Features

VIÉVILLE-SOUS-LES-CÔTES, France — At the foot of the vineyards outside a sleepy village in northern France, Sabine Rouas and her steed Aston, a 1.4-tonne bull, make stately progress.

A van pulls to a halt and the bemused driver takes out his phone to record the scene.

Aston's outings often trigger the same reaction, and give Sabine a chuckle.

"Honestly, I didn't invent this," she says. "Look around the world, people ride all sorts of animals — ostriches, camels, elephants."

Aston is a local celebrity in the Meuse region, and now around the world, on the web.

Sabine's husband Yannick Kirschhoffer is the bull's social media manager, and Aston has 62,000 TikTok fans, 90,000 YouTube subscriptions and almost as many followers on Facebook.

Dramatic decision 

Today the scene is cheerful, but the story begins in Sabine's grief for her dead racehorse.

"Every rider has a particular relationship in their life with a horse. When he died, I didn't want to hear about horses any more," she tells AFP.

At that time in her life, Sabine — a sales manager — was living over the border in Luxembourg in a house by a cattle farm.

As time passed she watched the daily life of the cows and one day she decided to ask the farmer if she could meet them, to restore her bond with larger animals.

"I still had a problem with horses, but I missed being in contact with them. So I headed down to the farm and spotted a cow that seemed more alert than the others," she said.

"I started to brush her. I could tell she was intelligent. She learned to raise her hoof to me, to say hello, to respond to her name," she said.

Sabine was delighted with her new friend but, when the cow had a calf, she took a dramatic decision, and bought them both — despite not having a farm of her own to keep them on.

"For me it was hellish," she says.

"They said I was completely mad and it's true I didn't know anything about how to go about things."

Bovine hurdler 

But Sabine knew how to train cats and, believing in the bond between humans and animals, set about training the calf, Aston, to live alongside her.

It wasn't easy. She fell from the young bullock at least 38 times in three months, but nine years later Aston is a show pony: vaulting small hurdles, galloping, prancing sideways.

Today, the team lives in France and Aston has been learning lessons from his neighbours.

"Watching me ride horses, Aston wanted to do the same thing," Sabine gushes. "By watching them, he learned a lot, so we played on his talent for mimicry."

"When people see that, they tell me that Aston thinks he's a horse, and it's true that he loves to copy them. But I can't make him do anything he doesn't want to do."

He's bull-headed, in other words.

"He weighs 1.4 tonnes and he has his own personality. If he jumps over obstacles, it's because he enjoys it."

And if he does enjoy online stardom, he's also spreading the joy. Aston is now much in demand to perform at equestrian events and has appeared in movies while developing an online brand.

"Now people contact me to ask how to ride their bulls. I give advice," says Sabine.

"I can't quite believe it, he's famous all the way to Japan."

PARIS — From "intelligent" vacuum cleaners and driverless cars to advanced techniques for diagnosing diseases, artificial intelligence (AI) has burrowed its way into every arena of modern life.

Its promoters reckon it is revolutionising human experience, but critics stress that the technology risks putting machines in charge of life-changing decisions.

Regulators in Europe and North America are worried.

The European Union is likely to pass legislation next year — the AI Act — aimed at reining in the age of the algorithm.

The United States recently published a blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and Canada is also mulling legislation.

Looming large in the debates has been China's use of biometric data, facial recognition and other technology to build a powerful system of control.

Gry Hasselbalch, a Danish academic who advises the EU on the controversial technology, argued that the West was also in danger of creating "totalitarian infrastructures".

"I see that as a huge threat, no matter the benefits," she told AFP.

But before regulators can act, they face the daunting task of defining what AI actually is.

'Mug's game' 

Suresh Venkatasubramanian of Brown University, who co-authored the AI Bill of Rights, said trying to define AI was "a mug's game".

Any technology that affects people's rights should be within the scope of the bill, he tweeted.

The 27-nation EU is taking the more tortuous route of attempting to define the sprawling field.

Its draft law lists the kinds of approaches defined as AI, and it includes pretty much any computer system that involves automation.

The problem stems from the changing use of the term AI.

For decades, it described attempts to create machines that simulated human thinking.

But funding largely dried up for this research — known as symbolic AI — in the early 2000s.

The rise of the Silicon Valley titans saw AI reborn as a catch-all label for their number-crunching programmes and the algorithms they generated.

This automation allowed them to target users with advertising and content, helping them to make hundreds of billions of dollars.

"AI was a way for them to make more use of this surveillance data and to mystify what was happening," Meredith Whittaker, a former Google worker who co-founded New York University's AI Now Institute, told AFP.

So the EU and US have both concluded that any definition of AI needs to be as broad as possible.

'Too challenging' 

But from that point, the two Western powerhouses have largely gone their separate ways.

The EU's draft AI Act runs to more than 100 pages.

Among its most eye-catching proposals are the complete prohibition of certain "high-risk" technologies — the kind of biometric surveillance tools used in China.

It also drastically limits the use of AI tools by migration officials, police and judges.

Hasselbach said some technologies were "simply too challenging to fundamental rights".

The AI Bill of Rights, on the other hand, is a brief set of principles framed in aspirational language, with exhortations like "you should be protected from unsafe or ineffective systems".

The bill was issued by the White House and relies on existing law.

Experts reckon no dedicated AI legislation is likely in the United States until 2024 at the earliest because Congress is deadlocked.

'Flesh wound' 

Opinions differ on the merits of each approach.

"We desperately need regulation," Gary Marcus of New York University told AFP.

He points out that "large language models" — the AI behind chatbots, translation tools, predictive text software and much else — can be used to generate harmful disinformation.

Whittaker questioned the value of laws aimed at tackling AI rather than the "surveillance business models" that underpin it.

"If you're not addressing that at a fundamental level, I think you're putting a band-aid over a flesh wound," she said.

But other experts have broadly welcomed the US approach.

AI was a better target for regulators than the more abstract concept of privacy, said Sean McGregor, a researcher who chronicles tech failures for the AI Incident Database.

But he said there could be a risk of over-regulation. 

"The authorities that exist can regulate AI," he told AFP, pointing to the likes of the US Federal Trade Commission and the housing regulator HUD.

But where experts broadly agree is the need to remove the hype and mysticism that surrounds AI technology.

"It's not magical," McGregor said, likening AI to a highly sophisticated Excel spreadsheet.

Footballers are more likely to develop worse brain health over the age of 65 than those in the general population, according to new research published on Friday.

The SCORES Project, which uses online activities to assess individuals’ cognitive function and monitor brain health decline, is based at the University of East Anglia. The study involves 145 former elite footballers including former Norwich stars Iwan Roberts and Jeremy Goss, plus ex-Crystal Palace striker Mark Bright.

It found in the 40-to-50 age group footballers were performing better in the assessments than the “normal” group, but that this was not the case among older individuals.

The new SCORES data follows work done by the FIELD study at the University of Glasgow, which found footballers were three and a half times more likely to die of neurodegenerative disease than age-matched members of the population and has led to calls for greater protection for players against concussion as well as the sub-concussive impacts of heading a ball.

Lead researcher and sports concussion expert Dr Michael Grey said: “What we are seeing is that in the 40-50-year-old age group, the footballers are performing a bit better than the normal group.

“We know that regular exercise is really good for brain health, and our research confirms that professional footballers have improved brain health in their 40s compared with non-footballers.

“The physical exercise associated with professional football keeps their bodies and brains in tip-top shape, and this extends to their retirement.

“But when they get to 65 — that’s when things are starting to go wrong. The over-65s performed worse when assessed for things like reaction time, executive function, and spatial navigation. These are early warning signs for deteriorating brain health.

“This shows us that the exercise associated with playing football is good for the brain, but the negative effects of contact sport do begin to appear later in life.

“These assessments are ongoing, and the participants are being monitored for changing brain health over time, so we will hopefully follow our cohort of former footballers for the rest of their lives. This will give us a really clear picture of the potential damage caused by heading the ball.

“This research highlights the need to investigate ways we can limit the damage to the brain as people play sport and to monitor brain health as we get older.”

The study includes 55 former players aged 65 and over, whose results were compared to the 27 non-playing members of the study group aged 65 and over and also to a normative group containing thousands of participants amalgamated from other studies who have done the same tests.

SCORES — which stands for Screening Cognitive Outcomes after Repetitive head impact Exposure in Sport — is trying to collect more data from former amateur and professional female players, who it fears could be putting themselves at even greater risk of dementia than male players. Currently all the participants in the study are male.

Dr Grey accepts the findings are just a first picture, and that a larger sample size is now essential to provide even deeper insight and more refined age comparisons. He is working with the Professional Footballers’ Association to recruit more participants.

The League Managers Association is one of the project’s partners, as is brain injury charity Headway and the Jeff Astle Foundation.

The founder of the latter charity, Dawn Astle, has long campaigned for greater protection against concussive and sub-concussive injuries among footballers.

Her father Jeff, who spent most of his professional career at West Brom and represented England at the 1970 World Cup, died in 2002 with what the coroner determined to be the progressive brain disease CTE.

The coroner issued a verdict of death by industrial disease, claiming the CTE was caused by Astle’s repeated heading of a ball.

A group of former players and their families — including the family of 1966 World Cup winner Nobby Stiles who died with dementia in 2020 — are suing the football authorities, accusing them of failing to take reasonable action to reduce exposure to concussive and sub-concussive impacts.

TOKYO — From Super Mario to Final Fantasy, Japan has long been synonymous with gaming, but some experts and parents fear a growing addiction problem is going unaddressed.

While nearby nations like China and South Korea have imposed drastic restrictions on youth gaming in recent years — with mixed results — some Japanese families feel they are being left to deal with the issue on their own.

Each month, a group meets in Tokyo to swap stories and strategies for tackling their children’s gaming habits.

“My only comfort is that he has been keeping his promise to stay offline overnight,” one father says, as another confides their child has been attending a rehab day camp.

The group’s founder, Sakiko Kuroda, says children in Japan now start playing video games early in primary school, and pandemic restrictions mean many are playing for longer.

Many parents do not know how to deal with the issue, and there is “a lack of action by the government and the gaming industry”, said Kuroda, who started the group in 2019 as an informal meet-up.

“People come from across the country to take part, as this kind of self-help gathering is rare in Japan.”

The World Health Organisation describes “gaming disorder” as behaviour that results in “significant impairment” of areas like relationships, education or work, and lasts at least a year.

As gaming can overlap with other online activities like social media use, it is hard to quantify the problem, though anecdotal evidence from doctors suggests more families in Japan are worried — particularly since the pandemic.

‘Playing all night’

An education ministry survey this April showed that 17 per cent of children aged six to 12 spend more than four hours a day gaming — up from 9 per cent in 2017, with a similar jump seen among those aged 12 to 15.

“Games have clever systems to lure people into continuing to play... including constantly updated apps and virtual money,” said Mia Itoshiro, who works with a group that gives seminars on preventing gaming addiction.

“Parents are increasingly consulting us saying ‘my children can’t go to school because they’re tired after playing all night’.”

China in November announced it had “solved” youth gaming addiction by limiting the time children can play online games to just three specified hours a week, enforced through facial recognition software and ID registration.

Meanwhile, South Korea last year removed a decade-long ban on PC-based online gaming for children under 16 between midnight and 6am, which local media had branded outdated and ineffective.

Japan has had no similar rules, and even a much-debated 2020 local ordinance that banned under-18s from playing more than an hour on weekdays had no enforcement mechanism.

Parents and experts say gaming can tip into obsessive behaviour in children because of other problems, including Covid-related stress or bullying.

The mother of a 13-year-old girl told AFP that video games became a “lifeline” for her daughter when she was struggling at school.

When she tried to take away the girl’s tablet, her daughter, then 10, replied: “If you deprive me of this, I’d want to die.”

“I was shocked to hear her say something like that,” the mother said.

Others who have experienced gaming addiction also say it became a lifeline for them during times of struggle.

Underlying problems

Takahisa Masuda, now a 46-year-old social worker, plunged into gaming as a bullied middle school student, and he believes the escape mechanism saved his life.

“I had thought about killing myself, but I wanted to finish Dragon Quest,” Masuda told AFP.

By the time he had, he felt strong enough to face his tormentors, and he committed to his studies, eventually realising his goal of working in the gaming industry.

So, while parents are often inclined to ban gaming or remove devices, Susumu Higuchi, a doctor and director of the Kurihama Medical and Addiction Centre, instead offers children counselling to tackle underlying problems.

His clinic also provides offline activities from art and cooking to sports, intended to open patients up to other hobbies and social situations.

He wants the government and industry to do more to prevent children from becoming addicted in the first place.

“Discussing gaming and online tools requires a balance,” Higuchi said.

“But at the moment it seems to me that measures to rein in the negative aspects are dwarfed by the promotion of gaming.”

A popular fleet and entry-level seller in previous iterations, the Kia Picanto’s popularity is derived from a compelling and attainable package of reliability, refinement, utility and fuel efficiency, underlined by a youthful and perky persona and styling. A direct challenge to pricier Japanese and European city cars ever since its 2011 second generation that ushered in a leap forward in design, desirability, comfort and amenities, the third generation Picanto debuted in 2017 as a more evolutionary model that improves on the strides made by its predecessor.

Sportier style

Almost identical in size, proportions and design character as its immediate predecessor, the third generation Picanto, however, features a slightly longer wheelbase for added dynamic stability and cabin legroom. Styled with a similar direction as the previous Picanto, it features a similarly buffed and muscular body with detailed and sculpted surfacing, within a small, swept back and upright package. As narrow and nearly as tall, the third generation’s design is, however, more fluent, better integrated and lends the visual impression of greater width.

Downplaying its predecessor’s narrow aesthetic, the current Picanto features a broader grille and hungrier and more aggressive lower intake to imply a wider, more sporting stance. To this end, it also features a scalloped — rather than domed — bonnet, a more squinting headlight signature and more prominent wheel-arches. With better flowing integration of concave and convex surfacing, the current Picanto also employs a rising sill line, bigger rear wheel arches and an upwards rear waistline kink for a more flowing, urgent and athletic demeanour.

Eager and efficient

With a better incorporated front bumper section than its predecessor’s stepped and awkwardly jutting design, the third generation Picanto prominently uses a carryover version of the outgoing model’s naturally-aspirated 1.25-liter four-cylinder multi-point fuel injection engine for regional markets. Driving the front wheels through a reasonably responsive and smooth shifting 4-speed automatic gearbox — or sportier 5-speed manual, where available — the Picanto’s small yet eager engine develops 83BHP at 6,400rpm and 90lb/ft torque at 4,000rpm, and returns frugal 4.5L/100km fuel consumption on the combined cycle.

A small but refined and quiet motor, the Picanto’s 1.25-litre engine that is relaxed when cruising and responsive in town, and carries its slightly heavier, but still lightweight, 1,058kg mass with comparatively good confidence, even with only four gear ratios. In terms of performance, the Picanto 1.2L accelerates through the 0-100km/h benchmark in 13.2-seconds and can attain a 161km/h top speed. Flexible for its class, the Picanto 1.2L meanwhile happily winds up to peak power and rev limit, even with its under-square engine design.

Nimble and refined

A small light car with a big footprint and little overhangs, the Picanto feels is responsively tidy into, and nimble through tight and narrow corners. Its light electric-assisted steering, meanwhile, offers good accuracy and adequate feel when pushed hard through bends, but is otherwise well insulated from textural imperfections and user-friendly. Refined and comfortable for a small car, the lightweight Picanto still feels fun, direct and eager when hustled along at a brisk pace, if not quite as engagingly back-to-basics as some other less refined small hatchbacks.

With good safety credentials — including being built using 44 per cent advanced high strength steel — the Picanto 1.2L comes with all-round disc brakes, ABS and electronic traction and stability controls, which are particularly reassuring for a small and tall car when making quick highway lane changes and driving through fast sweeping bends, where it feels more stable and planted than expected. Taut and crisp through corners and mature and confident on highway, the Picanto is, however, in its element in the city where medium speed corners and manoeuvres are executed with agile precision.

Fresh and practical

Tastefully up-market for its class, the third generation Picanto’s cabin has a fresher, more welcoming and stylised ambiance, incorporating more defined elements, greater attention to detail and emphasis on design. With well-laid out buttons and rotary controls, the Picanto has a better centred and more symmetric presentation than its predecessor. Its dashboard has a more horizontal emphasis, and features a metallic strip drawing attention in that dimension, and a tablet-like infotainment screen perched above. Meanwhile, its centre console has a more upright orientation.

More stylish than the car it replaces, the Picanto also features a sportier three-spoke steering wheel and clearer, bigger and crisper instrumentation and dials. Its seats and driving position are more comfortable and supportive with good road views, while front space is marginally improved. Rear space is near unchanged, but adequate for such a small car, as its 255-litre minimum boot volume. Well-equipped and practical, if not over-loaded, the Picanto features manual A/C, USB ports, remote audio controls, Bluetooth connectivity, tilting steering wheel and a dual level luggage board.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 1.25-litre, transverse, 4-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 71 x 78.8mm

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, variable valve timing

Gearbox: 4-speed automatic, front-wheel-drive

Ratios: 1st 2.919; 2nd 1.551; 3rd 1.0; 4th 0.713

Reverse/final drive: 2.48/4.587

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 83 (84) [62] @6,400rpm

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 90 (122) @4,000rpm

0-100km/h: 13.2-seconds

Top speed: 161km/h

Fuel consumption, combined: 4.5-litres/100km

Fuel capacity: 35-litres

Length: 3,595mm

Width: 1,595mm

Height: 1,495mm

Wheelbase: 2,400mm

Track, F/R: 1,394/1,403mm

Overhang, F/R: 675/520mm

Ground clearance: 151mm

Headroom, F/R: 1,005/960mm

Legroom, F/R: 1,085/820mm

Shoulder room, F/R: 1,300/1,280mm

Cargo volume, minimum: 255-litres

Kerb weight: 1,058kg

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/torsion beam

Steering: Electric-assisted, rack and pinion

Turning circle: 9.6-metres

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs, 256mm/discs, 244mm

Tyres: 175/65R14

By Sara Mahdawi
Clinical Psychologist

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a broad term, yet an easy action to distinguish. Affecting both men and women, GBV is the more notable human rights violation within all societies.

The official definition of GBV is harmful acts directed at an individual based on gender. It is rooted in gender inequality, the abuse of power and harmful norms. Unfortunately, one in every three women worldwide is subjected to either physical and/or sexual abuse in their lifetime.

Triggers

Social norms: We may find ourselves wondering why a certain phenomenon occurs more often in a specific area compared to another. Several risk factors play a role in increasing the prevalence of GBV, starting with social norms. Social norms are behaviours considered acceptable in a community or for a group of people. Unfortunately, in communities that normalise gender inequality such as giving a higher status to men, witness a higher prevalence of GBV amongst women. 

Economic conditions and lockdowns: The economic situation, displacement, war, and sadly, the recent development of lockdowns and other movement restrictions due to the pandemic, have all left many victims with their abusers, isolated from their support networks. GBV does not only affect survivors, but it also affects society at large. Normalising violence against women will only normalise all other forms of violence in a community, as exposing children to such acts might increase the number of adults who will become abusers or victims themselves.

Seven different forms of GBV

If we want to take an active role in preventing GBV, we need to be able to identify all forms of GBV. The United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA) identifies seven forms of GBV: 

•Sexual violence: Rape and marital rape, taking advantage of a coercive environment, or against a person incapable of giving genuine consent

•Sexual harassment: Any unwelcome sexual innuendo or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, display or pornographic material

•Physical violence: Beating, punching, kicking, biting, burning, maiming, or killing, with or without weapons; often in combination with other forms of sexual and gender-based violence

•Emotional and psychological violence: Nonsexual verbal abuse that is insulting, degrading, and demeaning

•SocioEconomic Violence: Discrimination and/ or denial of opportunities and services exclusion, denial of access to education and health assistance or remunerated employment 

•Early marriage: An arranged marriage against the survivor’s wishes, which may expose a person to violent and or abusive consequences if he or she refuses to comply. This includes child marriages

•Female genital mutilation: The cutting of genital organs for nonmedical reasons, usually done at a young age and ranges from partial to total cutting

Take an active role

It can be very scary to think of ourselves or someone we love such as our mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, or neighbours as surviving or still suffering from GBV.

Things that can be done to prevent GBV:

•Taking part in reducing stigma by spreading awareness about GBV in the community 

•Listening to survivors without judgment 

•Offering support if the survivor wishes it 

•Staying up-to-date on laws and reporting procedures in your country

•Educating your children about GBV

•Avoiding common and harmful gender stereotypes such as “girls are sensitive and men are violent and strong”, or “girls belong in the kitchen and only men should be allowed to work”, and so on

•Becoming a vocal advocate for gender equality and taking part in campaigns that aim to prevent GBV

Keep in mind that abuse is about control and control starts once the abuser succeeds in isolating the victim from loved ones to convince the victim that their abuser is the most important person in their lives. In those cases, a text, a phone call and a shoulder to cry on can go a long way. If you or someone you know is experiencing any form of violence, make sure to contact specialised authorities. You can contact the Jordan River Foundation hotline number at 110.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

LOS ANGELES — Harrison Ford has rarely bothered with television since “Star Wars” propelled him to A-list movie fame nearly half a century ago — but that is about to change with small-screen Western “1923”.

Spun off from “Yellowstone”, a modern-day cowboy saga that has become a rare cable TV ratings juggernaut in the United States, Ford’s prequel series traces the ancestors of the wealthy, ruthless Dutton clan and their sprawling Montana ranch.

“It’s a very complicated and ambitious — epic, even — undertaking, this story,” Ford told AFP at the Los Angeles premiere for the show, which will stream on Paramount+ from Sunday.

With the show shot largely on location in Montana, Ford joked that he was lured to “1923” by the prospect of “outdoor work”.

But Ford, who spent years working repetitive television jobs in Los Angeles before he was cast as Han Solo and Indiana Jones, is not the only Hollywood film giant to sign up for the TV series.

He and Oscar winner Helen Mirren co-star as Jacob and Cara Dutton, a long-married couple working to protect their land and cattle from bears, wolves and jealous neighbouring ranchers. Former James Bond actor Timothy Dalton is cast as a villain.

Their presence in “1923” is part of a broader trend in the entertainment industry. Movie stars from Al Pacino to Meryl Streep have flocked to the small screen to be part of the so-called “golden age of television”. 

The entry of deep-pocketed streaming giants Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple TV+ has created a highly competitive and lucrative marketplace, forcing other networks to up their game.

“It’s just following the good writing,” said Ford.

“The writing can be found in movies and in television, and I just found some great writing in television. That’s what made me want to do it.”

Ford is still set to appear on the silver screen in next year’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” as well as several Marvel superhero films in a minor recurring role.

‘American history’

Of course, few recent series can boast the success of “Yellowstone”.

Its season five premiere last month broke ratings records, luring more than 12 million viewers to Paramount’s relatively small cable network — a number higher than “Game of Thrones” at the same stage.

The show, which appeals to America’s conservative heartland, has already launched a separate Dutton family prequel spin-off called “1883”, starring Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.

But “this particular Duttons saga has a different kind of character to the other two,” said Ford, about “1923”.

“Each of them has an individual character which I think is really interesting and powerful.”

For Mirren, “1923” is a “wonderful observation and essay on American history” that feels like “a sprawling Russian novel”.

Dalton said the truth about pioneers in the West has “not ever really been told honestly, has it?”

“It’s been dressed-up in idealism... people aren’t very nice when they’re in bad circumstances.”

‘Love of the land’

In the show, Ford is regularly seen riding a horse through the stunning mountains of Montana — just a few hours’ drive from the remote ranch in Wyoming that the actor has called home for decades.

During the first episode, his character is confronted by a sheep rancher who claims the size of Dutton’s enormous and closely guarded property is unfair, given that his neighbours are scrabbling to keep their flocks alive on the sparse surrounding lands.

The question of who owns America’s majestic West is a common theme across the “Yellowstone” shows, which portray Native Americans as well as ranchers.

It hits close to home for Ford, who moved from California to Wyoming seeking privacy in the 1980s, and is an active environmentalist who has donated hundreds of acres of his own land for conservation.

So, does “1923” have any lessons for solving America’s never-ending debate over its most precious resource?

“Well, there are perceptions, that are not mine, about the land,” said Ford.

“But it’s a complicated issue, love of the land — what it means, in a particular place, in a particular time, to a particular kind of person.”

BILLUND, Denmark — As a boy, Samuel Tacchi was crazy about Lego cranes. Now he designs them, under cloak-and-dagger secrecy, at the Danish group’s headquarters where Santa has filled his sacks for decades.

At its ultra-modern flagship building in Billund, a visit to the offices where the design work is done is out of the question — the company is fiercely protective of its trade secrets.

But Tacchi, a 34-year-old Frenchman, lifts the veil a smidgen on the creative process, standing at a display featuring some of the brand’s colourful toy kits.

“I always start with a little sketch on paper about what I have in mind”, says Tacchi, who designs for the Lego Technic series.

“Then I start to build the technical layout: the drive train, steering, and starting to build with the function. And then I dive into the styling.”

“Then afterwards we dive into the computer.”

His office is a child’s dream come true, chock-a-block with Lego Technic pieces.

“We have an elements shelf behind our backs. It’s easy to reach and fix some elements, build them together and see if [our idea] works,” he says.

In his seven years with the company, Tacchi has helped create around 25 kits.

From start-up to multinational

A family-owned company, Lego employs more than 20,000 people around the world — more than a quarter of them in Billund, which is also home to its oldest factory.

Here, in a huge hall where robots move about like in a choreographed dance, hundreds of thousands of pieces are manufactured each day. 

Colourful plastic is moulded into familiar shapes: bricks, figurines, hair, dragon wings and tyres (Lego is reported to be the biggest tyre manufacturer in the world!)

Sorted and stored by model in large crates in an adjoining warehouse, the pieces are then sent to other factories to be included in kits.

While everything is made of plastic today, the toy empire was founded by a carpenter very conscious of the quality of the wood he used. 

In 1932, in the middle of the Great Depression, Ole Kirk Kristiansen began making wooden toys, winning the favour of Danish children with his yo-yos.

“He sold the yo-yo to every child in Billund and... [when every child had one] he couldn’t sell anymore. But he still had them laying around,” explains Signe Wiese, Lego’s resident historian.

“So instead of throwing them out or just leaving them, he reused them. He split the yo-yos in half and he used them for wheels on wagons.”

Four years later, having given up on carpentry, he named his new company “Lego”, a contraction of the Danish “Leg godt”, which means “Play well”.

With a shortage of raw materials after World War II, Kirk Kristiansen gradually turned towards plastic and invested his life savings in an injection moulding machine.

“He was really fascinated with the technology and the machinery and the material itself,” says Wiese.

“So for him, it seems to have been a pretty easy decision, in spite of the fact that everyone was actually advising him against it.”

The idea for the bricks came later.

Initially they were made without Lego’s famed “clutch power” — the mechanism that makes it possible to click the bricks together.

The design was patented in 1958, paving the way for an endless catalogue of figures, shapes and kits.

Now, Lego is the biggest toymaker in the world, ahead of Japan’s Bandai Namca and US groups Hasbro and Mattel, according to market analysts Statista.

This year, Lego says its catalogue of toys is bigger than ever before, but refuses to disclose the exact number. 

AMSTERDAM — Tulips and bitcoin have both been associated with financial bubbles in their time, but in a giant greenhouse near Amsterdam the Dutch are trying to make them work together.

Engineer Bert de Groot inspects the six bitcoin miners as they perform complex sums to earn cryptocurrency, filling the air with a noisy whine along with a blast of warmth.

That warmth is now heating the hothouse where rows of tulips grow, cutting the farmers’ reliance on gas whose price has soared since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The servers in turn are powered by solar energy from the roof, reducing the normally huge electricity costs for mining, and cutting the impact on the environment.

Meanwhile, both the farmers and de Groot’s company, Bitcoin Brabant, are earning crypto, which is still attracting investors despite a recent crash in the market.

“We think with this way of heating our greenhouse but also earning some bitcoin we have a win-win situation,” flower farmer Danielle Koning, 37, told AFP.

The Netherlands’ love of tulips caused the first stock market crash in the 17th century when speculation bulb prices caused prices to soar, only to later collapse.

Now The Netherlands is the world’s biggest tulip producer and also the second biggest agricultural exporter overall after the United States, with much grown in greenhouses.

‘Improving the environment’

But the low-lying country is keenly aware of the effect of the agricultural industry on climate change, while farmers are struggling with high energy prices.

Mining for cryptocurrency, meanwhile, requires huge amounts of electricity to power computers, leading to an environmental impact amid global efforts to tackle climate change. 

De Groot, 35, who only started his business earlier this year and now has 17 clients including restaurants and warehouses, says this makes bitcoin and tulips a perfect fit.

“This operation is actually carbon negative, as are all the operations I basically build,” says the long-haired de Groot, sporting an orange polo shirt with his firm’s logo.

“We’re actually improving the environment.”

He is also selling tulips online for bitcoin via a business called Bitcoinbloem.

The collaboration started when Koning saw a Twitter video de Groot had made about bitcoin mining, and called him up.

Now there are six servers at their hothouse, whose exact location Koning asked to keep secret to avoid thieves targeting the 15,000-euro machines.

Koning’s company owns half of them and keeps the bitcoin they produce, while de Groot is allowed to keep his three servers there in exchange for monthly visits to clean dust and insects out of the servers’ fans.

With a 20ºC difference between the air entering the machine and leaving them, this provides the heat needed to grow the tulips, and to dry the bulbs that produce them.

‘No worries’

“The most important thing we get out of it is, we save on natural gas,” says Koning. “Secondly, well, we earn Bitcoin by running them in the greenhouse.”

Huge energy costs have driven some Dutch agricultural firms that often rely on greenhouses to stop growing this year, while others have even gone bankrupt, says Koning.

Meanwhile, the philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who developed the idea of the unpredictable but historic “black swan” event, has compared Bitcoin to the “Tulipmania” that engulfed The Netherlands nearly 400 years ago.

This saw prices for a single bulb rise to more than 100 times the average annual income at the time before the bubble burst in 1637, causing banks to fail and people to lose their life savings.

The cryptocurrency sector is currently reeling from the collapse of a major exchange — with Bitcoin currently worth around $16,300 per unit, down from a high of $68,000 in November 2021 — but De Groot isn’t worried.

“I have absolutely no worries about the long-term value proposition of an immutable monetary system,” he says.

“Bitcoin will last for ever.”