I totally feel the GAS issue, (lol that sounds bad). In high school and college I totally got away with a budget setup like you described: cheap guitar, used amp, laptop, a couple of effects pedals, some cables and I was in solid shape. I recorded A LOT! Hell, some of my best work was done with that budget setup. Audio quality wasn’t the best but it didn’t matter to me, just for fun.

As soon as I got out of college and had more than two nickels to rub together, my gear setup had gotten out of hand. Multiple guitars, amps, midi controllers, mixing boards, usb interfaces, studio monitors, full pedal boards, multiple mics, electric drum kit, cables cables cables. Just insane, thousands of dollars. I still do plenty of recording and playing but not nearly as much as my budget days. Some truth to less is more I guess. I have so many toys I don’t know what to do with my hands.

The upside to having more gear is I can host karaoke at parties, jam sessions can be recorded live in very high quality rather than relying on cheap hand recorders, and my own records are much higher quality. Plus, lots of toys, so I can never be bored.

I will say though, I much prefer a minimal setup. It keeps everything tight. It’s very hard to avoid all the novelty of having new toys to play with. But it’s true, playing guitar can be a very cheap hobby!

I just dipped my feet in Vim yesterday, I found it not intuitive at all. :wq! To exit a read only file? I’m too dumb to think of syntax like that!

I remember when the algorithms started sorting by engagement rather than chronologically. I quickly came up with a workaround to keep my feed the way it was, but, eventually that workaround was removed. I still checked the website occasionally but noticed the overall tone becoming less vane, over sharing, people using it like journals and selfie bombing to more angry, rage filled, posting news articles, boomer cartoons and jpeg fuzzy memes. It took a major turn after 2016 elections in US. Instagram was my go to after that but in about a year or so the same sequence of bs started happening. Haven’t really engaged with either service since 2020 save for occasional things to check a couple times a month.

Man, I want to get back into this game, I never beat it either. But some of the boss battles are like intricate dances. Don’t even get me started on the path of pain.

This shit be slammin’ bro ^_

Looks like straight up rage bait. I mean reddit was heading down that path for at least the last 5 years but that is progressively worse than last July

Bahaha the big sock is what I shall call the duvet cover from now on!

I have it enabled as much as possible, also helps for recording how to videos, especially when not recording instructions.

Amen

Wow! This is actually top tier OC, fantastic job OP, especially with the Lemmy call out!