I deeply empathize and sympathize with the challenge. I also failed to choose “congenitally rich” at birth, and I hope to remedy this error on my next iteration.

But seriously, I grew up very poor and left my abusive home at 16. I was homeless twice. Once in my late teens and again in my mid-20s. Not “crashing on my friends’ couches” homeless, but rather “living in the woods and dumpster diving for food” homeless.

I bring this up as empathy by way of anecdote, and also as acknowledgement of my immense luck and privilege. I know that reaching a place of relative comfort is fucking hard in our modern environment. What’s an even bigger pisser is that cost of living is stupid, the systems required for modern life are expensive, and the attacks on our attention, focus, health, and well-being are legion.

So it comes down to: is your position yet painful enough for you to want to do something about it?

Uh… the name of the track is “Welcome to Paradise.” And that is not the original cover art for the single nor the album.

Hey, don’t judge. Spotting a Dumpstericus greenii in its native habitat was on my bucket list.

How do you like the MPK Mini? How long have you had it and how has it held up to your usage?

I completely agree with everything you said, both in this response and your response to Scrubbles. I also appreciate your long-form responses in both.

This is, however, the system in which we live. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Choosing to pay cash for big ticket items, real estate, and durable goods when other accounts/portfolios earn more interest than the financing… that’s just throwing money away. If your laddered certificates accounts earn >3.5% and you can get 0% or 1% automobile financing (and you need a vehicle where you live), I don’t think anyone would choose to burn that much liquidity.

You really haven’t ‘bought’ your home untill you’ve fully paid off the mortgage, untill then you’re more or less doing a complex rent-to-own from the bank.

Agreed. My options where I live are primarily rent or mortgage; there are intentional communities with equitable arrangements, but the waitlist is 5 to 10 years. And with rents here going up at about 8% to 12% per year, I chose the 3.7% mortgage. FWIW, most home sales in my area are industrial investors or second homes, which absolutely underscore your points regarding livability, financial violence, and <waving around> all this shit in which we live.

real estate is only a hedge against inflation in a society that is stratifying, becoming more inequitable

Again, fully agreed. Inflation is here. None of us are going to wish away inflation or predatory lending, because primate brain and “they” have our number. If one has interest rate arbitrage available, using it prudently leaves more disposable income, and therefore more time to strive for more equitable systems. For example, I am the treasurer for my regional timebank, and among my offered services are financial literacy, budgeting, and household bookkeeping. This won’t surprise you at all: it’s my most used offer (>100 hours used) and the number of people lacking these skills… it’s almost like this system is designed for a certain scope and scale of financial ignorance.

This is a financially naive and reductionist take, approaching financial illiteracy. Applied correctly, financing allows you to preserve liquidity while still leaving funds in accounts with higher returns. Financing also provides a hedge against inflation, e.g. real estate.

Look y’all … “Crazy Cat Person” fails to be sensitive to my condition. I would prefer “Batshit Bonkers,” please and thank you.

This isn’t really an Ardour issue, per se. The problem is Windows dependencies/libs that don’t play with Linux. :/

I look at this as a me issue. I just need to put in the legwork and rebuild my patches in cross-platform synths.

My mother thinks US workers still get pensions if they stay at a company long enough. She also thinks that staying at one employer for decades is the key to higher pay, better benefits, and promotions. This is a constant, exhaustingly repetitive conversation with her every time I get recruited and poached by a company.

The original, the legend.

This is exciting and I support Ardour. But until I can run my collection of favorite synths in Linux, I am unhappily stuck with a single Win 10 box for this reason alone. All my other computers and use cases have been migrated Linux, and even some of my synthesis is now in Bitwig.

This is me too. All the same t-shirts, pants, shoes (four pairs go to the cobbler for repair while one remains in use), socks, underwear. Getting dressed in the morning is zero-thought and always comfortable. My daily kit always fits on my person and I never have to fumble for anything. Pants repairs are consistent since they all wear out exactly the same way. The cobbler loves my repairs because it’s the same patterns for four left and four right shoes (just one pattern flipped).

I am a founding board member and the treasurer for my regional timebank. I also have done custom software development and IT work for my county and city food bank. In the past, I was a founding board member and technology specialist for the local food co-op. I also used to own and operate a community bike shop where I performed free repairs for anyone who said they couldn’t afford it.

I prefer volunteer work that directly shores up my communities, promotes food security and social equity, connects local food producers to consumers as directly as possible, and empowers non-monetary exchange of labor and skills. For me, timebanks are the sweet spot for these goals. Everyone’s time is valued equally, and everyone has something to offer their communities on an as-able basis. More than that, a timebank promotes members to see all in their community as peers and neighbors despite any superficial differences.

So, like proper porn, you fully succeeded in capturing the shot from the sexy angle!

This is exactly the kind of statement that makes a lot of sense upon hearing it, but investigating it is tricky.

You’re just gonna tease us like that and not tell us what all you put in there? :D

Let’s not forget that it’s also the symbol for modulo operation. So many opportunities for ambiguity!

This exact thing happened in Portland OR in Inner SE, ~2010. It was a butcher shop if I recall correctly, covered by BikePortland, but now I can’t find a link. The bike lane was installed despite the owner’s best efforts. Sales went up, and he still went on record as continuing to oppose the bike lanes despite increased business. Mind-boggling.

I’m all about the gelatiny bits too! When I purchase whole animals, I have the butcher package up the tendons for me. I even buy any extra tendon they have. Braise or pressure cook then, and put them in soups and curries.

I’m also curious. My initial take was standard US militarized overreaction to minor slights. Iraq didn’t invade Kuwait until August 1990, so it’s not that. But this Outland sure is apropos now!

It wouldn’t be the first reference to library books from Breathed.