problem

“Young people don’t want to work here.” The solution to the problem was there since 1914

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Henry Ford was not only A bold businessman which founded an automobile empire, was also the cornerstone that Revolutionized cars manufacturing and a strategist of the economy. For this reason, it is not strange that Jim Farley, the current CEO of Ford, found in the founder of his company the inspiration to solve a serious labor problem. As Farley himself told during An interview With the writer Walter Isaacson, Biographer of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, who during the 2019 union negotiationshe visited some brand factories to directly ask his employees. The CEO confessed to Isaacson that the most veteran told him: “Young people do not want to work here. Jim, you pay 17 dollars an hour, and they are very stressed.” As Farley explained during their interview, the workers told their boss that the new workers, most of them temporary workers, worked for eight hours at Amazon or other works, and then making their turn in Ford sleeping just three or four hours to be able to come to the end of the month due to precarious salaries. A decision inspired in 1914 The Ford template was in a complicated situation since the low wages were moving the youngest, who preferred other ways to obtain a sufficient salary to livewhile the average age of Ford’s fixed personnel was increasing and the vacancies that were leaving They were not covered. In this critical context, Farley decided to pull internal newspaper library and look at what Henry Ford himself did more than a century earlier. The legendary founder of Ford doubled in 1914 the daily salary of the operators at $ 5 per day, much more than average at that time. Ford did not upload the salaries of its employees for a sudden goodnessbut with a very clear logic: “I do this because I want my factory workers to buy my cars. If they earn enough money, they will buy my own product,” Henry Ford confessed. According to Farley, applying this measure “was not easy. It was expensive. But I think that is the type of changes we need to implement in our country.” As a result, the company made temporary workers full timewhich allowed them to access higher wages, participation in profits and better medical coverage. In addition, temporary workers managed to reduce the time they should be working for Ford before opting for fixed job. The objective of the measure implemented by the current CEO of Ford is exactly the same as Henry Ford’s in 1914: ensure a stable, well formed template and be able to retain the best talent to improve the productivity of its assembly lines. Not only is money, it’s also training Despite the salary improvements that were signed in Ford, Farley was convinced of the need to have a good professional education for young people. According to published Fortunein the next decade about four million operators will be needed for the manufacturing industry as the current operators are retired. This scenario is not exclusive to the US. In Spain the demand for qualified labor He shoots In sectors like construction or the renewable energies And there is not even enough young people to cover itnor have they necessary training. “In Germany, all the operators of our factories have an apprentice from high school and each position requires about eight years of practical training,” said Farley, who was convinced that this model ensures the generational relief and quality of the staff. In Xataka | If the question is whether having a university degree improves the employment situation, the data leaves us a figure: 5.7% unemployment Images | FordUnspash (THISISENGINEING)

Openai has a problem with the “Codex” brand. These are all the codex that manages

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Openai has just launched GPT-5-Codex. The problem is that I already had three more calls exactly the same. Why is it important. This accumulation of identical names converts the choice of tools into a headache. Each “codex” does something different, but from the outside it seems the same multiplied product. In detail. The “Codex” family has these members: GPT-5-Codexthe newcomer. A model that program for hours without supervision. Change speed according to complexity: fast for simple, slow and meticulous tasks for large projects. Codex Cloudthe veteran. It works as a remote programmer. You send you work and return with code finished after a few minutes of solo work. Codex Clithe local assistant. A terminal utility that helps you from your computer. Competes directly with tools such as Claude Code. Codex (2021). The grandfather of the family. Fed the first versions of Github co -ilotbut it is no longer operational. Between the lines. Openai is trying to fix the linguistic mess. Now writes “GPT-5-codex” with scripts to differentiate it, implicitly admitting that the situation has been lacking. The new model reduces the use of resources into basic tasks by 94%, but multiplies by two the processing time in complex projects. Internally it already supervises more code than human reviewers. The background. Openai seems to have developed these tools without central coordination, something similar to what ended up with the pre- models selectorGPT-5. Each team chose “Codex” independently. And now what. The company prepares access via API for its latest model. Meanwhile, it is time to assume that “Codex” is more a business philosophy than a specific product. The lesson: even the most advanced companies can stumble with something as basic as putting names to their creations. Outstanding image | OpenAI In Xataka | We thought that Chatgpt was used mostly to work. Openai herself has just demonstrated otherwise

An educational plan asked to transform teaching with AI. The problem is that it brought a dozen invented sources

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The story has some irony: a report of more than 400 pages about education, which took a year and a half to be written in a province of Canada, has been uncovered with a crack difficult to repair. According to CBC Newsthe document contains a variety of false sources, from alleged academic articles to a film that never existed. The contradiction is striking: a text designed to guide schools and universities in times of AI, indicated precisely for an error that reminds of the “hallucinations” of the generative models themselves. What has happened exactly. The document in question is titled ‘A VISION FOR THE FUTURE: TRANS Transforming and Modernizing Education‘. It was presented at the end of August as a ten -year roadmap to transform public and university education into Terranova and Labrador. Its launch was accompanied by great expectations: to serve as a guide for the future of the education system in a province that seeks to adapt to the digital age and the challenges of artificial intelligence. What was not expected is that, after its publication, it would be discovered that at least fifteen of its bibliographic references do not exist. We can find titles impossible to locate in academic databases and that, in some cases, seem copied to fictional examples used in style guides. This finding opened an immediate debate about the reliability of the report and on the supervision of the process that led to its writing. Official reactions contained. The Department of Education recognized the existence of a small number of possible errors in the appointments and assured that they will be corrected in the online version. One of the co -author, Karen Goodnough, just pointed out in an email to the aforementioned medium that “references are being investigated and reviewed, without giving interviews with local media. Today, however, access to the report itself has been complicated: the original link in which it was published He no longer shows it and returns an error 404. Only remains visible in a filed copy. Invented appointments. Among the most striking examples is the mention of an alleged 2008 film produced by the National Film Board, entitled ‘Schoolyard Games’. The agency itself confirmed that this work never existed. The reference, however, appears in the report with all the details of a real bibliographic record, as if it were a verifiable source. The track led to discover something even more disturbing: The appointment matches word by word with an entry included in a university style guide used as a model to write bibliographies. That manual explicitly warns that many of its references are fictitious and are designed only as examples. Despite this, some ended up integrated in the final document as if they were authentic. It is striking because the document not only speaks of AI, but also reserves a specific chapter: use it to customize the teaching, support teachers and simplify administrative processes, while driving competencies in AI, responsible practices and protection of privacy. In its “Calls to Transformion” it proposes to modernize the school system and prepare students for a digital environment where these technologies will be part of the day to day. Was the generative used? The finding of false quotes opened another inevitable question: to what extent did artificial intelligence intervene in the preparation of the report? According to CBC News, some teachers fear that these references have been created with a language model, since these types of systems usually generate plausible titles that do not actually exist, but for now there are no conclusive evidence. Images | Steven Binotto | Screen capture In Xataka | Jensen Huang, Bill Gates and other CEO are clear: the AI ​​has opened the door to the three -day work week

Venezuela’s biggest problem is not narcolanchas. Is that the US has reopened Roosevelt Roads after 20 years closed

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The United States has carried out A second attack Against an alleged vessel of Venezuelan drug traffickers in the Caribbean, ordered by Trump, who assured that it was “narcoterrorist” and spread, againan aerial video of the impact that three dead would have left. The problem is that it has not been possible to verify that the boat belonged to a poster or to transport drugs. Actually, the most worrying thing for Venezuela is kilometers from the nation. Second attack. As We countat the beginning of the month there was another attack against a “drug ship” attributed to the Aragua train leaving 11 deathsin a context of American naval reinforcement in the area with eight ships (including destroyers, a cruise, an amphibious assault ship and a nuclear submarine) and a hard line expressed by Marco Rubio of “fly” suspicious vessels. For its part, Nicolás Maduro He has denounced The last attack as an “aggression” in international waters and a pretext to force a regime change, stating that communications with Washington are broken except for migrant repatriation efforts, and rejecting the accusations To lead the “Los Soles poster”, although the United States raised to 50 million dollars the reward for information that leads to its capture. An operational piece. Time will say what is the scope of Washington’s plans, but a track is offered by the old Naval Station Roosevelt Roadsclosed in 2004 and largely delivered to the Government of Puerto Rico. The reason? USA He has reopened it as a node of operations for the campaign against drug trafficking in the Caribbean and to sustain pressure on Maduro’s Venezuelan regime. The arrival of F-35B furtive fightersadded to load flights C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster IIIas well as the presence of MV-22 Osprey and helicopters CH-53K of the IWO Jima Amphibious Readiness Group and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, has converted the current José Aponte de la Torre airport, into CEIBA, into a activity center growing. Air Force personnel have reactivated the operability of the control tower, while grounding equipment They load and download Material to support imminent operations, recovering the logistics pulse of an installation that for years seemed definitely numb. A “city-base.” With a gigantic surface at the eastern end of the main island, Roosevelt Roads combines a track of more than 3 km Able to host practically all the American air inventory with a deep water port suitable for surface ships and submarines, a binomial that singular it in the Caribbean arch. That Air-Mar duality It returns to place it as a support point for regional scope maneuvers and as a fast deployment platform, functions that the installation already performed for decades, now reissued in a context of transnational crime, maritime surveillance and need for expeditionary mobility. Ohio Uss Maryland class ballistic missile submarine at the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, 1997 Growth in the Cold War. They remembered Twz analysts that the idea of ​​placing a large base in East Puerto Rico He was born in 1919when Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then Undersecretary of the Navy, explored the area and tried it strategic for the Caribbean control. Inaugurated in 1943 And baptized in his honor, the base was conceived as cornerstone of the regional defense, with protected anchoring, a major aerodrome and industrial capabilities capable of sustaining a good part of the Atlantic fleet in war conditions. Reorient as Naval Station in 1957his footprint expanded during the Cold War before the perception of Cuba as a threat aligned with the USSR, becoming a large support center for the sixth fleet and hosting the Naval Communications Station of Puerto Rico after attacks that damaged equipment in another location. Over time, the “city-base” came to add More than one hundred miles of interior roads already support operations that go from the Dominican Republic and Haiti to Granada and Panama, a reflection of their centrality in the American military architecture of the hemisphere. Aerial view of the base Slope. Roosevelt Roads’s operational link with Vieques’ shooting polygon marked his reason for being For six decadesbut also fed a social answer sustained by civil victims and environmental damage. He End of bombing In 2003 emptied its main mission and, in full strategic turn after 11-S towards campaigns in the Middle East and Central Asia, the base entered the BRAC closing process. The Marina transferred thousands of homes, schools, profits and a hospital to the government of Puerto Rico, a decision held by those who rejected militarization, but opened An economic hole of great draft in the CEIBA region and adjacent municipalities. Operational reactivation. Despite the formal closure, Roosevelt Roads never disappeared completely from the functional map: in 2017 It served as a platform For the help effort after Hurricane Maria, demonstrating the usefulness of its infrastructure integrated in emergency situations. On August 31, the Large scale return of the Navy to support the training and operations of the 22nd Meu visibly reactivated its logistics chain, its air traffic and its role as a “link” of a reinforced anti -drug architecture, with multiplier effects on other facilities of the island that operate in tandem. The debate in Puerto Rico. While a defense official rules out, for now, permanent reopening, the drive grows on the island to return to Roosevelt Roads A stable status. Senate resolution 286, driven by senators Nitza Morán Trinidad and Carmelo Ríos Santiago, proposes to audit the state of the old base and study its eventual reallocation for security purposes National under the army. The argument is based on A double promise: contribute to the defense of the Caribbean and the Americas and, at the same time, reactivate an economic engine that for decades irrigated employment, services and investment in CEIBA and surroundings. The memory of the social costs associated with Vieques lives today with the evidence that the installation, properly fit into concrete missions and with strict environmental minimums, can generate regional activity and resilience. Possible scenarios. Without a defined temporal horizon (or “official”) for the Caribbean Operation of Washingtonthe … Read more

McDonald’s has a problem in Japan with the dolls of ‘One Piece’ and ‘Pokémon’ of the Happy Meal: they sell too much

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McDonald’s is running in Japan with a reception of such caliber for his Happy Meals that he is being forced to cancel promotions early. First with letters from ‘Pokémon‘And then with dolls from ‘One Piece’the traditional gifts of their children’s menus are being grass of collectors that are generating A crisis not only foodbut also of image. What happened. This last August McDonald’s He has been forced to cancel a promotion: They gave cards Pokémon with his Happy Meal, but franchise collectors were presented at restaurants to buy large amounts of menus, interested in the cards and with the intention of reselling them, as collected a company statement. Then they got rid of food, which led to a “massive food waste”, only three days after the start of the campaign, on August 11. Some solutions. To solve the problem, before the definitive cancellation of the promotion, McDonald’s established a maximum of purchases per person, but the collectors raffled the ban on tail several times. The hamburger chain also asked the country’s online sale platforms that they did not accept, or at least they will limit the Pokémon cards to carry the McDonald’s seal. None of that was enough and forced the chain to suspend the promotion in record time. One Piece, again. The phenomenon It was repeatedin a very short time, with ‘One Piece’. The popular anime series was going to be subject to the next promotion of Happy Meal, but seeing what happened with Pokémon, the chain has momentarily canceled the campaign, which would have started on August 29. McDonald’s is facing a dilemma: to make toys attractive enough to sell hamburgers, but not so much to generate problems. It is not the first time. Pokémon may seem almost isolated (after all, according to experts, We talk about the object collectable more expensive in the world. But it is not the first time that this happens to McDonalds, which has already been seen in similar situations on other occasions: the K-Pop group BTSFor example, launched a menu in 2021 in 50 different countries. In some as Indonesia there were problems of minor stocks and disturbances. In 2015, on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Independence of Singapore, McDonald’s launched some hello kitty dolls in limited edition, dressed in typical costumes of the country, which caused very long queues and existent problems. Finally, and leaving Asia, in the United States in 2022 McDonald’s announced a menu In collaboration with the urban clothing brand Cactus Plant Flea Marketwith four characters dressed in firm’s clothes. On the same day of the launch the menu was already exhausted. China is guilty (says Japan). There is another example of frustrated promotions that has a lot to do with it: in May of this year, McDonald’s canceled a Happy Meal promotion where they included dolls from the ‘Chikawa’ manga series. They disappeared in hours And the chain detected that it could be due to the posterior resale among collectors, in fact also observed that it was organized purchase networks. According to Some clients came to comment on social networksthey were Chinese resellers who used the orders via mobile to exceed the maximum of four orders per person that allowed McDonald’s. Many of the Happy Meals items later appeared, in effect, on China’s sale and collecting websites. Header | McDonald’s In Xataka | ‘Pokémon TGC Pocket’ is breaking it and rightly: Pokémon’s card game is thought to the millimeter

Now you know how to solve the biggest ship problem

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On August 26, Starship completed his tenth test flight Ameriting at a precise point of the Indian Ocean. The images emitted live Spacex were impressive: the largest ship in the world was successfully stopped over water after an aggressive re -entry maneuver. However, something else caught attention: A worrying orange strip that walked most of the fuselage. Three small rusty tiles. Shortly after the flight, Elon Musk clarified in his X profile that the orange tone was oxide from test metal tiles on the side of the ship. But it has been Bill Gerstenmaier, a NASA ex -director veteran who works as head of construction and flight reliability of Spacex, who has given all the details. The thermal shield It is still the greenest part of Starship. The current design consists of thousands of ceramic tiles, most in hexagonal form, glued one next to the other without leaving holes. On flight 10 (and on the three previous failed flights, Actually) Spacex placed three metal tiles on the ship to check If they contributed adequate thermal controlsince they would be easier to manufacture and more durable than the ceramics. It turns out that they are not. All that oxide It was created by those three small metal tiles. A failed, but very useful experiment. As you collect Ars TechnicaGerstenmaier told a conference that metal tiles did not work very well. They oxidized extremely fast with atmospheric oxygen. Although metal tiles failed in their target, the experiment was very useful for data collection. He showed that ceramic tiles are still the option to follow for the thermal shield, and helped Spacex rule out an alternative development route without putting the ship at risk, which had enough protection underneath. The interesting thing was the white spots. Although the orange color was the most striking, the most valuable fact for Spacex engineers was in other areas of the thermal shield: white spots that appeared near the nose and other parts of the ship. Musk had already advanced that these spots were due to Isolation of the areas where Spacex had removed tiles deliberately To test Starship’s limits. Gerstenmaier confirmed that they were the remains of an ablative material, derived from that used in Dragon capsules, which in Starship is found everywhere under the tiles. “What this shows us is that the heat is entering between the tiles, it sneaks below, and this ablative structure is consumed. So we learned that we need to seal the tiles.” The solution: seal every tile. Now the main challenge of Starship’s thermal shield is not that tiles detach (a problem that seems solved, since almost all remained in place), but to prevent the incandescent plasma of the reentry from filtering through the tiny together between them. For Spacex, that has been the great learning of flight 10. True to its style of breaking things and iterates fast, the company already has a solution that will test on the next flight. And, how could it be otherwise, they have put a peculiar name: “Crunch Wrap”. It is not a filling like the one used by the space ferry; It is a sealing wrapping around each tile. “It’s like a gift paper that wraps every tile,” Gerstenmaier described. “These tiles are subject mechanically, a robot fits them. When we push the tile, this small gift paper is based around the sides of each one, and then we cut it on the surface.” Back to the ring. After three failed flights, flight 10 has shown that the Starship is again on track. Spacex put the ship to the limit and it responded as planned, threatening just 3 meters from its target. The oxide was the visual test of a discarded path, but what has been learned about the heat leaks paid the way for the next great improvement, bringing a little more closer to make a totally reusable rocket. The plan for flight 11, which could take place in October judging by recent tests in Starbase, is to apply this technique throughout the thermal shield. “We are going to put ‘Crunch Wrap’ everywhere and see if we can get a better seal and performance of the tiles,” Gerstenmaier said. Image | Spacex In Xataka | It was hired by Spacex at age 14. Now, with 16, the young genius has turned his back on Elon Musk to go to Wall Street

“The problem is not the price, it is that Chinese cars are really better”

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The founder of Rivian, RJ Scaringe, has launched a warning that can be uncomfortable for the western car industry, especially for how the panorama is in terms of The conquest of Chinese manufacturers. And it is that for the CEO of Rivian, Chinese manufacturers not only compete in price, but have developed superior technology. In his recent statements, the US executive makes it clear that obsessing with the cost of Chinese electric vehicles is a strategic error that can cost expensive long -term. Chinese technological advantage. During An interview In the podcast plugged-in, Scaringe went straight to the grain: “The alarming, if you look at the entire industry, is that technology is much better.” The CEO does not only refer to lower prices, but to cars that technically exceed the majority of western manufacturers. “They are technically very advanced and more advanced vehicles than most western manufacturers, I would say that Tesla and Rivian are exceptions,” declared Later in the Everything Electric podcast. More than Smartphones on wheels. While Western brands have been promising to convert their cars into “smartphones on wheels”, China takes time that has achieved it. And today, Chinese vehicles incorporate powerful infotainment systems with voice assistants and even karaoke, with architectures similar to those we commonly see in the consumer electronics sector and frequent software updates. An outstanding example is the Xiaomi Su7that Scaringe described as “an impressively well done vehicle”, especially notable for being the first car of the Chinese technological giant, who have also contributed their great software experience. The cost is not the background issue. “There are two things that will happen: or we will put tariffs that match the cost, or we will allow Chinese manufacturers to build in the United States. But in both cases, the cost will be essentially the same,” explained Scaringe “There is nothing magical when disarming it that allows these really impressive cost structures. There is nothing secret and magical,” said the manager. Chinese advantage comes from government subsidieslower labor costs and a lower capital cost. The reality of supply chains. The Rivian CEO also addresses a crucial point that tariffs cannot resolve: the dependence on critical materials. “We don’t have the same geological advantages we had in the fossil fuel area,” pointed outexplaining that your company needs nickel for batteries, but the greatest world production is in Indonesia, not in the United States. The real challenge is about to arrive. Scaringe admits that when commercial barriers are reduced or Chinese manufacturers establish plants in the West, competition will be decided by technology, not for the price. “They will win in technology,” he warns. “If I were a current manufacturer, I would worry less about the cost and focus more on cars are really better,” says the manager. The founder of Rivian has not been the only one to recognize this point, since Ford He also recognized That China has “much higher vehicle technology” and is developing new platforms specifically to compete. In Europe, a multitude of Chinese brands begin to establish themselves, with Byd as main flag bearer. Tariffs are the weapon of the European Union to stop that mismatch in competition, but it will be difficult. Cover image | Patrick T. Fallon and Rivian In Xataka | Toyota has been using a megaprensa for 90 years to make cars. They have transported half planet to continue using it

Someone forgot a bag of cheetos in the largest cave chamber in the US. The problem is chaos to the ecosystem that comes after

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That humans can generate The biggest chaos in ecosystems that surround us I think it is out of any doubt. However, already a difference from other animals, no matter how large the error is, We are able to repeat it In a short time. Therefore, what happened in one of the most fascinating areas in the United States is a good example. Even if it is A simple check of Cheetos. The importance of Carlsbad’s caverns. Located in the state of New Mexico, it is about A set of more than 119 underground cavesof great geological and ecological importance. Formed by the acid water action that dissolved the limestone over millions of years, these caverns stand out for their vast network of passages and cameras, including the famous “great room”, one of the largest underground cameras in the world. These unique geological formations include impressive stalactites, stalagmites and columns, hence it is of great scientific interest to study the processes of training of caves and the geological history of the southwest of the United States. However, this enclave named World Heritage by UNESCO has also become a must of mass tourism. A bag. As The National Parks Service explained in an article (NPS), what happened should make all future tourists think after a distracted visitor left a bag of Cheetos in the depths of the Carlsbad caverns. Apparently, the snack dropped into the historic great room, the largest cave chamber by volume in North America, the same one that can only be accessed by walking around an hour underground. A pump to the ecosystem. Once there, the bag can rot in the wells of the wet cave. In other words, those small “cheese” snacks stranded in the cave can make a small expansive wave through the local ecosystem. “The processed corn, softened by the moisture of the cave, formed the perfect environment to house microbial life and fungi. The crickets, mites, spiders and flies of the cave are soon organized in a temporary food network, dispersing the nutrients to the cave and the surrounding formations. The mold extends to the nearby surfaces, gives fruit, dies and smells bad. Count the NPS In a publication. A much bigger problem. In the same article it is denounced that “at the scale of the human perspective, a spilled snack bag may seem trivial, but for the life of the cave the world can change,” they emphasize. “Great or small, we all leave an impact wherever we go. Let’s all leave the world in a better place than we find,” adds the center. Apparently, the rangers had to perform an arduous follow -up task to carefully eliminate any rest of the garbage and mold from the surface of the cave, hoping to avoid any lasting impact on the cave. Garbage and natural environments. One of the great scourges of The National Parks of the United States It has to do with what visitors “bring” and leave when they leave. That garbage throws chilling numbers: more than 300 million people visit the national parks every year, generating almost 70 million tons of garbage. And of all enclaves, the caves take the worst part. The reason? They are more vulnerable because they are isolated from the outside world and house a rich variety of highly adapted, endemic and sensitive organisms. If a new seasoning is added to the equation, call cheetos or similar ones, the result can radically alter the balance of biodiversity. The example of the Lascaux cave. Possibly, it is the most famous case and the clearest example of how we are capable of alter an environment of this type. Discovered in France in 1940, they immediately became famous for their cave paintings dating from 17,000 years ago, one of the best samples of prehistoric art. However, after opening to the public in 1948, mass visits began to negatively affect the delicate microclimate of the cave. Apparently carbon dioxide exhaled by visitors, along with moisture and changes in temperature, began to cause visible damage to paintings, such as the appearance of fungi and algae on the walls. These changes put at risk the conservation of paintings, some of the most important in humanity. Closed forever. Faced with this deterioration, in 1963 the French authorities made the decision of Close the Lascaux cave to the public To protect the paintings. Since then, only a very limited number of scientists and conservation experts have had access to it. In fact, to allow the public to continue appreciating the art of Lascaux, a replica known as Lascaux II was created, which reproduces the main cameras and paintings of the original cave. This measure, protecting the historical value of the caves with steel doors and security cameras, has allowed to preserve the artistic heritage of Lascaux while maintaining its educational and cultural value. Maybe we should do the same with all caves with historical value. Although before it should be reviewed that no one has left a snack. A version of this article is PUblicó in 2024 Image | Ken LundCarlsbad Caverns National Park In Xataka | We have been recycling the garbage we produce. Experts say it has not served at all In Xataka | In the US, a woman used an AirTag to check if recycling served something there. It turned out that it did not work

The problem is that almost everything is in the hands of Indonesia and China

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“Making An American Nickel Costs More than to Nickel,” the United States Mint recently admitted. Although the phrase looks like a tongue twenty, what is happening is that manufacturing a five cents – known in English like Nickel – is already more expensive than its own nominal value. And yet the international price of metal has collapsed, According to Financial Times. The nickel lives its most disconcerting moment. It is a key material to make batteries, stainless steel, turbines, missiles and satellites, so demand should have driven prices. However, the offer has expanded so fast that the quotes have sunk. In a report for the Financial Times They have pointed out That the price in the London metal bag (LME) is around $ 15,000 a ton, less than a third of what was reached in 2022. At the same time, production in referent countries, such as Australia or New Caledonia, was strongly reduced. BHP, the Australian giant, announced that it is reviewing the sale of its nickel assets in Western Australia. Even Tsingshan, one of the largest Chinese operators, suspended stainless steel lines to adjust the offer. A new emerging superpower. In this context, Indonesia emerges as a great winner. After prohibiting the export of mineral in 2020, he forced the installation of foundations and attracted billions of Chinese investment. Today controls about 60–65% of global production, According to Bloomberg. In the same medium They have pointed out That the jump is so great that, for the first time in history, Nickel export revenues exceeded those of coal: 16.5 billion dollars compared to 14,400 million in the first semester of 2025. The problems that lurk to the market. The Indonesian domain raises strategic vulnerability for the West, which considers the nickel a critical mineral. The Financial Times Talk about a “Nickel OPEC” Controlled by Yakarta and Beijing. At the same time, western mines become unfeasible: Australia and Nueva Caledonia already reduce operations and Anglo American seeks to sell assets in Brazil. The operation with MMG, backed by Chinese capital, is being investigated by the Brazilian competition authority after the Turkish Corex Holding complaint, How have they explained in another FT report. The result is an unbalanced map: Indonesia and China concentrate low cost capacity, while in the West the large mining companies are replicated or directly leave the business. There is an even greater cost. Indonesia’s competitive advantage rests on coal. Four large companies in the sector issued 15.3 million tons of greenhouse gases, and those emissions could double around 2028, according to IEEFA calculations and create collected by The Diplomat. This model collides with the arrival of regulations such as the EU carbon border adjustment mechanism, which will penalize materials with great carbon footprint. To this is added social risk: A report cited by The Guardian alert that a large part of the farms of transition minerals overlap with indigenous territories or fragile ecosystems, with accusations of deforestation, labor abuses and conflicts with local communities. And the technological risk is added. The rise of lithium-cherrophosphate (LFP) batteries, that do not require nickelcan cut the planned demand. Although they have less energy density, these batteries are cheaper and more sustainable, and are gaining space in electric vehicles. West, between the sword and the wall. The great Western miners face a dilemma. On the one hand, high costs and social pressures: the Resolution Copper project in Arizona, promoted by Rio Tinto and BHP, It has been delayed by the opposition for years of the Apache tribe of San Carlos. On the other hand, the strategic need to reinforce local supply chains. Washington has described nickel as critical metal, but its reserves are limited. Mining companies do not want to lose their best client: China. In 2024, 57% of Rio Tinto’s income came from sales to China, compared to only 16.7% in the United States, According to data cited in Xataka. The export controls of minerals imposed by Donald Trump’s government – and Beijing’s response with restrictions on Galio, Germanio, Scandio or Disposio – show how metal trade has become a geopolitical weapon. China: The pan by the handle. If Indonesia puts resources, China puts money and knowledge. The clearest example is Gem, a Chinese producer of battery materials that in the first half of 2025 doubled its nickel production in Indonesia up to 43,977 tons, reaching a record benefit of almost 800 million yuan, According to Bloomberg. In addition, Gem signed a 1,420 million dollar agreement with the Indonesian Sovereign Danantara fund to build a battery grade nickel plant. China also ensures its position outside Asia. In Africa, As we have explained in Xatakahas invested more than 10,000 million dollars in cobalt, copper and nickel mines, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, and accompanies those investments with infrastructure, bilateral agreements and, even, the export of armament and private security to protect mining interests. In macro terms, China is becoming what some call the first “electrostate“. As my partner Matías has pointed outunder the plan Made in China 2025 It has managed to integrate the entire clean technologies supply chain: solar panels, batteries and electric cars. The country already generates more than a quarter of its electricity with renewables and de facto controls the global prices of electrification technologies. Forecasts: what comes on the horizon. Nickel’s future seems written at several speeds. Indonesia will continue to consolidate its role as an epicenter of the global offer. The prohibition of exporting mineral, added to the avalanche of Chinese capital, has turned the country into the great refining of the world and the Yakarta government wants to take another step: not to settle for producing nickel nicing or chemicals, but also becoming a manufacturer of batteries and electric vehicles, How Financial Times points out. In parallel, the demand for stainless steel will continue to absorb most of the nickel, but the battery market is emerging as the great engine of change in this decade. The problem is that this forecast … Read more

The US has found a new way to torpedo China. The problem is that it takes ahead to South Korea

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The truce is over. The US does not want integrated circuit manufacturing equipment that resort to US technologies and innovations They arrive in China. Not even chips factories that They do not belong to Chinese companies. In 2022 the US Department of Commerce granted a temporary exemption to several manufacturers of foreign semicondators who have plants in China so that they could equip their facilities with the machines they needed. But this permissive period has expired. From now on any chips manufacturer who has plants in China will have to request a license from the US Commerce Department to be able to install in its factories machines with US components or technologies. Intel has sold Your Dalian plant (China), so this measure no longer affects it. However, there are two South Korean companies of enormous relevance in the semiconductor industry whose business can be deeply conditioned by the restrictions imposed by the US: Samsung and SK Hynix. The Department of Commerce is not reassuring These two South Korean companies need to send new manufacturing machines of integrated circuits to their China plants to protect their competitiveness, and without the approval of the US administration they cannot do so. Lithography equipment that manufactures asml They incorporate American technologies (The ultraviolet light source of UVE and UVP machines is produced by the company of Californian origin Cymer, which is now integrated into ASML). And presumably the lithographic equipment of Tokyo Electron, Nikon and Canon also, which gives the US the power to control which countries can use this technology. The Commerce Department has noticed that it will not grant licenses that pursue expand the production capacity in China or update the existing technology The Department of Commerce has anticipated which will deliver the necessary licenses so that foreign chip manufacturers can continue to operate their China plants. The restrictions will begin in 120 days, so these companies They still have some margin to react. However, in its statement the Department of Commerce He has also warned that will not grant licenses that pursue expand production capacity in China or update existing technology. For Samsung and SK Hynix this limitation represents a serious problem. Samsung produces Nand Flash chips in Xian, and SK Hynix manufactures DRAM integrated circuits in Wuxi and Nand Flash in Dalian. Equipating these plants with avant -garde equipment can make a difference in your business. What the US Government pursues with this measure is to minimize the risk that the vanguard wafer lithography and wafering equipment that manufactures ASML, Apply Materials or Tokyo Electron Caigan in the hands of China. In addition, these restrictions make it difficult for the avant -garde chips to produce Samsung and SK Hynix They arrive at China’s distribution chain. A spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce of China has declared that “Beijing opposes this US measure and will take the necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of companies.” On the other hand, the South Korean government is negotiating with its American counterpart to protect the business of its companies in China. Image | ASML More information | Reuters | Nikkei Asia In Xataka | China is very clear about what you should do to win the Chips War to the US: resort to their technology geniuses

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