watching

These are the 10 things you shouldn’t miss when watching it

by

If this August 12, 2026 you are going to see a solar eclipse for the first timemaybe, when the time comes, you don’t know very well where to look. It’s normal. The show is in heaven, so it is logical that we get our approved glasses and let’s fix our eyes on the Sun during the partiality. Later, when totality arrives, we know that structures of the star that we normally do not see will appear, so the impulse is to take off our glasses, which at that moment are no longer necessary, and continue looking at the Sun. Once totality ends, you put your glasses back on and continue looking at the Sun. Great, you have seen the center of the eclipse, but you have not observed everything that is happening around you. In reality, a solar eclipse is a unique phenomenon because of everything it entails on a global level. The Sun looks like we have never seen it before, but there is also changes in light, shadows, colors, temperature, animal behavior… It is important that we also look at all this, but of course, we do not have all the time in the world. Therefore, it is essential that we keep an action plan in mind, with all the checks What we want to do during the time the eclipse lasts. This is actually a matter of taste. You may enjoy the Sun more, the shadows, the behavior of animals or everything at the same time. Look wherever you want, but it’s good that you know everything the eclipse can offer you. Here is a list of ideas to choose your ideal observation protocol. What is in the Sun A solar eclipse occurs when what is known as first contact occurs. At that moment, the Moon begins to hide the Sun, as if it had taken a small bite. It is the beginning of partiality and it is important to see it with approved glasses on. Little by little, the Moon engulfs the Sun and we no longer see just a small bite, but an increasingly larger bite. When there is hardly any sunlight left, the Baily beadsa series of circles that surround the Sun as if it had been adorned with a pearl necklace. This is because sunlight filters through the Moon’s irregularities, so you see a lot of little balls. However, when there is hardly any light left, only a bright, somewhat larger ball known as diamond ring Immediately afterwards totality begins. As long as we are within the range in which the Moon will completely hide the Sun, of course. At the beginning of this, you can see the chromospherean area of ​​the solar atmosphere that looks like a red arc. This lasts very few seconds and is not always visible. The ideal is to have your eyes well adapted to the darkness, for example by wearing sunglasses before the eclipse, as eclipse hunter Leo Hernández did in the last total solar eclipse he has seen so far. He told us recently in an interview. Once the chromosphere is no longer visible, the solar corona appears. You can detect it as a white, filamentous halo that surrounds the black ball of the Moon, covering the Sun. Totality can last between a few seconds and a few minutes and, then, everything we have seen begins to happen, but in the opposite order. diamond ring The solar eclipse beyond the Sun In addition to everything we have seen, there are many details that we can observe in a solar eclipse if we look around us. It is not necessary to keep your eyes fixed on the Sun all the time. The temperature When totality occurs, the temperature drops sharply. There is nothing to “see” there, it is only necessary to feel. But it’s good to be prepared for that feeling. This way it won’t come as news to us and we can pay more attention to it. nature During a solar eclipse, many animals change their behavior. There have been cases of turtles mating, cattle returning to their stables, crickets beginning to chirp, owls hooting, or giraffes fleeing for fear of becoming prey to a nocturnal predator. There are also plants that open or close when it is not yet touching. All due to the fact that light is essential in the circadian rhythms of living beings, so that its absence during the day becomes an abnormality and a source of physiological conflict. The sky beyond the sun It is logical that we look at the sky during a solar eclipse, but the ideal is not to focus our gaze only on the Sun. If everything goes well and there is no light pollution, some stars may appear and bright planets in the sky. It is curious how the firmament makes an appearance during the day, so it is also worth extending your gaze due to its immensity. The shadows The shadows are different during a solar eclipse, especially in the last moments of the partiality. To begin with, although they are usually seen with more blurred edges, at this time They look much clearer. This is because, if sunlight normally arrives in many directions, as it comes from a large round disk, during a very advanced partial solar eclipse there is only a very thin strip of light, like a kind of crescent. As a result, under normal conditions, when an object blocks the light and a shadow is formed, there may be many fragments of the solar disk blocked, so that a diffuse transition between the sun and the shadow is formed. In an eclipse, on the other hand, the light comes from a much more specific point, so that transition does not occur. On the other hand, during an advanced partial solar eclipse they are seen under the leaves of the trees. a kind of shadows in the shape of small crescents. These are due to pinhole effectwhich occurs when light passes … Read more

The US taught that access to advanced AI can be cut off. China is studying the same thing, according to Reuters, and Europe is watching from the outside

by

When the United States activated export controls which ended up leading Anthropic to deactivate Fables 5 and Mythos 5 For all its users, a reality that was difficult to ignore was exposed: access to advanced AI may be cut off. Not because the model disappears, nor because it stops working technically, but because a national security decision can convert an available tool into a conditioned capability. Things have changed slightly since then: controls on Fable lifted after new safeguards and Mythos was limited to a few trusted American organizations, but the precedent is still there. Now that question returns from the other side of the board. Reuters reports that Chinese authorities have held meetings over the last month with the country’s major technology companies to study possible restrictions on foreign access to their most advanced AI models, including some that have not yet been launched. Alibaba, ByteDance and Z.ai participated in those meetings, according to three people familiar with the conversations. At the moment there is no approved measure, no fixed calendar, nor definitive scope. Perhaps more revealing, Beijing is discussing how far it wants to open up its most advanced AI products. What was discussed in those meetings goes beyond closing an API or limiting access to a specific product. According to the agency, participants talked about putting limits on the most advanced models, both closed and more open versions, and also about toughening the consequences for what they call leaks or thefts of proprietary AI technology. One of the sources consulted indicated that these leaks could be treated as crimes linked to China’s strict national security law. New restrictions were also raised on who can fund domestic AI startups. Advanced AI enters the logic of strategic control There are several reasons why what was mentioned does not remain solely within Chinese borders. Since the emergence of DeepSeek R1, remember, AI developed in China has gained ground outside the country thanks to a very attractive combination for many companies: low costs and increasing capabilities. Alibaba has Qwen, ByteDance features Doubao and Z.ai has attracted attention in Silicon Valley with GLM-5.2a model that comes close to leading American offerings at a fraction of the cost. If Beijing limits that access, many businesses and users could find themselves with fewer options and, presumably, higher bills. The Chinese AI sector also seems interested in developing cybersecurity-oriented systems equivalent or superior to those in the United States. Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360, a cybersecurity company with weight among government and enterprise clients, has said that China needs to develop its own Mythos. The company came to present Tulongfeng as a Chinese response to that type of system, stating that it is capable of detecting a large number of vulnerabilities. This is where the most delicate part of the debate appears when viewed from Europe. When the Anthropic case brought to the table the possibility that access to American models would be conditioned by Washington, some raised the Chinese models as a possible alternative: cheaper, increasingly capable and, in certain cases, available through API or with open weights. The new information from Reuters introduces an important nuance in that reading. Changing suppliers can reduce costs or open up new technical options, but does not eliminate the dependency if the critical capacity continues to live under a foreign jurisdiction. Europe, moreover, had already been thinking about this kind of risk before Anthropic and China occupied the center of the discussion. The Commission has defended the need to reduce dependencies on cloud, artificial intelligence and semiconductors, and has linked that agenda with the autonomy and digital resilience of the continent. In that discussion, Brussels has come to warn of the risk of “kill switches”: the possibility that a foreign supplier or a government with the ability to pressure can interrupt essential technological services. That is why Europe looks from the outside. The United States preserves some of the most advanced models in the world and has already made it clear that access to them may be conditioned by a political or national security decision. China, for its part, has gained ground with cheaper and increasingly capable modelsand now I would be studying my own restrictions. The Old Continent is in another place: it has regulation, sovereign ambition and promising companies, but it does not yet seem to have an equivalent in commercial weight, global adoption and strategic capacity to the products that today set the technological bar. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana | Arthur Wang In Xataka | Alibaba’s Qwen AI model is the new crown jewel. The only problem is that they don’t make money from it.

There is a scientific scale to measure how much you enjoy watching pimples explode and many people have high scores

by

The paths of the Internet are inscrutable. Sometimes, the videos that set trends on social networks are more than understandable. For example, who isn’t going to like kitten videos? However, on other occasions, there are videos that divide society. It is the case of the videos of exploding pimples. For some users, they are as pleasurable as exploiting them in person. For others, precisely those who can’t stand it in real life either, they are the height of unpleasantness. But what is it about the act of popping pimples or seeing it on the screen? Why are there so many people who enjoy it? Actually, with psychology in hand, it is not so strange. The problem is that, if we change psychology for dermatology, it can be dangerous in some cases. Although not as much as we think Why do we enjoy popping pimples so much? For starters, our penchant for popping pimples is related to dopamine. Humans experience pleasure when a surge of dopamine is released in our brain. In reality it is a much more complex process, but we can keep that in a simplified way. It is the hormone that dominates reward systems. That is, those who They are set in motion when we do something that is beneficial to us as a species. For example, sex is beneficial, because it helps us perpetuate the species. Eating chocolate is beneficial because it gives us energy. The brain does not distinguish between energetic and healthy, so it also generates that feeling of pleasure that makes us want to repeat. If we have a lot of sex it will be easier for us to reproduce and if we eat a lot of chocolate we will have a lot of energy. That’s the summary of how reward systems work. Unfortunately, not everything that activates reward systems is always good. Drugs, for example, can replicate that feeling of pleasure, despite not providing us with any benefit. Leaving that aside, stopping feeling pain also gives us pleasure, logically. It’s good for us. Furthermore, from a much more superficial point of view, what is beautiful and aesthetic is equally pleasant. For that reason, there are people who get so much pleasure from exploding pimples. With a single gesture of her nails, they are removing something painful and unsightlyso they get a good shot of dopamine. What about the videos? The case of videos that circulate on social networks is not exactly the same. There we are only spectators. We are not directly exploiting the pimples. Even so, just take a look at the visualizations to see that they cause a sensation. A feeling that, in fact, is not new. In 2021 already There was a team of Austrian scientists who were interested in the reasons why so many people enjoy these types of videos. They carried out an investigation with 80 women, of which 38 reported that they enjoyed these videos and 42 indicated that they did not. Their brains were analyzed using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they watched several of these videos, so it was observed that, indeed, those who enjoyed them showed greater activity in brain regions associated with pleasurelike the nucleus accumbens. Later, in 2024, these same scientists They developed scales that they called the Grain Exploitation Enjoyment Scale. (PPES) to evaluate people who enjoy this guilty pleasure. The study was carried out through two experiments. In the first, 104 people participated and were asked questions aimed at evaluating the PPES scale. In addition, they were made to watch videos of people exploiting pimples, with complete freedom to move the video forward or backward if they saw it necessary. Thus, the scale was found to be appropriate, since higher scores corresponded to a lower probability of forwarding the video. Many people watch videos of exploding pimples because of the controlled risk Then, with the scale already evaluated, a second experiment was done, this time with 501 people, who were asked questions to score through the PPES scale, but also through other personality scales. The objective was to check what type of traits lead someone to enjoy these videos. Thus, it was seen that, mainly, people with higher PPES scores are those who feel pleasure with situations of possible death or discomfort in controlled and non-threatening situations. It should be said that this does not mean that possible death is pleasurable, but the adrenaline of risky situations does, when seen from the outside, without real danger. People who enjoy these situations also tend to be lovers of horror movies, for example. To a certain extent, this human tendency is also linked to the survival of the species. Enjoyment in risky situations leads us to observe them conscientiously and learn in case, when the time comes, we find ourselves in a similar scenario in real life. It is true that exploding pimples is not fatal, but it does pose a certain risk, so seeing it from the outside, in a controlled way, can cause a feeling of pleasure. If we add the dopamine from seeing something unsightly removed, we can understand the fury of these viral videos. What are the risks of popping pimples? We have seen that people who enjoy pimple popping videos do so because they see a certain dangerous situation. It is not doing bungee jumping, but it has its risk. Now, to what extent is it dangerous? To find out, I have contacted Rosa Tabernerdermatologist at the Son Llátzer Hospital (Palma de Mallorca) and member of the Spanish Association of Dermatology and Venereology. To begin with, he explained something very interesting to me: the reason why in viral videos (and in reality) you see those yellow threads when removing the pimple. The key is in the keratin that accumulates in the pores of the skin. “Pimples or blackheads correspond to what dermatologists call open comedones,” he begins. “When this opening is more dilated than normal and sebum secretion is increased, keratin accumulates in that pore.” Keratin … Read more

The US did not turn off Claude Mythos for fear of a jailbreak, it did so because it suspected someone was watching. That someone is China

by

Last Saturday, the White House ordered Anthropic to remove access to Fable 5 and Mythos to any foreign person, regardless of whether they were inside or outside the United States. This order supposedly came after a tip that there was a way to jailbreak the model and bypass safeguards, but according to Wired it came at a time when Washington was already uneasy for another reason. South Korea. They tell it in Wired. According to sources close to the government, the notice of the possible jailbreak came at a time when the US government had already raised its eyebrows over another issue. It turns out that one of the large companies that had access to Mythosthe original model without the safeguards, was SK Telecom, the largest telephone operator in South Korea. The concern, according to these sources, arises from the alleged ties of this operator with China. The logic would have been something like: if SK Telecom has access, China has access. Furthermore, they have told us that there are vulnerabilities. Let them turn it off now. Why is it important. Until now it was believed that the reason behind the decision was the warning about a possible jailbreak in Fable, which was the “trimmed” version of Mythos that was released to the public. It was Amazon’s own CEO, Andy Jassy, ​​who called the treasury secretary to warn him that they had found vulnerabilities in Fable. In this version of the story, the government’s concern was that anyone would bypass Fable’s safeguards and use it for evil. However, with this new information things change: it is no longer just any person, but China, its great enemy in the technological war, which could be looking into the guts of Mythos. They already had them in their sights. As we said, SK Telecom was one of the 150 companies chosen to test Mythos within the framework of what is known as Project Glasswing. According to internal sources consulted by Wired, the US government requested that Anthropic revoke their access earlier this month, to which Anthropic agreed. It seemed like the thing was going to stay there, but when Fable was released to the public and learned that it had a vulnerability, the White House reacted. SK Telecom, Anthropic and China. The relationship between Anthropic and SK Telecom dates back to 2023, when They invested 100 million dollars in the AI ​​startup for the development of AI models focused on telecommunications. Currently, SK Telecom barely has a presence in China (They only have seven employees and their billing is testimonial), but in the past they had a very close relationship with China Unicom, creating a joint venture and investing up to $1 billion in the Chinese operator. Although already They sold their shares in 2009SK Telecom is part of the SK Group conglomerate, which has other businesses beyond telecommunications, such as semiconductors and energy, these with alliances in China. SK Telecom has denied maintaining ties with China. Previous tensions. All this happens at a time when the relationship between the US government and Anthropic is not going through its best moment. In March of this year they starred in a whole soap opera Anthropic’s refusal to allow military use of its models without safeguards. They ended up on what is known as the black list.Anthropic took the US to court and now we have a new season of the soap opera with the whole Mythos thing. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | China has two ideas to win the AI ​​race: invest a fortune and leave NVIDIA with almost no margin

A Nazi officer has been watching you for two hours while you study, and has five million views on YouTube

by

An austere room with an open door. Every three or four minutes, an SS officer entershe stares at the viewer and sees that he is doing exactly what he is supposed to do: studying or working. Except for a few threatening opening words and a sullen farewell, there is nothing more. With small variations (a Soviet officer, times that vary between one and four hours, setting in a sinister basement in some other video) we are facing a successful experiment with five and a half million views. Which connects with one of the most unique traditions of YouTube. The origin. It was published in September 2023 by the German channel Radical Living under the title “2 hours from a WWII German officer to help you study/work/focus.” The description, a laconic “Study with me.” The video accumulates more than five million views and carries, at the end of its description, the inevitable warning that “this work should only be seen as satire” and that the author condemns Nazi ideology. In March 2026 the same channel uploaded the soviet version: same formula, different uniform. Study with me. Having someone on the internet accompany you while you study is not new. The format is on YouTube since around 2014 and began to gain real traction around 2018, when creators around the world began posting recordings of themselves studying in real time, usually with lofi music in the background and visible timers, imitating the also inevitable Pomodoro technique. The mechanics are deliberately simple: the viewer puts on the video, sees someone working in silence (or, in this last variant, someone watching him) and that helps him to work too. Long live Lofi Girl. The absolute reference of the genre is Lofi Girlthe French channel created by music producer Dimitri, launched in February 2017, and which showed the continuous broadcast, livelofi music with an anime girl studying by the window. The channel exceeded 15 million subscribers in 2025 and the image of the girl with headphones has become one of the most recognizable icons of productivity culture on the internet. In July 2025 the character symbolically “graduated” with a video on TikTok showing her wearing a mortarboard and a laptop with the phrase “THE END.” Thus closing the era of the character’s continuous stream, which had lasted more than seven years. More variants. The success of Lofi Girl generated multiple imitations: the subgenre “dark academy“It brought gothic atmospheres, fireplaces, rain, dark wood and a fanfare of violins for those who prefer to study imaginatively in a Victorian castle (the success of ‘Wednesday’, in fact, did not come out of nowhere). Then came the fantasy environments: the library of Hogwartsa elven forestthe spaceship…Each variant adds layers of schematic roleplay, a narrative excuse for the viewer to “get in the mood.” The Nazi or Soviet officer is the latest mutation of that logic, taken to the point of absurdity (and of course, there is a Spanish version with Pepe Viyuela, who is already a subgenre in its own right) Why we like to be watched. There is a technical concept that may explain why these videos work: the body doubling. It emerged in the ADHD community to describe the fact that performing a task in the presence of another person (even if you don’t interact, review your work, or do anything specific) significantly improves your ability to concentrate and get started on tasks. There are already studies that talk about how body doubling It generates a feeling of responsibility that helps you stay on task. The presence (real or not, that doesn’t matter) of someone creates an external structure that the brain uses to regulate itself, something especially valuable for those who have difficulties with executive self-regulation. and the theoretical foundation It goes back even further: the psychologist Robert Zajonc described in 1965 “social facilitation”, that the mere presence of others increases the level of alertness and performance on tasks that we already master. That’s why it works to go down to work in a cafeteria, where no one knows each other. That’s why Lofi Girl works, and that’s why, in its own twisted logic, the SS officer works. In Xataka | We are experiencing a crisis of concentration. Experts are beginning to think that the problem is not mobile phones, but the algorithm

Watching the World Cup on a TV is fine, but doing it on a projector of up to 100 inches is another experience.

by

There is very little left until the soccer World Cup begins. If you want to renew your television, there are many offers in stores like MediaMarkt. But, if it happens to you like me, you bought it not too long ago and you are looking for something different, you might be interested in a projector like the Samsung The Freestyle 2nd Genwhose price has fallen in PcComponentes to 429 euros. Samsung The Freestyle 2nd Gen The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A portable and smart projector He Samsung The Freestyle 2nd Gen It is a projector that has a cylindrical format, allowing us to rotate to project image on wall or ceiling. And all this in a comfortable way. Additionally, the projector base can be connected to an external battery, which is also sold at PcComponentes by 119.09 eurosalthough through an external store. This allows you to increase autonomy, something especially useful if you are going to use the projector outside the home. By itself, the projector has an integrated battery that offers a theoretical autonomy of three hours. Its operating system is Tizenwhich allows you to download some applications through its WiFi connectivity. It supports image formats such as HDR10+ and also incorporates integrated speakers compatible with Dolby Digital Plus. But one of the big draws, especially when it comes to watching football matches in a big way, lies in the size of the image projection, which reaches up to 100 inches. In addition, it is also worth mentioning that the projector comes with a dedicated cinema mode, includes Samsung TV Plus for watching television channels and has microHDMI, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. ⚡ IN SUMMARY: Samsung The Freestyle 2nd Gen offer today ✅ THE BEST Your format: The base allows the projector to be rotated to project an image on a wall or ceiling. Your operating system: includes Tizen (the operating system that we see on Samsung televisions), which allows you to download some applications such as Movistar Plus. ❌ THE WORST The shine: We are talking about a projector that, despite being portable, is intended for use at home or in poorly lit environments, since it does not offer particularly high brightness to have a good experience in rooms or places with a lot of ambient light. 💡 BUY IT IF… You are looking for a projector to watch sports, movies and series or enjoy video games on a big screen without having to buy a television. Especially if you also want the projector to allow you to download applications. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… You are looking for a projector to use in environments with a lot of ambient light, since for this it is necessary that the projector has good luminosity. You may also be interested Nebula Capsule 3 Mini portable projector 1080p, Wi-Fi, 200 ANSI lumens, Google TV, Netflix, Dolby Digital, 120 inch image, built-in battery, 2.5h The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Soundcore Nebula P1 Portable GTV Projector with Detachable Speakers, 650 ANSI Lumens, 1080p, 20 W Real 2.0 Sound, Dolby Audio, Automatic Adjustment, 180” Screen and Carrying Handle The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Samsung In Xataka | Best televisions in quality price. Which one to buy and seven recommended 4K smart TVs In Xataka | Best sound bars in quality price. Which one to buy and seven recommended models from 140 euros

We stopped watching traditional television because of advertising, but YouTube is willing to recover it with unstoppable ads

by

A few days ago, YouTube users in smart TVs They began to notice something that many thought they had left behind forever: unskippable 90-second ads in the middle of forty-minute videos. YouTube had promised in March that non-skippables would be 30 seconds long, but the limit has tripled in a matter of weeks. You see the ads. On March 2, YouTube released a statement announcing the global arrival of 30-second non-skippable ads for those watching the platform on connected TVs. More people than ever are using YouTube in the living room, and advertisers want formats that look like traditional television. Only five weeks later, things began to change: this April 7, several users began to publish on the r/YouTube subreddit 90-second ad screenshots, triple the advertised maximum, which could not be omitted in any way. Some media They collected part of the reactions of the spectators, which ranged from fury to inevitable resignation. YouTube’s response. The platform assured that those 90-second ads were not intentional and that it was “investigating” what had happened. The same source published a survey in January in which 87% of more than 8,600 people questioned claimed to have received non-skippable ads lasting more than 30 seconds, and almost a third said they had seen them exceed two minutes. Paradoxically, in 2017 YouTube removed 30-second non-skippable ads considering them precisely “a relic of traditional television.” The accounts come out. YouTube generated 40.4 billion dollars in advertising revenue in 2025. A figure that exceeds the combined sum of Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, which together earned 37.8 billion. The same firm went so far as to declare YouTube “the new king of all media” by estimate its total income at around 62,000 million a year. And it’s not just a matter of raw money: according to NielsenYouTube took over 12.7% of all television viewing time in the US in December 2025, compared to 9% for Netflix. The gap between the two has widened in recent months. More people watch YouTube on TVs than any other screen, and the AI ​​system Google uses to decide which ad format to show (including bumpers 6-second spots, 15-second spots, and the new 30-second non-skippable ones) now have data to decide when a viewer is comfortable enough to tolerate a long ad break. And if you don’t want ads… Anyone who wants to avoid ads has a way out: YouTube Premium, at 13.99 euros per month. There is no middle option, no setting that allows you to opt for shorter or less frequent ads. According to Google itselfthere is no setting to turn off the 30-second format without a paid subscription. The thing is that not even Premium is what it used to be: some service levels include certain types of ads. It is the same pattern that the greats followed streamers: Netflix launched its tier with advertising in 2022; Disney+ followed suit shortly after. “Pay more to see fewer ads” is no longer a promise of digital platforms, it is their business model. What differentiates YouTube from other streaming platforms is that it is not a paid service that has added a free tier with advertising; It is a free platform that has built an advertising business of such magnitude that it can now afford to behave as if it were traditional television. The 90-second ads are another test for Google to discover how far the user’s tolerance can go before they change services or agree to pay. In Xataka | YouTube knows it has a problem with AI “slop” for kids. It turns out that the main culprit is YouTube

I spent 8 hours a day watching porn to train the AI. Today he leads the workers union that fights against that

by

Spend a workday tagging porn there’s nothing fun about it. Content moderators They have been denouncing terrible working conditions for years and now The same thing is happening with data labeling to train AI. In 404media They tell the story of Michael Geoffrey, a Kenyan who spent months working for two AI companies, until they completely destroyed his mental health. The jobs. Michael stayed in front of his computer for eight hours watching porn, describing what was happening in the images in great detail. It was no affiliation, but rather he worked for a data labeling company that then used all those descriptions to train AI models. When the day was over, his second job awaited him at a sexual AI chatbot company. In this job, Michael had to maintain sexual conversations with users, adopting whatever role was necessary each time; I had to pretend to be a man, a woman, straight, homosexual… and of course adapt to the context in each conversation. Behind the AI. Although they have the last name IA, in reality These sexbots have a lot of human work behind them. That is, when someone talks to their girlfriend or boyfriend AIyou may be talking to a real person. Michael wrote his testimony and said that he had to fake intimate connections with anonymous users. Their interactions were then used to train the AI. In the case of data labeling, workers are exposed to all types of content, some extremely violent. For example, for AI to be able to detect content of sexual abuse and violence, these workers must see thousands of images of abuse and extreme violence, and all for ridiculous salaries. In a Time reportthey said that one of these companies paid between 1.3 and 2 dollars net per hour. The consequences. After several months on the job, Michael suffered from insomnia, stress and began to have problems having sexual relations. He tells 404media that “there came a point where my body no longer responded. When I saw someone naked, I didn’t even feel anything.” Endless hours, exposure to very unpleasant content and very low salaries. Some claim that it is like a form of modern slavery. The companies behind. One of them is Sama, a San Francisco-based company that defines itself as “the perfect example of ethical AI.” It’s the company that paid 2 dollars an hour. Another company that has also been at the center of the controversy is Remotasks, a Scale AI subsidiaryone of the largest labeling companies. It was founded by Alexandr Wang, current head of AI at Meta. By Remotasks it is said that he pays late and often not the amount that was originally promised. These and other similar companies They are outsourced by OpenAIGoogle, Meta and more to train your AI models. The workers organize. Currently, Michael is the secretary of the Data Labelers Association of Kenyaan organization that wants to give voice and make visible the work of these underpaid and invisible workers. Other organizations have also been created such as African Content Moderators and Tech Workers who demand better working conditions and resources to care for the mental health of workers. In Xataka | People Blaming ChatGPT for Causing Delusions and Suicides: What’s Really Happening with AI and Mental Health Image | Data Labelers Association

With the fashion of American kitchens, a refrigerator that makes noise can be torture when watching TV. How to choose well to avoid it

by

How cool American kitchens are. You have, without walls, doors or partitions in between, the kitchen next to the living room and dining room. I love the concept itself, but there are two things that have always raised doubts in my mind. One is the smell, because imagine starting to do something that doesn’t smell good (like cooking cauliflower or making some fried fish, for example) and going to the couch to watch TV while you do it. And then there is the issue of noise. Of course, here you may think that it is the price to pay for having everything in the same space and you are right. If everything is together, you have to assume that, while you cook, you will have noise next to the TV. But the stove, the extractor or the oven are not the only things that make noise in a kitchen. What’s wrong with the refrigerator? This appliance makes noise and is not like the rest of the things in the kitchen: it is always working. For this reason, if you have an American kitchen, It is essential that you choose carefully which refrigerator you are going to place in it. Yes, it’s about looking at what decibels it emits, but there is something to it. I explain everything you need to know about the subject. Two or three dB more than necessary are enough to ruin your movie night A refrigerator is not as noisy as a washing machine when it starts spinning like crazy, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sound. In houses or apartments with traditional kitchens, this is not a problem. I have been living in my apartment for more than 20 years and, since the kitchen is at one end, I barely know the noise my refrigerator makes. Things change if the kitchen is American. I put you in situation. Imagine that you are on the couch watching a movie with a blanket and popcorn. During shootings and explosions you will not hear anything other than the TV, but things change when there is dialogue or even nothing at all. There, if your refrigerator sounds more than necessary, you are going to hear a hum that is anything but pleasant. Okay, but how do I know how loud a refrigerator sounds? If you take a look at the technical data sheet of any refrigerator, you will find the sound it emits measured in decibels (or dB). It is obvious that the higher the dB number, the greater the noise it emits. What is not so obvious is that A difference of just 3 dB will make us perceive twice as much noise.. To put it bluntly: a refrigerator that emits 40 dB or more in a kitchenette can be really annoying when watching TV. The ideal is to search for this type of spaces a refrigerator that emits 39 dB or less. But of course, since two or three dB less is noticeable, the less the refrigerator emits, the better. The noise comes from the compressor, but not all are the same We have talked about the noise, but not its origin. The sound that refrigerators emit comes from their compressor, which is responsible for keeping your food and drinks very cool. And what does that matter to me for my American kitchen? The answer is very simple: depending on the type of compressor or motor, the type of noise is not the same. Refrigerators that are a few years old have a traditional motor or compressor. This, in summary, only has two modes: either it’s off or it’s on. If the refrigerator detects that the temperature inside is too high, it starts the compressor at full speed to cool down. This means that, when this happens (which often happens if you open the door too much, for example), we will hear a loud noise when starting, followed by a humming noise that will last until the compressor stops. That changes with Inverter motors. These are basically always on and they regulate their speed depending on the temperature. If you open the door and it gets a little cold, speed up a little. However, if your refrigerator has been closed for a long time, it will run very slowly, so the noise will be less. This way, the noise made by the refrigerator will be quieter most of the time. And of course, you get rid of the “noise” of the traditional compressor when starting up. If you are looking to save as much as possible, refrigerators with traditional compressors are cheaper. In price, because traditional compressors consume significantly more energy than inverter motors. However, I would only place one of these in a conventional kitchen and away from the living room or bedrooms. For an American kitchen, in 100% of cases, I would always recommend a refrigerator with an inverter motor. Not only because they tend to emit, on average, less noise. It is due to the fact that we are not going to hear them start suddenly, something that does happen (and very often) with those that have a conventional engine and that can be annoying if we have the refrigerator next to the TV. Therefore, with that clear, it is time to take a good look at the dB. The good and the bad of both options, face to face 36 dB or less between 37 and 39 dB THE GOOD 🟢 You won’t hear it even when the protagonists of your movie look at each other without speaking. They are cheaper and, at the same price, you get a refrigerator to store more food or drinks THE BAD 🔴 It is a more expensive option that may cause you to have to cut back on capacity or features You will hear a slight hum while watching TV that can take you out of the movie Ideal for: Do not hear any type of hum or vibration when watching TV Families who … Read more

There’s a reason you spend hours watching reels on Instagram until 3:00 AM: the science of doomscrolling

by

It’s one in the morning. We should be sleeping but the finger is still sliding across the screen, scrolling through videos on TikTokreels on Instagram or posts on X. A viral meme, a new fire in the area or a new political crisis has us hooked on the screen. And although we may be exhausted, it cannot be stopped. If this scene sounds familiar to you, then welcome to the club. doomscrolling. A term that became massively popular during the pandemic and which can be defined as the habit of consuming prolonged form negative news or distressing, mainly through social networks. But behind this process, which may be very common in society right now, there are numerous chemical processes in the brain that science has not hesitated to investigate. The trap mechanism. To understand why we do doomscrollingwe must first understand that our brain did not evolve to have X or TikTok, but rather it evolved to survive. And it is not so long ago that humans were hunting for food or fleeing from a threat in nature, and it is something that our brain is still very much aware of. According to the most recent scientific literaturethe fact of sliding our screen down activates our reward brain circuits such as the dopaminergic system in each interaction. This drives us at all times to continue searching for information and evolutionarily knowing “where the danger is” was vital. The problem is that in this case the algorithm has no purpose, and we can spend 24 hours watching this type of news. But the reward system, which gives us ‘pleasure’ when knowing where the danger is, is not alone. It is accompanied by the amygdala which is the fear center in our brain. When seeing all this information, such as a war nearby in our territory, the brain interprets it as a potential threat that results in a large release of cortisol. This hormone is precisely known as the ‘stress hormone’, because it keeps the body in a state of hypervigilance. The result of these two circuits is quite clear as point out publications in Frontiers in Psychiatry and Brain Behavior: The brain seeks relief from information, but only finds more threats. This results in a toxic cycle being generated in which one seeks to calm down, becomes more scared, and searches again. The rotten brain. On social networks there is already a lot of talk of the term brain rot which translates to ‘brain rot’ like a real meme. but science has a very different opinionsince recent research suggests that repeated exposure to these fragmented stimuli with high emotional impact, with 15-second videos and alarmist headlines, have a high physical cost. The impact is located above all in executive functions (planning, organization, decision making…). And the constant alternation of these catastrophic contexts forces the brain to jump from one idea to another in milliseconds, and it is not something free. The cost we have to pay can be summarized in three points: Mental fatigue due to the high consumption of glucose that the brain has to make by having to constantly change focus. Deterioration of the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with a reduction in the efficiency of the area responsible for planning and impulse control. Processing blockage when the brain is on hyperalert. This makes it difficult to transfer information to long-term memory. Do we no longer know how to concentrate? This is the question we can all ask ourselves due to this phenomenon. The short answer from science is: we know, but it is much harder for us to “get started.” Studies on digital multitasking indicate that it is not that we have lost ability physiological of sustained attention, but we have trained our brain to expect interruptions. Deep attention (what you need to read a book for example) requires a “warm-up” time. He doomscrolling and the constant stream of notifications resets that counter constantly. Research collected in BMC Public Health they point out that attention remains “anchored” waiting for the next update. Even when you are not looking at your phone, a part of your cognitive resources is focused on it, reducing your performance on the task in front of you. It is not an irreversible decline, it is an atrophy due to lack of use of deep concentration circuits. There is hope. Despite the apocalyptic tone of the studies themselves on the subject, the scientific conclusion It’s not that we’re doomed. to be distracted automatons glued to a phone. The great advantage that humans have is neuroplasticity. With this term we mean that just as the brain learns to scroll compulsively, it can “unlearn.” Experts agree that the damage is not permanent unless the behavior becomes chronic for years without intervention. Evidence-supported strategies for breaking the cortisol-dopamine loop include: Set strict times to inform yourself and never before bed. Do exercises mindfulness as a tool to restore the default neural network. Allowing the brain to rest and ‘get bored’ without stimuli to help cleanse itself and regain the ability to focus. Images | Yazid N In Xataka | Young people have decided to stop posting (so much) on Facebook and Instagram. “AI-generated garbage” has free rein

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.