#But San Marino doesn't

[someone-you-do-not-know]

I kind of really don't like how the Risorgimento in Hetalia is framed as a thing done solely by Veneziano and how it supposedly came as a surprise to Romano. First of all, it was kind of a long process, so it's been boiled down way too much, but I can forgive that because it's meant to be funny.

What I can't really forgive is that Romano is made obsolete in the comic, despite how influential the South actually was in making the Risorgimento happen. Just based on the Wikipedia page (I don't have the energy to go through an actual history book rn), there was the Carboneria formed in Southern Italy, not to mention that the unification happened under the House of Savoy, which admittedly was northern, but they first gained the title of king when they took over Sicily, and later exchanged it for Sardinia. Previously, Savoy ruled over duchies, but it was first when they gained the title King of Piedmont-Sardinia they started to consider uniting Italy. Those two are just the most obvious examples, but there's plenty more if you look into it.

It's not so much that South Italy did not want the Risorgimento or had no hand in it, it's rather that the results of it ended up being a betrayal, not just to the South, but anyone who was not Piedmontese – however, that betrayal was felt especially by the South. At least that's how I'm reading it. I'm sure I still ended up simplifying it a lot, and if anyone wants to expand on this, please do so.

[anitalianfrie]

Question of the day: why does enea live in san Marino?

[sycamoreesc]

Why are you allowed to vote for your own country? That just disadvantages smaller countries

[faunabel]

is it weird i don’t like pizza that much??

idk if i’ve just never had good pizza or what. it’s always the sauce that gets me. why is it so sweet? why is it so acidic? it’s gross and i am sad.

[dwarfanonymice]

Wtf? Italy is a founding member. We had this idea. Where the fuck would we go?

[unibrowzz]

Early ESC 2025 predictions

Anyways, here's what kind of bullshittery I'm expecting next year.

🇧🇬 Bulgaria: Teases a return on social media. They announce their non-participation a day later.

🇲🇨 Monaco: Someone famous from there who is not a singer announces they'll compete if Monaco enters. They are swiftly shot down by TV Monaco.

🇽🇰 Kosovo's request for an invite is ignored.

🇱🇮 Lichtenstein: Someone at 1FLTV breathes the word "Eurovision", setting the news sites alight. They do not compete.

🇺🇦 Ukraine: Jury favourite wins Vidbir. They're soon disqualified after breaking some immigration law the Ukrainian government pulled out of its ass and the televote favourite gets sent instead.

🇸🇪 Sweden: Same old, same old, clean polished pop song nobody aside from Swedish people, the ESC jury and normie televoters like. 6th place.

🇧🇪 Belgium: Goes back to an NF. Fan favourite entry (see: something with nothing noteworthy about it other than being in French) doesn't get sent. Cue butthurt.

🇫🇷 France: Does what they did last year and pulls a random bestselling artist out of a hat. Top 10 finish.

🇮🇹 Italy: Usual schtick, sends something which does gangbusters on Spotify and Apple but is ultimately held back by crappy staging and weak live vocals. Comes top 10 regardless.

🇲🇩 Moldova: It's their turn to be the next Käärijä or Baby Lasagna. Top 3 finish.

🇵🇹 Portugal: Sends a breathy-voiced Billie Eilish wannabe with a murky blue stage. Does surprisingly well.

🇮🇪 Ireland: Cruachan finally get into the Late Late NF Special. They lose out to some Voice UK reject and a song written by a music student from London with an Irish surname. The fandom is not pleased.

🇸🇲 San Marino: Holds another dismally long NF full of the usual rejects from other, more popular, NFs. Doesn't qualify.

🇬🇷 Greece: Hires a stable full of Melfest regulars to write a song for some bi-national diaspora born and raised anywhere in the world but Greece to perform.

🇨🇾 Cyprus: See above, just replace the bi-national with "some Australian with Greek heritage".

🇬🇧 United Kingdom: All the good artists got scared off again so we're back to one hit wonders from 20 years ago and/or absolute nobodies destined for the right side of the scoreboard. British tabloids have a field day.

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

5 minutes of Chimelong orca family wave machine enrichment!

This is definitely by far my favourite form of enrichment for cetaceans, along with the live fish enrichment that SeaWorld San Diego is doing at the moment.

Lots of natural behaviour on display here - surging, surfing, synchronised group swimming.

And a lot of innovation and adaptation of behaviour is very obvious too: several orcas have figured out if they they slide out and wait for the wave, it'll sweep them off the slide out, which adds a whole new dynamic to slide out play.

While we can all acknowledge that taking these orcas from the wild was unethical, it is good to see signs of positive welfare in this dynamic enrichment use.

Natural behaviours, behaviour diversity, active participation, learning and innovation, social and affiliative behaviours, physical and mental exercise - these are all incompatible with a poor welfare scenario.

When animals are in poor welfare, chronic stress has a significant effect on their brains and bodies. Stress impairs their ability to learn, to innovate and navigate social interactions. A heavily criticised paper by Marino et. al claimed that cetaceans in human care have impaired brain function due to chronic stress. However, it was poorly cited and had zero welfare data to support their hypothesis. It also just doesn't match up with what we currently observe in accredited modern facilities.

If these animals were truly suffering and stressed, we would not be seeing them learning new behaviours, we would be seeing regular refusal to participate, we would see frustration related behaviour occurring regularly and a lot more aggression and social issues.

I make a conscious effort to research and track down as much footage as I can. I have seen accusations that I cherry pick this footage but you are more than welcome to go and look at all the videos on Youtube.

[jadagul]

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question. Why is it harder for larger countries to have citizens with a high median level of wealth? What makes it harder for a country with the US population vs, say, Japan? I can imagine obvious challenges, but also reasons why larger countries can make their median citizen wealthier more easily. Economies of scale, more chances for innovation that can later be widely adopted, strong institutions having outsized effects. Can you help me understand the logic more?

It's not a stupid question! It's a common but incredibly counterintuitive thing that comes up in statistical comparisons. The short version is: you get more variance with small samples than with large samples.

To start off, let's point out this isn't just theoretical. According to the IMF, the twelve highest GDPs per capita are in this chart:

(If you use a different source the numbers change somewhat but not dramatically so.)

If you rank countries by population, those are rank 122, 163, 118, 134, 162.5, 95, 99, 115, 3, 191, 169, and 103.5. The US is in position 3 and the next-highest is at 95 (out of about 200).

Conversely let's look at the ten most populous nations:

When ranked by GDP per capita, those come out at ranks 73, 127, 8, 98, 138, 144, 87, 128, 56, and 71.

And notice already this looks different: these numbers are mostly in like the middle half, whereas the others were almost all in the bottom half. And that makes sense based on the theoretical argument I'm about to make.

A big country has a lot of people in it. And more than that, it has a lot of places in it. And while those places all have a bunch of stuff in common (like being part of the same country), they also have a bunch of things different from each other. So you can think of the per capita GDP of a big country as, like, averaging together the per capita GPDs of all the regions in it. (And then the per capita GDP of a region is a weighted average of the incomes of all the people in it.)

If you look at a city-state like Singapore or Hong Kong, you're "averaging" together one city. And for a small country like Ireland or Luxembourg, you're averaging one city with a small amount of hinterlands. That means that if that one city is unusually lucky, the whole country is rich.

(And if that one city is unusually unlucky, the whole country is poor. The ten least populated countries on the list that have IMF data have GDP per capita ranks of 146, 119, 95, 9, 152, 60, 106, 16, 134, 52, which are all over the map. None of them are at the very bottom, and I assume that's because cities are richer than non-cities, in general. And also maybe a city-state that's also dirt poor gets swallowed up.)

And if you look at our list of richest countries, you can really see this effect. Ireland is a tax haven for the EU, and traditionally so is San Marino. Singapore is a weirdly-managed outlier city state, as is San Marino (and Hong Kong used to be). Qatar and the UAE are all drafting off of oil revenue, and for that matter so is Norway.

And to drive the point home, let's look at the list of US metro areas by per capita GDP.

San Jose beats every country in the world hollow. San Francisco is tied with the top entries on the list. And our tenth-richest metro area would place fifth on the list of countries by per capita gdp. (Contrast Paris at €60 and Berlin at like €42k, if my quick googling is right.)

And then to drive the point home, look at the top of the list. The richest metro area in the US isn't San Francisco or New York or Los Angeles (which at 18th and $86k doesn't even show up on that list up there, but would still put it at 8th in the world); the richest metro area in the US is some place called Midland TX. It's a small town that sits in the middle of a giant oil field, and as I understand it it's basically a base camp for all the oil work out there. So it has one thing going on, and that thing is super lucrative, and distributed across relatively few people; so it gets the top spot.

And that's why the richest countries are likely to be small.

[someone-you-do-not-know]

I have a historical hetalia au that I hope to write someday, in which there will be at minimum 8 Italys, and it will be about the Risorgimento.

In it, I have decided Veneziano is, as OP and Moon has said, Republic of Venice. Romano is a slightly odder case, because he's Kingdom of Two Sicilys – meaning he was previously split in two (that's a thing in my historical hetalia au), and only recently got stitched back together. This is due to the fact that there was TWO kingdoms of Sicily for several hundred years, and both even belonged to Spain for most of that time, but were not united.

Other Italys in the au are the nyos – Nyo Romano is Kingdom of Sardinia, Nyo Veneziano is Grand Duchy of Tuscany. There's going to be an OC for Papal States, who becomes the Vatican, and another for San Marino (who's not very involved in the whole thing). Seborga is most likely going to be Republic of Genoa (annexed in 1815). Chibitalia is a distinct character from adult Veneziano too, but I haven't decided which area Chibitalia becomes after the dissolution of Holy Roman Empire and its constituent Kingdom of Italy.

It's still a work in progress.

Italy, for the longest time, was divided into a variety of kingdoms/city states/etc. Which, if you're interested in Historical Hetalia, can make it difficult to characterize Romano and Veneziano pre-unification.

I'm wondering what you guys characterize them as? Atm, I usually go with Veneziano = Republic of Venice, and Romano = Kingdom of Naples (though the latter one has some nuance I'm working out bc of some history).

I don't wanna start an argument or anything, I'm just curious about other people's interpretations :o There really aren't any right or wrong answers to this!

[shonpota]

These countries? They don't care about humanity in Palestine and that's enough as a reason not eagerly help their government

Don't support their govt. Just shadow banned their govt from any industry.

THOSE WHO ARE AGAINST:

UNITED STATES (very shameless)

AUSTRIA

HUNGARY

CROATIA

CZECH Republic

ISRAEL (this terrorist country, I swear)

Fiji

Guatemala

Marshall Islands

Micronesia

Nauriu

Papua New Guinea

Paraguay

Tonga

Those who are neutral (also useless) :

Albania

Australia (fuck you Aussie, I don't even wanna go there anymore)

Bulgaria (is your brain made of yoghurt??)

Cabo Verde

Cameroon

Canada (begone Canada)

Cyprus (you are a rich country and can't afford humanity?? Even a poor people can afford having humanity.)

Denmark (shame on you)

Estonia (may your internet perish)

Ethiopia

Finland (shame on you 2)

Georgia

Germany (shame on you, you have control in Europe but you are too stupid to use it)

Greece (shame on you)

Haiti

Iceland (are Nordics all war criminals supporter or doesn't have heart???)

India

Italy (I hope their blood is clotted like tomato sauce)

Japan (shame on you, Japan)

Kiribati

Latvia (Baltic countries are stupid)

Lithuania (see? They are stupid)

Monaco (shame on you. May those gamblings facilities in your place never make you prosperous)

Netherland (may your country drown)

North Macedonia

Palau

Panama

Republic of Korea (shame on you)

Republic of Molossia

Romania (may blood epidemic hits you)

San Marino

Serbia

Slovakia (shame on you)

South Sudan

Sweden (all Nordic countries are awful!)

Tunisia (I guess your dates aren't worth buying. Let's just ban dates from Tunisia)

Ukraine (you are actually under similar but better situation with being supported by the West)

Uruguay

Zambia

[kityana]

eurovision 2024 semi final 2 thoughts

i literally guessed 10/10. yeaaaaah 😎

if you don't get why latvia went thru you either have no ears or no taste. his voice is incredible and it was a beautiful moment of quiet among all the bombast.

sadly, i knew norway would cannibalize san marino's votes. but the san marino performance was so much fun. the best of the evening. i wouldn't be surprised if they just missed qualifying.

for all the secrecy the netherlands performance was underwhelming.

belgium didn't sound good and the performance was nothing special. i completely get why he's not in the final. i'm just wondering why anyone else thought it would be.

i'm sorry but france's song is so mid. like his voice is good but the song itself is so mid. no other country could get away with whining 'i love you' on stage for 3 minutes. you just think it sounds better in french.

switzerland and greece have nice songs and staging but terrible costumes. what is this garbage. find something that doesn't look like it costs $10 on shein please.

austria finally managed to send a dance song that sounds good live lol. good for them.

if you genuinely thought israel wouldn't go thru you live in a bubble. that's all i'm going to say.

[hiwataris-bitch]

My ESC 2024 ranking

Although I'm not as into ESC this year as I was the year before, I still wanted to do the ranking. It's kinda rushed since I have only listened to some of the songs for the first time yesterday, but my top 10 was established long before that so who cares. Anyways, here goes:

1-10 Best songs ever:

1. Finland - I LOVE THEM I LOVE THIS SONG THIS IS THE BEST SONG EVERYONE ELSE GO HOME. Finland sending banger again this year. My absolute favourite.

2. Austria - another huge banger, brings me back to early 2000s and I really love the lyrics

3. Poland - okay, look, I KNOW she doesn't sing all that well live. But I really like the song itself so let me have this one. It's gonna be a miracle if we qualify, but still I just like the song.

4. Switzerland - opera and rap in one song? I didn't expect myself to like it as much as I do, but it's just so catchy!

5. United Kingdom - another catchy song for me I can listen to on repeat (maybe slightly less than I can listen to Poland, but still good)

6. San Marino - great rock tune, another song that brings me back to the 2000s, although in a different way than Austria does.

7. Croatia - although they're only 7th on my list, I won't be mad if this wins, because just like San Marino, it is another solid, good rock entry.

8. Netherlands - you can clearly see my taste for crazy performances in this top 10, so it would be an offence if I didn't put the Netherlands here as well. It isn't my favourite, but still a song I like and enjoy very much.

9. Spain - okay, maybe the performance I saw on youtube made me put it higher than I would, I'm not really sure. But I have listened to this song quite a lot since it released.

10. Estonia - to complete my ultimate crazy tunes group for this year, they also closes my top 10. They make a perfect team with Finland, Croatia and the Netherlands. My top 10 would be just top 4 if it wasn't for some other songs that also turned out to be good..

11-20 Songs I like very much:

11. Albania - she was SO CLOSE to making it to my top 10, but I liked the other songs slightly more. Still, 11th place is the lowest I will ever put this song, because for whatever reason it really speaks to me.

12. Iceland - originally it was lower on my list, but after some time I decided it was way too catchy so it had to be moved up. It's really pleasant to listen to.

13. Czechia - I've read comments complaining she can't sing live. Maybe. But just like with Poland, I just like the song and you're not going to change my mind. Nobody listens to live versions after the contest ends anyway, unless they're rewatching the performances.

14. Luxembourg - tbh my places 12-14 kept being rearranged since I like all three of these songs almost equally as much. I am really happy to see Luxembourg return to Eurovision and I think they chose a great song for their return. It's one of the earworms for me.

15. Italy - just like above, places 15-17 kept switching for me. And although I listen to this song a lot, to the point I often skip it now when it comes on my spotify, I cannot in good conscience put it any lower. Even though I listened to it too much I still have to appreciate how good of a song this is.

16. Sweden - I've only listened to it today, but Sweden brings a high production quality this year as well (honestly, what'd you expect from them?). It is a good song, although it doesn't really do anything special for me. Still, It's just pleasant to listen to.

17. Moldova - similar to Sweden, but production value is slightly lower. But I just like fast songs.

18. Lithuania - honestly, I am slightly surprised I put it above Cyprus, because unlike Cyprus, I can barely recall this song. But I like it when I listen to it. Also, good for Lithuania for not singing in English, that is always refreshing to hear.

19. Cyprus - could be switched with Lithuania, but when I actually listen to both these songs one after another, I actually like Cyprus slightly less. They used to be higher on my list, but sadly, their song is a bit too average for me.

20-29 Song I don't care about all that much:

20. Latvia - okay, I lied, I care about this song. I don't usually listen to slower tunes, they have to actually make me feel something, and this one does. I wish I could put it higher, but I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it.

21. Australia - I mean, it is fine, but too generic. Still, a faster tune will always be slightly higher on my list.

22. Georgia - similar to Australia, except I care about this one even less.

23. Slovenia - another love-hate for me. I appreciate this song and how different it is, I really do. But I can only listen to it once in a while, otherwise I get overwhelmed. Anyway, I like them a bit more because my name's also Veronika (except spelled with W and not V)

24. Denmark - they're... just fine I guess.

25. Germany - an okay song I can listen to and forget immediately. Just like with Denmark, except I forget this one even faster.

26. Belgium - I remember this one, it's just really not my cup of tea. Like, it is a good song, just not really something I listen to.

27. Malta - okay, now this is a bit annoying of a song. I will listen to it if it's on the radio or something, but I wouldn't choose to listen to it on my own free will.

28. Ukraine - look, it isn't a bad song, definitely better than Malta. But it sounds just like many other songs we've heard from Ukraine and honestly, I'm just bored of them.

29. Norway - another not a bad song, but has some parts that annoy me. Would be much higher without them. It's simply too heavy for me at some parts.

30-37 I literally couldn't care less:

30. Azerbaijan - what ever this is, sorry, I barely remember this song, I don't even know why I put it as high as I did, I guess it was less annoying than the others.

31. Portugal - I kinda like the instrumental, but it is a slow song and not a type of a slow song I would ever listen to.

32. Serbia - I don't like ballads.

33. Greece - I'm sorry, it's just too annoying to listen to...

34. Armenia - okay, it's better than Greece in that it's not annoying, but I just don't listen to this kind of music.

35. Ireland - girl, I appreciate your style, but your song is too much for me.

36. France - no. Sorry, just no.

37. Israel - why are you here, y'all know what you did. You know what you're doing.

[demonoflight]

So. Eurovision.

Not gonna lie, it doesn't feel much like a celebration this year. For like. All the reasons? And I'm really displeased with some of the choices made this year, to say the least.

But, I need to be very real with everybody right now: the Eurovision pre-season was the only reason I survived the horrors I've endured the past seven months. I watched nearly every pre-selection, from my regular Melodifestivalen liveblogging through Festivali i Këngës and Benidorm Fest, hours of San Remo, even the live audition phases of Una voce per San Marino and Etapa națională 2024. All that just to feel something. Having something to look forward to every week, new songs and new performances and new artists and new memes to fall in love with... that's basically the only thing that kept me going. If everything else was going terribly (and boy howdy it sure has), at least I had a few hours every week of something fun that put a little musical bandage on my soul.

I have loved Eurovision dearly for most of my life, but I've never been super torn up about missing some or all of it. But this year, for the sake of my mental health, it IS essential that I watch. I... apologize if that disappoints anyone...?

Really hoping things go well.

[sonicwolf93]

My top 5 of Eurovision 2019

Love Is Forever (Denmark) - In short, it is sweet, innocent and truly adorable. Needless to say, the best song Denmark has sent to Eurovision so far. (In my personal opinion). It sounds childish, but it doesn't stop this song from being so cute. And the lyrics... "Don't get too political", "Love is forever and everyone". It's so infantile, but i love it so much.

Better Love (Greece) - I am a sucker for love songs, and Greece conquered my heart with this one. Great vocals, soothing instrumental and charming concept/theme. I just love everything about this song. That's all i can say about it.

Fire Of Love (Poland) - I mostly put this here because i've been listening to it way more frequently than usual. And it's not a bad thing though. You can feel the polish culture emerging from this song. Most of the Eurovision songs that have this cultural side to their home country should be more appreciated. Plus, "Pali Się" plays in my head every now and then. Repeating words makes them addicting.

Roi (France) - I've heard Bilal's "Flash" before and maybe that's why i like Roi so much, since his voice is so memorable and good. And the song isn't bad either. It's that typical "be who you are" song, but this one is so powerful compared to other songs i've heard before in this same style. I love it. And it's most likely because of the instrumental.

Spirit In The Sky (Norway) - I was undecided yet again. It was either this or San Marino's "Say Na Na Na". But this one sticks out the most and it's probably because i've been listening to it a lot. And you know, it's a great song. It has become quite memorable to me since i hum it every now and then. Most likely due to how upbeat and fun it sounds.

Honorable Mentions: Malta, Australia, Italy, The Netherlands, Slovenia, San Marino, North Macedonia, Romania, Montenegro, Moldova and Albania. (This edition has the best flag parade i've ever seen. I swear to God.)

[42bakery]

top 5 motogp world champions? and top 5 favorite circuits?

Hai Sara 👋👋👋👋

So here is the thing, I have only been in MotoGP since 2020, so I don't know a lot of MotoGP world Champion 😥😥😥 so this is mostly by vibes and only MotoGP

1- Joan Mir -he's so down to Earth 2- Casey -because I learn that he sell a car to split the money with the team 3-Fabio Quartararo -I might not like him completely, but I can' say he doesn't deserve it 4- Valentino Rossi 5- Marc Márquez

If we don't limit to MotoGP, all categories then it's

1- Dani Pedrosa 2- Álex Crivillé 3- Ángel Nieto -Sorry but he's the first war criminal of the history and he incited all riders to committee crimes (even Dani) 4- Joan Mir 5- Izan Guevara

Now my top-5 Circuits:

1- MotorLand Aragón, Spain -hands down I love that track. 2- Autodrom Most, Czech Republic (WSBK track) 3- Donington Park, UK (WSBK track) 4- Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours, France (WSBK track) 5- Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, Italy (but used as San Marino)

Ups I didn't notice I like the WSBK tracks more than the MotoGP ones

[eurotastic]

Eurovision predictions, semi final 2, 2024

Definitely qualifying:

Switzerland - I'm pretty sure this is winning the jury vote on Saturday, and potentially the whole competition too. I'm getting Gjon's tears flashbacks in the best way.

The Netherlands - Another potential winner on Saturday.

Greece - A really confident performance in a genre that always does well with televoters.

Norway - This folklore vibe basically always does well.

Borderline qualifiers:

Estonia - Fun and quirky, really different from everything else.

Armenia - Same as Estonia, basically.

Austria - This is basically a cheap Cascada song from 2005, but the dancing should put her through.

Georgia - High energy girl bops usually qualify pretty easily.

Malta - The dancing is incredible but the song is just SloMo from Wish. With that said, high energy girl bops usually do pretty well.

Israel - I have no idea what's happening with this one, it's anything from top 10 on Saturday (please god no) to dead last in the semi final. If this song came from any other country I think it would qualify just based on vocal talent and high production value, so I think it has a chance of making it through the semis. Let's hope it doesn't.

Borderline NQS:

Belgium - I feel like this is the big shock NQ of the year.

Denmark - This is like a nice radio song that won't grab too much attention in a competitive setting.

Czechia - The song is pretty good but I don't think it stands out.

San Marino - I want this in the final but San Marino always struggles to qualify.

Definitely NQs:

Latvia - Talented singer, decent enough song, but the Latvian losing streak just keeps going.

Albania - I feel like we've gotten this exact song from Albania a million times before.