#rishie-p

[spectrearia]

going down the Vocaloid rabbit hole again and I stumbled across this cover of Ghost Rule that uses a version of Miku I've never heard before:

I am?? in LOVE??? this song has been a favorite of mine for a while now and this is genuinely one of the best covers I've heard, wow. the vocal runs?? the cries?? the GROWLS??? aaaAaaaa its so good 😭

[shutinlear53]

Guys, I brought Miku to life

Art by Rishie-P

[into-the-mikuverse]

Creator Spotlight: Rishie-P

Wanna hear Hatsune Miku with real power and strong emotion in her singing? Have I got the producer for you! Meet Rishie-P and their fantastic tuning that makes our favorite Vocaloid sound almost human with how she belts and growls in their music!

Please subscribe to them, they deserve more views with how strong and lifelike they can make the voice synthesizers!

[vocaloidsongpoll]

do you like this vocaloid song?

(FLASHING IMAGES WARNING)

(composed by Rishie-P)

submitted by an anonymous user! thank you so much!!!

[utaitemusic]

A lonely girl mutters "I'm fine", Have words failed her? A failure, a failure. Obsessing over her mistakes Makes everything spin again!

[vocaloidthingoftheday]

Rishie-P is a western vocaloid producer known for her covers, and original rock songs such as Spirit In The Mirror, Distance From You, World's Too Loud and Once More. She mainly uses the Hatsune Miku Solid voicebank

[vocadb]

[peter-griffin-mpreg-the-second]

Y’all have no idea what I’d give to hear rishie’s tuning for the first time again

[sad-leon]

When your greif becomes so overpowering that you break shit, but now you're left empty and with just as much greif as you started with, if not more.

Anyways- guess who was listening to Lost One's Weeping again :D (it was me, i am so normal over that song)

[shuknopadma]

Prem Rog (1982) dir. Raj Kapoor

[eaglesnick]

Private Sector Good, Public Sector Bad?

The reigning ideological economic theory within the Conservative Party is, and has been ever since Margaret Thatcher came to power, that “markets know best”

This was made abundantly clear when Kwasi Kwateng, the Chancellor of Liz Truss’s short-lived government, dismissed anything resembling a “planned economy”. Rather, growth and economic success depended on:

“…the power of our treasured free-market economy to leverage private capital and unleash Britain’s unique entrepreneurial spirit to grow new industries." (The Conversation: 13/04/22)

The key words here are “to leverage private capital”. What this means in ordinary speech is to encourage private investors to participate financially in “projects that benefit the economy, society or the environment”.  This has resulted in private investors running (and in many cases, owning) most of our public utilities and services. But rather than “benefit the economy, society and environment" these private investors have devastated it.

Over the next few blogs I intend to look at various British/English public utilities and services and to see how they have fared under the private sector.  First up are the railways.

Britain’s railways are organised within a mishmash of private and public ownership, and has been described as “broken" and no longer fit for purpose.

“The UK's train network is not only one of the worst in Europe, it is also one of the most expensive.” (euronews: 20/05/21

This is no surprise given its complex and chaotic structure.   The railway tracks and rail network are owned and operated by Network Rail, which is a “non-departmental public body of the Department for Transport, (DFT) with no shareholders"

 Non-departmental public bodies are a strange entity. They are national or regional bodies that work independently of government, are not staffed by civil servants, and yet are still accountable to government ministers. It is the Secretary of State for Transport who sets the strategic direction of the railways, allocating funding, and it is the secretary of state  who has to approve major investments in the railway system.

The companies that operate the trains are privately owned and are either awarded franchises from the DFT, or they are “open access” operators that provide passenger services on a particular route or network, but with no exclusive rights enjoyed by franchise holders.

To complicate matters further, the actual trains, passenger carriages and railway wagons, known collectively as “rolling stock”, are owned by the rolling stock leasing companies” (ROSCOs) who lease out their stock to the privately owned rail operating companies.

Freight train operators are totally separate from passenger trains, have no contracts with government but do need permission from Network Rail to run their services.

For year 2022/23 the railways received £11.9bn of government funding and Network Rail has secured £27.5 bn of government funding over the next five years. In short, we the taxpayer invest heavily in our rail network which the private passenger, rolling stock and freight companies use to make a profit.

A 2019 report by the TUC found that:

“Rail firms have paid over £1bn to shareholders in the last 6 years.” (TUC: 02/01/2019)

In 2022 Avanti West Coast received a taxpayer subsidy of £343m, despite having the worst punctuality record amongst train operators and paying out £12m to its shareholders. Avanti West Coast is owned by First Group, who also own Great Western Railway and South Western Railway. Great Western paid out the largest dividend in 2021/22, £33m, while South Western paid out  £13m. 

More recently:

“UK rail operator Govia awards $79m in dividends amid UK rail dissatisfaction.” (Railway Technology: 08/01/24)

Govia is largely foreign owned, the three largest shareholder companies being Australian, Spanish and French. In 2022 it was fined £23m “over financial irregularities" having failed to return £25m in taxpayer funding. Why on earth any government would want to go on subsidising such a company is beyond understanding, especially as the Transport Minister at the time said the company had:

“…committed an appalling breach of trust...behaviour was simply unacceptable and this penalty sends a clear message that the government, and taxpayers, will not stand for it." (BBC News: 17/03/22)

Clearly the minister (Grant Shapps) didn’t mean what he said as Govia is still operating trains two years later and still courting controversy

Turning to the train-leasing companies, we find:

“Profits of UK’s private train-leasing firms treble in a year. More than £400m paid in dividends in 2022-23 while rest of railway faced cuts and salary freezes.” (Guardian: 18/02/24)

These companies saw their profit margins rise to 41%, a profit that we as taxpayers and passengers pay for. It is estimated that "taxpayers are now effectively paying the £3.1bn spent last year on leasing trains.” To actually run a passenger rail service yet not own a single locomotive or passenger carriage is bazaar to say the very least.

Finding overall profit figures for freight train operators is a little more difficult but Colas Rail UK’s revenue in 2022 was £15,529m, up 17% on the previous year, an operating profit of £460m.

 Overall, taxpayer subsidies to the rail industry run at £6bn per year. However, these massive subsidies have not led to lower fares, an end to over-crowed trains, or an efficient service. According to TaxPayers Alliance 02/01/23) "rail subsidies cost taxpayers £1300 each by March 2023.” Meanwhile the private companies that operate the highly fragmented and disjointed system continue to reap profits and pay out dividends.

Maybe this would not be so bad if the British taxpayer subsidised dividend payouts went to British owned companies, but this is far from the case:

“According to the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union, 70% of Britain’s railways are now under foreign ownership to some degree.” (CityA.M.: 11/01/17)

The figure of 70% foreign ownership is disputed, not least because some companies have gone bust since 2017, with five lines now being effectively run by the government as “operators of last resort.”  As the 1993 Railways Act forbids the UK state from running the railways these lines are likely to be franchised out to private firms in the future.

“…many foreign state-owned enterprises of the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy and Hong Kong now run rail franchises in the UK." (The Standard: 11/05/23)

While other countries have no philosophical problem with running railways for the benefit of their citizens, and clearly have no qualms about investing state money in foreign ventures, the Conservative Party is ideologically opposed to state intervention in running UK public services and is vehemently opposed to setting up a UK sovereign wealth fund.

In summary, successive Tory governments have continued to pay taxpayers money into the coffers of private enterprise regardless of how efficient, honest or effective these firms are at providing an essential public service. Clearly, where the railways are concerned, they are not run to “benefit the economy, society and environment" but for the benefit and interests of private investors, in the mistaken Tory belief that private enterprise is always better than public stewardship despite evidence to the contrary.  

[sunkisstbear]

It’s Miku~

[vocaloid-producer-battle]

hi hi! sorry if this is a silly question, are producers who only make cover songs allowed (ex. rishie-p, akem, etc.)?

not a silly question at all!! those producers are definitely allowed, but if they have any original songs id prefer you submit those for the example song. thanks for asking :D

[okadaizoirl]

RISHIE-P HAS DONE IT AGAIN!!!!!!!!

[sw5w]

...Just South of the Rishi Maze

STAR WARS EPISODE II: Attack of the Clones 00:34:14

[eaux-fortes]

Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa

[utaitemusic]

Going back and forth between the best and the worst The fruit of anxiety becoming sweet No more development, even if you take a jealous breath