The intentions are good.

As if, state surveillance is not a good intention. If it was really about protecting minors, there are many more useful and less invasive measures that haven’t been taken yet. And why only minors, anyway? Most social media platforms are harmful and predatory for adults, too.

I’d say most people who use a desktop PC in the first place also use it for content consumption, probably even primarily. Definitely an “and” situation, not an “either/or” one.

Smartphones make productive or creative activities difficult and brainrot activities very easy.

Isn’t this typically said by gangster rappers, anyway? Lots of them have fake personas, and if it’s real their hustle is often crime - not exactly something to aspire to, and there’s already tons of discussion about the questionable messages of gangsters rap.

But also, I’d definitely be more motivated to work my ass off if I was living my dream, like most music artists are doing - not necessarily for money, but for being able to continue to live my dream, and make the most of however much time I have as a professional artist.

Prevailing message in media … well … most of the music I listen to doesn’t have vocals … I do consume a lot of fantasy content (books, games, TV shows/movies), where “get rich or die trying” is definitely a thing, though a lot of it also has more lofty motivations such as saving the world (which at least in games usually needs material wealth to accomplish), or the protagonist is just fighting for their life.

This is not on the German youth, though, it’s on the German elites. They need to provide an acceptable social contract if they want the youth to be fine with military conscription. Instead they’re currently doing everything in their power to bleed the masses dry.

Yes, my vermouth is being stored in the fridge the entire time between unsealing and drinking.

Dry vermouth is a bit of a meme in cocktail enthusiast circles. The mainstream opinion is that it needs to be as fresh as possible to make a good cocktail, and it definitely loses a lot of flavor in the first weeks after unsealing. But to me, that full punch of wormwood herb is a bit much, I much prefer the more muted flavor of fridge-aged (oxidized) vermouth. I think part of that “as fresh as possible” stance is that people used to store unsealed vermouth outside of the fridge, often for years at a time because people were drinking their Martinis with only a few drops of vermouth. And even with freshly unsealed vermouth, most cocktail enthusiasts still tend to prefer low amounts of vermouth in their Martini, which to me suggests that they don’t actually like fresh vermouth that much.

Alternatively I could just try a few more different vermouth brands until I find one that I like from the start, but Dolin dry is delightfully cheap and Noilly Prat is the only dry vermouth that you can actually buy in physical stores where I live.

Diminishing returns applies pretty universally, it’s just a matter of finding the point that’s good enough.

Professional wine tasting seems like a scam anyway. Somehow, professional wine tasters are unable to tell red from white wine in blind tastings that hide the visual information.

• afternoon cappuccino is great (Italians disagree)
• sweet-and-savory is tasty af (pineapple pizza, cream cheese with chocolate/nougat, steak with ketchup)
• sweet alcoholic drinks are great, actually (but they should still have taste - use high quality ingredients and keep the ratios sensible!)
• 2 months-old dry vermouth (fridge-stored) tastes better than freshly unsealed dry vermouth

But sometimes it works, or throws a different error …

Ex-Ardour-user here, Ardour is good for recording/mixing and OK for Sampling-/MIDI-based workflows (powerful but clunky), but for the latter Bitwig is SO much better.

I really gotta look into Airwindows more, I’ve been put off because their plugins don’t include a GUI but the quality seems to be there. Back when I used Ardour, I really enjoyed Calf plugins (which have very nice GUIs), but they have been abandoned for years.

I can kinda see that for when he was younger, but even back in 2016 he was mostly an old fart with incoherent rambles and fugly face makeup. Also, I think this face with the pursed lips he often makes wasn’t really a thing in his younger years, or it’s just way more blatant and offputting with his old man face.

It still mystifies me that people consider Trump charismatic …

Toxic masculinity, heteronormativity etc.

So what type of people are you talking about?

Are people who explicitly use “Don’t tread on me” as a slogan not usually rightwingers?

These people have sufficiently demonstrated that they actually love being tred on, IMO.

IIRC South Korea’s military wasn’t really on board with it in 2024, either. I have very little trust in the USA’s current troops when it comes to that …

LOL

Germany, pretty common among gen x generation and older (my family isn’t really that wealthy, either; the gen x people all got their home through inheritance), probably about 1 in 10 among younger generations. I doubt that I’ll inherit much, either my parents or grandparents are probably going to sell their houses and spend it all on geriartric care.