Why Beethoven marked his music tempo so fast

Super interesting Radiolab episode about why some of Beethoven’s music is marked with such a crazy fast tempo (sometimes to the point where musicians cannot play it).

There are virtually no checks in place to stop the President from launching a nuclear ICBM

This episode of Radiolab is frightening.

The last portion of this episode touches upon the checks in place should the President make a call to launch nuclear missiles. As you can imagine, the order is expected to be followed without question despite the devastating effects for everybody involved.

This has been a topic of discussion lately, especially with the often unpredictable behavior of Donald Trump. The scariest part: The President has about 6 minutes to make a decision and give the order to launch an ICBM in response to another country launching one at us. SIX MINUTES. Can you imagine making that kind of decision with all of your wits with you? Now imagine somebody like Donald Trump making that decision. The kicker: The President can currently launch nuclear missiles at any country even if the US is not at war with that country. That's crazy. And even crazier is that virtually nobody can stop this order from being halted (again, all of this insanity must take place in 6 minutes if an ICBM is detected to be on its way to US soil).

If you want to see how messed up this whole thing is, you need to listen to this podcast.