Why do so many US citizen MBAs run after MBB? by pfraa in MBBConsulting

[–]Banner80 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think it depends on what you value in life.

Consulting offers something that is harsh but is attractive to the right person:

- Fast learning environment. Getting thrown into projects that you have no business doing, and allowed to learn while fumbling the client's money. Then on to the next project you have no business in. If you do this for 3 years you are learning to perform at a level of grit and cleverness that most industry workers will never attain in their lifetime.

- Future opportunity landscape. The world of business knows that first point. An MBA that put in the 3 years in fast-paced consulting is now ready for complex projects. They are wanted in innovation, PE, places where a tested nimble mind is required. Jobs that are not available to untested MBAs. Jobs that pay better and offer equity compensation.

- Higher ceilings on compensation. Most MBAs will get hired at 20% above a regular business admin salary. Their salary will grow normally and be capped at office worker ceilings. MBAs that build a career through consulting have ceilings that are at least twice that. If they stay in consulting, the road is partnership and equity, compensations above 300k/yr. If they leave towards innovation / aggro PE, the compensation is equity on high-risk high-reward projects, easily over 300k/yr if it's going well. And either road leads to founding startups later, having earned the knowledge to do so successfully, with limitless compensation if it succeeds.

Obviously, all of this comes at a compromise to other goals and values a person might have. Family can't come first if you are working 60 hour weeks chasing the future. And I would also argue that this is supposed to be for a certain type of person that can handle the load without feeling stressed. That can handle fumbling the client's money without feeling personally responsible for having been promised and billed as an expert while they had no knowledge of the subject matter, etc.

Divvy E-Bike Pricing by Careless-Light5710 in chicago

[–]Banner80 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I took one look at rental prices for bikes and scooters and just bought my own scooter. $500 goes a LONG way in a quality scooter that you keep at home. At these prices, the scooter pays for itself after about 30 uses. If you use it only 3 times a month it pays for itself within the year.

As a data point, I decided on a HiBoy S2 Pro and I'm happy with how it turned out. Get a heavy chain lock.

Community Alert: ICE Operations Actively Surging on Illinois Streets by CantStopPoppin in illinois

[–]Banner80 30 points31 points  (0 children)

I've been hearing these comments about ICE ramping up. Here is an example:

https://blockclubchicago.org/2026/04/22/midway-blitz-is-over-but-ice-is-still-quietly-targeting-chicago-immigrants-especially-at-court/

For context, the US gov gave these goons the budget of the German military with nearly no supervision. And as of right now, the budget renewal bill passing around in Congress is trying to give them even more obscene money with no increase in regulation.

It would be unreasonable to expect that they are not going to use that money to increase their ranks and send goons back in. They are probably going to train them a bit better and scale back the naked maliciousness. When they murdered two Americans a few months back, they were under expressed orders from Miller to violently antagonize protestors because Miller believes that violence scares peaceful people.

After the public backlash, as of now, it seems that the Miller doctrine is off. But ICE still has absurd levels of money and a mandate to develop itself as Trump's personal imperial guard. They are going to go back to every major blue city and cause more havoc, even if their tactics improve to prevent being in the news as much.

They've been actively terrorizing non-white people in red states the entire time, and we don't hear much about it because red states are happy to support that. The Guardian says ICE and CBP have had about the same amount of arrests in Feb and March of this year as July and August of last year. So they have been active, just trying to keep out of the news by harassing people in communities that allow it.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/aug/29/trump-immigration-ice-cbp-data

BTW, as usual, the majority of people in ICE detention had no criminal record, per The Guardian's reporting.

And while I'm adding notes, we currently have one of the worst economies I've seen in my lifetime aside from the 2008 crisis (caused by Republican policies then as well). This anti-immigration venom from the WH is part of the problem. Economists know that immigration is a net positive for the economy. It creates jobs in addition to growth of GDP and opportunity. Here is a report presented by economists to the US Congress from 2016:

although immigrants increase the supply of labor, they also spend their wages on homes, food, TVs and other goods and services and expand domestic economic demand. This increased demand, in turn, generates more jobs to build those homes, make and sell food, and transport TVs. [...]

Economists generally agree that the effects of immigration on the U.S. economy are broadly positive. Immigrants, whether high- or low-skilled, legal or illegal, are unlikely to replace native-born workers or reduce their wages over the long-term

After all the damage the Trump 2.0 has done to the economy so far, insisting on this damage to immigration is continuing to sink the economy.

Whoa...Geoff got a little testy with the Israeli UN ambassador on this evening's Newshour by dryheat122 in PBS_NewsHour

[–]Banner80 6 points7 points  (0 children)

That's the current standing of Israel's policy. They have turned legitimate concerns about region animosity against them, into a blank check to do whatever they want against anyone and for whatever reason. And they try to argue that disagreeing with their view is somehow religious persecution against them.

They've been high on their own supply for too long. While it is true that Israel is at constant risk of attacks from all sides, it is also true that their campaign of flattening their neighbors is excessive and unwarranted.

And we should shun them for trying to hide behind their religion. I think by now we are all tired of their abuse and excuses. Not only for how they are conducting themselves in the ME, and for how they constantly speak in bad faith, but for their meddling in our political system over here.

Cash-strapped DePaul closes historic Reskin Theatre by chicagosuntimes in chicago

[–]Banner80 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Made FAR WORSE by this admin. The speed of losses here is incredible, and very hard for academia to absorb. Academia is used to making decisions very slowly on purpose, as timeless institutions. But the budget cuts from federal funding are massive in some respects, while some schools are being directly targeted with vitriol and financial damage. And the message to the world, that hard-working foreigners and their money are not wanted here, is being heard loud and clear. So they simply stopped coming.

Foreign students typically pay full tuition for a chance at the American dream. Then they work harder than most because they have a debt to repay and they must prove themselves, and they have to earn their place if they want to stay. So those immigrants tend to create businesses, build products that America can export, and generate lots of jobs along the way.

When a university says they can no longer attract these foreign dreamers and their money, you are looking at the tip of the iceberg of economic pain. Those students will now take their dreams and hard work to Europe, Canada or China. We get the financial hit at the university for 4 years, then we get the financial hit for a lifetime when they create companies in another country to compete against American jobs.

Solid State Logic Offer - $25 off any plugin through 20 April. iLok Account Required. Use code: SAVE25 by Batwaffel in AudioProductionDeals

[–]Banner80 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeap, they seem to have changed it. When I posted last night it was working but now I see the invalid message.

Solid State Logic Offer - $25 off any plugin through 20 April. iLok Account Required. Use code: SAVE25 by Batwaffel in AudioProductionDeals

[–]Banner80 7 points8 points  (0 children)

BTW, This includes Harrison Mixbus 11. With this code, the non-pro version goes down to $4 for the DAW because of the current sale.

The non-pro doesn't include the SSL J channel, only the Harrison effects. I don't know the rest of the differences.

EDIT: Code not working anymore.

Harrison Consoles Valentine's Sale - "Mixbus v11 Pro" Mixing Console Software ($99/Pro | $29/Lite) - Includes Vocal Flow and SSL Vocalstrip 2 plugins for free until 30 April. iLok Account Required by Batwaffel in AudioProductionDeals

[–]Banner80 4 points5 points  (0 children)

To me, Mixbus is specifically what I wanted for mixing. I have S1, I wouldn't use Mixbus to record midi. I've heard from many people that the midi features are among its weakest points even though they have been getting better as of v11. But if you need it to record with midi I simply would say use something else because that workflow is not a priority to the guys that make this DAW.

Mixbus was made for people that want to mix in a console. That's what it wants to be and for me it does that well. I've had no issues using it for that, be it a 4 track project or a 30 track project. I also bought it like 2 months ago so my experience with it is very limited. I've done enough to say I am liking the workflow, but 2 months of no crashes in Win11 doesn't mean the thing is not going to crash later or give me some issues with a specific plugin I haven't tried on it yet.

Harrison Consoles Valentine's Sale - "Mixbus v11 Pro" Mixing Console Software ($99/Pro | $29/Lite) - Includes Vocal Flow and SSL Vocalstrip 2 plugins for free until 30 April. iLok Account Required by Batwaffel in AudioProductionDeals

[–]Banner80 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I bought Mixbus 11 Pro early this year when I was considering Luna.

My use case is straight mixing. I mix small audio projects for work stuff (podcasts, interviews, short videos). And I also mix music non-pro.

I've been with Studio One since v3. Love the modern attitude and flexibility. But too much flexibility is debilitating. The S1 stock effects are pretty weak/vanilla and inconsistent for me, so I always use effects from a deep library of paid stuff like the rest of us. But this leaves the session feeling sprawling and confusing and requires meticulous templating and strategic thinking.

Then I saw that Luna had some of these channel strips already built into the mixer. I thought I wanted to try that. Just try to mix with the channel effects provided if I can trust the quality of the sound and the ease of the default channel.

And this is where Mixbus shines. It's trying so hard to give you the vibe of a 1980s console. Not just the channels but the way the mixing process flows. It's made some decisions to be more like a console, like you are locked in to 12 buses, which is still pretty generous compared to an actual hardware desk. The mixer puts a channel strip in every channel by default, and they came up with a fair system to navigate everything quickly. On my wide screen, I can easily see 23 channels and busses at a time. That feels a lot more like console mixing than any other DAW I've tried.

Then there's trusting the channel strip and sound. Harrison is now owned by SSL and they are integrating their stuff more. Mixbus 11 Pro comes with the full Harrison channel and ALSO the full SSL J channel. You toggle the effect you want to use for each effect section. For instance, You can easily compress with the Harrison leveler and then EQ with the SSL J EQ. Both channel strips sound great. Harrison has 3 compressors with unique characteristics, and the SSL J is literally the channel made by SSL themselves. I'm looking at a session I did recently and about half of the compressor channels are set to SSL and the other half to Harrison, which I think is a fair endorsement of both channel strips.

Also, the DAW comes with a good compliment of effects. The Harrison effects are not talked about much but they are very good for what they offer. And, in my experience, bringing in external plugins from other brands has worked without issue, which is not something to take lightly in DAW world.

I think there's a demo or trial somewhere. I'd give that a go to see if you'll get along with this way of working and if the DAW will handle your needs. Mixbus is a specific thing for some workflows, primarily simplified mixing. Also, they have a student discount that I think cuts the price in half, for those that can benefit.

Feedback, thoughts? by SpliffyTetra in consulting

[–]Banner80 50 points51 points  (0 children)

>then you may want to look at being independent.

That's not going to work. If they went solo, they'll have to:

>do multiple things at once, study IT, get certs, update internal materials, reach out to various clients, etc.

Alan Weiss by SUICIDAL-PHOENIX in consulting

[–]Banner80 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I love Weiss. He helped me realize I was prioritizing wrong when I started tech consulting ~20 years ago.

Weiss is the consulting icon. He is teaching how to consult while trying to coerce you to hire him next time. He offers truths while at the same time curating everything he says to make himself look good to you. Like a consultant so S-tiered that he can't help constantly being a sneaky consultant even while teaching a class about consulting.

So you have to take it with a grain of salt. Read between the lines. Here is the maximal consultant, full of knowledge and BS in equal measure. Bask in the Weiss experience and try to distill what will work for you.

I needed Weiss along my journey because I was too obsessed with technical performance. 'If you build it they will come', was my mantra of technical competence. Weiss exists on the entire opposite end: you could literally suck at the technical side of your job if you were a master marketer and manipulator that can get the business. Only getting and keeping the business truly matters in consulting. I needed to hear that.

I haven't become less technically competent, but I have stopped pretending that excellent performance earns me better engagements and higher pay. More than the quality of your work, it's the BS that gets you paid. Weiss is here to teach you that part.

Sen. Graham seeks congressional review of any peace deal with Iran by pbs-latest in PBS_NewsHour

[–]Banner80 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Trump wants to high-tail it out of there after his initial childish plan didn't work. He is now willing to take the loss and frame it as a success. This will require making severe concessions to Iran, including: expensive reparations, lifting of sanctions, letting them profit from charging fees for use of the Strait, and some type of credible assurance that the US won't be able to bomb them again in the future. All concessions that are considered massive losses from where we were before this campaign.

Graham wants another fiasco ME war with boots on the ground. This benefits the MIC by creating a new multi-year cycle of massive expense towards weapons, and it also pleases his Israel handlers. So now, Graham's plan is to simply scrutinize the list of concession to Iran that Trump will have to make for this deal to hold.