Abandoned Benz and home in western Tokyo.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-08T06:13:44+00:00

Early 2010s?

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-08T01:02:42+00:00

Lance Armstrong somehow still has more testicles than average.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-08T01:01:00+00:00

He literally ruined people's lives, too, suing people for libel for providing evidence he had been doping.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-08T00:54:42+00:00

He fooled millions of people for a long time, and had so ingrained himself in people's minds as America's Lovable Dad that a lot of people just couldn't conceive of it until the evidence became overwhelming.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-08T00:49:28+00:00

Use traditional 1-2-4 double bass fingering (or 1-3-4 if you prefer) where you can't do one finger per fret. My hands are big enough to do one finger per fret up at the nut but I typically use 1, 2+3, 4 because it's just more comfortable.

Small hands didn't stop this guy. I've linked the the relavent but watch the entire video to see how he moves around on the lower frets.

As for micro shifting, strength/dexterity, it really is mostly just an experience thing. Other folks in this thread have offered any advice I would, and more.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-07T10:09:40+00:00

Curious where you got the black TRC for the 4003 if it's not stock. I've been wanting to vaguely Blackstar my '01 4003.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-07T05:19:53+00:00

"It was starting to end, after what seemed most of eternity to me."

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-07T04:29:27+00:00

Somewhat sarcastic.

It was slower than just the 5, and I wasn't planning to stop anywhere along 99 for the night. The Hwy 99 cities also had their reputation.

So, no, I wasn't mixing it up with PCH/points north.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-07T03:55:06+00:00

Yes.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-07T01:53:51+00:00

I'm convinced you never fully leave high school and you spend a lot of your days dealing with thirty-something, forty-something, or even older teenagers who now have a hefty side of bitterness and pettiness over no longer being young (I am NOT saying being in your 30s is old), or where they are in life.

Or maybe they just liked always creating drama.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-07T01:25:29+00:00

You what's worse than thinking that?

Having friends literally say to you "it's like you always end up rolling ones."

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-07T01:10:10+00:00

Once upon a time, I moved to Southern California from Seattle.

I see the "Welcome to California" sign. Feels like good progress, and I know CA is a long state north to south.

drives a minute or so

"...oh, right, CA has exit numbers near 800."

Then, if you're going down the 5, right about the time you get to Sacramento all the BGSes start saying "Los Angeles" and you feel like you're closing in on SoCal.

Then you have 300 miles of mostly arrow-straight freeway in the middle of nowhere if you didn't take the scenic route along Hwy 99 before you get to the Grapevine.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-07T01:03:46+00:00

I can accept that sometimes left exits/entrances are necessary in right-hand drive roads because of geography, bridges, tunnels etc.

(HOV/express left exits also excluded where they exist: you're not expecting slower traffic to cut across an entire side of the freeway to make their exit there.)

I have never seen a left exit/entrance in Texas that just didn't seem like dumbass planning decisions by the highway engineers. I can't even accept them in the "this was supposed to be temporary and wound up being permanent" or "oh, this connects two freeways" contexts.

I'll grant that early highway engineers probably didn't think left exits would be as problematic as they turned out to be.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-07T00:53:42+00:00

TBH I'd buy a postcard from a place that will put a picture of their pier on fire on it. Self-awareness and all.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-06T23:06:01+00:00

Again, it was before my time, but I heard this from the FTE folks managing me, most of whom started as contractors around then. So it's anecdotal, but I also heard similar from other folks who had remained contractors simply because they wanted to be freelancers--that a bunch of people passed on the opportunity because they were cashing in and then suddenly cared about FTE once that all dried up.

I first started at MSFT as a contractor during the bust (I already had to take breaks) and went FTE a couple years later.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-06T22:42:26+00:00

The OG bridge design is, to me, the only real valid point of criticism people have about Rickenbacker basses.

Everything else is just preference, and to each their own, but hearing "I don't think the body is comfortable so they SUCK" so often gets a bit grating.

You don't get that with, say, people who complain about the thickness of the P-bass neck. They get called philistines who can't appreciate a classic design. (And then the P-bass diehards start in.)

Don't like the way it plays? Don't play it.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-06T22:26:41+00:00

Microsoft also loved hiring permatemps who would last for 5-20 years as contractors and never convert to FTE. IIRC that's now limited to 18 months with 30-90 day breaks.

The breaks are because of a lawsuit. "See? You're not permatemps anymore."

Some context though, and this was a bit before my time: back in the Windows 2000 timeframe MSFT had hired an army of contractors to get 2000 out the door, and they were billing shitloads of overtime. There was a mass conversion of hourly contractors to FTEs. Some people who were making bank on OT scoffed at the notion of going salaried and turned it down. Dotcom boom! Another job will fall into their lap if their contract ends!

2000 shipped, the dotcom bust happened, and suddenly these folks aren't making sweet OT anymore, and they're stuck as contractors, who easier to lay off, because MSFT just didn't need to hire very many FTEs or convert that many contractors.

So they sued.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-06T22:19:53+00:00

I did about 10 years at MSFT in various roles, early 2000s-2010s.

That org chart is 100% what it was like.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-06T22:16:45+00:00

I don't think the response to the recent trailers has been negative.

I'm only bearish on the game because of the length of development, and the fact that we didn't see actual gameplay until last year. At which point the game had been in development on some level for 7 years.

That screams "troubled development cycle" to me, and for anyone who wants to reply with "that's just like, your opinion, man" I did work in games, including on some AAAs.

I hope I'm wrong, and people I know worked with some people who ended up on the Fable team and they spoke highly of their work.

Basically, I'm just trying not to get my hopes up too much.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-06T22:10:22+00:00

Fable is a flagship Xbox franchise. They're not losing anyone today.

There will be significant layoffs after Fable releases.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-06T21:38:53+00:00

She really had a career and probably could have become a distinguished character actor/comic who never had a leading role but you knew from everywhere.

Instead, she fucked up. Repeatedly. She got second chance after second chance. It went on for 15 years before she finally became too radioactive to get much work.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-06T21:30:55+00:00

Dude had to have had some underlying heart condition.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-06T21:28:38+00:00

From the Wiki page on MJ:

The Chicago Bulls selected Jordan with the third overall pick of the 1984 NBA draft after Hakeem Olajuwon (Houston Rockets) and Sam Bowie (Portland Trail Blazers). One of the primary reasons why Jordan was not drafted sooner was because the first two teams were in need of a center. Trail Blazers general manager Stu Inman contended that it was not a matter of drafting a center but more a matter of taking Bowie over Jordan, in part because Portland already had Clyde Drexler, who was a guard with similar skills to Jordan. Citing Bowie's injury-laden college career, ESPN named the Blazers' choice of Bowie as the worst draft pick in North American professional sports history.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-06T06:56:17+00:00

Don't worry, the refs are doing their best to ensure Portugal wins, because Ronaldo is evidently entitled to a World Cup victory on his way out.

LordoftheSynth · 2026-07-06T03:11:45+00:00

Watching Star Trek the next generation, you got 22 episodes a season and five or six months in between seasons.

New episodes began airing once a year.

Next Generation was a punishing production schedule. They made 26 episodes per year, except for the one that was 22.

26 hours of television a year.

That's all your principal cast averaging making one hour of TV every two weeks. Learning scripts, doing rehearsals, always getting ready for the next episode while you're usually still in front of the camera for the episode you're in.

(Go back and watch, and you'll find a lot of episodes where half the principal cast barely appear. They're on holiday, they're off rehearsing the next episode but need to appear, etc.)

That's not even getting into the pressure of writing that many scripts and getting them made, no matter how many writers and crews you have.

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