My reason for using arch linux is to have as little bloat as possible. So, pacman. Yay sometimes for AUR stuff, but my need for it is rare.

I’d bet on that as well. It is big tech’s master plan.

I do mean “person with a huge setup dedicated to music listening”. An audiophile who actually knows what they’re talking about will tell you to get any cable from a reputable brand.

But of course you also have “audiophiles” who have no idea whatsoever.

Oh yeah, for sure. I didn’t include that part because an audiophile setup rarely has a need for long distances.

Exactly this, the cables never mattered. They’re the least significant part of an audiophile system and I doubt anyone could tell the difference between a crappy cable and a good quality cable. People get good quality cable for durability rather than sound quality.

Kind of. But it is my understanding that pagers work with centralised transmitters/stations. I am no expert though, so maybe there is mesh-like pager protocols.

This is decentralised, a mesh. Routing is done through the terminals themselves, rather than through a centralised transmitter.

I’ll add “how expensive” to the list. Sometimes you’ll have to burn through devices.

Alright, I read your article. All it says it that there is no study determining a threshold. That’s your source?

Meanwhile, here is the ECHA page for ethanol, the alcohol most present in alcoholic beverages and the only one “safe” for consumption. You will there find various toxicity thresholds established by studies, although none on humans. But unless you are willing to argue that humans don’t have thresholds for alcohol while mice, rats and monkeys do, that doesn’t make a difference to the point.

No need to form a religion, it’s just documented science.

Rather than hailing me, you could learn a bit about toxicology. Because the fact that everything has a threshold is pretty basic.

Everything has a threshold from a toxicology point of view.

Absolutely. Every. Single. Substance.

I haven’t read the article you linked, but it does not matter, as a drop is not an indivisible unit of alcohol. It could already be above the threshold.

If your body accidentally absorbs a single molecule of ethanol, you’ll be just fine.

There aren’t really “safe” levels for a toxin

There is, actually. Everything is toxic if you take enough of it. The only difference between what is called “toxic” and is not called “toxic” is that what is called “toxic” has a very low threshold before it is toxic to us.

Now I’m not here to defend alcohol, but that statement is simply wrong.

Ah, I didn’t get the sarcasm at first! Because it is on its own microplate that makes it challenging to build a bridge. I thought you might mean that with an… interesting understanding of it.

What do you mean by that? Cause the exact words you used are quite obviously incorrect.

Same. My personal Home <-> Work line will never see a Newag train.

It’s a tradeoff. It’s still democratic, as the parliament can in all these instances reject a candidate, while bringing stability by not having endless debates in a potentially fractured parliament on who should be nominated.

Because the head of state doesn’t pick someone randomly, they pick a candidate that will have the approval of the Parliament. So there is still talks, agreements, compromises with parties of the Parliament, so that the nominated candidate is a candidate that would have likely come out of weeks/months of debates and votes.

The vote that follows the nomination is a safeguard, to prevent a shitty stuborn head of state from imposing their government.

So the tradeoff is, slightly less democracy (no debate), faster government appointment (which is desirable for the good of everyone), while keeping a democratic safeguard. And it works, that’s why failing votes following the nominations are extremely rare.

It’s actually not. Yes, the Chancellor is elected by the Parliament, but after nomination by the President, your head of state.

Per the German wikipedia article on the Chancellor of Germany:

Der Bundeskanzler wird auf Vorschlag des Bundespräsidenten vom Bundestag gewählt, anschließend vom Bundespräsidenten ernannt und durch den Bundestagspräsidenten vereidigt.

And per your Basic Law, Article 63:

• (1) Der Bundeskanzler wird auf Vorschlag des Bundespräsidenten vom Bundestage ohne Aussprache gewählt.
• (2) Gewählt ist, wer die Stimmen der Mehrheit der Mitglieder des Bundestages auf sich vereinigt. Der Gewählte ist vom Bundespräsidenten zu ernennen.
• (3) Wird der Vorgeschlagene nicht gewählt, so kann der Bundestag binnen vierzehn Tagen nach dem Wahlgange mit mehr als der Hälfte seiner Mitglieder einen Bundeskanzler wählen.

The election of the Chancellor in Germany is just like the election of the President of the European Commission: There is one candidate, either they are voted in, or they are not. If the parliament disagrees with the nominated candidate, then they must elect one themselves, yes. But it has never happened since 1949, and the only close call was Merz.

You can actually have a look yourself at the list of chancellor elections, and you’ll see that it’s always been a Yes/No vote on the nominated candidate, just like for the Presidence of the European Commission.

And this Basic Law was ratified after the miserable passage of history you mention.

The closest to the exact situation of the EU are Estonia, Germany, and Spain:

The head of state nominates a candidate for prime minister who is then submitted to parliament for approval before appointment.

Then you’ve got different, close enough nomination/appointment systems:

Italy:

The head of state appoints a prime minister who must gain a vote of confidence within a set time.

Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, Malaysia, New Zealand, the UK, Denmark, Portugal:

The head of state appoints a prime minister who will likely have majority support in parliament

Sweden:

A public officeholder (other than the head of state or their representative) nominates a candidate, who, if approved by parliament, is appointed as prime minister.

Then you have some countries close to what you would like:

Japan, Thailand, Ireland:

Parliament nominates a candidate whom the head of state is constitutionally obliged to appoint as prime minister.

Source

Note that in the case of the EU, the President of the Commission plays the role of the head of government (aka, the equivalent of what most countries call Prime Minister), not head of state. As established in my previous comments, the head of state of the EU is the European Council.

I disagree, I don’t think it should be that way. And it doesn’t make it any less democratic, what we have is literally how most parliamentary democracies work.

Oh that! I thought you meant that when they decided of how the appointment should be done, they had a vote and ignored it.

I do see how that seems like it’s a non-democratic move, but it’s not. It is never up to the parliament to nominate the President of the Commission. The Parliament has a veto power, however. The Council nominates, “taking into account the result of the elections”, a candidate. The Parliament then approves them or vetoes them.

Their is a lot of subtility to the “democraticness” of a system.

While systematically picking the leader of the biggest coalition may seem like the most obviously democratic choice… It is actually not always the case. Especially in the European Parliament, where majorities are rare. So, if the leader of the largest group (let’s say, 30%) is impopular with the remaining 70%, who would all prefer another candidate, how is it democratic to go with the impopular candidate?

That’s why the parliament has a right to veto. The Parliament voted with a majority to elect Von der Leyen, when they were all aware that Weber was the most likely candidate initially. That makes her election democratic.

Just because Weber was the likely candidate due to the election results does not mean the Parliament would have elected him in the end, and that is also a consideration when the Council nominates a candidate. As a matter of fact, he was indeed impopular with a lot of coalitions, and Von der Leyen reveived 60% of the votes, with an informal coalition supporting her that consisted of the majority of the Parliament.

I actually don’t, could you point me to sources so that I can read about it? Can’t seem to find anything about it myself.

Your comment shows a lack of understanding of what democracy is.

There is plenty of forms of democracy, and the appointment of the president of the European Commission is democratic.

It’s a form of parliamentary democracy, where the European Council, a symbolic “head of state” of the EU made of heads of states/governments of EU members, nominates a candidate, which has to then be approved by the European Parliament.

This is a democratic system very close to what is adopted in many democratic countries.

So yes, this is democratic. There is no “backroom deal”, this is just literally how a parliamentary democracy works. You elect representatives who make decisions for you, including appointing the executive.