Swine

I just enjoy learning new things and having a complete understanding of things. I sometimes enjoy reading slightly more archaic or wordy texts (i.e. primary readings from philosophers, books written by 20th century economists), and I've noticed there's a lot of words that I thought I had an idea of what they meant but actually don't. I also do think that all words have their own nuance, and a wider vocabulary gives you the tools to think about topics (and about yourself) with more depth and more precision. But overall I don't even expect to use these words myself, they have little utility unless I want to show off. It's mostly just a nice way to expand my vocabulary "on the side" and work on language acquisition that doesn't feel as purposeless as learning a new language usually does for me.

I already have C2 in English, but I've decided that trying to improve it much further is actually way more useful for me than trying to learn a third language. There's still quite some English words I come across while reading articles or books that I don't know. Words like paragon, nostrum, perforce, senescence. I look them up and save them in Anki, a flashcard app based on a spaced repetition algorithm. After 4 months I have 273 words on my list, which tbh is quite a lot. If it keeps going at this rate I could learn thousands of new English words in the span of multiple years without taking this too seriously. I'm also still learning Russian, though it's just really difficult to learn a language when you're not actually constantly exposed to it, and I'm not sure if learning a new language is as useful to me as, say, learning a programming language, or getting better at investing.

I'm in total shock... My condoleances to everyone from former band members to fans to hotel employees at the scene. What a complete tragedy. This may be the first big pop star I grew up with that has died.

The pro-Palestine protest movement may just be the most counter-productive and inefficient protest movement I've ever seen. Their key message is correct to anyone with an ounce of human emotions, they have numbers, they have some very smart people - why are they failing so badly at convincing people and politicians? Is it the casual use of anti-semitic slurs? Is it the 20th century protest tactics? Is it their lack of tact and their lack of understanding of how democratic politics works? Is it their focus on purifying our lives and our consumption, focusing on big brands (McDonalds, Eurovision, Starbucks) and big celebrities when those have almost zero impact? Is it their obsession with the words we use to describe things and semantics instead of normal messaging that appeals to normal people? Is it the violence and destruction of public property they think makes people like their message more? Again, I support the Palestinian cause, and everyone should. But that makes it even stranger how little the activist left has achieved after nearly a year of protests. I think an end to this war would actually be closer if it weren't for the activist left. Their activism is counter-productive or at the very least extremely inefficient, but I somehow doubt there'll be any self-reflection on that. It's always the other that lacks self-reflection.

Why don't Beyonce and Gaga get Apple to pay them millions to make a song about the Vision Pro and make that the continuation?

For her Born This Way campaign, Gaga held a free show in Taichung, Taiwan attended by 40000 people (most of them outside the venue) and had a press conference with the mayor of the city who gave her the keys to the city. The City Hall declared July 3rd "Lady Gaga Day". Born This Way went on to become one of the most successful international albums in recent memory in Taiwan, going diamond with over 100k physical copies sold. Also, Bloody Mary managed to go #1 for multiple weeks back in 2011, the only country other than Lebanon where this happened. There's weirder examples (like the IKEA parking lot), and all love to Taiwan, but it's such an unconventional place to promote your album just 1.5 month after the release. And not even in the capital city, but in Taichung. One fan even dressed up with a real pig head over their head outside the hotel.

Neither, go to Brazil.

People don't like to admit it for political reasons, but the economy is absolutely booming and has never been doing so good. Inflation is high exactly because demand exceeds supply. "Corporate greed" is a frame that is essentially correct - as demand is higher than supply, businesses (and artists) can increase their prices and earn extra economic rents. If a business can sell 100 cakes but 110 customers want a cake, they raise their prices so that only the 100 richest customers (or 100 customers with the highest willingness-to-pay) will buy the cake.

This is my favourite Bloody Mary live performance. The audience at this specific part >>>>>>

So, how long do trends like this usually keep going? What is Bloody Mary's upward potential?

I think it's too early to say. Spotify was only allowed on the Japanese market very recently, and iirc that was precisely because they wanted to protect their physical sales market. But even if we consider streams, the fact that the Japanese market is also very fan-driven (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKB48_discography#Singles, for example) likely protects them more from a dip in CD sales than markets like Germany, where buying CDs was more of a casual listener thing.

Besides what has been mentioned before and what you can find on the wikipedia page, music in Japan is much more expensive than in other countries. A CD easily costs $30. Japanese fans are also more likely to collect music, which is why many Western artists have a special Japan edition for their albums and single releases. Why Japanese fans are willing to spend so much on music? I don't know, I think it's how a music market happened to develop. South Korea is the opposite: singles often cost less than half a dollar in South Korea, and concert tickets are often something like a $60 average (in Japan, that'd be $200).

Bedankt, Lady Gaga!

Might have been her best tour but so short! So grateful to have been able to go to the opening night and the Arnhem date, seeing her within 10 meter distance in both. Easily a highlight in my life. I hope she'll do another stadium tour in a few years, with bigger stadiums, bigger global reach, and . I think she could pull off a 300M gross over the course of a year if she has another successful pop or ballad album. Maybe she could even pull off a 360 stage and still sell out.

I think radio was for the most part of Gaga's career her weakest point. Sales, music video views, publicity, awards, globalness, massive tours right from the start - she dominated. But if I remember correctly, artists like Katy Perry had a much easier time getting radio to play their songs even if sales were low. Remember Unconditionally, the song that nobody wanted to buy but radios played it like it was meant to be a #1 hit?