courses. Image: Josimar May your left hand… Meanwhile, 1xBet is listed as a sponsor of two of the biggest clubs in Europe. FC Barcelona renewed its agreement with the betting house until 2029 in July 2024, months before the investigation was published; When consulted by Bellingcat, the club declined to comment. Paris Saint-Germain, sponsored by 1xBet since 2022, went further: in September 2025, almost a year after the report became known, extended the agreement until 2028. …don’t know what the right is doing. In May 2026, online gaming regulatory technology company Gaming Compliance International encrypted the global market of unregulated online betting at $5.9 trillion during 2025, with illegal operators accounting for 78% of the sector’s gross revenue. In the United States, where sports betting is regulated in most states, legal operators managed almost $150 billion in bets during 2024 and generated $13.71 billion in revenue. And it is only a fraction, obviously, of what moves outside of what is legal. Farms are just the surface. In Xataka | Goodbye to Polymarket and Kalshi in Spain: the Government blocks “predictive markets” for not having a gaming license

in Cádiz they have decided that playing soccer on the beach is a prohibited activity

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It doesn’t matter the year, the city, or the beach. Every summer on the sandy beaches of Spain there are a series of images that are religiously repeated: the queues in the beach barsthe crowded parking lotsthe tourists who They approach at dawn to the beachfront to hang his umbrella and reserve the best spaces… and the groups of children playing with balls among bathers who just want to lie in the sun, which sometimes leads to the occasional fight. In Cádiz they have decided that they want to save that last one. What has happened? For a few days now, the beaches of Cádiz have been the protagonist of a curious controversy: Balls yes or balls no? Should ball games be prohibited on sandy beaches? Do a group of children who want to have a party in the sand have the same right to enjoy the coast as a retired couple who just want to sunbathe, or should the latter be prioritized? These are questions that tend to be repeated year after year, but a few days ago Canal Sur recovered them in a report in which he reveals that in Cádiz the Local Police have gotten to work to put an end to the little parties on the beach. @zona.cousins 🚨€750 FINE for playing ball on the beach? 😳🏝️ Is it fair or does it seem exaggerated? #zonacousins #fine #beach #cadiz #news ♬ original sound – Zona Primos Why’s that? By pure regulations. The ordinance of Cádiz is very clear and limits the spaces in which you can (and cannot) play with balls in the city’s sandy areas during the summer. The key is that the City Council has decided to move from theory to action and has mobilized local agents to enforce this rule. In a matter of two days they seized 18 balls. And that is the least of the problems for the ‘hunted’ players red-handed. Those who disturb other bathers by playing with a ball may commit a minor offense, for which they risk fines of up to 750 euros. If they are also repeat offenders and are caught twice, the punishment can increase to 1,500. He reportage of Canal Sur shows another reality, just as important: the norm is far from arousing consensus. Their reporter interviews bathers who call it “atrocious” or “exaggeration” that someone is fined 750 euros just for kicking a ball. Also to others who complain about “lack of control.” “The boy with the ball again, I’m going to have to get up because if he hits me with the ball…” complains one of the women interviewed. “What bothers me is that they get close, hit me with a ball and break my glasses.” What does the ordinance say? The most curious thing, as a local Cádiz police officer reminds Canal Sur, is that the restrictions that affect ball games on the town’s beaches are not new. The ordinance It was published in the Provincial Gazette in August 2023 and in its article 29, dedicated precisely to “games and recreational activities” in the city’s sandy areas, it is very clear about it: “The walk, the stay or the bath in the sea will have preference over any other use on the beaches of Cádiz (…). People who practice sports on beaches will make normal, rational and peaceful use of the beach space, without causing inconvenience or damage to the rest of the users or to the natural attributes of the beaches.“. And in case it is not clear, underline: “During bathing season, and in order to avoid possible inconvenience to other users, the activities and ball sports will take place in the areas marked and enabled for this purpose, included in the Operation Plan. When the sports activities in question may cause inconvenience to other users, the sports areas will be provided with protections and background nets, in order to prevent the projection of balls and balls towards the bathing area, walkways over the sand, shower areas, changing rooms, first aid kits or any other facility. Does it only happen in Cádiz? Not at all. Controversy has arisen in Cádiz due to the Local Police campaign and the removal of 18 balls in just 48 hours, but the Cádiz City Council is not the only one that prioritizes bathers over those who want to play with the ball on the beach. At least during the summer months. The municipal regulations de Vigo also clarifies that games with balls or paddles “both in sand and water” can only be played when “they do not pose a nuisance” to the rest of the users. A similar pattern is found in the ordinances of To Coruña, Alicante either Malagato cite a few examples. More or less clearly, permanently or depending on each context, all the rules agree on the same thing: the games cannot interfere with the rest of the people who enjoy the sand. “It is prohibited in bathing areas and waters and during the bathing season (…) to carry out activities, games or exercises that may disturb others,” he clarifies. the Malaga norm. Does it only affect the beaches? No. A quick Google search comes in to find articles and forums in which the loss of spaces is pointed out in which a few years ago one could play without a problem and now they veto the use of balls. “In this park where generations have grown up playing soccer and with a ball in their hands, they have put up this sign prohibiting it,” commented In February, a Reddit user next to a photo showed a sign banning balls. “I can’t help but wonder: where does the city council want to focus children’s leisure? There are fewer and fewer spaces for free play and more regulations.” What is the priority? “Then we worry that children will spend more time with screens, consoles and mobile phones, ‘like zombies’, but what real alternatives are we leaving them if even the most basic … Read more

Comparing Apple’s AI to ChatGPT or Claude is a mistake. Apple is not playing that game

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to whom They rule out Apple in the AI ​​raceeye. The company may have arrived late and it certainly may have little to show today, but its evolution over the last three years reveals three interesting things. The first, that Apple does have its own AI models. The second, that they are very far in performance from the best of OpenAI and Claude. Third, that may not matter at all. Three years of evolution. The trajectory of the technical documents shared by Apple in recent years reveals a series of more than relevant changes. In 2024 its initial proposal was limited to small models of about 3,000 million parameters (3B) specialized in solving basic tasks like generating Genmojis or text summaries. In 2025 the company launched its MLX framework to the developer community to facilitate the integration and use of local models. Now, in 2026, They propose a hybrid infrastructure based on a basic principle: Simple requests: they run in small local models on the device, you don’t even need an internet connection Complex requests: the system delegates the task to be processed in the cloud privately through Private Cloud Compute A (maybe) great idea: NAND can help. The most relevant milestone of Apple’s new approach lies in the design of its AFM 3 Core Advanced model. In today’s mobile phones we have a big bottleneck with the execution of capable (large) AI models because these devices have a very limited amount of memory (12 GB on some iPhones). To be able to fit a model with 20,000 million parameters (20B), Apple has decided to store that model in the internal SSD unit, not in memory. In the AFM 3 Core Advanced model the “experts” are in the mobile’s SSD. They are preselected and loaded into RAM to be used dynamically, optimizing model execution. Experts by prompt, not by token. It then activates a series of pruning techniques (Instruction-Following Pruning, or IFP) to activate only between 1,000 and 4,000 million parameters in a sparse manner (sparse), somewhat similar to what is done in models with Mixture-of-Experts architecture. But Apple selects these experts at the beginning of each prompt, not token by token, which allows it to avoid the slow bandwidth of the mobile’s NAND storage compared to its RAM memory. Privacy by flag. If for something Apple’s approach stood out from the beginning It was for his privacy.which is implicit when using local models. But if the request is complex, the system redirects it to the AI ​​models in Apple’s cloud, the Private Cloud Compute (PCC). Unlike other platforms and infrastructures such as those of OpenAI or Anthropic, conversations with Apple’s AI are encrypted and are totally private according to the company: this data is not shared with third parties (because not even Apple can see it) and it is not used to train its models. Five models with the help of Gemini. Although Apple is obsessed with total control of its products, this time had to give in and ally with Google so that their Gemini models could “show” Apple the way. The result is a third generation of models that are developed in collaboration with the Mountain View firm. We have five models in total: AFM 3 Core: 3B parameter dense model AFM 3 Core Advanced: sparse model of 20B parameters with activation of 1B to 4B parameters depending on the task AFM 3 Cloud: a powerful but also efficient and fast model that runs on the Apple cloud. ADM 3 Cloud (Image): for generating and editing images, the heart of both these options and the new Image Playground AFM 3 Cloud Pro– Apple’s most powerful cloud model is for autonomous agents. It has been trained with Google TPUs and runs on Nvidia GPUs within Google Cloud infrastructure Performance, an unknown. Unlike what other companies usually do when they present their models, Apple has not published metrics on known benchmarks. Instead, it shows “human preference” metrics in which it compares user satisfaction when using its models versus competing models. The comparisons are also with previous versions of these models, which does not clarify much what can be expected from them. But they are not in the race for the best model. In 2025 yes there was comparison with open weight models of that time (Qwen-3-4B locally, GPT-4o or Llama 4 Scout in the cloud) and then they seemed to be at a good level in reference to those options. Expect them to be behind the most recent models from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google itself, and it’s unclear how they compare to the new Chinese open weights models. One thing seems clear: Apple is not very interested in having its own Mythos, at least for now. Your objective is different. Apple models from 2026 are “preferred” more than those from 2025. Logical, but also useless when it comes to understanding how good these models are compared to the competition. But integration is important. Apple’s big ace to compensate for this difference in capacity is that its models have full access to the user’s OS, apps and hardware. AFM models are integrated with iPhone camera sensors, notification history or local app permissions. This allows useful tasks to be carried out that an LLM that is “disconnected” from the hardware will hardly be able to replicate. Here the integration of the models with the hardware and software of the device is (or wants to be) fundamental. Beware of mediocrity. This approach focused on integration and privacy is especially striking and differentiating from its competitors, but there are risks. Among others, the product is limited by its functional capabilities compared to the competition. If local models do not solve and cloud models also do not behave reliably, Apple runs the risk of having an AI that is secure and private but technically mediocre in its responses. Siri has already been criticized for being especially stupid: Siri AI must precisely eradicate that perception. In Xataka | Apple has designed Siri AI so … Read more

five LEGO sets for adults who never stopped playing… or collecting

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El Corte Inglés has a good assortment of sections that can be adjusted to what we are looking for, and one of the most curious is Kidultsaimed at both children and adults who like board games, anime or series figures and much more. Of course, LEGOs also come in hereso in this article we have reviewed the coolest ones that the store has. Star Wars Logo – 75407 The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Millennium Falcon Now that the Star Wars DayWhat better time to go shopping for that LEGO set that has been on your wish list for so long. There is a lot to choose from in the saga, but one of the most special is the Millennium Falcon (75375). Because? Because of its size, because of all the details it includes, because of the support, because of the identification plate and because it is Han Solo’s iconic ship. Millennium Falcon – 75375 The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Star Wars Logo If you prefer something more iconic, there’s nothing like your own Star Wars logo (75407) whose LEGO set has a spectacular design (in fact, it is the one I have). It is larger than it may seem in the photos, the yellow and black contrast is very well cared for and inside hides a wink very particular to the saga, especially to the original trilogy of films. Star Wars Logo – 75407 The price could vary. We earn commission from these links iron man If there is a character that has had a great impact on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it is Iron Man. The superhero has the occasional LEGO set, being the Iron Man Bust (76327) one of the latest released. He comes with the iconic MK4, one of the many suits he has worn over the years. Its size is ideal for placement on virtually any shelf and it comes with both a stand and a nameplate and a minifigure. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Harry Potter Sorting Hat Harry Potter is back with the HBO series, so if you feel like enjoying one of the most emblematic wizards in cinema, El Corte Inglés has the characteristic sorting hat (76429). It has a good design, includes a minifigure and a stand with the emblems of each house. Additionally, it comes with a block that emits a total of 31 random sounds. Harry Potter Hat – 76429 The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Hogwarts For iconic the most unsafe school in the Harry Potter universe. El Corte Inglés also has a LEGO set of Hogwarts (76419) which stands out above all for how big it is. It is very well detailed, features the many structures of the school of witchcraft and wizardry and even includes the Chamber of Secrets and the Ford Anglia. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | El Corte Inglés and Compradicción (header), LEGO In Xataka | Your favorite series, comics and movies also in LEGO: 15 construction kits ideal to assemble yourself or give as a gift In Xataka | There is a LEGO Star Wars set that I would buy again without thinking twice. It’s wonderful and it’s not expensive.

Mistral is the AI ​​that is playing its cards best. Because it is taking advantage of the fever for European technological sovereignty

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To the cheetah being silent, Mistral grows like foam. The French artificial intelligence startup claims that its revenue has multiplied by 20 over the past year, and they have achieved it with a particularly striking and effective strategy: defending and promoting European technological sovereignty. what has happened. Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral, explains in Financial Times that its latest annualized revenue rate — which estimates annual revenue based on last month’s revenue — was above $400 million. A year ago that rate was only 20 million a year. Or what is the same: he has multiplied it by 20. This works. The startup based in Paris hasn’t stopped to grow since its beginnings and last year already was valued at 12,000 million euros. That figure may soon become obsolete, because the company is on track to surpass $1 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of the year if it continues this growth. Between their alliances more striking is the one who signed with ASML in September 2025: that was when the Dutch company invested 1.3 billion euros in it. It is not making too much noise, but it continues to grow with a key component. Companies in power. Mistral is rapidly expanding the number of large enterprise clients it works with. Right now it has more than 100, and although it is not especially popular among end users – who tend to choose models from Big Tech companies in the US – the option for these European companies is increasingly clear. If they want not to depend on infrastructure and control outside Europe, they now have Mistral as a great alternative. New data centers. The firm announced this Wednesday that it will invest 1.2 billion euros in a new data center in Sweden. It is the first center of its kind that the company will build outside of France, and Mensch explained that “We are diversifying and distributing our capacity throughout Europe.” That data center will be created in collaboration with EcoDataCenter, and is expected to be operational in 2027. The choice of Sweden was easy according to Mensch, who noted that it was very attractive because the energy there was “low in carbon emissions and relatively cheap.” Partners and clients deep inside but also outside the EU. Although Mistral is postulated as the great reference in terms of this “European AI”, it also has Microsoft and NVIDIA as investors. In fact its ambition is global, but the fact of being the only major European developer of foundational LLMs It has put it in the spotlight of all European companies that seek independence from partners from the US or China. ASML, Total Energies, HSBC and governments such as France, Germany and Greece already use Mistral’s services, and 60% of their revenue comes from Europe. A perfect speech for these times. The CEO of Mistral is clear about the strategy and has arrived at the right time to apply that strategy that defends European sovereignty: “Europe has realized that its dependence on American digital services was excessive and is now at a critical point. We give them (European companies) an advantage because we provide them with models, software and computing capacity completely independent of American players.” Data centers must be from European companies. Mensch also talked about all those data centers than Big Tech will create in Europe and, of course, in Spain: “It is important that we realize that it is not so useful (for States) to deploy computing resources if you only create data centers for US hyperscalers“. Or what is the same: having AI data centers from companies like Microsoft, Google or Amazon in Europe serves the interests of these companies much more than European interests. In Xataka | Europe has begun to become technologically and militarily independent from the United States. First stop: replace Starlink

In 1844 there were already people playing chess online, although not in the way you are thinking

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On November 18, 1844, the Washington Chess Club challenged their Baltimore counterparts to a game. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for one detail: the Baltimore players were still in Baltimore, and the Washington players remained in their city, separated by a distance of about 60 kilometers. The feat was achieved thanks to the Internet of the time: the electric telegraph. And just six months after Samuel Morse inaugurated the first telegraph line in the United States with the message “What has God wrought?” The origin of an idea. Just like relates IEEE Spectrum, it all started days before with a game of checkers. On November 15, Alfred Vail, Morse’s associate in Washington, proposed to Henry Rogers in Baltimore to play by telegraph. Rogers devised a system of numbered squares to communicate positions, and the idea soon evolved into chess, at which time both clubs challenged each other from their respective cities. An ingenious system for transmitting plays. Vail and Rogers assigned a unique number to each of the 64 squares on the board. In this way, each shift was summarized in transmitting two numbers by telegraph. In this sense, chess was ideal for a test with said device, since it requires little information per move and does not need a complex communication channel. During the games, 686 moves were transmitted with almost no errors, as Vail recorded in his magnetic telegraph journal, which is now It is preserved in the Smithsonian. More than just entertainment. Although it began simply as a test leading to a little private pleasure between two enthusiasts, telegraphic chess soon attracted public and political attention. Orrin S. Wood, a telegraph operator, wrote to his brother-in-law on December 5, 1844, about the “considerable excitement” generated by these items, adding that many congressmen seemed interested. Morse took advantage of the moment, for in his letter to the Secretary of the Treasury to obtain financing and expand the network to New York, he argued that the telegraph could transmit news from Congress or the whereabouts of wanted criminals, but he also noted that several games of chess had been played “with the same ease as if the players were sitting at the same table.” Encrypted information system. The organizers of these games considered that they had devised a pure information system that fit perfectly with the possibilities of the media that were beginning to emerge at the time. And if we think about it, each play was a precise and brief data packet that traveled through copper cables. However, the initiative generated controversy, since on December 5, Rogers warned Vail that they were causing “an unfavorable impression on the religious part of the community”, although it is currently unknown what the complaints were. What is known is that on December 17, 1844, chess was no longer played along those lines. A tradition that lasted. Just like account In the middle, in 1845 a game was played between London and Gosport with the participation of the inventor Charles Wheatstone and the teacher Howard Staunton. Decades later, between 1890 and 1920, confrontations between clubs by telegraph became common. As time went by and new technologies developed, playing chess from two different places became increasingly easier. In 1965, grandmaster Bobby Fischer played from New York against opponents in Havana by teletype, since the State Department prevented him from traveling to Cuba. And if we go even further, in 1999, world champion Garry Kasparov He faced a team that represented “the world” through a Microsoft forum. Chess as proof of inventions. Today, millions of daily games are played online around the world through platforms such as Chess.com. The truth is that chess has become a kind of natural companion for each new means of communication that has emerged throughout history. Despite how difficult it is to master all the legs of this game, the information needed for the games to flow is extremely simple. And perhaps that is why, 181 years after that first game via telegraph, chess continues to endure in the digital age. Cover image | Denis Volkov In Xataka | In 1938 Spain was divided in two. So two “Gordos” were delivered from the Christmas Lottery

GPT-5 has left us a bittersweet feeling, playing who wants to be a millionaire and more in 1×19 crossover

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Just a few weeks ago that Openai launched GPT-5but its relevance and impact has already been colossal. In fact, we had been waiting for this new model for so long that it was impossible not to make it an absolutely protagonist of 1×19 crossover. This episode, part of the collaboration between range of range and xataka, starts with A debate about this AI modelthat were supposed to It was going to be a remarkable qualitative leap and that at least for the moment it has not caused just changes in the current panorama of the industry. Here Jaume Lahoz and Carlos Santa Engracia are responsible for directing the debate, but they also give way to the rest of the program sections, which as always combines that technological debate with pure entertainment. Which is what Anna Boria brings us with a fun section that follows the trail of the mythical “Who wants to be a millionaire“To test Jaume and Carlos. The thing does not end there, because Carlos and Jose – another of the usual Crossover – have traveled to Los Angeles, in the United States, and tell us some curious things about their experience there. We hope you enjoy the episode! On YouTube | Crossover

With war drums playing in Europe, Germany has made a radical decision: recovering the “mili”

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The Ukraine War and the elongated shadow of Putin have not only reactivated the debate on Military spending In NATO. He has also recovered a word closely linked to that discussion and that for decades has been taboo in much of Europe: ‘milli’. Germany has decided that it changes. Your government has launched The legislative machinery to recover military service, suspended in the country since 2011. will do so with a voluntary recruitment system, although it already warns that this could change if the army does not grow to the Desired rhythm. And the starting goal is ambitious. What happened? That Germany has moved to recover military service. Yesterday, Friedrich Merz’s government government approved the bill that will open the doors to a new volunteer mili with which the country aspires to strengthen its defense. He did it after months of debatein a context in which each even more countries from Europe its military services are rethink and with a staging loaded with intentions: the announcement was made after a cabinet meeting in the Ministry of Defense, something that did not happen for several decades. What do you want to do? At the moment implement a voluntary mili, although the Foreign Minister himself It has slipped That in a few years the government has not achieved its objectives will seek ways to achieve “a greater commitment.” What we will see in the short term is a Germany that reactivates the service with certain peculiarities: it will send a letter to all the men and women born from 2008 to respond whether they are interested or not to participate. In the same questionnaire questions about academic preparation and the state of physical form will be included. Among those who respond affirmatively, a group of volunteers will be chosen who must undergo a medical examination. If everything is correct they will participate in a military service of at least half a year, a extendable term that will also include financial compensation. Selected young people can choose which of the army branches want to acquire skills, which includes the bodies of the marine, armed, air force and specialized units in cyberspace. Are more details known? Yes. To begin with, the schedule that the government handles. The law must still receive the guarantee of Parliament, but Merz Trust in which the new mili can be released “immediately”, from 2026. It is also known that there will be A small difference Between men and women. Both will receive the questionnaire, but only they must cover it if they do not want to receive a fine. After that difference, Clarify The countrythere is a mixture of historical and legislative factors. Until 2011, the year in which Germany said goodbye to the mandatory military service, the only ones who participated were the men. The government never eliminated the service, only suspended it, and expand the obligation now to women would require modifying the Constitution, which would further complicate the process. Will it always be voluntary? The million dollar question. And it is not easy to answer it. At the moment the mili will return to German with a voluntary character, but Merz has left the door open To that change in the medium term: “If in the next one, two or three years the objectives are not met, we have created a mechanism in the law that will lead to greater commitment.” The change, of course, will demand that the Government and Parliament return to position themselves. The norm would therefore allow the recruitment approach to be reviewed without the need for the geopolitical context. The voluntary (or mandatory) character of the service has been the great disagreement point and the detail that has most tensioned the discussion between the different political forces. The conservatives advocate a mechanism that allows recruits to be captured in a more agile way in the event that the Government considers it necessary and Christianocial Union even goes further by demanding the return to the mandatory mili. In the opposite pole there are who argues than the Bundeswehr I would arouse greater interest if the working conditions it offers to the young Germans. Will you do something in that line? Yes. Conscious of the debate, Minister Boris Pistorius insisted Yesterday when the Executive is improving the conditions of the recruits. “In the future the salary will be 2,300 euros, a remarkable increase. There are no accommodation or medical insurance expenses. Therefore it is a package that considerably increases the attractiveness compared to the current situation.” In an attempt to make the more attractive offer for recruits, he insisted that “flexible training schedules” and the possibility of participating in courses will be offered. What the government has also decided is that From 2028 It will implement a mandatory medical examination for all young people between 18 and 25 years old, which will allow the country to know its “really available recruits” base. What is the goal? Reinforce the defense. Something that is better understood with figures. Right now the German army is made up of about 183,000 active men and women. What the government wants is to reach 260,000 at the beginning of the next decade, amount that NATO Consider adequate For the country. Another of Merz’s team is extend 200,000. To reach these figures will also involve a challenge for the German administration itself. “We all want to see that increase quickly, but there are a number of objective criteria that must be met. The two basics are the locations and instructors. If we do not have them we cannot call rows to 350,000 young people from Germany. We are missing barracks and instructors. That means that now everything has to grow again from below, an increase that is being promoted,” Merz recognized yesterday. Why now? By the European geopolitical context, marked by two major factors. The main one, the role of Russia and its relationship with Europe since the Kremlin decided to start the military occupation of Ukrainein 2022. The … Read more

The effect of heat on our heart rate when playing in summer

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It is the summer stamp: go running or riding by bike and, a few minutes later, the pulsometer is triggered to figures that do not correspond to the effort. And it’s not a strange thing to see. It is the body that is trying to respond to a series of stimuli such as heat and exercise, and understanding its physiology is important for Do not turn sports into a health risk. Exercising in summer is a great challenge. In this situation the body is forced to respond to two specific demands. On the one hand, Muscles in action need a lot of energy in the form of ATP To contract. However, this is an inefficient process, since It only takes advantage of between 20 and 25% of the ‘produced’ energy releasing the remaining 80% in the form of heat. This energy in the case of not dissipating it correctly can raise internal body temperature by 1 ºC every 5-10 minutes. How to avoid it. On the other hand, to avoid precisely that lethal overheating, the body thermoregulatory center located in the hypothalamus, Activate powerful cooling mechanisms. One of them is to pump huge volumes of hot blood from the body nucleus to the skin, causing it to be red by that large amount of blood that is going through the surface of the body. This double duty is the fundamental reason why the pulse shoots and becomes the most sensitive and critical indicator of the stress to which the body is subjected The organism has to compensate. These two situations cannot be carried out in parallel, but A balance must be achieved. And it is that when the system is taken to the limit by the intensity of the exercise and the severity of heat, something has to yield. Or blood flow is reduced to the muscles, limiting the ability to maintain rhythm, or the flow to the skin is committed, limiting heat dissipation and increasing body temperature to dangerous limits. Understanding this internal negotiation is key to understand why training in summer is much more than a simple matter of willpower. The skin becomes a giant radiator. The first and most powerful response of the body to the increase in skin temperature and body nucleus It is body vasodilation. Controlled by the ‘thermostat’ of the body, the preoptic area of ​​the anterior hypothalamus, this mechanism causes the blood vessels close to the skin to widen and make it become a refrigerator. Under resting conditions and neutral temperature, the cutaneous blood flow is just about 300 ml/min. However, during an intense exercise in a hot environment, this flow It can shoot until reaching 7 or 8 liters per minute. Something that also represents around 50 and 70% of all cardiac output. And this is a simple deviation of resources with the objective of dissipating heat by convection and radiation. Although it is not free. It has an important cardiovascular cost. The heart accelerates to compensate. The fact of opening the ‘pipes’ that lead the blood to the skin causes the heart to have to activate an important compensation mechanism so that the organs remain perfused. We talk about heart rate, which will be increased. The objective is to maintain cardiac output, so that blood pressure is stabilized despite the low peripheral resistance due to vasodilation. A crucial aspect of this process is speed. The initial increase in heart rate is an incredibly fast neural reflex, triggered by Thermal skin receptors. This response often precedes any significant increase in central body temperature. This shows that the body not only reacts to heat, but anticipates it, preparing the cardiovascular system for the thermoregulatory battle that is coming. The key is in cardiovascular drift. Any athlete who trains with a pulsometer in summer will have noticed a disconcerting phenomenon: even maintaining a constant rhythm, the pulse tends to rise progressively throughout the training. This is something that has been documented and called ‘cardiovascular derives‘, which is defined as the gradual and continuous increase in the heart rate that occurs during a prolonged exercise of constant intensity, accompanied by a decrease in systolic volume (the amount of blood that the heart pumps in each beat). And precisely the heat stimulates the two mechanisms that drive this phenomenon: The increase in skin flow by vasodilation. This causes blood to ‘stagnate’ temporarily on the periphery, which reduces venous return. This means that the heart does not fill so much in each beat, and therefore the amount of blood that will expel will be less. Dehydration Sudoration is essential to cool the complete system, but it entails a loss of body fluids, mainly from the blood plasma. This again reduces that the blood returns to the heart so that the same volume can be pumped. And to compensate the only thing left is to increase the heart rate. The pulse increase per centigrade grade. Once the ‘why’ of this increase in heart rate is known, an athlete is interested in knowing the ‘how much’. And the reality is that studies have established a very useful general rule to know how our body temperature increases when exercising: In dry heat conditions, with environmental temperatures above 24 ° C, the heart rate Increase approximately one beat per minute for each celsius degree of temperature increase. In wet heat conditions, the impact is multiplied. Here the increase in heart rate triggers between 2 and 4 beats per minute for each degree Celsius that increases the ambient temperature. This difference is not trivial. Exercise at 34 ° C in a dry climate (10 ° C above the threshold of 24 ° C) could involve an increase of about 10 beats per minute in the heart rate for the same effort. On the other hand, to those same 34 ° C, but with a high humidity, the increase could be 20 to 40 beats per minute. This additional load on the heart explains why we call as ’embarrassing’ feels much more … Read more

LaLiga can no longer monetize her matches in Spain. So start playing them where: USA

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LaLiga is about to get what she has been trying since 2018: playing an official game in the United States. Villarreal-Barcelona on December 20 in Miami It is the official recognition that European football has accepted that its future is to stop belonging only to the cities it represents. Why now. Several stars aligned to complete a long process: The game will be played seven months before the World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada. The country will be more receptive than ever football. Messi – precisely in Miami – is accelerating the consolidation of the MLS, against LaLiga’s interests. Television rights in Spain seem to have touched roof, it is a product marketed with an offer tension by The current model. There seems to be margin to raise prices for a business, that of football, which wants to continue growing so as not to be left behind the Premier League. And to stop the fugging of talent to the Premier itself or the Saudi league. Meanwhile, The US market offers the perfect combination To continue growing: More than 60 million Hispanics interested in football. High purchasing power. A Prime Time favorable that Asia cannot match. The equation. A game in Miami can generate 50 million euros direct compared to the 5 million it would generate in the Ceramic Stadium. With more than half of LaLiga’s income, coming from international rights, this is an anticipated movement. It was seen coming. LaLiga in fact He has been with physical presence for years in the United States by growing up there. No movement is a greater jump than hosting an official party. Not a friendly summer, but one with points at stake. The selection. Barça was essential to be a global brand that moves large audiences. Real Madrid is as much or more, but His very long open war with LaLiga He made his participation unfeasible. The Villarreal is also convenient: team attract enough (this year plays Champions) but at the same time manageable with its 20,000 members. Its president He has promised free trips to Miami For all the partners who want to attend. Those who do not want to travel will receive the return of 20% of the price of their fertilizer, although only one game will be lost, 5% of those played in the League. It is a patch that works for a club of its dimension in this first displacement, but it will hardly be sustainable if the parties abroad are normalized. The precedent. If everything goes as expected and LaLiga wishes, with FIFA and UEFA giving green light next to a RFEF that has already authorized it, there will be no turning back. In five years we can expect much more than a single match a year and not only in LaLiga, also in other important European leagues that seek to grow. Presumably, series A and Bundesliga. The transformation. Football is no longer a social ritual of citizen representation to become global content with consumers. The parties will go where the money is, not where the roots are. It is the same logic that the Club World Cup has taken to the United States and The Spanish Super Cup to Saudi Arabia. NBA and NFL They have been doing this for a decade. European football has simply defeated the taboo that caused the strong local roots of its clubs. And now what. This is not the end of the process but the beginning. Local fans who have paid fertilizers, t-shirts and television rights for decades will meet some games-in the case of Villarreal-Barça, perhaps the best of the season-playing thousands of kilometers. This is neither good nor bad per sealthough it will generate discrepancies among local fans who reject this model. It is the logical consequence of a sport that bills as a global industry but mostly continues to operate with local structures. LaLiga is not innovating, it is doing the same as other sports for ten years. The question is not whether this should happen or not, it has already happened. The question is what other European football traditions are about to fall. From Xataka We have contacted LaLiga to know its vision of this movement, but the organization has preferred not to make statements at the moment. In Xataka | The new Ibai football team already has a name and field. The problem is that the most important thing lacks: tradition Outstanding image | LaLiga

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