FriendOfDeSoto

I question your sense of smell.

I don't think there is any example of an autocracy in the last 125 years where the media completely resisted the establishment of the regime. The reasons there can be twofold. Media needs to make money. Not aligning your business with the strongman (or woman) spells out economic decline so blind eyes are turned until blind eyes prevail. The other reason is that most autocratic regimes don't come fully formed on the day of the coup etc. There is a period of incremental changes that can silence critics or get them to censor themselves while gaining support with the less critical part of the media (and alternatively jailing people who say something bad). Like the frog in the pot the media is stuck in the hot water. Or it jumps out into a show trial or other instrument of repression.

I would say in the days before newspapers, a power base had to be established to take over from a royal. Those were the people with power, the aristocracy. You didn't need all of them but a substantial portion. It's only since we've pulled the silver spoons out of dukes and barons, the power base has shifted to include people who didn't just inherit a title and most of the shire. That, I would say naturally, includes selfmade industrialists as well as selfmade media moguls. They have become a necessity today when it was much less important before (or much easier to control the narrative with fewer resources). Additionally, as any revolutionary will tell you these days, you have to of course capture the broadcasters with military might if you can. But even that will seem quaint soon when all you'll need is an online media presence that you can control 100%. Trump shows us that way.

Tl;DR? It used to be possible. But we are in a transition period from a time when having the media on your side was a necessity to where you can easily create your own media to drown out the establishment voices and that might do the trick.

You probably don't. Those tummy acids are strong. I would wipe the surface with soap. Maybe submerge them in water if you can immediately place them in direct sunlight afterwards to dry them out again. Wipe surface again and hope for the best. I would water an un-vomited-upon Birk along with the offender, maybe not in the same sink water, to wear them out equally.

You're trying to apply conventional logic to the orange one. That doesn't work. Stop doing that. It's all about his frail ego, flooding the zone with bs, denying everything and never giving in, and blaming everybody else for stuff he's done.

And just to give the poor, battered, beleaguered, ever-so-stable leader a break, there are sea lanes and flight routes available to the cartels as well. They didn't have to go through the US (but probably did).

Yes. Europeans have been enjoying a bed that was made for them in this area as part of a security package that came into existence after WW2. They didn't have to invest in intelligence as much because they had it delivered to their doors. If that delivery system stops, they will have to replace it. They can do that.

I wouldn't be surprised if at EU level (+UK) we will see a lot of unified defense initiatives that mention in a subordinated clause that intelligence coordinating and sharing will be part of that as well.

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.

Was it all building to this?

Just for some German context: the Nazi salute is not covered by any freedom of expression or opinion in a political context. What Elon did on stage would have landed him in a German court. Similar restrictions apply to displaying certain symbols, e.g. the swastika. German cops are legally required to intervene when they see them in public.

I don't know the video in question, I don't know if the cops overreacted - a reaction was required though.

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.

We are monkeys that with the benefit of lots of time have developed opposable thumbs, tools, and language. We used language to describe abstract concepts in words. One of those words is "legacy." Some people are driven to build one. Some are just altruistic. The urge to create offspring is also common and with it the hope your brats will fare well. There are your reasons why some people build for a tomorrow that never pays them back.

Consider also that somebody has built the road that leads to your house, the city you're in, the hospital you go to when you're sick. Civilization is a chain of paying stuff forward for those who come after you.

https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/04/stolen-android-phone-returned-iphone/

https://9to5mac.com/2023/12/04/stolen-android-phone-returned-iphone/

I did not make this up. But it was more than a year ago.