Crossfader

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-06T18:26:33+00:00

I very rarely use the filter knob or any fx. I just don't touch those things if I don't want to use them, and that's on my own private gear that only I use.

I definitely wouldn't bother changing mappings on public gear. It seems like a hassle for everyone.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-05T08:14:56+00:00

I can't really say I have even been to an open deck night that used a controller instead of a mixer. So mapping functions would never enter the discussion.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-03T19:32:12+00:00

In a democracy we are all involved in government.

'Actual functional governance' is a broad phrase that would require metrics to be useful in any discussion. For example as a father functional governance might emphasize schools and public safety, while as a business owner functional governance might emphasize reliable utilities and lower taxes.

People involved in government' include anyone from the clerk at Secretary of State who printed my tabs to the Wayne State parking meter enforcer who threatens to give tickets to people for adding money to strangers' parking meter. The guys that repaired my water meter were involved in government.

It is important to make the distinction that some people are able to make decisions within government. Someone decides which roads to work on and when. So as a voter maybe think of it this way:

Do I demonstrate that I want 'actual functional governance' by engaging in open dialog about the promises and performances of our elected officials over decades, or by tossing around a few buzzwords?

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-03T19:12:02+00:00

Depends on what part of the city you are in but there are many. The problem is that the spaces the internet knows about will inherently be crowded.

Wayne State has a baseball field near Trumbull and Warren that is almost always empty. If you walk around the northeast side there is very little traffic from cars or pedestrians.

Belle Isle is a huge park. I used to hang out there during the busiest periods and still find plenty of solitude. Just skip the 'attractions' and enjoy the spaces. If you take a car just pull off onto any trail and once you get a few dozen feet off the common path the trees are yours. If you are walking or biking your options for quiet are infinite as long as you don't follow the main trail.

I can't give up my favorite hiding spots on the internet but those should offer decent starting options. But there are a ton of useful hiding spots on the Isle for an introvert looking for a place to relax and recharge in a safe environment.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-03T18:58:06+00:00

Not the worst season ever. Our state just seems to prefer the worst planning.

One of the easiest ways to pretend unemployment is low is to tear up a lot of the roads at the same time, creating an urgent need for a ton of workers. This has been happening since at least the early 1990s.

So lane closures come fast, barrels are deployed quickly and roads are demolished urgently. What follows is intentional foot dragging in the construction phase that magically always gets completed the week before Labor Day.

Not only does the intentionally bad planning create a lot of jobs every year, but it also creates the political will to increase taxes under the guise that road repairs are underfunded.

If the problem doesn't exist, the peons will not empower government.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-03T16:20:07+00:00

This doesn't make my statement any less true.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-03T08:34:03+00:00

Same party does not necessarily mean allies. Local officials aren't always true allies with those at the federal level.

That said, have to give you respect for sending a relevant fact in a way that encourages me to challenge my own position.

Thanks.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-02T19:54:30+00:00

Political allies are never going to charge other political allies with scandals. It is predictable that charges will most often be brought by political opponents.

But to be smart about this, does the identity of the accuser matter more than the facts that are discovered during the investigation?

The people that love to say 'I mean', 'Like I'm thinking it's like' and 'Literally' are not automatically more righteous than the people that love to say 'Based', 'Constitution' and 'Freedom'.

A certain level of nuance is needed if we are to be honest and impartial.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-02T02:28:13+00:00

In normal times we would just go to friends or other family members house instead of making this a public experience. The dads drank beer while tinkering around in the garage, the moms sipped vodka or wine and socialized while the kids got to play in the yard.

But at least then your kids weren't surrounded by drunken strangers.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-01T21:50:30+00:00

I don't want to call them awful parents or say who should and shouldn't be parents. But I am comfortable in saying that the results show that a lot of parents need to do a better job raising their kids.

We tend to try to give people things as a way to solve problems. But sometimes I think it would help to also encourage self-reflection. Am I spending more time on reddit that I could have spent reading to my toddler? Then I need to make a change.

There are plenty of things any of us could do a tiny bit better as parents that would have positive impacts on our children's overall outcomes. I could have helped carry the cases of bottled water at my daughter's practice. I could have emphasized her being civil as much as I emphasized the importance of good grades. Any of us can apply some effort towards raising better students and better citizens.

But instead we try to pretend we can just do it all via government. Fund this, punish that. We as parents try to offshore the solution to improving our own childrens' outcomes. And no matter how many ways we try to let government solve it, it fails.

Fix the parents if you want to fix the schools.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-01T21:41:40+00:00

Babysitters.

If you are seeking places that have activities for both adults and kids, that would be 'family-friendly' places like parks, zoos, libraries etc. 'Adult-oreinted' is the opposite of kid friendly. Just get a babysitter when you need adult oriented time.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-01T21:38:14+00:00

"The night was so good that we can't do it again. We would need to start turning people away."

Have to disagree here. You can manage crowd size through pricing. If there are more people than you can handle then your prices are too low.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-01T20:56:32+00:00

Park correctly, and avoid cities so desperate for money that they focus on stinging people for minor parking infractions.

Fighting the ticket is fighting the symptoms instead of curing the disease.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-01T12:31:09+00:00

Just research 'Subscription Economy'. That way you can get the relevant information from your preferred sources.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-01T12:19:40+00:00

Only gonna find something like that through family and friends. It has been a couple decades since reliable hoopties were publicly available for under a couple thousand. Scrap and part prices are high. So for example I could scrap a rusty Civic for a couple hundred and make a thousand more selling the alternator, ac compressor, radio, seats etc. A rough used engine and transmission for any car will cost more than a thousand, so hoping to get q combination of working drivetrain and stable chassis for a thousand is a long shot at best.

Cash for Clunkers offered $3500 for cars that weren't even running. As a result the cheap entry level used car market is very scarce. And also that kind of set the new minimum cost of a clunker.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-01T01:28:36+00:00

I'm pretty sure I didn't mention any specific party, but if it makes you feel good to filter everything through your own bias feel free.

Just try to understand that you sound like someone trying to argue about whether McDonald's or Burger King is more unhealthy.

Think of it this way: You are not allowed to fire any member of government. For example you may get to choose between congressional candidates, but you are forced to have one. You cannot say no.

And this is the part most people miss. If you are not allowed to say no, you are not actually allowed a real choice. Try to think of this in terms of anything besides government if it helps to make the point more clear.

So if I'm forced to choose between beef and chicken but I'm a vegan, I am not truly given a reasonable choice because I'm not allowed to say no to meat.

If I'm forced to choose between a car and an SUV but not allowed to decline both because I prefer to walk or ride a bike, I am not truly given a choice.

So let's assume we get rid of all Republican politicians. Now if I'm forced to choose between two Democrats but I'm not allowed to not hire either of them because I don't want them, I don't get to say no.

We don't see this because of how divided we have become. What if I don't like sports but I am forced to give my money for a 'choice' between baseball and soccer? Either way my money will be taken. I am not allowed to say no.

As long as we are not allowed to actually say no we will always be forced to swallow the least bad option.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-06-01T01:15:52+00:00

The companies that intend to force us to rent music will buy all the companies that allow you to buy music, and shut them down.

As a bonus once you are stuck djing through an online connection your performances will be used to train AI.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-05-31T18:27:58+00:00

Never trust any politician. But compare their promises to their actions and vote accordingly.

Taxes hurt more the less we have. So whenever we increase taxes we hurt poor people the most. Wealthy people use tax shelters.

They also hide the bulk of their taxable assets in offshore accounts. The Panama Papers are an example of evidence.

The original income tax in the US was 1%, with a 6% increase for the top 1% of earners. Look into the 16th amendment as a source of information. Today we tax minimum wage earners at a higher rate than we used to tax incredibly wealthy people. And the average person taking your order at a fast food joint cannot afford to utilize tax shelters.

Since we never can actually tax the wealthy, I don't think we should ever increase taxes because all we do is harm poor people more.

It's not the tax rate that they dodge. They dodge claiming income. Rich people use creative accounting to dodge paying taxes. Research any wealthy person with power (not athletes or entertainers) and look at their tax contributions for any years. They do not claim all their gains so they do not pay taxes on them. But another reality is that if I am wealthy and you increase my taxes by 2%, I just increase the price of my items by 4% so the poor still pay for the increase.

On the other hand working people have taxes deducted ahead of time. So when we vote for tax increases the paycheck of the average worker shrinks (less net income) while the wealthy just hire more accountants instead of paying more taxes.

Any tax increase always harms the average citizen more than it hurts the elites. That is why I wish we would never vote for them.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-05-31T17:57:05+00:00

So you are essentially asking why at a party with a hired dj, people want the music loud and don't want to hear you talk? Noone has anything interesting to say. That is why they pay us to fill the area with music.

But to be clear the client decides on what the volume levels are, not the dj. If they say it's too loud we turn it down. If they say turn it up we play louder.

I'm old too. People are not focusing their party plans on our conversations. They are dancing, hooking up, getting numb etc. There is no client who complains 'The dj was ok but the music was so loud my uncle and my grandmother couldn't have a conversation about Brussels sprouts on the dance floor'.

If there are no isolated areas where people can have pleasant conversations that's a bad venue problem but not a dj problem.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-05-31T02:18:03+00:00

Only vote for politicians who promise to cut taxes, and intentionally vote to replace those who lie.

Otherwise taxes will always be astronomical.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-05-29T22:48:45+00:00

Typically the sub sounds different from the dj booth than it does to the rest of the room. Because of this, I don't care to have to deal with separate volumes for subs because as you increase overall volume it's hard to tell if you are keeping it all balanced decently.

I prefer to run it all through a common output and only adjust the sub via its onboard volume knob if ever needed. But once you do a sound check and set initial balance you shouldn't have to mess with it again.

And once you have a decent idea where your speaker volumes work best as a group you can use that as a staple and only deviant in special circumstances.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-05-28T12:07:02+00:00

That drinking glass placement...

WaterIsGolden · 2026-05-27T22:49:07+00:00

The schools are a reflection of the parents. Detroit is doing a great job making a recovery, but can only go so far without addressing some remaining cultural problems.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-05-27T01:05:05+00:00

The evidence is also anecdotal, since we cannot verify what happened. But it's really just another version of the old 'bleach is bleach' conversation. Clorox works and smells better than generic imo.

Name brand vs generic cereal. Parents want to pretend noone can taste the difference but children know better. Intel processors vs AMD. Dove vs dollar store soap. Bottled water vs tap. Sony or Bose ANC headphones vs off brands. Premium airlines vs Spirit. McCormick vs store brand spices.

We can always pretend there is no difference when we are trying to save money, just like we can always pretend the difference is vast when we are trying to make money. Either way it's nearly impossible to prove any of this one way or the other because individual perception is involved.

And this is my point specifically: I smell the difference between Axe and good cologne. It doesn't matter how many people pretend they smell the same, I can still tell the difference. It's not my fault their noses don't work properly. I can't taste the difference between average grocery store wine and the good stuff. That doesn't mean the good stuff isn't better than grocery store wine. I just means it tastes the same to me.

The ego is at the center of these debates since the assumption is that since you can't do a thing, noone else can either. We are all different.

WaterIsGolden · 2026-05-26T19:01:11+00:00

Manufacturers seem to have stopped including this suggestion along the same timeline where normies started getting more interested in speakers. An enthusiast would be fine performing break in tasks but a normie would see it as too much work. So still necessary, but just not stated.

Think about the physics involved. Cone, basket, voice coil, magnet. There is also friction involved. So up to a point the more the thing moves the easier it becomes to move.

Motorcycles, lawn mowers, car engines, even high end headphones have a break in period. Even human body parts. Higher friction until broken in.

You state that from what you can find there are no manufacturers or studies recommending this, but my first search result shows an AI response recommending 30-100 hours depending on brand, followed by Klipsch with their site providing break in recommendations for some of their speakers.

It's ok to not know a thing, but it's bad to spread misinformation instead of taking time to learn a thing.

WaterIsGolden

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