It’s so jarring to me to hear a sentence structured like that, and I can put my finger on why. It sounds like it was written by Charlie Kelly.

Businesses in general bend over backwards to create an environment in which I will be comfortable. Music, decor, etc. I’m in the prime money-spending age bracket. It’s very comfortable to be prioritized. I think the vast majority just a accept it as the natural order of things to have the world revolving around your taste. The boomers got and extended run based on thier outsized share of wealth, but it’s over now.

I don’t think gen x even ever got that moment in history, which is so funny and sad at the same time… such a predictable curse…

I don’t think many people really get that it’s just a statistical thing. Nobody gives a shit about ME. I’m not special. I’m just currently in that demographic.

Assuming time is linear, this will change. Younger people will be in my position, and the environments will mould and shape to thier sensibilities, and I’ll be left in the dust.

I think if people are unaware of that reality… it’s probably really jarring to be pushed aside, even in really small ways. I expect it all adds up.

If it makes you feel any better, I always hear and appreciate the little countermelodies coming from the Euphs

Oh, don’t worry about that. The inflated egos are distributed across all the musicians too. It takes a special kind of personality to achieve that level of singular proficiency.

I think it’s one other reason to HAVE a conductor, is to have an ultimate authority on some matters where musicians egos get involved.

In many (most?) compositions, there are going to be some banger little licks in many different sections. It honestly kinda sucks sometimes when you’ve got one… but you gotta hold it back because it’s still just a supporting component. To you, as the musician… you might fall in love with it, wanna push it, take the opportunity to shine and generate some goosebumps. And, obviously, since you’re God’s gift to the world, you SHOULD. The composer was WRONG to hit you with a mp. Maybe the composer’s French Horns couldn’t lead with it, but they never envisioned your talent.

The trumpets shoot you a look to calm down? Fuck 'em. They always get the spotlight.

Having a structure with an ego to rule all egos helps (does NOT eliminate) these kinds of things.

At the highest levels of proficiency, knowing “when to play” doesn’t rreeaallyy require a conductor.

An orchestra of professionals mutates into this crazy combined organism. A hive mind, with thousands of signals being generated and consumed among the members. Negotiations all over the place.

The conductor stands in the front not just because it’s convenient, but because they’re in the best relative position to understand what the audience will ultimately hear. If I’m in percussion, positionally I’m getting a skewed take on the relative dynamics of the piccolos. As a professional, they’d have a good “gut feel”, but thier ears are simply not in the right spot to know for sure. The conductors are.

The acoustics of a performance space are drastically different when the seats are full of meat, too.

The conductor is acting as the source of truth and feedback for that hive mind, from a physical position which gives them the best understanding of the complete sound being produced. While professionals CAN do a very passable job of distributing that work, it’s an additional burden and with an imperfect set of inputs. Having one person set the tone and act as that authority frees up capacity on the individuals to do thier best work.

You don’t see the trend? You mean you haven’t seen the aggregate survey data showing the trend? Or are you saying in your personal encounters, you haven’t observed any change?

Alternative perspective, for what it’s worth:

50/50 is actually comparatively huge. Considering everything else has been 90/10.

The first departure from your god-king is always the hardest. I expect for many, this is the first break, and will make any subsequent break mentally easier.

Also keep in mind that people who identify/lean Republican has taken a little more than a 10% haircut since January 2025. Any “republicans say” is an increasingly smaller subset of the total voting population… getting more concentratedly nuts as they boil off the more rational ones. Even with this more concentrated version of Republicans, it’s STILL not popular.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not GREAT… but there is a trend line. It’s not moving as fast as it should, but it IS moving.

That’s an interesting take. I’ll guess we’ll see.

I’m curious as to what circumstances could unfold in which Canada would be asking to join the USA in the next 100 years, let alone in “a few” years.

I see it supports many cameras, but you need to pull them apart and use a serial hookup to flash the firmware… but for the wyze cams and a few others you can flash them directly with an SD card.

I liked how cheap the wyze cams were but desperately wanted to get them offline. This was my silver bullet.

For non cloud cams, someone posted here a while back about thingno firmware, takes cheap cams off the cloud. Works great on a wyze cam and was a gamechanger for me. Sttrroonngglllyyy recommend

Honestly I think the guy is just RPing Elon Musk. He dives in with an aloof quip, says everyone else is stupid, alludes to knowing something that “should be obvious”, and then ducks out without elaborating further.

The pattern is so incredibly consistent, im not convinced these aren’t LLM responses.

So if someone said “it should be replaced with straight immigration and citizenship” …?

All immigration is human trafficking?

I also appreciate yours. I think a fair number of opponents to h1B are just purely rooted in racism/xenophobia.

This is a case where I wanna hear “what do we replace it with?” From someone before I decide if we’re on the same page or not.

I’m not suggesting it’s beneficial to remove these people.

I’m suggesting that they be paid the market value for thier talents and that their presence benefit that nation, not a specific company.

H1B should be replaced by visas with no ties to a company. That’s it.

When you argue about global markets, i see that as completely unrelated. There is a mechanism for that already and it’s called offshoreing. You wanna move a factory or tech work to an area with a lower cost of living and can pay them less? Go nuts. You want people on shore? Allow them unfettered access to market their skills at the market price of the labour.

Again, I’m not against people who are here (there, the USA), and I empathize with rural Healthcare. As a rural Canadian all of my doctors have been originally from South Africa for as long as I’ve been alive.

This genuinely isn’t an anti-immigrant stance. My wife is an immigrant.

Bring people to your nation and invite them to join your society. The whole idea of bringing people in as second class citizens to be exploited is perverse. I’m not saying don’t have the people. I’m saying empowering those people is in the best interests of abso-fucking-lutely everyone.

Except the CEOs, i guess, but you’ll forgive me if I can’t muster a tear.

H1-B’s, being tied to a company, are extremely exploitive.

In Canada, you get fired/quit you don’t get a paycheck.

In the US, if you’re a citizen or green card holder, you get fired/quit you don’t get a paycheck AND you lose your Healthcare. This is a major way to abuse your workers.

In the US, if you’re H1B and you get fired/quit you don’t get a paycheck, lose your Healthcare insurance, and are ejected from the country. You can’t even just switch jobs. It’s extremely predatory and allows companies to fuck you so badly because you have so much to lose.

If the workers were truly great talent, it’s in the interest of the country to have them working ANYWHERE in the country. If they were TRULY great rare talents in industries starved for workers, it’s counter productive to not let the free hand of the market guide them to the best employers.

That’s the scam.

H1Bs, being tied to a company, provide a clear incentive for abuse by a company to use them to pay people less than market wages knowing there is no recourse. It deflated the market value of local workers. Average workers who’ll work for below average pay, accept unlimited overtime, and not push back on HR violations or even explicitly illegal actions by their employers is a big win for the company.

They aren’t the best and brightest. They by definition can’t be. With the reality of the arrangement, the “best and brightest” can and will and always have found greener less abusive pastures elsewhere.

If you want to be in that arrangement, you’re not that bright. If you can’t find better, you’re not the best.

H1B is a really bad program. Employers mobility would mitigate most of my issues, but that will NEVER happen because from the industry, that’s the whole point

I did a wyze cam 3 yesterday too lol.

So far so good!

If this does what it says it’ll do, this is ABSOLUTELY the answer

Does being Europe’s richest man imply that he would be the person who would pay the most wealth tax?

If so, the headline isn’t going hard enough.