person

Since 2019, Spanish movie theaters have not had so much attendance in a single weekend. The person responsible: Torrente

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‘Torrente Presidente’ arrived in theaters on March 13 without a trailer, without press passes and with a poster with a black background as the only promotional material. In 72 hours it raised close to 7 million euros: with one million viewers, it is the best start for a Spanish film in fifteen years. And these are the causes of the phenomenon. The figures. The first numbers of ‘Torrente Presidente’, before the weekend ended, were already overwhelming and predicted extraordinary success. Premiere on 1077 screens. 150,000 tickets sold in advance. 2.4 million euros and 300,000 spectators on Friday alone. At the end of the weekend, it had generated a total of 6.94 million euros, 70% of the national box office. Of course, it is the weekend with the highest attendance at cinemas since 2019, before the pandemic. The figure places the sixth installment of the saga as the fourth best premiere in the history of Spanish cinema, behind ‘The Impossible’ (€8.9M), ‘Torrente 4: Lethal Crisis’ (€8.6M) and ‘Torrente 3: The Protector’ (€7.21M). It is also the highest-grossing Spanish film of the year and the best debut of a Spanish production in the last eleven: no national film had reached that level of box office on its opening day since at least 2015. Unusual marketing. Segura opted for a launch strategy completely atypical: The film arrived in theaters without a trailer, without promotion and without prior press screenings, announcing itself only with a publication on social networks. The director has explained that his intention was that fans of the saga would be the first to enjoy it. Curiously, Segura has for decades been one of the most active Spanish directors in the promotion machine, continually appearing on television wearing t-shirts with the film’s title. Once ‘Torrente Presidente’ was released, it has already been seen on programs like ‘El Hormiguero’ and has begun to give interviews and give access to press passes. You know what you’re going for. Curiously, Torrente’s films do not stand out for their plot twists or spectacular surprises, but there is another secret to keep: the cameos. As could be seen when the film arrived in theaters, ‘Torrente Presidente’ is one of the densest films in the saga (if not the most) in terms of number of cameos and guest stars. That was what Segura did not want revealed, and that is why there are abundant articles on the internet that they gut this aspect of the movie. It is the great secret of the premiere, above its plot or its approach, where it rains in the wet. And now what. If in a film like this the surprise effect is important, word of mouth is even more important. From its second week onwards, Segura will adhere to the usual rules of the promotion (trailer, poster, pass, interviews) seeking to maintain the momentum. The first milestone that ‘Torrente Presidente’ has to overcome is the 22.1 million in revenue from ‘Torrente 2’, the most lucrative of the saga to date. At this rate, this second week could exceed the 14 million euros that the intermediate installments of the saga accumulated, amounts that the films of ‘Father there is only one‘. In Xataka | There are many people who hate Santiago Segura’s films. The problem is that they “save” Spanish cinema every year

In 2003, NASA suffered a serious accident that killed seven people. The person in charge: a PowerPoint

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On January 16, 2003, NASA’s STS-107 mission was underway. The space shuttle Columbia was launched with its seven crew members into low orbit to test the effects of microgravity on the human body. Those seven people never returned to Earth. The tragedy could have been avoided, but years later the analysis of everything that happened those days has left a terrible conclusion: a presentation of PowerPoint He killed those seven people. The launch, as said James Thomasseemed to be perfect. The crew began to carry out their task, and were expected to spend 16 days in space performing 80 experiments. Just one day after the mission began, NASA officials realized that something had not gone right. NASA has a protocol for reviewing the launch with external cameras. After 82 seconds, a piece of spray foam insulation (SOFI) fell off one of the ramps that attached the shuttle to its external fuel tank. As the crew rose at 28,968 kilometers per hour, the piece of foam collided with one of the tiles on the outer edge of the ship’s left wing. The insulating foam coming off was nothing new: it had happened on the four previous missions and was the reason the cameras were deployed to analyze the launch. The problem is that the blow had occurred in the layer that protected the ship during its re-entry to Earth. The slides of yore What did NASA do? Study the possibilities and conclude that there were three: First, the astronauts could have done a spacewalk to check the helmet. Second, NASA could have sent another shuttle to pick up the crew. Third, they could risk simply re-entry. Those responsible for the mission analyzed the situation with Boeing engineers and created a report in the form of a PowerPoint presentation with 28 slides. The conclusions revealed something important: it was assumed that the wing tiles could tolerate foam impacts, but that assumption had been made under very particular conditions. The pieces of foam in the tests were 600 times smaller than those that had hit the Columbia. To reflect those details, the engineers created this slide: At NASA they listened to the explanation, and the engineers believed they had conveyed the risks well. However, NASA believed that the engineers, even without being certain, suggested that there was no damage that would put the lives of the crew in danger. The option they chose was the third. Columbia would re-enter on February 1, 2003, at 9:16 AM (EST). At 9 that day, Dallas residents saw how the ferry had disintegrated into pieces. The entire crew died. The investigation into the tragedy revealed that NASA and engineers had had the right information, but had made a bad decision. Edward Tufte, a Yale professor, explained that the problem had been with that damn slide and the way it had been presented. The title already seemed to indicate that the risk was not particularly high, but the slide also had four cascading points with no detailed explanation of what they meant: interpretation was left to the reader’s discretion. It was not clear whether the first point (1) was the main one, or if the rest of the points had the same relevance. The different font sizes, strange hierarchy, and text density didn’t help. There were over 100 vague words and adjectives (“sufficient,” “meaningful”), making the slide too open to audience interpretation. The biggest problem is in the last two points, where it was indicated that what they had tested in the preliminary tests was very different from what had happened. NASA itself indicated in your report after the investigation that they had relied too much on PowerPoint. The expression ‘death by PowerPoint’ has been used for years to indicate how there are presentations that induce boredom or fatigue due to their information overload. A bad design and the overuse of points to order each data are common problems in this and other similar applications. Unfortunately, in this case that expression became tragically true. In Xataka | A new “solar system” has just been discovered. There’s just one problem: it shouldn’t exist. In Xataka | Boeing was trying to put the Starliner fiasco behind it: NASA has just classified the 2024 incident at its highest level

The Oscar gala has been completely unrelated to the conflicts in Iran and Palestine except for one person: Javier Bardem

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Javier Bardem took the stage at the Oscars with a red badge with large letters hanging on his lapel. “No to war.” The same one he wore 23 years ago at the now legendary Goya gala that opposed another war, that one in Iraq. Before announcing the Oscar for Best International Film, he waited for the accompanying music to end and said: “No to war. Free Palestine.” The public applauded the actor’s bravery, unconsciously making clear the cultural abyss between Hollywood and Spain. An apolitical gala, except for a few things. The Academy had already warned that this gala would be exempt from political proclamations, but there were a couple of exceptions. One was a devastating Conan O’Brien, who He congratulated the British because they do stop their pedophilespointing to the Epstein files and the recent arrest of Prince Andrew. Jimmy Kimmel dedicated a little dig at ‘Melania’not nominated for Best Documentary. Javier Bardem, however, had no problems naming wars, countries and leaders. Why the pin. On the red carpet, Bardem explained to the press that the “No to War” pin was the same one he wore in the Goya of 2003 while protesting against what he described as what he has later described as the “illegal war in Iraq”. This time he wore the badge to protest against the US and Israeli attacks on Iran. “We are here 23 years later, again with another illegal war created by Trump and Netanyahu, causing a lot of damage and killing many innocent people,” declared. In addition to that badge, he wore the Handala, a figure of a child with his back turned that the cartoonist Naji al-Ali created in 1969 and which has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance. Legal ironies. A detail completed the portrait of wars and conflicts against which Bardem protested: the Palestinian actor Motaz Malhees, one of the protagonists of ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’, nominated for Best International Film, could not attend the ceremony because the new regulations of the Trump administration prevented him from traveling to the United States with his Palestinian Authority passport. The film chronicles the attempts to rescue a five-year-old Gazan girl killed by an Israeli bombing. No to war: Origins. We recommend the podcast still in progress ‘Delusions of Spain‘ dedicated to the 2003 Goya gala, to understand all the implications of the protests of that year. The invasion of Iraq was imminent and Aznar had publicly shown his support for Bush. Willy Toledo, Alberto San Juan and the Animalario theater group took over TVE to protest against the government itself: there was no official plan but the vast majority of guests and candidates put on the stickers. Bardem himself was the first to start the protests that night with a “Never again” against the Prestige disaster, which was taking place in those same days. Different industries. The gap that separates the political culture of Spanish cinema from that of American cinema is neither new nor accidental. In Spain, the sector has a documented tradition of public positioning: the white hands of the president of the Academy José Luis Borau against ETA in 1998, the violet tide of recent years, the speeches on historical memory, Bardem himself in 2003. The industry understands that the gala is a loudspeaker and that using it makes sense, even if it has costs. Susan Sarandon, upon receiving the international Goya during her visit to Spain, declared that she was “very surprised” by the atmosphere of political protest that was breathed there, in contrast to what he described as “censorship” in the United States. Because Hollywood works differently. Explicit political activism from the stage is usually the exception, not the norm. Bardem has verbalized it with little contemplation: at the 2025 Emmyswearing a Palestinian kufiya, said he “would not work” with any company that supported Israel, joining protests from other Hollywood actors. He added that not getting jobs was “absolutely irrelevant” compared to what is happening in Gaza. National protest. It is curious that this has happened in a year like this, the triumph of a highly politicized film like ‘One Battle After Another’. However, although there were different proclamations in favor of peace and well-intentioned desires to improve the world (starting with those of the film’s own director, Paul Thomas Anderson), no one expressed the demands as forcefully as Bardem. That thus demonstrated that “I am Spanish, Spanish, Spanish” goes beyond winning at tennis from time to time. In Xataka | Two Oscars with the same serial number: how the biggest and most confusing silent fraud of the Academy was created

Science is clear that being a good person gives happiness. The problem is the hidden cost of “overdoing it”

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Since we were little, society has bombarded us with a very clear message: you have to be good people. It’s a moral imperative, yes, but over the past few decades science has attempted to answer a much more pragmatic question: does being kind to others have a real impact on our happiness? This is where A group of researchers wanted to give an answer. What we know. The answer to this question is ‘yes’ according to the latest articles that have been published on the matter. But we must keep in mind that taking kindness to the extreme, leaving our ‘skin’ for others without attending to our own needs, has a real impact that translates into burnout and also in a great emotional exhaustion. And surely, some people can see themselves very reflected in these concepts of literally being very ‘burned out’ for being very kind to others and attending to all the favors they ask of you without thinking about oneself. The positive part. The idea that “good people are happier” is not a simple phrase of Mr. Wonderfulbut it is a conclusion with solid empirical support, especially in the field of positive psychology. Here the researchers were able to see, for example, in a Japanese sample that happier people performed more daily acts of kindness. What’s more, they found that forcing people to simply “count” their own kind acts for a week measurably increased their happiness. There are more studies. Beyond this case, which is very classic, the bibliography leaves us with a great meta-analysis that reviewed decades of research to conclude that help, donate or support others is consistently associated with persistently higher well-being, even if modest in some cases. Something that was also demonstrated in the experimental works of Sonja Lyubomirskywhich made it clear that assigning a group of people the task of “performing acts of kindness” significantly increases their well-being compared to control groups. The negative part. If being good is so positive… Should we give ourselves to others without limit? The answer here is a resounding ‘no’. As has always been heard, the middle ground is where virtue lies, since reaching absolute altruism causes compassion fatigue and burnout. And it is no wonder, because altruism taken to the extreme, especially in highly demanding contexts, is dangerous. The studies on health professionals and caregivers clearly show that high exposure to the suffering of others, combined with a strong compassionate orientation but without clear limits, triggers the risk of psychological collapse and, therefore, serious problems such as anxiety. Its consequences. An empirical study on altruism that exists among co-workers revealed that, although constantly helping colleagues encourages cooperation, in the long term it is associated with great emotional exhaustion and depersonalization of the relationship. That is, the system collapses if aid becomes chronic and absorbs own resources. And the problem is that when people are very compassionate with the rest of the world, they are usually incapable of being very compassionate with themselves and have much greater wear and tear. Here empathy needs a protective shield that is nothing more nor less than a series of limits regarding interpersonal relationships. Although logically there are cases that are difficult to mark because we tend to be too kind. The society. To fully understand the picture of human goodness, one must do zoom out since it is not about what we do individually, but about the ecosystem where we are living. Here the World Happiness Report 2025 dedicate an entire chapter to analyze on a global level how kindness and happiness interact. And their conclusions are revealing, since they point out that the greatest predictor of individual happiness is not the frequency with which we do good acts, but the expectation that others will do good things too. In this case, the report gives a very illustrative example: the expectation that, if you lose your wallet, a stranger will return it to you. Here, believing in the goodness of others has a brutal impact on reducing inequality of happiness within a country, and as the SDSN network points out In their adaptation of the data for Spain, “believing in the goodness of others is much more related to happiness than previously thought.” Images | Brooke Cagle In Xataka | If the question is “where is the secret to happiness,” an expert believes it is hidden in these 15 statements

Getting married in Switzerland was equivalent to paying more taxes than a single person. And a referendum has put an end to the problem

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In Switzerland, marriages they are news. And not because of its rise or fall, demographic issues or new trends when celebrating them. They are for strictly tax reasons. In a historic decision the Swiss have supported majority (with 54% support) a reform that will basically put an end to what is called the “marriage penalty” in the country. In other words, saying ‘I do’ in Switzerland will no longer be (in most cases) a sentence to paying more when declaring income to the Treasury. The decision has come preceded by an intense debate, which gives a clue that the issue does not only have fiscal implications. The background is social, cultural and historical. What has happened? That after years of debate Switzerland has given the ‘green light’ to a key tax change for marriages. Couples in the country who formalize their relationship will stop paying taxes jointly, through a single tax return in which the sum of their income and assets is taken into account. From now on, each spouse will be taxed individually. Just as if he hadn’t gone through the altar. The measure has received the endorsement of 54% of voters during a referendum in which they have discussed more topicsbut it does not mean that it will be activated immediately. The idea is that it be adopted gradually, over the next five years. The cantons have margin until 2032. Is it so important? Yes. In fact in Switzerland (and other countries who have paid attention to the fiscal change) there is no talk of joint or individual taxation, but of something much more forceful: the end of the “marriage penalty”. Because? Because according to its promoters, the current Swiss tax regime punishes those marriages in which both spouses work and enjoy good salaries. In these cases, with the current system, couples are forced to bear greater burdens than they would face if they remained single. That is, the same couple can find themselves in one or another tax bracket (more or less beneficial) depending only on whether they have formalized their relationship. Why’s that? Basically because the Swiss system is a few decades old and is based on a traditional family model in which each household has a single base salary. If the family receives more income (a second payroll) they are usually taxed at a higher marginal rate. “The joint model came from a time when women’s income was considered a ‘complement’ to that of their husbands,” clarify Swiss Info. With the new system, that changes. Does it influence that much? What we have seen so far may sound abstract or too theoretical, but its scope is better understood with practical examples. In January Swiss Info carried out a simulation for different profiles of households with one or another tax system and found that the ‘photo’ changes quite a bit. The summary is very simple: new tax model It mainly benefits marriages in which both spouses earn the same or similar amounts and harms (forcing them to face a greater tax burden) those in which there is a greater imbalance of income between the members of the couple. A practical example. Let’s take the case of a couple in which both members earn the same: 100,000 francs. With the joint model that has been operating in Switzerland for years, its tax burden would be about 6,700 francs. With the new individual taxation system it would drop to 2,700. Things change in couples in which there is only one salary. In these cases (with the same level of income) individual taxation will mean an increase of 32% compared to joint taxation. What is the change looking for? Its promoters assure that the new model will solve a problem that has been dragging down the Swiss economy for some time: a tax system that discourages paid work for those people who provide a second income to their homes. When changing the legal framework, remember Financial Timesthe Swiss government hopes to increase the nation’s workforce by about 60,000 people and increase the national GDP by about 1%. Advocates of the change hope it will help women gain strength in the Swiss labor market. It is estimated that only 60% of Swiss women work full time, a percentage lower than the OECD average, which is around 78%. The “marriage penalty” has also led to some curious practicessuch as couples who marry without legally registering their union or even marriages that they divorce before retiring for tax reasons. Are they all advantages? Not at all. At least that is what the sectors most critical of the measure maintain, warning of several negative effects. The main one, that the new system will result in more bureaucracyincreasing the workload (and costs) of the administration. There are cantons that also fear that the change of model will affect their coffers, punishing them with a loss of income. Beyond the practical issues there is another ideological one: part of the critical sector warns that individual supervision will generate inequalities that will harm traditional families above all. According to the Government, the new framework will more or less half of the taxpayers see their tax burden reduced. 36% would not notice changes and only the remaining 14% will have to pay more taxes. Images | Leonardo Miranda (Unsplash), Ronnie Schmutz (Unsplash) and Leo_Visions (Unsplash) In Xataka | 40,000 euros to say “yes, I want”: weddings in Spain have become events and their price is skyrocketing

Tesla’s enormous problem in Germany has an alarming figure and a clear person responsible: Elon Musk

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Three out of four potential buyers of an electric car reject the idea of ​​buying a Tesla. The study points to the German market, which is the first electric car market in Europe by sales volume, and explains an important part of Tesla’s failure in Europe during 2025. Three out of four. 75% of potential buyers of an electric car in Germany do not value the idea of ​​buying a Tesla car, according to a study by the German Institute of Economics in collaboration with the Technical University of Dresden. The figure, which in itself is bad, has even more meaning. And that 75% is made up of potential customers who believe it is unlikely to buy a Tesla (15%) and those who completely reject buying a vehicle from this brand (60%). The reason, as we could imagine, is not a question of competition or price. The disaster. Last year, 545,142 electric cars were sold in Germany. It was, by far, the strongest electric car market in Europe. The growth was 43.2% compared to 2024, the year in which just over 380,000 electric cars were sold. Its market share reached 19.1%, above the European average, according to ACEA. For Tesla, however, it was not a great year. In Europe, 150,504 electric vehicles from Elon Musk’s company were sold, 37.9% less than the previous year when 242,436 registrations were registered. The most problematic thing is that the company had achieved a market share of 2.3% (a good bite to eat on the electric car pie, which in 2024 was only 13.6% in the European Union. That is, almost two out of every 10 electric cars sold in Europe were from Tesla. The drop was even more pronounced in Germany. There, the drop was 48.4%, as recorded Reuters at the beginning of the year. And, with everything, It has not been its strongest percentage drop in European countries but the damage in volume is more than evident. The politics. The decision by which the Germans seem to completely reject Tesla is evident to the creators of the study: Elon Musk’s political positioning. According to the authors, political positioning influences the purchase of a car more than sociodemographic characteristics. They point out that young people, those with a higher level of education and those who live in urban areas are more inclined to purchase an electric car. In political terms, Green supporters are the most open to acquiring this technology and AfD (German far-right) voters are the least enthusiastic. On average, they say, the potential customer for an electric car has grown by over 40% and those who reject it outright have also fallen. But the problem for Tesla is that it is not attractive to either group. Among the Greens, only 10.8% value the purchase of a Tesla as their first option and the percentage grows among AfD followers to 15.2% but it must be taken into account that these voters are also less in favor of buying a car of this type. Just lose. The study concludes with a statement: Elon Musk has lost support for buying cars among progressive groups (those who buy the most electric cars or are willing to buy) and has not attracted enough conservative groups to alleviate this disadvantage. The result is a direct consequence of a year 2025 that began with Elon Musk doing a Nazi salute during Donald Trump’s takeover of the United States and which continued with a explicit support of the company’s head for AfD and other far-right parties in Europe. It must be taken into account that this type of political positioning in Germany is much more delicate than in other countries. In Germany the Nazi salute is a crime punished with a fine in minor cases but which can be grounds for imprisonment in more serious cases. Study on preferences when buying an electric car in Germany segmented by political parties. Source: German Institute of Economics The worst option almost always. The image above shows the predisposition of Germans to the type of electric car they want to buy, segmented by their origin and the political parties that these potential customers vote for. According to this data, Tesla is the last option in four of the six political parties studied, even behind Chinese cars as the first option. The latter always surpass him except among CDU and SPD voters (although in both cases a greater percentage considers it possible to buy a Chinese car over a Tesla if we add the second level of predisposition). Tesla reaps the worst results among the Greens and Linke (The Left) and the absolute rejection is greater among the supporters of the latter political party. Chinese cars are, in all cases, the second option chosen when considering those who are willing to buy an electric car and those who value it as a possible purchase. The Germans are the ones who obtain the most support and the first option in all cases, with the greatest support among Green voters and with the AfD as the party with the greatest reluctance to buy it. Photo | Elon Musk in X and German Institute of Economics In Xataka | Tesla is discovering in real time that the most difficult thing was not to build a car brand from scratch: it was to maintain it

The fascinating search for the oldest person ever photographed

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Have you ever wondered who the oldest person ever photographed was? We don’t talk about the first photograph in history that the human being was capable of doing, which is also a very interesting topic, but the one in which the person born appears before any other who has ever been immortalized in a photo. It is not an easy task to give a clear and emphatic answer, since it is difficult to trace people born at the end of the 18th century, but there is a certain consensus around some names. Who knows, maybe in a few years we will discover a new photograph that will surprise us again as the ones we have in our hands have done. Be that as it may, the topic is as exciting as it seems. Conrad Heyer and John Adams According to the information offered by the Maine Historical Societythe oldest person ever photographed was Conrad Heyer. He was a veteran of the American War of Independence whose date of birth dates back to 1749. The following photo of Heyer is estimated to have been taken in 1852, four years before his death. Yes, here he was 103 years old. And yes, it is amazing to be able to see a photograph of someone born in the mid-18th century. The photo is simply impressive, both in terms of composition and because of Heyer’s firm and almost defiant gaze. It was made using the daguerreotypea photographic procedure that was made publicly known in Paris in 1839 and was subsequently used for years throughout the planet. Also in Spain, of course, where daguerreotypes were made from 1839 to 1860. But back to the topic at hand, was Conrad Heyer the oldest person ever photographed? This is what appears in the data offered by the Maine Historical Society, as we have seen, but on the other hand the Susquehanna County Historical Society has a copy of a photograph of a certain John Adams. A shoemaker by profession, he was born in Worcester a few years before Heyer, specifically on January 22, 1745: Conrad Heyer, born in the 18th century, very happy to pose for posterity, as can be seen. John Adams, also very excited. Once again it is a daguerreotype, although in this case it is not known for sure what year the photo was taken (the original has not been found). With the data we have, what we do know is that it had to be taken sometime between 1839 and 1849, the year in which Adams died at 104 years. Heyer and Adams enjoyed lives of more than a century. And from what we see in the photos, it can be said that they were not in bad condition at all. There are at least a couple of other people who could dispute Heyer and Adams for the honor of having been the oldest person ever photographed, although the documentation is somewhat confusing and they are not as clear-cut cases as the previous ones. The first of them is Baltus Stoneanother Revolutionary War veteran like Heyer. His date of birth could have been 1744 according to the manuscript that accompanied a daguerreotype from 1846, but in other documents It is implied that he could have been born in 1743, 1747 or 1754. Too much dancing around dates. On the other hand, the New York Historical Society He has in his possession a daguerreotype taken in 1851 of a slave named Caesar which, judging by the information that appears on the back of the frame, born in 1737 in Bethlehem (New York), and died in 1852. If this were true, not only would we have a clear winner, but Caesar would be 114 years old in the photo. Yes, looking at the image it is a little difficult to accept these data as good: Baltus Stone himself. The New York Historical Society itself confirmed to Benjamin S. Beck in a private conversation that Caesar’s date of birth could not be fully confirmed. The only public record that may shed some light on this is an August 7, 1850 entry in the Bethlehem population census listing a 110-year-old Cesar Nicholls (he was born as a slave to a Van Rensselaer Nicoll). Veterans of the Napoleonic Wars arrive In addition to the daguerreotypes of John Adams and Conrad Heyer, who could well be the two oldest people ever photographed, we cannot forget the collection of photos about veterans of the Napoleonic Wars property of Anne Seddon Kinsolving Brown. Although it is not known for sure how Ms. Brown obtained these photographs, their story is fascinating. After Napoleon’s death in 1821, veterans of the Grande Armée and the Guard who survived the Napoleonic Wars marched in uniform every May 5 to the Place Vendôme in Paris to pay their respects to the fallen emperor. The photographs in Mrs. Brown’s collection were taken around the year 1858, as the veterans shown in them were wearing the St. Helena medal awarded to them all in August 1857. They are the only remaining photos of these soldiers wearing their original uniforms and insignia. All of these veterans were around 70 or 80 years old at the time they were photographed. That is, all of them were born at the end of the 18th century and, therefore, they are part of the group of people born before 1800 who were photographed. Images | Brown University Library In Xataka | What happened to Technicolor: evolution and death of the company that changed cinema and was overwhelmed by its ambition In Xataka | The first photographic meme in history was extremely macabre: posing as decapitated corpses

single person tables

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Eating alone outside the home has its own particular casuistry and I know this because I have had to travel without companions many times, enough to develop a filter of places that do and others that don’t. Among those running for office, there is no shortage of leaning on one side of a tavern bar to have a quick pintxo at a small table at Starbucks, passing by a more or less discreet table at McDonalds for a quick refueling. I want to eat my burger alone. About looking for a small table or one little corner It has its logic: eating has its intimate and shameful part reinforced by the feeling of “not wanting to bother” because well, although in theory any restaurant is suitable for a person to eat, in practice they may not be interested in having a table of two or four wasted with only one diner. On the other hand, you can also enjoy your food at your leisure. In the McDonalds of China those individual positions are already They are among the most valued. The provision itself is not new (and not necessarily It has to feel like a punishment.) nor does it have to go hand in hand with those seats shaped like a bike seat nor of reduce them to a minimum to save space, but rather high tables with a screen that gives a feeling of false intimacy for solitary diners. The phenomenon has been widely reported on social networks such as Xiaohongshu or Weibo, the counterparts of Instagram and Twitter: Shanghai news outlet Kankan News collect some of the best in one video. The McDonalds screens. Kankan news What false intimacy hides. In short: these screens make it very easy for you to avoid having to act Swedish to avoid the uncomfortable situation of meeting an acquaintance and having to greet them until you meet them. You sit there discreetly and eat without interaction. The Shanghai media reports testimonies from psychology professionals that explain the phenomenon: social interaction is risky for them compared to chats, where you can edit or delete what you say; and as a refuge after the inevitable social exposure after work, where they have the obligation to be friendly and smile due to social imposition. To the youth Chinese society ignores social interaction. China Youth Daily interviewed to 2,000 people between 18 and 35 years old and the result was overwhelming: 64% feel lost when they meet people offline. The percentage is even higher in this 2023 survey conducted on 1,438 Chinese people born between the decades from 1980 to the 2000s: more than 80% reported feeling anxious in social interactions. Time Magazine has put it into perspective because the phenomenon is much more than eating alone: ​​Chinese society has gone from traditionally living with family nearby (even sharing a roof) to the younger generations embarking on their lives alone after leaving their homes in rural areas to work in big cities. The maximum and most tragic expression is the success in downloads of the app “Are you dead?”. The McDonalds screens, part two. Kankan news The economics of social phobia is here. China has seen a dramatic shift in the number of people living alone, with more than 100 million single-person households, according to annual report from the National Bureau of Statistics of China 2024. In 2030, they estimate that the figure will rise to 150 – 200 million. And the economy is adapting to this paradigm shift: according to research firm iResearchthe economy of social anxiety in China already moves approximately 172 billion dollars in initiatives such as carts with “Do not disturb” signs so that product promoters in Freshippo supermarkets (owned by Alibaba), gyms and 24-hour stores without staff where everything is managed with QR codes without crossing a word with anyone, do not approach. In Xataka | The future of delivery lies in group orders with your neighbors: China is already experiencing it In Xataka | China is filling up with “quadricycles” that do not require a driving license. And they are a problem for road safety Cover | Bruna Santos

In 2025, the salary of 6,800 Valencian civil servants depends on an Access form. Only one person knows how it works

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According to has revealed According to the Audit of personnel expenses of the Generalitat Administration prepared by the Sindicatura de Comptes, the Valencian Community is experiencing a situation that is torn between the surreal and the negligence: two computer systems on which the payrolls of almost 6,800 civil servants and public employees depend cannot exchange data. The only way to achieve this is through an application made in Microsoft Access by a single person who would also be the only one who knows how to maintain and update it. SIGNO and GESPERJU2 do not speak to each other. He SIGN program (Integrated Payroll Management System and Others) is the internal computer system of the Generalitat Valenciana used for the management, calculation and payment of payrolls of civil servants and labor personnel of the Valencian Administration, including education, health and other services, allowing procedures such as direct debits and registrations or cancellations of employees. On the other hand, the GESPERJU2 program is a platform that manages the labor files of the personnel at the service of the Justice Administration of the Valencian Community, in processes such as the management of payrolls, permits and other administrative and human resources situations of its staff of judges, magistrates and Justice officials. What is expected is that the platform that manages payroll and the one that manages whether employees are on leaveon vacation or have requested a leave of absence were connected. To the surprise of the auditors of the Sindicatura de Comptes, these two platforms cannot exchange data. An “improvised” connection. As and stood out The Economistthat the officials of the Department of Justice of the Valencian Community receive their payroll on time and without errors depends only on a “patch” in the form of an application created with Microsoft Access. That’s not the auditors’ most surprising discovery, however. The person who created this application is the only one capable of updating the salary tables and other parameters necessary so that the officials’ payrolls are processed without problems. According to the Syndicate reportthis disconnection between platforms has left the Administration in a situation of “absolute dependence on a person”, in addition to “posing a high risk of continuity of operation if this person could not use this parallel application.” We imagine that at this moment, that person will be the best protected official in the Valencian Administration. Two platforms and end up doing it by hand. Another derivative is added to this unprecedented fact. The Access application has its limitations, so some payroll incidents must be done by hand by an official, so that they are reflected correctly. As the audit report noted, “the calculation of certain payroll incidents is carried out manually (arrears, three-year terms previously consolidated in General Administration positions, salary supplements for vertical replacements or guards), which increases the possibility of errors.” As described in the report, the integration problem would not be limited to Justice. Also mentioned is the risk that, due to a lack of communication between platforms, the same person who has had their position changed or promoted, could “collect two salaries simultaneously” (in the old position and in the new one) without being detected. TALIA: the great promise. TALIA is the new personnel management application that is proposed to replace the current ones and whose first phase has already would be tendered and awarded. The promise of TALIA is that personnel information and payrolls of Administration personnel will no longer live on separate and unconnected islands. However, its deployment is planned for years to come (if deadlines are met), and the precedent of delays and cost overruns in implementations like the one suffered with NEFIS in 2019. Until then, someone in the Valencian Administration will ensure that paid for the Office license. In Xataka | Companies bet everything on returning to the office. The public administration has an ace up its sleeve: teleworking Image | Unsplash (Rafael Oliveira)

You feel like going to Sri Lanka because you saw it on Instagram. The problem is that the person who recommended it to you was an AI

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The image is familiar. A young woman smiles from a beach with turquoise waters. In the following publication, he appears walking along a cobblestone street in Marrakech. Below, he poses at a luxury hotel in the Maldives. The skin is perfect, the body responds to the prevailing canons and the text accompanies with inspirational phrases about traveling, discovering cultures and “living in the moment.” Nothing seems out of place. Until you discover the reality. That traveler has not flown, she has not walked those streets or tried the food she recommends. It doesn’t exist. She is an influencer generated by artificial intelligence and is part of a phenomenon that is growing quietly: the normalization of artificial profiles that influence the real decisions of millions of people. A silent, but massive boom. In the last two years, Instagram and other social networks have been filled with virtual influencers: characters created with generative AI who pretend to be real people and publish travel content, lifestyle or fashion, the best known case in Spain is Aitana Lopez. Some indicate it more or less clearly in their biography; others do so ambiguously or almost invisibly. However, what is interesting here is how the examples multiply in the tourism sector. Sena Z has been presented as “the first travel and hospitality influencer created with AI”, It’s a collaboration between the luxury group Cenizaro Hotels & Resorts and the technology firm Bracai. Sena publishes cultural recommendations, messages about sustainability and photographs from exotic destinations. Another notable case is Emma, ​​the official influencer and chatbot of the German National Tourism Office. Emma not only publish content on Instagrambut answers questions in more than 20 languages ​​from the official website of the organization. As explained from the entity to the Washington Postits creation is part of a strategy to “stay at the forefront of digital innovation.” Other profiles are added to these profiles, such as Radhika, Emily Pellegrinior corporate avatars like Samathe Qatar Airways virtual stewardess who appears both on the airline’s website and on social networks, publishing as if she were living real experiences. These are not isolated experiments. As detailed by The New York Timesairlines, tourist offices and brands are increasingly turning to these avatars because they are cheaper, faster and completely controllable. An AI influencer does not get sick, does not get tired, does not age and does not generate personal controversies. Inexperienced influencers. The question is inevitable: what happens when the experience is not real? Just look through these profiles to see it: they recommend destinations, restaurants and cultures that they have not experienced. Even so, they generate engagementaccumulate thousands of likes and comments, and influence travel decisions. From the brands’ point of view, the appeal is evident. According to data collected by the New York mediacreating an advanced avatar can cost between $5,000 and $15,000, compared to traditional campaigns that easily exceed six figures. In addition, content can be produced without travel, without filming equipment and without negotiating with human talent. However, for real creators, the impact is already being felt. Human influencers cited by the same medium explain that brands are reducing payments, eliminating extras and offering less advantageous collaborations. AI thus becomes a new direct competition within the creative economy, a sector valued at more than 200 billion dollars globally. Is someone regulating it? While Technology advances quickly, regulation tries to catch up. Going home, in Europe, the clearest answer comes through the Artificial Intelligence Regulations (AI Act). Article 50, which will come into force in August 2026establishes transparency obligations for providers and users of AI systems. Among them: Report when a person interacts with an AI system. Mark content generated or manipulated by AI (text, image, audio or video) in detectable format. Force deepfakes and AI-generated texts that report on matters of public interest to be declared, unless there is human editorial review. The European Commission has already started the preparation of a Code of Good Practices for the marking and labeling of content generated by AI, with the participation of experts, platforms and civil society. The goal is to facilitate compliance before the law is fully applicable. However, many virtual profiles do not clearly indicate either their artificial nature or their commercial links, leaving the user in a field of ambiguity. Unreal bodies, algorithmic authority. Beyond destination promotion, most AI influencers share common traits: eternal youth, slim bodies, perfect skin and a total absence of imperfections. This phenomenon coincides with the return of Y2K aesthetics and extreme thinness on social networks, a trend that has been linked to a decline in body diversity. The most notable case was due to advertising campaigns with models generated by AI, like Guess in Vogue. Mental health experts warned that constant exposure to unreal bodies can aggravate self-esteem problems and increase risk of eating disorders. The difference, they point out, is key: while traditional retouching started from a real body, AI creates bodies that have never existedimpossible to achieve even in theory. This logic has been taken to the extreme with phenomena such as the Miss IA pageantwhere artificially generated models compete showing bodies without pores, without age and without history. According to plastic surgeonsmore and more patients come to consultation with images created by AI asking for impossible interventions and pointing out the risk of frustration, obsession and psychological damage. The underlying problem: we no longer know what is real. All of this occurs in a broader context: a crisis of visual confidence. As my colleague in Xataka has analyzedthe massive generation of hyperrealistic images has broken a chain that for centuries seemed solid: if something was seen, it had probably existed. Today, that presumption has disappeared. Seeing is no longer equivalent to knowing. In this new scenario, we not only doubt whether an influencer has really traveled, but also whether the image itself corresponds to something that happened. The consequence is a permanent suspicion that affects memory, attention and the way we relate to digital reality. The technical solution—seals, metadata, … Read more

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