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Maybe not "personally influential" (I'm not even sure what that means), but lately my guilty pleasure would have to be Japan's Ayumi Hamasaki. She must be doing something right considering she's sold over 50 million albums and she's barely known outside of Asia.
Although my understanding is that she's not considered to be J-Pop in the same sense that, say, Shania Twain is not considered country.
I can't understand a word, but she's got some catchy tunes and a discography the size of which would make most north-American artists look like lazy bums.
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Yea, I re-worded that. When I originally wrote it I was thinking of artists like E Nomine, Megaherz, Ayumi Hamasaki, Maximum the Hormone, etc which for me really got me interested not only in different music but different languages. But really I'm just curious what people like even though they might not understand it all.
I like Ayumi, haven't heard more recent stuff, but Moments[^] is still a great track.
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What are the odds that some random guy on CP asking about music in other languages happens to also know of her...
Mid- to late 00's has some of her best material, even though some hate her newer stuff - personally, I like it all. I've also tried "expanding my horizons", so to speak, on the Japanese market, and Namie Amuro and Koda Kumi are also worthy of mention.
In a completely different genre...I'm also a fan of Pavarotti. Still can't understand a word, but with a voice like that, who cares about the lyrics?
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dandy72 wrote: In a completely different genre...I'm also a fan of Pavarotti. Still can't understand a word, but with a voice like that, who cares about the lyrics?
I don't believe I've heard any Pavarotti. I'll have to check that out. I like E Nomine even though I don't speak a lick of German or Latin. They sound so unlike any other band and I just keep coming back.
dandy72 wrote: What are the odds that some random guy on CP asking about music in other languages happens to also know of her...
Apparently pretty good. I ran into her about a decade ago when I started getting into anime. I haven't heard Namie Amuro or Koda Kumi though.
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Jon McKee wrote: I don't believe I've heard any Pavarotti. I'll have to check that out.
Luciano Pavarotti...the opera singer. Even if you can't stand opera, then look for his Ti Adoro album. Tell me this isn't just a fun video... 
Jon McKee wrote: I haven't heard Namie Amuro or Koda Kumi though.
Apparently there's some sort of rivalry between Namie and Ayumi's fans, but I don't see why one can't be a fan of both. Her song Hero was used for some Olympics event. She announced she's retiring this year (at the ripe old age of 40).
Koda Kumi isn't as popular, but she hasn't been at it for as long.
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First language: English.
I like Sigur Rós (Iceland) and a few cuts from a Swedish band I can't remember the name of at the moment.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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Anime music for sure, going from all the Urusei Yatsura songs to Kalafina's music from Puella Magi and newer stuff.
On the classical end, mostly Latin from groups like "The Sixteen" and "Tallis Scholars"
Arabic and Turkish music too- I'm learning to play ney and oud.
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Paul Kemner wrote: ney and oud
Had to look that up. Never heard of those instruments before. Any recommended Arabic or Turkish songs? I don't even know where I'd start.
Paul Kemner wrote: Puella Magi
This reminds me. Wow Mahou Shoujo Site from this season caught me off guard. Was not expecting a horror adaptation of the classic mahou shoujo formula.
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If you like recent music that has a strong traditional edge to it, check out the group Niyaz- esp their Nine Heavens album. For something more pop-oriented, Natacha Atlas is great.
Turkish music is famous for using odd rhythms- including 7/8 and 11/8 for dances. 
Learning Mideast 'scales' - maquam, is really difficult. Some scales are different in the 2nd octave, and there are about 70 possible pitches in an octave.
The whole Magical Girl genre has moved into more horrifying territory. (I was just on a panel for this at Penguicon- I described Puella Magi as being like a MG series written by George RR Martin). As far as I can tell, it started with Magical Knight Rayearth (Rescue the princess- Yay! - Now you have to kill her!) Magical Girl Raising Project is another recent one. They end up killing each other off.
If you haven't seen "Is This A Zombie?" it is hilarious. Magical chainsaw-wielding male-zombie-magical-girl protagonist, with vampire-ninjas and a cute necromancer.
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How about Unreal Gold?
For a couple of days, GoG is giving it away: Unreal Gold for free[^] and so is Steam: Unreal Gold also free[^]
Knock yourself out, folks!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Not that bored to install a Windows VM, after 8 months of being clean...
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge". Stephen Hawking, 1942- 2018
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You know you want to - first VM is free. It'll feel so good as you open Edge to install Chrome.
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stone soup dungeon crawl[^]
Time for everyone to man-up!*
Installation? Unzip file to folder. Click on .exe - and you're off!
They also have a play-on-line portal (also free).
* or any of 26 or so other species
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I would suggest Zelda: A Link To The Past Randomizer which can be found at ALTTP VR[^]. It's an imaginative twist on a classic I imagine many people here have enjoyed  It makes random (but still completable) item seeds of ALTTP that turn the game from a RPG into a logic puzzle.
modified 23-May-18 16:40pm.
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(This is along the same lines as an earlier posting about Size on Disk being different, although ironically that was on a drive with proper speed.)
So I have this WD drive that of course is only a few months out of warranty  , and running super slow, as in I'm used to getting about 30 MB/s transfer, but now only getting 30 KB/s.
Should I presume that this is ready to go? I would do a CHKDSK, but at this speed, the Sun will have become a white dwarf before finishing.
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maybe the USB bus is busted ? have you tried on a different USB plug or another compyter?
you could try disassemble the drive itself and use another usb adaptor.
I'd rather be phishing!
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Other hard drives seem to work in the same USB ports. But this whole rig is on its last legs, so who knows. Once I get over my problem of HP selling me *my recently purchased) system without a valid Windows activation key , I can check it there, along with some dongles that have mysteriously stopped working.
I double storage for everything, and I have a just a few hundred gigs over 2 TB of stuff, but 900 gigs of it is torrent music that I haven't gotten around to trimming, so I will split that into 2 (making a spreadsheet for the torrents in there), and thus will be able to fit everything on the 2 remaining 2TB hard drives.
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Maximilien wrote: maybe the USB bus is busted ? have you tried on a different USB plug or another compyter?
Other drives using the same port work perfectly.
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I had EXACTLY the same problem, about 6 months ago.
I took all of my PC apart to clean it, get the dust out etc, and when I put it back together, guess what?
The 2 WD External USB Hard drives I have plugged in, dropped thier speeds to stupidly slow, just as you described.
The solution?
First off, I took them out of the cheap little USB hub I had them plugged into.
Then I plugged them into another USB socket, and hey presto the speed shot back up.
So I started experimenting, swapping them around different combinations, on different ports, with different hubs and cables and such like.
What I found was that WD External hard drives are damn fussy about the sockets you plug them into.
On the PC I'm currently using I Have 16 USB Sockets.
5 of them are only USB 1, the rest are all USB 2 except for one which is a USB 3 mounted on a PCIe card.
The v1 sockets where a complete no-go, and the v3 socket just refused to even acknowledge there was a device there.
of the remaining sockets, 4 are sockets soldered directly to the mother board, 2 are mounted in the cases plastic front and are connected to the mother board with a custom ribbon cable that also carries the LED's power switch etc
The final 4 are those 10 pin double row industry standard things with 2 sockets on an expansion slot that plug onto a set of pins on the mother board.
Out of all the remaining v2 sockets, the only ones the WD drives would operate at full speed on where 1 of the 4 sockets soldered on, and one set of two connected by the pin header.
Also one of the USB cable, need to have one of those ferrite chokes on (The big round chunky things about and inch away from the plug), without the choke the 2Tb drive wouldn't get up any faster than about 700k
All the time I was going through different combinations, other devices I was testing with all had no issues what so ever on sockets and cable combinations that the WD drives where basically having a cow over.
Among some of the other devices I was testing with, where a seagate 3.5in desktop drive, a sandisc 2.5 in portable USB drive, various SD cards and card reader's and mobile phones and tablets connected by USB.
It took a LOT OF EFFORT and time to find the correct combination for each drive, but now I have them plugged in, I have stickers on them so if i do have to unplug stuff, I know exactly which USB ports are for which device.
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I would lean more towards it being near full.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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I have noticed that drives do strange and unpredictable things when they are starting to go. If your backups are good then at least you are safe in that regard. Did you try scanning it with antivirus?
<sig notetoself="think of a better signature">
<first>Jim</first> <last>Meadors</last>
</sig>
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In my experience there are two major reasons for drives to slow down considerably.
Being full, and growing bad sectors.
Make sure you have a backup.
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Get a utility like CrystalDiskInfo to check the drive health stats.
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