problem

The US has such a big problem with Asian carp in its rivers that it has decided something extreme: electrocute them

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Back in the 70s in the United States someone had an idea to control the growth of algae, weeds and parasites from aquaculture farms in the southern states: introduce four species of carp from Asia, more specifically the bighead carpthe black carpthe grass carp and the silver carp. If you know a little about biology or ever fishing you have come across a tremendous catfishwhat happened next will not surprise you: he got into a mess. Tonight we cross the Mississippi. These four voracious “natural herbicides” released in Arkansas were colonizing the river network, first ascending the Mississippi River and its tributaries and helped by floods to reach open rivers until threatening the Great Lakes located in the northern United States, this chronology of expansion and reproduction details it the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The impressive Mississippi basin or how carp left Arkansas for the Great Lakes. Via Shannon1 They are true titans. Carp are a great example of adaptive management of invasive species: they are able to withstand different environments, can live for several decades and lay millions of eggs. Carp are in their element at the bottom of lakes, ponds or rivers and they swallow everything, since practically any organic matter will do, from plankton to small fish. So they gobble up food that native species could eat. Destination: Great Lakes. Present in every state of the continental United States, the northern Great Lakes are a destination as desirable as it is devastating. In addition to the damage to the ecosystem, a large-scale invasion would cause a catastrophe to the local economy while decimating the fishing industry, which generates approximately 7 billion dollars a year. So the Administration, scientists and environmentalists have been drawing up plans for years to keep them out of there. The grass carp has already been sighted in the lake erie. How many Asian carp can you catch? The first measure they implemented was to encourage the increase of their fishing, with tournaments such as the Redneck Fishing Tournament so that those who participate try to capture as many as they can. The problem is that fishing is not enough to decimate a species with such a reproductive desire. Michigan DNR Aquatic Species Expert Seth Herbst concludes that It would be necessary to get rid of 80% so that its population does not recover. If you can’t handle it, eat it.. In 2022 the Illinois Department of Natural Resources had an idea: use large-scale commercial fishing as an aquatic management tool to reduce population pressure. In other words: encourage human consumption of carp, which renamed “Copi”. Carp meat is rich in protein and is consumed in China and other Asian countries, so why not in the United States? The campaign is still alive and well (like the tents): on the campaign website there is a long list of recipes and restaurants in different states where you can try them. And speaking of recipes, this one from “Can’t Beat ‘Em, Eat ‘Em” (if you can’t beat ’em, eat ’em) gives more ideas for cooking this and other invasive species. The delicious Asian carp taco Chicago’s electric wall. Since 2013, the United States Army Corps of Engineers A series of permanent electric barriers are operational in the Chicago area waterway system with a direct current field of 2.3 Volts per square inch (about 0.35 Volts per square centimeter). This spark does not kill the carp, it only paralyzes them so that they do not advance and remain downstream. Of course, this method is not infallible: changes in water levels or the salt used for defrosting can alter the conductivity of the water and, therefore, the effectiveness of this method. In addition, smaller specimens can escape into shelters that form between boats. And one obvious thing: it affects carp and non-carp fish, thus altering their behavior. And yet, it continues to be used. Looking for the infallible system against carp. In the river basins of Illinois they have tried walls of bubbles made from a pipe, thus obstructing their vision. Its sound also serves as a warning. The problem? That also affects native species. And one step further, a variant in the form of cavitation curtains in which the bubbles are broken to disturb the fish. This method was the winner of the contest Carp Tankwith a succulent reward of $500,000 to whoever came up with the definitive idea. Brandon Road Dam Project The chaos zone. Since electricity is not 100% infallible, in 2024 they allocated 858 million dollars to build the dam project. Brandon Road Interbasind which has everything: improved electric barriers, acoustic deterrents (the silver carp jump when they hear the noise of the engines) and bubbles to obscure their vision. The objective is to prevent the carp from crossing the dam at all, minimizing damage to the rest. In Xataka | The Iberian Peninsula is being invaded: more than 1,200 exotic species have come to stay In Xataka | The coypu, one of the 100 most harmful invasive species in the world, is at the doors of Barcelona Cover | Flickr

Telefónica sought to dismiss 4,525 employees with its ERE. Now you have a problem called 5,124 volunteers

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Telefónica has closed the first phase of your ERE in Spain with more employees wanting to leave the company than places available in the ERE. 5,124 workers from the different subsidiaries of the operator presented themselves as candidates to benefit from the ERE. Of these volunteers to leave the company, 352 candidates have been left out because the maximum number of dismissals agreed with the unions has been exceeded. This excess of volunteers worries union representatives. Volunteers to be fired. At the end of December, the company and unions signed the conditions for the Employment Regulation File that will affect seven subsidiaries of the Telefónica group: Telefónica de España, Telefónica Móviles, Telefónica Soluciones, Telefónica Global Solutions, Telefónica Innovación Digital, Telefónica SA and Movistar+. There A minimum of 4,525 departures was set for the entire group, reducing the number of layoffs by 25.6% from the 6,088 that the company planned at the beginning. This implies a reduction of 26.2% of the 17,248 employees of those seven companies. The bulk of the layoffs he was going to concentrate on the matrix and its two main subsidiaries. That is, Telefónica España, Telefónica Móviles and Telefónica Soluciones for which a minimum of 3,765 departures and a maximum of 5,040 were marked. According to pointed Digital EconomyIn these three subsidiaries, 3,995 volunteers have been registered in Telefónica de España, 990 in Móviles and 179 in Solutions, adding up to a total of 5,124 requests to join the ERE. 84 more than the maximum limit provided for them. How many applications are accepted. Of the requests presented for these three subsidiaries, Telefónica has accepted a total of 4,772 exits, which are distributed as follows: 3,649 exits in Telefónica de España, 960 in Mobile and 163 in Solutions, reaching 100% of the objective. That leaves 352 rejected, distributed as follows: 306 in Telefónica de España, 30 in Mobile and 16 in Solutions. It is not the first time that there are more applications for membership than departure places. A similar phenomenon also occurred in the company’s previous ERE. In fact, the unions are asking that priority be given to those employees who were rejected in the previous ERE of 2024reinforcing the voluntary nature of the measure and avoiding forced dismissals. Unions are concerned about the excess. In a statementCCOO insists that the ERE is voluntary and agreed upon, but the excess of applications submitted to the company’s headquarters has them worried. The union insists on analyzing the background that has led so many employees to express their desire to leave the company. “The large number of requests also shows discontent and the need to leave Telefónica, a worrying issue because it indicates a clear dissatisfaction of the staff in the exercise of their professional development,” the union interpreted. What remains to be decided. With the three majority subsidiaries of the Related Companies Agreement already almost closed, it is time to analyze the applications from Telefónica Global Solutions, Telefónica SA, Telefónica Innovación Digital and Movistar+. For these three subsidiaries Global Solutions, Telefónica SA and Telefónica Innovación Digital, 416 volunteers have presented themselves for the 585 planned departures (109 in Global Solutions, 182 in Innovación Digital and 294 in Telefónica SA). This accession leaves these subsidiaries with coverage of 71.11% of the total, forcing the company to look for new candidates and opt for forced dismissals. Something that unions want to avoid at all costs. In other words, while in the group’s headquarters some employees want to leave and cannot, in the smaller subsidiaries they will have to fire employees who want to stay. No news from Movistar+. The Movistar+ TV platform It is the big unknown at the moment, since the numbers of applications to benefit from the ERE, which will affect 175 employees of this division, which represents 20% of its workforce, have not yet been made public. In Xataka | Severance compensation: when there is the right to collect it according to the type of dismissal and how it is calculated Image | Telephone

China has given the green light to buy NVIDIA chips. The problem for your companies is that you will closely monitor each operation

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NVIDIA has hundreds of thousands of H200 chips trapped in limbo. It is one of the company’s most powerful chips and the standard of the companies that are training AI. It is preferred for train the modelsand also the weapon with which The United States sought to leave China out of the game. After movements by the two countries, The US finally approved (25% commission through) that NVIDIA could sell the H200 to Chinese companies. China has taken some time, but finally it seems that it will accept the offer reluctantly and with an ace up its sleeve: DeepSeek. The mess. The H200 issue is a soap opera. In the context of the trade and technology warthe United States played one of the best cards they had: preventing one of their most powerful products from reaching Chinese hands. They also hindered European companies like ASML from selling their most advanced machinery for making semiconductors to companies like Huawei or SMIC. China responded, of course. He attacked with rare earth -that control almost exclusively– and has been showing little by little that they can not only create advanced semiconductors on your own (and pushing old technology to the limit), but they are alive and well in the battle for artificial intelligence. Furthermore, they have developed a robotics industry and other aerospace practically out of nowhere, making a vacuum to Western chips, and that has caught the United States on the wrong foot. China makes a move. Seeing that China was advancing and the US was not getting a cent, they moved tab: They opened the door for NVIDIA to sell its H200s to certain Chinese customers. For each sale, the US took 25%, but it seems that it was something that the Chinese Big-Tech wanted to take on because they need, at least currently, that NVIDIA technology. And the GPU company itself increased production expecting two million orders above normal. The problem is that everything moved very quickly. without China, really, having said anything. Because here it is not just a question of whether the United States lets it sell, but whether China wants its companies to buy. In a tense calm that left requests halted and thousands of H200 in limbo, China has finally made a move. According to Reuters, and as we told a few days agothere are companies that will be able to place orders for the H200. There is a “but”. It is not carte blanche for anyone to place an order. According to WSJ, Chinese authorities have indicated that each purchase must be for a use considered “necessary.” That includes advanced research or development in AI. Because two factors come into play here: On the one hand, it seems that there are Chinese companies that are pressuring the Government to let them access the technology. NVIDIA was allowed to sell the H20 to Chinese customers, but if these customers can now buy the H200 – six times more capable – they want to take advantage of it. But China does not want everyone to throw themselves into the arms of NVIDIA because, precisely, they have been building their own semiconductor industry for five years with SMIC and Huawei in the lead. China’s goal is to stop depending on the US, and if everyone starts buying US chips like crazy, they will not advance on the technological roadmap that the country marked a long time ago. That is to say, it seems that Chinese regulators are going to evaluate which companies can or cannot buy the H200 depending on the use they want to give it. It has been reported that, for example, ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent will be able to import 400,000 H200 chips. But there is a twist to all this. deepseek. China’s quintessential artificial intelligence model is one that has turned both NVIDIA and the United States upside down. The question was how it was possible that, without access to the latest technology, DeepSeek could optimize its AI so much. On the one hand, ingenuity to circumvent the CUDA standard. On the other hand, there are those who are clear that DeepSeek has been trained with NVIDIA cards… smuggled. Accusations of smuggling are nothing new in this commercial and technological war, but precisely, and according to Reutersthe company that joins NVIDIA’s massive H200 order along with ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent is… DeepSeek. Officially, and without restrictions, they will be able to access the H200. “We have given China the argument to launch its own industry and, at the same time, we are giving them access to ours again” – Samuel Bresnick Whiplash. I really liked this concept that Wired uses to define American policy in this regard. They are the ones who started the conflict and their position has been pivoting about tariffsbut with more or less lax measures depending on the moment. It seems clear that, now, they are at a point where they have had to think “if China is going to somehow reach the technology, at least we sell it and earn something along the way.” Samuel Bresnick is a researcher at the Georgetown Center for Security and Technology and comments in Wired that the worst thing you can do is “come and go,” noting that “we have given China the argument to launch its own industry and, at the same time, we once again give them access to ours.” Get your batteries. And meanwhile, there’s Jensen Huang. The CEO of NVIDIA has taken a mass bath in recent days in both China and Taiwan, where he has met with some of the companies that move the semiconductor sector. NVIDIA sat at the same table, TSMCFoxconn or Asus, and Huang came out, half joking, half seriouswith one request: you need wafers and RAM. Regarding the purchase of the H200, China is walking on eggshells, and it makes perfect sense. It is at a point where it does not want to be left behind, and to do so it needs its … Read more

Social networks are a problem for teenagers. Taking them away as the Government wants will also be

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As father of two teenagershe Pedro Sánchez announcement It touches me closely. It has also done so in recent months the conversation and the measures that They have already been activated in other countries. For all parents in a similar situation, and for all those who are going to experience it – if indeed those measures end up being activated—, the conclusion is clear. For those under 16 years of age, the smartphone is two things at the same time. The first, a black hole that devours your attention and that also conditions that basic structure on which they build their own social identity. It is not just that the cell phone is a disturbing dopamine instrument in which they spend hours and hours: it is that it is there where they socialize. In fact, in 2026, leaving a teenager without a cell phone not only prevents them from accessing the entire viral world: it means leaving them in a situation of social ostracism. You make him more or less a pariah. WhatsApp—at least, in Spain—is the main and primary communication channel for adolescents, even more than that of adults. There they organize class work, meet to go out and manage their own group dynamics. If this measure is activated, couldn’t that significantly influence your ability to connect with your friends and acquaintances? Nowadays, relationships for them are already totally hybrid, and removing their access to social networks, no matter how well-intentioned the measure, can have a terrible impact for many of them. Banning social media seems like a good idea until it doesn’t. All this debate has brought back the buzz of dumb phones, dumbphones. They are those mobile phones with aesthetics from the 2000s that recover shell-type designs or even physical keyboards and small screensbut rather than being limited in form, they are limited in substance. The idea is to reduce this dependence on the smartphone and turn that device into something minimal to call, send SMS and little else with the idea of ​​not being glued to the screen all day. The idea is nostalgic, again well-intentioned and even romantic, but impractical. Those dumbphones They are postulated as a tool for digital detoxification, but this movement faces an overwhelming technological and social reality. In the short term the concept may be nice and praiseworthy. In the long term it is, above all, an obstacle. And it is because the modern world has been designed by and for be lived with the smartphone at your side. Not using it means returning to a more uncomfortable and less practical life. On the one hand, that FOMO which can be beneficial (not everything we miss will be important, and probably most of it will not be), but on the other hand, there are real advantages in that total access to today’s world that the mobile phone gives us. We actually don’t even need a stupid cell phone. There have long been ways to limit the use of applications and those dedicated to social networks—the settings of digital well-being from Android or iOS—as well as tone up our mobile so that its home screen does not encourage us to use the mobile, but precisely the opposite. Parents also have access to parental control solutions, and at home, for example, we use Family Link with some success, although recognizing that it is virtually impossible to control everything. Trying to solve the current problem – which there is – with these types of measures is like putting doors on the countryside. It is a technical challenge that is almost impossible to solve and that follow in the wake of the famous pajaporte. Beyond the other gigantic debate that arises from this, that of privacy, here this control of minors seems unfeasible. The solution is probably not in the device or the apps it runs, but in re-educating the kids. The mobile phone should be a functional tool, not an object of constant validation. Parents there all have a difficult role, and I always say that if I had had a cell phone at their age I would probably be as trapped by it as they are, or more so. Do we have a problem with young people, cell phones and social networks? Definitely. Is this measure the solution? It seems hard to believe. I, of course, have serious doubts that it is. Image | Miguel Angel Perez In Xataka | The life of those of us who change our mobile phone almost every week (for work)

the problem is how you want to do it

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Mexico is about to make a profound change in the organization of its work week, reducing the maximum working day from the current 48 hours. 40 hours per week The proposal presented by President Sheinbaum is to bring the working day closer to OECD standards. Currently, Mexico is one of the countries with the longest working day in the world. The problem is that the path to reaching those 40 hours a week is not going to be as simple as it was proposed. in the first proposals and the result is a reform that is born with many nuances, with a calendar that extends until 2030 and that already generates doubts among businessmen and accusations of “simulation” from the opposition. How the working day will be reduced. The opinion circulating in the Constitutional Points and Legislative Studies commissions that is being studied for its approval in the Senateestablishes a progressive reduction of the working day at a rate of two hours less each year until 2030. That is to say: 2026 will end with a 48-hour work week. In 2027 it will be reduced to 46 hours. In 2028 it will be reduced to 44 hours. In 2029 it will go to 42 hours. In 2030 the goal of 40 hours per week applies. This design seeks to give companies room to adapt so that salaries are not affected and productivity adapts progressively. Congress will have 90 days to adjust the Federal Labor Law and align it with the new 40-hour limit, which includes redefining new regulations to regulate overtime and working hours control mechanisms. A single day of rest. One of the first changes that have occurred with respect to President Sheinbaum’s first proposal is that the obligation of two days of rest will not be applied, but rather the current text of the article 123 of the Constitutionwhich states that for every six days of work there must be “at least one day of rest.” In practice, this means that even with a 40-hour week, the ruling does not explicitly establish a work schedule with Saturdays and Sundays off, but rather preserves the minimum of a single day of rest with full salary. Eight hours that will be extra. On the other hand, in the modifications with which the Senate is working, it is considered that the eight hours that are going to be cut from the ordinary day may be covered as overtime. The new framework states that overtime may not exceed 12 hours per week, compared to the current eight, and may be distributed in up to four hours a day for a maximum of four days. Compared to the three hours a day with a limit of three consecutive days that regulates the current Federal Labor Law. That is, the working day is reduced, but the limits for overtime are increased. Of course, when this limit is exceeded, each extra hour must be paid at 200% of the usual salary. Controversy over the hours. This extended extra work design has triggered criticism from the opposition and some specialists, who consider that the reduction in working hours is distorted if a relevant part of those hours ends up returning to the calendar as overtime. The national leader of the Citizen Movement, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, summed it up harshly from your Facebook profile stating: “Alert, Morena wants to make a fool of themselves in reducing the working day,” and maintained that the ruling “does not reduce the working day to 40 hours until 2030 and extends overtime hours to 12 per day, so that the working day does not actually decrease.” Less hours, less rest. For their part, business associations demand that the new regulations establish a reduction in rest timesso that the eight hours a day are effective work. Employers are asking to compact the day to reduce rest times during the day, so that it can be done uninterrupted. The Government has already positioned itself against it since its commitment was not to cut the rights already acquired by workers. 30 million Mexicans will work fewer hours. It is estimated that with the reduction of the working day, some 30 million Mexican employees will work fewer hours, better reconciling their work and family life. Mexico is currently one of the countries with the longest working hours in the world with an annual working day of about 2,124 hours per year, compared to an average of 1,687 hours. in OECD countriesthat is, around 23% more. In Xataka | Airbnb and digital nomads brought dollars to Mexico City: they have also brought the biggest housing crisis in years Image | Unsplash (Clayton Cardinalli, Denise Jans)

Genie 3 is awesome at creating worlds for video games. But the problem with video games was never creating worlds

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Genie 3 has been with us since August and its previous versions since long beforebut this weekend its fame has exploded because Google has taught us how to generate interactive 3D environments simply by writing a phrase. And in seconds, Genie 3 materializes a forest, or a city, or a cave, or whatever you want. And there you can move, or jump, or fly. Technically it is brilliant. However, There is nothing there that makes us think that it is going to bring down video game development.. It will make it easier, in any case, but it does not pose a threat to him. Because The bottleneck of video games has never been generating polygons. The difficult part of creating a good game is not creating a world in which a character can walk or fly. The hard part is creating a world where you, I, and all the other players want to keep walking or flying. That difference between space and experience is what separates a demo like the ones we have seen of Genie 3 – a video to be amazed by for a few seconds – from a video game that we are going to dedicate hours to. Or at least a few minutes. Several video game companies fell around 10% after this announcement of Genie 3, but none as much as Unity, which has fallen 20%. It is a sign that There are Unity investors who don’t understand what makes a company like Unity valuable.. Unity is not Unity because it renders polygons but because of the invisible infrastructure it sells: making the physics the same on all the devices on which its games are played, creating collision systems that do not fail, maintaining debugging that explain why your game crashes in frame 47,293. Genie 3 generates impressive landscapes, but it can’t explain why your character is traversing the ground in that particular corner of the map. From the outside, what is visible seems to be the great work to be done with a game. The graphics, the models, the environments… But any developer knows that create assets is the, quote-heavy, “easy” part. The bad thing is what takes years of accumulated effort: Design clashes with enemies that are complex but fair, calibrate progression curves, write dialogue that serves much more than conveying an idea (such as revealing a character) without stopping the action for it. That is, build complex systems that consolidate the narrative and engage the player, interacting in emergent ways. Genie 3 doesn’t touch any of that. There is one limitation that perfectly sums up the distance between what Genie 3 does and what a video game demands: spatial memory. The generated worlds they tend to forget themselvesand that is why a ladder that you saw a while ago is no longer there, and not because someone has taken it. If you go back, possibly the model regenerates it, perhaps in another place, perhaps with another geometry. In a video game, just the opposite is needed: a persistent state where each action has consequences. A tree you cut down has to stay down. Spatial consistency is the basis of a digital world. And that is not solved by updating the model to make it a little more capable. It is something inherent to generative systems: they live in an eternal present, without real memory of frames previous. This doesn’t mean that Genie 3 is useless. We insist: it is beastly. But for something else. For rapid prototyping, to elevate conceptual art to something interactive. Those types of scenarios. Maybe even for a indie Show the investor what your game will be like without settling for a PowerPoint. And that is valuable. It will change dynamics and lower costs. But It is one more tool in the entire process, not a replacement for any process.. Google is going to solve a problem in the world of video games, but it has the most difficult ones left: making those worlds matter something and making the mechanics satisfactory. May we remember the stories they tell and may the players progress. Ultimately, the soul of a game. That is hardly designed with a prompt. That is designed, iterated, and polished for a long time by people who know about intentionality. Now AI can create the canvas, but that has never been the hardest thing about painting. Featured image | Google In Xataka | What’s happening with Ubisoft: after canceling six games and adjusting its structure, this is the plan of the great French studio

The problem remains that any hotel will photocopy it for you.

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The National Police has announced in a post on X (Twitter) that a new Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) has been implemented of the DNI with new encryption algorithms. Thus, the new system goes from being an RSA 2048 to the so-called Elliptic Curve 384 system. The change is interesting on the one hand. The RSA system is already a classic for data encryption, but it has some disadvantages: it uses large public keys, operations are slower (especially when signing) and it consumes more CPU and bandwidth. With Elliptic Curve 384 bits (ECCusually P-384) allows you to provide a lot of security in small keys. Signatures are much faster, for example, and consume much less CPU and battery, in addition to providing a very high level of security. It is a system with much more future projectionand seems a suitable alternative for the “ID 4.0“of which the National Police speaks. What does this cryptography protect our DNI? These private keys inside the DNIe chip never leave it, and various types of operations are carried out with them: Authentication: prove that you are you, and that it allows you, for example, to connect to the Tax Agency Electronic signature: when we present official procedures or electronic contracts, the DNI “signs” as if it were our physical signature Key exchange: reinforces, for example, the TLS security of secure protocols when browsing if we need that additional layer This new cryptographic system mitigates impersonation even if passwords are stolen in certain scenarios (such as trying to use it for official procedures) because the attacker would need not only “a photo” of the DNI, but the physical DNI, the PIN, and break the ECC 384 encryption, which is practically impossible today. So, the measure is positive, but that is not the problem. The problem is how the DNI is used in Spain. The weakest link These measures are aimed at protecting the data on our ID, but the problem is how this document has become inherently vulnerable because of the way it handles itself in the real world. In fact, the DNI has become a document that we transfer with extraordinary ease. Hotels have been asking for and photocopying our ID for years when checking in.. They cannot and should not do so. The AEPD published a note in June 2025 in which it discussed this issue and concluded that “a copy of the identity document should not be requested.” This document is also usually photocopied or scanned in procedures before a notaryFor example. In this case, the arguments are usually put forward that they have to provide reliable documentation because the money laundering law. The AEPD in fact sanctioned the General Council of Notaries (CGN) for this type of requests last summer of 2025. However and how explained in X cybersecurity expert Román Ramírez, it is another question of “they do not want to commit themselves by attesting that the document you show is the real one. It is a way of “washing your hands,” he explains, because if something happens it is no longer your word against theirs. In fact, we have long recommended that if you have to send a photo of your DNI for any online procedure, it should be done with a watermark. Tools like SafeLayer They facilitate this task but in some cases the entities or companies that request this document object to the shipment with a watermark or do not accept it at all. The curious thing is that the legislation theoretically prevents this type of mass registration of DNIs in cases such as administrative procedures. He Royal Decree 522/2006 of April 28eliminates the obligation to present photocopies of the DNI in the administrative procedures of the General Administration of the State and its dependent organizations. This rule obliges administrations to verify identity data internally, prohibiting requiring physical copies unless expressly opposed by the citizen or specific regulations. This rule does not apply directly to the examples of hotels or notaries, but there the AEPD has also made it clear that the exhibition is enough of the document. No matter what they tell you, do not send your ID as is We should never simply send photos of the ID. Neither by email, nor by WhatsApp, nor through dubious forms, even if the message seems to come from a real company. In fact, if a company asks for your DNI after a theoretical data leak or theft, the best thing we can do is verify it on our own, informing us on its website or calling a legitimate customer service number to find out what is really happening and if this procedure is necessary. The DNI It’s “gold” for scammersbecause it allows: Open fraudulent accounts Request credits or microloans Validate identities in online services Reinforce scams with messages such as “we have your ID, we are from this company or bank.” In fact, this document is a treasure if other data such as contact or telephone number is added to it, because thanks to this information it is possible to carry out much more effective identity theft attacks that can lead to truly dangerous scams and frauds. The DNI has another peculiar problem: it is used as a kind of “universal identifier” in Spain. If it leaks once—if someone steals it or a photo of it ends up in the wrong hands— You can no longer change it like someone changes a password.. You can only renew it, but even then the “old” one is still extremely useful for those phishing attacks. That is why it is important to limit as much as possible where we upload the ID, who has it, and in what format: we should never upload the complete photo unless it is absolutely essential. In Xataka | How to share your ID online safely to avoid dangers

We have turned sadness into a psychiatric disorder. And that is a problem that is devouring us socially.

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When Roland Kuhn discovered the first antidepressant in history, imipramine, the directors of Geygi hesitated to put it on the market because depression was so rare who did not believe it could become a profitable medicine (Healy, 1999). It was the 50s of the 20th century, but it seems like an alternative reality. Today, depression is omnipresent. Only in Spain, the consumption of antidepressants has grown 200% in the last fifteen years and it is nothing more than the reflection of an unstoppable international trend. How is it possible that, in just over half a century, depression has become “so common”? Are we confusing normal sadness with a psychiatric disorder, as many experts say? Are we pathologizing everyday life? I am not going to enter into terminological debates, no matter how interesting and necessary they may be. When talking about “invention of mental illness” or “pathologization of everyday life” we run the risk of minimizing problems as serious as depression and that is something that is not in question. On the contrary, the idea is understand her better to treat her better. As the neurologist Luis Querol said“if we stick to the conventional concept of diseaseanyone who has seen a melancholic depressive SUFFER (…) will recognize that it is an illness.” It is totally true: that is enough for now. Depression is a particularly insidious and destructive disorder. According to the WHOnot only is it the main global cause of disability, but it affects 350 million people and is behind 800,000 deaths each year. Synopsis of an epidemic However, this does not explain why depression has become an epidemic. Above all, because it is not a disease that we “just” discovered. Melancholy is one of those psychiatric disorders so old that they were already diagnosed by Hippocrates and classical Greek medicine. Since the 19th century, the European diagnostic tradition separated most mood disorders from deep melancholy and included this among the diseases that end up consuming the person (such as senile dementia). At the beginning of the 20th century, psychiatric practice already clearly differentiated between endogenous or melancholic depression (which affected between 1 and 2% of patients) and reactive or neurotic depression (much more common) which was a product of stress, loss or pain. (Unsplash) In 1980, in the middle of a deep reputation crisis for psychiatric practiceDSM-III changed the way we think about depression. It moves from an etiopathogenic model (which asked about the cause of the disease) to a semiological one (which, in its claim to atheoretical nature, was based on symptomatology). A careless eye might think that the change was terminological and that “endogenous” was only replaced by “major” and “reactive” by “dysthymia”; but, in reality, the DSM-III expanded the playing field. Melancholia became one of the five subtypes of major depression and, with this, the underlying depressive disorder went from having a prevalence of 2% to a prevalence of up to 17% (Kessler et al., 2005). In recent years, a good number of historians (and activists) have insisted that this change and the commercial pressure of pharmaceutical companies (Horwitz and Wakefield, 2007) have taken us to overdiagnosis current disease (Mojtabai, 2013; Parker, 2007). At its strongest, it is a difficult argument to reject. Especially because it is not that the existence of depression is denied, but rather that it is argued that the failure of epidemiologists, psychiatrists and social scientists to differentiate ‘normal sadness’ and ‘depressive disorder’ is leading to health policies that condemn many people to taking unnecessary medications and carrying the weight of stigma on their backs. Whys, doubts and conspiracy Basically, although it is not usually said clearly, we are talking about ‘iatrogenesis’; That is, suffering or damage to health caused by health professionals themselves. The current opioid crisis in the US It shows that, far from being pure conspiracy, pharmaceutical companies and their balance sheets can create a health problem of colossal dimensions. However, we must not be unfair, nor fall into banal Manichaeism. Although it may seem counterintuitive and paradoxical, many problems only appear when we have the solution them. Without antidepressants or effective behavioral therapies, depression was deep sadness, black sorrow that wells up, black shadow that amazes me. Something that was between us and there was nothing we could do to avoid it. (Jacob Sedlacek/Unsplash) Horwitz and Wakefield say that “tolerance for normal but painful emotions has fallen” in the West. And it may be true. But they forget two fundamental things: that, for the first time in the history of humanity, we can do without them and that it is not a personal problem, the modern world has tended to prioritize productive optimism and has forgotten how to live with sadness. At this point we realize that, if we want to learn to better separate “illness” from “normality”, it is not just a matter of challenging depressive overdiagnosis, but of claim sadness. The problem is that, why would we want claim sadness? And the answer, honestly, may surprise us. Sadness, said Lazarus (1991), promotes personal reflection after the loss. Focus our gaze on ourselves, promote resignation, invite acceptance (Izard, 1993). It allows us to waste time to update “our cognitive structures” (Welling, 2003); that is, to accommodate the loss. That reflective function of sadness It allows us to stop. And weigh actions, review our goals, modify our plans (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Oatley and Johnson-Laird, 1996). It makes us more attentive to detail, more precise. It makes us flee from heuristics and stereotypes (Bodenhausen, Gabriel and Lineberger, 2000; Schwarz, 1998) and distrust first impressions (Schwarz, 2010). Physiological arousal decreases and makes us more prone to slow thinking (Overskeid, 2000). Furthermore, it shapes us as a group. Causes sympathy, empathy and altruism in others (Keltner and Kring, 1998). The complex balance between “normality” and “disease” In 1843, Charles Darwin wrote a letter of condolence to a distant cousin in which he said that “strong affections have always seemed to me the noblest part of man’s character and the … Read more

I have tried Apple Creator Studio and it is clear to me that Adobe has a problem. The key: its price

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Prove Apple Creator Studio It is relatively simple because, in one way or another, the subscription includes applications already known in the creative world. Apple has been smart and has come up with a package that allows access to Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro and Logic Pro. That’s for starters. And finally, more tools like Motion, Compressor, MainStage, and even AI tools in your office suite. In any case, the real value of the subscription is provided, at least for me, by Final Cut Pro and Pixelmator Pro. Although my time as a TikToker is now a thing of the past, I still use photo and video editors for my things and my daily life and, after having been playing around with the apps included in Apple Creator Studio, I can only conclude that Adobe has a problem. One that costs 12.99 euros and that expands throughout the Apple ecosystem. This is not about YoTO. As much as one of the interesting additions to Apple Creator Studio is AI, the truth is that the utilities based on it, which are useful in some cases, take a backseat in practice. The key to the subscription is the price and the comparison with its direct rivals. And for example, a button: monthly price apple creator studio (Includes Final Cut, Pixelmator Pro and Logic Pro, among other apps) 12.99 euros Creative Cloud Pro (includes entire adobe suite) 118.96 euros Adobe photography (includes photoshop and lightroom) 24.19 euros adobe photoshop 26.43 euros adobe premiere 26.43 euros adobe audition 26.43 euros capcut pro 29.99 euros canvas pro 12 euros The separate purchase of all the apps included in Apple Creator Studio would amount to around 800 euros, but it is possible to access them for 12.99 euros per month. Not one of the rival subscriptions, not a single one, is capable of matching what Apple offers in price, features and simplicity. Pixelmator Pro | Image: Xataka In few contexts something else comes to light. The Adobe subscription that includes all its tools costs 119 euros per month. Almost ten times what Apple’s costs. The problem is that this subscription contains apps that not everyone will take advantage of. Anyone who wants to access Photoshop and Premiere has no choice but to go through either Creative Cloud Pro (119 euros per month) or combine photography and video plans whose cost would amount to more than 50 euros. The question is whether the 119 euros per month subscription offers the user 119 euros in value, because probably not. Anyone who wants to edit photos and videos probably has no interest in Audition, InDesign, or Fresco, so by choosing Adobe you will be paying more for tools you don’t use. Apple goes simple. Because Apple knows that this is not about great creators with teams behind them, but from aspiring/small influencerscreators who cook it and eat it. If you already have an iPad (undisputed king of the tablet world) or a Mac (historical favorite in the world of creativity), the integration, familiarity and communication between apps achieved by Apple is unrivaled, and neither is the price. Some of the Apple Creator Studio apps | Image: Xataka The apple firm has not warmed up by offering very niche products, quite the opposite. You have taken the four key tools that you know work, some AI tools for office automation, you have put them in the blender and served them to the user. Will there be cases in which Adobe is more worth it? Possibly at the studio or company level (or if you have a Windows PC, of ​​course), but at the user level and in the Adobe environment, CapCut and Canva in particular are against a rock and a hard place. AI Utilities. At the office automation level, I consider that a lot and at a very extreme level you have to use Pages, Number and Slides for Apple Creator Studio to be worth it to you. Beyond certain utilities such as rescaling a photo, accessing premium templates and generating images (with OpenAI models in the background, by the way), office automation remains more or less the same. It is not the strong point, of course, and if you use these apps for university work you can survive without the subscription without any problem. Here you can see the search by transcript. When searching for “iPhone Air”, Final Cut Pro returns only the parts where that word is mentioned | Image: Xataka Little lifesavers. Where AI does play, or can play, an interesting role is in editing. Apple’s approach is not so much to have the app edit for you, but to assist in the process. There are a couple of features that have caught my attention and I find particularly useful. They are not even half of those included and that puts another reality on the table to which we will return shortly. Search by transcript: If you have followed a script and you are clear about the phrase you are looking for, you can reach the exact moment by simply entering that phrase in the search engine. For a TikTok maybe not, but for a half-hour YouTube video, an interview or a podcast I find it super useful. beat detection: One of the first things they teach you when you edit video is to change shots to the rhythm of the music so that there is coherence and dynamism. Until now, the best guide was the peaks in the audio track. At each peak, plane change. Final Cut Pro is now able to flag those changes to make docking faster and more intuitive. I like it. Montage Creator: I don’t edit on iPad because the day they distributed patience I fell asleep, but having the ability to make quick montages by importing several video clips and an audio track seems quite useful to me, especially for typical reels or TikTok which are just resourceful shots happening to the rhythm of the music. For typical b-roll … Read more

The big problem with lithium ion batteries is their degradation over time. A chemical adjustment can change it

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It doesn’t matter if it’s a mobile phone, a laptop, the Nintendo Switch or a Dyson: as you use it, the battery life will reduce. Yes, lithium ion batteries they have changed the world and for years they have been the absolute standard in consumer electronics, but degradation over time is their endemic evil. While we look for alternatives To this technology, a research team has found a promising solution in a seemingly simple chemical tweak. The advance. The main idea of ​​this research is not to change the main materials of the battery, but simply to add a small amount of an additive: lithium difluorophosphate. Its existence is not new, but this research led by Professor Chunsheng Wang of the University of Maryland reveals how effective it is in stabilizing batteries. Why is it important. Because lithium ion batteries are present everywhere and this modification would extend their useful life using standard, low-cost chemistry. The result of their experiment is that with this additive, batteries can be optimized to maximize power and energy, or to achieve greater useful life and stability. For practical purposes, the study shows how with this adjustment they maintained a significantly higher capacity after hundreds of charge and discharge cycles. As Wang explains.“It is a relatively simple modification of current batteries.” Or what is the same, after having run security tests and long cycles, “it could realistically reach consumers.” Brief notes on the mechanism of a battery. Lithium ion batteries are made up of a negative anode and a positive cathode and have a porous separator between the two. The assembly is immersed in an electrolyte whose mission is to allow lithium ions to move between electrodes during charging and discharging. With the discharge, the anode releases electrons to the electrical circuit (gives electricity to the device) and ions to the electrolyte, meeting again at the cathode. Upon charging, an external source (the charger) reverses the process by “pumping” the ions back to the anode to store the energy in the chemical structure. The degradation of its capacity with use occurs due to the irreversible loss of lithium in secondary chemical reactions and due to mechanical fatigue of the electrodes. Basic diagram of the operation of a lithium ion battery. Walter Davison. Via: Wikimedia In detail. If we delve a little deeper into the previous explanation, the solid electrolyte interface (SEI) appears, a thin layer that forms on the anode during the first charges. In standard batteries, this layer is fragile and breaks down with use, consuming lithium and reducing battery life. Through a simple reaction inspired by organic chemistry, this additive makes the electrolyte more prone to accepting electrons, making degradation more controlled. In short, it helps to form a more robust, elastic and uniform SEI, thus acting as a kind of shield that prevents the electrolyte from reacting parasitically with the electrodes. In addition, it is a flexible chemistry that can be adjusted to be more or less protective and the presence of the additive minimizes the presence of cracks in the cathode. In Xataka | They have found a way to turn tall buildings into batteries. And that makes Benidorm our best asset In Xataka | China sold cheap batteries for years. The problem is that in the meantime no one built an alternative Cover | John Cameron

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