It's not about protesting, it's about representation. They were born into what are now, Germany, Germany, Italy, USA, Germany, Polish.

Why not any of the below ?

Austria: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Belgium: Georges Lemaître Bulgaria: Saint Cyril Croatia: Nikola Tesla Cyprus: Zeno of Citium Czechia: Franz Kafka Denmark: Hans Christian Andersen Estonia: Jaan Kross Finland: Jean Sibelius France: Napoleon Bonaparte Greece: Aristotle Hungary: Franz Liszt Ireland: James Joyce Latvia: Mark Rothko Lithuania: Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis Luxembourg: Robert Schuman Malta: Jean de Valette Netherlands: Rembrandt van Rijn Portugal: Vasco da Gama Romania: Nadia Comăneci Slovakia: Andy Warhol Slovenia: Slavoj Žižek Spain: Pablo Picasso Sweden: Alfred Nobel

Why was Callas chosen over Joyce ? why was Beethovan chosen over Mozart ?

Beethoven in particular is easy. The EU doesn't have a national anthem, or a national flag, because it insists it isn't a nation, but Europe does have an anthem and a flag and of course the EU represents Europe, so it uses those, that's Europe's flag on the money. Europe's anthem is basically the bit you know from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Officially the EU prefers Karajan's arrangement, if you're a huge classical music fan you'll recognise this immediately, but for most people it's just obviously the Ninth.

Good point, however

> Latvia: Mark Rothko

Marcus Rotkowitz was Jewish, born in Dvinsk, Russian Empire (today Daugavpils in Latvia) and emigrated when he was 10 (and Latvia wasn't a country yet.) At home, he spoke Yiddish and Russian, and probably didn't know a word in Latvian (at the time, Dvinsk population was half Jewish, with the rest divided between Russians, Poles, and Latvians).

Your idea that he's the guy who should represent Latvia on a European banknote would probably quickly get you burned at the stake at Doms Square in Riga.

Sibelius was already in the last series of Finnish notes, so personally I'd pick Tove Jansson.

Case in point:

Nikola Tesla wasn't Croatian. He was Serbian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla

oh attempting to put anyone from what now is ex-Jugoslavia on a banknote is a recipe for yet another genocide

IMO goal based note-taking & productivity systems can end up being where the attention is focused instead of the goal. The more complex the system, the more focus is put into it. The focus feels productive but the reality is that the goal has been abandoned or delayed until the excitement of the system dies down.

I've struggled a lot with this. For me I think it comes down to not being intentional enough about why I'm doing the goal in the first place so I get distracted by shiny new systems that in theory will solve all my problems. With this in mind, I try to keep things as simple as possible and strip back as many layers between the goal and the thing that helps me keep on track to complete that goal.

In relation to notes specifically ( this is for tracking life stuff - DIY/projects/day trips/thoughts etc...), I use a reminders/todo app and one A7 notebook with a mini-pen that live in my pocket. The notebook/pen is the cheapest that i can buy with a spiral.

During the week, I work through the todo list in the notebook, and write my thoughts/things to research more fully. At the end of the week, I remove the completed todos from the app, add new ones from the notebook. I tear up the pages from that week, then write up new todos to the notebook for next week.

notion did this for me at work, in hindsight, probably spent too much time 'organizing.'

now i just use excalidraw as my todo / thought board