It’s an incredible time to be a guitarist who doesn’t want to own a bunch of $2,000 amps and an expensive pedalboard of gear. Amp and pedal simulators, which have been around for decades, have in the last few years finally come into their own as nearly indistinguishable sonic replacements. Even John Mayer is now willing to ditch his beloved tube amps for digital models.

I certainly don’t have Mayer’s chops or gear budget, but I do love messing with this sort of tech and have purchased everything from NeuralDSP‘s Archetypes series to Amplitube and Guitar Rig. Last week, as part of an early Black Friday sale, I picked up two amp/effects suites from British developer Polychrome DSP—Nunchuck (Marshall amps) and Lumos (clean through mid-gain tones). They are both excellent.

Any reasonable person should be satisfied with this tech stack, which models gear that collectively costs as much as my house. After my Polychrome DSP purchases, I reminded myself that I am a reasonable person, and that I could therefore ignore any further amp sims that might tempt my wandering eye.

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Last month, a DoorDash driver in upstate New York delivered an item to a local house in Oswego—only to find the front door open and a man apparently unconscious or asleep on a couch in the front room. The man was also quite naked, with pants and underwear around his ankles, and he was fully visible from the porch.

The DoorDasher was a 23-year-old woman named Olivia Henderson, and she felt like the whole situation was some kind of creepy exploitation play. Was this guy purposely exposing himself to her? Was he even asleep? Should she have to endure the sight of random male genitalia just to make a few bucks?

She did not think so, and she decided to do something about it. Henderson filmed the man from outside the home, and she later posted the video on TikTok to shame him. Naturally, it went viral.

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