simple

Finding the cheapest gas station in your area is very simple thanks to this very powerful tool

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We have been very attentive to fuel prices for a few days. It is no wonder, since since the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran has exploded to the point of leaving the Strait of Hormuz in a compromised situation, oil has ended up skyrocketing and gas stations have already begun to notice the impact on their shelters. While the Government study what measures you can applyMany drivers go to those gas stations that have the cheapest fuel. And for this there are tools that the State itself offers. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge made it available to any citizen quite some time ago, the Geoportal from Gas Stations, a free tool that allows you to know the price of fuel at all service stations in the country, so you can filter by the cheapest one in your area. It also has another very useful function: knowing how much has the price changed at every gas station. We tell you all the details below. What is the Geoportal and why is it worth it? The Gas Station Geoportal is a web application of the Ministry that collects the prices of all service stations in Spainupdated every five minutes. What you see on the screen is practically the real price of the moment. The tool has been available for years, but in situations like the current one, or like the one that happened with the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, its use makes special sense. Currently there are gas stations in large cities and in the main corridors that They already exceed 1.70 euros/liter in gasoline or 1.80 in diesel, while others remain below average. With a 50 liter tank, choose carefully where to refuel can mean quite significant savings. How to find the cheapest gas station from the GeoPortal To enter the Geoportal, all you have to do is enter this link. There is also a free mobile application for Android and iOS. It is called Route-E, and it is developed by the Ministry itself. In addition to gas station prices, it includes information on charging points for electric vehicles. When you enter the website you will see a map of Spain with marked service stations. On the left are the filters. The process is simple: Select “Service Stations” as search type. Choose your province and town. The map will automatically center on that area. You can refine it even further with the zip code if you live in a large city. Choose the type of fuel. You will find everything from the usual ones (gasoline 95 E5, gasoline 98, diesel A) to alternative options such as natural gas, bioethanol or hydrogen. As soon as you select one, the map will show the price of each station along with its schedule and operator. Mark “Sale to the public”. This excludes gas stations belonging to agricultural cooperatives or closed groups that are not open to any driver. Check the list ordered by price. When you have clicked ‘Search’, just below the map the tool generates a list of stations. Filter by price and the cheapest ones in the area should appear first, and you can export the list in CSV or Excel format if you need it. As extra information: yes you hover over any station on the map, you will directly see its price, schedule, rating and operator without having to click. There is an additional filter: “Discount plans”. If you activate it, the search engine shows gas stations with current promotions, either because they belong to a specific chain or because they offer discounts to groups such as transporters, farmers or taxi drivers. Mobile Apps If you prefer not to use the Ministry’s website, there are several free applications for iOS and Android that offer a similar feature. At Xataka we already talked about them a while ago, among which are GasofApp, GasAll, Gasolineras or GasOnline, among others. They all draw on the same official data and allow you to locate the cheapest stations near your location in real time. In addition to all of them, there is also Ruta-E, which is the one we mentioned before, but the rest of the apps offer (in our opinion) much faster and easier navigation. How to see the price history of any gas station Knowing the current price is good, but if you are curious about how the price of a specific station has evolved over time, you can also do it from the Geoportal. For that, just enter this page and complete the form that appears on the screen. You have two options to check the evolution of prices: through the price history or through a timeline per gas station. To do this you must: Selectr the interval of time. You can choose between daily, weekly, monthly or yearly views, and set a start date and an end date for the period you want to analyze. Heegir data series. Below in the form will be where you can decide if you want to see the evolution of the average price of all of Spain, of an autonomous community, of a province, of a municipality or of a specific gas station. Select the fuel. The menu includes all available: 95 E5 gasoline, 98 gasoline, diesel A, diesel B, LPG, natural gas, hydrogen and many more. Choose the type of graph. You can view the data in a line or bar graph, depending on what is most comfortable for you. The result is a graph that shows the evolution of the price in the chosen period. With it you can see, for example, how much diesel cost at the gas station in your neighborhood before the situation with Iran became tense and how much it costs today. Cover image | Geoportal and engin akyurt In Xataka | Cuts are coming for the most used Cercanías line in Spain. The reason: more capacity and driverless trains

If the question is how much of Europe is within range of Iran’s missiles, the answer is simple: a fairly large

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In recent decades, the missile range It has become a silent measure of a country’s strategic power. Every few hundred kilometers added to their radius of action change not only technical maps, but also political calculations, alliances and perceptions of security. In this game of distances, Europe already it doesn’t appear that far away as before. From 1,300 to 3,000 km. It we count yesterday. Iran has built its deterrence on a missile family medium range (the Shahab-3, Sejjil, GhadrEmad or Khorramshahr) with ranges that start at 1,300 kilometers and are around 2,000–2,500 kilometers in most configurations, although certain variants of the Khorramshahr could approach 3,000 if they reduce payload. That threshold is what changes the European map, and the reason is very simple. With 2,000 kilometers, the eastern Mediterranean and southeastern Europe are clearly within the radiusand with 3,000, the arc of threat extends into the heart of the continent. The difference, therefore, is not technical, it is strategic. The eastern Mediterranean. Cyprus has been the clearest sign that the border is no longer theoretical. British bases of Akrotiri and Dhekeliaused as logistics and aerial projection nodes, are fully within range of both ballistic missiles and long-range drones such as the Shahed-136. In fact, Greece enters in the same arch, with Souda Bay in Crete within 2,300–2,400 kilometers from Iran. Athens, Sofia and Bucharest are among the capitals that fit comfortably within the 2,000 kilometer radius. Türkiye and Iraq: the exposed belt. Türkiye is located in the first critical strip. Incirlik, just over 1,000 kilometers from Tehran, is high value target for its role in allied architecture and its link to the nuclear sharing scheme. Kürecik, with its AN/TPY-2 radar, is the forward “eye” of the anti-missile shield and therefore a logical target in any prior suppression scenario. In Iraq, bases like Ain al-Asad or Erbil, in addition to the NATO mission in Baghdad, are not only within ballistic range, but also in the radius of drones and networks of militias supported by Tehran. Central Europe: the gray area. When the second and third arcs of the map are projected, cities appear like Budapest, Vienna or Bratislava on the periphery of the estimated range. Bucharest clearly enters the range of 2,000–2,500 kilometers, which places the base Aegis Ashore of Deveselu in a sensitive position within the maximum Iranian perimeter. If Khorramshahr really reached 3,000 kilometers, and that remains to be seen, the threat contour would touch cities like Berlin and Rome. Of course, just another hypothesis, but the pressure is expanding from the eastern flank towards the political center of Europe. The pieces of the shield and their limits. The Aegis Ashore system in Romaniathe one located in Poland and the Arleigh Burke destroyers in the Mediterranean they form the backbone of defense against Middle Eastern vectors. Germany, furthermore, has added the Arrow 3 system to reinforce its upper interception layer. However, any attack would have to fly over monitored airspace. like Türkiye, Iraq or Syriawhich adds operational complexity and interception windows. The shield exists, there is no doubt, but it does not eliminate the risk equation. Drones and saturation. Impossible to ignore it. Beyond ballistic missiles, Iran has turned attack drones into strategic multipliers. With ranges of up to 2,000–2,500 kilometers and costs much lower than missiles, they can be launched in waves to wear down defenses. Its previous use against British facilities in Cyprus demonstrates that the geographical barrier is no longer an automatic shield. The combination of expensive and cheap systems complicates defense. Underground and asymmetrical doctrine. As we count yesterday, the construction of “underground cities” to store and manufacture missiles is part of a strategy designed to compensate for the absence of a modern air force in Iran. Since 1979, sanctions pushed Tehran to invest in rockets, tunnels and technological alliances with other states, turning the missile into your main tool of deterrence. This asymmetric logic does not seek to equal the West in air and sea, but rather to impose cost and vulnerability from land. What changes strategically. As long as the effective range remains around 2,000 kilometers, the threat is mainly concentrated in the eastern Mediterranean and southeast Europe. If the actual ceiling is close to 3,000 km, the european political map enters the calculation. The difference between 2,400 and 3,000 kilometers is not a technical nuance, because it is the line that separates the periphery of the continental core. In that margin, a priori, the perception of risk for European capitals and the credibility of allied deterrence are at stake. Image | Mahdi Marizad, Defense Intelligence Agency, Mehr News Agency In Xataka | The arrival of the B-2s to Iran can only mean one thing: the search for the greatest threat to the United States has begun In Xataka | Iran has just attacked a base in Europe: the paradox of Spain is that it condemns the war, but the US does not need to ask to use its bases

Science has calculated the real impact of reading books on your brain. And it has a very simple recipe: 30 minutes a day

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It is well known that a sedentary lifestyle It is one of the great enemies of public healthespecially at advanced ages where muscle loss is a great danger. However, there are sedentary activities that are really beneficial and that we sometimes stop, such as reading books. Its benefit is such that science has shown that immersing yourself in the pages of a good book It not only feeds the intellect, but also lengthens life. The demonstration. One of the most important studies who wanted to focus on the benefits of reading, beyond the cognitive benefits or the richness of vocabulary for everyday life, analyzed a group of 3,635 nationally representative participants in the United States over 12 years. And as a result, they saw that the longer the time spent reading books, lower risk of mortality. The results. To understand the magnitude of the discovery, the researchers followed all the patients until 20% of them died and only 80% remained. There they put the cut and began to draw conclusions. The first is that non-readers reached this point at 85 months, while book readers reached this same threshold at 108 months. This is something that translates into a 23-month survival advantage for those who had the habit of reading books, or in other words, readers reduced the risk of mortality by 20% throughout the 12 years of follow-up. Furthermore, this protection was maintained regardless of a person’s gender, wealth, education, or health status. The format matters. Although you may think that any type of reading is appropriate, even the back of a shampoo, the reality is quite different. In this case, the study explicitly compared the impact of reading books versus reading the newspaper or a magazine. The findings here demonstrated that reading books contributes to a significantly greater survival advantage than that seen with newspapers or magazines. While magazines offer short articles that we often skim, books require a higher level of concentration. Something that is enhanced above all because the authors constantly present themes, characters and topics and that is essential to be able to follow the thread of the story that is being presented to us. Because? Here science is quite clear that the key is in the brain, since the “cognitive score” functioned as a complete mediator of this survival advantage. This means that reading books improves cognition and it is this cognitive improvement that prolongs life. Here reading books activates different specific neural processes that create this advantage. Among the most notable points, we find that active reading of books improves skills such as reasoning, concentration, critical thinking and vocabulary. But it also promotes social perception, empathy and emotional intelligence, which can lead to better health behaviors and stress reduction. Fundamental things when we talk about extending life. It’s backed up. In addition to the original study published in 2016, science has wanted to continue investigating the benefits of reading with a study published in 2024 where the complexity of reading in older adults pointed to less cognitive decline. But it has also been decided to analyze even the cultural level of the citizens, where it has been seen that low literacy increases mortalityonce again making the act of reading books stimulate our brain and protect our cognitive reserve. Although it is not necessary to be reading all day to guarantee having a better brain, studies specifically point out that with about 30 minutes a day It is enough to start reaping these advantages and obtain more years of life in which to continue reading. Images | Blaz Photo In Xataka | The problem is not that we are reading fewer books: it is that the books we read are much simpler and easier

If the question is who is going to illuminate part of the new A-5 tunnel, the answer is simple: the sun

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He burial of the A5 continues its course. It is one of the most ambitious works in the recent history of the Spanish capital and, after months of headaches, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. There is still a way to go, but the light thing is quite literal if we take into account that, in the surface park, there will be enormous pergolas that will not only serve to provide shade. They will be the battery of the tunnel. The pergolas. From the beginning The project took into account the installation of an infrastructure that would allow the use of sunlight to power the tunnel through which the vehicles will circulate. The idea with this burial is to create a large green area of ​​80,000 m2 that, in addition to trees, will have another solution to shelter pedestrians: eight pergolas to combat the sun and rain. They won’t be the only thing they will do. As the Urban Planning, Environment and Mobility area of ​​the Madrid City Council has commented to ABCall of them will have photovoltaic panels that will total 1,055 panels for a nominal power of 437 kW and an annual production of 561 MWh. It is the equivalent of the annual consumption of 200 homes in Spain and the energy that will power the installations of the underground section. We will see when the works are completed, since the Madrid City Council already calculation a production of 1,158 MWh per year. Geothermal. All the pergolas will not be the same and the panels will be installed in the most optimal way possible to meet this estimated production, but it is not the only system planned to supply the park facilities with electricity from renewable sources. An example is the Ángel González Municipal Public Library, located at one end of the project. Currently, and as detailed the town hall, the thermal installation compose of a 285 kW boiler and a 220 kW chiller. In their place, two 150 kW heat pumps will be installed and will employ low temperature geothermal energy to create a water circuit tempered at a constant 25 degrees. It is a form of renewable energy that takes advantage of the constant heat of the shallow subsoil to air condition buildings and produce hot water. Undertaking work to switch to low-temperature geothermal is a complex and expensive process, but on the scale of the A5 underground, it makes a lot of sense. In this way, a pump will exchange heat with the ground to extract ground temperature in winter and, in summer, transfer heat from the building to the subsoil and, thus, cool the library. All this without local combustion. Mountains in the capital. And since we’re talking about renewables and reusing, it’s curious what they will do with some of the land they are excavating. Instead of having to manage it as waste, in part of the walk will be created three artificial hills. It is a good way to take advantage of surplus land, but it will also have a useful function. They will house thousands of trees that must be relocated due to current works, but, in addition, each of the hills will have a purpose. One will be a park with picnic areas and biodiversity areas, another will house a skatepark and another will become a viewpoint. Let them finish now…That is the feeling of the neighbors who have been enduring headaches from noisebut also an urban ‘Mario Kart’. Because it is very good to undertake works that use renewable energy to solve specific problems, but it is normal that there are those who are choking on these works. In the end, it is not easy to cut one of the access arteries to the city for almost two years to bury 3.2 kilometers of a highway on which 80,000 vehicles circulate a day. There is less left until the end of 2026… Images | MadridMadrid City Council In Xataka | Madrid wants to put 110,000 tons of weight on the M-30. And the challenge is not technical: it is not to collapse the road

The first great Atlantic submarine cable that connected us to the internet says goodbye for a simple reason: it was too expensive to repair it

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It has been at the bottom of the sea for more than two decades, forgotten. But now, finally, the TAT-8, the first fiber optic cable that crossed the Atlantic and connected us to the Internet, is being removed from its place. And to understand the importance of this, it is worth telling its story, since perhaps the Internet would not be as we know it without this cable. The cable that started it all. On December 14, 1988, AT&T, British Telecom and France Telecom developed TAT-8, the acronym for Trans-Atlantic Telephone 8. It was the eighth transoceanic cable system between Europe and the United States, but the first to use optical fiber. Before him, transatlantic cables ran on copper, with very limited capacity. With the TAT-8, voices and data traveled converted into pulses of light through glass threads thinner than a hair. Just like account Wired in its report, at the inaugural event, writer Isaac Asimov connected by video call from New York with audiences in Paris and London to celebrate, in his own words, “this inaugural voyage across the sea on a ray of light.” Why was it so important? When it came into operation, the Internet was still too technical a concept for the general public. But the TAT-8 literally built the highway on which everything later circulated. The curious thing is that in just 18 months it already reached its maximum capacity, so this forced new cables to be laid as soon as possible, especially after the outbreak of the world Wide Webelectronic commerce and in a context in which the Internet became increasingly relevant. By 2001 the TAT series had already reached 14. Disconnection. Just like account In the middle, in 2002, the TAT-8 suffered a breakdown, and repairing it was not worth it, it was that simple. With more modern and higher capacity cables already operational, it made no sense to invest in their recovery. It went offline and was abandoned at the bottom of the Atlantic, where it has remained for more than two decades. Now they are taking it out of the sea. According to collect Wired, a specialist company called Subsea Environmental Services is physically recovering the cable with its vessel MV Maasvliet. It is one of the few companies in the world whose entire business consists of recovering and recycling retired submarine cables. The operation involves dragging a flat hook across the seabed, waiting hours until tension is felt in the cable, and then hoisting it aboard meter by meter. The workers they explain As the ocean floor is an increasingly crowded space, and recovering old cables frees up routes for new ones. What is done with the remains. The TAT-8 is not thrown away. Fiber optic cables contain high purity copper, steel and polyethylene, all recyclable materials with market value. Copper, especially, is a valuable resource and may become scarce in a few years. And according to the International Energy Agency, in less than a decade could be scarce if the industry does not find new sources. On the other hand, the steel of the cable will end up being converted into fences, and the plastic, processed in the Netherlands, will be transformed into pellets to manufacture non-food packaging. In fact, just as they count At Wired, you may soon be using shampoo in a bottle made from remains of the first fiber optic cable to cross the Atlantic. Sharks. Curiously, the TAT-8 is at the epicenter of one of the legends that has lasted the longest in this sector: that sharks bite internet cables. Just like share In the middle, it all started with a test prior to the TAT-8, the Optican-1, which ended up failing due to problems in its insulation. A Bell Labs engineer appeared at a conference with shark teeth that had supposedly been removed from the damaged cable. The story spread instantly. As well as point At the time, AT&T even included four pages on protection against shark bites in its press kit for TAT-8. Actually, there has never been consensus about whether the sharks really caused that damage. Subsequent tests in aquariums, where they were starved to see if they would bite into wires with electric fields, did not yield any clear patterns. At least the outcome of all that testing and debate was positive, as engineers added a layer of steel between the insulation and the fibers, which improved the cable’s overall resistance to abrasions and damage of all kinds. Cover image | What’s Inside? In Xataka | In 1901, a Spanish man had one of the ideas of the century: invent the remote control before television

After a month of trying it the story is not so simple

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When someone considers buying the Plaud Note Pro An inevitable question arises almost immediately: why isn’t it just an application? The doubt is not capricious. In recent years we have seen how the concept of “AI device” has surrounded itself with very high expectations and discreet results, with examples such as Humane AI Pin or the Rabbit R1 that did not convince. In this context, any new gadget powered by artificial intelligence has to justify its existence very well. The Plaud Note Pro aspires to do this from a clear focus: it does not want to replace the mobile phone, but rather to solve a specific need, that of recording, transcribing and structuring conversations. On paper its proposal is simple, but when we talk about spending almost 200 euros it is advisable to go beyond the technical sheet. That’s why our partner Ana Boria He has used it for a full month, with real meetings and everyday scenarios, to see if specialization is enough of an argument. The real test starts when you press the record button In the new video from Xataka’s YouTube channelAna shares her experience from the first contact. “It’s much smaller than I thought; “I had not seen it in person and it is very small,” he comments as soon as he takes it out of the box. That compact size is not a minor detail, because it is part of its approach: to always be at hand. Hence, one of the first aspects that stands out is its compatibility with MagSafe to attach it to the iPhone. “If you don’t have MagSafe, it comes with an adapter so you can always carry it attached to your phone,” he explains in those first impressions. The real test comes when you start recording. First, in an impromptu meeting. “I thought he was going to make mistakes and, although there is a little thing wrong with the names, he has captured the concept perfectly,” he says after reviewing the transcript. Then you subject it to a more demanding environment, with noise and several interlocutors speaking at the same time. It is in these types of situations where a recorder with AI demonstrates whether it really adds value compared to a simple app. The video also goes into issues that go beyond precision. The Plaud Note Pro promises to detect and transcribe meetings in 112 languagesbut what is relevant is how it behaves in Spanish and what happens with unusual terms or proper nouns. Added to this is the privacy section, a logical concern when it comes to personal or professional conversations. On that point, Ana points out: “It complies with a lot of measures and legislation to protect that information.” There is also a key element that determines the experience: the minute system. “I got a notice that I have a few minutes of recording left,” explains Ana, introducing one of the practical limits of the device. “The Plaud Note Pro costs 189 euros and includes an initial free plan of 300 minutes per month (about 5 hours). If you record many classes or meetings, they run out quickly,” he details. From there, the video analyzes the different plans available and which may be the most reasonable depending on the usage profile. In the end, the conclusion turns on its own nature. “Its greatest strength is simplicity and specialization“, he summarizes in the final section of the video, just before making some comments about the actual battery life. If you want to know all the nuances, strengths and limitations that he has encountered after a month of real use, You have the complete analysis on the Xataka YouTube channel. In Xataka | The Humane AI Pin debacle is a problem for the industry: who will trust an AI clunker again now

If the question is whether they forgot the elevator shaft in the tallest residential skyscraper in Spain, the answer is simple: it was much worse

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For many years, the Mediterranean horizon was the canvas on which Spain projected its most audacious ambitions, including some extremely difficult to catalog. In times of prosperity, the sky seemed limitless. Then, each silhouette in height began to count a different story about risk, pride and collective memory. The vertical dream born of euphoria. He Intempo building started to get up in 2006at the exact moment when credit was flowing without brakes and Benidorm continued to feed its obsession with growing towards the sky as if there were no tomorrow. We are talking about two tower-shaped monsters of almost 200 meters joined by a golden diamond, a hyperbolic architecture that promised mark an era and become the new icon of the Mediterranean “Beniyork”. The project was born with generous financing from a Galician box and with a ridiculous social capital compared to the magnitude of the work, a disproportion (and a nonsense) that today sums up better than anything the climate of that Spain that believed that the cranes would never stop turning. From the symbol of the future to the monument to the bubble. But the crisis of 2008 changed the script suddenly. The loan skyrocketed above 100 million, the financial institution went bankrupt and the debt ended in hands of the Sarebthe bad bank. The works were paralyzed, the developer entered into internal conflict and the building was left with its structure practically finished but trapped in a legal and financial limbo. For years, his shadow threatened to add to that long list of phantom monsters, in fact, it was the golden skeleton that dominated the Poniente beach, a mass visible for kilometers that summarized the collapse of a model economical based on brick and easy financing. The reality was worse than the myth. Then came the stories and legends, one turned into a meme and repeated a hundred times even in media reference. It happens that, it is not that in the tallest residential skyscraper in Spain they forgot the elevator shaft, it is that the reality it was much worse. The work accumulated erratic decisions, changes in construction, salary delays, serious accidents and chaotic management in which floors were concreted without having definitive plans for the upper ones. The project was at 93% with 100% of the loan consumed, there was physical risk due to the deterioration of the structure and a bankruptcy of creditors that left the fate of the giant in the hands of judicial administrators and investment funds. The problem was not a cartoonish technical detail, but rather a chain of incompetence, financial strain and poor planning that jeopardized the building’s entire viability. The elevator hoax that went around the world. Impossible to ignore it. The story that the architects “forgot the elevator shaft” was born of an ambiguous phrase and it became the perfect headline summer 2013. The image was irresistible: a skyscraper of almost 200 meters incapable of climbing its own neighbors. However, elevators existed, of course, and They worked and were planned in the plans. The photographs and subsequent media visits clearly demonstrated. It didn’t matter, the hoax was amplified in international media that they added layers fiction, from cables that didn’t fit to impossible redesigns. That anecdote overshadowed what was truly relevant: the problem was never technical, it was structural in business and financial terms. Rescue, redesign and change of owners. Years passed, and the bad bank promoted the necessary competition to prevent the tower from deteriorating and facilitated liquidity to complete the work. Later, an investment fund acquired the assetremodeled interiors that had become obsolete and corrected questionable decisions, such as hideous finishes that obscured the homes or layouts that did not take advantage of the sea views. Finally, the top diamond was reconfigured to offer more attractive apartments and the complex was relaunched, now as a luxury residential with thousands of square meters of common areas, hotel services and international marketing. From ghost to icon. Thus, and after more than a decade of delays, the Intempo residential skyscraper finally opened its doors and began to hand out the keys to his first clients. In total, 256 homes, 11 elevatorscomplete technical plants and a structure that rested on piles designed to support both towers. From that moment on, the colossus stopped being a simple media skeleton and became a building with neighbors and real activity. Its golden silhouette left behind the stories to keep you awake, it no longer represented only the bubble and failure, but also the resilience of a city that had made verticality its hallmark. That is why it is worth saying it once again: Intempo was not the skyscraper that forgot the elevator, it was the skyscraper that survived its own time. Image | Enrique Domingo, Diego Delso, Tim Rawle In Xataka | Matalascañas is an example of a major architectural failure: thinking that the beach of your childhood was going to be how you remember it. In Xataka | Parking lots were the goose that laid the golden eggs for bricks in Spain. Until someone created the tomb of Las Teresitas

The Spanish philosopher who defends that what is important is in the simple things of everyday life

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Anyone who has visited Bruges and wandered through its streets has ended up coming across a wonderful little park surrounded by white houses. He Belgian city beguinage It is, along with twelve others spread throughout Flanders, a World Heritage Site since 1998 and no wonder. Although “it is not known how this movement began,” as Silvana Panciera explainedsociologist and author of a book about them; The truth is that since the 12th century and for centuries, “they proposed that women exist without being wives or religious, emancipated from any male domination.” The curious thing is that the beguinage, like convents and religious writers, are becoming fashionable. Very fashionable. And no, I’m not talking about the Catholic ‘revival’. In recent weeks, the temporary “coincidence” of ‘Sundays‘by Ruiz de Azúa or ‘Lux‘ from Rosalía, had raised the murmur that “Catholicism was back“But, really, I don’t talk about that. As books like ‘Mystics’ by Begoña Méndezwe are talking about something deeper: something that, behind the Catholic trappings, speaks directly to an entire generation of young women. Something that, in the words of Jorge Burón“opens common horizons instead of individual ones.” Saint Teresa was right. Saint Teresa of Jesus may be the most important Spanish thinker in all of history and, very often, readings that are excessively attached to the Christian background prevent us from appreciating the philosophical power that is hidden behind it. Today, when the tensions between personal life and professional development are especially intense in a generation of women that has abandoned traditional frames of reference without yet embracing new ones, Teresa de Cepeda’s ideas are especially relevant. “Between the pots.” A well-known example is in the ‘Book of foundations’when he says that “…understand that, if it is in the kitchen, the Lord walks among the pots, helping you internally and externally.” In that passage, Teresa defends that there is no war between inner life and outer work, that the underlying criterion is not what we do, but how we do it. However, it is not a defense of “everything doesn’t matter.” On the contrary, what he rejects is the automatic superiority of the “elevated” over the “everyday.” Seeking God (the meaning of life, who we really are) is not something we demand the most absolute solitude: It is something that must be done wherever it is necessary. Where it touches. It is not a cliché: a few days ago we argued that the feeling of the end of the era, acceleration, saturation, existential anxiety or problems of legitimacy are something inherent to our days. The feeling that the future is a fiction is the order of the day. Therefore, it can surprise no one that Saint Teresa is more alive than ever encouraging us to take charge of our day. Image | Teresa, the body of Christ In Xataka | The Catholic Church changed the psychology of Europe. Unintentionally, it sparked an era of technological innovation

Countries are desperate to raise their birth rates. They have a very simple weapon to apply: teleworking

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He aging population is one of the most pressing problems for large economies around the world. The birth rate is a pillar in a country’s economy, since the economy, the labor market, education and health, among many other policies, depend on it. When governments talk about “birth crisis“, they almost always resort to the same repertoire of solutions: baby checks, tax deductions or daycare aid. The problem is that, after years of applying them, fertility in most rich countries continues on the ground. However, a new study raises a new perspective: what if the solution to the birth rate problem was in the way we work? In that scenario, teleworking appears as a surprisingly powerful lever. Telework to have more children. a study carried out by researchers at Stanford University has discovered that offering work flexibility and teleworking improves the fertility rate in couples in which one of the members teleworks. The researchers did not measure the number of births (natality), but rather the fertility indicator. That is, the number of children that participants say they plan to have. The result is difficult to ignore because someone who does not have free time or who considers that they could not take on the upbringing of a child, nor do they consider having one. That is to say, there is no such predisposition, which does not help the birth rate grows. According to the study, going from having no teleworking option to teleworking five days a week is associated with an approximate increase of 0.13 children per woman in terms of expected fertility. This is equivalent to an increase of between 7% and 8% over the average of the group analyzed. Birth and fertility are not the same. It should be noted that talking about birth and fertility represents different scenarios, and this confusion can distort the debate. The birth rate It is the number of births that occur in a country during a specific period. It is the most common data when talking about birth rate since it determines, in real terms, the number of annual births, and allows it to be compared with the number of deaths to establish the demographic balance. Fertility, on the other hand, is a background indicator. It represents the number of children a woman has (or is expected to have) throughout her life. It is usually expressed as Global Fertility Rate (TGF). The difference between both concepts is important. While the birth rate can vary from year to year (for example, advancing decisions or in response to certain policies) without changing the structural trend, the fertility rate is a long-term metric: it indicates whether a woman plans to have only one child (no matter the year) or more. Motivated to have children. Examples like South Korea or Japan They show how complicated, and how expensive, it is to change a downward birth rate trend. That is why the increase in the intention to have children, without making any investment or applying additional fiscal policies, is very striking. The results of the study suggest that, perhaps, the way forward is not to subsidize the birth of more children, but rather to make the organization of parents’ work compatible with their upbringing. It’s not for money: it’s for time. For years, the political response has been fairly predictable. Having children is expensiveso you have to put money on the table to lighten that burden. The problem is that, although in most homes they need two salaries To survive, the truly scarce resource is time to take care of the children. Teleworking and flexible hours have reduced this daily friction since it implies less time traveling, greater control over schedules and, above all, greater ability to react to unforeseen events. for child care. The report ‘Women in the Workplace’ prepared by McKinsey showed that the lack of flexible hours forces many women to reduce their hours or stagnate their professional career. On this point, the conclusions of the Stanford researchers fit with the data that Pew Research got In a previous survey: Even with the difficulties of reconciling family and work, the majority of respondents considered it necessary to continue working and did not want to sacrifice their professional careers. What they needed was a job that does not make work life and childcare incompatible. It needs investment, but it is cheap. The study concludes that to match the fertility rate achieved by teleworking, it would be necessary to apply fiscal policies and incentives at a much higher cost. Subsidized childcare can improve the situation, but none of these measures make it easier. child care on a day-to-day basis, nor does it encourage families to have more children that complicate logistics even more. The time availability and flexibility of teleworking does. This does not mean that the implementation of teleworking is free. Has organizational costs for companiesyou cannot telework in all sectors and it can generate inequalities between employees whose positions do allow teleworking and those who do not. In Xataka | We have been teleworking for four years and a study has reached a conclusion: working from home makes us happier Image | Pexels (Anastasia Shuraeva)

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