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strawberry-jammers · 3 years ago

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choir and kisses

a niki x reader school au, where there in choir together and have a project to work on. maybe they kiss? maybe

this baisically inspired my school au tbh

masterlist

Niki sat in her choir class, exhausted from her previous class. The kids were just too much to be around and didn't have the mental strength to deal with them sometimes. She opened her choir folder, putting it on her stand.

“Yo niki, you good?'' Wilbur says, sitting down next to her. “I'm fine, but Wilbur, you're not in this class. I thought you were in orchestra.” she answers, looking at the tall man. “I am, I just don't have a class right now so I decided to visit you.” niki nodded. “Oh right, seniors have free hours sometimes.” he nodded at niki’s statement, opening his phone. “Texting sally?” niki asks, making Wilbur blush. “No no I'm not.” niki laughs, turning to the front of the room when the bell rings.

“Alright everyone, we will be doing a group project today! Your gonna do a presentation of a musical and then sing a duet together! Your partners are posted on google classroom.” niki opened her phone, seeing who she was partnered with. Wilbur just sighed, staring at niki. “Mind if i hang with you and your partner?” wilbur asks. Niki nodded. “Yeah its fine. Seems like I'm partnered with your sibling!” wilbur just started laughing. “What are you laughing at?” he calmed down slightly. “It's just that you have the biggest crush on them, it's gonna be so funny.” niki blushed. “I don't have a crush on them! We’re friends, I don't like them like that wilbur.” he just laughed at this. “Niki, your blushing!” niki huffed.

“Wilbur leave Nikki alone, besides we need to do work!” niki turned to see (y/n) yelling at their brother. “I'm still pissed at you for leaving me to deal with techno and tommy.” Wilbur laughs nervously. “I'll do your chores if you don't tell dad.” “deal!” (y/n) sits in the empty seat next to nikki.

“So, what musical do you want to do for the project? Note that we do have to do a duet.” (y/n) says, setting their folder down. “Maybe we could maybe do into the woods? It takes two isn't that hard of a song to do.” niki suggests. “Yeah, we can do that!” niki and (y/n) started to work on their presentation, getting what they needed before they had to leave for class. Wilbur occasionally budded in, bored out of his mind.

“Maybe you should have chosen a different class wilbs. Maybe bother tommy.” (y/n) says, listening to the song they were gonna do. “I dont wanna hang out with Tommy, he's always bothering me about my music.” he crosses his arms and sinks into his chair. “Oh calm down, he's just excited.” niki says, gathering information on her phone. “Niki, you don't have any siblings, shoosh.” niki just laughs.

Things went on like this, right until the class was nearly over. “Oh, niki, you should come over tonight to finish the project. We could practice the song as well!” (y/n) says, moving their chair for the orchestra class that was next. “Yeah, that would be great! I could come over after school?” niki asks. “Yeah, we can walk home together! Gotta make sure to leave Wilbur behind though, he would constantly complain if he were to come along.`` We laugh together. The bell soon rings. “Alright, see you after class ends!” (y/n) says, picking up their stuff. “See you then!” niki puts away her stuff and leaves soon after.

Class went on, (y/n) very excited that niki would be coming over, yet also very nervous. They knew Wilbur would just say something. (y/n) turned to techno, who was in their english class. “Techno, did you read the book we were supposed to read?” technoblade turned to them. “(y/n), this is the second time you're taking this class and you didn't read the book? Again?” (y/n) just glares at him. “I don't like the book, okay! Anyway, did you read it?” techno just sighs, nodding. (y/n) smiled. “Oh thank god! Okay, help me with the essay then.” techno agrees, knowing if they didn't pass, he would get in trouble for not helping.

After a half hour, the bell rings, signalling that school has ended. (y/n) picks up their things, heading to their locker. They see niki waiting for them there. “Did you get out of class early?” (y/n) asked, unlocking the locker. “Yeah, I asked the teacher and she said it was fine!” (y/n) shoves their things into their bag. “Well that's nice of her! Anyways, we better get moving or one of my brothers would force us to ride home with them.” niki nodded, closing (y/n)’s locker for them. They walked down the stairs, heading out of one of the school's many doors.

They walked home, talking about random things as they went along. “You ever think about getting run over when your crossing the road?” niki stared at (y/n), concerned at their comment. “No? Are you okay?” (y/n) nodded. “Yeah im fine.”

After ten minutes, they reach the minecrafts home, noticing that they weren't home yet. “Oh thank god, i forgot they had to pick up tubbo as well.” (y/n) says, opening the door. They both walked inside the dark home. “Im gonna get us some food, just head up to my room!” (y/n) says, taking off their shows and heading to the kitchen. “Alright!” niki says, taking of her own shoes and heading upstairs. Niki spotted a door that had the progressive flag on it. “Oh thats new!” niki says, entering (y/n)’s room. “Wow, their rooms changed since I was last here.

(y/n)’s room was painted (f/c), and had drawings and posters all over the room. They had a desk, with their pc and art stuff atop it. Their bed was unmade, having stuffed animals all over the place. Niki spotted a whale plushie seated on their pillow. “Aww they kept it!” niki had given it to them years ago, so she found it sweet that it was still there.

(y/n) soon came up, holding a bunch of snakes and some cokes. “Sorry this is all we had, tommy wont let us buy anything else.” (y/n) says, handing niki the coke. “Oh, that's alright!” they sit down on (y/n)’s bed. (y/n) sat their snakes on their desk, so as not to spill them all over.

“Okay, we need to actually put the presentation together. You have the notes right?” niki nodded, grabbing her phone while (y/n) sat at their pc, not too far from the pink haired girl. “Okay, so we have-” they did this for a while, niki reading the notes while (y/n) wrote them into the google slide. It soon got to the part where they had to sing their song.

“Okay, so I'll be the baker, and you can be the other one.” (y/n) says, opening the song for them to sing. “Okay, i can do that!'' They started the song, getting ready to sing.

“(Y/N) ARE YOU WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND???” (y/n) stops the song. “I swear to god I will kill tommy. NO JACKASS, WE’RE NOT DATING!!” niki tries to stifle a laugh. “ARE YOU SURE????'' Tommy responds, still downstairs. (y/n) glares at the laughing niki. “Sorry sorry.” niki says, still laughing. “IM POSITIVE, NOW SHUT UP WE’RE TRYING TO DO SOMETHING!!'' Tommy responds immediately. “ARE YOU TWO HAVING SEX??” niki chokes on her own spit, while (y/n) blushes profusely. “OH THAT'S IT, COME HERE YOU LITTLE BITCH!!” (y/n) says, jumping out of their chair, running downstairs to attack the child. Niki leaves as well, wanting to see (y/n) beat up a child.

She comes down the stairs to see (y/n) putting Tommy in a choke hold while techno cheered them on. Niki stands next to techno.

"Apologize! I'll take your Cds if you don't!!!" "No no not my disks!!"

Niki turns towards techno. "Does this regularly happen?" Techno nodded as a response. Niki turned back, seeing Tommy try to bite (y/n). "OH STOP IT RACOON CHILD!!" philza soon comes In and breaks them apart. "Awwe my free entertainment.'' Techno says. "Oh calm down. Tommy, please stop annoying your sibling. This is why you get choked.” Tommy pouts. “Okay phil.” philza glares at the young child. “Also, (y/n), next time, just punch him in the throat. You've learned from techno.” “HEY!'' Tommy says, offended. (y/n) laughs, “okay, will do dadza. Oh, what time is it?” techno looked at his phone. “Its close to 9 pm.” (y/n) pouts, going over to niki and clinging onto her. “Noooo, it can't be her time to leave.” niki giggles, patting (y/n)’s head. “I have to leave. I'll come over soon, okay?” (y/n) nodds, letting go.

They go upstairs together, grabbing nikkis stuff. They go back downstairs to the front door. (y/n) and niki hug each other. “Are you coming back tomorrow?” (y/n) asked, letting go. “Yeah, we did never got to actually practice the song! I'll be over at 4 pm, like always.” (y/n) nodds. “Okay, well, see you tomorrow?” niki nodded, leaning over and kissing (y/n) on the cheek, making them blush. “Yep! See ya, bye!” she says, opening the door and closing it, leaving (y/n) a mess.

“Yep…” they say to themself, smiling happily. “YES!!!! I TOLD YOU THEIR GIRLFRIENDS!! PUSSY DIDN'T EVEN KISS HER THEMSELF HAHA!!” (y/n) turned around, running towards tommy. “COME BACK HERE AND SAY IT TO MY FACE YOU LITTLE BITCH!”

#niki nihachu x reader #niki nihachu #niki nihachu x you #niki nihachu x y/n #nihachu x reader #nihachu #mcyt x reader #school au #dreamsmp x reader

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warsofasoiaf · 4 years ago

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I'd love to hear your thoughts about Cyberpunk 2077 when you are ready/have finished the game. Maybe besides the game itself you have an opinion about the crunch, bugs and general feeling of disappointment in a good portion of the fans

Sure thing. It’s going to be a long write-up and there are going to be spoilers, so you better believe that this is going to have a cut. Reader beware. For context, I have beat the game, and I played it on PC and only on PC.

I’ve been a fan of the cyberpunk genre for a long time. Transhuman and techno-utopian sci-fi always struck me the wrong way; that it was too optimistic and ignored a less savory element of human nature that simply would not go away with the advent of new technologies. While I only briefly dipped my toes in the water of the Cyberpunk tabletop game (I was always a bigger fan of Shadowrun), I did enjoy the genre and was eager to see a AAA cyberpunk game. I also really liked CD Projekt Red with what they did with RPG’s like the Witcher 3. Particularly when it came to the smaller sidequests, they really found a way to bring a lot of noir elements and hard-hitting character moments to the game, and I believed that it could translate very well into a cyberpunk game. After all, noir was a similar response to detective fiction to what the cyberpunk genre was to earlier elements of sci-fi. So I was quite optimistic when it came out. What we got was...well, it didn’t quite meet up with expectations.

There are some good things about the game. Assuming you have a beefy rig, PC cyberpunk looks pretty good. Not only does it look good, but it looks like the dismal 1980′s inspired future that had defined the genre, with its neon lights, omnipresent advertising to the point of satire (amphetamines are available from vending machines in a variety of flavors and commercials are completely ridiculous). The fixers are great examples of different cyberpunk archetypes like Regina Jones being a media or the Padre being an underclass civic leader looking to protect his community with a bit of a violent streak. Plenty of the characters had great personality, the nomads and Panam were enjoyable, Judy had a great questline that detailed optimism and bitter disappointment (and the character looks cool and is a bit of a cinnamon roll), River’s quest was a perfectly serviceable cop questline with enough horror elements, they were all fine. Keanu wasn’t a great voice actor, but he did serviceably and was apparently just wonderful with the staff, so I’m willing to cut him a pass. The level design can encourage a variety of different play styles, with attribute points opening up certain pathways. Given that it’s an open-world sandbox game, the goal should be to immerse yourself in the world, and touch on elements of cyberpunk as you go through the various quests, and you do see some of that. You see the gross exploitations of dolls in the sex trade when you go to Clouds, the bizarre elements of self-expression that new technologies can offer such as the twins in Kabuki, Pacifica is an abandoned recreation ground for the rich with the nice image of rotting Ferris wheels and abandoned malls, and you can see the divide between the have’s and have-not’s on full display both in the opening (compare and contrast the Street Kid with the Corpo beginnings) or take a look at the Peralez’s penthouse apartment versus Judy’s cramped digs. Honestly, one of my favorite things in the game were just the consumables to highlight the different food and drink available to the people of Night City. The heavy population means that foods like fried ants or locust pepperoni are common, amphetamines are available in a variety of flavors, and there are no less than 20 burrito vending machines on every street (the future is not all bad it seems). I like little worldbuilding moments like this in video games because it does give a sense of completion and immersion within the world. I honestly felt bad for Johnny Silverhand, because by the end of the game I had to be a bloated man-ball of Holobites Peach Pie and Cirrus Cola.

The game even took a few things that had aged poorly in the cyberpunk genre and improved them. The Mox is a gang specifically meant to stop the Disposable Sex Worker trope, it’s small and part of the reason it survives is that it’s small, but it offers a chance of improvement over the exploitation that the Tyger Claws offer. The cyberpyscho quest is probably the best one of this. Earlier Cyberpunk had cyberpsychosis as a serious concern directly correlated with how many implants you got. The Solo archetype even spoke about how you risk losing your humanity with your implants as you became stronger, better, faster. Even later iterations had depersonalization/derealization disorders as people who could see in the dark lost connection to those who couldn’t. A quick thought in our present though, changes this. My eyesight and hearing is just fine, but I don’t lose connection or common empathy with individuals who are blind or deaf. I have two arms and two legs and I have not lost empathy for amputees. Why then, would I lose empathy and connection with someone with average human eyesight after I get my eyes replaced and now I have the ability to see in the dark or have telescopic sight? The cyberpsycho quest actually took this concept to task; cyberpsychos around the city are seen as horrifying threats that need the high-threat response of MaxTac to deal with, but Regina is looking to see if she can cure cyberpsychosis. Mechanically, the cyberpsychos are boss-fights with elements of puzzle gameplay (how to handle the different skillsets that they have) and a bonus reward for non-lethal damage which rewards certain playstyle archetypes or prepwork for those who ensure that they have a non-lethal option. The information you find around each cyberpyscho showcase different problems in the target’s life, no real common thread or inciting incident that you can trace the onset of cyberpsychosis toward and identify a culprit. After you complete the quest, you learn the twist: there is no such thing as cyberpsychosis. Each of the targets were actually just experiencing different stressors within their lives, such as PTSD, losing their job, drug abuse, etc. and the breakdown is made much worse because these individuals have the ability to toss dumpsters like they were baseballs or pick the wings off a fly with a cybernetically enhanced brain with a .50 cal. Some of these individuals had terrible implant surgery done by bargain-basement ripperdocs and temporarily lost the ability to discern reality from fantasy, something that could easily be seen as a science fiction adaptation of temporary insanity brought on by a poor reaction to medicine. It’s backed up by the game too. V can fill every slot in their cyberware deck but never once experiences cyberpsychosis. Oda has ultra-legs and flaming-hot mantis blades and is in perfect control at every point in the game, even when he’s trying to jab those mantis blade through your sternum. Cyberpyschosis isn’t real, the irresponsible media just ran with it because fear sells. For all the flaws of the game, I respect the game for taking cyberpsychosis in that direction.

But for all those good things, the game couldn’t help but feel shallower than the Witcher 3. The side-gigs were formulaic to the point where they even led with a category. There were few twists and very little that was surprising. Exposition for these quests was limited to a short text dump and a minute voice-over. Night City was big but it was relatively sparse. NCPD never seemed to intervene in any crimes (giving the character the chance to do so) but every so often they were around a taped-off crime scene, giving a sense of inconsistency that hampered the world. While it was a bustling city, it felt empty, most of the people I saw on the street were meaningless, just NPC’s walking around to give a sense of activity. There was little in the way of things to see and experience that was unique or different about these NPC’s. They weren’t crowds I could hide in like Hitman, they didn’t have ambient dialogue that showcased something like the Witcher 3. Much like other open-world games, this sense of shallowness pervaded much of the empty space of the world; it was incredibly *big* but there was little in it. Much of the time I was driving or running through empty space that was completely worthless to me. Normal for city living, but all of that is wasted time going from point A to point B, and unlike the Witcher 3, there were no small in-game beats to help flesh it out or build it. I never had Millie from “Where the Wolf and Cat Play” give me a little picture, I never had people from a liberated village say “hey, look, it’s that guy Geralt, thanks for killing those harpies.” These were things that made the Witcher 3′s world really come alive. I didn’t have that, and I was left

Of course, we also have to handle the elephant in the room, and that was CDPR’s conduct both during production and after release. Crunch has become an increasingly common part of video game development and it’s not healthy to developers. CDPR had been called out on it once before, but it seemed there was little change in how that happens. I’m not quite sure if there’s anything we can do, and I’m sympathetic to the need to hit target deadlines to actually deliver a finished product, but there’s got to be a better way, whether that’s a change to the incentive structure, or something, because it’s hurting folks. I like games like Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2, but I understand that there was a real human cost to these masterpieces, and I wonder if there’s something we can do about that.

Similarly, what happened after launch was beyond terrible. The last-gen console version were simply not ready for release and shouldn’t have been released to the public. CDPR openly covered up this, by only previewing the PC version, they hid the fact that the game wasn’t ready, and they avoided delaying the last-gen console version because they were looking to capitalize on holiday sales. I’m sympathetic for the need to generate sales, but the flip of this is that you have to deliver the product you advertise, and for last-gen consoles, they didn’t do so. Bugs are one thing, these games are massive undertakings of interacting systems and bugs are inevitable; some of my favorite games were buggy at release, notably Fallout: New Vegas, Witcher 3, and so on. But this went past bugs and into malpractice and deception, and that’s something that’s less forgivable. I personally had few bugs that were out-and-out game breaking but things not loading, quests bugging out, floating bags and other physics wonkiness, all of that hurt the immersion. I’d be more willing to forgive the game without the deception; I can laugh at bugs but not at ignoring quality control to get holiday sales instead of delivering a quality product. Consumers are angry at CDPR and have every reason to be, and I’m one of them. I can express my disappointment and I will do so, we need developers to stop these practices and the only way we can do that is through our wallets and words. I’m not going to tell anyone not to buy CDPR games, that’s entirely your decision because I’m a radical individualist. But I am going to say that they’ve burned a lot of their good karma with me; credibility is a hard beast to gain back. Much like other big name developers, CDPR has hurt their standing in my eyes. Whether that means I need to resort to going to indie games for a little bit or something else, I don’t know, but it’s rough. I liked CDPR and wanted to believe it’d be different, but it seems to not be the case.

Overall, I think it’s another AAA open-world game only made better by my love of the genre, and that stings. I enjoyed some aspects of it, and I hope that through Free DLC, patching, and other good deeds, the game can redeem itself and stimulate new love of the genre. But CDPR needs to do a lot more than that to win back my affection. If anyone has anything specifically that they want to know about the game, such as talk about the main story, individual characters, or so on, just ask.

Thanks for the question, Khef.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#video game reviews #cyberpunk 2077

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coydog-grim · 1 year ago

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Update on this stuff, bc I'm bored and I like tech stuff!

Debian desktop is finally here! After half a day of tinkering. Lol. The fan is loud, but the CPU doesn't overheat at all so I'm fine with that. I want to get a power surge protector just in case, but honestly power surges aren't much of a threat so it's not that high in my list of priorities tbh. Important? Yeah. But not urgent.

Let's see if the PC survives running overnight. I have my hopes high (and there's nothing important in the desktop anyways) but anything can happen tbh

I DO need the HDDs because the one the PC came with is old as HELL. I do not trust that mf- I'll start selling old stuff via Facebook or SMTH to get the money for them HDDs.

Something happened to my external CD reader that I use on my personal laptop, and now I can't read or burn any discs. Guess I'll use the old laptop for that, which I find a bit funny. Also I desperately need USBs because the one I had as a Debian image just gave out an hour ago. Brother was old as hell, it was his time ig.

I have ... So many plans for my spare tech stuff!!!

For now, the ideas are:

~ Burn a lightweight version of windows 7 into a CD and make it the OS of the old laptop.

~ Use that laptop mainly for occasional torrenting + ripping Windows software and testing it (it has a built-in drive)

~ Also use that laptop to finally be able to play Dungeon Keeper 2 and perhaps even pirate Photoshop, as a treat of course

~ Get Debian on the Desktop and use it as a local NAS

~ Buy some nice HDDs for the desktop, mayhaps even a SDD for the OS if I can afford it on my own

#salamidog speaks #technology #desktop restoration #computer stuff #computer desk #upcycle #old pc #pcmasterrace

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freddiebamberfdaliveperformance · 4 years ago

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Formation of Live Performance Concept

Having had years of experience as a live musician in a variety of contexts has given me a wide range of perspectives regarding the complexities of live performance. The very idea of being able to quantify what exactly a live performance is meant to achieve is an endless, and potentially untenable task.

Some might say the ideals and themes of live music are easy to define, in terms of what the layman would call truly “live” music - the mind normally jumps to the traditional guitar, bass, drums, singer set-up that Western culture is most accustomed to (Jones and Bennett, 2015). But even the greats of traditional live music vary widely in their execution of live performance.

Bruce Springsteen’s fame is often attributed in part “to his great reputation as a concert performer” (Angelle, 1987), his live performances feature slight reinterpretations of his songs, along with a level of energy unmatched by most of his peers, but Springsteen himself has written before that he believes his concerts are so successful in large part to the narrative framing he gives to his songs live, by often stopping between songs to explain the stories behind what inspired him to write them (Springsteen, 2005).

David Byrne is another musician who has in some ways transcended the potential limitations of the “traditional” live music set-up - his original band, Talking Heads, created the concert film, Stop Making Sense (Demme, 1984), which is now considered to be one of the greatest concert films of all time (Rolling Stone, 2012). His method of performance in Stop Making Sense, and indeed throughout his entire career, was formed largely by incorporating elements of avant-garde and Eastern theatre into the performance, especially including the movement of the musicians, and the staging of the performances (Byrne, 2012). An example of the often subversive nature of Byrne’s live performances can be seen below, from his 2018 performance on the show Late Night with Stephen Colbert.

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The ideas and performances of these musicians have impacted my own personal ideas about performance deeply - I’ve always thought it needs to be more than just a musician playing their songs, in most cases there should be elements of theatrics to a live performance, otherwise the audience might as well just be listening to a recording.

During live performances I’ve done in the past I’ve tried to include theatrics in at least some sense throughout all of them. During my time as a drummer in the punk band Ratbags I would often get completely naked on stage while continuing to play the drums, or climb into the audience to sing during the vocal sections of songs where I wasn’t playing drums.

During electronic music performances, especially as DJing is my primary method of electronic performance, it is often harder to include elements of theatrics; due largely to the spaces they take place in - with the performer often being obscured by equipment and lighting, and many audience members focusing more on the act of dancing and socialising rather than staring at the musician/s performing the music - it’s been suggested that the main performance element in DJing is within the choice of songs and the order in which they are played (Hellman, 2009).

During live performances as a DJ I’ve attempted to incorporate elements of theatricalism, but the elements I’ve incorporated have been relatively limited so far. I’ve dabbled a lot with anonymity - wearing a balaclava, and having a friend also wearing one, who will routinely switch places with me in order to create a sense of confusion in the audience about who is the actual DJ. I’ve also leaned heavily on genre-switching - often pulling the tempo down from standard 130bpm house music down to around 75bpm, and suddenly slamming into a dancehall song during an event specified to be a house event - primarily to create a sense of unpredictability for the audience. These efforts are mainly to leave some kind of impression upon the audience - as too often DJ’s can be very good technically, but leave nearly no impression on the audience they perform to.

A huge inspiration to me for crafting my own electronic performance has been the label PC Music. Their label has been at the forefront of “Hyper Pop” since it’s inception in 2013 - Hyper Pop has been described as “experimental music that pushes pop themes and tropes to parody, with some dance/electronic undertones” (Ogunbayo, 2020). This experimentation can also be seen in the live performances of artists on the PC music label, but for this project, and for live performances post-Covid, I’ve been most inspired by their live streams.

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You can see from the video above that “live-stream” may be a bit of a misnomer, as the stream switches between multiple performers, actual theatre pieces, and animated 3D graphics. This stream quite obviously creates that same sense of confusion and unpredictability in the audience that I’ve attempted to create before with live DJ performances.

A.G Cook - the founder, and possibly most famous member of PC Music, recently released the album 7G (Cook, 2020) which masterfully blends elements of electronic music with acoustic elements (Fantano, 2020). This record was instrumental (if you’ll pardon the pun) in the creation of my concept for my live-stream performance. I wanted to incorporate live instruments with electronic music, in the way A.G Cook has done, but also do the electronic music live.

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The video above of A.G Cook obviously incorporates live acoustic elements into electronic music, but after research it’s still unclear whether the electronic section is live or not.

I’d like to incorporate the live electronic elements of something along the lines of Jeff Mills’ live performances (Mills, 2016), with the acoustic/electronic mixing of A.G Cook’s live stream seen above.

I wanted my live performance to, at least attempt to be, something new and different, and from my personal research online I couldn’t find anyone attempting to mix live house music with the banjo - so for my live performance I’ll be live programming drum machines and bass synthesisers, and then playing banjo, run through a variety of guitar pedals, live over the programmed beats.

The closest thing I could find to this idea online is the video linked below.

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Although this performance shares similarities to my idea, it focuses more on using the banjo to create loops, rather than using it as a truly expressive instrument over the beats originally created.

I hope to use my knowledge of live acoustic and electronic performances to create a truly unique live performance, that incorporates elements of theatrics, to entertain and engage the viewer beyond just the medium of music.

References

Angelle, D., 1987. Springsteen Live. Boys' Life, [online] (77), p.12. Available at: <https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=imYEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA12&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false> [Accessed 21 November 2020].

Byrne, D., 2012. How Music Works. San Francisco: McSweeney's.

Cook, A., 2020. 7G. [CD] London: PC Music. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdr-1H_ezeY&list=PL6fQziqsQI2Nqqp7NncLoC1n5OokpOhgC> [Accessed 21 November 2020].

Fantano, A., 2020. A. G. Cook - 7G ALBUM REVIEW. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pq71XoRcgw> [Accessed 21 November 2020].

Hellman, Z., 2009. The DJ Aesthetic: A Look Into The Philosophy And Technology That Enable The Disc Jockey. Boca Raton: Universal Publishers.

Jones, A. and Bennett, R., 2015. The Digital Evolution Of Live Music. Hull: Chandos Publishing.

Mills, J., 2016. Jeff Mills @ Awakenings Festival 2016 - THE 909 WIZARD!. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xPrVSd7Eys> [Accessed 21 November 2020].

Ogunbayo, M., 2020. An Intro To Hyperpop. [online] VALLEY Magazine. Available at: <http://www.valleymagazinepsu.com/an-intro-to-hyperpop/> [Accessed 21 November 2020].

Springsteen, B., 2005. Born To Run. New York, NY: Columbia.

Stone, R., 2012. Readers' Poll: The Best Concert Movies Of All Time. [online] Rolling Stone. Available at: <https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/readers-poll-the-best-concert-movies-of-all-time-13805/> [Accessed 21 November 2020].

Stop Making Sense. 1984. [DVD] Directed by J. Demme. Hollywood: Arnold Stiefel Company.

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positivelyamazonian · 5 years ago

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are you watching the witcher on netflix? what did you think of it?

Hi! This is not Tomb Raider related but I don’t mind answering it. I’ve been a fan of The Witcher universe since 2015 when the third videogame by CD Projekt Red (The Witcher III: Wild Hunt) fell into my hands. Unfortunately I wasn’t aware of the existence of the books despite being a long term high fantasy reader because these were never at the public library of my town, neither in the bookshops I used to frequent.

The videogame was fantastic and I enjoyed it like not so many videogames before. The story was excellent to my tastes and then it was when I did my research, bought all the book series and read all of them. Then played the second, previous game (The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings) and if I didn’t manage to play the very first one it was because of incompatibilities with my PC. Since then, I consider myself a Witcher fan.

youtube

Now, going to the Netflix series. As everyone, I guess, I was very skeptical about the upcoming show; but it’s something that always happens to me when a beloved story and saga gets a TV/movie adaptation. I wasn’t familiar with Netflix at all - never had a subscription before - and neither with the casting, including Henry Cavill. But after watching the show I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed it a lot and I think that in general a nice, good work has been done with the Witcher universe here.

I am aware that right now the fandom is divided between those who think the show was fantastic and the book purists that are disappointed and outraged because everything wasn’t like they expected. You ask some and they say they love it and you ask some others and they say they butchered it. Personally I’ve loved the show. I think the casting was a pleasant surprise, specially with Henry Cavill (Geralt) and Anya Chalotra (Yennefer) who have exceeded all my expectations.

For miracles, I must admit I could have never seen Joey Batey (Jaskier) coming. I mean, Jaskier was never one of my favs, in the books he’s relatively OK (but nothing more) and in the videogames I find him (Dandelion) outright annoying. But for the first time the Netflix show has presented me a version of the character that I can love and admire. Thank you, Joey.

Apart from the casting, I thought that the three timelines arranging was brilliant. Some people have felt uncomfortable or even lost with them but despite being confused at them myself at the beginning, I soon got used to the pace and I loved it. Maybe because having read the books and played the games helps, of course. But my husband that is only familiar with the videogames and has never touched the books got used to it immediately, too. So really it’s a matter of will, in this case.

What else: the music was delightful. I was expecting it to be trash because the videogames’ soundtrack is such a masterpiece that I was sure it could be not beaten. Well, it wasn’t anyway, but the show’s soundtrack was decent enough and even amazing at some tracks. I’m very happy they are releasing it tomorrow, because I’m sure as hell I am getting a playlist for my long hours of correcting projects and exams. Also, Joey Batey, again! What a lovely voice!

The show has done really a good work with the female characters. They were already outstanding, empowered and self-aware in the books, even standing for their agency more than in the videogames, sometimes, so I’m happy the show presented this legion of amazing heroines for the newcomers to love and enjoy. Now, I’m biased because Yennefer has been always my personal favourite, but each one of them are fantastically portrayed: the sorceresses, the queen, the princesses, the swordswomen... Kudos to another unexpected miracle: Jodhi May as Calanthe.

Has the show some flaws or things I didn’t like? Of course. Everything can’t be perfect. Personally I didn’t like all the Brokilon arc, it was depicted awfully in the show. I think the last scene, the reunion between Geralt and Ciri, would have worked much better if being loyal - dialogue wise - to the book instead of that awkward silence with just two random lines. In general, Ciri’s arch is a bit dull and boring, but honestly not much more could’ve been done with the changes they took. And yes, the golden dragon episode and the Blaviken episode feel, somehow, rushed and unclear. On the contrary, the rest of episode 1 and 3 were almost canonically perfect. Finally, the physical removal of the uterus and ovaries as a way to sterilize the Aretuza adepts was a bit shocking and gory for my taste, this detail was never clearly specified in the books and it seems added for shock value. I’ve always assumed this sterilization was magical/chemical, not surgical.

But these are sins of the adapting I can pass. I am grateful for Yennefer’s arch, which is barely explored in the books and deserved some focus, and I’m also glad for the portrayed diversity of the show. I know so many people has hated the diverse cast, but I love it and I think it didn’t feel forced; in fact, it was needed for awareness of the main point of the story: exploration about hatred among races. If an actress or actor delivers a good portrayal, caring about the color of the skin is just utter and plain racism.

I also like the sensuality and mature content in the series because it’s a remarkable aspect of the books and it was handled with tasteful delicacy. Not even the nudity felt forced or out of place, Witcher universe has been always mature and sensual.

Another trait both present in the books and games is the dark humor and the goofy situations. What I loved the most about the Witcher universe was this kind of humor, nonexistent in the classics of high fantasy and scarce in the modern ones, but always generous in The Witcher. This is faithfully depicted in the show and has given us plenty of funny and goofy scenes and dialogues. It’s a shame so many people has understood this as a lack of quality or a Netflix input. It isn’t. It’s true to the source. After all, the whole Witcher universe is a self-parody of fantasy genre itself. Taking too much seriously what you see would be the first mistake. Sapko - the author - was the first one to laugh at his own stories.

I think this is getting too long, I’m sorry. All in all I’ve enjoyed the show and I’m looking forward Season 2. I think they did fantastic things and I hope they will keep delivering, expecting them to correct some minor flaws and move on with better world building and character development. Thanks for asking.

#the witcher #netflix #TV show #geralt of rivia #yennefer of vengerberg #cirilla fiona elen riannon #not tr related #my answers #guess this comes because i am liking every witcher gifset in tumblr #what can i do #i loved it :)

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prorevenge · 5 years ago

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EPIC INTERNET CAFE STORY 1 : READERS DIGEST

Here is another story from my youth, a good 20 or so years ago when I went to university I got a summer job during semesters at a local internet cafe. I've posted other stories under other subs so check them out.

Backstory:

I went to university in a large town, town mind you not a city. Situated in the valley of two rather large hills, either way you walked was uphill at some point.

I had just completed my first year and suffered a bereavement in the family, I lost my sister to cancer and took some time out from studies to gather myself before entering the 2nd year.

Needing money to survive I ended up getting a job at a local internet cafe. Yes this is the time of internet cafes. High speed broadband was super rare in the country.

Domestic broadband was barely reaching 1Mb in speed and this is the time of the infamous NTL acceptable usage policy(an ISP of the time which eventually got brought out by Richard Branson's Virgin)

This internet cafe had a T1 line. It was super-fast and had a special gaming floor usually filled with local children who loved to play CS. Unlimited use per hour paid. The floor was sticky, it smelled of BO and smoke. But it was the best games floor you could imagine. 20 odd high specced computers running lot of multiplayer games from Counterstrike to Red Alert. Heaven for a guy like me.

I started this job as a regular employee, it was just me and the manager. He and I got on really well, we had fun hosting late night and sometimes all-nighter gaming sessions.

Much of the time we would just goof around on the internet and help ourselves to some chocolate bars and these new things call energy drinks. Man those were good.

Business rules allowed us a couple of snacks and drinks during our shifts as long as we didn't take the piss and eat the whole store.

Various things happened here over the time I was employed in this establishment, a lot in a little over 8 months.

This is just one of those stories, it's the main one involving my Start of employment and interaction with the Owner and my ultimate parting with the company.

There is some overlap in the future stories, so you can refer to this when I write them. There will be some timeline post so you can read them in order.

Cast:

Cool Manager: CoolManager

Ass hole manager: ManagerA

Owner: OwnerJ

Owners Sister: SisterO

And Me, dear reader if you don't know who this is then stop reading now.

TL:DR at the end.

Various people come and go as I tell this, I shall just refer to them as and when they arrive.

Part 1: Changing of the guard.

I had been working in the cafe for a couple of months now. Let’s call the shop "Particles"

On this day CoolManager and I worked a full day and were just closing the shop. I went to get the signs from outside the store. One was located right outside the shop and the other 2 were at each end of the alleyway where the store was located. Jeffery, if you are reading this you know who you are.

I bring the signs into the store and CoolManager tells me he has something to tell me. So I sit down and he tells me that he is quitting and has given his 1 months’ notice.

Bummed by this news, I ask why but all he will say is that he wants to move on. Little did I know at the time was that he was suffering abuse from the Owner of the store, OwnerJ, regarding the owners sister. They had been dating, unbeknownst to anyone else and OwnerJ had found out and threatened to fire CoolManager or at least make his life hell as he was very protective over her.

OwnerJ was an ass, he owned 3 stores, called "Particles" , in total and would visit each one on a rotating weekly basis, taking the 4th week each month to go on holiday or some other task.

One of OwnerJ's best "motivational" tactics was to tell the store that he was currently visiting that the other 2 were doing better than this store was. He did that to all 3.

We knew this was a lie as CoolManager had found the performance report one time and saw that our store was consistently the best, we had the largest gaming floor and this attracted a lot of gamers from the Uni and college. The other 2 stores took it in turns to be the worst as their main focus was the cafe aspect which would generate less revenue based on other factors. Not heavy gaming revenue for them. They were more café than internet.

So OwnerJ was making CoolManager's life hell and CoolManager wanted to move on. I could understand that and we had a couple of adventures before he finally left. More on that in another story.

One fateful day I turned up at the store for my shift, I was on later than CoolManager and so he was the one opening up. I walk down the passage to the store and see a long queue of people. It's about 11am and the store opens at 8am, people start complaining at me for the long wait, I ask if CoolManager has not turned up and no one knows where he is.

CoolManager only handed in his notice less than 2 weeks prior, he had another 2 weeks to go so I opened the store, got the customers settled, made a few coffees and gave them to people on the house as an apology, I wouldn't charge them.

I tried to call CoolManager but he wasn't answering his phone. I tried all day to call him but he never answered. I was left to run the store the whole day.

He was supposed to work the split shift, work the morning and then take midday to afternoon off and come back for the evening till close at 8/9pm. So I end up doing the whole day. I log my hours and at the end of the day I close the shop.

When I got home I got a call from SisterO, she apologised for the mess that happened that day and said that CoolManager would not be coming back. I was in charge till they could find a replacement.

I would need to open and close the store each day but she would step in and take the afternoon shift. I was upset that CoolManager would leave me in a position like this but I was also happy as she said I could put it down as overtime. I needed the money, my student loan company had messed me around and I really needed the cash. So I accepted.

Thus began my new appointment to "manager of the store".

Part 2: The devil is in the details.

I worked with SisterO for about a month and a half, she was nice to be around but not as fun as CoolManager. She never mentioned CoolManager, even though I knew those two were still seeing each other, I never brought it up. We took on another member of staff about 5 weeks after I became manager and SisterO stayed for a week more to train them before moving on. each week she got more and more depressed. I later found out OwnerJ had been threatening her with her job and making her life hell as she wouldn't stop seeing CoolManager. he would say he would get the board of directors to fire her and her assets with the company would be forfeit.

So there we are: Me and the new guy, hence forth NewGuy. He doesn't play much part in this but you know there is someone else around now. I'm not a one man band anymore.

The summer is a hot one, and we are very, very busy, new games are coming out and it was my responsibility to ensure we had the correct number of CD's to run them. Licences are a bitch.

OwnerJ had been in the store this week and he tells us that we will soon be getting the new console from Microsoft, the XBOX. Wow, this was a big deal. we had only really been a PC game kind of store, to get something this big would be awesome. New signs had been brought to reflect that we would stock the machine for our gamers to play.

The weeks roll on and so do the questions regarding the Xbox. we had not received a single console, OwnerJ kept telling me that we would get them soon , but non ever materialised.

Our signs outside still advertised them, and I was getting pissed off with the constant customer complaints. So one afternoon I took some black electrical tape and covered over the parts of the signs that had anything Xbox related.

A couple of days pass and I get a call from OwnerJ. he demands that I take off the tape and advertise the Xbox again. I tell him that we are advertising a service we don't have, it's not good and all the complaints are just making the store look bad. He sticks to his guns and tells me to take off the tape. gritting my teeth I agree and he ends the call.

I could not help but think we were breaking the law somehow, we had nothing of the sort in our store, no Xboxes, no games for the Xbox and it had been weeks since we were promised them, all the posters and signage was there with XBOX in big letters. but no XBOX.

So I roll into the store the next day, I’m really tired the long shifts are starting to take their toll on me. I inform NewGuy of the rule and like me he thinks it's crazy. but we do as we are told. It is then that I get an idea in my head, I print out a bunch of "coming soon" signs and stick them over the posters for the Xbox just like a movie theatre would do.

I thought I had solved our issues but no, I get a call from OwnerJ and he tells me to take those down as well. I can't get a break, I had to do something about this... justice had to be served but how....

Part 3: Don't go towards the light T3chn0G1bb0n

Another week rolls by and I host an all-nighter with the local kids, CS and AVP2 (alien vs predator 2) and Unreal Tournament. Much fun was had at this, it was a welcome break from the rest of the time there recently. The only complaint I had is there were a couple of kids who insisted on using their own keyboards and mice. I offered to go get a torch so they could see under the desks to plug them in. It took a little longer to find than normal as the kids had chucked their bags in the cupboard and I could not reach the toolbox without moving them.

I find the torch and walk half way up the stairs to the gaming floor to hear the room in a panic, someone had the bright idea to use a cig lighter to illuminate the underside of the benches to plug in their mouse, not waiting for me to bring the torch.

They allowed people to smoke indoors back in those days. The game floor always stank of stale smoke. The poor air con unit barely coped to purify the air. With all the dust, grime and nicotine stains and cig ash I would regularly keep it going over night and all day to clear out the smell and ash particles, yes this floor got pretty dirty during the week and we only had one cleaner, once a week.

I tried my best but there wasn’t enough time in a day to monitor the store and clean it , it really needed a deep clean and our cleaner did the bare minimum.

Something sweet and sticky that was around suddenly decided to catch fire. Like I said I’m about halfway up the stairs when I see a kid grab the fire extinguisher at the top of the stairs.

My first thought was oh shit fire, but then I realised that the particular fire extinguishers we had in the store were not Co2 but H2O. Fuck, fuck , fuck……

I move at close to the speed of light and grab the fire extinguisher off the kid before he has the chance to pull out the safety pin. Water and electricity don't mix don’t ya know!

I grab the fire blanket off the wall and use that to put out the fire. in hindsight it was not a very big fire but 14 year old kids don't know any better. being only 18 myself this was a shock. I give the kids a bollocking for using a lighter and put the fire extinguisher back on the hook.

We end our gaming session early after a couple more hours, with all the excitement, it has worn us all out. I make a note to call OwnerJ about this issue in the morning and go home.

Much to my surprise the following day OwnerJ is in the store, I had completely forgotten about it being his week in the store as he hadn't turned up recently.

I walk over to OwnerJ and ask him about the fire extinguisher and tell him about the accident that happened the night before. OwnerJ isn't really giving me much attention to my complaint.

I tell him we really should have Co2 and not H2O extinguishers for the exact reason I prevented last night. He scoffs and tells me we don't actually need to have them as the store is exempt from needing extinguishers. I thought to myself that this can't be true, surely there is one thing to have no fire extinguishers as you are exempt, but another to have the complete incorrect ones for the business purposes. I offer to remove them and put them in the cupboard for staff only use and explained to him that a customer was the one who grabbed the water extinguisher and could have gotten electrocuted with its use. Again he scoffs and tells me to not touch them, we are exempt from needing them so they can stay.

I was livid at this, no concern what so ever for the customer or my safety. this didn't sit well with me at all. I was determined to do some research into this as it couldn’t possibly be true.

A plan began to formulate in my head....

Part 4: Bay leafs

Two days later, I am sitting at home as it's my day off, A sunny Saturday and NewGuy is taking the shift for the day. I needed some R&R, working 7 days a week was hard.

My phone rings. it's NewGuy.

"Umm", he says, "You need to get here now, there are 3 big fuck off bailiffs here demanding to see OwnerJ and they won't leave. I cannot reach OwnerJ on his phone and they are making all these threats about taking stuff away. customers are leaving the store over it."

I tell him to lock up the gaming floor and any other door and hide the keys, the less they can access the better. I make it down to the store like a student who ate a vindaloo the night before and now needs the toilet. Gasping for breath I enter into the store and ask WTH is going on.

“We want to see OwnerJ”, they keep telling me. And I keep telling them “he isn't here”.

The bailiffs disappear outside when their phone rings. OwnerJ had returned their call and they spend the next 20 minutes on the phone to him. He must have been in his car when he called them back as he appeared at the front door some 20 minutes later hence.

Hushed mutterings and waving of arms are all that can be seen and heard from where NewGuy and I are standing, behind the staff counter looking out the window.

Then suddenly it all stopped and the bailiffs left. OwnerJ came into the store and said that they had gone and we were to tidy up and open the store again. The bailiffs had begun to take things when they were taking inventory, not caring where they put stuff when they moved it.

I asked OwnerJ what had happened only to have him respond with , "mind your own business", ooooh you are going to meet my wrath soon OwnerJ.....

OwnerJ leaves and NewGuy and I do as we are told, does not take long for the store to open up. I reminded myself that I would get the last laugh, I should just wait and bide my time for the right moment to spring the trap...

I found out that OwnerJ had not been paying the council his business rates and taxes for months, he had been going on all these holidays with the money that should have been spent on council tax and rates.

The council were in the final stages of court proceedings and if nothing was done that day, we would have had the store stripped of goods to pay off the debt. not good.

Couple of hours later when the store is open, a few kids had heard of the events from earlier on and were making a lot of fuss out on the shop floor trying to ask me questions.

I take them out the back with NewGuy and explain what was going on and how OwnerJ had screwed the pooch with the council. I apologised to NewGuy for the horrible experience, those bailiffs were really rude and they were very intimidating, I told NewGuy he could go home early and I would finish up. I was upset at OwnerJ, not only had he not apologised for what had happened he was just out right rude and there was not even an excuse from him. I was not happy with OwnerJ and I expressed that fully in front of NewGuy my thoughts on the matter. I thought being outside in the alley was safe to speak.....

Out of the corner of my eye I see a lady get up out of her seat and leave the store... I rush after her as she has not paid, but I fail to catch her. Who was she? I would find out a few weeks later.

Part 5: Out with the old in with the new.

It wasn't long after the incident with the bailiffs that things began to change. I was hard at work trying to find any legislation on the regulations for our store. those fire extinguishers were on my mind all the time. Hitting brick wall after brick wall, back then government and local council websites were short and very brief, not much more than a geocities style website. good old web rings.

OwnerJ walks into the store and introduces a guy who was going to be the new manager, this is our ManagerA ladies and gents. He was tall , skinny and had a crew cut hair style.

I move out of my chair to shake this guy’s hand and welcome him, he was cold and uninterested, and I had a weird vibe about him, couldn't place my finger on what it was at the time.

Demotivated at the loss of my role as manager , I knew deep down it wouldn't last. I was due to go back to University in a couple of months so I could not maintain the position for ever.

ManagerA and I never seemed to get on, there was no chemistry between us, he just wanted to do his job and go home. for the most part he was ok but this was about to change.

One day, one of the computers failed, hdd failure or something, it was constantly crashing. I was diagnosing the problem when ManagerA asks me what is wrong.

“It's being Ghey” (read: gay) I said.

Now at this time gay in our kid slang "gay" didn't refer to anyone of the homosexual persuasion but rather it was more akin to "lame". times were changing and to use this word in a derogatory sense was quickly becoming wrong speak then but it wasn't fully mainstream yet. Now whilst I don't condone homophobic slurs, it wasn't the same back then, language was changing and I would not intentionally use a slur like that, and today I refrain from it totally. But back then, it was common slang, it was acceptable and we didn't mean anything bad to those of the homosexual persuasion by using it. Just as Gay originally was synonymous with "good, happy", the kid thing of using opposites to mean something was common, like wicked to mean great etc. A friend had dodged a bullet recently from a GM in an online game recently where he said "gay" in voice chat, he received a complaint followed by a temp ban, it could have gone worse if it was 2019

ManagerA flipped his lid, "what did you say?".

Remembering this with some rapid thinking, the word "Ghey" could be just another play on words. quickly reacting…

"Ghey, I said the pc is being Ghey, G H E Y, it's not doing what it's supposed to do"

This got the side eye from ManagerA at me, daggers pointing in my direction. I technically had not done anything wrong. he just misheard me, /click. And thus began the quick and sudden downfall of our relationship. He changed into the ass hole manager of this story. Turns out he was gay. He was keeping it hidden in case of any trouble, it was a student town, but being out and gay was still quite unheard of back then. Many encounters following this, saved for another story.

Later that week I was due to host another all night gaming session, it was a tournament I had been planning for a while when ManagerA tells me that he will be hosting the tournament. I said I was actually going to compete and that I would want to host it. he said no and that I was “not going to host it let alone compete on company time”. He would run the store and stay down stairs surfing the web etc. whilst it went on.

Bullshitting liar he was. I found out that he took part in the tournament and was not downstairs once ever during that night. mother fucker screwed me over. his smug face will forever be etched into my mind.

I never spoke a word to him about it. To this day I hate his guts for it. He wasn't going to be the target for my revenge but I would make sure he suffered in the fallout.....

Part 6: the end of an era

I turn up for my shift, it's mid-week, and a busy one, kids will be going back to school soon so things should quieten down. I would be due to go back to uni for the 2nd year come end of October and I had just celebrated my birthday. I had booked the day off and had a great time at Pizza Hut. Refreshed I walk into the store. I greet Manager A and get to work.

ManagerA is sitting at the customer side of the store browsing the web. When someone piques my interest, there’s a tall bald guy, built like a brick shit house sitting at another desk deep in thought staring at his screen. He’s new it’s normally the usual regulars about this time of day.

I had been drafting my resignation recently and was going to give my 1 months’ notice in the next couple of days, so I sat at the staff computer and began to finish up its final details. I printed out the document when the Big Bald Brick Shit House Guy, got up and requested ManagerA meet him outside for a chat. I shrugged and gathered my recently printed document.

ManagerA walks back into the store and says to me, "hey T3chn0G1bb0n, ummm, I don't know how to say this but, you're fired, gather your things and leave"

Quicker than I’ve ever reacted before, I reach for my paperwork and hand it to him, to this day I don't know why I reacted this way, instinct I assume, and I gave ManagerA my resignation.

"you can't fire me, I quit" I say.

Puzzled, ManagerA looks at me, looks at my paperwork for a while and slumps back on his heels. I grab my bag and leave. In my letter of resignation I had spilled the beans on everything, all the shitty things that went on whilst I was there that I have not detailed in this story and how I was treated. I had enough evidence to shut the business down for all the dodgy practices and the health and safety violations. My time spent researching had paid off.

I get a call from ManagerA a couple of days later, inviting me for an exit interview and to pick up my last pay cheque. I'm intrigued because I was expecting my cheque in the mail like all the others.

I turn up at the store, expecting it to be packed with customers, but no, it was empty. ManagerA gestures for me to follow him up to the gaming floor.

Who should be sitting there but none other than Big Bald Brick Shit House Guy. What was he doing here? Remember the woman who ran out when I was in the alleyway talking to NewGuy and the kids? She was OwnerJ's wife! She had heard my rant to NewGuy about the time with the bailiffs and had blabbed to OwnerJ about it. Without any more proof than her words they would have to have taken time to gather evidence to fire me, Bringing in ManagerA was a stop gap to make sure the place didn't fall apart in my wake. And the Ghey remark was at the top of the list of reasons for my dismissal. How petty.

Big Bald Brick Shit House Guy and ManagerA grill me for an hour, in my naivety I stayed and listened to it all, but I know now I should have left there and then. They referred to my letter and how they had evidence that I was behind the dodgy practices as I was the manager at the time. Telling me they had cctv evidence. Knowing enough even back then that they were bluffing I called their bluff. They backed down. They didn’t have any cctv and they knew I knew. I'm not sure what the real purpose of the meeting was but they were very nervous, angry nervous, you could tell the anger was a cover.

In the end they let me go, with a veiled threat of court action if I pursued any complaint against them on the things I listed in my resignation letter. Telling me they would bankrupt me in court as they had more money than I did and it would take me everything I had to defend myself.

As it happened, my plan was already coming to fruition. I had been meeting with CoolManager, remember him? Since the incident regarding the fire extinguishers. I found out he had left early due to getting in a punch up with OwnerJ the day before mentioned earlier in this story. He had to lay low for a while.

He had let me in on some regulation that did stipulate the store required fire extinguishers, and not just any fire extinguishers, but specifically CO2 because we had so much electrical equipment they had to be the correct type to deal with the very incident with the lighter on that games night.

I had reported the company to the council around the time after the bailiff visit. An investigation had then been triggered and they had started to investigate the other stores before mine.

They had found several health code violations in the stores for food safety, the stores had very bad hygiene and it was found that a few cases of food poisoning of customers had come from those stores. Although they had not been subject to the fire extinguisher problem, they had the correct ones, our store definitely had the wrong ones per some regulation I forget. They already had concerns over the store following the problems with the council tax and rates. but this was the icing on the cake and they used their full powers to……..

My store was shut down for 2 months whilst they brought it up to code. They had electricians in who found many code violations with the wiring. they found small burns in the cables under the desks, kids had been using lighters all the time to light up the area to see, even from before I started working there, and that the fire I experienced was not the first in the place.

Long ago fire engines had to be called out after a kid did exactly the same with me , and the games room was apparently damaged by the resulting fire, blackened with smoke, it was repainted to all black and blinds were put up to cover the burns on the walls etc. I never noticed the smoke smell because of the cig smell.

All the desks had to be ripped out and replaced with fire resistant wood. they were originally some form of chipboard which was a major fire hazard because of the glue they used.

It cost OwnerJ a small fortune in repairs. On top of that OwnerJ was slapped with a very hefty fine by the council, they had to let NewGuy and ManagerA go (told you ManagerA I would get the last laugh!). But I feel sorry for NewGuy and when I saw him I apologised when he told me all the details I now provide to you dear reader.

SisterO cut ties with OwnerJ, she had sold her shares of the company to Big Bald Brick Shit House Guy and had married CoolManager. They moved out of the town to start a new life. Explains why Big Bald Brick Shit House Guy suddenly came on the scene.

I ended up completing my 2nd year of Uni but suffered a mental break down due to the death of my sister the year before which caused me to leave and move back home. I had buried myself into this job the right after her death to block out the anguish and grief I felt.

But on this day , I was the one who triumphed.

Fuck you OwnerJ. Fuck you Big Bald Brick Shit House Guy, fuck you ManagerA and fuck you Particles.

TL:DR, just read the story, it’s great.

T3chn0G1bb0n

(source) story by (/u/T3chn0G1bb0n)

#prorevenge #by /u/T3chn0G1bb0n #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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jayne-hecate-writer · 4 years ago

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Old and Useless

I am fucking angry, but my rage is impotent and useless because the people I am angry at, don’t care that I am angry. Actually, they do care a little bit and they are arguing that my anger is unjustified and unfair on them. I did not realise that I was a bully and was asking so much from them…

So you may be asking who I am so angry with and why am I being so unreasonable? The answer is complicated, but my dear reader, it is really not you, well unless you are one of those people mentioned above. You see, I am angry with the big names of the tech industry and the reasons as to why, are both complex and deep. To explain this anger, I need to tell you a story, a true story in fact, that started a little over twenty years ago. So settle down, put your feet up and let us go back through the swirly mists of time to the autumn of 1995, when I started my degree at a prestigious British university.

My University was neither prestigious or an actual university. It was a former teacher training college that had in the past trained nice young ladies to be nice young teachers of nice young children. The grounds that these nice courses were taught in, were beautiful, with ancient trees, two small lakes with a folly that looked just like Camelot from Monty Python. The college was however, not happy being just a run of the mill college, because a simple college did not make much money when compared to a prestigious University and so they set about changing from a college into a... University College, a subtle change, but a change for the better they assured us, the actual students of the place. But after all of the expensive name changes and font changes on the new name, the leaky roof still leaked in the student accommodation and the library still had not bought a new book for three years, but they were going to modernise the place with a whole new building.

When I started my degree, my essays were hand written on stuff called lined paper, or if we could afford to buy one, they were typed up on an electronic typewriter. The college had put up a new and rather ugly building that was filled with these wondrous boxes of blinking lights, boxes of lights that were the early home computers and they came with a thing called Windows 95 that allowed you to look at pixilated images of boobies. They were amazing.

Were they really amazing? The correct answer is no, no they were not. The problem was that to someone who had never used a computer before, it was a box that made a lot of noise and a filthy heat, that took up a lot of space on my desk and did very little, even when asked. I poked the keyboard and moved the funny little box on a wire and the pointer on the screen moved too, I was entranced.

I did not play with those boxes of lights again until several years later when back in another university (again a former polytechnic that wanted to be posher and thus changed its name and status!) I was told that my essays needed to be submitted typed up or word processed. Excited, I dived into the world of home computing and spent hundreds of pounds on my own box of lights and switched it on to be greeted by the green fields of the Windows XP screen background and the appalling monster that was Clippy, the word assistant in the shape of a talking paper-clip. He would pop up when I was typing and ask me if I wanted help with my essay and would then offer me useless advice that had no relevance to what I was doing. Clippy was the first piece of technology that I regularly told to fuck off.

My first home network came in 2005, when the chance to buy a second computer presented itself and although it was broken, I could fix it. Putting the two of them together and seeing them communicate for the first time was amazing. I could drag files from one computer and put them on another. I could work on two projects at the same time and swap files between them on two different machines. Windows XP was so easy to use, wasn’t it?… No, it wasn’t. Windows XP was all that I had available at the time and I had to train my brain to think in the Windows XP way. It had plenty of quirks and numerous faults and to add further insults, with two machines, I had two versions of Clippy that I was forced to to tell to fuck off. Then my hard drive died.

I was lucky, I had back ups on CD of most of my files, but not of everything and that included the operating system. Thankfully I had the original install disk, a CD that contained Windows and another that contained Office and that cunt Clippy. Only, the disk was keyed to only one of my computers and when asked to submit a code, it was most unhappy and said no. That was the very first time that a computer said no to me. I consulted an expert and was informed that I needed to pay an awful lot of money to Microsoft in order to fix my computer and that was before I paid the already mentioned man, an awful lot to put on the computer what Microsoft gave him. So, after an awful lot of money exchanged hands, I had two computers once again, but not for long.

This time, the fault was more serious, the outer box stayed the same, but the bits inside changed. This was the first time I encountered something called a Mother Board and another thing called a graphics card. Then came the sound card and the memory and the hard disk and the optical drive and the LAN card and the USB expansion and the second hard disk and before I knew it, I was looking at a pile of parts that had cost hundreds of pounds and none of it fucking worked yet because of fucking Microsoft.

This pile of parts led me down the path of not wanting to keep giving Microsoft hundreds of pounds every time I rebuilt my computer. So I started playing with something called Linux. It was anarchic they said, it broke away from conventions they said. It does everything Windows does, but even better they said… They lied. Very quickly I had to learn about a thing called ‘The Terminal’ into which I typed out lines and lines of code. After which, I would hit return and then I would have to search through hundreds of lines of code to find the place where I had mistyped a character or two. Then I would repeat that process several more times, adding more code and finally, I had a working computer. Making it talk to the Windows XP machine was a trial because it seemed that they spoke different languages, but I did it and speak to each other they did.

My new Linux machine played my DVD movies, it played my music CDs and I was able to write on it without being interrupted by that shitcunt Clippy. But Linux back then was not all that stable and glitches would start to appear and before I knew it, I spent just as much time typing in code as I did listening to music. The two computers stopped talking to each other and I had to work really hard to make them friends again. My first machine now long dead seemed like a mere pocket calculator compared to what I had found myself with. The Micro ATX board the size of a drinks coaster had been replaced by something faster, bigger and more fun, but these money pits soon began to drain my purse of funds needed for other projects and as funds grew tight, the computers complained all the more, leaving me with just one computer again and a box of lights that had gone dark.

My first laptop had windows ME on it and it would seize up and need restarting after twenty minutes of work or half an hour of theme hospital. I really miss theme hospital, it was very silly and it was lots of fun, but it, like my laptop and Windows ME and Windows XP and Windows 7 and Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 are all long gone and here lies the nub of every issue I have with technology now. The constant need for the next new thing and frankly it boils my piss. I am fizzing in the gusset right now and not in a good way, this is anger, I am royally pissed.

In 2013 I bought a new laptop computer from PC world, a mistake I would repeat only once more. Thanks mainly to the advice from the sales adviser, who told me that the Google Chromebook was the next advance in home computing, I started looking at one. “Does it work away from home?” I asked in all innocence. I was assured that it did and with it freshly purchased, I promptly pissed off to a desert island in the Indian ocean looking forwards to writing up my adventures on my new laptop. It did not work. It would not even switch on without a connection to wifi. Finally and unbelievably on a remote desert island, we found a Pizza restaurant and I managed to switch on the Crapbook (a name I now give you for every Chromebook in existence) using their slow wifi. The Crapbook proved time and time again just how much of a worthless pile of shit it was. It promised so much and provided so little in return. In the end, I used it only to watch YouTube while in the bath because frankly every ‘Ap’ on the damn thing was fucking shit. As a writer, I wanted a laptop that could use office software to type up my stories. The Crapbook could do this, but it had no spell checker, it could not save to the laptop hard drive and when transferring files to another computer, the document would be turned into indecipherable gibberish. With imported documents, it would destroy formatting and leave behind a document that had so many page errors that not even a Windows machine could repair it.

Also, the Crapbook could not talk to the Windows Machine (now on Windows 10) on he home network, but then, neither could the iMac, the Sony Smart phone, my USB stick or my external hard drive. I was by now running four computer systems, the Crapbook, the iMac, the Windows 10 Laptop and the Linux desktop. None of them were capable of communicating with each other across the network, either wired or wireless. The Crapbook was a joke at the best of times, but when I discovered that this was the only machine that could read every USB stick I owned, but none of the others could, I almost threw it out of a window.

The problem was how the USB drives were coded. The Linux machine could see all of them, but could only write to the external hard drive. It could read from the blue USB stick, but not write to it. The red USB stick would register, but the Linux machine would say that the drive was faulty and I would have to restart the machine three times just to be able to remove it safely! The old MP3 player that worked as a USB memory stick could be written to by the Linux machine, but it could not delete files and would instead turn the drive from eight gigs of data, into three song and a large file called trash, that contained every file I wanted to delete, but it seemed permanently burned onto the drive, never to be removed. I gave up trying in the end.

The Windows machine can see the external hard drive, but depending on some unknown variable can or cannot write to the drive. Some days it can and all is well. These will be the days when the system volume also works and I can make my headphones louder by clicking the appropriate button. However, some days Windows decides that my pressing the volume button is a sign of my need for existential peace and it ignores my request for louder or quieter music. On these days, the external hard drive becomes a place of mystery too. The Blue USB stick does not exist and the red one is old and slow.

The iMac could see the external drive, but not the USB sticks. If it did see the USB sticks, it would delete them and I would have no idea if they were safe to remove from the computer. Writing to the External hard drive was also impossible. As was taking data from it, but it could see it.

As I write this, I am back on the Linux desktop because the Windows Laptop has been unusable for almost four days. Why is this you may ask? The answer is because when I bought it, I could not afford very much and so bought myself a budget laptop. It has a Core i3 processor and four gigs of ram. The board in the case is the size of my mobile phone and the processor and the cooling fan are on opposite sides of the case (this is relevant shortly) with just one air vent, towards the front of the computer. While trying to render a picture of a Lego model, the computer began to overheat. The fan speed increased to maximum and the keyboard developed a hot spot that made it uncomfortable to use and then the screen went dark as the machine simply shut down. A full thermal throttling shut down that required fully dismantling to blow the dust from the fan and clear the pathway between fan and CPU. Given the amount of space inside the laptop casing, I am forced to ask why there is a six inch gap between the fan and the CPU, plus a four inch gap between the fan and the vent? The heat coming through the bottom of the machine made it uncomfortable to actually have on my lap (never do this, it blocks the vents) and the computer shut down to protect itself. When I finally restarted the laptop, I discovered that it had developed yet another instability, possibly due to thermal damage of the CPU. Meanwhile in the background, Windows update (that you cannot turn off) was slowly sucking away processing time from other functions. I have set the times when Windows can do updates, which is every evening when I am not writing. However, this update has got bigger and bigger, drawing more and more CPU time (I know because I have been watching the progress with CPU ID and monitoring the core temps) and is as we speak, only 8% downloaded of whatever current update it is now on, having restarted three (edit- four!) times already this morning.

So why am I angry? I am angry because none of these fucking things work as promised. When I do finally get them to work as I want, updates come down that fuck with my settings. I cannot prevent updates, they come with inevitable gloom and yes, I am aware that I can delay them or stop the machine from downloading on a metered connection, but just like HG Wells’ Martians, still they come! For four days, my Windows 10 Laptop has been installing, downloading and installing updates. It has been hanging while installing updates that when looking on the Microsoft website, they say it is time to start coding in the terminal.

The Crapbook gave me a message recently that read in nicer language, “give us more money or we will reveal your banking details to scammers…” Thanks for that Google, you cunts.

The Linux machine wants to update to the next version of the OS, that I have tried and really don’t like because it tries to make my desktop work like a mobile phone.

The iMac keeps telling me that it is too old and is not safe to use on line any more.

The Smart phone will interrupt what I am doing with it, to show me adverts. It also on occasion refuses to allow me to answer actual phone calls, because to do so, I must first attempt to close down an advert for emojis that will randomly appear. An advert that I neither wanted or asked for.

What was once a tool and an essential learning aid has become nought but a shallow toy, filled with advertising junk, following my every key tap, not to help me, but to sell me shit I don’t want and steal my data for companies to buy and sell me more shit I really don’t want. The machines I knew and loved are gone. Media outlets such as Linus Tech tips tell us that using old machines on line is irresponsible because it endangers everyone else to attack from scammers. The message is plain. Old is bad. Repair is bad. Throw it away and buy a new one… BUY BUY BUY, never fix. Sell my soul for old shit I don’t want. Stop using these wondrous machines for actual creative processes and use them instead to buy emojis for chatting with my friends. I fucking hate it. I fucking hate that tech companies can make their expensive computers so disposable. As much as I loved the iMac, Apple can fuck themselves in their arses with burning hot iron spikes for making them almost impossible to repair and even my trusted ASUS have gone the same way by putting the fan and the CPU in different sides of the case. Apple, Microsoft and Google have taken apart the computer world and used it to extract money from us the consumer, as if they did not have enough already. Also and probably finally for this angry rant, I really liked Theme Hospital! Bloaty Head Disease made me laugh and I can’t fucking play it any more.

I fucking hate these technology companies. They claim that they are making everything better, but what they are doing is making old but good things useless just so that they can convince us to buy the newer models of the old ones each year. To hell with the environmental impact of all of the e-waste, consume, play, dispose… When did computers become digital nappies?

PS. The Laptop is now on 85% of its forth install and restart of the day…

#apple inc #microsoft #linux #Home Computers #right to repair #Clippy #windows 10 #windows update

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superchartisland · 5 years ago

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MegaRace (Cryo/Mindscape, PC, 1993)

The world of early CD-ROM games shows some emerging standards. MegaRace’s electronic soundtrack is nothing on Rebel Assault’s Star Wars score but, just like that that game, MegaRace uses streaming of pre-rendered backdrops to allow you to travel through spectacular environments. I’m not sure if its testament to my poor observational powers, or to the skill of developers Cryo, that I didn’t realise immediately that MegaRace’s race-tracks are as static and unalterable as Rebel Assault’s flight paths. Certainly there was something immediately odd feeling about the way that you come up behind another car and then follow it at a precisely maintained constant distance for a while before getting the chance to deal with it. There was a clear invisible hand pushing you to stay on the right track. But the barriers, never mind the opponents, at least feel more like they are really there.

That’s not much of a compliment, and there isn’t much to compliment in how MegaRace plays. Essentially Chase HQ but in another dystopian high tech future and without the innocent by-drivers or sense of fun, you are tasked with chasing down and destroying various cars. Shoot them, bump them into the wall, or go past them and wait for them to spontaneously combust, and the next one soon appears in front of you. The spongy handling means it’s a relief to have something to concentrate on other than following the track, and further to that you do have some go faster arrows to try to hit, if not any cabbages to avoid.

The visuals are relatively flashy but now cloudy-looking in exactly the same way as Rebel Assault, and whizzing through futuristic cities or underwater tunnels never gets as involving as it could. Which would leave MegaRace a thoroughly underwhelming game if it wasn’t for the fact that, also like Rebel Assault, the presentation of the non-playable elements has a larger than normal role to play.

MegaRace went all in on FMV and recording an actor, with many lengthy sequences of exposition. Christian Erickson (not to be confused with Christian Eriksen the footballer) plays the oh-so-subtly-named Lance Boyle, the game show host introducing your role as the Enforcer, selected for virtual world television to destroy all those no good punks ruining the roads. The story emphasises this messed-up future world and revels in the idea of destruction and risk, but at the same time keeps pointing out that it’s all taking place in a virtual world and no one is really being harmed. It’s a peculiarly toothless way of having its ultraviolence and eating it.

Handed this rather sorry material, though, Erickson makes it sing. (Apologies to readers who are not British/didn’t grow up in the ‘90s for the forthcoming comparison...) He plays the host role like Richard O’Brien on The Crystal Maze turned up to 11, a twinkly trickster whose flashes of warmth and of danger go hand-in-hand, and who under the surface always seems just slightly amused by something he won’t let on. The jerky camera cuts and the computer graphics backgrounds further help to make him larger than life and more unsteadying.

Long bits of this performance come before you even have to do anything as the player, and it’s not really something that rewards watching over and over. There are neat touches like getting an additional Lance interjection if you are taking too long to decide which vehicle you want to go out and destroy in, but it’s mostly fairly detached from what you’re doing as a player. And yet, being tied to any interactivity at all makes it take on a different flavour to just sitting and watching a film. You can’t ever quite forget that you might be needed to take action at any moment, that you are a student taking in information that you might be tested on, that you are sitting plugged into this world already. Lance Boyle is captivating in part because Lance Boyle as a game cutscene works better than Lance Boyle as a film ever could, and for all its other failures MegaRace at least takes full advantage of that.

PC CD-ROM chart, Edge 010, July 1994

#every number one #MegaRace #FMV #CD-ROM

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alisa928151976-blog · 5 years ago

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AVS Audio Editor Record Audio, Minimize, Mix Audio Files, Delete Audio Parts, Edit Mp3

As Wes Phillips lately reported on this website , CD gross sales are down and authorized downloads of audio files are up. Stereophile has been criticized more than as soon as for not paying enough consideration to the topics of MP3 and different compressed file codecs, corresponding to AAC , alac to wma converter online mac and for providing no guidance in any respect to readers about methods to get one of the best sound high quality from compressed downloads. Now let us study the writer's numbers applied to present know-how. We'll use the worst-case situation for FLAC, 60%, on an 800 MB CD. That equals 480 MB per CD and we'll spherical that up to 500 MB for simple calculations going ahead. Those numbers would yield 128 CDs on a run-of-the-mill 64 GB flash drive primarily based MP3 player and 520 CDs for the Basic iPod. And they are often swapped out each night time, all prepared for the subsequent morning, with whatever you want. I'm certain there's an app for that. For instance, customers wanting good multiplatform compatibility and robustness (e.g., people sharing reside recordings) would favour WavPack or FLAC One other user, in search of the very highest compression available, would go together with OptimFROG Someone wanting transportable help would use FLAC or ALAC , and so forth. En fin, this is not a matter worth getting too labored up about. If you later discover out the codec you chose isn't one of the best on your wants, you possibly can just transcompress to a different format, with out danger of dropping high quality. The quality of playback of any digital audio player relies upon nearly completely on the quality of the DAC (Digital-to-Analogue Conversion) chipset. The quality of those components is proportionate to their value which in flip determines why some DAPs are so much more expensive…Larger-resolution files do sound better than lower ones (and much better than compressed (lossy) ones), and the processing power of the DAC chip determines how such audio characteristics such as transient readability, harmonics, depth, stereo width and more, are translated from digital to analog. The distinction between, say, a $50 converter and a $500 shall be as clear as night time and day - even to untrained ears. The great thing about great DA converters is that your wonderful speakers and headphones will sound much more amazing. FLAC: The Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) is the most popular lossless format, making it a sensible choice if you want to store your music in lossless. In contrast to WAV and AIFF, it's been compressed, so it takes up lots less house. Nonetheless, it's nonetheless a lossless format, which means the audio quality is still the same as the unique supply, so it's a lot better for listening than WAV and AIFF. It's also free and open source, which is useful should you're into that sort of factor. In 2008 I switched to a MacBook Professional and haven't had easy accessibility to my music assortment sense. In 2011, I ripped another batch of about a hundred and fifty new CD's I've purchased into Apple Lossless however now need to hold 3x music assortment folders. 1) WMA Lossless, 2) VBR MP3 (converted for itunes without art), and three) Apple Lossless. I have thought about switching again to a PC but I do like my mac so I'm caught with no choices. VLC media player can not solely convert between different video formats however it additionally does the identical with changing audio codecs. Originally thought to play media solely, this player has many further features. Changing between audio codecs is sort of easy with the free software. Lots of people don't use such features mainly because they do not know that they exist or there is not need for them. So this means m4a recordsdata have a a lot larger vary of bit rates than MP3's, which might solely deal with a most of 320kbps. This additionally means some m4a information may be worse than some mp3's, and vise versa. An mp3 could be compressed at a wide range of different bit charges, but can by no means exceed 320kbps. All mp3s are lossy, whereas just some m4a information are lossy, and a few m4a information are lossless. It depends what type of file is contained inside the m4a format.

I understand that when changing between audio codecs where no stream encoding is concerned like when changing between WAV (PCM), http://www.audio-transcoder.com/convert-alac-to-wma AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, WMA Lossless, and and so on, the process is usually lossless, because the PCM audio stream is simply being copied to the new container. Depending on the container type, it may be run via a compression algorithm to save lots of house, but it surely's still bit-for-bit an identical data. You possibly can also do the same factor with an MP4(AAC) file, by copying the AAC audio stream in an MKA container file; it's all lossless, because there isn't a re-encoding of the audio stream.With a whole lot of accessible file codecs it's hard to know which ones you will need. But the Apple Lossless Audio Codec ALAC to WAV converter software program remains to be extremely useful and simple to use. Simply add audio files to the Apple Lossless Audio Codec ALAC to WAV converter program, actually you possibly can drag-and-drop files to this system, select target format, and hit the Convert button. It's that easy.Online Audio Converter is a free on-line app that converts audio recordsdata for you. Working over 300 completely different file formats, this online FLAC converter can convert them to MP3, WAV, M4A, FLAC, OGG, AMR, MP2 and M4R (for iPhone ringtones). Much like other on-line converters , this FLAC file converter can extract audio from a video which you could save any theme music of scorching films at pleasure.

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leannastpierre-blog · 5 years ago

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Customer Evaluations

Convert MP4, MP3, WAV, MOV and extra to any format online. Step 4: Now on the left facet choose the Icon to your Audio CD. Right click it after which click on on Rip CD to library. You might the select the individual tracks in the event you like. 5. Select OK and then press the massive green Begin button that appears on the bottom of the display. Inside seconds the file will likely be transformed. You'll know the conversion is full if you see the Conversion Full box pop-up. Press the OKAY button to complete the method. Convert, copy, document and rip all kinds of audiofiles to whatever you like. Click on "Convert" button to transform CAF to MP3. To transform cda to wma, please install the CDDA Reader filter for reading CDA file. Use WinRar unzip the file, run "regsvr32 " to register it. CDA to MP3 Converter converts CDA to MP3 in batch. The converter also supports DTS Audio CD. The software program is an ALL-IN-ONE audio converter that converts more than 90 audio and video formats to AAC, convert cda to wma windows 10 media player AIFF, ALAC, CAF, FLAC, M4A, M4B, MP3, MP4, OGG, WAV, WMA, and so forth. There should be a software out there that you need to use to CONVERT the CDA file to WAV. Everytime I strive it gives me a giant crimson X. Even with convertingmp4 to mp3 I get the x. FreeRIP can "rip" chosen CD tracks and convert them to MP3, WAV, Wma, Ogg Vorbis or Flac recordsdata or convert MP3 to WAV onto your laborious drive. Load the audio you want to convert cda to wma windows 10 media player into AVS Audio Converter. Use the Add File , Seize from CD or Import from Video option to do this.

The default is C:\Paperwork and Settings\dgschnei\My Paperwork\My Music. If you want to change the situation folder of the command Copy Music, from within the Media Player select Instruments > Options > Copy Music > Change. Which means regardless of the place you play the video or who you share it with, it should play in the highest quality and format for that system. You possibly can manually choose the specified file too. Make it as technical as you want. 3. Add the audio information you want to convert. The program can convert files that have been simply ripped to the computer from audio CDs. Normally, these come within the WAV file format. Among the many forms of files you could convert these too, yow will discover MP3, OGG and WMA and even WAV. Mac users have a fast method to import CDs, as a result of when a CD is put within the drive, the CDA tracks are mounted as AIFF files within the Finder. It is thus possible to both drag the AIFF recordsdata from the Finder into Audacity, or use the File > Import > Audio command, instead of extracting the audio. Storing Music Files in your Pc - If it's essential to store audio tracks from CD in your laptop laborious drive then it's important to convert it different codecs ideally mp3. It's because CDA is just shortcut to the audio tracks and if you copy it to your pc then it cannot be played. So if in case you have an Audio CD and you wish to store its songs and music to your computer hard disk then one of the best solution is to convert it to MP3 format. By storing information as MP3 format in your pc you possibly can listen to it everytime you want and you don't have to insert the Audio CD everytime for listening music. Do you wanna save Spotify music to local computer or convert cda to wma windows 10 media player switch it on your music player as plain MP3 information? But Spotify doesn't have this selection for you, fortuitously with Spotify Music Converter , you may make them come true. This Spotify Music Converter is nicely-designed to transform Spotify music to plain MP3 for listening in your music participant or other portable devices. CDA recordsdata are files created by the pc's CD drivers which level to the situation of a monitor. MP3 is a file type which uses compression to save space. To convert CDA file to MP3 first make house for your files. You require a folder for the music to go into as well as sufficient house to retailer the entire music you want to copy through the process of 'ripping.' Choose a software program program comparable to Home windows Media Player. Double-verify your setting. You will need to search for settings to let you specify the place you wish to save the files and in what format. Lastly copy the files. Earlier than I begin my day today, I'm going to read the HELP on Swap Sound File Converter software program. If it happened to you and me both, possibly there's a mechanism to fix it. I do not understand how my co-employee did it simply high quality with NCH Switch Plus File Converter software and I could not, the identical precise audio file.No drawback, simply by performing a fast conversion using the latest model of RealPlayer, which features a WMA to MP3 file converter, you may turn these WMA recordsdata into MP3s and be in your means. If you happen to donвЂt have already got RealPlayer put in on your computer, simply click the orange button on the highest proper nook of this web page to download and set up it now.

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buylightroom-blog · 5 years ago

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Digital Photo Storage, Sorting and Manipulation

A digital photographer's darkroom is a place where all the post processing of his photographs are done in order to get the final finish which brings out the best of his photographs. You may have great photo gears and expensive camera and lenses that may take great photos but without a good post processing, your photos may not look its best. However, it is unfortunate that many photographers don't pay good attention in creating a good digital darkroom or post processing set up. There are few simple steps you can follow, few simple techniques you need to learn and apply and few items including software you need to source in order to create an effective and creative digital darkroom. In order to set up a digital darkroom, you need to allocate a space first. You don't need a big space for that. An extra spare room in your home, a corner of your living room or a portion of your home office can serve the purpose. Get a table, a comfortable chair and a storage rack to begin with. It will also be better if you can install neutral color curtains to cover the source of lights and make sure to paint the wall in neutral colors as well. Having neutral colors as the base room color will create less destruction and will help you focus on your computer monitor. Your table should preferably of L shaped or at least have some extra space to keep a photo printer and some extra stuff like your Camera(s) and notepads and other related accessories. Keep an extra folding chair just in case you need to have someone to work with you. Now the most important piece of hardware you need is a Computer. Does not matter if you use PC or Mac, but you need to make sure that you buy adobe lightroom a decent piece of hardware with a high resolution Monitor (preferably High Definition one.). Monitor size should be 17" and above allowing you to work with large format photographs. I found Dell ultra sharp monitors or Apple cinema displays as excellent choices. You may also have bigger sized laptops to do the work; however I won't recommend that as you may find your big and bulky laptop difficult to carry around to your shooting locations. What you may also do is, use an external monitor and attach it to your laptop when you work in your darkroom. Your laptop or computer should have a dual core or higher processor and at least 3GB RAM, decent graphic card and 320GB or higher storage space. Also get a decent photo printer to be able to print regular sized photos. I like Epson as my preferred brand for this; however you choose whatever you like based on your budget and requirement. Next thing you need is a storage rack to store your CDs/DVDs, Photo Gears, Books etc. Get a simple rack with locking feature to safely store your work and gears. You also will have to get one or two external hard drives to copy your photos from your computer and a CD/DVD burner to copy your photos in CD/DVD to keep as backup and also to give to your clients. I also suggest you buy an external memory card reader in order to download your photos to your Computer faster. Other thing you may need is few markers, CD/DVD sleeves, a table lamp or floor lamp and good speakers. Also make sure to have surge protectors and UPS in order to have uninterrupted power supply during your work. Let's look at the software side of your darkroom. First of all, you need image management and manipulation software. The first name comes to our mind is Adobe Photoshop. However, I must say that you really don't need to have Photoshop as your primary image management software. Photoshop is rather meant for professional graphic designers and digital artists. I would like to recommend another software from Adobe which is called Lightroom. It is more effective, far cheaper and easier software than Photoshop and this is more than what you need. Lightroom is more of an image management program with strong editing functions and a great raw conversion and editing program. Though Lightroom's photo editing is not as strong as Photoshop, but Lightroom does offer a lot in its editing and for many it will be all you ever need. But for photo only editing and correction, Lightroom is the way to go and of course you can use Photoshop as well if you want to. Oh I forgot to mention that if you shoot RAW, then you must use a RAW conversion and editing program. If your Camera has RAW capability, it will come with RAW conversion software and it will also have some RAW manipulation capability. You may also try to use Lightroom for RAW conversion and manipulation. Stepok's Raw Importer is a free and easy-to-use raw importing and converting tool, compatible with most camera models on markets. With the help of this tool, you can convert camera RAW files into best quality JPEG or TIFF format step by step. It supports batch converting! website HDR or High Dynamic Range photography is a new trend which many Photographers want to set their foot into. There are many HDR software available. The one I like and would like to recommend is Photomatix. You may also do some research to find the most suitable HDR software for you. Digital photographic files are really a subset of a much larger group of files called computer graphic files. And this group is really quite large. Perhaps the best authoritative text on computer graphics files is a big book called 'The Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats'. Also published by O'Reilly; this reference book will give you the skinny on the differences between JPEG, TIFF, BMP, etc. It's more of a 'nice to have on hand' type book. And it will definitely help you to think accurately about the file types it describes. If you have followed the above steps, then you are all set. Now start your journey. Few last things I must say are, calibrate your monitor, wear a neutral color outfit to minimize the interference with the monitor and be creative but don't over manipulate your photos. So enjoy and wish you all the best.

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