start

Delays and cancellations are putting a hole in Renfe’s accounts. So he’s going to start his own bus company.

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Renfe Viajeros… by bus. That has been one of the usual trends in recent months, with the company plagued by incidents that have prevented it from providing the service normally. The situation has been so complicated that, it is estimated, the impact of alternative services exceeds 10 million euros each year. The solution: create your own bus network. And Renfe is already looking for a partner. Looking for a partner. The information is brought The Countrywhere it is stated that Renfe is looking for a partner to start its own bus company. The idea would be very simple: Renfe would control 49% of the company and 51% would fall on the side of the collaborator. According to the newspaper, the proposal has already passed the board of directors of Renfe and Renfe Viajeros. Now, therefore, it remains to carry out the tender so that those companies that are interested in offering support to Renfe can sign up. The initial idea would be to have dozens of buses (between 50 and 100, according to the newspaper) to provide service in specific contexts. In Xataka We have contacted Renfe but when we wrote these lines we have not received a response. Because? Because Renfe is spending money on offering an alternative on wheels to its customers. When an incident interrupts the service, Renfe has to have a alternative road transport system. Right now, he has to pay an outside company, renting the buses and related expenses, such as staff. Having its own fleet would entail an expense of around 60 million euros, according to the initial accounts that have been raised. However, the newspaper points out that there are savings of between 90 and 130 million after a decade. That is, each year on average you would be saving about 10 million euros or a slightly higher figure. From the media they collect that the model used will be that of “negotiated procedure with advertising”. This means that Renfe will receive proposals but will be able to negotiate the conditions with the companies that have a more solvent offer. It is an exceptional procedure in the public procurement system. Exceptional situation. The premise, therefore, is to have a fixed fleet of buses and drivers, without having to subcontract and pay others to perform exceptional road services. Until now, the company has to search the market for drivers and buses that are available when a line is cut due to an unforeseen event. In recent years, the problem has been especially serious for the company. The DANA of Valenciathe fires in Galicia and León and the recent cutting of the southern corridor as consequence of the Adamuz accident in Córdoba has forced Renfe to maintain active service with buses for weeks. What does Renfe expect? Attract companies that have been seeing their business contract. And since The Country They point out that Renfe believes that there is more than enough business to keep the contracted buses active for at least 10 years. In fact, the contract would be for a decade, extendable to another five years, and they say that demand peaks could multiply current ones by nine. The movement could be interesting for bus companies because, right now, There are route tenders that are half dead and in which work is done with very low demand. Some of these companies would find a new outlet for their vehicles with each Renfe breakdown or incident in the infrastructure. In addition, it must be taken into account that the impact on the accounts may be greater when the incident (such as those described above) is not scheduled because forces Renfe to enter a market with few drivers and with companies that know the urgency of the company. Forced. It must be taken into account that a good part of Renfe’s business continues to be public. Therefore, you have the obligation to provide an alternative service when incidents occur on high speed but also if, for example, there are incidents on Cercanías or Rodalies. Any improvement in facilities that requires the interruption of rail traffic is replaced with buses. Photo | Pablo Nieto Abad and Fabio Romano In Xataka | Spain thought that Spain could manufacture the perfect trains for Spain. The reality: Spain is already looking for trains in Germany

ChatGPT urgently needs its users to start paying money. Solution: put ads on them

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It was inevitable. OpenAI has confirmed that is going to start testing ads on ChatGPT. The test will begin in the United States with users of free plans, those who have ChatGPT Plus, Pro or Enterprise are exempt for the moment. It is a movement that marks the beginning of a reality that was seen coming: The user experience of free AIs is about to get worse. All for the AGI. Through your X profileOpenAI has shared what those ads will look like and is striking in the heading of its “advertising principles.” Here they say their mission is “to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity; our pursuit of publicity always supports that mission and makes AI more accessible.” how he jokes Pedro Domingos in Xit seems that the AGI was actually “Ad-Generated Income”, that is, “Income generated by advertising.” Where I said I say…. The AGI is becoming the excuse for everything. To find the true reasons behind this decision, it is enough to look at OpenAI numbers. Or also we can go back to 2024when Sam Altman said that ads on ChatGPT are “the last resort for our business model.” Saying that everything is part of a plan for the benefit of humanity is better than admitting that the AI ​​race is very expensive and OpenAI desperately needs to monetize its AI. This sounds familiar to us. The situation is quite reminiscent of the case of Netflix, which In 2020 he flatly refused to advertising, stating that it was a way to “exploit users” to two years later launch your plan with ads. Since then the streaming experience began to deteriorate and everything indicates that we are at the beginning of exactly the same thing happening with AI. Advertising as punishment. Before, ads were a way to generate income. Today they also function as a pressure tool to push users to pay a subscription. This is what we find on YouTube or Spotify, where the bombardment of ads is constant, repetitive and very intrusive. We pay to end the torture. Objective: subscriptions. ChatGPT has 1.8 billion users, but the reality is that only 5% are subscribed to one of their payment plans. How to increase this figure? If we don’t subscribe ourselves, maybe a few ads will convince us. OpenAI has been the first, but there are also rumors that Google will integrate ads into Gemini. The AI ​​party does not pay for itself, it is a matter of time. There is a loophole. If the big chatbots turn their free versions into a minefield of ads, we will always have the option of use local models such as DeepSeek, Mistral, Llama or ChatGPT itself. Here we get rid of token limits, queues and also ads. The bad part is that the performance is usually lower than the cloud and it also has fewer integrations. Time will tell if they end up being a better alternative. Image | OpenAI In Xataka | Generative AI opens its gap between those who focus on it locally and those who focus on the cloud. There is room for both

OpenAI will start placing ads on ChatGPT. We already know who this first test will reach

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For years, ChatGPT It has functioned as one of the most accessible gateways to artificial intelligence, an assistant that many people use daily without a subscription. That model, which helped popularize generative AI at a speed that is difficult to match from the end of 2022is now beginning to show its limits. Maintaining that promise of mass access has an increasing cost, and OpenAI has decided to explore an avenue that had been on the table for some time: will start testing ads in the chatbota movement that puts back on the table how the AI ​​we use every day is financed. ChatGPT is about to change. OpenAI says that ads will only be shown on the free and Go plans, while users of ProBusiness and Enterprise will be left out. The decision introduces a clear separation between plans aimed at the general public and those designed for professional or business use. As we can see, in this pilot, advertising is associated with the cheapest access levels, while higher subscriptions maintain an ad-free experience. This is what ChatGPT ads will look like Where the advertising will appear. There are also details on how advertising will be integrated into the user experience. In this first phase, ads will appear at the end of ChatGPT responses when there is a sponsored product or service related to the ongoing conversation, always separated from organic content and, as the company promises, clearly labeled. Therefore, we should be able to know why we are seeing that specific ad and we will have the option to hide it. What about conversations. Along with the announcement of this test, OpenAI wanted to establish in writing the principles that, according to the company, will guide its advertising approach. It insists that ads will not influence ChatGPT responses, which will continue to be optimized based on what is most useful to the user, and emphasizes that conversations will not be shared or sold to advertisers. It also promises control: we can disable personalization and delete data used for ads. For adult users only. Not all users or all conversations are included in this test. The firm points out that the ads will only be shown to adults who are logged in, and that both accounts in which the user indicates, or the system estimates, that he or she is under 18 years of age, as well as content linked to sensitive areas, will be excluded. Health, mental health and politics are among the topics prohibited from appearing in advertisements. Someone has to pay for AI. Generative AI has become an extremely expensive technology to operate, while, as is often the case with services with a massive free plan, converting those users into subscribers is not easy, even with cheaper paid plans. OpenAI earns revenue from subscriptions and its API for developers, and in that context testing ads fits as one of the ways the company puts on the table to expand revenue without closing access. The financial hole. The economic context is best understood by looking at the numbers published at the end of 2025. According to financial documents seen by The Wall Street JournalOpenAI assumes that it will continue to accumulate very high losses for several years before achieving significant profits towards the end of the decade. The projection for 2028 is even more demanding, with operating losses that would reach $74 billion, driven mainly by the cost of computing. The competition is getting fiercerz. Added to this financial pressure is a competitive context much more demanding than that of ChatGPT’s first months. OpenAI’s initial leadership is no longer as undisputed as in 2022 and 2023, with rivals such as Google with Gemini and Anthropic with Claude reinforcing its offer and gaining presence. Staying ahead requires constant investment, not only in research, but also in infrastructure and operational capacity. The announcement does not close the debate, it opens it. OpenAI insists that this is a limited test with no long-term commitments, but the simple fact of introducing advertising sets a precedent. It remains to be seen if this model is limited to the United States or if it ends up spreading to other markets, and how users react to this change. Ultimately, the question is broader and affects the entire industry: who pays the real cost of artificial intelligence that aspires to be in the hands of everyone. Images | OpenAI In Xataka | If we ask Spaniards how they feel about AI, the answer is simple: more productive

Ukraine is proving that kamikaze drones are the future of warfare. And that is why Spain is going to start manufacturing them

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Europe has been talking about defense as an abstract concept for years, but the war in Ukraine turned the threat into something physical and quantifiable: drones, missiles, loitering munitions and a logistics chain under constant fire, forcing NATO to assume that the modern battlefield is a “death zone” where those who do not mass produce are at a disadvantage. And in that equation an unexpected nation has emerged: Spain. The new shield of Europe. To that strategic pressure after the invasion of Russia and the appearance of his ghost fleet An even more uncomfortable factor has been added: the political tension with the United States and the growing sense that the Western security umbrella is no longer It is not an automationbut a negotiation. In this double impulse is born the rush for a European defensive shield (perhaps that repeated drone wall), and not only in radars or interceptors, but in industry, stocks and real response capacity, where manufacturing speed matters as much as quality and where technological sovereignty becomes a survival requirement. The unexpected actor: Spain. In this scenario of rapid rearmament and need for autonomy, Spain aims to go from being a country that buys to being one who producesand also do it with a weapon that defines contemporary war: the kamikaze droneor loitering munition, which watches, waits and strikes with precision at costs much lower than manned aviation or traditional missiles. The move is ambitious because Spain does not compete from the heavy industrial tradition of other European partners, there is no doubt, but from a commitment to the most demanded segmentscalable and urgent of the moment: cheap, numerous, quickly upgradeable platforms and capable of saturating defenses. The political and military thesis seems clear: if Europe’s immediate future is decided by who can produce and replenish drones the fastest, then a country that leads that manufacturing not only wins contracts, also influence. Comparison of UAVs in the international market The Indra-Edge alliance. The core of the movement was in the news yesterday with the agreement between Indra and Emirati giant Edge to create a joint venture focused on the development, production and full lifecycle support of loitering munitions and smart weapons, with an estimated order book of about 2 billion euros annually. There is talk of manufacturing drones and sustained capacity: design, assembly line, maintenance, replacement and scaling, something essential in a type of war where systems are consumed at an industrial rate. Indra relies on experience Edge on suicide drones to accelerate the technological leap, while underlining that the real value for Europe is in pproduce in European territoryfulfilling the logic of sovereignty and reducing dependencies and deadlines in a market that is moving due to urgency and not by comfortable calendars. Castilla y León as a military-industrial hub. The bet has taken concrete form with two plants in Castilla y León: in Villadangos del Páramo (León), a production facility dedicated to drones and loitering munitions will be built, with an investment of about 20 million euros and a forecast of up to 200 jobs at full capacity. Another plant focused on micromotors will be installed in Boecillo (Valladolid), a critical component that defines autonomy, reliability and production capacity. The combination is revealing: it is not only the “final product”, also, and very important, the control of key pieces, which allows manufacture without bottlenecks and sustain a high exit rate when the strategic environment demands constant replacement. The objective is for Spain to not only be an assembler, but also part of the industrial heart that makes war with drones possible. Defense turns it into a state program. The Ministry of Defense has presented the project as part of the Industrial and Technological Plan for Security and Defense approved in May 2025, and has stated that the León factory will produce “the most advanced drones that can operate today in Europe and NATO.” Beyond the owner, what is relevant is that the new company would already be born with valued contracts around 2 billion of euros, with a workload committed to covering the needs of the Spanish Armed Forces and also other European armies, and with a performance horizon in 2026 and 2027. The implicit message is that Spain wants to be in the industrial layer that supports the European defensive shield, not as a secondary actor, but as a real supplier of a capacity that decides tactical survival on the front. Politics gets on the drone. The announcement, furthermore, is made with a staging in the Senate and in a pre-electoral context in Castilla y León, where the local impact (those 00 jobs distributed between León and Valladolid) turns the defense industry into territorial policy tool. The narrative mixes national security and reindustrialization: Small areas such as Villadangos del Páramo appear as recipients of a project of high technological value, while it is presented as a historic turn for the Spanish industrial base. At the same time, it is linked to other military initiatives in the community, emphasizing that rearmament It is not only a strategic debate, but a map of investments, works, infrastructure and employment that reorders public priorities. The real game. Finally, the movement also gives clues about the future of Europe with Ukraine as a mirror: the defensive shield It is no longer measured only in troops and doctrine, but in the ability to produce cheap, intelligent and massive systems, with short innovation cycles and controlled supply chains. Somehow, Russia has imposed the pace of the threat, and Washington has added the political pressure of not depending eternally on an external guarantor. In this scenario, Spain tries to occupy an unexpected gap: become the protagonist of the European loitering ammunition, the tool kamikaze which not only serves to attack, but also to deny space, saturate defenses and impose costs on the adversary. In a Europe that has belatedly discovered that modern war is also won in factories, Spain wants are in their territory. Image | Khamenei.ir In Xataka | Europe faces … Read more

let’s start traveling on foot

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“It is common in Europe.” With these words, Óscar Puente, Minister of Transport, justified the possibility of traveling standing on medium-distance trains. Puente referred to this possibility in Twenty-something hourprogram of the Chain Being. There, it was assured that the Government is studying this possibility and 2026 aims to be key to carrying out a new way of traveling. “It is not being done”. And it is totally true. Puente pointed out in the aforementioned program that on medium-distance trains in Spain you cannot travel standing. And as in France or Portugal, it is prohibited to use regional trains without reserving a seat (as long as Renfe does not say otherwise, as we will see) so you can only stand in the spaces between carriages or in the area relative to the cafeteria. At that moment, Puente took the opportunity to announce that Renfe welcomes the proposal and that they have on the table launching a pilot test on a short line, one that is not particularly long. In Xataka We have asked Renfe about this possibility but they have not given an answer as to when this pilot test would be launched or where. They assure, in this case, that the decision belongs to Transport. Logroño-Zaragoza. The origin of the statements must be sought on the line between Logroño and Zaragoza passing through Pamplona. There, passengers have seen how medium distance trains have been replaced by Cercanías’ own vehicles for shorter trips. This caused some passengers to have to make the trip standing since there were no seated seats available, since the trains had a smaller number of seats. Already in July 2024Puente pointed out that this was something that had to change. In September 2025Renfe announced that new trains were arriving for the route between Logroño and Zaragoza, with a greater number of seats and cafeteria service since the new vehicles prioritized capacity over this option. Can you travel standing for medium distances? Technically yes, as long as there are any of the circumstances that Renfe points out on its website: Medium distance services without reservation Trains that stop at stations without sales, in which the traveler must buy the ticket en route: since it is not possible to reserve a seat, it is possible that there are no free seats. Travelers who have boarded without a ticket and have to regularize it en route, if at that moment there is no free seat. As an exception, on trains with the right to a seat, if Renfe so determines. And on the company’s own website, two cases are specified in which it is common to travel like this in our country. The first is the regional trains of Catalonia, as Puente pointed out in the Cadena Ser interview. The other is the possibility that a Cercanías train is being used for a medium-distance service, which is exactly what has been happening in Logroño-Zaragoza. In addition, it is specified that “travel insurance is assigned to the ticket, not to the seat. That is, every traveler with a ticket travels insured, regardless of whether they do so standing or sitting.” Europe. In his speech, Puente already pointed out that this is common in some European countries. Although the Minister did not then indicate which trains he was referring to, the truth is that in the Netherlands, Switzerland or Belgium they offer the sale of trains in which a seat is not assigned unless they are indicated. In the countries where this possibility is available, it is because travelers usually make relatively short regional journeys. So, for example, in Germany You buy a ticket for a regional train and the seat reservation is an added bonus. Something similar happens in Italy where their regional trains do not have an assigned seat unless you opt for their first class. And where is the advantage? Mainly, there are two advantages to the service. The first is that if this option is offered, the volume of passengers traveling on each train can be greatly increased. Of course, Renfe would have to use modified trains or versions more similar to those of Cercanías to be able to offer this service. The second is that, as in Italy, the train ticket schedule is flexible. For example, in Italy a travel day is allocated but you can take the train at any time you prefer. In other cases, a time is selected and that same train can be taken in an open time window before and after the original time, which makes the possibilities for the traveler more flexible. Obviously, this requires the train to be able to accommodate a number of passengers that exceeds the seating capacity, so if the seat is not reserved in advance, it is possible that the passenger travels the entire journey standing or has to get up at some point to leave said space for another passenger. Photo | PJH and Xataka In Xataka | We have tried to write this article using the AVE WiFi and we have come up short

AEMET confirms a collapse and snow at 1,000 meters to start Christmas

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If you thought you had too much of a coat this week, now you’re going to have to think twice. After a few marked days due to unusually mild temperatures for mid-Decemberthe weather is going to change radically with the arrival of the peak days of Christmas. A thermal collapse. So far, the month of December has seen some really warm days where you could easily be out in the sun without a jacket. This is something that has been seen especially in parts of the Mediterranean, Almería and even in the Cantabrian Sea with thermometers that have reached to touch 20 degrees. However, it already has an expiration date. Starting on December 21, coinciding with the official start of astronomical winter, a notable thermal drop is expected. According to AEMET itself This change will not be gradual, but will feel like a drastic collapse in thermometers by this polar jet that arrives from the north that will leave minimum temperatures in the negative and that in general will cause a thermal drop of 3-5ºC. Precipitation map for Sunday, December 21 | Source: AEMET Rain and snow. Before the great drop in temperatures, we will see abundant rains in our territory due to the entry of a new front from the Atlantic. This will mean that this weekend we will see abundant rain in a good part of the peninsula, with special emphasis on northern Spain where significant storms are expected for next Sunday. The Galician coasts are where we will have to keep a close eye, as these precipitations will be accompanied by very strong gusts of wind, which will lead to the appearance of waves that can exceed seven meters in height. Appearance of snow. With the drop in temperature, rain can end up turning into snow in part of the peninsula. In this case, the snow level is expected to drop to 1,000-1,200 meters in the northern third. The most affected areas They will be the communities of Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, La Rioja, Castilla y León, the Community of Madrid and Castilla – La Mancha. This is bad news, except for lovers of a Christmas under a layer of white. And just this weekend a new operation begins, coinciding with the start of the Christmas holidays. This is something that can cause significant traffic delays in the northern third of the country. Christmas week. We already have Christmas Eve almost here, and there are many eyes on to the weather forecast. For now, the progress that the AEMET has given us after the front on the 21st is that we will have a cold environment with significant night frosts across the peninsula and widespread, although not extreme, rainfall, which will be present especially in the south of the peninsula. But this is something that will not affect the Canary Islands, which will maintain stable weather and normal conditions for the time in which we find ourselves. An extreme change. There is a climate prediction coming from Europe that sees a much more extreme and unusual scenario that may or may not occur. Specifically, the ECMWF points out that there may be heavy snowfall in the province of Seville, Huelva and the south of Badajos on Christmas Eve. This would be something historic, since snow is a strange event to see in Seville, where there has not been a solid snowfall since 1954. That is why this European prediction is really crazy, which logically can change as the days go by, leaving the chances of snow in Seville a disappointment, despite the fact that the low temperatures are going to continue. Images | Osman Ran In Xataka | Lightning seems like a normal thing: in reality we have been trying to understand it for years and we have achieved it in a laboratory

start a purge if it reaches 9.5 million inhabitants

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The idea of ​​drastically limiting immigration to Switzerland is neither a recent anomaly nor a passing eccentricity, but the reemergence of a fear deeply rooted in its political and social history, visible already in the seventies with the initiatives of James Schwarzenbach and the concept from Uberfremdung. That’s why the last idea is not surprising, although it is scary. The fear that returns in cycles. Last year I remembered it in a great report of the Vanguard. That climate of identity anguish of the 1970s, fueled by the rapid economic growth and the massive arrival of foreign workers, left a lasting mark: the conviction that the State had to actively protect the demographic and moral composition of the country, an obsession that never completely disappeared and that reappears strongly in moments of pressure or perceived saturation. From immigration to the population limit. The current proposal goes a step beyond the classic debates on quotas or visas and directly proposes a kind of dystopia: a population cap total, set at around 10 million inhabitants, with a first alert threshold in the 9.5 million. In practice, this approach turns immigration into a variable to cut almost automatically if the country continues to grow, without distinguishing between refugees, skilled workers or highly paid managers, and opens the door to a policy that prioritizes the total number of residents over economic or humanitarian needs. Caught up in their own success. The background of the initiative is a paradox that is difficult to resolve: Switzerland is one of the countries more prosperous in the world, with a dynamic economy, global companies and salaries much higher than those of its neighbors, and precisely that success has made it a magnet for immigration. He population growth of the last decade, driven almost entirely by arrival of foreignershas fueled the perception that the quality of life deteriorates through of skyrocketing rentssaturated infrastructure and congested public transportation, although these same immigrants support key sectors of the labor market. The staggered “purge.” Thus we arrive at an approach without half measures. The plan promoted by the Swiss People’s Party introduces a progressive logic which is more reminiscent of an emergency switch than a classic immigration policy. Yeah is overcome that threshold of 9.5 millionthe first restrictions would fall about asylum seekers and family reunification. Not only that. If 10 million are reached, Switzerland would withdraw from international treaties considered “population boosters” (as the proposal states) and, as a last resort, it would abandon the free movement agreement with the European Union, a move that would have profound consequences on residence rights of millions of Europeans and about the Swiss access to the single market. The clash with reality. A good part of the business community and the large economic lobbies warn that this strategy would have a high costfrom a shortage of hundreds of thousands of workers to an accelerated aging of society and a loss of competitiveness structural. Although defenders of the initiative they promise compensation In the form of lower rents and less pressure on the welfare state, the absence of detailed studies and the weight of trade with the EU raise fears that the cure is more harmful than the disease. Discomfort amplifier. Unlike other European countries, Switzerland channels this type of tensions through referendums frequent, which allows latent concerns to quickly become concrete political proposals, no matter how Orwellian that they seem This characteristic explains why ideas that in other places would remain in the media debate, or even that, end up being voted on there, but it also makes the country in a laboratory where it measures the extent to which a society is willing to sacrifice growth and openness in the name of identity, control and perceived stability. Europe watches. Many media outlets in the country have gone one step furtheranticipating the activation of the plan and projecting what it would mean for the old continent. A rhetoric that tells that the Swiss debate anticipate discussions that already appear in other countries, where immigration continues to gain political weight while the traditional parties try to contain the extreme right through cordons sanitaire that do not always reduce their appeal. The Swiss experience points to a disturbing approach, to say the least: that ignoring or disqualifying discomfort does not eliminate it, and that the question is not so much whether there should be immigration, but at what pace and on what scale. In that sense, the possibility of a demographic “purge” Switzerland is not just a national decision, but a warning sign about the direction some European democracies could take if they fail to reconcile prosperity, social cohesion and political legitimacy. Image | Ruth Georgiev, IToldYa In Xataka | Switzerland has been a refuge for great fortunes for decades. Now he is debating taxing heirs In Xataka | Millionaires are changing their countries of residence in 2024. These are their new destinations explained in a graphic

It’s tempting to start a “miracle diet” against the clock to get to Christmas. The experts have something to say

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We have reached December and, with it, Christmas lights turn on and also a silent race that repeats itself every year. While company dinners, meetings with friends and family gatherings accumulate, thousands of people begin what we could call “the last sprint”: losing weight quickly before sitting down at the table at Christmas. But behind this sprint There is a much more complex phenomenon. One that has social, emotional and biological roots, and that hides a perverse effect. Express diets teach the body to be more efficient in saving energy, which ends up causing us to regain it and sometimes even more after losing weight quickly. The pre-Christmas sprint. Every December, an almost automatic reflex is activated, the feeling of having to “get there safely” to the holidays. The psychologist specialized in Eating Disorders (ED), Sara Bolo, He explained to us in Xataka that this phenomenon is not coincidental, but a pattern that repeats itself year after year. “Christmas is a special time, where we see family or friends again that we don’t see every day. And with that, comments about the body reappear: ‘I look thinner at you’, ‘you’ve gained weight’…” This dynamic, as common as it is harmful, multiplies aesthetic pressure and turns coexistence into a silent body examination. Another ingredient is added to this context, the purposes that were not fulfilled. “We arrived in December with the idea of New Year, New Me that we announced in January – says Bolo – and the urgency appears to show that we have achieved something.” That mixture of self-demand and closure of the cycle pushes many people to make drastic decisions in a very short time. One more factor. And it’s not just aesthetic pressure or frustration, there’s also anticipatory fear. According to Bolo, it is common for some people to restrict their diet in the weeks before, thinking that this way they “compensate” for Christmas meals in advance. “It becomes a defensive preparation. I don’t want them to tell me anything, I don’t want to feel guilty, so I start restricting before,” he details. This urgency is exactly what dietitian-nutritionist Laura Jorge also observes, director of the centers that bear her name. Since your consultation, December always has the same profile, more requests for “quick fixes”, more promises of express weight loss and more anxiety. “Every year we see an increase in people looking to lose X kilos ‘before the holidays’. It is a very clear pattern,” he explained to us in an interview. Three elements are repeated: urgency, guilt and dichotomous thinking – “now I restrict myself, and at Christmas I will eat” -. What starts as a sprintBoth experts agree, it usually ends up being an emotional and metabolic trap. The hidden enemy. Science explains it bluntly, when we subject the body to extreme and sudden caloric restriction, the body activates survival mechanisms, not weight loss. As Jorge details, the metabolism slows down, hunger increases, satiety decreases and the body begins to use muscle mass as a source of energy. This not only makes it difficult to maintain weight loss, but also reduces basal metabolic expenditure, making it easier for us to gain weight later. Scientific research supports these observations. A study of New England Journal of Medicine showed thatafter losing weight, leptin—the satiety hormone—was still low and ghrelin—the hunger hormone—was still elevated even 12 months later, even though the person had already recovered part of their eating routine. The authors conclude that these adaptations create “a physiological environment that favors the recovery of what was lost.” In addition, the factor of genetics must be taken into account. A study from 2024 published in International Journal of Obesity points out that not everyone responds the same; some people, after repeated cycles, develop a greater risk of insulin resistance or visceral adiposity. The other side. Rapid weight loss has an immediate emotional effect and makes it seem like a success. “You get on the scale, you see fewer kilos and you feel immediate euphoria,” admits Sara Bolo. But it is a mirage. When the weight returns – as it usually does – the emotional collapse appears: guilt, frustration, shame, absolute thoughts (“I am a failure”, “I have no willpower”). Furthermore, the environment reinforces this dynamic because thinness is praised and gain is censored, even with “innocent” comments. This back and forth deteriorates self-esteem and fuels restrictive behaviors that, far from solving the problem, intensify it. A door that is better not to open. “The restrictive diet is the first step of any eating disorder,” he says. the psychologist Rigid control, obsessive calorie counting, avoiding social meals, or classifying foods as good or bad are early signs. And Christmas is one of the moments where they manifest themselves the most. Laura Jorge agrees: “In these weeks we see people who begin to talk obsessively about compensating, skipping meals or doing compulsive exercise. These are signs that should not be ignored.” The combination of aesthetic pressure, abundance of stimuli and comments can activate a latent ED or aggravate an existing one. When the comment is “innocent”, it is not. Social responsibility is evident. The experts remember that comments as common as: “Oops, are you repeating yourself already?” “That’s good, you’re thinner.” “After these meals, tomorrow on a diet.” Behind all these phrases, a thin laugh follows that for many sounds like a roar. And as experts say, they are not only unnecessary, but potentially harmful. “You have to take care of your language,” summarizes the nutritionist. “Do not congratulate people for losing weight, do not comment on their own or other people’s bodies, do not pressure them to eat or stop eating.” Aesthetic pressure often begins with a comment that seemed harmless. So how can we accompany? For those who live Christmas meals with fear of losing control, the key is not in the plate, but in the environment. The psychologist Sara Bolo insists that accompany It does not mean guarding, but offering a safe space. His advice … Read more

Porsche owners in Russia woke up this morning without being able to start their car. And they have a suspicion

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They said in Autonotion in 2019 that Russia was a country of extremes. They weren’t talking about the economy (at least not directly), they were talking about car sales. And the Russian market has always been particular, with Lada being the best-selling car brand and, at the same time, having the ability to sneak Porsche ahead of Peugeot. And Porsche lived a decade of love with Russia with constant growth. The wealthiest did not hesitate to opt for the luxury brands Germans. In fact, that report identified Mercedes and BMW as the tenth and eleventh most purchased car companies. In fact, despite the restrictions, Russians continue to buy Western cars, they explained in Motor1.com recently. Those continued sales have thousands of Porsche cars moving through the streets of Russian cities. Or they had them. Because overnight, car owners in Stuttgart keep reporting a problem as simple as it is obvious: their cars don’t move. No, they don’t work. Either they don’t start or they stop after traveling a few meters. The reason for the problem is already known. The origin is more diffuse. My Porsche doesn’t run They pick up their colleagues Motorpassion that since the last days of November, Russian owners of German sports cars are experiencing serious problems starting their cars. The problem seems to lie in the Porsche VTS (Porsche Vehicle Tracking System), a system that the German company offers as a protection measure. With it activated, the vehicle maintains a constant satellite connection so if someone steals the car it is easy to find its location. In that case, a thief must block the satellite signal but in that case the brand understands that, in fact, the car is being stolen and the car automatically does not start or stops after a few meters. This is what has happened in Russia. With a nuance, the Porsche system has incorrectly understood that hundreds or thousands of cars sold since 2013 have been stolen and, therefore, their starting is prevented. The reason is that these cars have lost the satellite connection for a reason that is still unknown. This automatically activates the system and, as we see, leaves the car inoperable. Rolf, the largest dealer group selling Porsche cars in Russia, has confirmed the latter. And the company ceased operations in the country completely in 2022, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since then its users have been left without technical service. It is now believed that the lack of maintenance of the servers may have caused a failure that has broken that satellite connection and the Porsches have become a gigantic paperweight. The event is so striking that those responsible for Rolf have assured Russian media that the widespread shutdown “may be deliberate.” However, there is no conclusive evidence for the latter. If so, it would be a hybrid warfare maneuver especially curious. For now, what is certain is that there are hundreds of post-2013 Porsches completely stranded… and with their customers looking for desperate solutions. The companions of Motorpassion They report that some of them claim to have solved the problem with hard reboots, such as turning off the battery for 10 hours. The car would have picked up the satellite signal again at that moment and could start moving again. Others have achieved it rebooting the VTS system or, directly, removing it completely, which involves disassembling the seats and a good part of the dashboard. Whether it was some kind of computer attack or simply due to a lack of server maintenance, the truth is that hundreds of Porsche cars have been stranded and that speaks volumes. how hopelessly connected our cars are nowadays. Almost always, arguing or defending greater driver safety. Our cars have become a connected data center… whether we want it or not. The Porsche case is an example of how an interesting and useful system to prevent car theft can leave us with a completely stopped car if the system architecture suffers irreparable damage. And in this case we are not talking about a failure in the vehicle, we are talking about a direct attack against servers or satellites that directly allow our cars to move. Right now, a new one keeps constant information about our driving in a small black box. We are connected to a network with geolocation to make an emergency call with eCall, mandatory since 2018. Some modern cars can receive notices in your browsers of various incidents, How does the DGT want to send when detect a car stopped on the road with the V-16 beacon active. But it has even been proposed to use the data collected to force us to circulate around the city. in fully electric mode if we have a plug-in hybrid car or harness its power if it is detected that the batteries have not been recharged for too long. Therefore, technically it is possible to turn off cars remotely. It would be very difficult to order a concrete attack against a single vehicle since connected information sent from a car is supposedly anonymous and end-to-end encrypted. As long as that car has not been reported stolen, which can allow the police to contact the manufacturer and him order a remote shutdown. However, vulnerabilities that could leave hundreds or thousands of cars completely stopped or at the mercy of a remote control are one of the industry’s biggest concerns. Especially in a geopolitical context in which hybrid warfare seems to be increasingly present. Photo | Josh Berquist and Vadim Artyukhin In Xataka | If you do not have the V16 beacon you will be fined, but the director of the DGT proposes a grace period: “the agents will be flexible”

let them start reading romance books

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At a time when more and more couples need schedule sex As if it were a work meeting, it would seem that romantic spontaneity is on the way to extinction. Routine, stress, children, screens and lack of time have pushed many people to live desire as a reminder on the calendar. And yet, in the midst of this sexual recession, thousands of readers are finding an unexpected spark in a place that years ago would have sounded almost naive: romance novels and, especially, the romanticasythe hybrid between romance and fantasy that dominates sales charts and social networks like BookTok. Reading, the new spark of desire. A growing number of women describe how their sex life was disappearing until they started reading romances. In a report for the New York Timesa reader commented that she and her husband went from having sex “twice a month” to “twice a day.” It wasn’t magic, he explained that reading worked as an emotional and physical trigger that they had not experienced in years. In Women’s Healthanother woman recounted how, after a chain of medical problems and stress, her libido evaporated… Until the novels helped her feel connected again with her eroticism and with her partner. The secret seems to be in the mix of what is written in this type of novel: magical worlds, growing sexual tension, complex female characters and explicit scenes that place their pleasure at the center. It is no coincidence that sexologists and therapists describe this type of readings as a “gym of the imagination” that reactivates reactive desire—that which does not appear alone, but with appropriate stimuli. It does not activate only the body: it first activates the mind, fantasy and emotion. What this boom reveals. Beyond the morbidity, the increase in popularity of these readings speaks of something deeper. According to TIMEromance novels allow you to explore desire from a safe place: without pressure, without expectations, without fear of judgment. They are a mental space where you can allow yourself to fantasize, recover the feeling of being desired and understand what truly excites you. For many women it is the first time they connect with their sexuality out of curiosity and not out of obligation. As detailed in Betchesthese stories work as a psychological warm-up, key in long-term couples where desire usually fades not due to lack of attraction, but due to lack of imagination and novelty. This “reactive desire” needs stimulation—and books offer it without shame. Furthermore, this explosion cannot be understood without the community. BookTok has converted these readings in public conversation: recommendations, rankings of spicetheories, private jokes, covers analyzed to the millimeter. A shared culture that has made talking about sex, desire or fantasies out loud normalized. Love in times of screens. We live in a culture that idealizes sexual spontaneitybut reality does not accompany. Endless schedules, mental loads, attention-sucking social networks and suffocating routines leave very little room for spark. In fact, studies point to a global decline in sexual frequency, especially between young couples. It is not that there is no desire: there is no time for it to appear. For this reason, many couples have started planning sex. Anticipation—flirty messages, relaxed dinners, screen-free space—works better than waiting for the flame to magically appear. In other words, planning does not kill desire, it protects it; and this is where romantic novels fit in: they create anticipation, they build tension, they reintroduce the game. They are, for many people, a way to feel something similar to the beginning of the relationship again. A revolution with nuances. However, several experts—from the NYT until ABC Australia— also warn of risks: idealizing perfect encounters, expecting synchronized orgasms or pressuring the partner to replicate fantasies that may not fit their relationship. Distinguishing between fantasy and real life, therapists remember, is key for this boom to be a help and not a source of frustration. In a world without time for desire, reading reignites it. What these stories demonstrate is not that fiction replaces reality, but that it inspires it. That sexuality does not disappear: it goes dormant. And that, for many people, these books offer something that was missing in their lives: mental time, emotional space, imagination, play, and the feeling of being seen and wanted. In an era of planned sex, exhausted desire, and frenetic routines, romance novels have shown that intimacy doesn’t need spontaneity: needs intention. Perhaps that is why this phenomenon does not stop growing. Not because it promises impossible orgasms, but because it restores—without haste, without judgment—the desire to love and be loved. As one reader confesses interviewed by Women’s Healththe key is not in dragons or vampires, but in something much simpler: “It’s not the books. It’s that they reminded me of who I was.” Image | Unsplash Xataka | Romantasy has become the most read genre in the world. According to its Spanish authors, there is not even

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