writing

China has been writing an endless novel about how to overtake Europe for 16 years, and it has become a political weapon

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Somewhere on the Chinese internet there is a science fiction novel which has been written since 2009 and will probably never end. It is titled ‘Illumine Lingao’ (临高启明, translatable as “The Morning Star of Lingao”) and accumulates millions of words distributed over thousands of chapters. It does not have a single author: it has been written collectively by hundreds of people, mostly engineers, technicians and military history fans who have been contributing chapters, technical corrections and secondary plots over almost two decades. It has generated more than 1,400 derivative works. And it has never been translated into any Western language. What is it about? The premise is simple: more than 500 21st century Chinese citizens, armed with modern technical knowledge, travel back in time through a wormhole to the year 1628, to the death throes of the Ming Dynasty. They settle in Lingao County, on the island of Hainan, and from there they unleash an industrial revolution that alters the course of history. The goal: make China reach modernity before Europe. How it arises. The text began to take shape in 2006 as a discussion on SC BBS, the oldest military-themed forum in China, from a question that struck a chord: “What would you do if you could travel to the Ming dynasty with modern knowledge?” The debate crystallized three years later in a collective writing project led by a user known as Boaster, whose real name is Xiao Feng. The first installment was published in 2009 on Qidian Chinese Network, the country’s largest web literature platform. In 2017, China Radio, Film & TV Press published the first volume in print format. What makes it special. What sets ‘Illumine Lingao’ apart from other time travel fantasies is its obsession with technical detail. The chapters include long discussions on how to make nitric acid from scratch, what materials are needed to build chemical synthesis towers, or how many tons of industrial equipment would be needed to begin mechanization without prior machines or tools. Chinese readers have dubbed it “the encyclopedia of time travel.” Some critics They consider it “a unique phenomenon of contemporary Chinese literature.” But… what sensitive chord does this work touch? Needham’s puzzle. In 1942, the British biochemist Joseph Needham He traveled to China as a diplomatic envoy. During those three years he discovered that the Chinese had developed techniques and mechanisms that preceded their European equivalents by centuries. The printing press, the compass, gunpowder, paper money, suspension bridges, toilet paper… all had emerged in China long before Europe even conceived of it. Needham returned to Cambridge and documented this in ‘Science and Civilization in China’, 25 volumes that asked why modern science and the industrial revolution developed in Europe and not China, if China was so far ahead. This question, known as “Needham’s puzzle”, touches the most sensitive nerve of Chinese historical consciousness. Historians have proposed dozens of answers. Some point to geographical factors: while Europe competed fragmented into rival states that stimulated military and commercial innovation, China remained unified under a bureaucratic system that did not need change to survive. Others point to philosophical reasons: Confucianism valued social harmony over disruption. And some say that the key difference was European access to the resources of the American continent. For Chinese intellectuals, the “Great Divergence”, the moment when Europe overtook China, is not an abstract problem for historians. It is the question that explains the “century of national humiliation” (1839-1949), the opium wars, the burning of the Summer Palace and the Japanese occupation. That is why in ‘Illumine Lingao’ we travel to the Ming dynasty: 1628, sixteen years before the dynasty collapsed due to the Manchu invasion. For these Chinese intellectuals, the Ming dynasty represents the fateful fork: it is the moment when China chose the wrong path and Europe took the lead. Rewrite history. ‘Illumine Lingao’ belongs to a literary genre that enjoys enormous popularity in the chinese web literature: chuanyue (穿越), time travel stories in which contemporary protagonists use their modern knowledge to alter the course of history. In China, this genre has an implicit nationalist charge. It is not about looking at the past or resolving temporal paradoxes, but about correcting it, giving China a second chance. ‘Illumine Lingao’ takes this premise to the extreme: the documentation of each step with obsessive technical rigor turns the novel into something more than entertainment. It is a manual and a manifesto. A manifesto of a specific party. More than entertainment. As has been analyzed in academic circles, ‘Lingao’ reorganizes the historical narrative of Chinese socialist construction around the framework of industrialization and technological progress, with a clear nationalist sense. Its roots are in the so-called Industrial Party, which is not a real party, but rather a label to designate a current of thinkers, online commentators and influencers who share a vision of the world based on industrialization as a supreme value. For them, the material transformation produced by industrialization is an objective measure of national success. At the beginning of this century, its area of ​​theoretical development was the Internet, going against the grain at a time when the Chinese economy was betting on low-cost manufacturing and foreign direct investment. At that time, the idea that China could manufacture advanced semiconductors It sounded like science fiction. The Industrial Party made the leap to public influence in 2012, when the news website Guancha It began to include party members among its editors, defending the Chinese government from ultranationalist positions. Cultural battle. ‘Lingao’ has also largely become a political tool. When in 2011 a high-speed train rammed another convoy from behindcausing 40 deaths and 192 injuries, the Government wanted to manage the information so that the idea of ​​prosperity at any cost was not clouded. But on social media, negative opinions about the accident even surpassed state censors and They questioned the idea of ​​”progress” that the government maintained. Was the speed of development exacting an unacceptable price in human terms? ‘Illumine Lingao’ became a reference text in … Read more

The latest trend among the rich is exclusive writing retreats. Experts don’t think anything too good will come of it.

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The bubble of the luxury retreats It continues to grow by pairing itself with all kinds of hobbies. Painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography or jewelry classes we already have increasingly wealthy clients with higher and higher goals. The phenomenon of wellness luxury It continues to expand and the last sphere to receive its corresponding practical courses for very well-off people has been that of writing. In other words: if you are starving as a writer it is because you want to, it is a waste of time to make a living from writing (as long as you already had a lot of money beforehand, of course). Luxury retreats for writers. Luxury retreats for writers come under scrutiny in articles like this one from Slatewhich although it guarantees that the cost of the experience it describes is very high, also makes it clear that strictly literary results are not guaranteed. They are exclusive experiences that combine writing with activities such as massages, yoga, horseback riding, gourmet gastronomy and cultural tours in destinations such as Guatemalaon board a luxury cruise with all kinds of classes and tutorials, France either Tuscany. The only thing you need to participate in them is to have sufficient financial resources and available free time, not talent or experience in the world of writing. ‘Call me Ismael’, version wellness luxury. That is, more than the writing workshop in your neighborhood bookstore, these retreats have to do with the trend of wellness luxury that we mentioned: retreats that combine popular hobbies with exclusive holistic practices such as guided meditations, pranayamaspecialized massages, spa with ancestral therapies and gourmet organic gastronomy (sic). This exists but if you haven’t heard of it, perhaps it is because it is outside your sphere of possibilities. Visit websites with these types of experiences, such as Sansara Resort on the Pacific coast, and you decide if it is designed for your pocket or continue taking your drafts to your neighborhood bookstore. Emotional scam. Richard Z. Santos, author of the article, speaks directly of an emotional and financial “scam”: in the last 15 years, the duration of his literary career, he has observed how this market of workshops, sessions, and retreats to improve writing has grown, but the recent wave of touristy and expensive destinations for writers does not guarantee anything. These luxury retreats are accessible with direct payment and without a quality filter, they are more of a luxury product and a tourist experience than a serious training space. What’s more, some writers have reported that these retreats can be emotionally draining or counterproductive if you are working on sensitive or traumatic material without adequate psychological support. The barriers. Santos talks about the fact that the participants in this type of retreat are mostly white women with good economic stability, which creates an important socioeconomic and racial diversity barrier. Quite the opposite of what happens with “real”, prestigious and traditional retreats, such as Yaddo either Bread Loafwhich work with rigorous selection processes based on literary merits and offer scholarships for those who cannot afford them, and thus add social and ethnic diversity. Pay and you will receive. The luxury tourism industry and wellness They try to cover themselves with experiences that sell skills or training, and thus stop transmitting an image of indolence or little commitment to other social levels. But the name “pay-to-play” that is usually given to these withdrawals is for a reason: the fact of paying does not guarantee anything. And much less in something that requires a certain commitment, like artistic creation. Photo of Darius Bashar in Unsplash

This is how your new writing assistance option works

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WhatsApp He has just announced A new writing tool based on artificial intelligence that allows to improve the tone and clarity of messages. An aid that provides for those moments in which we find it difficult to express what we mean. According to the company, it does it without compromising privacy. And is that the function uses technology ‘Private processing‘(Private Processing) of Meta, which promises to process the suggestions anonymously and safely. Several ways to find the tone. They have called it ‘Writing Help’. Message summaries In June. The tool offers several different styles, being able to give the message a more professional, fun tone, or reformulate and correct the text automatically. In this way, users can adapt their messages according to the context of the conversation. Image: WhatsApp How technology works. The function is activated by a pencil icon that appears in the text field when a message is written, both in individual and group conversations. Once activated, the AI ​​analyzes the text and offers alternative versions according to the selected style. The whole process is executed under the private processing technology, which according to the company figure the requests and uses anonymous routing to ensure that no message can be linked to the identity of the user who sends it. The privacy factor. Unlike other AI attendees who need an Internet connection to send information to external servers and then offer us an answer or a result, Private Processing keeps messages privately. According to Explain WhatsApp, “Neither goal nor WhatsApp can ever read your message or suggested rewritures.” Technology works similar to Private Cloud Compute of Appleprocessing the information at home without storing it on the company’s servers. External validation and transparency. Goal claims to have collaborated with security experts to validate the architecture of Private Processing. Independent signatures NCC Group and Trail of Bits They have published their reports, verifying system safety. Limitations and future expansion. Writing Help is gradually deploying in English for users in the United States and several more countries, with expansion plans to other languages ​​and regions during this year. The function is deactivated by default and requires that users enable private processing in the application configuration before being able to access it. For everything. This new function competes directly with tools such as those offered by Apple on your serial iPhonebut with the advantage of being integrated directly in the messaging application. For middle -end Android devices, which do not usually include native writing assistants, it is a great option, since it does not have to download any additional application to access this type of functions. Cover image | Pexels In Xataka | In all WhatsApp groups there is always someone who reads all messages but never writes. Science knows what they want

The most revolutionary and rare writing machine was lost in 1940. Until someone received a message

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Many may not know, but WRITE MACHINES Not only were they important in the past, the present would not be auctionally similar without these tools. In fact, in 1980 Apple made a decision that few understood: declare him War to the machine to write Several centuries before, in China, someone devised the most revolutionary of all these machines. The problem is that there was only one and lost. Until now. Lost keys. THE HISTORY LA had the New York Times. It all started in 2007, when Tom MullaneyProfessor of Chinese History at Stanford, prepared a presentation about the disappearance of Chinese characters and wondered how something printed could be forgotten. That doubt led him to A revelation: How had a writing system as vast as the Chinese mechanized? He did not remember ever seeing a Chinese typewriter, and when he knocked down in his office to look at old patents, a trip that would last for years began. Discovered that, although scarce, they had existed dozen different models Chinese writing machines, each with ingenious solutions to try to represent thousands of ideograms in a portable frame. One is missing. From there, Mullaney launched a kind of hunting global: He called collectors, heirs traced on ancestry.com, visited churches, museums, even stores. Over time He gathered a collection Of unique devices, some rescued by very little of oblivion, aware that each one was an unrepeatable piece of the history of mechanized writing. However, there was a machine that could not find, not even dreaming of recovering: the legendary mingkwai. Lin Yutang’s mingkwai writing machine, as illustrated in its patent application The impossible machine. The Mingkwai It was created in the 40s by Lin Yutanga Chinese intellectual based in New York who feared that China, if it did not modernize their way of writing, It would be behind in front of foreign powers. To solve the dilemma of how to represent thousands of characters with a few keys, Lin devised a Revolutionary mechanical system: Any combination of two keys activated gears that showed up to eight possible characters in a central window that baptized as the “magical eye”, allowing the user to choose the right one. With only 72 keys, Lin had built an interface that allowed to generate tens of thousands of charactersa kind of chimeric keyboard capable of typing an entire universe. He baptized his creation as Mingkwai, which can be translated (freely) as “clear and fast.” Lost. The problem is that your demonstration before Remington executives It was a disaster: The machine failed and Lin ended up ruined. Along the way, the only prototype was sold to Mergenthaler Linotype, a Brooklyn printing press. From there, the trail It was lost. In his book The Chinese Typewriter (2017), Mullaney wrote that it was most likely to have ended in a landfill. Until, by chance, something extraordinary happened. Lin Yutang The reunion. We arrive at January 2025when Jennifer and Nelson Felix, from Massopequa (New York), reviewed boxes stored after her death. Suddenly, they found A wooden box containing something strange: a typewriter with Chinese keys. Nelson, fond of sale on Facebook, He published some photos In a specialized group without imagining that I was going to detonate a storm of messages. In less than an hour, hundreds of comments, many in Chinese, shouted at one thing: “Contact Tom!” While giving a talk in Chicago, Mullaney He began to receive a waterfall of notifications. As soon as he saw the photos, the man knew that he had to do with the mingkwai. Fear of losing it. The Times told that the historian did not feel jubilation with the news, but rather fear. If someone bought it on eBay and turned it into a lamp or a coffee table, it would disappear forever. What did he do? He wrote to the couple urgently, he told them the history of the machine and asked them to consider sell it to a museum. Jennifer, incredulous, understood in a short time that the object of more than 50 kilos was not just junk. “It was lost half a century,” he explained to Times. “We didn’t want it to be lost again.” From the basement to the campus. The story charged an unexpected turn when Mullaney discovered that Jennifer’s grandfather, Douglas Arthur Jung, had worked on Mergenthaler Linotype And he probably saved the scratch machine when he took it with him. For decades, the family had preserved it without knowing what it was. In April, the couple accepted Sell to Stanfordwhich acquired it thanks to a private donor. When he finally arrived in California, Mullaney witnessed his unpacking with expectation. There, in the University warehouse, he discovered that his mechanism was even more delicate and sophisticated of what I imagined. The machine not only survived: He spokeor something similar. He began to wonder what engineers could discover if they were carefully dismantled. Could, perhaps, replicate it? Does Lin’s thoughts unravel in 1947, when he believed that a typography could save his nation? A recovered story. The History of the mingkwai It is more than that of the rescue of an exotic and rare machine. If you want, it is even a metaphor of ideas that, without interlocutors, run the risk of disappear forever. Mullaney understood that it was possibly the last one who could understand what these machines represented: the linguistic dilemmas of a civilization, the technological aspirations of a nation then marginalized, or even the desperate elegance of a visionary inventor. The mingkwai was a device that No one wanted In his time, too advanced already too clumsy, the result of an idea too big for an era that still did not know how to translate it. But when finding it, complete and still capable of astonishing, the professor not only recovered a museum piece: he rescued from oblivion an entire chapter in the history of human writing. Image | StanfordCampbell, Brobough & Free, American Memory Digital Item Display In Xataka | In 1980, Apple made … Read more

The idea of ​​writing with luxury material

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Even the simplest and most traditional shops are susceptible to finding a gourmet version. Bakeries, coffee shops or ice cream shops in special and exquisite mode is understood, after all we talk about food. But … And the stationery? Are the catalog of the stationery stores, economical, accessible and massive by definition, gourmetizables? There are shops who think so, and the success of stationery stores like Panda Bohéme in Vigo is a good test. Everything is gourmet. Or, at least, everything can be gourmet. It is a phenomenon that already dates from some years, linked to premiumization and specialization of traditional shops, where everyday products are transformed into objects of desire through design, quality, customization and purchase experience. It is the answer we have to the advancement of digitalization and mass standardization, looking for exclusivity, individuality and sensory pleasure in daily life and everyday life. Examples? Gourmet bakeries and pastries, Specialty coffee shops, Artisanal ice cream shopscheese and selected charcations, design florists and, of course, and linked to gourmet stationery stores, independent libraries. And stationery. This, applied to the stationery stores, runs in the same direction: the type of products that are in a traditional trade in the sector, but with the focus on the exclusive, the artisanal and creative inspiration. A lot of material for crafts, calligraphy, drawing and accent in the premium product: notebooks, pens, folders, all of good quality and with somewhat higher prices than usual. And also import products, especially Japan, where there is a whole Cultural obsession with stationery products. German origins. A pioneer example in Europe from this type of shops is Divine Designfounded on Germany in 2003and that from its origin it was distinguished by its commitment, unheard of in the times prior to the global massification of the Internet, for ecological materials and the high standards of quality of its products. As of the 2010, The phenomenon began to expand through Europe and Asiadriven by the rise of Japanese, Korean and American brands. The return to the world in a thousand stationery. According to the trend he has expanded around the world, each country has welcomed it to its aesthetic and cultural preferences. For example, in Japan there are Material brands for this type of shops like Kokuyo, Tombow, Zebra, Pilot, Uni-Ball, Sun-Star or Midori, and stand out for how they combine functionality, aesthetics and pleasure of use. The deep roots of Japanese culture with the paper industry is remarkable, both for its millenary tradition with material and his conception of writing and calligraphy as an act of emotional root, as with the adoption of recent aesthetic currents, such as The Kawaii. In Korea, aesthetics is even more accentuated, with brands such as Iconic, Monami or Livework, with the accent placed on the design and soft colors. On the other hand in the United States, it is committed to the functional and the resistant, although there are also minimalist designs and veteran brands, where names such as Cloth & Paper or Smythson stand out. And in Spain? The phenomenon has been settling in Spain for a few years, with certain common elements: the essential presence of Japanese and Korean material and the importance of social networks and the Internet in the business. For example, one of the most prominent gourmet stationery stores is Panda Bohèmeof Vigo, with a physical store of more than 250 m² where it organizes events and workshops, such as Pop-ups of import marks. Significantly, your Instagram account has almost 40,000 followers due to the care with which they show and teach their catalog. Other important stores are Likely.es, Bomagui either Ikigai. Paper philosophy. This flowering of libraries has a lot to do with the movements of Digital detoxification who advocate a Return to physical experiences. The pleasure of writing on paper, although it seems unchanging in these times of total digitalization, has some connection with ancestral traditions that in high -end stationery stores have been in charge of modernizing and providing meaning again. New times for activities as old as humanity itself. Header | Panda Bohème In Xataka | This has not been written by a human hand: how the Deepfakes manage to imitate (and create) impossible calligraphies

I have asked the AI ​​any bullshit and now I am writing a news about her

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When OpenAI three years ago presented to Chatgpt To the world, millions of people asked themselves the same question: “Will IA replace me at work?“. The concern was not new. The labor history of humanity has been marked in recent centuries by the dispute between human production forces and mechanical production forces. An advance of the latter is interpreted without remedy as a defeat of the former. The difference in 2022 resided in the social group object of the substitution. Before the advent of AI, the “automation“From work was one of economists’ great concerns. Millions of jobs would have lost themselves in industries as important as the car or oil extraction Fruit of the slow but inexorable incorporation of robots and other tool machines. Manual workers, blue collarthey would have seen economic and socially displaced. The impact and severity of the “end of work”, as this debate became pompos, pompos It is in dispute. It is not clear That the incorporation of a robot supposes the end of work human. This was, however, an alien and even trivial issue for millions of workers white collarintellectual production, outside this kind of automation and substitutions. Until Chatgpt arrived. The irruption of AI has resulted in a thousand data and a lot of confusion. There are several The studies They have tried Estimate the loss of jobs caused by Chatgpt and other chatbots. It is soon to reach drastic conclusions. Like some companies They are discoveringget rid of hundreds of workers Thanks to the AI forces act immediately to hire others in tasks that before They were not planned. This has been a constant pattern in the history of human labor substitution: technology kills some works, generates others. The good, old days in which at least the horoscope still wrote it. (Unspash) The fear of this process was immediate in the media. If we attend to the nature of the generative AI, this becomes evident without greater explanation. If ChatGPT is able to generate a coherent and well documented text in a handful of seconds, what need would the newspapers keep dozens of editors on the squad? It would suffice with a couple of editors on the shoulders of a handful of Prompts. You feed the AI ​​with certain data, the kitchens and voilà: you have very cheap news. It has happened and will continue to happen. Some media took advantage of their economic and business difficulties to make blur and new account: dismissing their editors and replacing them with an AI achieved a cheaper means. Also much worse. But this has not been the main function of AI in the journalistic environment. The danger did not reside in the “replacement”, but in something that has been afflicting the media (already their readers) for many years. In a tangible, real, not future problem. In obsession with content. Write my next news, chatgpt It turns out that AI has not eaten our jobs. On the contrary, it has helped us to continue incurring the same perverse practices that we would incur before the arrival of ChatgPT: produce content at all costs, without discretion, covering all fronts and needs self -generated by ourselves. If the “content” was the biggest disease that afflicted the media industry, the AI ​​has not worked as a cure but as a fentanyl: an addictive and accelerating drug, also mortal. Thus, the reader has had to get used to all kinds of AI -related experiments. The most obvious of all of them is futurology. What did many media did when a blackout left without electricity to the entire Spain? Open chatgpt, ask “when it would be the next blackout” and publish the answer as is on its website. Headlines as “What will be the date of the next electric blackout in the world, according to artificial intelligence” either “Neither in 2026 nor in 2030: the date of the next electric blackout worldwide, according to AI“They sneaked into the Google or Discover media module. The point is that the content works. The reader is interested in a complex event in real time and the media can produce quick responses at low cost. Another thing is that the answers are useful. Chatgpt hardly predict the unfathomable designs of a nonagenarian curia isolated in the Sistine Chapel, but that did not prevent the media from publishing things like “Who will be the next Pope according to the predictions of the chatbots of AI?” either “The prediction of artificial intelligence about who the new Pope would be“Deepseek, Perplexity and others gave Paraolin or Tagle favorites. That is, they didn’t even have the most remote idea of ​​what they were talking about, they just regurgited. Is the final of the Copa del Rey approaching? Using tools only slightly more sophisticated than the Paul octopus, we were able to illuminate holders as solid as “The AF forecasts the winner of the Copa del Rey between Madrid and Barça“. Are Google searches disturbed because the Christmas raffle arrives? There we went to look for answers in the chatbots:”What number will be the fat winner this year? The AI ​​reveals it” either “This is the Gordo number of the Christmas Lottery 2024, according to the seers and the AI“(Kudos to the Herald for respecting the worthy trade of seers in front of the machine). A very happy man discovers that he will touch the lottery according to AI. (Unspash) The “according to the AI” search in Google News offers countless examples. We can discover How many years will pass XIV as Pope before saying goodbye to the world of the living; which The ideal work for each zodiac sign; how much money You need to charge Anyone to live without shocks; which The best town in Zaragoza to buy a house; or what is it LaLiga’s ideal eleven. Of course, the most paradigmatic example of this whole process is war. The conflict between Iran and Israel He has aroused certain latent tensions in the planet’s psyche: do we … Read more

A study has discovered a much more efficient activity for your brain than writing by hand or walking: sewing

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We spent the day with hurry to finish tasks pending, accumulating stress and with an excess of dopamine caused by the Infinite social media scroll that, in the long term, ends up undermining our Capacity for concentration. For this reason, neuroscientists recommend performing activities that give a breath to the brain and reduce stress levels. One of the most popular activities to get the body and mind down It is walkingbut a team of researchers from the University of Cardiff have found A curious alternative that, in fact, it has been put Very fashionable worldwide: sew or weave. The relaxing power of sewing In the midst of that maelstrom of things to do to what they call adult life, the brain needs to find A PEACE OF PEACE in relaxing activities capable of reducing daily stress levels. The hobbies They are not just hobbiesbut they are also valuable tools to exercise the brain activating areas related to creativity, psychomotor skills, coordination and even memory. Either sew, Write to Manoo readthese activities offer a healthy escape for stress and a way of exercising our brain in a pleasant way. An investigation of the Faculty of Occupational Therapy of the University of Cardiff published in the magazine Journal of Occupational Science He points out that sewing or weaving, is not only a mechanical movement, but an exercise that stimulates the brain and exercises the ability to concentrate in a single activity. This ability to focus all the attention on a precision motor activity makes stress levels reduce. For its part, the coordinated and constant movement of the hands activates neurotransmitters, keeping neurons working and our dynamic mind. This activity, far from being only for grandmothers, is a valuable therapy that improves the quality of life and helps to achieve a state of mental calm. As with other activities that involve Coordination skills Eye hand, sew or weaving favors the activation of different areas of the brain and releases neurotransmitters associated with well -being. In fact, the effects of weaving or sewing described by researchers at the University of Cardiff are very similar to those discovered by another group of researchers from Florida State University When washing the dishes. It is true that, after an exhausting day at work, the least can feel like it is to wash the dishes. However, the Study data They revealed that carrying out this monotonous and repetitive activity plunged the brain in a state of full attention that increased up to 25% the abstract thinking activity for the generation of new ideas and reduced by up to 27% the levels of stress and anxiety. In fact, as confessed in a Round of Questions in Redditthis is one of Bill Gates’s favorite activities to get rid of stress. Additional benefits for well -being Apart from the obvious mental benefits, sewing and weaving offer physical advantages that can improve the quality of life. These types of repetitive and mechanical activities provide effects similar to meditation: Reduce stress. When concentrating all the attention on the hands and in the creative process, it is possible to reduce blood pressure, which at the same time decreases the risk of cardiovascular problems. This physical and mental relaxation effect helps to disconnect from the accelerated rhythm of daily life. Analytical thought. Measure fabrics or threads, design garments, choose colors, plan projects, etc. All this contributes to strengthening analytical thinking and developing logical processes by establishing an order of priorities in the steps. Increase concentration. The activity requires attention to details, so the capacity for mental approach and attention is enhanced. Immediate tangible reward. Unlike other activities such as meditating, sewing or knitting provides a reward at the end of the work, which contributes to improving self -esteem. In addition to all that, sewing will allow you to repair the damage of your clothes, so, in addition, you are going to save some money while you relax. How much they knew Our mothers and grandmothers. In Xataka | Feeling over at work is normal, but it is not ideal: six techniques to avoid it and be much more productive Image | Pixabay (Wal_172619), Freepik

Spanish: 7 of the most common mistakes we commit when it comes to speaking and writing

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Image source, Daniel Arce/BBC Mundo Article information Author, Drafting Author’s title, There is festivalcartagena@bbcmundo January 27, 2025 If you receive such a message you can have several things for insurance, such as who writes it has confidence with you and belongs to the millennial generation. The phrase, which was originally part of a meme with a funny flame with chuecos eyes, is possibly the first with obvious errors that went viral. And it is more or less clear that, who writes it, knows that there are several spelling fouls – “Hello, what are you doing?” It would be the right phrase. But there are other grammatical errors that are also viral, only that they have sneaked in our day to day without being part of a meme. We talk to Mónica Helguera, better known in networks such as “La Profe Mónica”, a graduate in Castilian language and who is dedicated to the creation of educational content today With her we saw some of the most common mistakes we committed in Spanish, both when writing and speaking. 1. The verb to have If we could make a ranking of beaten and vilified verbs by the Spanish speakers, the verb would have won the first prize. It is one of the most used and, perhaps that is why, with which greater mistakes are made. “This verb has a very complex situation. It can function as the main and as an auxiliary and, at the same time, it can even accompany two verbs at the same time.” This, without a doubt, can generate a lot of confusion. In the first place, having, as auxiliary verb, is used to form compound times. To do this, all the simple ways of having are combined with the participle finished in -or of the verb that is being combined: he has bought, we wanted, he had come. Here comes one of the first errors, which is to use the form we have, archaic, to form the first person of the plural. ❌ We have seen your brother. ✅ We have seen your brother. Image source, Daniel Arce/BBC Mundo Its other use, as the main verb is, at the same time, impersonal. That is, it is a verb that is generally used in the third person of singular and, in this case, denotes the presence or existence of something, as in the phrase “there is bread.” In this case, errors are trying to make a concordance between the verb and the subject that has no place. “It is complex to think that a verb cannot pluralize, being that accompanies a plural subject, but in this case, it is a mistake,” says Helguera. ❌ There were several girls. ✅ There were several girls. Recently another meme became viral and, in some cases, the verb has appeared with this error: ❌ When I am a millionaire, I will say nothing, but there will be signs. ✅ When I am a millionaire, I will say nothing, but there will be signs. With the impersonal use of the verb having in the present there are also errors in the way of writing it. They have seen “ay”, “hai” or “there” where “there are”. A classic phrase that is usually taught to differentiate how it sounds about how it is written is as follows: There is a man who says Oh! There – adverb of place. There are – the impersonal form of the verb to have present. Oh! – Interjection to express many and different spirits, from pain to joy. The fourth of errors with this verb is perhaps the most curious and quite repeated and is born by confusion in pronunciation. Let’s see. In this case, the auxiliary verb is confused in infinitive, having, with the sequence constituted by the preposition and the verbal infinitive see. 2. Homófonas words What are homophones? Well, they are pronounced the same, but they are written differently. And here are great confusion that lead to errors, for example: The confusion between AS/has/beam .. and yes, here we have an example that includes the verb having. Have you looked for that AS of football? Look for it. Do what I tell you. Has – form corresponding to the second person of the singular of the present of indicative of the verb to have. AS – One of the cards of the deck or a person who stands out remarkably. Do – imperative form corresponding to the pronoun you of the verb make. “Especially in the difference between you and do, I always try to explain it in the simplest way for people to understand. And I usually do it by asking people to look at the participle. If there is a word that follows that ‘you have ‘or’ do ‘and it is observed that it ends in ado, gone, to, so and cho (as in erased, eaten, broken, printed and said), it will tell me that the previous word is (you have slept, you eaten , you have broken, you have printed, you said), “says Mónica Helguera. Another way to distinguish between you and do is see that the latter indicates an order. Other words that usually confuse because they sound the same are going, berry and fence. Go to the fence to collect berries. Go – third person of the imperative of the verb go. Valla – Cercado or Wall. Bayas – a type of fruit. Image source, Daniel Arce/BBC Mundo Another example of homophones are there, be there, find and aya. Find this detail: there, next to the tree, which is a beech, there are children with their aya. Find – Second person of the singular of the present of the verb find, which means finding. There – demonstrative adverb that place. Hay – a type of tree. Aya – person in charge of caring for children. Another problem with the homophones are those that go with V with B, both sounds that less and less Spanish -speaking people distinguish themselves by pronouncing … Read more

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