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Germany is considering breaking a rule in force since 1919 as a desperate measure to boost its economy: working on Sundays

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Bedran Günes was working on the cash register at his store in Berlin when two agents entered. They looked through their soup cans, their spices, and their bread. He was then fined 2,500 euros. Their crime: selling non-perishable food, but above all, doing so on Sunday, violating the 1919 rule contained in the German Constitution that prohibits opening on Sunday. “Sonntagsruhe”, they call it. Günes recognized to the Wall Street Journal that continues to do so. “Otherwise, my business would go bankrupt,” said the grocery store owner. He estimates that up to 40% of his sales are made just that day. A break that comes from 1919. The rule that fined Günes for working on Sunday is more than a century old. He was born in the Weimar Constitution proclaimed in 1919, which is still valid today in the article 140 of the German Basic Law. The text indicates the protection of Sunday “as days of rest and spiritual reflection.” Since then, on Sundays in Germany only bars, restaurants and gas stations open with a strict government permit. Supermarkets can only sell bread, drinks, tobacco or takeaway food that can be eaten on the street or standing (street food, etc.). Any other commercial activity is prohibited until Monday. Merz’s plan. Germany’s government is dealing with a stagnant economy since 2019 that does not give signs recovery and its main industry making water. Chancellor Friedrich Merz is not willing to throw in the towel, so he is implementing a intensive reform plan to revive the German economy. The German government has already touched medical leave, pensionsthe work dayand now proposes that retail businesses can also open on Sundays to extend opening hours to save their economy. Found positions. The change is scheduled for January 2027, and the measure has already found supporters and opponents. Unions see it as an attack on labor rights. They have been joined by some merchants who claim that “we have a hard time finding employees who are willing to work every Saturday, so how are we going to find employees to work on Sundays?” declared Catrin Schulz, an optician in Berlin. to the british The Telegraph. Furthermore, merchants point out that their customers already buy online on Sundays anyway, so the productivity of commerce (beyond restaurants) does not decline during Sunday. The numbers that move the debate. The German retail sector is feeling the crisis. has lost 60,000 jobs since 2022 and more than 50,000 stores have closed in the last five years, according to its own employers. Meanwhile, the country’s unemployment exceeds three million of people, something that has not happened for more than a decade. A survey of YouGov recently published reveals that 43% of Germans would support opening more on Sundays. Just a year ago, that support was around 34%. Half of the country is still against it, but resistance is cracking little by little, especially among the youngest. In Xataka | Germany believes it has found the most German possible solution to its productivity problems: work more Image | Unsplash (Gonzalo Leon Jasin, Tim Mossholder)

Generation Z is breaking a rule Baby Boomers have always followed: don’t talk about money

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Nightly, in The Revoltdozens of guests face two of the most uncomfortable questions that can be asked of a person: about your sex life and about money. With the arrival of sex education to the classrooms, the taboo of talk about sex has been reduced, but when it comes to talking about salary, almost everyone hesitates. They change the subject, let out a nervous laugh, or dodge the answer as best they can. Money is still the true taboo of spanish after-dinner. Outside of Spain, something similar had been happening for decades. There was no talk about salary, neither with friends nor family. That unwritten rule, which boomers and generation X strictly followed, generation Z is definitively breaking. We don’t talk about money. The silence about money did not come out of nowhere. It has roots in social comparison: talking about what you earn puts you in a success or failure scaleand that is uncomfortable. The ethics of effort also weigh, the idea that having little money is synonymous with little ambition, something that in Spain is also mixed with a religious component that associates wealth with greed, as the economist Joan Tubau said. in an interview for The World. The sociologist Iván Parro matches in which money stopped being just a means of exchange and began to become a means of identifying social status. Having or not having money defines, in part, your place in the group. That’s why building a wall on your salary also protects your ego. Nobody wants to expose their position on that scale in front of others. Generation Z does not shut up. Mary Julia Koch, editor of the Wall Street Journal, explained it in one of his interventions in Fox Business. His generation has grown up publishing his entire life on social networks: romantic relationships, friendshipsuniversity life and work. Talking about salary was, according to her, the next logical step. And that step is already being taken on a massive scale. According to a Stepstone study74% of those under 30 years old already talk openly about their salary, compared to less than half of those over that age. Economic pressure helps to understand this opening: high rents, precarious jobs and a generation that needs to compare figures to know if they are being paid well. “Generation Z and Millennials are increasingly better informed about the salary they can expect, as they discuss it more openly than older generations,” the report notes. In Spain it is still difficult to talk about money. Here the change goes more slowly. According to data from a Younited analysis collected by The Newspaper51% of Spaniards prefer not to talk about money openly, and up to 60% of those under 40 believe that it should not be done in public. Culture is important, but so is the lack of training. The Bank of Spain itself makes it clear in its latest Financial Competencies Survey: almost half of the population considers that their knowledge is low or very low. When you don’t know how something works, it’s easier to avoid talking about it than to risk appearing ignorant. A new language to talk about money. This change in tone also has its own face in Spain. Streamers like Ibai Llanos have managed to talk about salariesrents or mortgages sound like a normal conversation and not a meeting with the bank, something that has helped the creators become the gateway to financial education for many young people. The secrecy of a lifetime is being dismantled little by little, between reels posted on social networks and a generation that already sees silence about money as more of a disadvantage than a taboo. In Xataka | If the question is how much money does it take to be happy in Spain, a study has the answer: double what you earn Image | Unsplash (Marionel Luciano, Emil Kalibradov)

The new Ryzen 7 5800X3D does not solve the hardware crisis, but it is a lifesaver to extend the life of many PCs without breaking the bank

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Updating a desktop PC or brand new practically any current device that integrates RAM or storage (that is, almost everything) is face a harsh reality: you have to pay much more for the same thing. The hardware crisis, derived from the high demand for these components to supply clients related to AI, which has been with us since the end of last year, it seems like it’s going to be long. So if we have no choice but to renew components or equipment in 2026 and we do not want to pay too much, You have to look carefully at which is the best possible purchase option.. AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 10th Anniversary Edition The price could vary. We earn commission from these links In this context, AMD launched the market a few weeks ago Ryzen 7 5800X3D 10th Anniversary Edition. The reissue of a best-selling processor, compatible with AM4 platformswhich allows you to give a facelift to computers (especially gaming, as it is a CPU designed especially for gamers) from up to a decade ago without the need to renew the motherboard. And, above all, without having to make the leap to DDR5 RAM memories (which are through the roof). All this, in exchange for a very contained investment in 2026, such as the 360 euros that is around in the main stores. Probably the best price-quality purchase for a gaming PC in the last decade In ideal conditions and focusing on the most current, the most recommended purchase when configuring from scratch or updating a PC to play, today, in the middle of 2026, is recent motherboards, DDR5 RAM and NVMe PCIe Gen5 SSDs. But of course, this represents an exorbitant expense in many cases that not all users are willing to assume. Above all, considering that just a few months ago all of this cost much less. In this scenario, the reissue of this Ryzen 7 5800X3D It makes a lot of sense. With it we can give a facelift (and greatly increase performance) to our current AM4 platform PC, with DDR4 RAM, without having to touch much else. Above all, if we plan to play and we come from a processor that does not belong to AMD’s X3D family. With the change, The jump in video games is brutal: more frames per second, thanks to AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology. In essence, this Ryzen 7 5800X3D maintains the 8 cores and 16 threads, frequencies of up to 4.5 GHz, the TDP of 105 W and the same amount of L3 cache as the original 5800X3D launched in 2022. But as an added bonus, this 10th anniversary edition includes a thermal solution as an alternative to the classic thermal paste: the Carbice Ice Pad, which is a thermal pad that must be placed between the surface of the CPU and the heat sink to keep high temperatures at bay. ⚡ IN SUMMARY: Ryzen 7 5800X3D 10th Anniversary Edition ✅ THE BEST You do not need to change motherboard or RAM if you already had one with AM4 socket and DDR4 memories Outstanding gaming performance thanks to its exclusive technology that triggers the FPS ❌ THE WORST It is not the most current on the market (although it has just gone on sale) and if you prefer the latest of the latest there are more powerful (and expensive) options. 💡 BUY IT IF… You need to renew your desktop gaming hardware in the middle of the sector crisis ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… You plan to make the jump to AM5/DDR5 in the short term (even at these prices) Two pieces of hardware ideal to accompany this Ryzen ASUS TUF Gaming B550M-PLUS WiFi II po A and C, Aura Sync RGB), B550 II The price could vary. We earn commission from these links CORSAIR Vengeance LPX DDR4 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | amd, Timothy Dykes, Remy on Unsplash In Xataka | Best gaming mice: which one to buy and 8 recommended models In Xataka | Best gaming keyboards 2026. Which one to buy based on use and 8 recommended models

The Animal Welfare Law is clear about whether dogs can enter bars. And also about the fine for breaking the rule

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To humans (we know since recently) we like to surround ourselves with pets since long before we we started cultivating the land or the invention of writing. However, they have never played such a relevant role in our homes. The first official statistics On the subject, he estimates that in Spain they live 15 million of pets, more than the entire population of the country under 30 years of age. Only the dogs add up to 7.5. With such a deployment it is normal that more and more people count on them when planning travel or go to a bar. The big question is… Can they pass? Are pets allowed? If you go to Google and type “pets”, “restaurants” and “access” you will find a good handful of publications that talk about whether or not pets can access bars, restaurants, hotels and (in general) private businesses. It stands to reason. First, because in Spain there are more and more pets and every time they are more incorporated in our daily lives. Second, because with the thermometer fooling around with the 30th In much of the country and with clear skies, people increasingly want to make plans outside, stay in a hotel on the beach or go for a drink at a bar. And what is the answer? Depends. As is usually the case when we talk about pets, the ‘bible’ we must turn to in search of answers is the Law 7/2023 on March 28. Said like this, it may not sound familiar to you, but its most popular name surely does: the Animal Welfare Law (LBA), which began to be applied a long time ago. three years. In this specific case we are interested in your article 29which regulates “access with pets to means of transportation, establishments and public spaces.” There the regulatory framework is established and a very simple idea is put forward: as a general rule, pets can enter bars, restaurants and other businesses where food is served, unless otherwise stated. Now, in each case what both the host and the owner of the animal do will greatly influence, so this guideline does not always have to be followed. What does it say about the hoteliers? That they have the right to decide whether or not pets enter their businesses, although if they decide to do the latter and close the doors to them, they must make it very clear from the beginning. And in writing. Basically, Law 07/2023 states that if the owner of a restaurant chooses to ban pets, he must record his decision, warning it on the door in a perfectly visible way. The objective: to avoid surprises for clients or that, once they are seated with their dog, they are asked to leave the premises. What exactly does the law say? The indication that interests us is in the second point of the article 29. And says: “Public and private establishments, hotel accommodations, restaurants, bars and in general any others in which drinks and food are consumed, may facilitate the entry of pets that do not constitute a risk to people, other animals and things, to areas not intended for the preparation, storage or handling of food, without prejudice to the provisions of public health regulations, or municipal ordinances or specific regulations.” “If the entry and stay of the animal is not admitted, they must show a badge indicating this, visible from the outside of the establishment”. Does only the hotelier influence? No. From the LBA comes off that the dog owner also has rights and obligations and that even the latter must comply with certain rules. For example, the previous paragraph emphasizes that the doors of the premises will be open to pets “that do not constitute a risk to people, other animals and things.” And later, in point 5, the same article of the LBA emphasizes that the owners also have responsibilities: “People responsible for pets who can access the transport and establishments and places indicated in the previous sections must take the animal in accordance with the hygienic-sanitary conditions and respecting the security measures determined by the establishment or means of transport itself, as well as specific sectoral legislation.”. What happens in other places? The LBA not only regulates access to restaurants, bars and accommodation. the same article (29) also clarifies that, in general, public and private transport services must “facilitate” the entry of pets as long as they do not represent a threat. However, the ‘photo’ is not the same in all services. Taxi drivers or platforms such as Uber or Cabify can decide “at their discretion” whether or not to accept pets, while the law states that railway, shipping and airline operators must “adopt the necessary measures to guarantee the transportation of animals (…) as long as they are carried out under the access conditions established by each operator, respecting the hygienic-sanitary and safety conditions required by law.” Does it say anything else? Yes. The LBA make it clear also that shelters, refuges, care centers and other places dedicated to caring for people in a vulnerable situation must “make it easier” for their users to access their pets, if they have them. If for whatever reason that is not possible, the same centers must “promote agreements with animal protection entities or shelter projects” so that the pet is not left unattended. It is a fundamental measure to prevent people (homeless people, sick people or victims of abuse, for example) from avoiding going to shelters or residences just so as not to leave their pets helpless. And public buildings? The law points out also that, “unless expressly prohibited,” which must be clearly signposted on the outside of buildings, “pets will be allowed access to public buildings and facilities.” Everything stated in the previous points, of course, does not apply in the case of assistance dogs (for example, those used by the blind) and those that are part of the Armed Forces or State Security Corps. In those cases … Read more

2,000 years ago the Romans sold perfumes in glass doves that could only be opened by breaking their necks.

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Despite their great efforts, the cities of the Roman Empire they didn’t smell good and well, it makes sense: they lived in conditions of high fecal contamination and also they used feces as medicine. Of course, to Caesar what belongs to Caesar: they had bottles to store their ointments and oils that, like the best current perfumes, promised a lot. Without going any further, the two bottles you see above these lines date from the 1st century AD, are from the Roman Empire and belong to the MET collection. Because from then on they knew that the (good) smell, coming from anointing oneself after bathing in hot springs, from incense from temples or from burials, was something more: it could be a language of status, identity and power. So for those smells they needed a container at their height that would turn the task of perfuming themselves into almost a ritual. For example, a dove. Dove-shaped jars. The ointments of the Romans were, in a nutshell, something like today’s ampoules: small ceramic or glass containers where they stored oils, commercial products or substances for funeral practices. blown glass arrive In the 1st century BC and 200 years later, the Romans were true virtuosos of glass manufacturing both in quality and quantity: according to the Penn Museummanufactured up to 100 million containers a year. These curious zoomorphic specimens in the shape of a bird and the size of which fit in the palm of the hand became so popular that they constitute a subcategory in themselves within their unguentary and it is common to find it in deposits. The method of use was practically identical to a vial: you have to break that small neck to access the contents inside. In this case, literally breaking the bird’s neck. In addition to its aesthetic value, they met their goal when storing valuable ointments: it protected the contents from excessive exposure to oxygen and helped to dose the amount poured. Why is it important. Converting ointment bottles into something more sophisticated in the shape of a bird constitutes one of the first and most striking cases of packaging and user experience (imagine that unboxing of an influencer of the time). Have a glass jar and also with this type of shapes It was a status indicator.as witnessed by the art of that period, where we see men and women perfumed after a visit to the hot springs. On the other hand and leaving aside the shape, these jars are the vestiges of the imperial commercial network: spices from India, resins from Arabia and locally grown flowers were used to make perfumes and ointments. If they also go to the laboratory, they constitute a valuable source of chemical data on Roman civilization and its customs. Without going any further, a laboratory analysis allowed identify a primal patchouli in an exhibition in Carmona (Seville). Context. Among these zoomorphic glasses the dove was the star: archaeological evidence suggests that the dove was one of the first birds domesticated by humans, so people learned its habits and characteristics and used it for messaging. On the spiritual level, they introduced it into their religious rituals and mythology. Thus, the dove was the sacred animal of Venus and she was often represented in statues with a dove perched on her hand or on her head. However, this relationship is much older: already in the Bronze Age, in Sumerian Mesopotamia, consists the association between doves and the mother goddess. Storing perfume in a container in the shape of your sacred animal is a fully conscious and coherent act. Yes, but. Many of these readings of the dove-shaped glass jars are hypotheses based on what we know about the Romans, but we don’t know for sure: these perfumes could well be for everyday use or for funeral rituals. Likewise, they were not exclusive objects of the wealthiest classes: the simplest ointments were within the reach of the popular classes and their shapes were refined over time. In short, the dove could have different meanings depending on who had it and what for. In Xataka | The fall of the Roman Empire has obsessed us for centuries: some economists believe they have the answer in 400,000 coins In Xataka | Almost 2,000 years ago a Celtiberian soldier visited the most remote frontier of the Roman Empire. Then he returned to Soria with a souvenir Cover | MET

Zeekr comes with the very complicated challenge of breaking prejudices. You have reason to believe it

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When someone asks me, I am very clear about where I think Chinese brands can hurt Europe: the “cheap” car. I put the latter in quotation marks because it’s not just about cars under 20,000 euros, I also think they have a chance in that type of product that gives a lot for less money than its rivals. Although, in that case, we are already talking about figures close to 50,000 euros. but there are some nuances here. It is clear to me that the bulk of sales of Chinese manufacturers in these first years They will arrive with models with a combustion engine. Either because they can make volume in markets like Spain, with a high rate of sales of low-end vehicles or because, due to the particularities of the tariffs imposed by the European Union, they offer very competitive cars in the triangle formed by price, equipment and electric range. Yes, I have more doubts in the electricity market. First, because these cars are subject to tariffs, which makes it difficult for them to compete on price. Secondly, because European manufacturers are starting to get their act together -heh- and the offer in all types of sizes, range and price is already more than interesting. Third, because the more the price of the car rises, I have the feeling that the customer takes less risk and the more he values ​​staying with the “old-fashioned” brands. Zeekr will play in a very complicated league. And yet, he has reason to think that he can gradually gain ground. We shouldn’t wait an emergence like that of BYD (four of the 10 best-selling electric cars last year in Spain were theirs) or Omoda/Jaecoo, which are building its sales around cars with combustion engines. I think they themselves are aware of them. But they have the muscle and the product to allow themselves a slow landing but with a view to prospering in the future. “We make exclusivity accessible,” said Lothar Schupet, CEO in Europe, in his presentation. A good starting range Zeekr arrives in Spain in the middle of a new expansive wave across Europe. If we have said that our country has been the perfect gateway for manufacturers who fight over price, the case of Zeekr is completely different. The company has been selling its cars for some time in the Nordic countries or the Netherlands, where electric sales are more advanced. Now it is time to make the leap to less consolidated markets, such as Spain. This has an advantage. The company is already rolling in Europe and has waited until sales have started to pick up more strongly. But they also have other incentives. The range already consists of four cars, of which only one of them will arrive in the coming months. The other three can now be purchased. This range also touches several styles. Zeekr He Zeekr It is a very interesting electric compact. During our contact with the company we had the opportunity to briefly ride it. It is a 4.43 meter car that has three versions. The basic one costs 37,137 euros and has a 49 kWh battery with 272 HP of power. Above there is an intermediate version with 340 HP of power and a 61 kWh battery. The most ambitious reaches 496 HP of power that is combined with a 69 kWh battery. The latter already stretches to 46,242 euros. The first two batteries are LFP and the largest is NCM. The last two steps move between 405 and 415 kilometers of autonomy, which allows you to travel with some peace of mind. The access version is limited to the city with its theoretical 330 kilometers of autonomy It is an agile car that does not feel as soft or as artificial as many other Chinese cars. It is complemented by an interior feel in the materials that is pleasant in general lines but above all with rear seats and a trunk that make it a very attractive proposal for families who move in an urban environment and who take one or two long getaways throughout the year. Despite its 400 volt architecture, it can go from 10 to 80% in just 18 minutes. Furthermore, there is something that I really liked about this car and that is its aesthetics. Its design differs from other Chinese cars that may be more similar to each other and this Zeekr X does seem to me to have a clear and defining image by itself. Above, the Zeekr 7 It is the family model. It is an SUV that is committed to interior spaciousness, especially in the rear seats, and that raises the level in terms of the interior appearance of the materials. It is a car that we were not able to test but it comes with 75 kWh LFP and 100 kWh NCM batteries. ITS 800 volt architecture allows it to go from 10 to 80% charge in 13 minutes and promises 615 kilometers of autonomy in its largest version. Inside, the Zeekr 7X is also committed to offering the best image in terms of quality perception. It is a car that will arrive loaded with technology with the latest active infotainment system, similar in format to what we see in Tesla. It is a car that starts at 52,500 euros with its single-engine (421 HP) rear-wheel drive version. Above, it combines this motor with the large battery, which would be the most balanced option or the longest autonomy (615 approved kilometers), costing 54,425 euros. The jump to all-wheel drive (two engines totaling 646 HP) means increasing the price to 62,250 euros. He Zeekr 7GT It is the car that will arrive in a few months. It is a sportier version with a family or style body. shooting brake. However, it will be a car that is slightly lower in price, starting at 45,675 euros in its cheapest option, with a 75 kWh battery and 421 HP of power and reaching 59,235 … Read more

There are people so extremely competitive in ‘Tetris’ that they are literally breaking the game

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He ‘Tetris‘ for NES has been in circulation for 35 years. Most players who try this or any of the other home versions still operate it with their thumbs, like in 1989. But in the competitive scene (where the NES port is the most common version), however, the grip of the Nintendo controller is different. And it continues to evolve: for a few years now a new technique has been making it possible for the game’s classic records to be pulverized one after another. So much so that the first human to “beat” ‘Tetris’ did so with this new technique. ‘Tetris’: The End. The NES ‘Tetris’, released in the United States in 1989, has an ending. More or less: upon reaching level 29, the falling speed of the pieces doubles so abruptly that it is considered impossible to react in time to rotate and move them. The score counter also freezes when it reaches 999,999 (the so-called maxout). It’s not exactly impossible to overcome, but it’s difficult enough that it’s always been considered that way. For years, it was considered the ceiling of the game The best players in the world competed in the annual Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC) with the goal of accumulating as many points as possible before level 29 stopped them. That was the way to determine a winner: maximum points before level 29. The considered best player in the world was Jonas Neubauer, with seven titles in nine consecutive finals. The controller was held as it has always been done, pressed at the speed that human thumbs would allow, and level 29 was the limit. DAS: the lifelong technique. DAS is the acronym for Delayed Auto Shift and it is the traditional way of playing. This is the standard behavior of the game when the D-pad is held down: although the pieces fall at maximum speed, there is a short delay before the piece begins to move, and that speed is around 10 Hz (ten moves per second). Competitive players who use the DAS technique do not simply hold the button down: they have perfected the pressure times to take advantage of that delay and throw pieces to the side with maximum efficiency. Between 2010 and 2017, the early years of CTWC, DAS players dominated the scene, but the deadly level 29 held everyone back equally. However, as we will see, this form of control has become outdated although today, the tournament has created its own category (the DAS Jonas Cup) to preserve this technique within the official competition. A sign that it is a classic wood technique, but it also indicates to what extent it has been displaced by more modern ones. Hypertapping is coming. This consensus was broken in 2011. Thor Aackerlund demonstrated that level 29 could be overcome with a different technique: instead of holding down the D-pad to take advantage of the delay of each piece, he pressed the controller repetitively and very quickly, pressing the D-pad at full speed. He hypertappingas this technique is known, allows the pieces to move at about 12 Hz, bypassing the DAS delay. Aackerlund thus reached level 30, and the community adopted the technique immediately. Problems and glory of hypertapping. Without a doubt, the big problem with the technique is how physically demanding it is: counterintuitive gripping positions on the controller, continuous muscular effort and, therefore, a real risk of injury. In 2018, 16-year-old Joseph Saelee defeated seven-time world champion Neubauer in the CTWC final using hypertapping. The effect was immediate: in a very short time, the hypertappers They took the records to levels that no one had reached: Saelee reached level 31 in 2018, and for 2020 the best hypertappers They had reached level 38. The ceiling was rising, but it was still a ceiling. The drummer. In November 2020, Christopher Martinez designed a new technique. Instead of pressing one finger on the pad at full speed, he placed one static finger on top of the pad and tapped the back of the controller with the others. When pressing from the bottom up, it was the crosshead that pressed the finger, so to speak. The result was up to 30 beats per second, the technical limit allowed by the framerate 60 Hz of the NES. Or put another way: double what the hypertapping faster. Martinez was inspired by techniques of tapping fast developed by speedrunners. Justin Yu, CTWC 2023 champion, described the principle as “you don’t have to use a single muscle; you use all your fingers to push the controller into your hand.” The ergonomic advantage is important: the hypertapping exhausts, but the rolling It distributes the effort between several fingers, in a way that the players themselves have compared to the way in which pianists and drummers optimize the effort of their arms and hands to reach high speeds. And it’s completely legal in tournaments. Stratospheric levels. The breaking of the invisible ceiling that until the arrival of the hypertapping had been at level 29 moved on. In August 2022, the player EricICX reached level 138, where the colors of the pieces are corrupted due to a bug in the original code: the developers had never planned for anyone to get that far. And then, Willis Gibson, known online as Blue Scuti, only 13 years old and with two years of experience playing ‘Tetris’, reached level 157 in a 38-minute session and the game crashed. He became the first person to “beat” the NES game. The post-rolling era. He rolling It is also changing how competitive players train. Instead of starting from level 1, they work directly from level 29 (which was previously the limit), because if you master the fastest level as your usual starting point, the previous ones lose all difficulty. CTWC co-founder states that, possibly in a few years all the finalists will reach level 28 with the score at the maximum and continue up to 50 without much difficulty. The last frontier. Level 255 was the theoretical … Read more

For centuries price has been a sign of quality. Generative AI is breaking that rule in dozens of sectors

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For centuries, price has served as a cognitive shortcut. If something costs a lot it is because, for one reason or another, it must be worth a lot. An Armani suit, Bang & Olufsen headphonesa McKinsey report. The number has always served to convey certain information to us before seeing the product. It was compressed reputation. With the arrival of generative AI, that is ending in many sectors. Today a logo can cost 15 euros or 15,000. And be the same logo. A market analysis can come from a consulting firm with offices on three continents or from a guy in pajamas who knows how to wear Deep Research. The report may be indistinguishable. In fact sometimes the second one will be betterbecause the guy in pajamas understands the sector and the consultant assigned the junior who was free. AI is breaking the link between production cost and final result. Something very similar to what Antonio Ortiz, AI popularizer and former final boss of this house, in “Artificial Intelligence and unlinking effort and result“. If anyone can generate in minutes what previously required teams, weeks, and invoices with many zeros, price no longer communicates much about quality. It’s starting to be noise. and this will force a signal migration. From ‘how much’ to ‘who’, to ‘how’ or ‘why’. The questions that will matter are going to be “who signed this?”, “what process followed?”, “what human decisions were behind it?” That is, the process will become the product. It is already beginning to be seen with design studios that They obsessively document any iterationor consultancies that not only sell you the deliverable but also also access to the reasoning of their partners. More and more we are digital artisans who charge for showing how we work and not only for what we deliver. AI has made production almost free, so we are being flooded with digital content of all kinds, so scarcity shifts to criteria. Knowing what to ask for, what to discard, what makes sense and what doesn’t. to good taste. AI can do almost anything, and what it can’t, it will learn next year. Deciding well what to do and what not to do is still expensive. There, for the moment and luckily, there is no shortcut. Featured image | Xataka In Xataka | The AI ​​of 2026 brings an uncomfortable truth: the most useful will be the one that watches us the most

SpaceX is not only breaking records in space

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The Bloomberg Millionaires Index has moved its figures on great fortunes with a fact that is difficult to ignore: Elon Musk has become the first millionaire to exceed $600,000 million in estimated assets. According to he Bloomberg Billionaires IndexMusk’s fortune now amounts to about $638 billion, an unprecedented figure that places him in a completely new league within technological capitalism. The leap has been neither minor nor gradual. In a few weeks, the estimate of his assets has skyrocketed by more than $205 billion, driven, above all, by the expectation generated around the SpaceX IPO. SpaceX: Musk’s new gem. With a Tesla that seeks its place to define itself between an automotive or robotics company, the main engine of Musk’s fortune has moved towards the aerospace industry. SpaceX, majority controlled by Musk, has been one of the most valuable private companies in the world for years. The information about a possible IPO have revived investor appetite and valuations have skyrocketed internal of the company taking it up to 800,000 million dollars. With this, the valuation of Musk’s fortune has also increased. Bloomberg estimates that the company is already worth several hundred billion dollars, and Musk owns around 42% of capital, in addition to reinforced voting rights. Tesla, xAI and the rest of the Musk ecosystem. Although SpaceX makes headlines, It is not the only asset that supports Musk’s fortune. Tesla continues to be the other major pillar and, despite moving in a more complex context for the electric car and increasing pressure from Chinese manufacturers, the company maintains a stock market capitalization that is progressively recovering from reputational disaster What did the participation of its CEO in the cuts that DOGE carried out at the beginning of the year. Added to this are other less visible but relevant participations: xAI, the artificial intelligence company promoted by Musk, is consolidating itself as a business ecosystem highly concentrated in its figure, which amplifies any market movement, both up and down. Fortunes are not exact figures, but estimates. It is worth, however, putting the numbers about Musk’s fortune in context. Great fortunes are not balances in a checking account, but estimates based on the combined value of each millionaire’s business interests, properties and financial assets. And those estimates They vary depending on who calculates them and with what methodology. This is where the differences between indices appear. While the Bloomberg Index locates Musk’s fortune around $638 billion, Forbes offers a figure substantially lower: about 509,000 million. The gap is explained by several factors, including how SpaceX is valued. In other words, neither figure is “correct” in absolute terms. Both are reasonable approximations to an extremely complex heritage, but they serve to determine trends and a comparative value between great fortunes. One step closer to the first billion. Beyond the specific figure, this new record reinforces an idea that has been circulating for some time: Elon Musk is one of the clearest candidates to become the first billionaire in historythat is, being the first person to accumulate a fortune of one million million dollars. Yes SpaceX completes its IPO With the valuations that are being used today and Tesla manages to sustain its weight in the market, the jump to the billion is no longer an extravagant hypothesis and has become a plausible scenario in the near future. Musk’s milestone not only redefines the ranking of the richest in the world. It also underlines the extent to which economic concentration is occurring around a single person or company. In Xataka | Carnegie built libraries, Gates sold them on CD-ROM, Musk locked them in an AI: the history of knowledge control Image | SpaceXFlickr (Gage Skidmore)

Your race to modernize is breaking what has always worked

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The promise of Windows 11 was to deliver a modern operating system, but four years later, that modernization feels like a permanent work in progress. While adoption of the system remains slow—although reached Windows 10— some users face an experience weighed down by patches that often turn into bugs. An invisible change that breaks things. From 2023Microsoft accelerated an under-the-hood migration: abandoning the classic and efficient technology that drew windows, to embrace WinUI and the XAML-based Windows App SDK. The goal is to unify the design, but the execution is taking its toll. WinUI introduces changes which, if not optimized perfectly, make the system suffer: it chokes waiting for data in the same thread that draws the interface. This explains why the browser feels heavy or why the start menu and taskbar they disappear after security updates. In fact, in a community meeting which you can see on YouTube, confirm their mission to migrate legacy surfaces to WinUI 3 to modernize the OS, admitting the difficulties that have arisen. It’s not just design. Beyond the UI layer, the latest version of the OS has been a minefield where Microsoft has had to constantly rectify. The result is components that have been failing, both due to WinUI and for reasons unrelated to it: The interface: contextual menus were born slow and cluttered, forcing Redmond’s redesign them now to fix the usability problem they created. Even their own managers have admitted publicly that the Start Menu “is very annoying” and needs corrections. Stability: we have suffered since updates that caused blue screens for processor incompatibilities to specific performance issues on AMD chipspassing through surreal glitches where the file explorer overlapped to other windows. Security: the renewal of the OS has reached disrupt vital functions such as “Local Authority Protection” (LSA), unintentionally disabling it with a patch. The community acts as a patch and resistance. Given the slowness to fix latest visual bugusers have taken control. The discovery is revealing: disabling the modern command bar (based on WinUI) using tools not only eliminates white flashes, but speeds up program loading and reduces RAM consumption. But this community has also been reluctant to Windows 11: they use tools like Rufus to bypass the TPM requirement (controversial at launch) or modified versions like Tiny11 to clean bloatware. It seems that the advanced and enthusiastic user prefers to modify the system rather than accept Redmond’s official vision. The nostalgia cycle. All this fuels the eternal debate about the “good” and “bad” versions of Windows. Today many idealize Windows 10 for its stability, forgetting that in its first years it suffered fierce criticism for forced updates and privacy. Windows 11 seems to be stuck in that difficult phase of the cycle, aggravated by requirements that left out many functional PCs. Open Source to the rescue? As Microsoft pours resources into the ARM revolution and Copilot+ PCsthe desktop does not finish fine-tuning. The company seems aware and recently announced plans to make WinUI open sourcein order to accelerate the improvement of the base technology that currently hinders the system. Perhaps involving more developers will help make this interface development framework cleaner and more stable, although it does not imply that the bugs in Windows 11 (proprietary code) will be fixed because of this. However, the developer community is skeptical, pointing in specialized forums that WinUI has performance issues. Until Microsoft manages to make this new element as solid as the classic, and satisfy the enormous hardware park that installs it, Windows 11 will continue to pay the toll of modernity with some occasional instability. Cover image | Composition with images by Pepu Ricca and Javier Penalva for Xataka In Xataka | The ghost of IBM: Satya Nadella’s great challenge is to prevent Microsoft from becoming a technological fossil

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