90s

The canonical “living room furniture” in Spain in the 80s and 90s is dead. That says more about us than it seems.

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There is an object that disappeared from Spanish homes within a generation or two, without almost anyone noticing: the living room furniture. I’m not talking about a base for the TV but about that solid wood architecture that occupied an entire wall, with its display cases, shelves, drawers, space for the TV and, in the most ambitious models, even an integrated minibar, the only thing in my childhood home that seemed like a luxury to me. For decades that piece of furniture was the nerve center of the home. It housed books, television, mini chain (another vestige of another era), family memories and the boy’s judo medals. Today it is a relic that no one millennial buys and that Generation Z doesn’t even recognize. The obvious explanation is practical: televisions grew much faster than the space that these pieces of furniture reserved for them. It became impossible to fit a 42 or 55 inch screen where barely 21 could fit.. Apartments shrank while prices skyrocketed, and dedicating four square meters to a cherry monolith no longer made sense. Furthermore, moves have multiplied because job insecurity forces people to change cities more than in the past, and no one wants to carry a piece of furniture that requires a truck and three rocks. But That doesn’t explain why no one misses them.. What died with the living room furniture was something deeper: the idea that the home should display who we were. These displays were, in addition to functional display cases, a showcase: the good dishes that were only used at Christmas, the collection of porcelain figurines, the religious motifs if the family was a believer, the bound volumes of encyclopedias that no one read but that let visitors know that culture is valued in this house. The shelf with the VHS carefully arranged, the crystal glasses, the framed photos. It was all there to be seen by those who came to see us, to say, “This is our family, this is our status, this is what we value, this is who we are.” That today is, at best, a piece of melanin furniture with some funkos and the Switch. Image provided by an acquaintance. In this case, a 55″ TV covers more than what the furniture manufacturer had planned and there is no room for more. In this case, the tradition of furniture and tea sets coexist with the modernity of consoles, the yoga mat or souvenirs definitely different from those of yesteryear, such as the Japanese torii or the Mexican mask. Where was the ceramic with ‘Memory of Torrelavega’. Today we exhibit on Instagram, or in our profile photo and WhatsApp statuses, but not in the living room. Identity is no longer constructed through physical objects arranged in a display case, but through selected images on a screen. It is no longer necessary to demonstrate to visitors that you have good taste (visits, in fact, are increasingly rare) because your followers They have already seen it in the stories. The other thing is a matter of our parents and in-laws. The living room furniture was a gesture of permanence and stability: We bought one that we knew would last a lifetime, we even inherited it. Now we live in forced flexibility, in rental apartments with annual contracts, in Ikea as religion and in the imperative to travel light. It’s not just that it doesn’t fit. It is that its very logic (the solid, the definitive, the expository) belongs to a time that no longer exists. The space where the furniture used to be is now occupied by a giant television mounted on the wall, a minimalist shelf from Amazon or, directly, nothing. And that absence is not coincidental. It is the symptom of a culture that stopped believing in the idea of ​​the home as a personal museum. and he began to conceive it as a provisional set for a life that happens, above all, elsewhere. On the screens. In Xataka | The 17 photos that explain the 90s as if you had lived them Featured image | Xataka

Despite drought and climate change, Andalusia is today greener than in the 90s. It is not as positive as it seems

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A few months ago we count that Spain was getting greener. We did not refer to renewablesbut to the spectacular effects of a spring Exceptionally rainy that He moved the ghosts of the past. The problem was what would happen after those rains and If the drought would call back to the door. Now we are in a totally different scenario: heat waves and, Like every summer of recent years, The fight against fires. In spite of everything, and to climate change, NASA shows that Andalusia is today more “green” than in the 90s. And it is not to be too excited. Short. Spain is a country with drastic microclimal changes on which the flora depends. In the south of the peninsula, they are the Mediterranean forests Those who occupy 26% of Andalusia and the conditions of much of the soil have made pines and holm oaks are the dominant speciesS, since they adapt well to areas without plant cover. Andalusia is a good study scenario because climate change clearly draws its effects, such as upward temperature, decline rains and increased aridity. And, as we see in Physa team of researchers has published in Ecological Indicators How these forests have responded during the last 30 years. Tools. For the analysis, the researchers used more than 5,000 satellite images captured between 1994 and 2021 obtained Thanks to Landsat 5 and Landsat 7NASA. In total, they analyzed 2,358 plots that compared with data from Google Earth Engine and created an “greenery” index measured by Ndvi. They are the acronym of ‘Standardized Difference Vegetation Index ”, a way of quantifying, through satellite images or remote sensors, how much living vegetation there is in an area. In short, it is something that indicates the amount and vigor of the vegetation, being a tool widely used in studies of agriculture, natural resources management or those associated with climate change. Black squares represent 2,358 farms analyzed. In the most dependent areas of agriculture, the effects are much more limited What do we see. In general, except red eucalyptus, all species have shown an increase in this NDVI value, something that points to sustained revergeration. In trees such as holm oaks, cork oaks and pines, the maximum moment of activity is concentrated in the soft winter months, falling in the summers. And the chestnut, which is the only deciduous species of the study, operates on the contrary. The Effects of climate change And aridity have a decisive role in these cycles, extending the activity period of the Carrasco pine and the resin in the driest places and shortening that of other pine species, such as the wild, and that of the wild olive tree. Between 1994 and 2005, the growth of these species was evident, and followed its course from 2005 to 2021, although at a more moderate speed. ¿Because? The result is that, the green territory is now greener and the conclusion is that many species have maintained or increased its green coverage. There are several explanations, and very diverse. Carrasco or Encina pine are designed to support heat and droughtwhich allows them to remain active when other species lower the activity. Here the policies of natural reforestation and regeneration have played a role, as well as global factors such as the increase in Atmospheric co₂ that would act as fertilizer. There are also factors directly related to human activity, such as a progressive abandonment of farmland in certain areas that has favored the natural regeneration of the forest, as well as changes in land use, such as the decrease in livestock pressure that reduces the degradation of the undergrowth. We have also influenced the contrary, as with a cork oak, which we extract cork periodically, limiting the regeneration of the tree. Nuances. The study is very useful to see the current situation of the Andalusian Mediterranean forest, but also to observe which are the most resilient species and those that best adapt to changing conditions and a rampant aridity. And the conclusion of the study is that things are not going well, but due to that resilience of some species and, despite the continuous increase in annual average temperatures, most species did not demonstrate a relationship between phenological metrics and that temperature increase. And, perhaps, the most important thing is that the greenest does not equals a healthier vegetation, since various factors (natural and human) intervene and we see that this revergence is nothing uniform, with a south and this drier in which the vegetation is hardly growing. But well, as researchers point out, see what species are more resistant and adapt better is something that allows you to find the best options for adequate reforestation policies, Not how we are doing in many places in Europe. Before we talked about that rainy spring that moved the ghost of drought and that summer was returning to reality. And the Recent restrictions in Galicia They are a sad sign of this. Image | José Sánchez Rodríguez and Rafael Palomo López In Xataka | Spain has been dismissing its forest firefighters in winter for years. Fire show that it may not be a good idea

A Netscape decision in the 90s explains why Google and Meta grow up with each technological revolution

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In 1995, engineers of Netscape They faced a problem during a development night: how to allow websites to execute code without being able to steal user data? Thirty years later, its solution, the ‘Same-Origin Policy‘(Policy of the same origin), has become the invisible architecture that governs all the Internet. Why is it important. Each website became an isolated universe, unable to communicate with others. That night decision explains why we can barely escape the Apple ecosystem, why our data live trapped in silos and why each technological revolution makes the usual giants more powerful. The context. Alex Komoroske, former strategy director in Stripe and former director of Google for 13 years, He has identified what he calls the “iron triangle” of modern software. System designers can only combine two of these three elements: Sensitive data. Internet access. And non -reliable code. The logic is simple: if you allow unknown code to access personal data and have Internet connection, you can steal everything and send it anywhere. The solution was the total isolation. Each application became a fortress where your Instagram data cannot talk to Uber’s, your Apple photos cannot be processed by Google tools, and each service begins knowing zero about you. In detail. Komoroske Talk about this phenomenon With the water metaphor going down a mountain. Each obstacle does not stop the flow, redirects it where there is less resistance. Over time, channels are formed that attract more water to become increasingly large rivers. Planning a trip illustrates this mechanism: Flights in the mail. Hotel in another app. Restaurants in Google Docs. Calendar in a different tool. The constant friction of copying, pasteing and reformating leads to grant access to a single service that already knows all your context. Without friction, everything works perfect. When you share the trip, you use the tool that already has all the information. The threat. The AI promises to be different, but is inheriting the same physics. The LLMS They can create almost free software – a developer with AI can build in hours what it took weeks – allowing infinitely personalized tools. But this “infinite software” distributed through traditional stores does not solve our problems: it amplifies them. More applications mean more silos, more places where your data is trapped. The AI needs context to be useful, but our current security model means that sharing context is a commitment of all or nothing. Yes, but. The technical pieces to transcend this paradigm already exist. Modern Intel, AMD and ARM chips include “safe enclaves“, encrypted and protected memory regions of anyone, including cloud administrators. AI brings us a unique opportunity, because it makes the current limitation evident. The technical pieces already exist and it is the first time in thirty years that we can transcend this policy. While nothing changes, the concentration of power will continue to reinforce. In Xataka | What was ATI: to look at Nvidia to end and forgotten by the technology industry Outstanding image | Netscape, Xataka, Unspash

Apple has chosen to be the Microsoft of the 90s. They are good and bad news at the same time

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They are late for the AI ​​revolution, but compensate Apple Intelligence in Invisible and indispensable infrastructure. There was a particularly revealing moment in the Keynote of the WWDC 2025: While the technological world lives its greatest revolution since the arrival of the Internet, Apple dedicated fifty -two seconds to talk about Apple Intelligence. The rest of the time spent talking about things such as the new telephone app or personalized funds for Imessage. Then they spent more time talking about Foundation Models and integrations, but the most explicit Apple Intelligence for the user was relegated. It is as if in 1996, in the middle of the Internet explosion, Microsoft had focused its Keynote on improving the Windows Paint and lonely. The analogy is not accidental because Apple is repeating part of the Microsoft strategy of the nineties: Arrive late to a technological revolution and compensate with deep integration what they lack in pure innovation. When the Internet began to change the world, Microsoft did not create the best browser, protocols or web servers. But Internet integrated so deeply in Windows that it became impossible to avoid. They did not lead that technology, but made it indispensable within their territory. Apple is executing the same pattern, although with a nuance of the size of Alicante: they have developed their own models for Apple Intelligence. And now they translate into new specific functions: Machine translation. Calling spam. Personalized sports motivation. Your Foundation Models gives developers direct access to that local intelligence. But when you need real conversation, complex reasoning, advanced creativity … there they turn to Chatgpt. The Current Siri Without Openai remains the usual: appropriate for basic commands, but it is lost as soon as you leave the script. For the conversational and productive jump that defines this era, Apple depends on others. Your strategy is intelligent: Controlling the everyday and routine where integration matters more than gross power. Subcontracting the advanced where they still cannot compete. They do not sell as a product, but make it a kind of digital oxygen. You breathe it without realizing it. Google, Openai or Anthropic compete to create the best chatbot and surround it with functions that underpin it. Apple opts to integrate intelligence in each basic interaction of its devices. You do not need to open chatgpt to translate a message, it simply occurs. You don’t look for an app to filter spam calls, your iPhone takes care of that. It is the difference between selling electricity and selling appliances that work with electricity. Amazon executed a similar strategy when he arrived late to the conversational. They cannot compete with chatgpt in headlines, but they are making Its AI is the easiest option for companies that already live in AWS. They do not define the future of AI, but they do domesticate it within the infrastructure they live. The problem is that This defensive strategy comes with expiration date. The Microsoft of the nineties had serious problems when it lost the train that took him from the PC to the mobile. His domain by integration evaporated as soon as the dominant platform changed. Apple did manage to reinvent himself with the iPhone and with the Wearablebut AI is moving much faster than previous transitions. The PC Revolution → Mobile took a decade, the AI ​​revolution is happening in less than a five years. Apple Silicon took another decade of internal development to Apple. To lead the conversational that defines this era they would need a similar investment in research. The question is if they are ten years old. The window closes every time Openai presents a more capable modelevery time Google Integra Gemini more deeply in Androidevery moment they lose defining what the conversational means for the end user. Apple, for the moment, is playing the perfect letter for the short term. Its integration is superior, its most credible privacy, its most polished experience. They control infrastructure and experience, but they subcontract the intelligence that really differentiates this era from all the above. It’s like perfectly controlling iPhone’s hardware but depending on Google for apps that people really want to use. And this is especially paradoxical coming from Apple, A company that has invested decades and billions in controlling fundamental technologies: They developed their own operating systems so as not to depend on Microsoft or Google. They created Apple Silicon not to depend on the cycles and limitations of Intel. They are developing their own modems so as not to depend on Qualcomm and The C1 already debuted with the iPhone 16E. Apple understands better than anyone who controls base technologies controls the future. But with the generative AI they have chosen to be the best integrators instead of competing frontally for creating the best models in the world. It is a conscious resignation to that ‘big’ competition that defines the technological ages. “ Apple Intelligence works, and it works better the less explicit it is. It shines in the subtle, in the rear layer. But the history of technology teaches us that defensive strategies have limits. Microsoft dominated the nineties with superior integration, until a platform came where that integration no longer matters. The question is not whether Apple can continue to be the best integrator of others. The question is yes, when the redefine completely how we interact with technology, it will be enough to have been the perfect host of a revolution that others wrote. In Xataka | Four AI companies are monopolizing the intellectual future of humanity. They are not good news Outstanding image | Apple

Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2007. They have found signs of the disease in their 90s books

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In 2007, Terry Pratchett approached Rob Wilkins, his assistant, and told him that the ‘s’ of his keyboard had disappeared. He was laughing. I thought it was a joke, an innocent. “What the hell have you done with her?” He asked. But the ‘S’ was still in the same usual place: on the keyboard. After a few months of testing, the writer knew that the only place where the ‘S’ was disappeared was his head. Postterio cortical atrophy sufferedA, a neurodegenerative disorder typically related to Alzheimer’s, which causes problems to see, to process information, to read, speak and write. He died in 2015 In a small town west of Salisbury. When does dementia begin? That basically is The question asked Thom Wilcockson and his team from the University of Laughborough. Pratchett’s case was very interesting because posterior cortical atrophy has an impact on the use of language and this man wrote a lot. So Wilcockson’s team He examined 33 Books of World Disco (29 published before 2007 and four later) to see if there was any point where the first symptoms of the disease could be identified. And it seems that. Among the first books and the last, the researchers discovered a significant decrease of number of nouns, verbs and adjectives. In addition, they found that the number of phrases increased (something that, according to researchers, fits a tendency towards simpler language). The funny thing is that the turning point was not 2007, but 1998. In that year, Pratchett published ‘The country of the end of the world‘And it is the work in which the change in trend begins to become evident. “This demonstrates a long preclinical period of dementia and the subtle deficiencies that are not always detected with traditional cognitive evidence,” Wilcockson explained. It is not the first time that the equipment uses this type of analysis. They have done it with Iris Murdoch (who also died of Alzheimer’s) and with Agatha Christie (we suspect he suffered). However, not everyone is sane with researchers. Not because they believe they are wrong, but because there are many more factors to consider. In New Scientistfor example, Rob Wilkins explained that in recent years Terry began to have a much more intense “professional life” and that prevented reviewing novels as thoroughly as previously. Be that as it may, the investigation is fascinating. Especially now, at a time when we write (and do audios) much more often than ever. Algorithms like these could dive in our emails, our WhatsApp conversations and in our social networks to identify signs of problems many years before they become evident. Image | Solarisgirl | David Skinner In Xataka | Mundodisco technology

In the 90s Japan he created his own “Truman show.” A real one, starring a naked, alone and famel

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“The only person who really understands what Tuman felt, for what happened, it’s me.” The phrase is Volume Hamatsuaka ‘Nasubi’, a 49 -year -old Japanese comedian, and the Truman who refers to is not The former president from the US or the author of ‘In cold blood’ nor any other character of flesh and blood that has used that name ever. No. Nasubi talks about the truman who plays Jim Carrey in The movie 1998 directed by Peter Weir in which the adventures and misadventures of a man who star in a Telerreality program is narrated Without having the slightest idea. If you have seen it, you know how delusional your argument is. If not, there goes a quick summary: Truman Burbank is a thirty -year -old who leads his whole life as the star of a very popular reality whose existence does not know. Everything in his life is false, pure dare, figures and script. Your family, actors. His friends, actors. His work and home, a set. All 100% designed material for Prime Time. Although he doesn’t know so that he reality Be much more real. With such a story the logical thing would be to think that Nasubi exaggerates when he says that he is “The only person” capable of empathize “really” with the character of Truman; But the truth is that he knows what he is talking about. The Japanese comedian was not born and grew up on a television set, but at the end of the 90 realityin his country as popular as bloody and crazy. And without knowing it. Last year his experience was rescued in a documentary, ‘The Contest’directed by Clair Titley, and now recovers it ABC News To probably remind us one of the most delusional stories in television history. An aspiring famous comedian Nasubi’s case started in 1998 with a stroke of luck. Throughout his childhood he had aspired to become A famous comedian In Japan, so a good day decided to appear at the casting of a reality of the country entitled ‘Hisunu! Denpa Shōnen ‘. There he met another twenty loop comedians who had to choose between several cards. In Nasubi’s, who was about 22 years old, put “winner”. A luck. Or so he believed. The fact is that this card gave him the right to make the producers put a headphones, they bandaged his eyes and put him in a car without giving him explanations. “Then they took me to a room and forced me to undress completely because they wanted me to start from scratch. They took all my clothes“, Relatize ABC News. In it tiny apartment In which they left him alone and in leather he found a woner, a phone, a ball, blank postcards, a radio, a television without connection, a pillow, a gas burner, a shower and the services fair and essential for survive. And for fair we talk about heating, running water and electricity. Nothing else. No clothes. No food or bottled water. And of course Nothing company In his peculiar confinement. What explained to him? What was the goal? Nasubi was only told a part of the project. Incomplete and, so it is deduced from His testimonydiffuse enough so that he did not know what he participated in. The idea was that the young man complete a challenge that consisted of surviving with what he won in the raffles of magazines and radio programs. Hence the postcards, the ball and the magazines. The contest would end when the symbolic sum of one million yen (around 6,100 euros to the current change). If that happened they would give him a cash prize; Although what Nasubi really ambition was the other promise of the contest: launch your comedian career. Were you guarantee that it was to achieve it? None. The young man was given a camera with which he had to be recorded more or less Every two hours And I also knew that I was being filmed. With all that material, they explained, a comic program could then be mounted that perhaps (and only perhaps) would be broadcast on Japanese television. The promise was enough for Nasubi to continue without having an exact idea of What was really doing with videos. The promise of the prize and fame sufficient. After all ‘Hisunu! Denpa Shōnen ‘ It was a popular program that was broadcast on Nippon TV between 1998 and well entered 2002. If I wanted to leave at some point, Nasubi had the open apartment door. No one prevented him from crossing her. But he didn’t. Apart from the obvious motivation, which had been left totally naked, one of the questions that have been asked since then is why he moved on. The young man Recognize ABC News that “felt silent pressure.” “The person I was talking with was a very famous television producer, so I thought it would be better for my future in the entertainment industry not to go against him. I was trying to make me a name.” “I think there are many reasons,” explained last year to the BBC Tiley, director of the documentary on Nasubi. “One is very stoic and that is due to its place of origin, Fukushima, and her parents, who were very strict. He is also a very loyal person. He did not want to get into trouble and He was very young and naive. It is still incredibly confident. There is also that samurai spirit of ‘I will prevail and endure’ “. Endured. What if he endured. Nasubi was 15 months Living only in that apartment, naked, subsisting with what he earned by participating at a distance in magazine or radio raffles. The young man He came to recognize to To This American Life that during the first days he lost so many kilos that the producers ended up intervening to bring bread and water. Although that help lasted little. Only until he started earning money. What I got however It didn’t always serve … Read more

Coca-Cola presents six Freestyle flavors inspired by ’90s nostalgia

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Inspired by the internet culture of the ’90s and early ’00s, the soft drink giant is launching six new flavors of Coca-cola Freestyle for a limited time from January 7th to March 3rd. These are six new flavors called “the Internet’s favorite mix”, available in Coca-Cola Freestyle machines that include: Fanta Lime In My DMs, Sprite CherryBaby101, Sprite Orange Goin’ Viral, Fanta Citrus Chatbox, Coca-Cola Vanilla Peach Luvr and Coca-Cola Tropical Vlogg. The first to break the news of this new collection with an air of nostalgia for the 90s was the food launches expert @markie_devo, through his social networks. “It’s 2025, of course we have a Windows 98-flavored Coca-Cola,” he posted in an image showing the new flavors available in restaurants with Coca-Cola Freestyle machines. One of the differentiating elements of These soft drink dispensing machines allow you to mix flavors like Sprite Cherry and Sprite Vanilla to create a sweet and sour cherry ice cream-flavored drink, according to Southern Living. The new launch has divided opinion on the networks, since we are inclined to celebrate the new flavors, while others joke about whether they are really new flavors. Coca Cola fans will have the opportunity to enjoy the new flavors from now until the first days of March. Keep reading:

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