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Tired of being told that philosophy was just opinions, one guy set about collecting all the “philosophical facts” he could find. He got 200

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Philosophy has a reputation for discussing everything and the truth is that it is a reputation that has been hard-earned. However, it is not a matter of saying the first thing that comes to mind. It’s not even a matter of opinions, no matter how informed they may be. At least, that is the opinion of philosopher Bryan Frances. In fact, Frances is convinced that, in reality, philosophers only discuss details and minutiae: in substance, they agree on almost everything. But of course, it is not enough to say it: it must be defended. So he began to do something strange for a philosopher: instead of arguing it, he began to compile this enormous core of shared truths. That is, to make a list. But let’s start at the beginning. Frances’s thesis is that, as I say, there is great agreement among philosophers about the truth of many substantive claims. What’s more, he is convinced that, in philosophy, there is progress equivalent to that of any other science. That is, “based on facts.” The thing is that discipline — for better or worse — tends to revolve around the controversial. The curious thing is that he realized that not even the philosophers themselves were aware of this. And what a list… So, neither short nor lazy, he published ‘Philosophy as Fact-Based Discipline: 200 Philosophical Facts, published in Philosophical Studies‘: the list. A list of elementary truths pedagogically comparable to introductory science material. “It’s not the deepest,” but it’s (definitely) something cumulative and useful to understand. But, beyond that, it is also a way of reclaiming the discipline in a climate that repeatedly questions the role of the humanities in the body of knowledge. And what truths are those? Once we have made it clear that it is not about talking about deep truths (Does free will exist? Why being and not nothingness? etc…), the question becomes evident: what are they then? They are simpler things like, for example, what beliefs are (which come in many formats, they can be about almost anything or they can exist even if we are not aware of them), what evidence is (which are not just tests), what biases, emotions or faith are. It’s very interesting review the 200 facts because there are very interesting things about things that one had not asked: does believing in something make it true? Does the evidence have direction? Is suspending the trial a rational thing to do? Thought in action. But beyond the facts themselves, Frances’ idea is intelligent because it points to something singular: there is cognitive progress, an ultimate structure of reality to describe, a philosophical ‘holy grail’ to find. It’s not much, I admit. But the idea that the universe is not the horrible chaos it seems is (in its own way) comforting. Image | Alan Dela Cruz In Xataka | “A place of joy with pain”: the phrase that summarizes the Aztec philosophy to be happier in this life

why the head is not the thermal “chimney” that we have always been told

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When winter approaches, many people cannot go outside without some basic items, such as a jacket, gloves and also a hat. The latter, in addition to being a complement that suits some very well, has also represented a mantra that has been repeated on different occasions: heat ‘escapes’ largely through the head. There are nuances. This is something that is accompanied by stratospheric figures, such as between 40 and 50% of our body heat ‘escapes’ through the skull. But the truth is that science adds nuances to these data so that we can be much calmer, although in the case of newborns we can have an interesting debate. The origin. To understand why half the world believes that the head works like a human chimney, you have to travel to the 1970s. And more specifically to the United States Army Survival Manual. At that time, experiments were carried out with subjects exposed to extreme cold temperatures. The methodological problem, or rather the subsequent interpretation, was that the participants were wearing arctic survival suits that covered the entire body… except the head. Logically, when measuring the heat loss, the researchers found that most of it escaped through the only area that was bare. And from here arose the need to wear a hat because almost all the heat was released from this part. What is known now. Subsequent studies have been responsible for dismantling this belief. that 40-50% of the heat is released through the skull. The conclusion of science indicates that physical reality is much simpler, since heat loss is proportional to the surface of exposed skin. In this way, if the head of an adult represents approximately 7% of the body surface, it will contribute only to diffuse 7-10% of body heat that is being lost. They have proven it again. In addition to the most classic studies that have been done, science has also wanted to analyze this phenomenon in cold water swimmers. using neoprene suitscomparing when their head is submerged and when it is above the water. Here it was seen that the skull does not dissipate heat disproportionately, but is simply exposed skin with nothing special that indicates that it should be protected more than another part of the body. The cold of the head. Although the percentage of heat lost here is low, there are physiological reasons to protect it. Specifically, the head, and especially the face and scalp, are areas with very little fat or muscle insulation compared to other parts of the body. In addition, they have a large number of blood vessels and thermal receptors on the surface, which makes them much more sensitive to the sensation of cold. This means that, although 50% of the heat is not lost through the skull, cooling the head gives us greater thermal discomfortso by covering it we feel much warmer. In addition, it also acts on cardiovascular reflexes and lowering core temperature. Therefore, wearing a hat in winter is useful, but it works the same as wearing gloves or a good scarf: it is another layer of insulation, not a magic cap. An exception. There is always an exception to every rule, and in this case they are in babies. in a newbornthe head is enormous in proportion to the rest of the body, occupying a much greater percentage of body surface than in an adult. This means that they do lose more heat here than in any other part of the body, and that is why we always see a baby with a hat on almost from the time they are in their first days of life. Science has pointed out Because in full-term newborns, an insulating hat can reduce total heat loss by 75% and oxygen consumption by 85% compared to being naked. In low resource settings or in low weight babies, the use of wool hats is clearly associated with a lower incidence of hypothermia. But with control. In healthy, full-term babies who are in warm rooms, or practicing the skin-to-skin method, the evidence suggests that the hat does not always provide a clear extra benefit and even, if combined with excessive warmth, it can promote overheating. With or without a hat. In conclusionit must be taken into account that the head is not a special part where a large amount of heat is released. However, in everyday life it is usually the only part of the body that we wear naked in winter and it has little natural insulation, so covering it is an efficient strategy to improve thermal comfort. Images | Jonathan J. Castellon In Xataka | The cold is so savage that Ukraine has activated the most kamikaze option: the “50,000 Russians per month” or giving Moscow what it wants

Since we were children we have been told that Jupiter is enormous, colossal, exaggeratedly large. Turns out not so much.

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There are things that we learn in childhood that accompany us throughout our lives and one of them is to recite the Solar System at once, which has its disadvantages: for those of us who are already old, mentioning Pluto (which It is no longer a planet) either make mistakes when estimating distances interplanetary. Another classic misconception is the size of Jupiter. Data from the Juno mission published in Nature Astronomy They change the shape and size of the colossus of the Solar System. Jupiter is flatter and smaller than we thought. We knew that Jupiter was the largest planet in the Solar System, a gaseous colossus whose mass exceeded that of the rest of the planets combined, which gave it the power to be almost the conductor of the orchestra (with the permission of the Sun) as long as its gravity had a lot of weight. Its large magnetic shield protects its moons from solar radiation, it has iconic clouds and storms in astronomy and its Great Red Spot It exceeds the Earth in size. But there is something wrong with its shape and size. The Context. The missions Voyager and Pioneerdating back to the 1970s, established figures that today we read in science books: that Jupiter has an equatorial radius of 71,492 kilometers and a polar radius of 66,854 kilometers. With this model, the planet was assimilated as a sphere flattened at the poles (oblate spheroid). These dimensions were calculated with just six indirect measurements with profiles of radio occultation. The discovery. Because what Juno has seen shows that the equatorial radius is approximately 8 kilometers smaller and the polar radius is about 24 kilometers smaller than previous missions said. Qualitatively, Jupiter is flatter. The first thing that comes to mind is: How important are eight kilometers on a planet 140,000 kilometers wide? Well scientifically, it has it. In fact, it’s the difference between whether the laws of physics fit or not. Why is it important. Well, because although the difference is comparatively minor, the fact that it is smaller and has a flatter shape has thermodynamic implications. Thus, it suggests a colder atmosphere enriched with heavy elements that better suit what the Galileo probe measured in 1995. Additionally, having accurate geometry is essential to understanding what’s inside and interpreting the gravity data provided by Juno, so we can accurately map how its mass is distributed inside and how hydrogen behaves under extreme pressures. On the other hand, knowing Jupiter better is getting closer to the recipe of how the Earth was formed and going beyond: facilitating the understanding of thousands of other exoplanets giants that we are discovering in the stars. Radio occultation operation diagram. MPRennie Wikipedia Juno’s look. Both Pioneer and Voyager and Juno use radio occultation, that is, they use the same physical principle. The radio occultation technique consists of measuring how a planet’s atmosphere bends and slows down the radio signals of a probe when it is hidden behind it. By analyzing the delay and deviation of these waves from the Earth, the scientific team can precisely calculate the density and pressure and therefore the exact shape of the planet. Of course, from a technological point of view there has been half a century of evolution and it is noticeable in terms of quality due to its multiband operation, precision and repetition. Thus, the probes of the 70s mainly used one radio band while Juno uses two, which allows, among other things, to eliminate noise. Likewise, the original ones were passing missions in front of the planned June orbit, that is, we have gone from having six points to an almost complete map. And finally, ground-based tracking systems are night and day when it comes to measuring changes in frequency and signal arrival time. In Xataka | We have been deceived by the distances of the Solar System: the closest neighbor to Neptune is Mercury In Xataka | We knew that there was water on Mars, but not how much. It turns out that 3.37 billion years ago an ocean covered half the planet Cover | NASA Hubble Space Telescope

Qwen3-Max-Thinking rivals Google’s Gemini 3 Pro more than ever. The key is in what is not being told

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There are days when it feels like we open the phone and the dashboard changes again. Since ChatGPT broke out in November 2022the artificial intelligence race has continued to accelerate, and every few weeks a new model appears which promises to push the bar a little further. Sometimes it is an update, other times it is a “flagship” with a different surname, but the pattern repeats itself: more power, more ambition and an increasingly global story. In this context, China is gaining visibility in an increasingly evident way, and the name that is now entering the conversation is Qwen3-Max-ThinkingAlibaba’s proposal with which it wants to play in the same league as the great references of the moment. At first glance, Qwen3-Max-Thinking might seem like just another name in the endless list of models. But there is a relevant nuance here: he presents it as his star model for reasoning tasks, and explicitly places it in the same conversation as Gemini 3 Pro. The company says it has scaled parameters and invested computing resources in reinforcement to improve several dimensions at once, from factual knowledge and complex reasoning to instruction following, alignment with human preferences and agent capabilities. In other words: you are not just selling raw power, but a way to “think” better. What benchmarks teach To land that promise, the most useful thing is to look at the comparative table that we have in hand, with 19 benchmarks and a direct count: Gemini 3 Pro leads in 11, Qwen3-Max-Thinking does it in 8. This data, by itself, does not decide “who is better”but it does help to understand the type of fight that Alibaba poses when faced with Google. Here it is worth being very literal with what we are measuring: each benchmark focuses on a specific skill, from general knowledge to programming, use of tools, following instructions or long context analysis. If we look for the point where Qwen3-Max-Thinking really hits home, there is one that stands out above the rest: following instructions and aligning with what humans prefer in a conversation. In Arena-Hard v2Qwen wins with 90.2 compared to Gemini’s 81.7, which is the largest difference in its favor in the entire table (8.5 points above). It is not a minor nuance, because this type of benchmark does not reward only the technical “success”, but rather the final result that a person considers most useful when blindly comparing answers. Added to that IFBenchwhere Qwen wins by the minimum (70.9 versus 70.4). Translated into real life: when the user does not formulate a perfect instruction, when the assignment has ambiguity or requires interpreting intent, Qwen seems more oriented to nailing what is asked of him and doing it in a way that feels natural. The other area where Qwen supports his “thinking model” narrative is mathematical reasoning and logical problem solving. On HMMT, in both the November 2025 and February 2025 issues, Qwen is ahead (94.7 vs. 93.3 and 98.0 vs. 97.5, respectively). And in IMOAnswerBench it also wins, although by a minimal margin: 83.9 versus 83.3. These numbers do not suggest a beating, but they do suggest a consistent pattern: when the problem demands several steps of logic and it is not solved only with memory or a nice answer, Qwen tends to take advantage. To these improvements Alibaba adds a component that is already becoming the new standard: that the model does not remain in the text, but can act. In its presentation, the company talks about an adaptive use of tools that allows information to be retrieved on demand and a code interpreter to be invoked. And this orientation also appears in the benchmarks: in HLE (w/ tools), Qwen wins with 49.8 compared to 45.8 for Gemini, which suggests a better ability to perform when the model can rely on external tools. Here the fundamental change is important: it is no longer just “what he responds”, but how he investigates, how he decides what tool to use and how he synthesizes what he finds. There is a part of this comparison where the Gemini 3 Pro feels more “engineer” than “conversational,” and it is precisely where many professional users put the focus. The Google model wins in MMLU-Pro and MMLU-Redux, two tests closely associated with general knowledge, and also in GPQA and HLE, which in this table appear as demanding evaluation benchmarks and complex questions. In code, Gemini prevails in LiveCodeBench v6 and also in SWE Verifiedwhich reinforces the idea that, for programming tasksis still a very solid bet. Added to this is AA-LCR, where it leads in analysis of long documents. The fine print hides beyond the price At this point, there is a question that weighs as much as any benchmark: how much does it cost to use these models seriously. In standard prices per 1M tokens, the contrast is clear. On Gemini 3 Pro, the entry moves between 2 and 4 dollars depending on the tranche of input tokens, while in Qwen3-Max The input is listed at $1.2. But the most important difference appears at the output, which is where the “thought” of the model is paid: Gemini marks 12 to 18 dollars compared to the 6 dollars of Qwen. Translated into proportions, in standard use Gemini is approximately 1.67 times more expensive in entry and 2 times more expensive in exit in the usual section. If the tranche exceeds 200,000 entry tokens, the distance increases to 3.33 times in entry and 3 times in exit. Gemini is approximately 1.67 times more expensive on entry and 2 times more expensive on exit in the usual section. And here we come to the part that is usually left out of the conversation when everything focuses on power and price: what happens to your data when you use the model, and under what rules. In the case of Qwen, two worlds must be clearly separated. On the one hand there is the consumer web chat, whose terms They contemplate the use and storage … Read more

Researchers extracted photos and statuses from 3.5 billion WhatsApp users. Meta didn’t react until they told him.

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Between December 2024 and April 2025, a team from the University of Vienna identified 3.5 billion active phone numbers on WhatsApp (practically its entire user base) from a single server and without encountering too much technical resistance. They processed more than a hundred million numbers per hour and extracted not only the existence of accounts, but also public keys, profile photos, status texts, and device metadata. They did it without having to hide, from the same university IP, same server, five accounts. For four months, no one in Meta noticed. Why is it important. This is not the first time that this vulnerability has been demonstrated, as it has already occurred in 2012 and 2021but the first at this scale and speed. The finding exposes a structural contradiction in WhatsApp: Your architecture should show whether a number is registered to enable contact discovery… …but that functional need collides with the privacy of its users. Knowing who uses WhatsApp in countries where it is prohibited, such as China, Burma or North Korea, can have serious consequences. There they detected 2.3 million, 1.6 million and five accounts respectively (not five million, just five). The investigation, published a few weeks ago in NDSS 2026shows that this crack not only persists, but has widened. The context. The researchers developed ‘libphonegen’, a tool that reduces the search space from billions of theoretical combinations of possible mobile phone numbers to “just” 63 billion real candidates for 245 countries. Using unofficial WhatsApp clients that directly access the XMPP API, they queried these numbers at a rate of 7,000 per second. Neither his IP was blocked nor his accounts sanctioned. Meta did not respond until researchers explicitly reported the finding in March of this year, and countermeasures did not arrive until October, just a couple of months ago. The figures. He dataset resulting five times higher the scandal of scraping from Facebook 2021: India leads the document with 749 million users (21% of the total), followed by Indonesia and Brazil. In Spain, 46.5 million accounts. 81% use Android. More than half have a public profile photo. 29% have the status text visible. Between the lines. The researchers were able to infer the operating system by analyzing initialization patterns of the cryptographic keys. Android starts certain identifiers at zero. iOS does this in random values. This detail matters because iPhone users are higher-value targets for attackers. They also detected that public keys are reused. They found 2.3 million different keys used on 2.9 million different devices. In Burma and Nigeria, tens of thousands of numbers shared the same key, pointing either to faulty implementation or outright fraud. They even found twenty American numbers that use a private key composed only of zeros. In detail. The method is not limited to confirming the existence of the accounts. For each one they extracted public keys, timestamps and the list of linked devices. This allows you to build detailed profiles without accessing the content of the messages. The age of the device can be estimated by counting key rotations. The “popularity” of a user is inferred by the frequency of depletion of their prekeys single usewhich are consumed every time you start a new conversation. Researchers downloaded 77 million profile photos of the +1 rank (prefix for the United States and Canada) in a matter of hours. 66% of them contained recognizable faces. They also found disturbing status texts, such as those from traffickers listing prices, accounts business advertising drugs or publicly visible corporate emails from governments and armies. And now what. Meta has deployed probabilistic cardinality counters to limit how many unique accounts a user can query without blocking legitimate contact discovery. It has also restricted bulk access to status photos and texts. The researchers confirmed that the measures work in subsequent tests. But no countermeasures protect those who were already listed during the months in which the system has been wide open. The big question. For four months, from a university server without even hiding their identity, they looted practically the entire user base of the most used application on the planet without anyone at Meta realizing until they were explicitly told. If these researchers were able to do it under these conditions, who else did it before without telling anyone? In Xataka | WhatsApp brings the big update of the season: the most important change is not on the mobile, but on the computer Featured image | Dimitri Karastelev

Ukraine has returned from Europe with 250 fighter jets under its arm. The problem is that only Spain has told him the truth

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The new European trip of the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has finished in Spain and has crystallized into a military agenda that aims to reconfigure the Ukrainian air force over the next decade, based on political agreements of enormous symbolic scope. If nothing goes wrong, the Ukrainian nation has nothing less than 250 European fighters under his arm along with a huge aid package and arsenal. The problem is that the financing is very uncertain and its execution is very distant. Aerial reconstruction as a continental ambition. In Paris, the Ukrainian president signed a letter of intent to acquire up to one hundred Rafale fightersdevices that France presents as the heart of the future defense of Ukraine, complemented by Samp/T systemsnew generation drones, guided munitions and incipient industrial cooperation to manufacture interceptors on Ukrainian territory. The French bet aims to elevate Ukraine to European technological standardintegrating it into a long-term security architecture and relying on a financing framework yet to be defined, where the European Union and frozen Russian assets appear as the great promise, although deeply controversial. The political gesture, celebrated as historic in parisresponds to the French ambition to lead the regeneration of Ukrainian air power and to reinforce the role of its defense industry in a continent that is rapidly rearming. Doubts about the bet. Diplomatic enthusiasm contrasts with operational uncertainties. They remembered TWZ analysts either The Wall Street Journal that Ukraine does not have of the financial margin to pay for neither the acquisition nor the maintenance of a hundred Rafale, and France is going through a period of budget fragility which makes sustained long-term commitments difficult. The idea that Europe could finance the purchase through new joint debt mechanisms or from income generated by frozen Russian assets divides the states members and poses enormous legal risks, especially for Belgium, which holds most of those funds. Added to this is the industrial reality: the Dassault production chain is saturatedwith deliveries committed for years, and the manufacturing of 100 additional devices would require extraordinary efforts. The perspective of a parallel program, with 150 Swedish Gripen also agreed in the preliminary phase, increases doubts about whether Ukraine could sustain, train and maintain such a vast fleet of 4/5th generation aircraft. For many, the initiative reflects more a political movement to keep France at the center of the Ukrainian equation and to boost European industry in the face of a United States more distantthan a realistic military acquisition plan in the short or medium term. A Gripen fighter The military horizon. Zelensky’s trip has also highlighted the arrival of a winter that anticipates a new Russian campaign focused in energy infrastructure and strategic cities. France insists that Samp/T systems are demonstrating remarkable effectiveness against Russian missiles with a complex trajectory, even higher, some French commanders claim, than the performance of the Patriot in certain scenarios. In parallel, Paris reinforces its role as a provider of interim air capabilities, including Mirage fighters and precision ammunition, while promoting a future coalition of countries Europeans willing to guarantee the security of Ukraine after an eventual ceasefire, a project still impossible as long as Moscow rejects any negotiation. This strategy, which attempts to combine immediate support with an architecture of long term securityreveals both French determination and the continent’s real limitations in simultaneously sustaining the current war and future rearmament. Among others, Spanish military aid to Ukraine will consist of 40 IRIS-T missiles Spain and the contrast with the promises. The final stop of the trip, in Madrid, has revealed a very marked contrast between the declarative exuberance of some allies and the measured (and often austere) approach of the Spanish Government. Spain announced a package of 817 million of euros, which includes 300 million in nationally produced weapons, 215 million channeled through European programs and additional 100 million to acquire US missiles through PURL initiative of NATO. It is a significant effort in political and logistical terms, but modest in comparison with the great European powers and especially small in the face of the air ambitions presented in France or Sweden. In practice, it is a calibrated support for immediate needs from the Ukrainian winter: anti-aircraft missiles to repel drones and protect critical infrastructures, plus a commitment to accelerate joint industrial capabilities in areas where Spanish companies (with Indra at the head) can offer practical solutions such as deployable radars or anti-drone systems. Spain and realism. If you also want, the Spanish case reflects a much more realistic line than that of other countries visited by Zelensky. Since the beginning of the war, Spain has contributed with useful materialsbut in many cases coming from surplus (Leopard 2A4 retired, M113 obsolete, Hawk batteries aging) and has prioritized its participation in European programs where the direct cost to its budget is lower. In comparative terms, and especially measured as a percentage of GDP, Spain is far behind of the hard core of military support for Ukraine. However, what it offers now is probably more sincere and sustainable: an acceptable package, focused on urgent and realistic needs, that does not promise fighter fleets, perhaps impossible to finance, or industrial projects that exceed national capacity. Spanish extra ball. Furthermore, Spain stands out where other countries they can’t: in the reception of refugees, in the medical rehabilitation of Ukrainian soldiers and in light but reliable industrial cooperation. So, on that journey that began with spectacular advertisements in Paris and Stockholm, the Spanish stop has served to balance in a way the expectations. In that sense, Spain appears as one of the few allies that gauges its support by looking ahead. the budget figuresavoiding promising what it will be difficult to fulfill and remaining firm in what it can offer: a modest but operational contribution. Image | Ronnie MacdonaldTuomo Salonen, Air and Space Army Ministry of Defense Spain In Xataka | Europe already knows the arsenal it needs for rearmament. Now the most difficult thing remains: how to make it arrive in time if Russia attacks … Read more

Justice has told them a couple of things

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Convert a window into a door to have private access to the common patio, install the washing machine, place pots and a clothesline. This is how two owners acted of a building in Seville without having the authorization of the community of neighbors. The Provincial Court has confirmed that they must now reverse all the works and remove their belongings from the patio. Conflict. As you can read in the sentencethe lighthouse was a common space belonging to two buildings. One of them filed a lawsuit against these owners for opening a hole in the wall that faced the patio, allowing them to access directly from their home and use the area as if it were private, just as they explain from NewsWork. All of this without having requested or obtained the approval of the owners’ meeting. The defense. The reported neighbors alleged that there was discrimination, since another owner had maintained a similar door to the same patio for decades. They also argued that the neighbors at the time expressed indifference and that the lawsuit was motivated by poor personal relationships. However, none of these arguments succeeded. What the law says. The Provincial Court of Seville rejected the appeal and confirmed the First Instance ruling. Just like express From the middle, according to article 7.1 of the Horizontal Property Law, no owner can make alterations to common elements without express permission from the community. Opening a hole in the façade requires approval by board agreement, something that in this case was never requested. The problem of exclusive use. The court pointed out that he article 397 of the Civil Code establishes that no community member can use a common space in a way that excludes others or prevents their use. By installing a washing machine, pots, clothesline and other personal items, these owners were depriving the rest of the neighbors of shared use of the patio. Someone doing it is not enough. The fact that another neighbor has been granted that right does not automatically authorize the rest of the owners to do the same. The sentence discard the “comparative grievance” as a justification for repeating previous violations, especially when there is no community agreement to support it. In this way, the community would have acted within the legal framework. A recent use. The defendants were also unable to demonstrate that they had acquired rights through the passage of time. The acquisition of easements by prescription requires peaceful, public and continuous use for at least 20 years, according to the article 537 of the Civil Code. In this case, just as share the medium, the intervention was recent and without legitimation. Conviction. The two neighbors must close the door, replace the original window and remove all elements from the common patio: washing machine, flower pots, clothesline and any other object. In addition, they are obliged to repair the damage caused in the area and assume the full cost of the work to restore the previous state of the façade and the shared patio. Cover image | Javier Gomez In Xataka | The best horror movie of this winter has been released. And the protagonists are the owners of a home in Spain

“I told Musk not to donate his money, it would end up in organizations chosen by Bill Gates”

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Peter Thiel is one of the most influential and controversial names in the technology world, known both for his business success with projects such as PayPal or Palantir, and for his unconventional ideas. about education either religion. Recently, Thiel has generated a lot of debate after Reuters had access to recordings of a series of private conferences in which he warned Elon Musk about where his fortune could end up if he donated it to the wrong people. Peter Thiel and his influence in Silicon Valley. Peter Thiel is a key figure in Silicon Valley, being one of the founding members of the so-called “PayPal mafia“, a group of businessmen who revolutionized technology and currently accumulate great economic and political power. Their role as mentor and investment partner of other majors in the sector, like Mark Zuckerberghas allowed him to control venture capital funds that drive many decisive companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of the figures with whom Thiel has had a particularly complex relationship is Elon Musk, with whom he founded the company PayPal. In transcripts seen by Reuters of Thiel’s private talks, he explained how he warned Musk against donating his fortune to Bill Gates through The Giving Pledgean agreement by which millionaires agree to donate a large part of their assets to social causes. Thiel told his audience: “I told (Elon Musk) that his money would end up in the hands of organizations selected by Bill Gates.” In response to this message, the millionaire said that Musk responded: “What am I supposed to do, give it to my children? It would be worse to give it to Bill Gates,” is recorded in the leaked transcripts. Then Musk ruled out Gates. A few years ago, Bill Gates and Elon Musk held a series of meetings in which Gates proposed a series of impact investments in which the founder of Space X could be interested in investing philanthropically through the Gates Foundation. Within the framework of this approach, the founder and his son Rory They even visited the Tesla factory in Austin. However, when Musk’s donation commitment seemed to come to fruition, the South African millionaire suddenly changed his mind and he sent Gates away in bad waysblaming him for how incoherent that someone who claims to fight against climate change would have short positions (at losses) of a company like Tesla, which worked to reduce fossil fuels. From that moment, the relationship between Musk and Gates they have been like water and oil. Thiel’s story in which he advised Musk to distance himself from Gates, and the abrupt breakdown of philanthropic talks with the Microsoft founder could be related. The fear of global power and the figure of the “Antichrist”. According what was published by Guardianthe transcripts also revealed other concerns of Thiel, who in his workshops warned about the risk of the emergence of a figure of global power, which he figuratively called “Antichrist”, who could emerge from the dominance growing of artificial intelligence. According to Thiel, this entity, which represents a form of power, could be presented as a solution to face global crises such as the climate change or nuclear threatsbut in reality it would end up limiting individual freedoms and promoting a uniformity of thought. As and as pointed out Fortunethis concern is based on his personal interpretation of the biblical text and what he considers the danger of developing science without a solid ethical basiswhich could generate a global system that demands obedience in exchange for order and security. Technology will set you free. Peter Thiel argues that large technological fortunes should not be donated to charitable causes, but rather, in his words, “large technological fortunes should be used to protect human freedom” from the risk of a centralized global system that controls the flow of capital and innovation. The millionaire warns that, if governments and international institutions control investments and innovation, could curb creativity and human potential under the pretext of global security. The Twitter purchase on the part of Elon Musk, his involvement in the Trump campaign and his subsequent role in DOGEshow that Thiel’s words have influenced Musk to reconsider his commitments and think about how to protect the legacy of his fortune in the face of these concerns. In Xataka | Some millionaires didn’t like the ideology of universities, so they created their own university: an “Anti-Woke” Image | Flickr (Gage Skidmore, Statsministerens kontor)

Europe has seen that Gen Z is full of militarism, body worship and a desire to party and has told them: go to the front

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First there were technical shoes, then sports watchesand now the military backpacks: khaki, resistant, full of patches and straps. Europe dresses usefully, as if preparing for war were just another aesthetic trend. In the gyms, more than in the barracks, a new type of citizenship is trained: bodies ready, gazes focused, backpacks ready for something that we still don’t know if it is a fad or a calling. Those who wear them seem to embody a new European trend: the return of the body as a patriotic symbol. A few weeks ago, the US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, declared: “It’s tiring to see obese troops.” His comment—as provocative as it was political—coincided with an unexpected finding: Generation Z, the same one that grew up among screens and anxiety, is recovering the cult of the body, the taste for action and, in some cases, a renewed curiosity for the idea of ​​serving or protecting something bigger than oneself. Europe has taken note. Atasila ne aniram? In a chapter of The SimpsonsBart and his friends formed a music group with subliminal lyrics to encourage young people to join the navy. A joke that, with the passage of time, has become another pop prophecy fulfilled. In a Financial Times column have started to unravel the new military movement. European armies have detected an unexpected change: young people who previously fled from conscription now sign up for military or civilian volunteering. In Germany, applications for voluntary military service They have grown 15% in a year; In Finland, the Government has announced his intention to increase to one million reservists in 2031, For its part, Sweden, with its “total defense” system (Totalförsvaret), already integrates 380,000 citizens into radio, transport or dog training associations that support the Army without holding weapons. According to official data from the Swedish governmentdue to the War in Ukraine, registrations skyrocketed: in a few months they received as many volunteers as in a normal year. Meanwhile, in the Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—they are also reinforcing their “civil militarism.” The three states prepare plans mass evacuation and citizen response to a possible Russian attack. The maneuvers include everything from logistics volunteers to farmers who learn to drive light armored vehicles. Furthermore, Estonia has created units of cybervolunteers to protect digital infrastructures and Lithuania just launched a program to train 22,000 drone operators. Europe is not raising massive armies: it is cultivating available, disciplined and functional bodies. A low-intensity militarism that mixes gym, volunteering and “healthy patriotism.” But why Gen Z? The simplest answer is because it is shaped by the mirror, but there is much more to it than that. Currently, we live in the era of protein chicof spiked shakes, sculpted bodies and extreme routines. The psychologist Sara Bolo warned that “Many apparently healthy behaviors hide disorders disguised as fitness culture.” But beyond the excesses, the cult of the body has become an ethic: physical self-discipline as a sense of purpose. And behind it there is something else: 36% of European Gen Z exercise regularly and another 50% want to start. However, the most revealing fact is not that, but the void it fills. Sociologist Robert Putnam already diagnosed that “we stopped bowling together.” Today, the gym replaces the social club, the bootcamp the summer camp, the weight routine the collective ritual. In other words, Generation Z isn’t just looking for muscle: it’s looking to belong. In a Europe where 13% of citizens and 20% of young people say they feel alone “most of the time”, according to Eurostatcivil defense appears as a new type of functional community: a gymnasium with anthem and purpose. The body as a political border. This cult of the body, born in gyms and amplified by networks, has also filtered into institutional discourse. What was once individual well-being, today takes on a collective, even patriotic tone. On the other side of the Atlantic, body obsession has acquired ideological overtones. Hegseth himself gathered hundreds of top brass to reprimand them: “No more beards. Let’s trim the hair, shave the beards and go back to standards.” His speech was more focused on appearance than performance, more on the image of the ideal soldier than on his operational capacity. Europe observes with caution, but the impulse is the same: the body once again becomes a metaphor for the nation, a space where the moral and physical health of the State is projected. Trained, vigilant, prepared. Recruit with algorithms. For now, the old continent is strengthening its network of civil associations. But if you look to the United States, you could find a more aggressive recruiting model. The US Army has hired e-girls and influencers like Hailey Lujan, an employee of the psychological operations division (PSYOP), who combines uniforms and beauty filters to attract new recruits. On the other hand, the Pentagon He also tried video games: America’s Armya shooter free launched in 2002 so that players wanted to get ready after playing. It worked for two decades as the first major gamified recruiting tool. For now, the European version of digital recruitment is more sober – campaigns about volunteering and civil protection – but the logic is identical: convince Generation Z that the uniform can also be a lifestyle. Fragility disguised as strength. On the margins of the gym where discipline and self-improvement are preached, a digital manosphere thrives that turns fragility into ideological fuel. On TikTok and YouTube, figures like Andrew Tate or anonymous accounts with a military aesthetic promote a masculinity “based on strength and control.” fitness has become in a gateway to the digital extreme right, where the body symbolizes purity and the enemy is always the weak. Cases like that of the Spanish influencer Llados, who combines coaching physical with discourses about “traditional masculinity”, illustrate that blurred border between personal improvement and emotional manipulation. The risk is not only the militarization of the body, but also its ideological instrumentalization. The gym, a space of redemption, can become soft indoctrination campwhere loneliness and … Read more

The army wants to expand the military area of ​​a privileged corner of Mallorca. His neighbors have told him not so quickly

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Cap del Pinar is a postcard place from the north of the island of Mallorca. Cliffs, coves, trees and unique views of the Mediterranean. None of that has prevented that small strip of land from motivating an institutional ‘riffrafe’ between the Alcúdia City Council (21,000 residents), where the small peninsula is located, and the Ministry of Defense. The reason: Cap del Pinar is a privileged place for locals, but also an Area of ​​Interest for National Defense. The question is how compatible both uses are. What has happened? That the future of Cap del Pinara cape located north of the island of Mallorca, has caused an institutional clash between the Government and the Alcúdia Town Hallthe locality in which the spit of land is located. The reason? For the department headed by Margarita Robles, it is a space of “national interest” for defense. For the Consistory, however, it is something more: a space for “high heritage and natural value” which plays an important role in local traditions and cannot be stolen from neighbors. Where does the problem come from? To understand it you have to go back a few decades, in the early 40’swhen the Army initiated a file of forced expropriation of the lands of The Victory. Your goal, remember The Confidentialwas to install military batteries and auxiliary services in several strategic points on the Majorcan island: Cap del Pinar and Cap Gros. In 1947, the Alcúdia City Council (the town where the first one is located) accepted the transfer, although including a small print that clarified that it was granting the land temporarily and reserving certain rights. That was 79 years ago, but the area and especially its use has continued to make people talk. Why’s that? Because the presence of the Army marked the use of the environment, which began to focus on national defense. So much so that already entering the 21st century, the Alcúdia City Council and the Government came to an agreement to guarantee that residents could enjoy Cap del Pinar, although with certain conditions. As published in April 2009 Mallorca newspaper, The pact contemplated that people could visit the military base during the summer months and respecting a maximum daily quota of 50 people. Before, yes, they needed to request a special permit, which in practice deters to quite a few neighbors. The result is that locals have been able to continue enjoying the area, although with limitations. And what happens now? That the army wants to reinforce its presence in that small (and privileged) salient in the north of Mallorca. Recently the ministry communicated to the City Council that wants to declare a barracks located right on the Cape road “Area of ​​Interest for National Defense”. In other words, it wants to expand the area it already uses as a military maneuver and shooting range to 145 hectares. Although Margarita Robles’ department is still processing the Royal Decree that will allow it to expand the “area of ​​interest”, the notice has been enough to put the Balearic Council on guard, which was quick to make a move. What has he done? A few weeks ago the municipal plenary agreed to transfer to Defense a list of allegations. Basically, the City Council warns that the expansion “could condition local powers” in matters of urban planning and heritage, in addition to the use of the environment. Because if there is something that is worrying in Alcúdia, it is that its neighbors will lose access to a space of “high natural and heritage value”. “This is our main demand. We don’t want to have to ask for permits to climb,” explains the mayorFina Batlessa, a The Confidential. Why this concern? Because it is not just any area. Beyond your environmental protectionthe Cap del Pinar peninsula is a space of tradition and enjoyment for the neighbors. Very popular excursions are organized, not counting the coves (or paths to coves) that are distributed throughout the area. The big question is… If Defense decides to expand the military zone, how would that affect the use that locals make of the environment? After all, the neighbors already have experience of what happened with the land transferred in the 1940s. Hence, the City Council’s allegations clarify that one of its objectives be “maintain the hiking and hiking activity”, “guarantee access without prior authorization” and protect the popular festivals that are celebrated in Victòria. “It should not entail unjustified limitations on the rights of citizens and municipal autonomy. Alcúdia must preserve its environment and traditions,” summarizes Linares in Mallorca Diary. In its allegations the Consistory ask For example, the expansion of the military zone does not interfere with “hiking and hiking activities” nor does it represent a “reduction in the free movement of people” during the holidays. Hunters also have a license valid until 2028. What does Defense say? The issue has generated so much controversy that the Ministry of Defense has already come out to clarify that the expansion will not affect the enjoyment of the area. He has also clarified that he does not aspire to another 145 extra hectares, but that this will be the total area that he will manage after the change, including those that he has already controlled since the 1940s. To be more precise, the focus is on a 400-meter stretch of land that will leave a stretch of road and part of the surroundings under his management. Will that affect its public use? A few days ago the department of Robles guaranteed to Mallorca Diary that both hikers and hunters will be able to continue enjoying the area “without problem.” That has not prevented the debate has escalated even beyond local and regional politics, reaching Congress, where Sumar Més has registered several questions on the topic. Images | Wikipedia (Frank Vincentz) and Selvatgi (Flickr) In Xataka | Ibiza promised them happiness with its coves. Until luxury villas and beach clubs began to privatize them with hammocks

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