come on, it's sant joan ...

Exactly. So there are thousands of drunk people setting off fireworks in the street all night, and no visible police presence. No wonder a small minority of tourists think you can do whatever you want in Barcelona with no repercussions.

I'm not saying the police should stop Sant Joan, I'm saying that there should be a police presence in places where there are a lot of drunk people, and there isn't. Escudellers is where the worst tourists seem to end up, and it's full of beer-cerveza men, people selling drugs quite openly, etc. No police at all, because I guess they'd have to get out of their cars, which they pretty much never do in the evening. Spain has nearly twice the number of police per person as England, and in England they manage to find the resources to police events like this, or trouble hotspots.

this is, of course, bullshit.

No it's not. A lot of people here are hostile to guiris. For one thing, that's why they have a borderline offensive name for them. Maybe you're not -- and that's great -- but a lot of people are. Try renting a flat as a guiri, for example: some of the flats are mysteriously rented, yet they're still advertised, and when your catalan friend calls for you, they're suddenly available again.

Try getting a NIE (even as an EU citizen) since the hostility got ramped up last year. Now you need a work contract, padrón, and more. And try getting a work contract or a lease on a flat (to get the empadronamiento) without a NIE. Possible, but hard. And you won't be able to get your utilities connected without a NIE (and you have to wait weeks for a cita previa). The system has been changed to make it as hard as possible, and it's not like this in Andalucía, for example, so it's not a national issue. It's clearly illegal under EU law on freedom of movement to force EU nationals to jump through hoops like this, but the government are going to do it for as long as they can get away with it.

Also witness the election of Ada Colau; discuss this with Barcelonans and the first thing they will talk about is tourists, and how they've made the city unliveable, yada, yada. Despite the fact that large areas of ciutat vella were too dangerous to go into before the post-olympic rebirth (eg Sant Pere, Born, Barceloneta, parts of Gòtico), largely down to increased numbers of tourists and foreigners making these areas too valuable to Barcelonans to leave them to the prostitutes and criminals.

and how does this bs match with you admitting ' like 7.5 million tourists a year in Barcelona. The vast, vast majority are well behaved'? care to support it with some facts, apart from the obvious one that bulls do bully?

And there you go. Your prejudice is showing. Almost half the tourists come from Spain; are they the problematic tourists you're thinking of? What about all the people who queue to go to the Sagrada Família or Parc Güell. Are they drunk or running around naked? All the Chinese and Japanese tourists? The cruise-ship day trippers? The families with children?

The reality is that if you walk down the Rambla at the busiest times, you'll massive numbers of tourists, and it's bloody obvious that virtually none of them are the type to be pissing in the street or running around naked later that day.

According to the summary, the customers are "partying all night, some running around naked, and generally trashing their neighborhoods".

Except this is largely bullshit (on the part of TFA, not having a go at you). There is currently a big backlash against tourists in Barcelona, it's almost something of a moral panic.

There was one incident last year of two italian guys running into a supermarket naked. One incident.

I've not heard of any neighbourhoods being 'trashed' either.

Since then, tourists have become the official outlet for the xenophobia of many Barcelonans (it was Madrid before).

We get something like 7.5 million tourists a year in Barcelona. The vast, vast majority are well behaved.

And of course, the behaviour of tourists is a completely different issue to licensing tourist apartments and short-term lets. We get a huge number of young tourists staying in completely legal hostels, and they're some of the worst behaved. Basically, the hostels are targeting the drunken mexican-sombrero-wearing teenager crowd, because who else wants to share a room with 15 other people?

The police, meanwhile, do virtually nothing about unruly behaviour in the streets. I was out partying in the streets on Nit de Sant Joan on Tuesday until dawn: tens of thousands of people (mainly local) dancing, drinking, pissing in the street, vomiting; I didn't see a single policeman all night.

But they're not adverse to banging on the doors of apartments with guiris staying in them and demanding to see tourist licences, which the tourists don't have (the flat owner has the licence, not the guest). This happened to a young German woman I know, who was staying in a completely legal tourist apartment. They could have just looked up the address on the Catalan government website, but it's a lot more fun for two armed goons from the Mossos d'Esquadra to scare the shit out of a young woman travelling alone in a strange city, threatening to chuck her out onto the street if she couldn't produce the licence in 24 hours (of course they don't have the power to do this).

I love this city, but the hostility from a lot of people to everyone who isn't catalan gets me down.

You really think anyone would force a plane to land over a rape charge? Don't be ridiculous.

It's not about the rape charge, it's about the wikileaking.

And if you think nobody would/could force a plane to land over leaks, read up:

Evo Morales grounding incident

Why does it even matter?

Some selected stories of the harm caused by people's misplaced belief in homeopathy:

What's the harm in homeopathy?

If you need assistance just ask for help, I am sure somebody will help explain things so you can understand and be less agitated.

Can you explain why it's been impossible for these last few years for Sweden to interview Assange in the embassy as he has suggested, but now it's suddenly possible?

I've no axe to grind either way, but you must admit this is puzzling.

People defending him seem to think that China and Russia at bastions of freedom

What's the weather like on your planet?

People expect the kind of shit the government is pulling from Russia and China, they just don't want it from countries which are actually *supposed* to be bastions of freedom.

Ooh... You're close, but in fact the cumulative inflation rate for 2010 - 2015 was 8.5%, not 1000%.

Like Windows, Wordpress has pissed off all the good devs and all that's left are the ones that do 'shiny'.

... And all the devs whose clients insist on WordPress (and PHP for that matter), like me.

FTS:

...because a Pirate Bay proxy is hosted behind the same IP-addresses

Not TPB itself, but a proxy.

Using their science, I'm sure tobacco would be even "safer" than weed.

Well, no; it's right there between cocaine and ecstasy and looks to be at least 10 times 'more dangerous'.

Not now he's bloody not.

I used to run an Apple dealership, and back in those days (90s) stuff like this would have been the subject of a warranty extension program right away. I don't know when the policy changed, but it has clearly changed.

They've been denying this is a manufacturing flaw since it first became obvious. I've had the motherboard replaced on mine, and it failed again within a year. I've been getting by by using gfxCardStatus to select the intel video for a couple of months while I decided what to do.

I wasn't able to claim under European consumer laws as my proof of purchase is made out to my company (it only covers individual consumers, not business purchasers).

I'm really doubtful I'm going to get another Mac, even though I've been a Mac user for over 20 years. I'll probably just go for Linux and run OSX in a VM so I can run the iOS simulator.

I also have little faith that the new motherboard is going to work for any length of time.

Next time a client asks me to have a 'most recent post' from LinkedIn embedded on their web page (yes, this happens), I'll just be able to tell them that LinkedIn don't allow it.

FTA:

“It is typical for players in the new age tech economy to start with permissive and free access to gain share and users and then progressively curtail it to monetize the audience they have gained.”

No, that's no typical at all. More typical would be to start charging for a previously free service. Cutting off access to a service which attracts people to your business is hardly a good way to "monetize the audience [you] have gained". It's more of a good way to lose business.

This is the decision of a dim-witted suit, and no doubt once LinkedIn realise it's a stupid move he'll be long gone with his performance bonus securely trousered.

That's why god invented VPN gateways running on VPSs and so forth, though.

To email bomb threats?

He certainly does move in mysterious ways.

In other developed countries (France, Germany, Japan, etc) there are a lot more hoops to jump through to lay someone off, and the layoff packages are legally set to be much greater.

I don't know about Japan, but these workers rights in France and Germany were largely the work of unions.