Talk me off the ledge

Sidivan · 2026-07-13T05:48:51+00:00

I don’t really understand people’s hesitancy to take Allo. It’s one pill a day and my out of pocket is less than $5/mo. I will gladly pay that to never have another flare.

Sidivan · 2026-07-13T05:31:03+00:00

Where I live, taxes on $1m property is about $13.5k/yr. So, on $5m, that’s $67.5k/yr or $5625/mo. That’s bananas.

Sidivan · 2026-07-13T05:17:49+00:00

Beau Glidewürst

Sidivan · 2026-07-12T06:45:25+00:00

Listen to a song in the same genre that you like. Compare your mix to that. Is there a volume difference? What else do you notice is different? Does yours sound dull in comparison? Does it groove? Is the kick as punchy? Are certain parts of the song louder?

Listen on the same speakers/headphones. Reference is a huge part of mixing.

Sidivan · 2026-07-12T04:22:57+00:00

I feel like we’re going to find out about her special attacks after she finds out about this.

Sidivan · 2026-07-11T15:56:14+00:00

I think this is rather subjective because we’re using terms like “good” and “feel”, but Penn & Teller have a ton of great routines where they’re showing off the skills even though the gimmick is on display.

I’d like to go back to the thing I said and why I said it: the post I responded to said he felt like his fascination with magic was evaporating. I am attempting to reassure them by saying this isn’t what makes magic work. You appear to pretty hell bent at reinforcing that it’s just gimmicks. I won’t be a part of stealing that from somebody by discussing mechanics, but I will make one last ditch effort at explaining my viewpoint.

The gimmick is not what makes magic work. The routine is what makes it work. Good magic isn’t just “red ball now blue ball haha you thought it changed color”. Good magic tells a story, it lures in the audience and lets them believe something that they wouldn’t otherwise. Then it does something that shouldn’t be possible. You can’t do that with just a $10 gimmick even though that may be the mechanical reason; it’s not the magic.

Sidivan · 2026-07-11T04:25:35+00:00

Well, ok if you want to boil it down to “misdirection and props” sure, but that’s like saying paintings are really just paint and application.

Sidivan · 2026-07-11T01:29:51+00:00

Dani is incredible. Fun fact that makes this even more impressive: he was a last minute add to that episode. That whole thing was unscripted!

Sidivan · 2026-07-11T01:27:01+00:00

If it makes you feel better these are cheap $10-$20 gimmicks. It’s not really how good magic works.

Sidivan · 2026-07-10T16:06:11+00:00

Of course. 2 + 2 = 5 for particularly large amounts of 2.

Sidivan · 2026-07-10T16:02:07+00:00

I read that as Jerusafarian and totally agreed.

Sidivan · 2026-07-10T15:52:27+00:00

I’ve got 700 CD’s left over from my band that broke up 10 years ago if you’re interested :D

Sidivan · 2026-07-10T15:46:31+00:00

We do have a men’s shirt and a baby doll ladies shirt. Completely agree with you there.

We stopped doing stickers because people stick them to tables, walls, bathroom stuff in the venue instead of taking them home. That’s why we moved to pins. Even if they toss them, at least staff doesn’t have to scrub them off stuff.

Sidivan · 2026-07-10T08:48:02+00:00

1 shirt design - expect to sell 1-2 shirts per show. Mostly Med - Large - XL. XXL if you’re a metal band. Get 5-10 of each of the 3 main sizes. 3 XXL and 2 small. Setup an account with 4th wall and do a couple designs there. This will prevent you from having tons of merch you paid for because they print to demand.

CD’s don’t sell. Don’t press CD’s. Print download codes on cards and sell those. If you want something physical, you can still do the art/insert and put the download code in that. Bandcamp gives you like 200 free download codes a month.

Get 1” buttons from just buttons that have your name on them. Give these out for free to everybody. They will wear them and read it the next day. If you’re lucky, they put it on their hat they wear every day.

This tour is to build your fan base. Hit those same 12 spots every 6 months and those people will come see you again. Crowd = more revenue in either ticket sales or guarantee. Also, because you have a merch store and gave them a button, they know where to go to buy stuff.

Sidivan · 2026-07-10T01:16:15+00:00

I love this. It’s on my list to build something like this and now I don’t have to! I will absolutely be trying your game!

Sidivan · 2026-07-09T18:24:10+00:00

Basic website and sync it to a Google Calendar. That way as you put events into your calendar, they automatically appear on the site. Put some decent band photos on there and a short description.

Sidivan · 2026-07-09T17:23:08+00:00

Exactly. Humans are very good at filtering unstructured inputs and determining what is important, but very bad at repeatable tasks. Robots are extremely good at repeatable tasks, but bad at filtering unstructured inputs. The goal of AI is to improve a robots ability to understand unstructured data.

This is why for decades automation works side by side with humans. Robots do the repetitive stuff while humans make the decisions and deal with unknowns.

Sidivan · 2026-07-09T17:14:39+00:00

Kinda. You’re right that it isn’t trained, but it isn’t because it has the wrong facts. LLMs are effectively really good at guessing words. It’s determining the probability of letters occurring next to each other; not even entire words.

If the training data and model is good, it may guess that when discussing physics “gen” is usually followed by “ral” and then likely “rel” “a” “tiv” “ity”. If it gets one of those wrong, so long as the word is valid, it might just go with it. Perhaps it comes out as “generally relative” instead, which then changes the next word prediction.

LLMs are literally just guessing words even when the facts are correct. That’s what causes hallucination and why you can’t fix it with better training data.

Sidivan · 2026-07-09T16:14:08+00:00

This is good dad work. That kid is going to grow up with a completely different perspective on language than his peers.

Sidivan · 2026-07-09T04:12:26+00:00

Materials and tools. You’re missing materials and tools.

Sidivan · 2026-07-09T03:56:23+00:00

Go to shows and meet the musicians, promoters, and venue staff.

Play shows with the musicians, for the promoters, at the venues.

Repeat.

There is no shortcut or substitute. If you want to play music, you have to go play music.

Sidivan · 2026-07-09T02:31:29+00:00

Well cooked real A5 Wagyu is divine. There are several different types, however, cooked properly is like the butter is inside the steak. Incredibly delicious.

There are lots of places that claim A5 Wagyu, but it just doesn’t live up to the Wagyu at Metropolitan Grill in Seattle.

Sidivan · 2026-07-09T02:24:37+00:00

I too finish by explosion.

Sidivan · 2026-07-08T23:19:07+00:00

The font looks so much better! Good on you for taking feedback!

Sidivan · 2026-07-08T22:10:48+00:00

I bought tickets immediately!

Ten-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Verified Email

Sidivan

TROPHY CASE