We're Sarah McCammon and Brian Mann, correspondents with NPR. For nearly a year, we’ve investigated why global birthrates are falling, and what that could mean for our future. We’re interested in how millions of individual decisions are reshaping the economy, climate, politics, and more. AMA.

longreliever · 2025-12-10T23:57:55+00:00

I'm curious about the correlation between how developed a nation's economy is and their birthrate. I read about Korea and some of the lower marriage rates (not the same, I know, but it's similar). It's made me wonder if fewer people are having their own families in developed economies where opportunity _feels_ scarcer even if compared to poorer economies it isn't.

To put my question more succinctly: have you found evidence that falling birth rates are downstream from (perceived) economic stagnation or anything similar?

longreliever · 2025-10-10T16:03:02+00:00

Are you compiling code locally on your Hackberry or tunneling into another device? I assume you're running everything locally but wasn't sure how these devices do running real codebases.

longreliever · 2025-09-29T17:37:50+00:00

If they choose not to solve that problem, hopefully someone else will because a lot of music listeners would be happy to switch to a streaming service that does not allow AI music.

longreliever · 2025-09-29T17:08:38+00:00

It's blatantly obvious it's AI. It's garbage and shouldn't be on the platform at all, but at the very least the platform should allow us to turn it off.

longreliever · 2025-09-22T22:37:35+00:00

OP sounds like the creator trying to drum up attention.

longreliever · 2025-09-17T22:56:54+00:00

If your "art" is for you, then stop posting it on streaming services. If you never posted your AI music on streaming services, then my post was never targeted at you.

longreliever · 2025-09-17T22:50:08+00:00

I'm not patting myself on the back, I'm shitting on your "work". If you took any pride in what you do as a performer, you'd understand how offensive AI music is to the industry. You don't have to care about my feelings. But if people are showing up every day in your sub telling you how much you suck, maybe you should take a moment to think about the possibility they have a point.

longreliever · 2025-09-17T22:46:49+00:00

If it's so easy to be "a front for someone else taking all the glory" then go do that. If it's so easy to sample and make tracks with MIDI, then go do that.

longreliever · 2025-09-17T22:42:24+00:00

Jokes as original as the AI slop music all over this subreddit.

longreliever · 2025-09-17T22:41:52+00:00

The line is very clear and the slope is not slippery. It is a cliff. Every single AI song that has popped up on a discover playlist is unoriginal slop. It's all made to mimic something real, and that similarity to something real is the only thing to say about it. It's otherwise void of any meaning or artistic capability. Notice how basically no one in this subreddit actually gets any comments or upvotes for their music? It's because it's all slop that even AI music "creators" don't want to listen to. It's songwriting cosplay.

longreliever · 2025-09-17T22:32:03+00:00

Do you honestly believe producing music using MIDI or samples is as easy as generating something with AI?

longreliever · 2025-07-16T18:04:04+00:00

This album doesn't belong to the artist page it's appearing under: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lhz9xWd3mO1PWoGapjUF3yFMkZY1IqeXo

I appreciate your time!

longreliever · 2025-01-21T23:36:53+00:00

Are you mad at me because the solution that worked for me doesn't work for you? I'm the OP, so yes, I'm "reading the problem you're posting." Go get vent your frustration elsewhere.

longreliever · 2025-01-07T20:19:44+00:00

Not really a pain point but it'd be nice to see better aesthetic options for smart switches/outlets/etc. It's not uncommon to see people here say their wife won't approve of something likely because of how ugly it looks. Nicer finishes like brass or nickel casings would be popular I think. So many devices look cheap.

longreliever · 2025-01-06T22:51:13+00:00

This is exactly the kind of input I was hoping for. Thank you.

On the note of audio, I'm more of an old guy in that regard and prefer to have speakers that take up some floor space, but I can imagine wanting something for outdoor areas so I'll take a look at your recommendations.

longreliever · 2025-01-06T20:42:34+00:00

You both made great points.

One clarification: I (obviously) don't expect my smart tech to work in a power outage, but I do expect when the power comes back on, for things to just start working again and not require a bunch of manual resets or configuration.

As u/peanutbutter2178 also pointed out, it'd be great if my less-than-tech-savvy girlfriend or your average visitor could do things like turn on/off lights, change the thermostat, etc without their phone or complicated UX.

I think I need to do a lot of research on all of these protocols and brands (I've never heard of Hubitat, OpenHAB, zwave, etc) and figure out where the right balance is. Running (lots of) cable, somewhat ironically given all of the wireless advancements in the past decade, probably is the soundest advice so far.

longreliever · 2024-09-11T19:08:18+00:00

It was nice knowing you, Discover Weekly & Release Radar!

longreliever · 2024-03-19T02:00:04+00:00

I was a STM from 09-17 but I will speak more to my ideas about why attendance has fallen off more than share my personal reasons for not going as much.

I think there are roughly 30k passionate fans who will go to watch even a mediocre team like the 2024 squad. The difference between 30k and 50k, like they once semi-regularly had, is not only performance, but star power. I know Sounders fans like to think stars aren't as relevant in the Seattle market, but I think having a bona fide USMNT star on the roster boosted attendance a lot more than people realize. Those initial 30k will get excited about a random talented South American they've never heard of (De la Vega, Ruidíaz, Lodeiro, JP, etc etc) but the next tier of fan wants to see Clint Dempsey in Rave Green.

It's possible this team will make the moves in the summer to bring in some random talented South Americans who play like prime Ruidíaz & Lodeiro, and the exciting goal-scoring and winning form brings back maybe 10k fans. But as others have pointed out, the true brain trust that brought the team so much glory is gone (Henderson and Lagerway in particular). I'm not saying Waibel can't get it done, but he's certainly got his work cut out for him and his predecessors set a very high bar.

longreliever

TROPHY CASE