I think fucking up society is just an often unregulated byproduct of trying to amass more power and wealth.

I would say the powerfulness of the narrative remains strong. The big corporations find ways to the cheapest way of doing business like most rivers find the sea. It doesn't have to be switching from a developed country with socialist tax code going to a developing country where labor is cheap. You can see it in the microcosm of the EU. The Republic of Ireland has favorable taxes and a less harsh data security watchdog so big tech companies headquarter there. Amazon sits in Luxembourg for similar reasons. Wages are cheaper in the East so manufacturing jobs tend to move there (or, sadly, the workforce moves west and gets paid cents on the Euro working in Central and Western Europe). If a government increases labor costs by demanding more benefits for workers, you reach a tipping point where companies pack up and move. Not all at once but after a while the creek becomes a river. That's the spectre haunting Europe these days. It's not just about a billionaire wealth tax, it's also about the levies in employment, etc. They all need to be similar in the tax codes for the equal playing field the EU apparatus idealizes. When they're not you move the mountain range out of the way for the river to find the sea more directly.

Trump's terrific tariffs are supposed to create a pull effect, making the US attractive to manufacturing jobs. I think he will fail because be will drive up the cost of living so much that market demand will not rise along with his expectations, making investing in factories in the US ultimately not enticing enough. Never mind the fact that corporations fear uncertainty more than the Beelzebub.

Inflammable

You could make an argument that its usefulness has decreased the way it is set up right now. Reform seems unlikely as some of the big guys would have to give up on their vetoes. The fact that France and Britain continue to sit permanently in the Security Council yet no one permanently from Africa or South America says everything.

So it's not impossible that some countries will leave frustrated but I think this will be a rare occurrence. Most sober heads will still value diplomatic channels even if they are imperfect.

These international organizations kind of need a world war to reform themselves. WW2 was sort of the end of the League of Nations and the UN took its place. So what we need now is WW3 to get the UN to adapt better to our world today. That sounds great, doesn't it.

Remind me never to cross you.

If you're on Android, by any chance, have you gone through all the battery optimization, background process killing, and startup settings? Some OEM's versions of Android are real bad in that way. Giving the app the right settings and permissions may decrease the number of delayed notifications like that.

I don't remember if I bought it on Google Play so I don't know if you would need to. You can though test drive it guaranteed for free if you sideload the F-Droid app store and get it from there.

I stopped using it about two years ago because it felt it took forever loading feeds and switched to Tusky, which has less functionality (e.g. no post scheduling) but loads faster, I think, and works well for my limited needs. Fedilab's menus never put me off. But I never went back.

So that's a review that needs a pinch of salt or two.

The most famous fountain for coin tossing/wish making is Trevi in Rome (and I wouldn't be surprised if the whole concept came from there). You are legally forbidden from taking money back out of it there. The moment the coin sinks into the water, it belongs to the municipality, so taking it back out constitutes theft. The municipality is allowed (and indeed forced) to clear the coins from the fountain (otherwise there would be no water left after a while) and AFAIK they donate the cash for a good cause.

I don't think you can codify it more than "they do it by gut." I think it's pretty rare that a song goes unaltered from the spark in somebody's head to mastered recording without many changes. It's a collaborative effort that involves the producers and friends as well.

I think the more somebody is knowledgeable in musical theory, can read and write notes, and maybe even has perfect pitch, the more fully formed an idea will be when it gets to the early stages of recording. But musicians are not all Mozarts.

I dabbled in making electronic music for a while as a hobby. There was only me, I don't remember anything from musical theory class in school, can barely read notation - in short: I'm not even mediocre. But even I felt occasionally that I needed to speed a track up or down. It's a gut feeling.

I know from a drummer friend of mine that performing live is hard. You're either very good at keeping time, like, you have an unshakable metronome in your head, or the tempo naturally speeds up. That's why during production a lot of musicians get the metronome via a click track in their ears to make sure they don't deviate too far from what BPM they wanted to hit. During live concerts I think a lot of drummers, as the metronomes of the band, get a click track in their ears as well. And there may be concerts where a song is sped up compared to the recording on purpose, but is still played with a click track because it sounds better live when it's faster, maybe because it's missing a lot of stuff from the production that filled gaps at the lower speed. So you can say everything has a tendency to speed up live but sometimes tracks that are performed faster are an artistic choice.

Names in particular are under no obligation to follow established or common spelling or pronunciation patterns. A simple search on the engine of your choosing would've told ya that's the way it is pronounced. It is, of course, unusual. But they're doing it as close to right as they can for Ralph.

True. But the social democrats are the only feasible way to a majority for Merz right now without the help of Nazis. There is at least potential strength in that. Plus the SPD know about their past. They'll have to find a way to strengthen their party's position in government somehow. They may surprise us with the spontaneous growth of a backbone in this area, under new leadership. All I'm saying is the die is not cast yet.

I think the simplest answer is that we humans can hold two contradictory opinions at the same time. There are people who can support free speech and then censor books willy nilly. There are people who believe strongly in a religion but brazenly violate its rules of conduct on the regular. There are people who know homophobia is wrong but still are homophobic. And if this man has the hots for you at the same time this may be his way of squaring that circle.

I don't know you. I don't know him. Insert heaps of salt here. This doesn't sound like a good friendship to pursue.