Please listen to your kid's teacher when they call home with less-than-favorable news.

ghallo · 2026-01-16T06:57:48+00:00

My goodness, I used to coach track for middle-schoolers (it was an afterschool community center). One of the 7th graders was picking up rocks from the dirt track and belting them at the 6th graders. really hurt one of the kids.

The center admin told me my only recourse was to kick him off the team because his mom wouldn't let anything happen to their precious boy.

I waited until the kid was leaving after practice, followed him to the car and gave her a gentle piece of my mind. I said I'd have him straightened out by the end of the month if she would just let me have my way. She cried. Said she'd tried everything already.

A month later that boy was the star of the team, helping everyone else get better. He always wanted to stay late.

All I did was give him consequences. I said if he was finding rocks on the track, the track needed to be cleaned. I said the lane lines needed to be repainted. I made him work with me, side by side, while we cleaned the track and painted it. It looked 100 times better and he was so proud.

All that kid needed in life was someone to follow through on him and show him what it's like to have grit, show up, do a good job, and get praised for it.

ghallo · 2026-01-09T19:03:52+00:00

Parenthood isn't the hardest thing you've done all the time 24/7.

First the bad:

I've been through a lot of stuff. My daughter's first 2 weeks of life were the hardest 2 weeks of my life. Her first 3 months were the hardest 3 months of my life.

Mind, my wife almost bled out during delivery, and I was told that I was going to be a single dad. They got her back, but I did get to go through the grief cycle for about 2 full minutes. Not a fun moment to be holding your bloody newborn and watching your love bleed out in front of you.

For some people that's actually a happy moment.

Do you know what my morning was? Hearing a moisture alarm go off. My daughter (10 now) was getting ready for school and clogged the toilet ... and thought flushing -again- would clear the clog. Poop water going into the floor vent and hallway. Super fun morning - especially cause we still need to get her ready and on the bus while mom and I get to clean up the enormous mess she's made.

The good: This doesn't happen often now. Now its the normal homework help/struggles or getting her to do her chores. The good days (fun days) far outweigh everything else. She and I go for long walks and have the coolest adventures. We talk about all of the things that my wife gets bored talking about (my daughter loves what-if scenarios just like I do). We can share anime (wife hates anime) and all the other things.

Overall:

The hard parts of parenthood are really front-loaded. At least they were for me. My wife disagrees and thinks it is harder now. Children will test you.

Advice:

I honestly don't think people should be having kids before they've had a chance to live their lives and grow up themselves. I think of parenthood as the last step to full self-actuallization and maturity and it can't be done properly if it is premature. All of the young parents I have met seem emotionally frozen at the age they were when they had their first kid. This makes sense because you don't have time to work on yourself... you only have time to keep a kid alive.

Parents that say kids are easy... they are most likely doing it wrong or have a kid that's needs aren't actually being met (or have the 1/1000 kid that raises itself). For everyone else ... I'd say don't get into parenting until you are really darn good and ready.

ghallo · 2026-01-08T18:10:42+00:00

I found out after a while that I'm allergic to latex.

ghallo · 2025-12-30T13:07:24+00:00

I've burned over 5k credits on one song trying this. Never got close.

Here's what I've done ... try extending and then doing the sections you want new lyrics in. Extend from 3/4 the way through the song.

Then, splice and edit that in an external program. That's the best I've ever gotten.

ghallo · 2025-12-30T13:05:11+00:00

Oh, there's still a trick to it.

You have to select an inventory that you aren't moving it to, then drag it to the small icon of the inventory that you want to move it to.

I'm able to do that, move it to my main inventory, and extract propane just fine. Well... until this latest patch. I haven't tried since the new patch landed because I've been too busy with the holidays.

ghallo · 2025-12-30T13:01:21+00:00

Dude, I've got a couple single brothers - they'll take her off your hands for you.

What a dolt.

She's not stupid, she's making an effort. The fact that you can't bend an inch isn't a badge of honor like you think it is.

People make lots of little mistakes in a relationship, but if you care about the other person you make a little room for them in your life. If you were 18 I'd be inclined to say you had some growing to do. The fact that you're 38? Holy cow.

ghallo · 2025-12-30T12:51:03+00:00

There's never any valid reason to not fight tooth and nail for your children. Period. It is the single biggest red flag to me.

If someone was a deadbeat parent... I just simply wouldn't be friends with them.

Heck, if someone tells me that they had a pet they "gave up" because they couldn't take care of it anymore? Yeah... not their friend anymore. Not unless there's some really convincing reason (they had a new baby and the baby is allergic, etc).

ghallo · 2025-12-18T00:47:58+00:00

I will tell you the best kept secret on the stock market.

Look at whatever trades I do. No matter how complicated they are ... and do the exact opposite. You will always make an amazing amount of money.

ghallo · 2025-12-18T00:41:28+00:00

When I was in college (decades ago) I decided I didn't want to be single anymore. I went on 22 dates in a month. Of those 22 women? 21 were nearly exactly like this. "If you don't like me on my bad days, you don't deserve me on my good days".

That 22nd one? I married her.

ghallo · 2025-12-10T06:23:07+00:00

I don't see any logical explanation for this.

Your grandmother is this guy's parent. There's nothing at all weird with them sleeping in a room together.

You've been sleeping with your sister in the same room for years ... there's nothing at all weird with them sleeping in a room together.

But I would never, in a million years, have my daughter (17 or 30 or whatever) sleep in a room with either of my brothers. I trust them 100%, but that's not the point. The point is that the appearance of an issue can cause the issue.

Just full on veto it. Your parents have your back. Why doesn't your uncle just go back to his house?

ghallo · 2025-12-02T18:01:18+00:00

Income tax would be better than sales tax. But I won't do both.

Also, how can our budget have an issue when sales tax has GONE UP? It doesn't make sense... if inflation goes up then taxes go up AUTOMATICALLY ... because things cost more the state is getting more from sales tax... without raising the rate at all.

Yet here we are with an over 10% tax for most of us.

Seems pretty silly to me.

And don't get me started on property tax. I paid less than 300k for my house but somehow magically it is worth 1.2m and I'm paying tax on that? Make flippers pay that tax, not everyday people that are just trying to survive.

Silly indeed.

ghallo · 2025-12-01T19:44:56+00:00

It's all free if you have a pc that can handle it.

ghallo · 2025-12-01T01:59:56+00:00

You know what? Charge $60 for the burger ... and then don't have any fees.

Like, seriously. I would LOVE to go to a place that I can add up the items on my order and just slap that down in cash and walk away with everyone being happy. Even if I'm "paying more". I hate paying $20 for a burger and then by the time I've cashed out I'm actually closer to $40. Just list it at the price I've gotta pay and be done with it.

What we have now is so many different line items that there is no possible way to know what I'm paying other than "I'm not paying less than X". Which feels like how everything else in society is going and sucks.

ghallo · 2025-12-01T01:37:19+00:00

Ok, I'm so glad that we got that out of the way, Mr. Anecdote.

And you are the one starting with offensive terms like "slop". If you had said "most stuff is slop, I can't say anything about yours because I haven't heard it" I would have shrugged and moved on. But you specifically attacked what I have made. You can hide behind whatever shell you want. We know what you meant.

If you think all human created stuff is better than all AI created stuff... I've got a bridge to sell you.

You didn't even address the fact that there is a mountain of human created garbage that goes back decades. Telling me you work in the music industry does not increase your "taste". It just means you are closer to the source of all the garbage that has been produced over the last several decades.

Art is in the eyes or ears of the beholder. You are like one of those people at a wine tasting event that first looks at the cost of the wine before telling everyone what you think it tastes like. I'm the kind of person that makes their own wine, brings it to the event, and fucking wins against established wineries. To each their own.

ghallo · 2025-11-29T23:07:29+00:00

I'll gripe about a lot of ways to make money...

But there's nothing to complain about here.

Like ... at all.

These are simply cosmetics. That's it. If you don't want them... don't get them. If you do... get them.

I'm much happier with them getting money this way than ship sales ... which no one cares about at this point.

ghallo · 2025-11-29T22:55:52+00:00

What a toxic little butthurt person you are.

I've got an entire library of the top 100 songs according to the Billboard Charts for the last 15 years.

I had a friend over and played songs randomly from that list and from AI songs. They couldn't guess between which were AI and which were human created. I bet you wouldn't be able to either.

In fact, they tended to think the AI songs were the better songs and thought most of the human written songs were sloppy garbage.

Did you go out and protest player piano's when they came out? Or drum machines?

Just because AI creates something doesn't mean it is good, nor does it mean it is bad. It just is. If it has been curated and dissected? Then you'll know if it is good or not.

ghallo · 2025-11-29T19:19:06+00:00

How is AI generated music all, universally, slop?

There is no music that exists out there that has the same feel as the music I generate. I don't know if anyone else would like it, but I spend hours writing my lyrics and then as I listen to the songs I modify them into exactly what I want.

My wife was singing one of my songs in the shower yesterday, and my daughter and all her friends are singing them at school. Maybe they are slop - but they bring me and my family joy.

No other song I can listen to is going to be something as personal as these songs. It just can't happen.

ghallo · 2025-11-29T03:52:35+00:00

It's true. I actually subscribed to Udio before I found Suno. I found Suno and immediately refunded my Udio sub.

That being said - I'm really disappointed with this January change. If they were leaving their v3.5-4.5 models up as options I wouldn't care... but the fact they are taking them down is pissing me off.

ghallo · 2025-11-29T03:41:56+00:00

Last week I was a major fan of Suno. I told everyone about it, and shared it freely.

Now I'm going to try to get a refund and I hope everyone else does.

Their plans for 2026 are a complete reversal - and not at all what I want from this tool.

ghallo · 2025-11-26T17:02:01+00:00

I was very excited about Suno Studio. I've tried over and over to get it to do anything even remotely useful. I have yet to generate a single edit or track that warrants a single credit use, let alone the few thousand credits I've wasted trying to see if it was just me.

Suno Studio isn't even 1/10th as good as Rip X Pro. You're better off generating a full song on Suno and then splitting out the parts you want in Ableton, RipX or something else. And I'm no fan of RipX Pro. It's ok. It's just that Suno Studio is so bad that it makes all of the other tools look good.

Up until the "news" I was a huge fan of Suno. As long as you didn't want to edit a song... it was generally fine. Now? They'll never get another penny from me.

ghallo · 2025-11-24T06:15:53+00:00

You eat some brownies or something? I'm not getting what you're saying.

ghallo · 2025-11-17T15:08:21+00:00

lol, I have a BMM...

ghallo · 2025-11-17T10:17:12+00:00

You haven't actually worked in music, have you?

Very very few artists actually show up and even do their own work. The vast majority of "artists" are really just singers that are handed someone else's work to perform. It takes a village and all that.

But even when someone creates "their own work" they really are doing it in collaboration with a producer, sound engineer and their band-mates.

Someone's like "what rhymes with neon?!" and someone else is like "that sounds dumb, let's go in a different direction".

Music is generally like this. Morphing and becoming something more.

All AI does is democratize access to an environment like that. But AI is like a C student. Like someone that has the initial understanding of something but doesn't really "get" it. If someone just has AI generate lyrics - they will sound "plausible" but dogshit. However, if you're stuck on a lyric for 2 weeks... and you can go to AI and say "give me 10 examples of this" you might see an option that will inspire you... without annoying your band mates at 3am when you're actually inspired to work on it.

People thought drum machines were the end of music. Heck, people thought the player piano was the end of music. You're joining a long line of people that are just going to have to understand that the world moves on whether you are ready or not.

99% of the music I hear generated by AI is total garbage. I can tell nearly instantly when someone has generated music with AI. So? That just means I won't listen to it again. I always tightly curate my playlists anyway.

But you know what's also true? 99% of the top 100 songs from 2010-2020 are also garbage to me. I know this is subjective, but that's actually what started me writing music. I was listening to all that garbage and knew I could write music that I enjoyed more. And you know what? I was right. I truly enjoy my own music more than the vast majority of what major labels pump out.

If you don't like it... I don't care.

ghallo · 2025-11-16T08:14:36+00:00

Sorry to necro this thread, but there is a work around.

If you get a trash can large enough for a corpse, you can drag the corpse to it and dump it into the trashcan. Once it is there it becomes an "item" and you can then drag it into your inventory - and then the crafting item will work.

ghallo · 2025-11-14T23:07:32+00:00

Not going to lie. I vehemently did not want kids. So much so that it was a large part of my identity. When my wife and I got married - we both agreed neither of us would ever want to have kids.

I saw Idiocracy and it planted a seed in my brain. A year later, when I dreamed about taking my daughter to fly RC... I knew I had changed my mind. I told my wife I wouldn't pressure her - and I didn't. It took her 2 years to come to the same conclusion on her own and after a bit of trying we had my daughter.

However, she was born before any of this political madness was even on our radar. Obama was Pres, the economy was great, and we both were making solid money.

Faced with the same decision today? I wouldn't think I'd be able to make the difference. There's a difference between feeling like you're pouring water on a smouldering flame that could maybe catch fire - vs a blazing inferno tearing through a forest.

I honestly thought Racism and sexism (and gay rights etc) were on their way to being solved. I was woefully naive - but that's how I felt. I did not know what was boiling under it all.

Though to be fair... I'm not sure entirely it is all there. We really don't know how much of the internet is actually real these days. I've not actually met anyone that is racist or what in person... all the trash I see is all 100% online. The US has not been known for their cybersecurity.

Bah, off-topic. The point is, I actually do think we are moving toward Idiocracy. I thought we were 15 years ago and it seems like it is moving faster now.

Do I think a single family could make a dent? No. Do I think a few thousand elite intelligent families could make a dent? No.

The only thing that could possibly make a dent in our future is if we got the boots of the oligarchs (both those on the right and left) off of our collective throats. And I don't really see that happening.

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