record

when Albacete set the record for a capital at -24ºC

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Europe has started 2026 with cold. Very cold. But even the icy winds that have hit part of the continent and the peninsula these days, sinking the thermometer below 15 ºC, they pale when compared to what Castilla-La Mancha experienced in the early stages of 1971. That year left a meteorological curiosity in Albacete, a record that has remained unbeatable since then in the historical records of the Aemet: the coldest temperature ever remembered in a provincial capital, neither more nor less than -24 degrees. The most curious thing is that not even that value (more typical of other Siberian latitudes) marks the record of cold registered by the agency in Spain. “Extreme values”. The Aemet not only helps us know the weather in the ‘future’, to know if this week it is going to rain or be sunny, we should dust off the winter scarves and gloves or we can give the anoraks a break. The agency also allows us to know what the weather was like in our cities 10, 30, 50 years ago… even more, almost a century ago, something that is possible thanks to its series of “absolute extreme values”. The service (available online) details the record measurements associated with each weather station since 1920. What does that mean? That we can know the record values ​​of rain, temperatures, snowfall or gusts of wind captured by each of the stations managed by Aemet in the 50 provinces of Spain, in addition to the cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Their data must be handled with some caution (especially in comparisons) because they are subject to important handicaps. Aemet does not clarify, for example, whether all the sensors have been operational for the same amount of time or how long each one has been working. Another key fact is that within the same region (or even locality) there may be thermal differences or significant rainfall. It all depends on where the sensor is installed. A station located in a port area may collect very different values ​​than another located within the same municipal area but in the heart of the urban area or in a higher area, such as an airport. In fact, it is not strange that Aemet has sensors that collect information near the terminals. provincial capital lowest temperature Date Madrid -15.2ºC 01/16/1945 Barcelona -10ºC 02/11/1956 Valencia -7.2ºC 02/11/1956 Saragossa -11.4ºC 02/05/1963 Seville -5.5ºC 02/12/1956 Malaga -3.8ºC 02/04/1954 Murcia -7.5ºC 01/16/1985 Palma de Mallorca -10ºC 02/12/1956 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 6.5ºC 03/27/1954 Alicante -4.6ºC 02/12/1956 Bilbao -8.6ºC 02/03/1963 Cordova -8.2ºC 01/28/2005 Valladolid -18.8ºC 01/03/1971 Victoria -21ºC 12/25/1962 To Coruña -4.8ºC 01/07/1985 Grenade -14.2ºC 01/16/1987 Oviedo -6ºC 01/07/1985 Santa Cruz de Tenerife 8.1ºC 02/22/1926 Pamplona -16.2ºC 01/12/1985 Almeria 0.1ºC 01/27/2005 San Sebastian -12.1ºC 02/03/1956 Burgos -22ºC 01/03/1971 Albacete -24ºC 01/03/1971 Santander -5.4ºC 01/21/1957 Castellón de la Plana -7.3ºC 02/11/1956 Logrono -11.6ºC 12/25/1962 Badajoz -7.2ºC 01/28/2005 Salamanca -20ºC 02/05/1963 Huelva -5.8ºC 02/17/1938 Lleida -15.4ºC 01/02/1971 Tarragona (Reus Airport) -8ºC 02/11/1983 Lion -17.4ºC 01/13/1945 Jaen -8ºC 02/11/1956 Cadiz -1ºC 02/11/1956 Ourense -8.6ºC 12/25/2001 Girona -13ºC 01/09/1985 Lugo -10ºC 12/23/2005 Caceres -5.8ºC 02/11/1956 Guadalaraja -11ºC 01/28/1952 Melilla 0.4ºC 01/27/2005 Toledo -14.4ºC 01/18/1945 Ceuta -0.4ºC 01/05/1941 Pontevedra -5.5ºC 12/10/1922 Palencia -14.8ºC 01/04/1971 Royal City -13.8ºC 01/03/1971 zamora -13.4ºC 01/03/1972 Avila -16ºC 01/15/1985 Huesca -13.2ºC 02/12/1956 Basin -17.8ºC 01/03/1971 Segovia -17ºC 01/06/1938 Soria -15ºC 12/17/1963 Teruel -21ºC 01/12/2021 One piece of information: -24ºC. Taking into account the above, the historical record of the Aemet leaves a curious fact, one that I remembered recently in X Vicente Aupí, popularizer and astrophotographer: on January 3, 1971 Albacete the thermometers dropped neither more nor less than -24º. The data was obtained at the air base and is interesting for several reasons. Not only is it the lowest value recorded in the city since records began, it is also the coldest confirmed in a provincial capital. Freezer records. The next lowest value among the provincial capitals was experienced by Burgos that same day (January 3, 1971), when the mercury dropped to -22. Vitoria and Teruel follow in the ranking. The first recorded -21 ºC on Christmas Day 1962, the second endured the same temperature on January 12, 2021. These are surprisingly low data, although in recent decades Aemet has reported a few measurements below -15º. Meteorological bulletin of January 3, 1971, when the station located in Albacete recorded a minimum of -24 ºC, a record value among the provincial capitals of Spain. Extract from the meteorological bulletin of December 17, 1963, when a minimum of -30 ºC was recorded at the Calamocha-VOR observatory station, province of Teruel. to stay at home. The most striking thing about January 3, 1971 is that the thermometer not only collapsed in Albacete. Another interesting resource that Aemet offers is the newspaper archive of the ‘Meteorological Bulletin’a part edited by the agency’s predecessors between March 1893 and well into the 21st century. On its website today we can consult practically all of its digitized issues from 1894 to 2007. Among them is the census of that Sunday, January 3, 1971. And what does it tell us? That day the people of Albacete were not the only ones who faced a wave of polar cold. Although the city took the cake, in Burgos they scored -22º, in Valladolid, Teruel and Daroca -19º and -18º in Cuenca or La Molina. Some of these values ​​were also obtained at aerodromes, just as happened in Albacete, where that day the thermometers they did not go beyond -6º. In all the provincial capitals of Spain, that day the mercury did not rise above 10 ºC, the maximum recorded in Almería, Cádiz and Castellón. The coldest day? Yes. And no. The figure for Albacete is a record among provincial capitals, but in Spain we have endured even colder days. At the end of 1963, the residents of a small town in Teruel saw how the mercury dropped until it reaches -30 ºC. That is the surprising minimum temperature recorded on December 17 of that year … Read more

In a chaotic 2025 of cancellations and delays, Renfe does have good news: record number of travelers

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Renfe has had one of its most chaotic years in 2025. The company has had to face more competition than ever, it has suffered delays due to its own trains and infrastructure, it has seen Talgo trains crack or how fires blocked its most profitable line. And, despite everything, he has achieved a new record. 37.3 million. They are the people who have traveled on AVE and long-distance Renfe trains. And in 2025 the company has managed to move more people than ever on these trains. The figure is 6% higher than that achieved a year ago when it added 35.2 million trips. According to data provided by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, the bulk of these trips are made up of the AVE, which has set a new record with 21.5 million trips. That’s a million more travelers than last year. Although AVLO is the company that has had the best performance, growing from 4.55 million in 2024 to 6.2 million travelers in 2025. Where? According to Transport, the corridor that continues to receive the most passengers is the Madrid-Barcelona route ending in Figueres. In total, Renfe has attracted 8.1 million passengers to this corridor. The figure is almost identical to last year’s. The Levante and Mediterranean corridor (which connects Madrid with the Valencian Community and Murcia) is where the impact on passenger growth has been felt most. Here, trips have increased from 5.5 million to 7.7 million. Andalusia has also experienced growth from 6.9 million travelers to 7.2 million. Although the corridor that has added the most passengers is the Madrid-Castilla y León-Galicia one. Adding its routes and the connection with Asturias has gone from 2.5 million travelers in 2024 to 4.6 million. Doubts. What Renfe leaves up in the air is how much passenger volume has been lost on other lines. In his statement It is not explained, for example, how many passengers there are in the Extremadura corridor. And if the data is well transmitted, there are lines that have had to lose the number of passengers. The text mentions, as we said, an increase of 2.1 million passengers in the sum of high-speed and long-distance lines. However, there is talk of increases of 2.2 million passengers in the Mediterranean corridor, 2.1 million in the northwest area and 300,000 more passengers in Andalusia, without mentioning the inevitable drops in passengers on other lines. A chaotic year. Although it is the year in which it has moved the most passengers, 2025 has been a chaotic year for Renfe, marked by the following milestones: And some good things. In addition to increasing the number of travelers, 2025 has also had some good things for Renfe. To begin with, it has been confirmation that the train can fight the plane as long as high-speed trains work with guarantee. And the fact is that Madrid-Galicia has made the airlines retreat. The company, Renfe points out, continues to be the most used in all corridors (although it is not specified that it is the one that works the most frequencies) and its travelers will be able to benefit from the new flat rate ticket of 60 euros to take all medium and long distance trains and that is pending the addition, potentially, of municipal or regional public transport. Furthermore, and although this is not so good for Renfe but for the user, travelers we should be able to receive refunds partial or total delays of more than 15 minutes this year. Photo | Xataka In Xataka | Renfe is obliged to compensate for delays of more than 15 minutes starting January 1. The Government wants to prevent it

Spotify killed the record and the industry pivoted to concerts. Netflix killed cinema and the industry was left with a “space crisis”

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Never in history have we seen so many movies: the streaming It allows us to see several a week but, nevertheless, the movie theaters are empty. Literally emptier than ever in decades. We consume audiovisual content en masse, but not where we historically enjoyed it. Meanwhile, concerts have become the leisure alternative par excellence. Why do we pay hundreds of euros to go to a stadium with 50,000 other people, but not fifteen to see a blockbuster on the big screen? The answer lies in how we value physical space in the experience economy. Some figures. Let’s look at some box office figures: the summer of 2025, traditionally the most lucrative season in the industry, has been the most disastrous since 1981 adjusted for inflation. There is no dream of returning to pre-COVID figures: in October 2025 in the US, only 445 million dollars were raised, less than half of last October before the pandemicwhich exceeded one billion. The average viewer attended only 2.31 times to theaters in 2024, a drop of 33% compared to the 3.5 annual visits in 2019. In Spain, theThe 2025 data is equally dark: The total box office falls by 14% (almost 30 million less), and Spanish cinema itself declines by 2.5-3%. The author of this last study, Pau Brunet, expressly says that “the Hollywood fantasy is crumbling.” And the erosion is constant: Spain had more than 105 million viewers in 2019, which represents a loss of a third of its volume in five years: we are now at 71 million. Windows that don’t perform. The problem is so multifactorial that it is ridiculous to focus only on the drop in the box office to explain it. For example, we have the collapse of display windows: The pre-pandemic standard was 90-120 days in theaters, three or four weeks later in digital sales and then home formats and streaming. After the pandemic, these windows were reduced by more than 60%, and although they now vary depending on the studio, Universal and Warner leave a 45-day window for their most sought-after productions (it can be reduced to 17 days), with the exception of Disney, which operates them for 60 days. In any case, the rest of the windows have been shortened or disappeared, and it is common to watch a movie in streaming just a month and a half after its release in theaters. It is one of the main reasons why people have left the theaters: even blockbusters like ‘Wicked’ can be seen streaming just 40 days after their release in theaters. Even China. A few years ago, China was the market that seemed destined to save Hollywood accountsbut experienced its own collapse in 2024: the box office fell 23% to 42.5 billion yen ($5.8 billion), returning to figures from a decade ago. Attendance fell by more than 200 million viewers compared to ten years ago. One of the main reasons is the degradation of the theatrical experience: cinemas without air conditioning and without customer service staff beyond the bar, a characteristic that has been spreading to theaters around the world for years. The crisis has been going on for a long time. In reality, this fall does not have its roots in the streaming not even in the pandemic. The attendance of the American public had been falling since the sixtiesgoing from one visit per person every two or three months to just twice a year before the pandemic. The real price of admission (adjusted for inflation) has remained stable since the 1980s, but consumers have decided that they no longer want to go to theaters. The problem, as this Bain & Company study states The thing is that, for decades, the industry has placed all the emphasis of its production on pure content, but the films have ended up arriving home in a few weeks. Meanwhile, music has come to understand something fundamental: the value is not in the recorded content, but in the unique, unrepeatable event. The triumph of music. He Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour It closed in December 2024 after 149 concerts in 51 cities, ggenerating gross revenues of 2,077 million dollars. That is, more than the annual film box office receipts of entire countries (compare with the pyrrhic 71 million box office receipts in Spain in 2024). AND We’re not just talking about the concerts.: The average expense per attendee ranged between $1,300 and $1,500, including transportation, accommodation, merchandising and dinners. More than fans, they are tourists generating systemic economic impact. “Swiftonomics“has ceased to be a metaphor and has become a real analytical category in government economic reports. Beyond Taylor. Swift is not an anomaly. The global live music market generated $28.1 billion in 2023 and projections place it at $79.7 billion by 2030. That growth is equivalent to tripling the size of the market in seven years, while cinema struggles to recover the levels of a decade ago. What does live music have that cinema has lost? The term “funflation“: Consumers prioritize spending on memorable experiences even during periods of high inflation Festivals have capitalized on this logic: They sell identity, belonging and experiences that are impossible to replicate at home. Just the opposite of cinema: a film is exactly identical all over the world and once seen, the incentive to repeat it in theaters is minimal, especially knowing that it will be in streaming in 45 days. Reinvention is required. The cinema crisis is not a death sentence, but it is a demand for reinvention. Because the physical space of entertainment is not dying, it is being reformulated. The path that the music industry has followed by completely pivoting its business model with the disappearance of physical formats is the one that cinema has to follow. At the moment, theaters have not gotten the premium experiences right (sophisticated restoration, more comfortable rooms, improvements in image and sound quality), but that is because they still do not differentiate themselves enough from the domestic experience. Cinema needs its own Taylor … Read more

How China has managed to rescue its astronauts in record time when it took the US months

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Last year, Boeing starred in a space drama that kept the world in suspense: the Starliner crisis. After discovering leaks and failures in its propellers, NASA took months between deliberations, tests and safety meetings to finally decide that the astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams They would not return in their ship, but would wait for SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission to return. Now, China has faced a similar scenario that it has resolved in a few days. The haste has its explanation. A cracked window. The news broke on November 5. The Shenzhou-20 mission, crewed by Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie, was preparing to return to Earth after six months at the Chinese Tiangong space station. However, during inspections prior to undocking, the astronauts detected an anomaly that so it was not made publicbut that we now know: “small cracks” in the external glass of one of the capsule windows. After analyzing photographs and running simulations in wind tunnels, CMSA (China Manned Space Agency) engineers determined that the damage had possibly been caused by the impact of micrometeoroids or small fragments of space junkcompromising the structural integrity of the ship. The conclusion put Chinese astronauts in a bind: the capsule “did not meet the conditions for a safe manned return.” The game of chairs in orbit. Unlike the International Space Station, the Tiangong space station cannot accommodate six astronauts for a long time, so the Shenzhou-20 crew had to be brought in as soon as possible. China always maintains a Shenzhou ship and a CZ-2F rocket ready to take off in case of emergency. However, on this occasion, the CMSA ruled out launching the new Shenzhou-22 spacecraft to bring back the three stranded astronauts because it “included instrument upgrades for which the outgoing crew had not been trained.” The solution chosen to bring the crew back was, therefore, to do so aboard the Shenzhou-21 ship that had arrived with three other astronauts two weeks earlier. A literal change of chairs (they had to move the adapted seats from one ship to another) and with a single sacrifice: leaving the three crew members of the Shenzhou-21 at the mercy of a compromised ship (the Shenzhou-20) in the event of an emergency. In summary. The three outgoing astronauts They landed safely on November 14 aboard the ship of his three incoming companions. The reason why this exchange of ships was faster than in the case of the Starliner or, a year earlier, the Russian Soyuz MS-22, was, on the one hand, that the Tiangong station is not yet large enough for six people to live in, and on the other, that the replacement ship was already there. What cost NASA months of risk analysis and public relations management with Boeing, China solved in a matter of days thanks to the availability of spacecraft. The logistical sacrifice is that the crew of the Shenzhou-21 (which will stay in space for six months) has had to give up their “lifeboat” until the Shenzhou-22 spacecraft is launched without a crew as a new return vehicle. The Shenzhou-20 will return empty to analyze its damage on the ground, if it ultimately survives re-entry. Image | CGTN In Xataka | The only photo you need to understand the scale of what Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ company, has just done

The automobile industry in China has broken a new record, and sales in Europe have not been the only ones that have contributed

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The Chinese automobile industry has reached an export value of 798.39 billion yuan (about 96.9 billion euros) in the first ten months of 2025, according to data of the country’s General Customs Administration. It is about an increase of 14.3% compared to the same period of the previous year, and this is one more example of China being one of the main vehicle exporting powers in the world. And it is that besides Europethere are already other markets of great interest for the country. A sector that drives foreign trade. While China’s total merchandise exports grew by 6.2% In this period, the automotive sector almost tripled that rate of expansion. Mechanical and electrical products accounted for more than 60% of the country’s exports, with automobiles and semiconductors as the main drivers of this growth. In October alone, vehicle exports rose 34% year-on-year. The role of electric and hybrid. Behind these figures are brands such as BYD, SAIC and Chery, whose electrified models have conquered new markets in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Although the Customs Administration has not broken down the types of vehicles exported, sector data suggests that electric cars and plug-in hybrids are largely responsible for this boost. China is moving its production towards higher value-added segments, and the automobile is a key piece of that strategy. Who buys Chinese cars. ASEAN (Southeast Asia) remains China’s largest trading partner, with a total trade volume of 6.18 trillion yuan (up 9.1%), according to the General Administration of Customs. The European Union followswith 4.88 trillion yuan and a growth of 4.9%. The figures once again highlight how emerging regions and traditional European markets continue to absorb a good part of Chinese automobile production, although with different dynamics. The weight of private companies. Private Chinese companies have also played a determining role in this growth. According to the official dataaccounted for 21.28 trillion yuan in foreign trade (imports and exports combined) during the first ten months of the year, an increase of 7.2% year-on-year. And in addition to the companies that have state protection, there are also private companies that are experiencing great growth thanks to their international expansion. Warning signs on the horizon. Despite the good time, October has marked a turning pointas China’s total exports fell 0.8% year-on-year, the first setback in several months. Some analysts attribute this decline to an already very high comparison base, since 2024 was a record year. Also to fewer working days due to holidays and, above all, to weaker demand from the West. In fact, trade with the United States fell 15.9% in the first ten months of the year, according to the same source. What’s coming. Automobile exports are expected to close 2025 above 2024 levelsalthough probably at a more moderate pace. Demand from abroad is beginning to cool and trade restrictions in some markets, such as Europe, are tightening for China. Even so, the country’s automobile sector continues to demonstrate a capacity for growth greater than the rest of its manufacturing industry. It remains to be seen how long he can keep up the pace. Cover image | Michael Fortsch In Xataka | I have tried the BYD circuit in China: an underwater YangWang, a 29 meter dune and a car that turns by itself

The memory of young people is deteriorating at a record pace. Science thinks it knows why

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The memory problems among youth are beginning to be worrying. This is what a new study scientist published in the magazine Neurology and that tries to answer why this happens and above all the reasons that exist for our youth to begin to be in decline in regards to to your memory. The surprise. What can logically be expected is that with the passage of time and accompanying aging, memory problems begin to appear that anticipate dementia. But in the United States, after analyzing millions of people, they have seen that the population most affected by this ‘mental fog’ is precisely the youth. And the result in this case is very important: self-reported cognitive problems among young adults aged 18 to 39 have almost doubled in the last decade. But it is something that we are not understanding. The study. To reach this conclusion, a total of 4.5 million people who responded to the national survey of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) from the CDC and collected between 2013 and 2023. In this way, there was a truly large sample of people to analyze, although limited only to the United States. The results in this case were quite clear: the prevalence of adults reporting a cognitive disability increased from 5.3% in 2013 to 7.4% in 2024. But what was truly interesting came when separating the results by demographics: In young people aged 18 to 39, the rate skyrocketed from 5.1% in 2013 to 9.7% in 2023. This group is, in fact, the driver of the overall increase in the entire population. In those over 70 years of age we saw a decrease in prevalence from 7.3% to 6.6%, when logic tells us that it should increase. Other factors. In order to know the reason for this increase, other factors behind the respondents had to be traced as well. In this case it aimed at the income level: Have low income with less than 35,000 dollars a year left us with a prevalence that increased from 8.8% to 12.6% With high incomes (>$75,000) the rate was much lower, although it also dropped from 1.8% to 3.9%. But the same thing happens with the educational level, where young people who did not even have high school went from 11.1% to 14.3% while those with university degrees increased from 2.1% to 3.6%. And even in order to obtain much more information, they wanted to analyze the prevalence according to the race of young people, where it could also be seen, for example, that Asian adults are the ones who reported the least cognitive problems. Specifically, the data is the following: American Indians/Alaska Natives: continue to have the highest prevalence, rising from 7.5% to 11.2%. Hispanic adults: saw a significant increase from 6.8% to 9.9%. Black adults: The rate rose from 7.3% to 8.2%. White adults: increased from 4.5% to 6.3%. Asian adults: Consistently maintained the lowest rates, going from 3.9% to 4.8%. What is happening? With all the data in hand, it is logical to think about what is happening so that young people increasingly have more cognitive problems. And for researchers there is not only one valid answer, but there are several that are being proposed. The first of them is that there is greater awareness about this problem, and that is why there are more people who raise their hands when presenting it and have no doubts when it comes to seeking help. But there are also other factors such as economic stressors or work problems that seem to be contributing to these trends. All this without forgetting that the greater presence of digital tools may have meant that our memory is not as trained. But all the social and economic factors we face today can also mark an important milestone when it comes to the real burden on our minds. This ‘overload’ can condition the appearance of these highly relevant cognitive symptoms. Images | Eliott Reyna Milad Fakurian In Xataka | Finding a job had always been a good way to escape poverty: in Spain it is no longer true

BYD has built a megafactory in record time. And it’s not just a car factory: it’s a city

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The chinese automotive industry has one goal: flood the west with their cars. BYD is one of the companies that, while wanting to take over the national market, wants a good slice of the international pie. For this you have as many employees as a small countryand to carry out its vision it has the most beastly car factory you can imagine. This is the Zhengzhou plant, and more than a factory, it is a city. Gigafactory? Best Uberfactory. Everything that surrounds the Zhengzhou plant It is imposing. Starting with the times, BYD and the Henan government they signed the project in September 2021, in just one month the works began and less than two years later the factory began production. His ability It is imposing and, already in its first operational phase in April 2023, it demonstrated that it could have a ability 400,000 vehicles annually. Not only did they get it up and running in record time: its dimensions are also impressive. The plant is estimated to have an area of ​​10.68 square kilometers in factories alone, but when the project comes to completion, it will occupy about 130 km². Context. Ten times more than Tesla Gigafactory in Nevadawith its 12 km², and larger than the area of ​​the city of San Francisco (it is approximately 120 km²). It is not unusual for large technology companies to have “cities” under their control and, without leaving China, Huawei has a similar campus (and another that copy different European cities). But BYD is overwhelming. More than cars. The factory is a “living” project of which four phases have been completed so far. The first two have focused on the production of cars, but as we said, we are talking about a factory that goes beyond vehicles. The third phase launched a plant for the battery manufacturing and the fourth has the necessary facilities for the production of semiconductors. They are underway new phases to expand production to two million vehicles annually and it is estimated that the facility generates a complete vehicle every 50 seconds. Technology. This is achieved thanks to an automation rate of 98%, one of the highest in the automotive industry worldwide. For example, the welding process is carried out with 91% robot labor and there are hundreds of them operating in other sectors, such as assembly or logistics. It is not due to a lack of human work, since the factory currently employs about 60,000 people, 90% of them coming from Zhengzhou or its surroundings and there are plans to reach up to 200,000 employees in 2026. Imagine all of Salamanca working in the same factory. Independent Republic of BYD. That is why we are not just talking about a factory: it also has housing and everything necessary is being built to make it a full-fledged city. Apart from housing blocks for employees, the megafactory has canteens, commercial areas, recreational facilities such as soccer fields and other areas for playing sports, as well as an internal transportation system. It also has additional facilities to carry out tests on their vehicles, such as a 1,758 meter circuit with nine curves, sand dunes to carry out off-road tests, a 70 meter pool (this is where you can see the Yangwang U8 in action) and multifunctional areas to carry out braking, acceleration and other more specific tests, such as autonomous parking. Apart from testing, it is like an amusement park for those who want to see the benefits of the brand’s EV cars. International connection. In the end, it is a mix between ambition and space (something that is abundant in China), which gives rise to a city focused on a single task: producing new energy cars with which China is setting the standard globally. In addition, it is an economic engine for the region and such a strategic element that, in 2024, Zhengzhou inaugurated the International Land Port with a one kilometer railway line to the BYD base. In this way, BYD can produce cars and instantly send them by train to the international market. It is also easier to load them into RO-RO boats with capacity for reach Europe in three or four weeks. Such is the importance of Zhengzhou for the company that its seventh ship car carrier was named after the city. Images | BYD In Xataka | Volkswagen is determined to copy China to make its electric cars attractive in Europe: put a gasoline engine in them

A player has an insane record, 40,000 games purchased on Steam. That there is a badge to reward him is what is disturbing

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Neither collecting neither gambling addiction: This is pure and simple accumulation. But with a clear objective: to obtain the badge that recognizes the possession of no less than 40,000 games in Steam. An achievement that has already been recognized by databases like SteamDB and that undoubtedly leaves anyone breathless who thinks that the store’s seasonal sales get a little out of hand. We are nothing more than insects contemplating a giant. Sonix the Collector. The milestone has been reached by the user Sonix (SonixLegend), who has become the first person to have more than 40,000 games in his library. The badge is “Game Collector: 40,000+” (the highest of this type that can be achieved) and, according to SteamDB, Sonix reached 40,029 games on September 23, 2025. It now has 40,366. In addition, it adds 22,136 DLCs and the thing does not end here, since it maintains a wish list with 26,936 titles. More data? His favorite game is ‘Alien Swarm’, a semi-unknown free-to-play multiplayer shooter from 2010 to which he has dedicated a whopping 551 hours. A paste. Steam estimates the value of the Sonix collection at $250,041 based on the lowest prices available, but the current total cost would exceed $612,072. And since this includes both purchased titles and free games and promo codes, it is impossible to calculate the true value of what has been purchased. Sonix is ​​based in Shanghai, and has been active on Steam for fifteen years. Your profile shows a level of 303, which is equivalent to activity well above average. Other beasts. The Sonix brand is closely followed by other compulsive buyers. Ian Brandon Anderson is close to achieving the coveted badge, with 39,786 games and is closely followed by a third user, ikun, with 36,888. Interestingly, the three largest collectors achieved new records for the number of games purchased on the same day. We don’t know if it specifically means anything, except that Steam continues to be in enviable health, and that this form of compulsive collecting is not an isolated eccentricity of Sonix: at this moment there are almost 20 users with more than 30,000 games, and the top 50 are all above 22,000. Collecting is not what it used to be. Without a doubt, digital collecting has very different nuances than that of accumulators of physical material: the capacity to store digital material, for example, is practically unlimited. And the constant flow of very substantial discounts in stores like Steam itself makes it possible for collections to multiply at a very notable speed. Or put another way: without realizing it, your Steam library has hundreds, perhaps thousands of items? You have to make a very consistent effort to reach those extremes in physical video game collecting. Playing is another story. Of course, playing all these games is impossible, and we enter into issues that have little to do with the enjoyment of what was purchased: reaching the figure of 40,000 games purchased regardless of what they are or, in the case of physical collecting, buying catalogs of consoles that in a high percentage are made up of low quality games, but that must be had due to completism. There are already studies that define this completism as a form of behavior that has little to do with the acquisition of something we like for our enjoyment and, in these cases, talk about addiction It is not completely left out of the equation. Header | Erik Mclean in Unsplash

Immediately afterwards, they gave China a new railway record

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China has been celebrating these days, as the National Day festivities have coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival. And like every year, there is a larger influx of people who take public transportation from what is already usually China. In this aspect, its railway system has once again set a record. On October 8, China Railway Zhengzhou Group transported more than a million passengers in a single day, establishing a new historical mark and demonstrating once again the capabilities of its high-speed train infrastructure. Quite an achievement. During the entire festive period (October 1 to 8), China Railway Guangzhou Group moved 21.8 million passengerswhich represents an increase of 5% compared to the previous year. The first day of the festivities marked a milestone, with 3.5 million travelers in a single day. The data from the Ministry of Transportation reveal that about 82% of Chinese travelers chose the high-speed train as a means of transportation during these dates. Featured cases. The Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong line recorded 955,000 trips during the festive period, with an increase of 29.35% year-on-year. On October 4, this connection transported 135,000 passengers in one day, 40% more than the previous year. According to A spokesman for the passenger services department of China Railway Guangzhou Group, “the coincidence of National Day with the Mid-Autumn Festival caused a significant increase in passenger flow, mainly driven by tourism and family visits.” Click on the image to go to the post How have they achieved it? To manage such a volume of passengers, the railway authorities deployed an operational strategy which included extraordinary trains, connections with multiple units, circular routes were established, night services increased on days of higher demand and additional carriages were coupled to regular trains. During the holidays, the Guangzhou Railway Group operated an average of 3,419 trains of daily passengers, with 358 extra services. Increasingly popular destinations. These data, however, reflect only part of the picture. The Ministry of Transportation amounted to approximately 1,240 million interregional travel during the first half of the festive period, reaching historical highs. Only on Saturday, October 5, 301.29 million trips were registered, 6.1% more than the previous year. Frontline cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen were the most popular destinations, along with tourist enclaves such as Chengdu and Xi’an. High speed train as favorite. These records once again cement high-speed rail as the backbone of transportation in China, while also reflecting the vitality of the country’s tourism and mobility sector. The Chinese railway network, which is crowned as the largest in the world at high speed, it does not disappoint in infrastructure capacity and operational efficiency, especially in times of mass events. In Xataka | China has just redrawn the map of strategic minerals: its new rules on rare earths target the United States

The Machada del One overcoming the container record on board

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Much of the world economy moves by boat. HE esteem That between 80% and 90% of merchandise trade around the world is transported by boat, and to sustain that spine, we need huge ships. There the Porteneroauthentic titans that seem a lie that are maintained on the water and that are capable of transporting, of a tacada, a couple of tens of thousands of large containers. There are no larger ships than the “new” Megamax class. And within it is one who has just burst the transport record: The One Innovation. Megamax. It is the largest class of modern boring partners. It emerged as a natural evolution of the ULCV, or ‘Ultra Large Container Vessels’, because it seems that wearing 20,000 TEU was not enough for current trade. Teu means ‘Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit’, a standard for containers that allows us to compare between ships and that means that if a ship can transport 20,000 TEU, it can move 20,000 containers. If the ULCV moved that amount, the megamax can between 21,000 and 25,000 TEU, being able to load 24 rows of containers … wide. It is an absolute barbarity and is touching the limit of what a channel like Suez’s can house: if they were wider, accidents could occur Or, directly, Do not go through the channel. And taking into account the Importance of these few points in world tradeor widen the passages, or accommodate the ships … One Innovation. Is the name of Third type of largest container of the world. Its capacity is 24,136 TEU and is only behind the OOCL Spain (and the rest of the OOCL megamax class) with its 24,188 TEU and the MSC Irina (and the rest of the MSC Megamax) with its enormous Capacity for 24,346 TEU. To house so much load, the dimensions They are up to it: 399.95 meters long. 61.4 meters wide. Depth of 33.2 meters. 16.5 meter draft. It is like a Empire State Buildingbut horizontally and floating. And it has the ability to transport 25 container levels (imagine a container pyramid, go), with 24 rows along, another 24 wide and 2,000 of those containers having connection with cooling systems. The other ships look like toy Record. Reaching the maximum capacity of each ship is complex. In fact, the three mentioned are extremely similar in size, but that one can with 200 containers more than another respond to issues of logistics and internal organization rather than to the dimensions of the ship. How to play a game of ‘Tetris‘Superoptimized, ultimately. Well, despite being the one that has the most capacity, the One Innovation has just beat the capacity record on a trip. Again. If a couple of years ago you already set the 22,000 TEU brand, this September He did it again with 22,233 teu loaded in a single operation in the port of Singapore (One of the most important on the planet). Complex logistics. In terms of capacity, it represents 92% of their maximum, so they can continue experimenting to load even more. Now, this is not something that can be done in any port. The One Innovation is designed for the Asia-Europa route, being able to stop in strategic ports such as Xiamen, Singapore, Rotterdam, Southampton or Algeciras. It is a connection between the main Asian and European centers, for which a very specific machinery is needed that manages to load and download huge amounts of containers. And this is something that not all ports are designed or can face. We talk about channels about 20 meters deep, cranes of about 70 meters of range and lengths between 450 and 500 meters so that ships can dock. That without counting the necessary defenses in case there are accidents or calculation failures. Necessary (and we will surely go more). As we say, ships of this size are necessary and are constantly used both for efficiency when moving a lot Energy efficiency. Instead of making multiple trips, in one and thanks to that massive capacity, it can move load through the world. In addition, they seem essential if the wishes of the ‘are fulfilled’New Silk Route‘That China is promoting to create more efficient trade routes between Asia and Europe, but also with Africa, a region in which China has enormous interest both for its resources as for enhance markets such as cars. Images | Shotbyp4ul, Kees Torn In Xataka | The European supply chain depends 100% in China in many cases. This chart illustrates its vulnerability

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