It's not that credit card companies have some kind of moral bone to pick, it is that the legal, logistical and political morass of dealing with the variety of state and national laws, definitions of porn, protections of children and non-consenting performers, etc. are such that it is not worth it for them to pursue.
Similar issues exist for, e.g., companies and sites selling legal THC and THC products.
That might be part of it, but I don't think it's the only or primary motivation. But we don't really get to know.
They can and have used this power to effectively censor legal content. I don't think this sort of power is something that a private entity should hold. Being able to refuse service is fine for a random restaurant when there's 10 other options available, much less so for a duopoly that provides a key facet of modern life.
There is a psychological hype effect which affects both audience and performers in a capacity room of any size. Whether it's 50 or 5000, if the room is full, you feel it, and it adds to the excitement, tension and maybe magic of the event. There's nothing worse than playing an empty room, and some of the best times I've ever had have been with a band and thirty people crammed into a living room.
As a musician myself, I can 100% confirm this. For me personally, small gigs are often the most fun because the audience is very close and you can actually see/hear the reaction of individual people. Noticing one or two excited audience members can already make a difference. Conversely, a Jazz musician once told me that seeing me in the front row, visibly enjoying his performance, fired him up. Also, in a small venue it is much easier to hang out with the audience after the concert.
One of the most fun gigs I had was a garage concert at a friend's place in Luxembourg we did on our way to a festival. The fact that weed had just been legalized in Luxembourg certainly contributed to a very receptive and enthusiastic audience. We ended up repeating our whole set :-D
The best concert experience I ever had was in the mid-90's. I went to a medium level band (frequent radio play at the time, but you probably wouldn't recognize the name now) at a smaller venue. But I guess nobody really promoted the show at all. Only 8 people showed up for the audience. The band didn't seem to care and rocked it anyway. During their most popular song the singer got down off the stage and passed the mic around, we all sang karaoke style.
I had to go look it up, because in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort orders Cedric's murder with: "Kill the Spare!"
It turns out that Cedric, being superfluous to the "Resurrection Ritual" and Voldemort's plan of revenge, is actually a spare. In fact it was unexpected that two boys get through the whole thing with the Portkey and all. Harry was the only one who was supposed to end up there with the Death Eaters in the first place, so Cedric's appearance was quite unfortunate for everyone involved.
But Cedric's "spareness" certainly didn't have to do with expendability as far as his Dad was concerned, which you can clearly understand once his Dad gets going in the mourning for his death.
I don’t know if you’re being serious, but I wanted at least two so they had another kid to play with at home, and hopefully be on good terms with a family member they can relate to into their old age.
Children are human beings, and are the full range of what humans are. When small, the fun of it is seeing them unfold into that fully formed version- sometimes painfully, sometimes joyfully.
I think I’m between the comments here. I think it’s funny to say we have a spare but I also think it’s not as funny to say “oh you have a spare”. It’s like a fat guy can joke about his fatness but you can’t.
When I was a kid I was taught not to walk in the street.
When you walk, you go in the opposite direction of cars and can see them coming and, if necessary, move off to the side more.
I know it's survivorship bias, but it worked for me.
Now I get that population density is increasing, and probably so is traffic. Though so are automatic safety features that cause cars to brake rather than hit things.
Are there statistics on vehicular fatalities in suburbs?
Pedestrian traffic deaths are going down again after peaking in 2022.
Accidents are less survivable in the US due to bigger cars and higher hoods.
Quote from CDC
During 2013–2022, U.S. traffic-related death rates increased a relative 50.0% for pedestrians and 22.5% overall, compared with those in 27 other high-income countries, where they declined a median of 24.7% and 19.4%, respectively. Across countries, U.S. pedestrian death rates were highest overall and among persons aged 15–24 and 25–64 years.
The cars are getting bigger. That means that the impact is more deadly, and the line of sight is higher - making it easy to overlook a child. The sensors often won't react at low speeds which are common for residential neighborhoods, and at high speeds they are late anyway.
Wasn't there a trend in the US away from pompous SUVs and towards smaller cars, people even starting to re-evaluate some European-favored "city" cars more?
Also aren't cars also getting ligther, with less heavy / metallic exterior over time?
There is some bimodal distribution. I routinely encounter trucks where I cannot see over the hood. I suspect most of these vehicles have never carried so much as a 2x4 in the bed.
This is not true at all. People who buy cars were willing to pay higher prices for cars where they sit higher up and take up more space, even specifically as a defensive maneuver to be safer in the event of a collision.
Obviously, as a business, you have to give customers what they want or else you will go out of business.
The government is, however, very lax on prioritizing the safety of people outside of vehicles (which would mean limiting vehicle size and speed and enforcing harsh penalties for unsafe driving).
It's not even "in the street" I'm worried about -- it's the lunatics who drive like they are the main character in a single-player RPG. Not looking for bikes or pedestrians, crashing into parked cars and houses.
I don't think roads were ever considered a safe area to play. Even in cities in 80 the bugger roads were too busy. This is why cities need spaces for people including youth and teens not just playgrounds for toddlers. Yes traffic is more dense and faster, cars get bigger etc. but aren't cars also safer? I have heard the cars in the USA are crazy big which has larger dead angles particularly bad for smaller humans.
Cars are safer for those inside of them. For those outside of them, well, it's their fault for not having crumple zones!
Cars on the roads in the '80s were very low to the ground. Even a child standing on the sidewalk could easily see over the hood of a car parked on the road. Now, hoods have gotten so tall that neither can the child see past it to what's on the other side, nor can the drivers see the children.
This is so true. It’s much harder for drivers to see pedestrians these days. And walkers now have to deal with E-bikes and electric scooters flying down the sidewalks at high speed and silently. I’ve nearly been hit many times even as a very visible adult.
Of course; that's the only reasonable conclusion from a straightforward reading of the risk profile for children after they age out of drowning and before they age into opioid overdose.
The lion's share of loving a child is intervening in proportion to actual risk.
As a society, that means, more than any other single reform, relieving our cities of the burden of maintaining lethal, taxpayer-funded compatibility with the auto industry's machinery.
For real. Way too many people drive around our neighborhood way too fast and looking at their phone the whole time. Of course they’re also driving their enormous pedestrian-crusher trucks.
It’s interesting comparing the enthusiasm I see in this thread compared to the more jaded responses I’ve seen in r/synthesizers
I think it looks cool and fun. Wish my workflow and time could accommodate it right now but they can’t. I’m really curious to hear what people who spend time with it are able to do.
I think what parent commenter is asking is, does it do the things one would expect a DAW to do?
I’m not expecting a whole Ableton replacement, but things like hosting plugins and working with MIDI is IMO fair to expect from any piece of software that wants to call itself a DAW.
>> Yes, Canada, you are indeed in danger as well as Mexico.
> No evidence. Unless you're arguing while NAFTA was around this was a way to create a "United America".
Trump recently posted an image on Truth Social of a White House meeting in which a map is displayed, of north america with the US flag superimposed on Canada, Greenland, and Venezuela. [1] He has repeatedly suggested that Canada is the 51st American state. [2]
Similar issues exist for, e.g., companies and sites selling legal THC and THC products.
reply