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In the 70s Álava left an entire town under its airport. What I didn’t know was that it was hiding a treasure of 5,000 medieval coins.

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He Vitoria airport It may not be the largest, the best connected or the busiest in the country, but it stands out for the volume of merchandise it moves. Last month it exceeded 5,400 tonswhich consolidates it as Aena’s fourth busiest aerodrome, only behind Barajas, El Prat and Zaragoza. If the Alava terminal works, moving cargo, planes and hundreds of thousands of passengers, it is thanks to an old village that ended up buried in the 70s: Otaza. The most curious thing is that he did it with a hidden medieval treasure. The price of growing. In the 1970s, Álava businessmen found themselves with a dilemma. If they wanted to continue growing, they needed better connections, regular flights that would allow them to reach the rest of the metropolises in Spain and Europe. They had the Salburua airfieldinaugurated in 1935, but it did not seem like the best solution, so the technicians had to look for alternatives. And they found her. After evaluating several locations in the region, such as Ullibarri Arrazua. Salvatierra or Zurbano concluded that the best solution was to set up a new aircraft facility on the land of the town of Foronda. A work in record time. The project had the support of the Provincial Council and moved forward with astonishing speed. At least for the deadlines that infrastructures the size of an airport usually handle today. The construction of the aerodrome was approved in 1972 and in 1976 Civil Aviation gave its OK to the first phase. The works, remember The Mailinvolved the construction of a 2,200 x 45 m flight runway, in addition to the operating systems. The work (and procedures) continued to advance at a good pace during the following years. In 1978, the institutional machinery was launched to contract the control tower, accesses and urbanization and just two years later (the January 30, 1980) the ministry officially opened Vitoria Airport to national and international passenger traffic. In April of that same year Iberia inaugurated one of its most important lines, the one that exalts it with Madrid. Sew and sing, right? Not at all. The construction of the terminal encountered a problem: the proximity of a small village that ended up being located 370 meters from the runway. His name: Otaza. The population had a long history and it even had its own church, but it was not what is said to be very populous. It is estimated that at the beginning of the 19th century it hosted only about thirty of people, more or less what there were in 1974, when according to The Mail 26 neighbors lived there. The Álava authorities were therefore faced with a dilemma: What should take priority, the new airfield or a village with a handful of families? And the pickaxe arrived. The expropriation was not what is called simple. Not all the neighbors willingly agreed to leave their homes and in fact there were a few ‘numantinos’ (not many, it is true) who did not leave until the end. Their efforts did not prevent the bulldozers from taking Otaza away. In October 1979, the regional press reported how, after a break and despite not yet having reached a total agreement with the neighbors, the authorities had resumed the demolition work. The Bishopric had fewer objections, which reached an agreement that allowed the village temple to be demolished. The pickaxe had to work little. A few days later, on November 2, the demolition was completed. A town to remember. That was the end of Otaza. Although in its day the town had welcomed dozens of people, had a church and services, the expropriation of the land and the demolition works sealed its fate. Shortly after completing the works, the authorities agreed the disappearance of the council, which is now part of Astegieta. However, as EITB recalls, it was not the only town affected by the works on the new terminal. Antezana of Foronda He also paid a ‘toll’ for Álava to have its own flights. One last surprise. Otaza’s story could have ended there if it weren’t for the fact that shortly after his ‘death’, in April 1980, a family decided to take a walk through the grounds. During the walk, as they passed near the church of San Emeterio and San Celedonio, they found a jar with coins. The piece caught their attention enough to report it to the authorities, who confirmed that it was a curious treasure: more than 5,000 coins of copper and silver minted during the reigns of Alfonso I of Aragon and Alfonso VIIIbetween the 12th and 13th centuries. Today it is known as “the treasure of Otaza”. Images | WikipediaGoogle Earth and Mikelo (Flickr) In Xataka | Barajas needed to improve its roads but a baroque hermitage made it complicated. Solution: put it in a roundabout

the day an entire shipment arrived in Vladivostok frozen

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The cold wreaks havoc and not only on the gas bill: we have already seen how this winter they have had to cancel several flights, not because of storms or snow, but due to lack of antifreeze. If we talk about cars, beyond the myth that too cold affects the batteries of electric cars (tell it to the people of norway), we are clear that driving on ice is dangerous. And hey, carrying a load of cars in an extreme winter storm, too. We are going to the Russian city of Vladivostok, in December 2021. Russia is famous for harsh winters and although the port city is not Siberia, the reality is that its average in December around – 8 degrees. Well, at that time the cargo ship “Sun Rio” docked there, packed with enormous blocks of ice that, as if they were Kinder eggs, They hid used and new Japanese cars. It was not the typical frost that forms on cars when they are parked outdoors and it snows, but a solid and compact capsule that had originated in a strong storm that had occurred in the Sea of ​​Japan that the ship necessarily had to cross to reach its destination. In reality, it was the combination of storm and sea that had caused this effect. The phenomenon is called marine frosting or spray freezing and it occurs on boats, coastal structures or platforms when all the ingredients in the recipe are present, that is, very cold (temperatures below -2 degrees), there is strong wind and the sea is so rough that the waves spray water into the air. That sprayed salt water freezes instantly when it touches cold surfaces, as happened on those cars outdoors. The layer-by-layer adhesion completely covered the bodywork, the underside and even the interior of the cars in those vehicles in which the windows could not support the weight. To the rich marine glaze of cars Visually it is striking, but also It is dangerous both for the integrity of the vehicle As long as it blocks equipment and sensors, we have already seen its effects on the moons and we know that saltpeter is not the best precisely for the sheet metal. And also the ship. This thick layer adds weight to the element to which it has adhered, shifting its center of gravity and affecting its stability. The cars were stationary, yes, but there were a few on the deck, which increases the risk of listing or even capsizing for a relatively small ship like this. As Captain Pyotr Osichansky detailed to the Russian medium VLit was not the first time it had happened on this usual Vladivostok-Busan-Toyama car supply route, but it had been one of the most intense times. With cars trapped in ice, the unloading operation becomes complicated and waiting for the ice to melt is not an option. So the staff resorted to deicers, hoses and the classic iron lever to separate the cars one by one. Some turned out pretty well, others not so much.. It should be remembered that it is not normal ice but comes from salt water, a true catalyst for corrosion in the bodywork, screws, brakes and other elements, even in cars that were apparently in good condition. It is the risk of import in the Green Corner of Vladivostok: those cars with broken windows and deteriorated interiors were discarded for conventional saledestined for opportunity sale, scrapping or sold piecemeal. There was no official balance of losses. In Xataka | Extreme cold paralyzes Europe. KLM cancels more than 2,300 flights due to a technical detail: antifreeze In Xataka | If you think it’s cold it’s because you weren’t in Albacete in 1971: the day the temperature dropped to -24ºC Cover and images | SCMP and Siberian Times

Madrid and Barcelona have built an entire social and business life with the AVE. They are finding out what happens when it fails

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The Madrid-Barcelona high-speed line has collapsed. The trains do not arrive on time and no one pays their compensation, Adif has asked the companies to withdraw last-minute services, airlift prices have skyrocketed and there are companies working at half throttle because the goods do not arrive. A social and economic backbone of the country has been fractured. A Russian roulette. Taking a high-speed train between Madrid and Barcelona is, right now, Russian roulette if what you want is to arrive on time for an appointment. The link between the two most important cities in Spain has been broken via train and a round trip in the day is almost impossible. It is the result of a hasty revision of the train tracks, a direct consequence of the fateful Adamuz train accident (Córdoba) and the continuous warnings of the train drivers. Actions that have diluted the “high speed” concept between Madrid and Barcelona. What has happened? Since last January 18 An Iryo train derailed near Adamuz (Córdoba) and collided with another Renfe train that was traveling in the opposite direction, leaving 45 dead, Adif has been facing criticism about the track maintenance. In the case of Madrid-Barcelona, ​​the consequences were soon seen: speed limitations. Between confusing messages, Adif ended up imposing temporary speed restrictions at numerous points on the line, especially between Madrid and Zaragoza. Later, 300 km/h returned. But it didn’t last long because speed was reduced once again. The role of machinists. Since then, travelers between Madrid and Barcelona have been reporting severe delays, with trains taking more than four hours to reach their destination. As they explained to us Xataka From the SEMAF union, train drivers have the power to reduce speed if they consider it essential for the safety and comfort of travelers. They must notify the line controllers and put it in writing in a report. In addition, on each journey a document is filled out specifying the problems that have been found on the line. A train driver, who preferred to remain anonymous, corroborated this version to Xataka and made it clear that for months they have been traveling at a speed lower than the maximum speed allowed on the line and, especially, between Madrid and Zaragoza. Likewise, he pointed out that they have been complaining for months about the vibrations suffered by the trains but that they had not received a response until now. Adif’s role. Although unions and drivers claim to have been complaining about this situation for months, it was not until January when Adif appears to have taken more far-reaching measures. The road manager is doing an exhaustive review of the roads based on the continuous complaints from workers. These inspection and repair works, when necessary, are delaying travel times. The company has asked Renfe, Iryo and Ouigo to assume that trips will be extended to three hours (and they just pointed out that these travel times will extend until December) but has also asked them to eliminate the last services of the day to have more time for their performances. Collapsed by land and air. The result is a collapsed train line. The trains are not arriving on time nor in the three hours indicated by Adif (instead of the usual 150 minutes). And the problem for those passengers, who throw in the towel with punctuality, is that The companies are not responsible for compensation either. for delays, pointing out that they are the result of a problem beyond their control and that, therefore, they do not fall within the refund policies. At the same time, demand on flights has skyrocketed. Without the possibility of getting there and back within the day by train or for fear of doubling the usual travel time, travelers have turned to airlines. And the result is full flights and skyrocketing prices. After some bills will reach 300 euros, Iberia has reached its Air Bridge at 99 euros per trip. Vueling has also increased its frequencies. And the road alternative did not improve the situation either. Only in BlaBlaCar has an increase in demand of 130% been recorded, in data provided to The Newspapercompared to the previous year. Car rental companies do not seem to have been left behind either, since The Ombudsman has asked the CNMC to analyze whether illegalities have been incurred by skyrocketing prices for car rentals and plane tickets. And problems for companies. Companies in both cities have not only had to see meetings canceled or postponed these days. Some of them are having problems having their raw materials. In The Vanguard They include the case of some of them. Inovyn, in Martorell (Barcelona) had to send its 300 employees home earlier this week because they did not have the basic materials to produce plastic. “In normal situations we receive one train a day loaded with dichloromethane, a material with which we manufacture many of our compounds, but in the last ten days we have received only one train,” they explain to the newspaper. They explain that 18% of the goods that arrive at the port of Barcelona are sent to their destination by train. Those that use international gauges are stopped due to works in the Rubí tunnel and those that use the Iberian gauge circulate at night and in dribs and drabs. and in The Country They explain that the city’s port is becoming isolated, with an 80% drop in products coming from Germany, France or Poland by train. The road alternative is not working either. The AP-7 already there is enormous congestion since road tolls were lifted but, furthermore, there are not enough trucks to be a complete alternative given the volume of goods that move along the railways. Added to this are problems derived from the latest storms and the increase in traffic derived from a Rodalies service that has not been back to normal for more than ten days. Photo | Phil Richards In Xataka | Spain wants its AVE trains to travel at 350 … Read more

The last barrier against AI is good taste. The problem is that an entire generation is growing up without developing it

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The new normal in three acts: You open X and find a clearly AI-generated image trying to look legitimate. But it’s not bad, it complies. You go to LinkedIn and find a piece that reeks of ChatGPT, but you get the idea that its author wanted to convey. In GitHub You find code that works, but that no sensible programmer would write like that. You let it go. welcome to the era of “good enough”. Generative AI has made it easy, fast, and free to produce “acceptable” things, and that has moved the collective bar for quality. Not upward but towards “functional”. The worrying thing is not that AI produces mediocrity, but that it is accustoming us to accepting it. Before, if we needed an image for the article, we had to look for it or – for those who had ID – order it. There was friction or there was cost. Now we generate it in fifteen seconds (wink), and since it “serves”, it stays there (wink, wink, nudge). Even if it is generic or has that artificial veneer that we all recognize but no one talks about anymore. The problem is that when something acceptable costs nothing to produce, we stop asking ourselves if it is worth doing. We’re just wondering if it meets the minimum. AND meeting the minimum is not the same as doing something good. In development this is also very noticeable. An experienced and talented programmer instantly recognizes whether a code has been written by an AI. Even if it works (we already take that for granted), you can tell by the verbiage, because it is redundant, because it is not very elegant. It does what it has to do, but no senior He would be proud to have it bearing his signature. What is going to happen to a generation that is going to learn to program using AI from day one? If you’ve never written bad code and then understood what makes it good, how are you going to develop judgment? Good taste does not come standard. It is built by seeing many bad things, many good things, making mistakes. AI saves you that path by giving you something that works from the first try. But without going down that path, you never develop the eye to distinguish. Therein lies the risk. AI has raised the floor (anyone can produce something decent), but the ceiling is still just as high. At least for the majority. Creating something exceptional requires the same things as always: talent, effort, judgment. Only now it is buried under tons of slop and mediocre but functional content. And since creating it is free, we produce it non-stop. Human value remains in taste. Knowing how to look at something and say “okay, it’s good, but it’s not good”. But that criterion is only formed with practice. If an entire generation grows up consuming and producing what “just delivers,” how are they going to learn what is excellent? If you have never seen the difference, that difference does not exist for you. We are heading towards a world where it will be normalized that “good enough” is the only standard because we forget how to recognize when something will be done well. In Xataka | There is a generation working for free as a documentarian of their own life: they are not influencers but they act as if they were. Featured image | Xataka with Nano Banana

Siri is just the Trojan horse for Google to infiltrate the entire Apple ecosystem

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Apple doesn’t have its own AI, so it has chosen a girlfriend. That girlfriend is none other than Google, which has just signed an agreement with Cupertino to make Gemini the center of future developments. Not one, no. Of many. We thought this was just about Siri. The initial official announcement was brief. Apple would use Gemini, but it seemed that it was going to do so basically to launch its long-awaited version of that personalized Siri governed by a generative AI model at once. It turns out that the agreement is broader. Gemini is Google’s Trojan horse to conquer Apple. Google’s statement revealed that this alliance went beyond what seemed to focus on Siri. In a post on XGoogle stated the following: “Apple and Google have signed a multi-year collaboration agreement that will see the next generation of Apple’s entry-level models based on Gemini models and Google’s cloud technology. These models will help power future Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year.” This makes it clear that although the initial protagonist will be Siri, the scope of the agreement can be much more important and affect the entire Apple hardware and software ecosystem. Considering that AI options from Apple Intelligence and Siri will likely reach many of its products and services, Gemini, which will power all of those models, would end up being an integral part of said ecosystem. Collaboration above all. As indicated in The Informationthe agreement allows Apple to ask Google to modify some aspects of how Gemini works, but above all it will allow Apple to adjust Gemini itself so that it responds to requests in the way that Apple prefers. No Gemini branding. Sources close to the negotiations add an interesting fact: it will not be noticed that the AI ​​that we use in Siri and other Apple products is actually based on Gemini. Google’s branding will be blurred, and users will not know what is underneath and what is the engine of those interactions with AI. A more emotional Siri. That source cited in The Information also reveals that Siri will be more approachable and emotional. “Historically Siri has always had difficulty with emotional support,” he explains, but in the Gemini-based version, “Siri will give more complete conversational responses, just like ChatGPT and Gemini.” That, of course, has two sides: AI becomes more “human”, but for vulnerable people that can end up being dangerous. Apple Intelligence will still be there. Although Gemini thus infiltrates the Apple ecosystem, both companies clarified that Apple Intelligence will continue to be available on Apple devices and on the servers of its Private Cloud Compute platform. What is not so clear is that the Apple Intelligence models do not also end up being based on Gemini. Especially since Apple’s “foundational models will be based on Google’s Gemini models.” A priori that should mean internal changes at Apple Intelligence as they adopt Google technology. The new Siri at WWDC? The new version of Siri is expected to be presented in March or April behind him controversial delay which was announced almost a year ago. The new voice assistant will theoretically debut in iOS 26.4, the update that should arrive in those months, but Apple could take the opportunity to announce it at WWDC 2026, two years after that initial announcement that ended up becoming a fiasco: Apple promised things which it has not achieved until now, but Gemini may finally become the solution to that problem. In Xataka | Apple has decided not to enter the AI ​​war because it believes it has something more important: the entry “door”

Cooking for an entire family on Christmas Eve is a dying tradition. And the explanation is in Mercadona

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The usual thing at this time of year is that most family gatherings become a single topic: What to have for dinner on Christmas Eve? And on New Year’s Eve? Is the menu repeated from other years? Is the entire purchase completed or are there still issues pending? That was the usual. At least until, in one country at a time less fond to cook and more to the already prepared foodanother question began to form: Why spend hours in the kitchen on the afternoons of December 24 (and 31) if we can order dinner to a restaurant, catering or the super trustworthy? It may seem like a simple anecdote, but it says a lot not only about Christmas but about how homes and our consumer habits are changing. An afternoon locked in the stove? That Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve are special events, no one doubts it. Neither do they both basically revolve around the table. However, that is one thing and quite another that we are willing to spend hours locked in the kitchen to prepare appetizing dinners for a regiment of relatives, something not so strange just a few decades ago. In 2019 the German supermarket chain Aldi made a poll in which he asked the Spaniards the same thing: how much time we spend preparing Christmas lunches and dinners. Their conclusion was curious: although on average we dedicate 137 minutes to them, the vast majority of those interviewed (62%) aspire to cut that time between stoves, leaving it at 112 minutes at most. Who cooks then? Others. It’s that simple. It is not easy to measure the trend, but a Google search is enough to find articles from regional newspapers that talk about how more and more families order the main Christmas meals and dinners from restaurants, hotels or catering companies. It occurs in the Community of Madrid, Galicia, Aragon, Catalonia, Castile and León either Estremadurato cite a handful of examples of a trend that actually transcends communities. Not only that. In addition to families willing to pay to get rid of the burden of preparing dinners for 10, 12, 14… diners, we find companies willing to cover that growing market niche, some as relevant as Mercadona, the supermarket chain with higher quota of the country. Christmas Eve ‘made in Mercadona’? That’s how it is. Since the end of November, Juan Roig’s company has announced its ‘Ready to Eat’ oriented towards parties, a section that allows you to order canapés, stuffed chicken, suckling pig, lamb… in advance to be served during the nights of December 24 and 31. “Just heat and serve,” Mercadona boastswhich highlights how the service allows families to save time “without having to worry about the kitchen.” It makes complete sense if you take into account that the Valencian company has been betting for years precisely because of that line of business and Roig himself has publicly acknowledged who is convinced that in the middle of this century kitchens will disappear from Spanish homes. His prediction points in a clear direction: supermarkets will no longer be just the places where we shop, they will be the food references where we will buy dishes and even where we will consume them. Don’t we cook anymore? Not quite. We continue cooking, although it is true that we do it differently and less and less. He gave us a clue recently a study published in TIJGFS which leaves out a revealing piece of information: 59.1% of Spaniards We still cook practically every day, which means that most of us still use our ovens and vitro. The other side of that figure is that there is 40.9% who never cook or do it very rarely and that percentage has been growing in recent decades. The CIS has also confirmed that the majority of their respondents (46.5%) believe that home cooking is losing ground to fast food. If that were not interesting in itself, there are other indicators (from the food industry) that suggest changes in consumption: for example, we increasingly demand less fresh bread and fisha latter product that begins to associate to leisure outside the home. And what happens at Christmas? Beyond our general eating habits, Christmas has its own peculiarities. Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve dinners are not ‘normal’ dinners. Firstly, because a higher degree of elaboration than normal is expected of them. Second, because it involves cooking for many more people than those who are part of the usual family nucleus: on December 24 and 31, cousins, in-laws, brothers-in-law, nephews sit at the table… Which ends up easily translating into groups of more than ten diners. Is that important? Yes, if we take into account that we increasingly live in smaller apartments and families are smallerwhich translates into a series of practical complications: How to cook for 12 people in a tiny kitchen with a two-burner vitro? Where to store so much food? Where the hell can you seat 12 or 14 people in a room where there is furniture for one couple, who is the one who really eats in that house the rest of the year? It was done until now, right? Yes. But times change. And that is something that is easily observed when going out into the street. looking at statistics. The fact that there are more and more single-person households or households made up of two people and fewer than three, four or more members means that there are fewer people accustomed to cooking for groups. We are also less willing to spend hours in the kitchen, as stated in 2019 Aldi and confirm the boom of ‘Tardebuena’ and ‘Tardevieja’. We enjoy the afternoon more the 24th and 31st because we spend less time between pots. There is another factor and it is economic. In restaurants and catering establishments there are different rates, but they usually guarantee two things: fixed prices and menus and guaranteed product. Nothing about being surprised that the kilo of lamb has … Read more

In 1919 the Germans decided to sink their entire fleet in the North Sea. The steel from those ships ended up in space

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At 11:20 in the morning of June 21, 1919, Admiral von Reuter’s ship began to signal to the rest of the German ships in Scapa Flow Bay, England. The taps and water intakes were opened, the pipes were destroyed, the portholes were dismantled: no one noticed anything. Until around midday, the Friederich Der Grosse began to list to starboard. It was already late, the German flag was flying from the 74 masts. Scapa Flow. The image tells the story of Scapa Flowthe sinking of the German fleet immediately after World War I. While the Allies negotiated the terms of the Armistice with Germany, the fleet was held captive and stationed off the British coast. Von Reuter feared that the Allies would divide up the ships, so he decided to sink it completely, at any cost. The British naval ships that were on maneuvers arrived at 2:30 p.m. and were only able to save one ship. The last to sink was the battlecruiser Hindenburg. Nine Germans were killed, 16 were wounded, 1,774 were detained. 52 ships were sunk on June 21 at Scapa Flow. But they are no longer there: they are on the Moon, Jupiter and beyond the orbit of Pluto. steel is steel. A tough guy, with bad temper and few words. But in 1945 (or a little before), everything changed. We didn’t realize it at first, but we quickly discovered that although all steels are equal, there are some steels that are more equal than others. I’m not going around the bush: what happened in ’45 was the atomic bomb, the device of the Devil that made us change geological era. The problem. Since the first atomic bombs exploded on the Earth’s surface, the air contains traces of radioactive elements. They are there, dissolved in it, but the amount is so small that they are harmless. Unless for some strange reason you have to blow in enormous amounts of air in the manufacturing process of some material. It’s almost useless to us. That is, all steel manufactured after the explosion of the first atomic bomb is radioactive. Very little, almost nothing. But enough so that some medical, physical or astronomical instruments do not work correctly. For example, radioactivity monitoring systems used by spacecraft. He tells it David Bodanis in “E = mc². Biography of the most famous equation in the world“, a book that, although it has become somewhat outdated, is still a delight. You may have heard the story, but it is a good story. Steel = expensive. In the book, Bodanis explains that, faced with this problem, uncontaminated steel became very expensive. Above all, because before ’45 we did not make steel in quantities so industrial as now. I imagine dozens of NASA engineers rummaging through their family’s cutlery so they can send reliable machines into space. Until someone remembered Kaiser Wilhelm’s ships. The peculiarity of Scapa Flow. There are sunken ships in many places, but there are not many shallow inlets with 52 sunken ships in their waters. Not all of them were there, but a few were enough for us to manufacture the equipment that the Apollo mission left on the lunar surface, that which the Galileo probe took to Jupiter, and that which the Pioneer probe is taking even further. The evil, the sea. In Xataka | Quantum find in Cambridge points to solar ‘Holy Grail’: single-material solar panels In Xataka | The Atacama salt flat is the key on which the electric car industry pivots. And it’s starting to dry

A movie scene traumatized an entire generation every time they bathed in the sea. And it was all due to a mistake

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The story from ‘Jaws’ begins long before its monster appears on screen: it is born in a chaotic shoot, with a mechanical creature that did not work, a young director on the verge of dismissal and a climate of tension that threatened to sink not only the film, but also Steven Spielberg’s career. Hence the most chilling scene has arisen from the most logical thing: a failure. The technical failure and taking a bath. The story told a long time ago Spielberg himself. The entire team assumed that the film was doomed. Brucethe name given to the enormous robotic shark, constantly broke down as soon as it touched salt water, the days went by without being able to film anything usable and leaks from Hollywood ensured that the production was a disaster. However, from those limitations (and especially that useless shark) was born one of the most influential decisions in the history of cinema: not to show the threat, but to hint at it. Technical necessity forced Spielberg to shoot the film as a suspense thriller, closer to a Hitchcock film than a giant creature spectacle, and he turned the series of mechanical problems into the greater narrative success of his career. The result was a film where terror springs from the invisible, from calm water, from ominous sound. of two notes that advance like an unstoppable threat: a tension that would forever change the public’s relationship with the sea (for the worse). The sequence. The iconic opening scene (a quiet beach, a party and a girl who decides to bathe under the moon) is the perfect example of the way in which Spielberg transformed technical deficiencies into a cinematic virtue. We do not see the shark at any time, but we feel its presence from the first vibration of the water. Chrissie, played by Susan Backlinie, goes into the sea while the camera accompanies her slowly, without warning, until something grabs her from below, shakes her from side to side and ends up dragging her into the depths. On the surface calm returns, but the audience can no longer recover it: they know that the unknown is there, lurking where it cannot be seen. The psychological impact was so immediate that many viewers, first in the United States and then in Europe, left the cinema. with the same phrase in my head: “I will never get into the water again in my life.” Spielberg built an invisible attack in which the viewer’s imagination becomes the real monster, and he did it because he simply had no other choice: Bruce I would never have been able to shoot that shot convincingly. The absence of the animal, paradoxically, created a scariest presence than any mechanical creature. The failures that forged the tension. During filming, the mechanical shark turned out to be practically unusable. Engines corroded with salt, joints failed, and underwater operators spent hours trying to refloat a robot that was sinking rather than attacking. Spielberg confessed that the bug “looked silly” and that he was afraid that the public would laugh. But when something doesn’t work, cinema can reinvent itself. Forced to film without showing the predator, the director and his team chose to work as if the camera was the shark itself: water level shots, disturbing points of view, tense silences and, above all, the terrifying rhythm composed by John Williams, initially received as a joke and finally became one of the most recognizable leitmotifs in the history of cinema. Simple ball. The failed machinery forced the narrative to concentrate on “less is more,” and that visual reduction transformed what was going to be a monster film into a piece pure suspenseone in which the threat lurks beneath the surface like a collective trauma ready to emerge. Spielberg himself admitted after that, if the shark had worked well, ‘Jaws’ would have been a much worse movie or, at the very least, much less scary. From accident to cultural revolution. Thus, what began as a filming in crisis ended up triggering a unprecedented phenomenon. ‘Jaws’ not only terrified million viewers (literally altering his relationship with the beach), but also redefined the film industry. The film also inaugurated the concept “premiere-event”: massive campaigns, releases in hundreds of theaters and a summer strategy that demolished the old belief that no one went to the movies when the weather was good. The audience came again and again to scream, to feel the shock, to immerse themselves again in that first scene that turned a night bath into an act of pure recklessness. Spielberg’s film opened the door to a new economic model, inspired aggressive marketing strategies, generated an avalanche of imitators and consolidated the blockbuster as the central engine of Hollywood. By the way, I remembered in a wonderful Guardian report for the anniversary of the film, its cultural impact gave rise to infinite interpretations: readings on masculinity, power, institutional crisis, post-Watergate paranoia and even debates about its moral content. However, when Spielberg was asked what ‘Jaws’ really meant, the answer was so simple. like shiny: “It’s a movie about a shark.” And what makes it something bigger is that, because of a technical failurethat shark almost never shows up. Image | Universal Pictures In Xataka | In the 80s they were already cloning faces without the need for AI: ‘Back to the Future’ replaced an actor with a mask and we didn’t realize it In Xataka | Stephen King threw away the first pages of the book. His wife rescued them and turned a scene into horror film history

Why communities already vaccinate the entire population (and not just the elderly)

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Every winter, history repeats itself in our country. Along with the drop in temperatures, the flu makes an appearance in our environmentcausing many people to start sniffling, coughing or having a fever. In general, in order to prevent the worst of this virus during the previous months, we are committed to carrying out vaccination campaigns for a part of the population, while the ‘unlucky’ rely on paracetamol and some slightly bad days. The epidemic. For a few days now, Spain has been officially in a flu epidemic due to the increase in cases in much of Spainwhich has led some communities to activate the recommendation to wear a mask in some locations. Everything to avoid, above all, continuing to spread the virus and not infect those most vulnerable people who can easily end up admitted to a hospital, putting strain on the health system. The problem this year is in the ‘variant K‘ of this virus for which we were not fully prepared with the vaccines available and neither were our immune systems. But luckily the weapons we have have a predictable effect to minimize their effects on the body. Vaccination system. Currently vaccination officially recommended to a specific population. One of these groups are the smallest in the house, because they are a group of people who act as vectors. This means that it can become infected, have a very long incubation and then barely show any symptoms. The problem is that they will be able to infect everyone around them, such as their parents or even elderly people such as grandparents, which is a serious problem, since they will manifest the disease aggressively. In this way, the strategy is to block this vector with the vaccination of children under six years of age, although not without being free of bioethical problems. On the other hand, there is vaccination for the elderly, health personnel or immunocompromisedwhere infection by this virus can lead to a very delicate state of health. Vaccination for all. Vaccinating a small part of the population is the strategy on the table right now, but more and more voices are pointing to the need to carry out mass vaccinations. As happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this way, the Spanish Association of Vaccinology (AEV) and the Vaccine Advisory Committee of the AEP defend this strategy due to the pure statistics that exist in our country. They point out that as long as vaccination coverage is not massive, the virus always finds “gaps” to circulate. If we only vaccinate grandparents, the virus circulates freely between children (the major transmitters) and young adults, mutating and staying strong until, inevitably, it jumps back to the vulnerable. The keys. As we have said before, the AEP has been insisting in universal childhood vaccination (from 6 to 59 months). Not only to protect the child, but because children are very efficient vectors, and they conclude that if the virus is stopped in daycares and schools, you indirectly protect the entire community. But there are more and more voices that point to the need for Those under 17 years of age should also fall within the technical criteria to receive this vaccine. But not only these, since international organizations such as the ECDC and the WHO have indicated that expand coverage to “broad segments of the population” (including cohabitants and active workers) is the only real way to contain the epidemic wave. The more vaccinated people there are at the beginning of the wave, the fewer “highways” the virus has to move. It is already being done. From public administrations we already see how vaccination is being recommended before the maximum peak of this epidemic arrives, which is expected just at Christmas, since that is when people can gather the most in a closed space. In this way, the Minister of Health herself, Mónica García, point for “the entire population to be vaccinated” without reference to the criteria established in the technical plans. And it is something that the autonomous communities are doing, opening the door to anyone who wants to be vaccinated by eliminating restrictions. Catalonia, for example, since December 1 It has been opened so that anyone who wants to be immunized can do so. For their part, Galicia and Castilla y León have implemented mass vaccination campaigns without prior appointment (“open doors”) during the weekends, making it easier for anyone passing by to receive the jab. yesThey have joined the strategy of “accelerating immunization” by eliminating the bureaucratic barriers of prior appointment. The underlying message of these policies is clear: if you have the arm and the will, we want you vaccinated now. The sooner the better. The experts in this case are quite clear because the vaccine does not ‘work’ at the time of inoculation. You have to wait a few weeks to generate optimal protection against the virus to reduce symptoms in the event that you contract the disease. Images | Mufid Majnun In Xataka | Bacteria have an ‘escape plan’ to survive the viruses that kill them, and it is key to defeating superbugs

This is Flexispot’s Black Friday for the fastest. There are also discounts for your entire store

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This Black Friday We are seeing many powerful offers to renew a mobile phone, console or television, among other things. Now, it is also an ideal time to find deals on lift-up chairs or desks, possibly being Flexispot who has the most powerful promotion: if we are fast, we can take a 100% refund of our orderalthough it is a promo that has much more. We tell you everything about her. Refunds for the fastest and discounts for the entire website As we say, we have a very good opportunity to take home a lift-up desk or a chair completely free (among other things). Flexispot returns once again with one of its best promos, thanks to which we can get a 100% refund on our order (maximum order of 1,000 euros). Of course: not everyone can access it, since it is available only for the fastest. This promo will only be active for 4 days, although it will not be identical in all of them. We will have the first opportunity on Friday, November 28 at 00:00, at which time The first 40 orders will benefit from a 100% refund. On the 29th and 30th, starting at 9 in the morning, there will only be the first 5 orders. On the last day, December 1st starting at 9 in the morning, there will be an opportunity for the first 20 orders. What if all these days get ahead of us? Just because we can’t access this promo doesn’t mean we can’t save at Flexispot. In fact, we have a 10% discount code available that we can use throughout the website. If we use the same one, the code FSBF10we can receive a good discount no matter what we buy. 300 euros discount on the new Flexispot elevating desk In addition to all of the above, it should be noted that, if we are looking for a new elevating desk, we cannot lose sight of the new member of the Flexispot family. We are referring to the E7 Flow, a comfortable desk, with a good system for collecting cables and that fits perfectly in any type of room. Its starting price is 799.99 euros, but by registering with our email we will obtain a discount of 300 eurosso you are left alone 499.99 euros. E7 Flow Lifting Desk The price could vary. We earn commission from these links What does the E7 Flow offer? It is one of the best options in the entire Flexispot catalog. It’s your strongest desk eversince it is capable of supporting up to 180 kg, a figure more than enough even if we want to mount several monitors. In addition, it has improved dual motors, offering a lifting speed of 50 millimeters per second. Another interesting point about it is that its legs are C-shaped, an arrangement that increases its stability. This way, even if our setup is bulky, we won’t suffer those annoying shakes that can appear on this type of desk. All without forgetting that its panel has a beveled edge, ideal for not hurting our wrists. To all of the above we must add its cable management system, which allows you to hide them to have a clean and safer setup (something vital if, for example, we have pets at home). In fact, includes an integrated power strip with 6 portswhich makes this management much easier. For all the above, at the price of 499.99 eurosan excellent option to renew our setup with a large elevating desk. We can’t lose sight of the E7 and E7 Pro desktops As an alternative to the previous one, we have the E7 2026 and E7 Pro 2026 desktops. These improve the performance of the previous models, but they do so at exactly the same cost as the previous ones. As the main novelty, both models come with an improved maximum load, as well as a higher ascent/descent speed. We have the E7 version available for 299 euros only for a few days (its original price is 429.99 euros). The price could vary. We earn commission from these links If we look a little more, we have its Pro version. With it we will take a leap in quality, since it has a greater maximum load and speed, although it is not the only difference. It also has a “C” shaped leg designwhich gives us more space between our legs. This has a launch price of 499.99 euros, but we can get it for 319.99 euros between November 28 and December 1 with the discount code FSBFE7P. 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 | Flexispot In Xataka | Best lift-up desks. Which one to buy and six recommended models from 195 euros In Xataka | This is the office chair I would buy. Tips and models recommended by ergonomics experts for teleworking and studying

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