Zeus

As someone who grew up poor, I can tell you that you do what you have to when you have to. Not everyone has a lot of money to afford brand new things. No need to look down your nose at people who have less than you.

When it's the middle of the winter and there's snow up to your knees and the options are "wear someone else's boots" or "go outside with no boots", someone else's boots start looking like a really good option.

Interesting question!

I was into visual kei for many years. I witnessed the bumpy transformation from 90's visual kei to 00's visual kei (although it wasn't as prominent and 9 year old me didn't really know what was going on...I was just in it for what free tunes I could get) and one noticeable part of this transformation was how many online fans didn't move with it. Those that loved the old goth style of the 90s continued to but as the scene moved away from that sound and style they found less and less artists that appealed to them until they quit the scene entirely. This transition seems to happen every ten years because I'm witnessing it again. There's another transition occurring but lots of bands are going in many different directions. I bet in a few years we'll see the birth of new sub-scenes again like oshare-kei that we use informally to describe the new sounds that form (and I can see them forming around bands that use dubstep influence, alt-rock bands, "traditional"-influenced bands, etc.).

As for me, I haven't cared about visual kei in years. There's an undeniable sound associated with it that appeals to all of us somewhat but the scene is saturated with a lot of bands that play very similar music. After ten or so years of listening to the same bands play the same kind of music and watching the progression of visual kei slow to a glacial pace, I got bored. @CAT5 at the time helped me to get adjusted to the other side of Japanese music, which in turn helped me to appreciate different artists in the visual kei scene which were doing things a little differently but we're still pretty cool. It also gave me perspective on just how small this scene really is. In a way, I came full circle back into visual kei but the artists that I enjoy and the amount I'm into it certainly has changed. Now I'm really into a lot of the alternative rock visual kei bands, nagoya-kei bands, or otherwise visual kei oddities that don't fit into the metalcore spectrum.

After thirteen years I can say that there's always bands in visual kei that sound different from the rest of the competition. @emmny mentions deadman and how influential they are as an "old band" but remember that deadman and Aliene Ma'riage were contemporaries! At the time, deadman was playing music completely new to the scene and look where it's got them. It's always easy to look back and say that yesterday's bands are better than today's bands because of x reasons but hindsight is always 20-20 and time has a way of preserving only the best. I feel like we won't really know if the scene's improving or dying for the next few years but I have more hope for the future of the scene now than I did a few years ago. 

It's really about how far you want to dig to find it and how willing you are to give new things a chance. And this is coming from someone who barely listens to any new visual kei.

https://twitter.com/kurogane_s/status/661020573565190144

Matsuki Miyu (voice of Yoshinoya-sensei, Anna Nishikinomiya) has just passed away on Oct 27.

What will happen to Fate/Prisma Ilya...

Got dumped again....what is wrong with me....

"Hey, I left you alone these few days and I made up my mind. I'm breaking up with you. The blame or the problem is not you, so you should not feel guilty about doing something wrong. Dont blame yourself nor take the guilt for the breakup. We can stay friends if that is something you would be ok with you but if you dont want to then I understand"

Uhh...

I am Garbage, and garbage belongs in the trash.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm a loser, a pile of rotting horse shit. I am and always will be alone, I deserve a violent death, I deserve a split skull. My brain torn to shreds, my throat snapped, my arms broken. I deserve to be shoved off of a cliff, to be shot multiple times until unrecognizable, slow painful torture. I'll leave the world how I came, alone. Live alone die alone. Die as I've lived, a filthy unwanted heathen . A Shit stain, a tragic mistake, bile, a whiny baby, a pussy, nothing but an insignificant fly. A germ, scum, maggot, worm, pathetic excuse for a sack of flesh.

I didn't even copy the GIF hid yesterday.

I am not a psychologist or therapist but you are very clearly depressed. No one knows how to address your depression or self-loathing, so they just let you be to sort out your own issues. Except you seem unwilling or unable to. Look at how you talk about yourself. Look at what you think about doing to yourself. That's unacceptable. Get a therapist and talk about all your problems from beginning to end before you do something you'll regret.

There is no shame in seeking help when you need it.

pic of yourself?

 

 

But for this thread: Don't try to change your avi when your restricted cause it turns out you cant, and you end up burned with no face at all.

Try now

The best autotune is the kind I can't notice. If I notice it a little bit here and there it won't bother me. It could be used to good effect to highlight a particular section of the song. Of course this can always backfire if it is not used well. Some genres of music can have more leeway with autotune use than others.

The moment you go T-Pain with it is when I can't listen to it anymore no matter what genre it is.

The following is an example of a VK song that successfully used autotune.

So is this a sign of more official activities or is it just for the upcoming tour?

Really sad not to see Femme Fatale's "Powder" on here. Probably the best visual kei track I've heard all year. 

We try to include as many releases as we can onto BNT each month. It takes us a few days to combine this list, look over errors, and format it, so by design we miss a lot of releases that come out at the end of each month. We didn't have enough time to properly judge Powder (or Lycaon's LAST DANCE for that matter) so they are not here.

Why don't you think about contributing a blurb for Femme Fatale for next month?

I haven't done this in quite a while! Let's get to it.
 
Comet Lucifer - An interesting plot and world setting was devised in the first episode. Then, I felt like the writers got stuck in Detail Drive and we haven't moved since. There's a lot of build-up but by the fifth episode (I only watched four) I should have a general idea of what the plot is about and where the story is going. And frankly, I don't have it.  Two more eps and then I'm dropping it.
 
Concrete Revolution - Talk about compensating for an uninteresting plot by convoluting it to the point where no one cares anymore. So there's this organization that protects supernatural people from other people for unknown reasons, except one of them decides to leave and it's an issue and we're chasing him and we don't know why. It's been four episodes and they move back and forth between three different points in time to avoid explaining why anything is happening. There's selling a mystery and then being completely unable to write a story. I know of two other people IRL watching this show and neither can tell me the slightest bit about the overall story after four episodes. Total garbage!
 
Heavy Object - this show failed to grab my attention entirely. The story wasn't doing it for me and the action is stiff and very limited. If it's going to be an anime about war and machines, it needs to be much more engaging for me.
 
Shinmai Maou no Testament S2 - why did I even start watching this BS in the first place? A more erotic version of DxD but instead of the protagonist being cool, he's some overpowered wussbag that won't land some tail when it's being thrown right at him. And dear god does every episode have a ten-minute montage of nonsensical ecchi bullshit that doesn't push the plot forward....which is actually pretty fucking dope when the main characters aren't the focus. Such a confused show that would have a lot of potential if it didn't use so much fanservice. Undecided as to if I'm following this or not.
 
K: Return of Kings - yaaaas. Best thing out right now IMHO.

Ace of Diamond S2 - best baseball anime I've ever seen. It has some pacing issues and they just love to drag out games and prepare hype. But it is really well done, teaches you a lot about baseball, and does a good job at developing all of its characters. I'm surprised I've become this attached to Seido, Inashiro, and Yakushi  to the point where I don't want any of them to lose. Plus the way drama unfolds both on and off the mound is very well done! There's always something to look forward to each week. Recommended for anyone who likes sports anime and doesn't mind baseball.

One Punch Man - a show about a superhero for fun who kills everything in one hit. A complete power trip and joke but one done so well I enjoy it! One of my surprise favorites of the season!

Owari no Seraph: Nagoya Kessen-hen - there was a ton of build-up at the beginning of this show and it just seems to have taken that potential and gone nowhere with it. S1 had a very anti-climactic ending and S2 isn't making big strides to make up for lost time. Shit needs to start happening or my attention is going to wander...

Gakusen Toshi Asterisk - Japanese Star Wars, featuring harems, a luddite of an MC, and high school. Claudia Enfield is the biggest reason why I watch this show. Her bipolar personality is the most interesting, complex facet of this show. I also like how they hint that the corruption goes much deeper than it initially seems. The action is pretty intense too! Everyone else is a walking trope that I don't care for too much. Good to watch if you don't mind turning your brain off.

Overall verdict: Better than last season

I'll see what I can do.

That's absolutely messed up.

According to the site DarkWater linked the top 10 sites most likely to have compromised your information would be:

Top 10 breaches

152,445,165 Adobe accounts

30,811,934 Ashley Madison accounts

13,545,468 000webhost accounts

4,821,262 mail.ru Dump accounts

4,789,599 Bitcoin Security Forum Gmail Dump accounts

4,609,615 Snapchat accounts

3,867,997 Adult Friend Finder accounts

3,474,763 Спрашивай.ру accounts

3,122,898 MPGH accounts

2,983,472 XSplit accounts

I checked my accounts and I'm all good

I voted for "more reviews" and "articles that aren't reviews".

 

And since I don't necessarily mean 'do more work' I'd encourage the review team to do more reviews of shorter releases. I get why you'd gravitate toward reviews of full-lengths but I'd also enjoy short ~200 word reviews of singles that act as a jumping off point for discussion.

I would say more articles that aren't reviews but are music-related.

I like reviews, but I tend to not read most of them.

Stay tuned! We've actually been working on some things for the last few months that you will really like. One should be ready relatively soon.

Can't you guys just come back together?

I am missing something...can someone please explain how YouTube Red is forcing companies / people to pull videos?

It would be even cheaper to close the website instead of updating it, because they wouldn't have to pay for the servers and staff anymore. I think someone wanted to change it to have it earn more money, but they did a shitty job by ignoring the userbase.

Yes but in corporate America everything is to please stockholders. Those that own (lots of) stock in a company are those that end up profiting from good decisions and hurting the most from the bad ones. Suddenly closing a service you spent lots of money and time on with no warning other than "we didn't feel like supporting it anymore" will not go over will with NBC's stockholders. It doesn't inspire confidence and doesn't make people want to invest. Being able to point to the site update and saying "users no longer use the site so it's not wise to continue investing in it and losing more money" is a more palatable way of getting the same result, even if the reason why users are leaving is one of their own doing.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's somewhere in the middle tho and stockholders have been putting pressure on NBC to go lean and cut excess services like last.fm, and this update was either monetize the site or die trying.

Why throwing so much money out of the window just to revamp the site though? They could have simply let it die slowly and peacefully without that damn update.

 

Though I am sure there is an answer and it's “because they are idiots”.

Now it can die faster. The amount of money it cost to push out this broken update is probably less than the amount of money it would take to keep the website operational. That's why they broke core functionality and called it an update, are banning people for asking questions about the state of the website, and don't seem to be moving to fix issues like people that care about it. The things I'm reading in this topic about issues they are still having that haven't been resolved are disgusting.

I voted with my actions, deleted my account and walked away. It seems like last.fm's death is inevitable at this point. When it was just one or two weeks where the site was in flux it would be understandable. This is bordering on months and people are excited when the developers restore features that were once there. There's taking what you can get and then bending over and taking it unwillingly and I will never get the two confused.

I've checked out those channels and they are still working in the EU, it doesn't seem like anything else has changed here either. This makes me wonder whether or not YouTube Red will be effective in the US earlier than in the EU.

I forgot to mention in my post that YouTube Red starts in the US for now. No announced date for when it begins elsewhere.

@MaikoMizu brought this to my attention in the status updates. It fits very well with the direction of this topic so I will include it below. Personally, I do not think this move is a good business move to make at this time. Not because I think that YouTube Red is a gamble but because I think that the moves they are making below will bring some bad press and will reflect badly on YouTube Red.

As we upgrade the YouTube Data API to bring more features, we’ll begin shutting down the old version on April 20, 2015. This will result in the current YouTube app not working on certain device models from 2012 and older.

We will continue to focus our efforts on improving our official YouTube app for TV which is available on most 2013 and newer Smart TVs and Blu-ray players, game consoles, streaming devices, and set-top boxes (e.g. Virgin Media, BSkyB Now TV Box, TiVo). You can find a list of our device partners here.

 

Devices affected

Select devices manufactured in 2012 and earlier, including:

• Sony TVs & Blu-ray Discs
• Panasonic TVs & Blu-ray Discs
• Sony Playstation Vita
• Older iOS (iOS 5 and earlier) devices
• Older AppleTV (1st and 2nd gen)
• Older set-top boxes (ex, DirectTV)

Devices not affected

• Android (Download the YouTube app from the Google Play Store)
• Apple iPhone/iPad running iOS 7 or later (Download the YouTube app from the App Store)
• Apple TV (3rd gen model w/ 1080p, or newer)
• Google TV (v3 and v4)
• Android TV
• Most 2013 and newer Smart TVs and Blu-ray players
• Streaming devices including Roku, Western Digital, Chromecast
• Set-top boxes including Virgin Media, BSkyB Now TV Box, TiVo, J:Com
• Game consoles: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii, Wii U, 3DS
• Desktop, laptop, or other device (Mac, PC, etc) with a web browser supported by www.youtube.com
• Phone, tablet, or other device (Kindle, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Nokia, Android, iOS, etc) with a web browser supported by m.youtube.com

Few points:

• Dropping PS Vita support means even Sony is abandoning the system...why not simply push out an update? Or is the PS Vita not that advanced? (I don't have one)
• Just noting that the PS3 still has support but the Vita doesn't....and the Vita came out after the PS3...
• How many people actually stream YouTube at their TV? I know on the XB1 when we were over at a friend's house we would play music all of the time but that's it. If we lost YT we could bump music from another channel. This feels like an inconsequential loss to me.
• Older model iPhones? Ouch...
• What older set top boxes could stream YouTube?????
• Who uses AppleTV?
• This really won't affect too many people and I don't think it prohibits anyone from accessing the service in a reasonable way.

I've seen this exact situation play out once before with Versailles. I do hope he is okay. AvelCain please update us on his condition periodically and let the fans know how he is doing. The worst thing for a fan to feel is the loss of a beloved musician with no real warning.

Welcome to MH! Have fun and enjoy your stay. If you need anything talk to someone with a red, blue, or green name.

I had an unexpected anxiety attack on my way back from work today. It's the third one this week. I'm legitimately a bit worried for myself. Things like this don't usually happen...

I have submitted a request to Google to recrawl all the pages on this website. Let's see if that does the trick.

I'm pretty ignorant about this entire subject. Can someone define what transsexual, transgender, genderqueer, etc. is? I get it but I don't.

Also I have a more targeted question for @leafwork: does HRT put a strain on your body that you weren't expecting?

Listening to music in the background. I already have an MP3-player option for that on my phone. I also have the Spotify app. I only go on Youtube if I actually want to watch something, hence the video-option.

This is completely useless to me and I think it will cause people to move over to a free zone such as Vimeo instead. Youtube makes millions because millions of people watch videos on it every day, and therefore watch millions of ads. I won't support hounds like this.

I wouldn't downplay Google's acquisition of YouTube either. A lot of my fondest memories of YouTube came before the copyright censorship, forced Google+ integration, and ads everywhere. I wonder how much of a hand Google had in shaping YouTube Red.

I think this is useless as well. I have apps to get videos I want to download and keep. I'm no caveman so I have an MP3 player for all my music listening needs. And it's not like there are many "content creators" I follow, certainly not enough and not often enough to spend $10 a month. What really stood out to me was the following line which I quoted above:

YouTube Music is designed to make discovering, watching and listening to music easier than ever. Any song or artist you choose on YouTube Music will start you on a personal journey through one of the richest music catalogs; just sign in, tap a track you love, and see where your music takes you. And as a special bonus - YouTube Red works with Google Play Music, so subscribe to one and automatically get access to the other.

The first thing I thought of is that they're coming for Last.fm's throne.

@yakihiko brought this to my attention! I think it's really interesting and deserves more of my attention.

http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2015/10/red.html

For years, YouTube’s fans have been telling us they want more—more choice when watching their favorite content, more ways to support their favorite creators and, above all, the option to watch their favorite videos uninterrupted.

On October 28, we’re giving fans exactly what they want. Introducing YouTube Red -- a new membership designed to provide you with the ultimate YouTube experience.

YouTube Red lets you enjoy videos across all of YouTube without ads, while also letting you save videos to watch offline on your phone or tablet and play videos in the background, all for $9.99 a month. Your membership extends across devices and anywhere you sign into YouTube, including our recently launched Gaming app and a brand new YouTube Music app we’re announcing today that will be available soon.

YouTube Music is designed to make discovering, watching and listening to music easier than ever. Any song or artist you choose on YouTube Music will start you on a personal journey through one of the richest music catalogs; just sign in, tap a track you love, and see where your music takes you. And as a special bonus - YouTube Red works with Google Play Music, so subscribe to one and automatically get access to the other.

And starting early next year, YouTube Red will get even better with member-only access to new, original shows and movies from some of YouTube’s biggest creators. You can read all about Originals coming to YouTube Red here.

http://gizmodo.com/youtubers-are-up-in-arms-about-youtube-red-1738022087

For months, YouTube has been talking to video creators about its new subscription plans and is prioritizing user experience above all else. That means if creators don’t sign a YouTube Red contract, their videos will be marked “private,” meaning nobody can see them. Otherwise, YouTube Red subscribers would be unable to access videos that non-subscribers have access to, which means subscribers would be getting less content than they would on free YouTube, not more.

“Both creators and users have been asking for a YouTube subscription service and that’s why we built YouTube Red,” a YouTube spokesperson told Gizmodo. “Today, the overwhelming majority of our partners, representing nearly 99-percent of the content watched on YouTube, have signed up. Videos of partners who don’t update their terms will be made private, but we remain committed to working closely with these partners with the goal of bringing them on board.”

 

That curious “1 percent” is pretty tricky, though, especially for the people who make a living through their YouTube channels. Based on initial reactions, some in the YouTube community are outraged. One YouTuber even created a petition called “Stop YouTube Red” that’s garnered close to 6,000 signatures so far. People aren’t just upset about the YouTube creator contract, either. People seem generally scared about a world where you have to pay to watch some YouTube videos.