literally

literally turning Donbas into “Donnyland”

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For decades, one of the greatest obsessions of Soviet power was to convert certain cities in personal symbols of leadership, to the point that Stalingrad not only appeared on maps and speeches, but also in propaganda, in military reports and in the way millions of people understood the course of a war. Because sometimes the way a place is named can influence as much as what happens inside it. The Ukrainian war and names. In the midst of stalled negotiations and agonizing wear and tear on both sides, the New York Times had this morning that Ukraine has introduced an idea as striking as it is revealing: naming a disputed area of ​​Donbas nothing more and nothing less than like “Donnyland” in honor of Donald Trump. This is not an isolated occurrence, but a calculated attempt to influence Washington’s position at a time when its role fluctuates between ally and mediator. The proposal, which mixes irony and strategy, reflects the extent to which kyiv perceives that language, symbols and political psychology can be as important as territorial control on the ground. Donnyland as a pressure tool. Apparently, the concept arose in private conversations as a way to push the US administration to toughen its stance in the face of Vladimir Putin’s demands. The logic is quite simple: if a hypothetical demilitarized or economic zone carries the symbolic seal Under Trump, the United States would have more incentives to protect it and guarantee its stability. From that perspective, it is not just a name, but an attempt to convert a devastated and partially depopulated strip in a political assettransforming territory into a negotiating card designed to alter the balance of power at the table. Borodyanka Donbas as a key piece of the blockade. The region in question, still under ukrainian control but pressured by russian forceshas become one of the main friction points in the peace talks. kyiv fears that giving up that territory will facilitate future offensives, while Moscow insists on complete control, blocking any significant advance. In this context, ideas like that of a neutral zonea special economic model or even that of a shared administration have been explored without success, making it clear that the future of Donbas remains the hard core of the conflict. TOadopting the logic of “branding”. The hypothetical use of “Donnyland” fits into a broader trend in which countries try to attract the attention or favor of great powers through symbolic gestures hyperbolic, such as previous infrastructure proposals or agreements with the name of American leaders. Furthermore, this type of movement reveals a diplomacy increasingly personalizedone where perception, ego and narrative can influence as much as military facts. In this case, Ukraine seeks to turn a disputed territory into a political project with its own name, attempting to align strategic interests through a simple change of label. From Stalingrad to Donnyland. As we said at the beginning, history offers precedents for how names can become tools of power, as happened with Stalingradwhose symbolism during the Second World War reinforced the figure of Joseph Stalin and turned the battle into a global political icon, or more recently with the Polish proposal from Fort Trump There is no doubt, although the context is different, the underlying logic is quite similar: using a name to project power, mobilize support and condition decisions. In the current case, Ukraine recovers that historical intuition and adapts it to a modern diplomacy where influence also involves connecting with the personal motivations of the leaders. Between strategy and symbolism. Be that as it may, and despite the striking nature of the proposal, the truth is that the talks remain blocked, with rigid positions and little progress on key issues such as territorial control or security guarantees. Of course, the “Donnyland” idea It has not yet been formalized and coexists with other more technical proposals, but the simple fact of its mere existence reveals the level of improvisation and/or creativity that diplomacy has achieved in this conflict. In the end, more than a solution in itself, the initiative shows the extent to which Ukraine is willing to explore any avenue (even symbolic) to tilt a war that is no longer decided only on the battlefield. Image | Picryl, Pexels In Xataka | In 1914, submachine guns forever changed the way war was waged. In 2026, it’s algorithms’ turn In Xataka | Ukraine has captured a North Korean missile from Russia and opened it: the surprising thing is not its parts, but how they work

In 1953 Hollywood filmed a blockbuster in front of US nuclear tests. It was the most radioactive movie in history, literally

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Year 1953, during a nuclear test in the Nevada desert, several Las Vegas hotels offered their guests privileged views of the mushroom cloud at dawn as if it were a tourist attraction at Disneyland, with cocktails included and terraces full of spectators. The scene, which is difficult to imagine today, reflected the extent to which certain risks were perceived very differently in the midst of the nuclear age. Filming in the Cold War. In the mid-50s, The Conqueror It was born as a historical blockbuster that from the beginning involved decisions that were difficult to justify, such as choosing John Wayne to play Genghis Khan himself under the production of Howard Hughes. Filming moved to locations in Utah, an area that offered spectacular landscapes but was, at the time, close to areas where the United States was filming atmospheric nuclear tests. The context was not a secret, but its risks were not fully understood either, since public and scientific perception of radiation was much more limited than today. That combination of cinematic ambition and geopolitical moment left a scenario that, seen with perspective, is much more disturbing than what it seemed like then. The real environment. This perfectly documented that nuclear testing in the Nevada desert generated radioactive fallout that moved to populated areas, subsequently affecting known communities as “downwinders”. It is also proven that the filming team worked in one of those regions, and that part of the surrounding material was transferred to other sets, potentially expanding exposure. This context is neither a theory nor a subsequent reconstruction, but a historical fact recognized by investigations and official organizations that have studied the consequences of those tests. The passage of time and the uncomfortable statistics. What happened? That, over the years, a significant part of the cast and production team developed cancerincluding figures such as John Wayne himself (who died of the disease in 1979), Susan Hayward and Dick Powell. The most cited figure that gives an idea of ​​the possible impact speaks of more than 90 cases among about 220 people linked to the production, a fact that has fueled the fame of the filming as one of the most disturbing and cursed in the history of Hollywood. Even so, we must remember that this number comes from of informative accounts and not from controlled epidemiological studies, which requires treating it with some caution despite its impact. What is proven and what is not. The line between facts and story is key in history. It’s proven that there was exposure to a potentially contaminated environment and that several team members developed serious illnesses over time. What is not proven is a direct causal relationship between filming and these cancers, since factors such as personal habits (including smoking) and the lack of comparable clinical data, facts or causalities may enter, making any definitive conclusion difficult. Therefore, the case remains an ambiguous terrain: perfectly plausible in its approach, but not scientifically confirmed. From failure to modern myth. Upon its release, the film was received quite coldly and criticalremaining in the popular imagination as another failure within the industry. However, as the decades passed, his memory has changed completely, transforming into a story that combines Hollywood, Cold War and invisible risk. What at the time was simply a bad creative and logistical decision ended up being reinterpreted as an episode from the world of celluloid. loaded with symbolism about the limits of knowledge and (i)responsibility. The context changes everything. Because the story of The Conqueror lies not only in what happened during filming, but in how that same filming fits within an era in which exposure to nuclear risks formed part of the everyday landscape. There is no doubt, what seemed acceptable then is today perceived as true nonsense, and this radical change of perspective is what turns the case into something more than a movie anecdote. It wasn’t just a problematic shoot, but an example of how seemingly normal decisions can take on a completely different meaning. with the passage of time. Image | RKO In Xataka | The day a man dared to go further than anyone else: a real fight with Bruce Lee where there were no limits In Xataka | One of the most iconic scenes from ‘A Clockwork Orange’ had an infallible trick: the pain you saw in the scene was not fiction

Without the support of Europe it would have been literally impossible.

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We tend to see the space race as that. A competition in which one country comes first. In 1969 it was said that the United States defeated the Soviet Union (USSR) in the race to put humans on the Moon. Before, it had been the USSR that had prevailed by taking the first human into space. Now, many consider that NASA has once again emerged victorious, by defeating China, which He also wanted to put his flag on our satellite. But, in reality, it has not been NASA alone that has achieved this first step towards returning to lunar territory. Other agencies are involved and, above all, we cannot forget that, without the support of Europe, these four astronauts would not be traveling to the Moon. Literally. Three European engines. The Orion capsule is guided, directed and powered by a set of 33 engines called the European Service Module. The surname is not trivial, since It has been designed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and built by Airbus under ESA guidelines. In addition, the engineers at ESTEC, ESA’s technical center located in the Netherlands, work closely with their colleagues at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, monitoring that everything is working properly with this essential piece for the proper development of the Artemis missions. The main engine. The European Service Module has a main engine that is responsible for promoting the speed changes necessary to guide Orion properly towards the Moon. It is a space shuttle engine that has already traveled to space on 6 missions between 2000 and 2002. ESA scientists have reconditioned and restored it so that it fits perfectly into Orion and meets all the needs of this capsule. Eight support engines. The main engine has eight auxiliary engines that intervene in the orbital corrections that are necessary for the trip to reach a successful conclusion. 24 precise motors. Finally, the European Service Module has 24 smaller engines, distributed in 6 capsules, which are responsible for driving more precise control of Orion’s movements. They can function individually or collaboratively, as needed. A key piece at a critical moment. On the second day of Artemis II’s trip, the European Service Module starred in one of the critical moments of this trip to the Moon. This is translunar combustion by injection, a process by which the capsule is accelerated to propel itself out of Earth’s orbit and, therefore, begin the real journey to the Moon. It’s not the first time. The European Service Module was already used on Artemis I with magnificent results. At that time the capsule was sent to the Moon unmanned. Without a doubt, the participation of four astronauts in the process makes this trip even more exciting, which continues to be possible, in large part, thanks to European intervention. Therefore, although NASA has the most press in all of this, we must not forget that it was Europe that pushed its astronauts, as well as a Canadian astronaut, to the Moon. Instead of talking about careers, we can talk about teamwork and, in the process, remember that, although some space agencies make more noise than others, those that work in the shadows are as indispensable as the rest. Images | THAT In Xataka | NASA is on its heels, so it has made a decision: advance its return to the Moon to 2030

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

Sierra was the second most powerful supercomputer in the world. When its time came it ended up in the shredder, literally

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Supercomputers represent the extreme of modern computing: machines capable of performing enormous amounts of calculations every second and supporting scientific or strategic projects of enormous complexity. Saw He was one of those giants. For years he operated in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratorywhere he was in charge of highly sensitive simulations for the United States Government. At the time he came to occupy second place in the TOP500 rankingwhich ranks the world’s fastest supercomputers. But in high-performance computing, even the most advanced systems have a limited lifespan. After seven years of service, Sierra has been retired. A giant for simulations. When Sierra began operating in 2018 at the Livermore facility, it was incorporated into the center’s high-performance computing infrastructure to support the nuclear arsenal maintenance program managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration. Instead of resorting to real nuclear tests, scientists use computer simulations capable of reproducing the behavior of the weapons and materials involved in their design. This work requires extraordinary computing power and also has implications in areas such as nonproliferation and counterterrorism. Almost at the top of the ranking. As we noted above, for several years the Sierra was among the fastest machines on the planet. According to the TOP500 ranking, it recorded 94.64 petaflops, that is, tens of quadrillion floating point operations per second. To achieve this, it used an unusual architecture at the time, based on IBM Power9 processors combined with NVIDIA Volta V100 graphics accelerators. This design allowed work to be distributed among thousands of computing nodes and offered a notable leap over previous generations of supercomputing. When the hardware starts to fail. Supercomputers do not escape a reality common to any technological infrastructure: over the years, the hardware begins to deteriorate. In this type of systems, The usual useful life is usually around five to seven yearsa period after which the failure rate begins to grow and maintaining the system becomes more complex. As these machines accumulate hours of operation, the likelihood increases that certain components will fail or need to be replaced. In the case of Sierra, furthermore, part of the problem was already very specific: some of its components had stopped being manufactured and the version of the operating system it used had lost support. The successor. Sierra’s retirement is also related to the arrival of a new generation of supercomputing at the center. In 2025 it began operating The Captainthe system destined to take its place within the laboratory’s computing infrastructure. Although at first glance both may seem similar facilities, the difference is inside. El Capitan uses an architecture based on the AMD Instinct MI300A APUs and a shared memory system between CPU and GPU, which allows it to achieve much higher performance. According to data released by the lab, this machine can reach 1,809 exaflops, about 19 times faster than Sierra at its peak according to TOP500. Disassemble a supercomputer piece by piece. The end of Sierra was not simply about shutting down the system and leaving it out of commission. The process was carried out in several phases that began with the progressive removal of computing nodes and internal components. Technicians dismantled entire racks, extracted batteries and separated different elements for recycling or controlled destruction. Some parts, such as system plates or metal structures, were sent to specialized facilities for shredding. Since Sierra had worked with simulations linked to the US nuclear arsenal, the laboratory had to prevent any possibility of partial data recovery or reconstruction of sensitive information, hence the storage devices received even stricter treatment. Images | United States Department of Energy In Xataka | Meta has been buying chips from NVIDIA and AMD for years. Now it also makes its own so as not to fall short

It is literally the largest and heaviest machine ever built by humans and it does one thing: extract coal.

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In North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany, the largest machine that man has put on earth operates. Forget about huge ships, aircraft carrier either oil platforms: It’s an excavator. It is called Bagger 293, and its very existence is the moving memory of what industrial engineering is capable of when it is demanded without limits. What is it, exactly? The Bagger 293, also known as the MAN TAKRAF RB293, is a bucket wheel excavator (those that have a giant toothed disc at one end) designed for open pit mining. It was built by the German company TAKRAF, a subsidiary of the MAN group, between 1990 and 1995 in Leipzig. His goal from day one was only one: extract lignitethe so-called brown coal, in the Hambach mine, one of the largest mining operations in Europe. Today it remains operational, owned by RWE Power AG, Germany’s second largest energy producer. Numbers. It is 96 meters high, equivalent to a building of more than 30 floorsand 225 meters long, which is more than two football fields placed in a row. It weighs 14,200 tons. The Guinness Book of Records officially recognizes it as the largest and heaviest land vehicle in the world. Shares title with its predecessor, the Bagger 288although the 293 surpasses it in size and capacity. It also cannot be transported. And moving it about 120 kilometers requires more than three weeks of continuous work, with progress of just 5 or 6 kilometers a day. How it works istea monster. The heart of the machine is a 21.3 meter diameter rotating wheel armed with 18 buckets, large steel buckets, each capable of loading up to 15 cubic meters of material per cycle. That wheel spins non-stop, tearing off layers of earth and rock to reveal the veins of lignite, which are then transported by giant belts to the electricity generation plants. Under normal conditions, the Bagger 293 can move up to 240,000 tons of material in a single day. Furthermore, it is estimated that what it does in one day is equivalent to the manual work of about 40,000 miners. All this with only five operators on board, controlling the system from a central cockpit. electric appetite. To start such a structure, a direct external energy source of 16.56 megawatts is needed (about more than 22,500 HP if we do the conversion). This would be approximately equivalent to the electricity needed to supply a city of about 20,000 inhabitants. On the other hand, it should be noted that the Bagger 293 does not have its own conventional engine, it is permanently connected to the industrial electrical network. Its 12 steel tracks, each 3.8 meters wide, distribute the immense weight over the ground in a controlled manner so that the ground does not give way under it. Leaf where you work. The excavator works in the Hambach mine, the largest open-pit mine in Germany, with an approved area of ​​up to 8,500 hectares and a depth that reaches 500 meters below ground level. According to Bloombergthe mine produces around 40 million tonnes of lignite per year, enough to power around 8 million homes. But the mine is not without controversy. Brown coal is the most polluting fossil fuel per unit of energy produced, and the exploitation of Hambach 90% of the historic Hambach Forest has been wiped outan ecosystem more than 12,000 years old. As of 2012, environmental activists They occupied the remaining trees for years in a protest that ended up becoming a symbol of the climate debate in Germany. In 2018, tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the mine’s expansion. Greta Thunberg herself visited the place in 2019stating that he found it “devastating” to see places like the Hambach mine. In January 2020, the German government agreed to preserve the remaining forest, and in August of that same year Germany committed to its definitive exit from coal by 2038. According to Global Energy Monitormining at the Hambach mine will cease in 2029, and the plan is to transform the territory into a reclaimed landscape that will include a large artificial lake. Images | Andreas Lippold (Wikimedia Commons), Stefan Fussan (Wikimedia Commons), Steve Rowell In Xataka | The key hidden infrastructure for AI is not data centers: it is undersea cables and the Middle East leads the way

literally, it will bathe its streets in gold

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Architecture and urban planning have flirted many times with extreme materialssymbols of wealth or technical bets at the limitalmost always to send a message of power, modernity or exceptionality. Some came forward and today they are iconsbut others ended up becoming warnings. Dubai has just opposed the list, although it still does not know which of the two. The saying becomes literal. Yes, Dubai has decided to turn into reality one of the most repeated phrases about the city, that of the streets paved with goldannouncing the construction of a road literally made with this precious metal in the future Dubai Gold District. The project, presented at the end of January, deliberately plays with the symbolism of gold as a sign of the economic, cultural and tourist identity of the emirate, although for now it is not clear How far The material will be used in a structural, decorative or symbolic way, a key detail that remains unspecified, and one that is not trivial if we turn to the history of architecture. Bathing cities in “gold”. In Antiquity and the Modern Age, the equivalent of “urban gold” was massive use of noble materials for public spaces. In Rome, imperial avenues and squares paved with imported marbles throughout the Mediterranean, and not out of functional necessity, but to exhibit economic and logistical dominance. In the baroque eralarge urban axes such as those of Paris or Madrid incorporated high quality stone and excessive ornamentation to turn the city into a permanent scene of power. It wasn’t literal gold, of course, but it was deliberate material display. Brasilia pilot plane Technical madness and futuristic city. In the 19th century the fever of “impossible” materials arrived. The Crystal Palacebuilt almost entirely of iron and glass, seemed like a technical madness for its time: gigantic, fragile to look at and completely new in its concept. It worked, but also showed riskssuch as its very high vulnerability to fire, which would end up destroying it decades later. It was a symbolic success and a long-term practical failure. The 20th century is also full of even more ambitious bets. We remain as an example that of Brasiliawhich was conceived as a futuristic city built from scratch, with monumental avenues designed for automobiles and sculptural concrete buildings. The result was impressive from the air, but a chaos for everyday life: enormous distances, total dependence on the car and inhumane spaces. It didn’t collapse, but it did show that grandiosity can clash with actual use. Another example we count recently, with the John Hancock Tower opting for a glass façade. The result It was terrifying. Part of the Neom project And Neom. Of course, few more hyperbolic projects in recent times like Neomthe futuristic city that aims to stay on the plansperhaps so that they can be used in a movie. An example of a project that is too bold and hyperbolic compared to the logistical, economic and practical limits of reality. Gold as an economic identity. Be that as it may, the new Dubai street will be integrated into the reconversion of the historic Deira Gold Soukan area that already concentrates around a thousand merchants specialized in gold and jewelry. The advertisement it is not coincidental: The United Arab Emirates is one of the largest global nodes of physical gold trade, with tens of billions dollars in annual exports, and Dubai has been exploiting that position for years as part of its narrative of prosperity, stability and economic opportunity without direct taxes on wages. Dubai Skyline Architecture as a claim. The “street of gold” fits into a broader strategy, the same one that already we saw in Neom based on creating extreme milestones that ensure global headlines and a constant flow of visitors. Record-breaking skyscrapers, giant Ferris wheels, abyssal pools, artificial islands and air-conditioned streets are part of clear logic: offer experiences that are impossible or difficult to replicate in other places, even when their daily usefulness is secondary to their value as an urban spectacle. Between icon and excess. As we said, this type of project is not without risks. The recent history of architecture in the Middle East demonstrates that excessive ambition can collide with technical, financial or simply practical limits, turning some ideas into reduced versions of what was promised or directly into symbols of overexpectation. The key, as in other extreme urban experiments, will be whether the street of gold It ends up being a functional and durable element or whether it remains a striking gesture designed more to reinforce the Dubai brand than to transform urban life. The message. Beyond the material, the golden way It is a declaration of intentions: Dubai continues to bet on that architecture hyperbolic as a language of power, wealth and uniqueness. It is not just about building, but about telling a story in which the excess is part of the appeal. And as has happened other times in history, it remains to be seen if the bet can become a lasting icon, or another example of how far a city can go when the symbol outweighs urban logic. Image | Ahmed Aldaie via Unsplash, אורי ר.Neom, Norlando Pobre In Xataka | Matalascañas is an example of a major architectural failure: thinking that the beach of your childhood was going to be how you remember it. In Xataka | More than 2,000 people had committed suicide at the Golden Gate. The solution has been as simple as it is shocking for those who throw

In 1978 Christopher Reeve was chosen to play ‘Superman’. He got so beaten up that he literally couldn’t fit into the suit.

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In the mid-seventies, superman He wasn’t just a character: he was DC’s goose that laid the golden eggs and a bet that could make or sink the first great modern superhero blockbuster. Producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind wanted a “serious” and grandiose film, far from the tone camp from the sixties Batmanbut they also knew that any setback would be a historic embarrassment. Too big to fail. In that scenario, DC, suspicious, imposed conditions of the strictest and he monitored the project as if it were a surgical operation, because the underlying problem was not to make a film: it was to make it with a guy in tights and a red cape and get the public to I will look at him with respectnot like a meme. Two years of casting. Thus, the search for superman perfect became the great bottleneck: it began in 1975 and continued until February 1977with hundreds of tests and a growing sense of desperation. There was, as usually happens in any great production, a star wish list that seemed more a festival poster than an audition: Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson, James Caan, or even Nick Nolte. In fact, there were many more, in addition to proposals that today they sound delirious by pure marketing logic, as think of Muhammad Ali or even in people outside of interpretation. It turns out that each option failed for something (if it wasn’t cost, it was age, image, accent or fit in general) and the message was clear: without Superman, there was no movie. The definitive twist. In the midst of that chaos, Christopher Reeve arrived from the New York theater as an answer that did not fit the cliché of the “big name” that the producers were looking for, but did fit the essence of the character. The casting director was pushing his candidacy against the team’s inertia, until he was finally given a real opportunity. When Richard Donner, the film’s director, saw it, the trial was as clear as it is uncomfortable: Reeve had the height, the face and the aura to be Superman… but he was also too young and too thin (“a stick”were the director’s words) to fill a suit that required visible strength, not just presence. Even so, in that test (between nerves, the heat of the spotlight and a still ungainly appearance) something that no one could copy became evident: the potential to make Clark Kent and Superman credible in the same person. The actor before opting for his role in Superman Stop being a “stick”. Reeve got the role with an unspoken demand which was actually an ultimatum: he had to physically become Superman, and do it quickly. The producers even suggested use fake muscles under the suit to “trick” the camera, a typical solution in the cinema of the time, but he refused, because he understood that credibility was not built with filler, but with transformation. The movie needed the body to say “superhero” before the character even spoke, and Reeve assumed that the job was not just to act well, but to look impossible without falling into excess. Darth Vader as trainer. Here comes the anecdote that seems invented by an advertising department: the man inside the Darth Vader suit, David Prowse, also a bodybuilder and instructor, was the one who was in charge of sculpting to Superman. Donner called it like someone activating a emergency plan: “we have a Superman” and we have to build him against the clock. Prowse trained Reeve for weeks with a routine focused on gain mass and functional strengthsolid enough to withstand flight harnesses, exhausting days and the symbolic weight of the character. And in the process a perfect story was born to sell the film: the most intimidating physical villain of the moment molding the definitive hero of the decade. The “obsessive” transformation. The method was so simple as brutal: eat a lot, train thoroughly and not allow yourself to lose weight even for a single day. Reeve put himself on a high-protein diet, with four meals a day, shakes and vitamins, and with an almost paranoid discipline: skipping a meal meant going backwards, and going back was a disaster. The idea he repeated was very clear: the actor’s inner work is useless if the exterior does not support the fantasy, because Superman cannot “seem” weak, even if he is vulnerable on the inside. And the most interesting thing is that that physical strength also changed him. the psychology of paper: The stronger he became, the more natural the character’s calm authority came to him. Too “handsome”. The result was so extremely effective that it became a continuity problem: Reeve continued to gain muscle during filming and there came a point where It was not the same body of the first scenes. The production had to redo shots already filmed because the superman of one day did not fit with the Superman of weeks later, and the suit, designed for a “before”, began to behave like a shell that was too small. The ironic twist is that at first they wanted to put fake muscles under the uniform and, after the transformation, the opposite happened: They were able to remove the additions to the suit because they were no longer needed, and the film was left with what it had always needed from the beginning, a Superman with real muscle, without tricks or cardboard. The myth that remained. Over time, Reeve’s physique has been compared with the hypertrophied standards of today’s superheroes, but at the time it was quite an event: his change from “tall, skinny actor” to muscular icon It was part of Superman’s own story even before of the premiere. The important thing was not to compete with modern mountains of biceps, but to build an exact illusion: that this guy could be the most powerful on the planet and yet the most human when he looked at Lois … Read more

The last secret of anti-drought farming is literally burying sheep’s wool

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The wool we have in our clothes today may be seen as something insignificant, but in the past It was considered “white gold” that supported the economy of many countries around the world. Currently, Australia is one of the giant producers worldwide that has two types of products: fine wool, which sells very expensive, and low quality wool that is left unused. but science has already found a way to take advantage of it in agriculture itself. An underused resource. The scientific literature that has been growing in recent months suggest that this residue is actually an underutilized piece of biological engineering that is able to retain water where no one else can. And this is something that is very interesting for the most desertified lands, such as what happens in Spain, for example. And in those countries that are more arid, such as Australia or in Spainthere are several problems: the lack of water and the speed with which it evaporates from the ground. That is why this is where the “microsponge” function that wool can have comes in. The essays. After seeing that wool has this property to retain water, science began to work on it. It was then that scientists began to apply processed waste wool in agriculture, as pellets or in compressed form. In this way, after placing it on top of the earth, it was seen how the compacted and dry soils were beginning to regenerate. Simply a layer of wool on the soil can reduce surface water loss by up to 35%. This is something really positive, since it has been observed an increase in microbial activity of between 30 and 50%, and also the test crops showed increases in production of between 12% and 18%. A simple idea. Wool acts as an insulating blanket that prevents the sun from incinerating the soil, but it also acts as that hygroscopic sponge that allows water to be provided without it evaporating quickly. There are nuances. If we go down from the enthusiasm of field trials to the coldness of the laboratory, we find something different. A study published in 2022 pointed out that wool waste not only does not damage the microbiota, but rather stimulates it. Unlike other materials that can “steal” nitrogen from the soil to decompose, wool degrades by slowly releasing nutrients. More recently, in a 2025 studyan analysis of the use of wool pellets in lettuce cultivation. The water retention figures here are more conservative, but equally valuable: they documented improvements in soil moisture of between 3% and 25%. Everything always depended on the specific type of soil, being most effective in sandy soils that are most prone to drying out. Why it works. The key to the sponge as a true help for our crops is in its physical and chemical structure. It has been specifically seen that wool can absorb up to twice its weight in water without much problem. This is essential, because when it rains or is watered it will be able to store a lot of moisture and will gradually release it when the environment dries out. But also, we are talking about a slow fertilizer. This is explained because, being composed of keratin, wool is rich in nitrogen and sulfur. In addition, its biodegradation is slow, making it an organic alternative to synthetic fertilizers. Circular economy. Beyond its function in the field, the research frames wool within the need to reduce fossil inputs. Currently, manufacturing nitrogen fertilizers consumes large amounts of natural gas, so using wool as fertilizer can help us meet this large consumption. In addition to all this, the rancher gets rid of waste that previously cost him money to eliminate or took up a lot of space and the farmer obtains a material that protects his soil from erosion and drought. Images | Sam Carter Mike Erskine In Xataka | Extremadura has become master of an unexpected sector: the cultivation of tobacco “made in Spain”

AI literally in our soup

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This CES 2026, which has just closed its doors, has left us with the jump of lego blocks to electronicsa Lenovo laptop with roll-up screena Roborock vacuum cleaner with legs to climb almost 10 centimeters of unevenness or a HP integrated keyboard computer and above all, a reality: we are going to meet with AI everywhere. And it is not always necessary nor does it make much sense. Yeah, what NVIDIA does with DLSS 4.5 It seems like witchcraft but what need is there for a hair clipper with artificial intelligence. Go ahead and say that the CES is a fair not only to glimpse the best technology of the year, but also to know where the industry is heading and for brands to take advantage of innovation. In this sense, at this CES 2026 we have seen devices with AI of all kinds, but we are not very clear that everyone’s concept is going to come together. AI Barmen Tap to go to the post. Instagram AI Barmen They call him an AI waiter but he is little more than a cocktail vending machine with a built-in camera and an AI cape that essentially takes a look at you to verify that: 1. you are of legal age and 2. you are sober enough to have one more drink. The comments of those who have used it show that it is not the most accurate in the world when determining ages. If the answer to both questions is yes, it prepares a series of spirits for you and you can personalize them. According to the brand, it is already used at private parties. The Infinix AI Moduverse modular smartphone There are those who think that the cell phone’s days are numbered (among them, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman or Elon Musk) and the future is wearables with artificial intelligencebut in the meantime It is clear that using AI on mobile is most useful for tasks such as text summaries and notifications, translations or what I personally do most: pass a YouTube video to Gemini and to synthesize it for me. Well, the manufacturer Infinix has decided to mix gadgets with AI and the modular concept to create AI Moduverse, which are essentially different modules such as a vlogging camera, a gimbal, microphone… all taken by the hair when it comes to justifying having the “AI” in the name until we arrive at an accessory for meetings that is something like a recorder with AI– Connects magnetically and generates AI transcriptions on a small rear screen. Luka AI Cube Luka AI Cube education faces the era of ChatGPT and the presence of mobile phones in classrooms and at home we are dealing with melons like at what age to give your child their first device and we know that great CEOs hide screens in the parenting processthis CES 2026 has left us Luka AI Cubean AI toy that does it all… until your son or daughter can talk to a chatbot in the form of chibi of characters like Harry Potter. This device with recreational and learning potential can be hung around the neck and can be used to talk to him, ask him for advice, use the integrated camera to ask him what he sees and thus use it for tasks such as exploring or learning, also for video calls and location. I don’t know if give a boy or girl access to an LLM It’s the best idea. Glyde Smart Hair Clipper Glyde Who else has a hair clipper at home and knows that even a 4″ shave requires a little care and attention. For things like gradients, not just anything works, so Glyde has decided to go one step further with a device that dynamically adjusts cut proximity using AI. The icing on the cake is the mask you have to wear so your cousin can cut your hair properly. And be careful because it has more functions such as a trainer with real-time AI that gives you feedback and the firm does not want to stop there, it is working to incorporate voice controls and hairstyle recommendations. The digital frame Fraimic Fraimic Digital frames are not a novelty at all, in fact, they are already a classic for displaying photographs of your loved ones, memories and even your favorite works of art. Yeah, generating images by AI is very goodbut having a frame with an E-Ink screen, microphone and voice control to describe the image you want the AI ​​to generate for you is still overkill. What of fill your house with cameras, microphones, internet and artificial intelligence (in this case, OpenAI’s GPT Image 1.5) doesn’t seem like the best idea from a privacy point of view. And if you ask me, from practicality, neither. Furthermore, with all the technology it integrates, it cannot be cheap either: from 349 euros with 100 generations of images per year. If you want more, just go to checkout. The worst of all is that the screen looks great and the consumption is so optimized that it lasts for years, so as a digital frame alone it would be a very interesting product. Samsung Bespoke AI Refrigerator Family Hub Samsung has presented its Bespoke AI Family Hub, a family of household appliances equipped with artificial intelligence. Among them, a refrigerator. It shows you a personalized summary of your agenda and activities, monitors your consumption patterns, recommends recipes, and you can open and close the door with your voice. The refrigerator may have won the “CES Innovation Awards 2026” award, but it also appeared among “Worst in Show” according to a group of critics, consumer and privacy advocates (with people from Consumer Reports, Back Market or iFixit). Their verdict on this refrigerator is that “voice controls, constant Internet connection and built-in advertising could make what is normally a simple appliance more prone to breaking, harder to use and more expensive to repair.” In the demos of the fair it was seen … Read more

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