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Post by reverendrob on Nov 27, 2023 12:12:15 GMT -5
I was curious about royalties and how they work and Jimmy took the time to answer my many questions in his rather lengthy responses. He doesn't a lot of time with me which was really nice of him. I forget the guys name but he participated in the Muddy Waters Tele thread. He was from Western Canada and I think his handle was pedro but I'm not sure. Anyway, when he'd whenever he'd talk about his Muddy Tele, he's end every sentence with a few "!!!" ?I think Roly was the audio tech in W. Canada. Pedro is another Madison, WI guy and I think he ran afoul at FDP. Yea, Pedro and CG butted heads as much as Jimmy See. One of the things that was amusing was being able to read the "I'm taking my ball and leaving" letters sent in, I'l lsay that much. Don't get me wrong, sometimes the people were at least semi-justified, but the truth is like any family event, nobody's blameless.
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tomcaster
Halfnote
Posts: 91
Formerly Known As: strat-hacker
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Post by tomcaster on Nov 27, 2023 15:50:06 GMT -5
Some great names from the past. I always liked the posts by Diplo-strat. The state dept guy who had been posted all over the world and had interesting perspectives. It was always obvious who was not favored by the management, and they were always people who were of a different mold. Jimmy See, Vickers, Hugh Ochoa, Papaya King, etc. But those were also the people that made it interesting.
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Post by Taildragger on Nov 27, 2023 16:19:18 GMT -5
How about the guy from Nepal? Did he make the transition to MT2?
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Post by rok-a-bill-e on Nov 27, 2023 16:36:03 GMT -5
Rob posted---" I'd have liked to have kept the thing going myself, but well, wasn't ever offered when I said I was done."
I have always wondered why Chris would not just turn over the FDP to you. You could have kept it going and certainly deserved some compensation. The fact that he would rather just let it go to hell if he couldn't make a buck off of it really damaged my opinion of him.
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Post by Leftee on Nov 27, 2023 17:02:45 GMT -5
How about the guy from Nepal? Did he make the transition to MT2? “Deep” I think that was his handle.
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Nov 27, 2023 17:14:49 GMT -5
Deep shows registered here but 0 posts.
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Post by Lesterstrat on Nov 27, 2023 18:23:20 GMT -5
Pedro was in Madison, WI. He, like myself, is a CPA, although we worked (I’m retired) in completely different areas of accounting.
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Post by SteveM on Nov 27, 2023 18:52:57 GMT -5
Pedro was in Madison, WI. He, like myself, is a CPA, although we worked (I’m retired) in completely different areas of accounting. Another CPA here!
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Post by SteveM on Nov 27, 2023 18:56:30 GMT -5
Some great names from the past. I always liked the posts by Diplo-strat. The state dept guy who had been posted all over the world and had interesting perspectives. It was always obvious who was not favored by the management, and they were always people who were of a different mold. Jimmy See, Vickers, Hugh Ochoa, Papaya King, etc. But those were also the people that made it interesting. Fred’s site link
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Post by Pinetree on Nov 27, 2023 19:11:44 GMT -5
I had dinner with Fred once.
Don't really remember how it came about.. probably after one of the jams out East.
Very cool dude.
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Post by Mfitz804 on Nov 27, 2023 20:27:17 GMT -5
Rob posted---" I'd have liked to have kept the thing going myself, but well, wasn't ever offered when I said I was done." I have always wondered why Chris would not just turn over the FDP to you. You could have kept it going and certainly deserved some compensation. The fact that he would rather just let it go to hell if he couldn't make a buck off of it really damaged my opinion of him. He did float the idea to me of selling the old place, but we never discussed it. I had no interest in running a business. When it became clear that nobody was picking up where he left off, I volunteered to steer the ship. I wish Chris would have stayed, but he did not like it here and chose not to participate. I wish him well.
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Post by reverendrob on Nov 28, 2023 10:05:35 GMT -5
Rob posted---" I'd have liked to have kept the thing going myself, but well, wasn't ever offered when I said I was done." I have always wondered why Chris would not just turn over the FDP to you. You could have kept it going and certainly deserved some compensation. The fact that he would rather just let it go to hell if he couldn't make a buck off of it really damaged my opinion of him. His "endgame" was to turn it into a static site and keep collecting ad money - so there wouldn't be any real "server" costs. He wanted me to do that for peanuts as a one-time affair. I quoted market rate for doing it. But in the end, he thought he had something of value (which yes, it was - but only if you could maintain the car so to speak). The thought of sharing any of it was never in his mind honestly. Every time I'd mention about getting a more reasonable compensation, it was the classic timeshare, "You can do X and I'll split it with you", i.e. you do all the work and take the risk. Wise I suppose for running a for-profit thing, but...wasn't really my bag. I'd have kept it as it was, on the software it was running, and pretty much let it ride. I was willing to do it for relative peanuts - as long as I was the one getting the pittance. Even without the Sweetwater et al ads, I'd have kept doing it - and for what it's worth, those ad placements were NOT cheap I was always promised to get "occasional" gifts out of his non-used gear collection past my couple pizzas a month fee. I never once got a single thing in that regard. When I confronted in the end days, he offered a few hundred buck 'close it down" bonus to make up for that, and tried to stiff me in the end. The joke in all this was I was literally the only person who could make sense out of our code and database - it was all made in the old days before "best practices" and things like notes and manuals and things weren't something he ever wanted to pay for. I held ALL the institutional knowledge, so to speak, and knew it. It wasn't ever offered to me, I suspect he tried to get somebody to salvage the data and probably failed. I know a few people "volunteered" and got nowhere. As an example, the photo upload was a NOVEL approach to the problem of "where to put this stuff and make it a manageable size" - I would take the data from the photo, compress it, and put it in bitesized pieces in the database and reassemble on every view. There was no documentation on HOW I did it, mind you - and even I would have been hard pressed to figure out exactly what I had done years before at that point. It's how we COULD offer such a thing when none of the other forums did, basically.
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tomcaster
Halfnote
Posts: 91
Formerly Known As: strat-hacker
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Post by tomcaster on Nov 28, 2023 11:39:37 GMT -5
Some great names from the past. I always liked the posts by Diplo-strat. The state dept guy who had been posted all over the world and had interesting perspectives. It was always obvious who was not favored by the management, and they were always people who were of a different mold. Jimmy See, Vickers, Hugh Ochoa, Papaya King, etc. But those were also the people that made it interesting. Fred’s site linkThanks Steve!
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Post by Blacksunshine on Nov 28, 2023 17:01:39 GMT -5
Jimmy is a good guy, I’ve met up with him in Santa Monica and again at his hometown of Madison, WI. He is a great example of CG’s unfortunate trend of wanting an echo chamber as the years passed. A desire only temporarily softend by cash. I was curious about royalties and how they work and Jimmy took the time to answer my many questions in his rather lengthy responses. He doesn't a lot of time with me which was really nice of him. I forget the guys name but he participated in the Muddy Waters Tele thread. He was from Western Canada and I think his handle was pedro but I'm not sure. Anyway, when he'd whenever he'd talk about his Muddy Tele, he's end every sentence with a few "!!!" Yeah Jimmy was always willing to help if he knew something about what you were asking. He helped me with a college paper on the 1st Amendment and censorship in public libraries that I wrote. Heck of a guy.
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Post by funkykikuchiyo on Nov 29, 2023 10:32:09 GMT -5
Rob posted---" I'd have liked to have kept the thing going myself, but well, wasn't ever offered when I said I was done." I have always wondered why Chris would not just turn over the FDP to you. You could have kept it going and certainly deserved some compensation. The fact that he would rather just let it go to hell if he couldn't make a buck off of it really damaged my opinion of him. He did float the idea to me of selling the old place, but we never discussed it. I had no interest in running a business. When it became clear that nobody was picking up where he left off, I volunteered to steer the ship. I wish Chris would have stayed, but he did not like it here and chose not to participate. I wish him well. As I've mentioned before I never had conflicts and as such have no real dog in this fight... but it still makes me sad.
FDP ran in excess of two decades, and is an internet high water mark for developing community and real, offline connections. People knew each other's names, helped each other during hard times, showed up for jams. At this stage of life he should be reaping the benefits of 20+ years of memories, stories, friendships, shared struggles... but the closing chapter seems to be mostly about money, and he seemed bothered by the whole thing.
Maybe the comparison is excessive or mean, but it reminds me of A Christmas Carol when the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to see his relatives on Christmas Day, having fun playing games. At this point Scrooge is starting to come around and is ready to feel the warmth of his family, but is disappointed to hear they mostly mock him, and only his nephew, the son of his beloved sister, will stick up for him... and that, mostly just on principle. I think of this because there's a non-zero chance after deleting his profile he's lurking here without logging in. These threads come up from time to time and always alternate very quickly between fun and memories and eyerolls at the former master, much like that Christmas at the nephew's house.
Not dunking on the guy. It is just sad. There's a life lesson in here for all of us, I suspect. Nuts to that... there's a whole pile of life lessons here.
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Bopper
Wholenote
Motor City USA
Posts: 506
Age: 72
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Post by Bopper on Nov 29, 2023 10:57:59 GMT -5
dinner with Fred once. ... probably after one of the jams out East. Fracas in Manassas, 2/21/04
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Post by Pinetree on Nov 29, 2023 11:59:10 GMT -5
Ah yes.. the time I brought a gun to a knife fight.. thanks.
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Post by Mike the marksman on Nov 29, 2023 12:53:19 GMT -5
It was a sad day when the old place closed down. I'd never really thought about it much, but the FDP had a pretty big impact on me. As a kid in a tiny town with a dial-up internet connection and no friends at school to speak of, it was like a real community to me.
I remember the first thing I did when I got home from school on 9/11/01- I got on the FDP to see how everybody was holding up.
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Post by rok-a-bill-e on Nov 29, 2023 15:49:50 GMT -5
Yeah, it was a welcoming community. I joined because I had run across some Reverend Congregation threads when I didn't know if anyone knew what a Reverend was (early adopter) and somehow a week later I've got tickets to the NAMM in town and having drinks with a dozen friendly people from everywhere including overseas.
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Post by slacker 🐨 on Nov 29, 2023 16:06:57 GMT -5
I didn't meet with a whole lot of people from the old days. I went to a couple Jams in KC that were fun....some absolutely amazing musicians. I remember the first one, I had my moment on the stage and the drummer was blowing me away. He was so in tune with what we were doing that it felt like he knew what we were going to do before we did it...even when I started jamming on a song I made up.
I was too late for the FDP strat, but got the FDP case, which I still have. I invited CG to stop by for a drink or dinner when he was going to be passing within a mile of my house, but he declined.
We sure had a lot of fun, interesting discussions, so much helpful info...truly different from everything else out there it seemed. I'm really glad we have it still going here. Not quite the quantity of posters it seems, but the quality is still pretty good.
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Post by Blacksunshine on Nov 29, 2023 19:10:38 GMT -5
Ah yes.. the time I brought a gun to a knife fight.. thanks. I was at an FDP jam with Dadical. The look on his face when I plugged in and hit the first chord/note was priceless, lol That was a LOUD jam.
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Post by Mfitz804 on Nov 29, 2023 21:20:16 GMT -5
He did float the idea to me of selling the old place, but we never discussed it. I had no interest in running a business. When it became clear that nobody was picking up where he left off, I volunteered to steer the ship. I wish Chris would have stayed, but he did not like it here and chose not to participate. I wish him well. As I've mentioned before I never had conflicts and as such have no real dog in this fight... but it still makes me sad.
FDP ran in excess of two decades, and is an internet high water mark for developing community and real, offline connections. People knew each other's names, helped each other during hard times, showed up for jams. At this stage of life he should be reaping the benefits of 20+ years of memories, stories, friendships, shared struggles... but the closing chapter seems to be mostly about money, and he seemed bothered by the whole thing.
Maybe the comparison is excessive or mean, but it reminds me of A Christmas Carol when the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to see his relatives on Christmas Day, having fun playing games. At this point Scrooge is starting to come around and is ready to feel the warmth of his family, but is disappointed to hear they mostly mock him, and only his nephew, the son of his beloved sister, will stick up for him... and that, mostly just on principle. I think of this because there's a non-zero chance after deleting his profile he's lurking here without logging in. These threads come up from time to time and always alternate very quickly between fun and memories and eyerolls at the former master, much like that Christmas at the nephew's house.
Not dunking on the guy. It is just sad. There's a life lesson in here for all of us, I suspect. Nuts to that... there's a whole pile of life lessons here.
That’s the thing that bothers me most, even if he had soured on running the old place, even having closed it, he could have stayed here and continued to enjoy the company of a group he created. Although I have other opinions on his absence, it makes me wonder if he ever really enjoyed it at all. I thought he had. As to whether he is still lurking, he would have to take additional steps to do it. It took me a while but I found his alternate profile, created just before he left, so I banned his whole IP address.
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Post by SteveM on Nov 29, 2023 22:19:58 GMT -5
As I've mentioned before I never had conflicts and as such have no real dog in this fight... but it still makes me sad.
FDP ran in excess of two decades, and is an internet high water mark for developing community and real, offline connections. People knew each other's names, helped each other during hard times, showed up for jams. At this stage of life he should be reaping the benefits of 20+ years of memories, stories, friendships, shared struggles... but the closing chapter seems to be mostly about money, and he seemed bothered by the whole thing.
Maybe the comparison is excessive or mean, but it reminds me of A Christmas Carol when the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to see his relatives on Christmas Day, having fun playing games. At this point Scrooge is starting to come around and is ready to feel the warmth of his family, but is disappointed to hear they mostly mock him, and only his nephew, the son of his beloved sister, will stick up for him... and that, mostly just on principle. I think of this because there's a non-zero chance after deleting his profile he's lurking here without logging in. These threads come up from time to time and always alternate very quickly between fun and memories and eyerolls at the former master, much like that Christmas at the nephew's house.
Not dunking on the guy. It is just sad. There's a life lesson in here for all of us, I suspect. Nuts to that... there's a whole pile of life lessons here.
That’s the thing that bothers me most, even if he had soured on running the old place, even having closed it, he could have stayed here and continued to enjoy the company of a group he created. Although I have other opinions on his absence, it makes me wonder if he ever really enjoyed it at all. I thought he had. As to whether he is still lurking, he would have to take additional steps to do it. It took me a while but I found his alternate profile, created just before he left, so I banned his whole IP address. I believe he genuinely enjoyed it at the beginning. As time passed, it felt like too much business and desire to control took precedence over the camaraderie and looseness that we enjoyed. There’s probably something to be said about separating a good time, hang around site and a business.
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Post by Mfitz804 on Nov 29, 2023 22:46:49 GMT -5
^ That could very well be.
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Post by SteveM on Nov 29, 2023 22:53:30 GMT -5
^ That could very well be. So when’s the IPO?
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Post by Mfitz804 on Nov 30, 2023 6:48:49 GMT -5
^ That could very well be. So when’s the IPO? Half past never lol.
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Post by reverendrob on Nov 30, 2023 7:28:04 GMT -5
He did float the idea to me of selling the old place, but we never discussed it. I had no interest in running a business. When it became clear that nobody was picking up where he left off, I volunteered to steer the ship. I wish Chris would have stayed, but he did not like it here and chose not to participate. I wish him well. ... but the closing chapter seems to be mostly about money, and he seemed bothered by the whole thing What it was was the fact that the help finally was tired of playing games. It was a pittance to him I suppose, but I was just tired, and he was the type of dude who didn't like ever getting questioned (which you all, well, saw) - let alone when I held all the actual cards. It was also one where I suspect it was a combination of "I'm tired of doing this" - but at the same time, inertia plus "it's all I really have to do with my time." I also suspect he expected me to change my mind as I'd walked back from the "I think I may be done" brink a time before. I was getting better from my long, long illness, and well, I'd stuck on for a long time simply because I expected to fall over dead. When I was actually looking forward to NOT dying, the long examination of exploitation (some of which I did consent to, but it was still exploitation) and undelivered promises weighed very heavy. I came within minutes more than once (as MFitz and a few others can attest) to just pulling the plug and going away with no notice, or being a malicious admin. It is what it is - I shut up about things for a LONG, long time for the good of the community, but it's a case of I see no reason to cover for the treatment and what he actually did behind the curtain. I haven't ever gone into the private stuff, either - just a case of "what was done to me is mine to share", period. I'm trying not to as well, honestly. The joke in me making the thread was to look back at some of the good stuff. I don't like dwelling on this simply because I feel like a schmuck half the time - as much as I love you all dearly, it's a low point in my life where I let myself be taken advantage of for WAAAY too long.
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Post by reverendrob on Nov 30, 2023 7:53:42 GMT -5
That’s the thing that bothers me most, even if he had soured on running the old place, even having closed it, he could have stayed here and continued to enjoy the company of a group he created. Although I have other opinions on his absence, it makes me wonder if he ever really enjoyed it at all. I thought he had. As to whether he is still lurking, he would have to take additional steps to do it. It took me a while but I found his alternate profile, created just before he left, so I banned his whole IP address. I believe he genuinely enjoyed it at the beginning. As time passed, it felt like too much business and desire to control took precedence over the camaraderie and looseness that we enjoyed. There’s probably something to be said about separating a good time, hang around site and a business. It was pretty much always a business once he got Karl onboard to do the original code bits. Basically, Karl made the right call to be honest in bailing. Investment dudes aren't very good at sharing the wealth, so to speak.
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Post by SteveM on Nov 30, 2023 9:13:11 GMT -5
I believe he genuinely enjoyed it at the beginning. As time passed, it felt like too much business and desire to control took precedence over the camaraderie and looseness that we enjoyed. There’s probably something to be said about separating a good time, hang around site and a business. It was pretty much always a business once he got Karl onboard to do the original code bits. Basically, Karl made the right call to be honest in bailing. Investment dudes aren't very good at sharing the wealth, so to speak. Not to split hairs, or hit a hot button, but too many people confuse Annuities with "investments." Annuities are great investments, for the person who SOLD them.
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Post by Lesterstrat on Nov 30, 2023 9:24:57 GMT -5
It was pretty much always a business once he got Karl onboard to do the original code bits. Basically, Karl made the right call to be honest in bailing. Investment dudes aren't very good at sharing the wealth, so to speak. Not to split hairs, or hit a hot button, but too many people confuse Annuities with "investments." Annuities are great investments, for the person who SOLD them. What? Well, that’s it! I’m sending back the free brochure on annuities. Maybe, I’ll check out the exciting adventure of starting my own Alpaca farm. BAND NAME ALERT: The Malicious Admin Schmucks
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