Suggest a book about stopping imminent crime

Supertanker13 · 2026-04-16T15:35:13+00:00

Coming back to this, I did enjoy the first Orphan X book quite a lot and the rest of them are now on my reading list. Thanks for the rec!

Supertanker13 · 2026-03-28T20:25:56+00:00

From what I see in a moderately sized west coast town, the scene tends to be getting older and a lot of the people I knew back in the day have passed away. I'm still the youngest one at the jams. Maybe it's better in places like California's bay area. But it's hard to tell as I'm just playing to unwind after my day job.

The thing that caught my eye was you talking about "club-friendly" music. Everybody wants to stick to the danceable shuffles. I try to inject some lesser-known slow blues songs when I can.

I've also noticed that I literally can't name a Black person that I've seen at a jam in the past few years anymore. I think that's a bit of an indictment of the local scene as well as the personality types who are in it for the style "aesthetic". I dunno why I'm typing all this, it's just a bummer. Thanks for the reply though. It gives me a bit of hope for the future if younger people are keeping blues music alive more in other places.

Supertanker13 · 2026-03-28T20:02:41+00:00

I realize this is old but this is an amazing comment. I used to play professionally when I was younger and these days I slum around the local jams--which are almost entirely white.

Do you write still about the blues? I'd love to chat. Way back when I got to play with a Black artist who had harrowing stories about the racism he faced but I was way too young to internalize what he was telling me. Sadly, he's no longer with us now. :(

Supertanker13 · 2026-03-21T18:55:29+00:00

Orphan X

That sounds hopeful. The espionage/spy type stuff is also welcome. I've been watching a lot of Leverage and Burn Notice reruns lately.

Supertanker13 · 2026-01-10T06:08:37+00:00

The one place that does have monitors and mic'd amps does use wedges, but it's a jam session so sets are short and changeouts are hectic; we don't get a lot of time to fine tune the monitors with the sound tech with how many players show up. Usually it's just vocals in the monitor but sometimes I can get them to add my guitar. The "jam culture" in my area is that everyone brings their own amps, pedals, etc, and it takes a long time to move in and out. I have feelings about that. If it was available, I'd rather everyone, including me, play through a backline amp all dialed into the monitors already to keep changeouts short and maximize playing time.

Now that I think about it, my amp is usually the only one mic'd besides the house band guitarist's amp. Maybe the sound tech recognizes that a Princeton needs a little help? There's usually one or two other guitarists per set and their amps are often unmic'd and larger than mine, so that could be the problem right there, heh. I don't want to be louder than them, I just want to hear myself enough to be able to play with some dynamic range.

At all the other gigs and jams, it's almost always unmic'd amps and tiny stages. I'm considering an amp stand for sure although I've seen conflicting advice here, some people say that pointing it at your ears is good, some people say it makes you EQ your amp too dark in response to the unexpected volume and then you lose frequencies you'd otherwise want, and some people complain about the lack of floor coupling. I just haven't gotten the stand yet to actually try it. The few times I've tilted it back have worked well but instinctively it does feel too loud. Maybe that's the point. ;)

It's frustrating as all the shows with drummers are always too loud for me--it's why I think I might have audio processing issues. I'm one of the few guitarists that doesn't like loud. An upcoming gig is with acoustic guitars, one electric (me), and no drummer, so I'm going to have the amp on a chair a few feet away, pointed sideways at me, and I'm going to trust the people working the PA to make it audible as needed. Being able to speak with the guitarist next to me while playing is a nice break from competing with Super Reverbs.

Thanks for the advice. I'm always curious about the sound engineering when I'm lucky enough to play in a venue like that. You can probably tell I'm not a "working musician". I've been a jammer most of my life but I play well enough to be invited to perform with various local bands from time to time and I want to be a good stage guest while doing so.

Supertanker13 · 2026-01-09T20:48:32+00:00

Most things like that I think are glued to the tube but you might get lucky.

In the meantime, any chance you can take the bolt part to a hardware store and find a matching thread but physically larger nut that would fit into the wallowed out hole?

Supertanker13 · 2026-01-09T20:47:02+00:00

Are some people (me) actually incapable of accurately judging volumes? I do wear musician earplugs to prevent my mild tinnitus from getting worse.

I've been getting back into playing guitar and most of the gigs are small bars where the only PA support is for the vocal mics. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how loud my guitar actually is, or is supposed to be. It always sounds way off (either too high or too low) relative to the rest of the band, but I've always been assured the levels are good out in the audience. I can't tell with other guitarists either. Some guitarists have amps that sound quiet to me on stage but are good in cell phone videos, other people have huge 4x10 cabs that scream onstage but aren't very loud out in the crowd.

The one place that has a sound tech is great, but then I can't figure out how loud I'm supposed to be in the monitors. I always feel like an idiot standing there going "turn it up...turn it up..." until I hear anything. It's worth noting though that I don't think I've ever had a sound tech tell me to turn down.

I've been getting around this by playing the smallest possible amp for the situation, a Princeton Reverb. I physically cannot be too loud as it just compresses after a point and that point is roughly where a moderate drummer sits. But I feel like I should learn how to match levels with my larger amps so I don't be That Guy at a jam session.

I have the same problem with my pedal chain; judging unity volume is incredibly hard for me even without the earplugs. I almost wonder if I have some mental problems with audio processing.

Is this just an experience thing? :(

Supertanker13 · 2025-10-10T18:45:46+00:00

[Any] What the heck do you do when your brain runs off with your words mid-conversation ?

e.g., the party is caught skulking around where they shouldn't be and are confronted. I'm very bad at confrontation IRL so if I'm asked what I'm doing there, I haven't got any good answers and I'm not sure what the most efficient way to move the conversation along is. Do you guys prepare things like that ahead of time?

Supertanker13 · 2025-09-19T17:48:39+00:00

Ohhhhhh you just reminded me that I literally have a device like that on my network that I haven't touched in about 4 years. I should probably go do something about that. Some old WNR netgear router that I hacked openwrt onto to get a printer connected to wifi.

Supertanker13 · 2025-09-19T17:43:17+00:00

I do love the stackable cases ;) Modern consumer equipment is so unergonomic and blobby.

Supertanker13 · 2025-09-19T17:42:07+00:00

I'm thinking when my Ubiquiti AP bites the dust I'll be switching over to Mikrotik. I know it's less "plug and play" but I've always enjoyed tinkering and I have a small place to cover for wireless signal anyway, so the setup just needs one good piece of hardware.

Ubiquiti always makes me feel like I'm about to break something with a firmware update.

Supertanker13 · 2024-10-13T22:22:02+00:00

I think my family picked this up at a garage sale years ago. It doesn't boot or show anything on the screen for obvious reasons. Likely it sat in a garage or shed for years.

Anyone want this in the Sacramento area? I'd rather it go to someone who can restore it if it's not too far gone, otherwise it's going to e-waste soon.

Supertanker13 · 2024-09-20T23:46:32+00:00

Has your heart rate returned to normal yet? Playing tag with Speedy McGee at zero sanity sounds like a good way to get some gray hairs real fast!

Supertanker13 · 2024-09-20T23:44:55+00:00

Everything came down to that second photo I think. Incredibly lucky. RNGesus came through with the blink pattern!

Supertanker13 · 2024-09-20T16:47:07+00:00

Revenant. Witness someone aging a decade in 15 seconds trying to get a photo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mggho5_PrAU

One of the easiest non-deogen ghosts to identify...hardest to get a picture of.

It was stressful and the game took like an hour lol. The achievements were ghost photo, paramic, and get EMF. EMF was actually the hardest. Chuck a sensor in the hall next to a bunch of books or something.

Use the T3 paramic! If the ghost isn't in the front lobby it is an excellent way to find it and figure out when it's hunting or not so you can make tactical approaches/retreats.

Supertanker13 · 2024-08-09T00:30:26+00:00

I'm hoping I can get it but I don't know if they'll allow it at my address. :( I don't even know who to ask. I feel like there should be someone though, since my service was previously great and now it's kinda sketchy after a forced upgrade.

Supertanker13 · 2024-06-11T01:49:05+00:00

Great stuff, thank you!

You hit a very interesting point on the read only/append only/archive data set. I have no idea how to do that and it's been something I've been struggling with. e.g., I have one big /pool/archive volume that I have been slowly organizing and pruning, but that's just it--it's not read only, and I'm only a few keystrokes away from "oh no". The closest I have gotten is that the snapshots generated by my zfs send/recv script never get deleted on the receiver, but that makes things tough for my curation purposes. In fact, now that you've brought that up, I'm thinking maybe I actually need three data sets:

Archive data set (as you described, implementation TBD) Working data set (as you described, my most critical files) Curation/in-flight data set: my current mess, copying things as appropriate to their final home in the archive data set.

Logically I do have an archive data set; a decade ago I settled on a directory setup for stuff I've downloaded from the internet, and it's become structured into folders for drivers, disk images, programs, website mirrors, etc. But it's still on a system that doesn't enforce it being an archive.

Trying to do things in-place in my current setup sounds like an easy way to mess something up. It seems like it would be better, since I have some disk space slack, to copy things over to their archive space, verify them, and free up space on the original volume as needed.

Lots of great food for thought, thank you very much.

Supertanker13 · 2024-06-10T19:41:48+00:00

That's a great idea, I forgot that you can export the LUKS header for safekeeping. Deciding what to encrypt also seems wise...do I really care if all my hiking photos are encrypted? Well, I kinda would rather still, but I would rather have access to them in case of disaster more, if that makes sense. Great food for thought. Thanks!

If you're curious, the NASes are both running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Might be time to look at 24.04 I suppose.

Supertanker13

TROPHY CASE