qyron

Bubonic plague is still a thing.

Quillpad

It is supposed to have a sync option but I don’t care about that.

Why is there a tartan over Portugal?

Start an example?

Considering consumer laws are pretty good in Europe and jurisprudence tends to set example in the euro-space, it may cause other countries to do the exact same thing.

The company may appeal. It may even win. But the bad publicity hurts. And if they lose, it gets even worse, as it will have to pay what it is being demanded.

Or not pay and get fines on top of that.

Magneto’s powers are stupid

Generalized world wide.

This is grim and a lot of dirty politians want it back.

Disgusting.

My country allowed foreign cinema “only” with subtitles because most of the population was illiterate and the idea was to keep viewership of such media low without resorting to very harsh censorship, although it existed at the time.

It backfired so bad the general population developed a knack for acquiring foreign languages, through those media. Being a latin language country we score very high on the domain of english as a foreign language. Many of us also speak a bit of french and a large majority knows at least how to curse in spanish to return the love.

It was a common recommendation when I was a kid to expose children to non-dubbed media to develop foreingn language and reading skills.

And I can personally vouch for this, as I started developing basic english domain very early through cartoons and movies and the need to follow the subtitles helped me develop my reading skill and speed.

Regarding the quality of dubbing, I can only say something always gets lost in translation. More recently, I’ve followed a couple of series, both subtitled and dubbed, and the end result is completely different. Subtitled, you can follow the emotions in the original actors voices and postures. No lag, no difference, no adaptation. Dubbed, it often feels like watching a completely different show. And the voice over actors are professionals, obviously. But it is common for the voice over team to take some liberties.

[…] the other choice is better

That’s your choice and point of view.

I enjoy watching a work in it’s most original form, even if I can’t completely or even not at all grasp what is being said, I can still infer emotions from the tone of voice of the actor.

There is a learning curve.

Many brazillians I know have defended that hypothesis. Brazil has a very strong and inwards turned cultural production industry. They cater to themselves and keep 95% of the population satisfied.

I’ve heard a few songs, originally in english, being performed by brazillian artists, with varying degrees of success on the lyrics translation. But most music passes unadultered. Most people only cares about the sound, not the story in a song.

There’s a meme of guy calling a local radio station to request a song. He wanted to hear a song he called “Anteontem fez frio” (literally “yesterday was cold”). No band, no other reference. The DJ asked him to sing a few words, as they did not know such song. He does. It was Queen’s “I want to break free”.

And what is the concern regarding the “th” sound being absent in portuguese?

I can get good quality subtitles for most movies in my language. The best comes from cinema enthusiasts that put in the effort to make superb quality subtitles, even for obscure movies.

Nowadays, if I’m stupid enough to be watching television, it’s easy to spot machine-generated subtitles, due to poor quality. And dubbing is also on the rise. I’ve followed the same series fora few episodes, first in the original language with subtitles, then dubbed, and it was like watching two completely different shows.

Germans and Brazilians are one of a kind, apparently.

Why read a subtitle if you can just dub over the original?

I had to go the extra mile to find “Die Welle” in original format and matching subtitles, to actually get to watch the movie as it was made.

Dubbing is a curse in disguise.

Months ago someone shared a link to a study by a swedish or norwish institute where they had done those calculations.

Our species will top around the 11bn and slowly fall back to the 9,5/10bn, with optimist expectations. Lower numbers would be in 8/8,5bn.

Biggest problem? Resource sharing. We are able to feed our species two fold and then some. Just eliminating bad commercial practices and food waste, would nearly double the available food, as is.

Before, it was the rise of living standards cutting the birth rate down. Now, with poverty, inequality and automation on the rise, people have another reason to not raise families.

Our species will shrink and fast. Faster than anyone expects. Korea, Japan, Italy, even my country, are showing fast signs of aging.

What will they try to do? Conscript women’s uterus like Russia is, supposedly, debating? Even China is doing the math and the numbers are not good.

We owe nothing to governments. They are our servants. People forgot about that. Allowed megalomaniac interests to takeover our lives.

Will things get grimmer? Yes. No doubt about it. But I hope I will live to see things get better.

Considering how lopsided the distribution of resource consumption is, I’ll label this as skewed.

I developed a technique over the years where I run a finger along the urethra after I’m done to push whatever fluid may be left, regardless if I’m standing or sitting down. When no TP is available, it really helps.

A standing army is mostly cannon fodder. The common soldier does not have skills or competences to make an individual difference in combat situation, regardless of how much training they had. Even less if that soldier was drafted, in contrast to a volunteer, which was the original premise that led the conversation here.

One thing is to maintain a small contingent of professional, trained, military personnel, to bolster civilian organizations in case of catastrophe, act as first line of defense in case of armed conflict, either from outside threat or inside, act in conflict areas as stabilizing presence, etc.

A completely different thing is to maintain an overwhelming force, technically on permanent standy-by, capable of presenting a threat towards another country.

A professional, organized, highly skilled, flexible, volunteer, force can churn out in a very short time window cannon fodder, from drafted personel, or train well prepared small units to be involved in assymetric warfare.

Returning to the Russia/Ukraine example: Russia is making use of their historical doctrine of flooding the battle field with bodies, after their original “blitzkrieg” idea failed. Ukraine is moving towards highly specialized units, capable of attacking and moving, to quite successfully, ruinning the offensive of the invader, after expending their regulat troops on the first wave.

Poor taste comment on my part but… i I hope at least it was an electrifying shag.

It can be risked, with a fair degree of confidence, considering what is transpiring from the ongoing wars that what is considered conventional warfare is changing at a tremendous speed.

Air superiority, conventional artilery, mobile armour, highly sophisticated and expensive weapons systems are being rendered useless, powerless or at least less than superior, by cheaper, often disposable solutions.

This entire combat landscape change, in my view, is the early warning of a deeper trend where human resources will be much more valuable than machinery and conventional armies are a liability, not an asset.

Small, highly mobile, capable of underground, covert operation groups - guerrilla warfare - will be a game changer.

No worries