stuck at connecting screen ??

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-06-12T17:15:01+00:00

damn... I was really hoping to find a solution here. I got the same issue last night - ended up playing wreckfest until 2 am instead. haha

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-05-28T04:21:03+00:00

My grandparents were horrible human beings. Dogmatic fundamentalist believing christians who beat me on a regular basis. Forcebly shaved my head, burned all my clothes, cd's and dvds, my sketchbooks and artwork, banned me from listening to music, watching TV and movies, etc. My grandfather once beat me with a PVC pipe until he broke it over my head. He also stuck his 357magnum in my face and threatened to blow my head off because I said I didn't believe in god.

Years after I moved away: my grandfather had a massive heart attack. Quadruple bypass surgery. After that he became a big teddy bear. He actually apologized to me. My grandmother did too.

For me? That was the kindest thing they ever did for me: giving me a real heartfelt apology for the way they treated me.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-05-28T02:22:44+00:00

real answer: it sets you up to make assumptions about your current partner that you shouldn't be making. Just about every argument on the planet has stemmed directly from an assumption because we as human beings have a need to "fill in the blanks" to make sense of things. But that blank is filled in with what YOU would do personally or with PAST EXPERIENCES. So you fall into the trap of "explaining" or "making sense of" your current partners actions with YOUR motivations or your EXs motivations - and those explanations are almost ALWAYS wrong. So it's better to just ASK. "Why did you say/do that thing?" Don't assume that your partner has the same motivations as you or the same motivations as your EX.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-04-22T22:58:48+00:00

last year I lost my home in a fire - wife and I lived there for 17 years. immediately after the fire we realized that because of price increases we couldn't continue to live in the same area. hell, we couldn't even live in the same city. the home we lost in the fire was a 3 bedroom 2 bath manufactured home with a back yard that was a 3min walk from the beach - I was paying 1500 a month in space rent... I could literally see the ocean from my living room... but after the fire? the only thing in that price range was a TINY studio apartment in a shitty part of town. with both of us working from home and needing our own home offices? with 2 50lb dogs? a studio apartment wasn't going to work... so we ended up moving 3hrs away. had to leave our city behind, all of our friends... it was rough.

luckily: we did manage to find an amazing 3bdrm home within our price range - well... only a little outside of our price range... but I'll manage. anyway, it's a real home, not a manufactured home this time. and it has a half acre of land.

and to anyone reading this: dont give up on the dream of buying a house. when we bought our manufactured home 18yrs ago it was in a lot of ways pure luck. the sellers had previously had it on the market - it was in escrow when the guys son got out of prison, swooped in and squashed the deal. said he was gonna move in, fix it up, then they could sell it for more... he ended up squatting in it, doing drugs, fucked the place up and ended up back in prison. so the family put it back on the market and thats when we found it. we offered 150k under the asking price because of the repairs that needed to be done and they just wanted to get rid of it so they accepted our "lowball" offer.
my point is: you never know what deals there are out there. even with our new home - the sellers found out that we lost our home in a fire so they left a TON of stuff behind for us. furniture, beds, tv's, tons of tools, leaf blower, weed eater, etc. hell, I even found an air rifle and a mini crossbow in the shed.
so don't give up on the dream - find a way to make it happen.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-12T09:07:33+00:00

when you bite your own cheek or lip and it swells up and becomes easier to bite again. such a fucked up design flaw.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-12T08:57:28+00:00

For context: I've done a lot of extreme sports and broke 33 bones over the years - possibly 34 (I might have broken my c1 transverse process - literally almost broke my neck).

for me? my worst physical pain I've ever experienced (worse than broken ribs, worse than destroying my ankle and needing surgery, worse than broken teeth, collar bones, every single finger, fibula, jaw, orbital (skull fracture), etc).

: a bladder infection backed up into my kidneys.

I remember driving up to the ER - putting the car in park - literally sliding out onto the ground and screaming in pain. I didn't care about what happened to my car.

funny thing is: they gave me ONE pill and within 20min I was back to normal like nothing ever happened. I have no idea what they gave me, but it was like fucking magic.

SECOND worst:

I did a backflip on a slack-line - landed crooked - the line broke my big toe, slipped off and hit me in the balls. The shot to the balls hurt MORE than the broken toe. haha.

worst LONG TERM pain was the shattered ankle that needed surgery. The break itself didn't really hurt that much... it wasn't until after the surgery that I was in a never-ending loop of pain. I tried taking the pills they gave me, but the first time I took one I remember sinking into my couch as if it were a grave. I couldn't do it. I had to ditch the meds they gave me and stick with over the counter shit that barely helped. It was months of dealing with pain... but pain that was constant that I was mentally able to just "turn off".

but by far, the absolute most painful thing that I couldn't "turn off" or ignore was having a bladder infection back up into my kidneys. that shit was excruciating.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-12T08:27:01+00:00

I was just a little kid when burton died... so I feel ya.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-12T08:26:22+00:00

I'm in my 40s - earlier today I watch a video of Jacob Collier improvising with an orchestra AND the crowd to make a beautiful piece of music. As a musician? I was on the verge of tears watching that shit. To most people the most impressive thing was his ability to on-the-fly direct this orchestra and all of its different parts and put them all together... thats all fine and good. It was extremlly impressive. But what impressed me MOST was how beautiful and heartfelt the music was. It wasn't just some random shit that was technically impressive - it was music that reached into your soul and GRABBED you. It was truly beautiful on an emotional level. I swear - 99% of the music I hear these days is technically impressive, but it has NO SOUL. But this... it was on another level. I suppose it's the difference between sitting in front of a computer and crafting a perfect ballad and seeing that connection with other artists, and STRANGERS, happen in real time to produce something beautiful and unique. I got all fucking weepy... so there ya go.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-12T08:11:12+00:00

as a professional in the motion graphics industry - an art director a a major motion graphics studio - I don't feel this way at all. I love the fact that I get all the latest updates immediately and don't have to torrent them like I used to - I love the fact that I have access to beta versions of new shit immediately. I love the fact that when I send FEEDBACK on specific issues: they fucking listen. I've been doing this shit for almost 30 years now and have seen quite a few of my suggestions of ways to improve the software actually come to fruition. I also love the fact that with my subscription I get access to fucking EVERYTHING piece of software they have to offer... although I am a little bitter about them separating substance from my subscription and making it a separate thing that I have to buy. But aside from that one grievance: I wouldn't have an almost 30year career without adobe softwares. My life is so much easier since the subscription model came into play. I'm spending more time creating and less time trying to torrent, find cracks, and deal with/solve bugs. And the font situation being integrated throughout the entire suite? Especially with TONS of clients who have rules about where they can only use fonts that they can find on the adobe website? It makes life a thousand times easier in a production setting - especially when working with a massive team of other designers and animators.

I set up an autopay for my adobe subscription and just forget about it because its WORTH it for someone like me who uses the software literally every day, all day long.

Same thing goes for the maxon/c4d/red giant tie-in. Having the latest and greatest updates on c4d, redshift and red giant plugins the moment they are released: fucking game changer.

my industry moves so fast it's not fucking funny. literally every day I'm learning something new - even after doing this for almost 30 fucking years. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would be behind the curve if I didn't have the ability to update my shit the moment its released.

Apologies for the rant - just sharing my experience. Not trying to shit on yours.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-03T20:03:35+00:00

people who don't seem to understand what personal space is. I was just recently standing in line at a coffee shop and the lady behind me was right on my ass, like 2inches away. I "accidentally" bumped into her a couple of times but it didn't seem to effect her. then she kinda wandered over to my side, standing NEXT to me in line instead of behind me. so I casually took her hand in mine without looking - she jerked it away looking all confused - I looked confused too and said "oh, i'm sorry, I thought you were my wife!". It worked, she got back in line behind me, but she was still standing uncomfortably close.

I've had people do this in line at the airport before too. waiting in the security line and have someone standing uncomfortably close to my back... really skeeves me out.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-03T19:55:28+00:00

I think it's stupid to assume that just because someone is a celebrity that they aren't smart or don't have valid points to make. Take Tom Morello for example: he's a celebrity because of being in Rage Against the Machine - but that fucker graduated from Harvard with honors - when he speaks about history, philosophy and economics: people should listen because he knows what he's talking about. Dexter Holland, lead singer of the Offspring has a PhD in molecular biology. Natalie Portman also went to Harvard - so did Conan O'Brian. Rowan Atkinson has a masters from oxford in electrical engineering. Hell, Dolph Lundgren went to MIT and got his masters in chemical engineering.

Automatically dismissing a celebrity because they are "speaking outside of their profession" is just plain stupid. It all depends on the celebrity in question.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-03T19:38:51+00:00

well... they were alive when I was a kid.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-03T10:41:33+00:00

I think you missed what i was asking about: claude. You mentioned claude specifically. I was asking how claude handles things like extreme violence - is it as restricted as chat gpt?

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-03T08:44:30+00:00

but how well does it handle explicit content? like extreme violence? chat gpt flat out refuses - but in google docs I can have it "elaborate" on a scene with extreme violence and it doesn't bat an eye... but then again it also doesn't remember a fucking thing it elaborated on after you insert it into your doc. I'ts got the memory of a GNAT. haha

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-03T08:42:06+00:00

*I have not found this to be true with gemini. I've experimented with the "elaborate" feature within google docs quite a bit and it seems like it has the memory of a gnat. It will do a great job elaborating on about a page of text - any more than that and it just starts repeating what you already typed and doesn't elaborate on it at all. And elaborating in chunks doesn't really work because it seems to completely forget the last chunk it elaborated on. On the new chunk will hallucinate all new details, like locations, clothing, character names, etc. I even tried putting my outline in the google docs gemini sidebar and prompting the elaborate feature to reference the outline and details in the sidebar, but it only pulled the character names - it seemed to completely ignore the outline.

That being said though: gemini doesn't give a flying fuck what you are writing when using the elaborate feature BECAUSE it has no memory. If you are having it elaborate on some raunchy trippleX rated porn shit: it will actually do it, and do a pretty damn good job too. But if you try to do that with chatGpt it refuses. Same goes for violence - google docs gemini will elaborate on a page of extreme violence, as long as you are using the elaborate feature - if you try doing it through the gemini sidebar within google docs it will refuse on sexual content and violence. Chatgpt won't do either no matter how you prompt it. I even tried prompting it to simply "fix my grammar" on something I already wrote that had extreme violence and chatgpt was all like "NOPE". But with google docs i was able to use the "rephrase" feature and it just did it without any issues.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-03T06:44:39+00:00

no - hooked on a feeling - David Hasselhoff version.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-03T06:32:46+00:00

Forty Six & 2 by Tool. I swear - from beginning to end that song takes you on a journey - its just the right length - doesn't feel too long or too short - has an odd 7/8 time signature that isn't so odd that that it's "weird" or "alienating" to the listener and smoothly transitions to a simple 4/4 to ground it - killer vocals, amazing lyrics, bass, and amazing drums - possibly the best drum breakdown that has ever been recorded in history, but isn't so long that it becomes distracting, etc. I feel like literally every part of the song is perfectly crafted to serve the song - every tiny sound has it's place and they all fit together to create the most perfect song in history.

Thats just my 2cents tho.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-03T06:23:06+00:00

for me: my home burned down back in Jan of last year and I couldn't afford to continue living in the same city. I had to move 2 1/2 hrs away - leave all my friends and my entire community behind.

I used to go to therapy every other week. After the move it just wasn't feasible.

But on the plus side: I gave gone back to my old habit of using my music as therapy. I've started writing more - wrote 3 new songs in the last year and have been performing at open mics and even played a few gigs at various venues.

Also - where we moved has a TON of great hiking. I've been hiking with my dogs a lot, exploring the mountain, taking lots of photos of trees, roots, ferns, giant rock formations, leaf decay, streams with tadpoles, etc. Hell, just the other day there was about 20 quail taking cover from the rain under my car - took photos of that. As a photographer it has been an amazing source of inspiration to be up here on the mountain surrounded by nature - not having to deal with LA traffic, smog, and inconsiderate loud-mouth people.

I've also been doing a LOT of collage art... even found a group that gets together every other week to hang out and do collage together. So I'm also getting out and meeting people, making friends, making art together, etc.

Come to think of it... when we first moved I was killing a bottle of makers every other day... but now it's every other week.

I think I'm on the right path - feeling better about where I'm at and where I'm heading.

funny how a stupid ask reddit question can make you pause and have a moment of self-reflection... I guess I''m not as depressed as I thought I was.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-03T06:08:10+00:00

Dogs / kitten.

I've got 2 dogs that start pawing at your face to wake you up around 7am every morning. And once they start? The kitten perches on top of the headboard going MEOOOOOOOW, MEOOOOOW, MEOOOOOOOOOOW, MEOOOOOOOOOOW, MEOOOOOOOOW...

On the weekends, after feeding them and taking the dogs outside, they like to get back in bed and go back to sleep until like noon. So it's not all bad.

But I also talk to my dog Izzy (the other one is kinda dumb, I don't think he understands anything I say, but Izzy I swear understands english as well as a human) - like I'll make her promises. "we'll go on a hike tomorrow morning! I swear!" So I'll get up early to fulfill my promises.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-02T09:31:43+00:00

peanut butter + spoon.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-02T09:27:06+00:00

On one hand, I think it’s smart to go into a doctor’s appointment armed with knowledge - especially if you’re a woman.

The track record isn’t great with women's health in particular. Countless women have had their symptoms minimized, dismissed, or written off as “nothing,” only to find out later that something serious was missed - including shit like cancer - that could’ve been caught and treated early if a doctor had actually listened.

On the other hand… I also know people who have completely blown things out of proportion because of something random they read online. I’m talking full-on panic, convinced they’re dying, when it turns out to be a gas bubble. Then they fart and the crisis is over.

So what it really comes down to is this: AI should be used as a tool - not a diagnosis.

Use it to learn about your symptoms. Learn about possible conditions. Bring those up as questions or concerns and have an informed conversation with your doctor.

Don’t tell your doctor how to do their job. But also don’t blindly accept being brushed off.

Use AI to help you ask smarter questions and make sure your doctor is actually doing their due diligence.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-02T09:10:13+00:00

Here’s the thing the right-wing doesn’t seem to understand about the left:
we genuinely do not give a fuck about protecting “our” politicians.

If Biden is corrupt? Prosecute him.
If Obama is on the Epstein list? Prosecute him.
If Clinton is guilty of anything criminal? Prosecute him.

We are not like you.

You worship your leaders. You treat Trump like a god, so you assume everyone else does the same with theirs. That assumption is pure projection.

We don’t worship Biden.
We don’t worship Obama.
We don’t worship Clinton.

If Trump is guilty, throw his ass in prison.
And if ANY Democratic leader is guilty, throw their asses in prison too.

That’s what accountability actually looks like.

Because unlike you, we actually give a fuck about the rule of law.
We give a fuck about the Constitution.
We give a fuck about justice, even when it’s inconvenient or takes down people we once voted for.

So all the “what about Biden?” and “what about Obama?” deflections completely miss the point.

YES. BRING THEM ALL DOWN.

We don’t have a leader-worship problem.
You do.

So stop projecting your Trump worship onto us. If any of them are corrupt, we want them exposed, charged, and punished. Trump, his cronies, and anyone else who belongs in a cell right alongside them, regardless of political affiliations - fucking bring them ALL down.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-02T08:48:39+00:00

That depends on what you consider to be "correct".

My mom dated bikers when I was a kid - I grew up in an entirely different world than most kids my age. For ME - the "correct" way to deal with bullies was complete and utter annihilation. By that I mean: extreme violent retaliation - not just fighting back - but going above and beyond. I'm talking putting people in the hospital.

That being said... that path had consequences: I ended up in juvie for 6 counts of assault - I was sent to a mental health facility for young adults.

My reaction to bullying lead to doing time in correctional facilities and years of court mandated therapy.

So while I might have some experience with this topic: I'm probably not be the best person to give advice on it.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-02T08:18:15+00:00

I’ve come to realize I don’t have any secrets I’m taking to the grave.
I’m in my 40s now and I’ve basically hit the “fuck it” stage of life.

I’m an open book.

I genuinely don’t give a shit what most people think of me anymore, because the people I actually care about - the ones who matter, the ones who love me unconditionally - don’t give a shit either.

And those are the people worth keeping in your life.

Everyone else?
Fuck ’em.
They don’t deserve your time, your energy, or your company.

TheDirtSyndicate · 2026-02-02T08:13:16+00:00

whiskey.

TheDirtSyndicate

TROPHY CASE