I already sent him one message this week!

Seriously though, this whole thing has me curious about the current state of things so I shot him a message asking about it. I’ll pass it along if he still needs the advice.

I’ve seen it online but it always looks like obvious interaction bait. Someone trying to get clicks and comments so they can be an influencer or similar.

My grandfather worked in NYC for over 20 years and he commuted by train. During those commutes, he sat next to the same man, twice a day - on the way there and on the way back - for years, and only once in at least a decade did they ever speak to each other. “Are you finished reading that?” Those were the 5 words that man spoke to my grandfather, who handed him the paper he had finished reading, and they never exchanged another word again. I don’t think they ever even looked at each other.

Best friend he ever had. They still never talk sometimes.

A psychopath that doesn’t want to make a habit of drinking at the house because they know it’ll become a problem but doesn’t want to interact with people because they’re going through shit? Possibly a psychopath that gets to drink for free because of the gear loan? A psychopath who wants to watch his gear and take it home with him rather than leaving it in a public place or with a group of drunk musicians overnight?

I had a part time gig DJing at a strip club for a brief time. It gets old much quicker than people think.

I don’t know what it is. I used to get approached semi-regularly, maybe once every few weeks when I was younger. But this dude, for whatever reason, was approached often. I think part of it is the places he was a lot of times. We’d be out at the bar (he would lend music/PA equipment to bands or small bars for a small fee and show up to basically drink for free) and there was one night I watched it happen half a dozen times. Not by the people who were borrowing equipment, but just random people who he didn’t know.

He said it never happened at like the grocery store or whatever, but very often in bars when he’d sit alone, less often in restaurants when he’d sit alone, and occasionally at the park when he’d go sit to read (headphones in). He’s good looking but not extraordinarily so and never looked especially friendly so that wasn’t it. It was both men and women, men more often but women more persistently.

Some folks just have something that makes others want to talk to them I guess. I imagine it’s worse for women for a few reasons (the way certain demographics of dudes are socialized, not knowing how a guy will react when you shut him down, etc). And some folks seem to believe that everyone is just waiting for them to strike up a conversation, even if the person they’re trying to strike it up with is obviously actively avoiding people.

It stopped happening to me. I’m not sure if I aged poorly over the pandemic or if I just look meaner these days. He moved away so I don’t get to watch that particular trainwreck anymore. I’ll have to ask him.

Story time! This isn’t here to say that dudes have it worse or just as bad or anything. It just made me think of this.

I have a good friend who wears wired earbuds often. He gets in a space where he doesn’t want to talk to anyone but he got to be out for one reason or other. I’ve watched person after person come up to him to talk. He rolls his eyes, takes out an earbud, make a huge show of pausing whatever he’s listening to while holding up the “Wait a second” finger. They’ll say whatever they’re trying to open with and he will nod and give the biggest fake smile. Then put his earbud back in. To continue the conversation they have to tap him again and wait for him to do it all over again. Some do, sometimes repeatedly.

Some people seem to have no concept that others aren’t just waiting for the chance to talk to them.

That’s because they want to put it out at the same time as the machine and frame. They’ll continue to be quiet until they secure the RAM they need or drop the other hardware due to shitty AI companies buying everything up.

There’s really not a lot to say about the controller until release.

Qapla! Been watching it on and off all day. Love that freaking low octave. Should be caught up in a couple of hours.

I was always planning on eventually watching, but now I’m putting it on today.

Others have already pointed out this is the tape in and that’s the headphone jack. To the left is an effects send and return which is after the preamp but before the power amp (it’s an in and an out where you’d plug in certain effects pedals). Far to the left is the instrument input. Depending on the specific signal you could probably route it through the effects return which bypasses the distortion of the preamp. I’d have to see exactly what the fuck they thought they were trying to accomplish.

The color of it makes me think of the old Peavey Rage 158 amps but they didn’t have an effects loop or tape in. So I’m not exactly sure which amp this is. The far right knob is the master volume and the one left of the effects loop is reverb. That’s not important but it’s interesting to me.

Partially correct. They’ll step in because they signed contracts and have moved AI under the umbrella of National Security. Brockman donated $25m back in September. Trump signed Project Genesis in November. So all these hardware companies feel pretty good because it’ll be backed by taxpayers.

“Did you bring home the gold?”

“I brought home something”

Money that Nvidia might invest in them.

X1 used to give 3 points and my buddy’s rental house charged a 2 and change percent fee. He could only get full point values certain places so he’d save up all the points and that was his Christmas fund. He’d bank $600/yr ( about $500 real dollars from paying the transaction fee plus the extra hundred-ish bucks in points he’d get for free). They recently went to a 1.5 point model but kept the restrictions on where you could spend to get the full point value. Guess what card of his never gets used now.

I mean we’re (we as in local taxpayers, not me personally in this case) already paying for the infrastructure they use in increased bills. We’re paying for their tax holidays while they’re talking about all the new jobs they’ll bring (lots of short term construction, 25-50 long term employees once the tax holiday runs out, so very little money in the local economy). We (all of us) are paying the price for the mothballed coal plants that are coming back online to support them. We are paying for federal government contracts on them.

It’s corporate welfare all the way down.

I haven’t stolen a street sign in about three decades but I’ll admit I’d seriously consider taking this one.

Money and time. I was on the grind for 20 years and poor as shit for the great majority of my life. I didn’t have the time to go do all the things I do now.

So I’m the middle aged guy riding a motorcycle, playing in bands, drinking too much in public as long as I’m not driving, going to every concert of nearly every genre I can get to…you know, living. I’m not in crisis, I’m having the time of my life. I’d say the last 8ish years have been the absolute most fun of my life.

Football can be described in so many fun ways.

Years ago when my rep was cosponsoring some bill about how video games were killing children my buddy sent him a letter. I don’t remember the exact contents but it pointed out the rich history in Texas of folks wearing different colors violently defending their turf from rivals. Schools are training high schoolers to how to be in a gang as a sponsored activity every Friday evening.

I guess it does depend on what you call a circle. There are maybe a dozen of us in one. In the other there are probably three or four dozen. I don’t know everyone. I got invited because I like genre bending. We’ve got a private forum where we share things.

Even outside of that, there is a place that used to be less private but has now gone private (guess why) where we would do Sunday songwriters. We’d get a topic, record a little something before the next Sunday, then share. After sharing we’d critique, do mashups, genre hop, create genre crossovers, and generally just have fun with each other’s music.

I do not know how prevalent this is. I know of two private places, one of which is very small, and a third place that used to be public (with no expectation of anyone actually seeing it) but went private because of Suno.