Sluagh Sidhe Productions

 Many years ago, I read an article about a man who needed to install iTunes on his computer for some reason. I don't remember exactly why, and I can't find the article again. But for some reason, even though he didn't want to use the programme, he needed it on his computer. He was disturbed to find that iTunes had taken all of the music in his library, most of which was in a lossless format, and much of which was unique, original, or hard to find, and replaced it with lossy, low-fidelity mp3 versions. When he called Apple support, it took him a while to find someone who was able to address his concerns at all, but when he did, she simply kept repeating the phrase, 'The system is working as intended.' In other words, it was a feature, not a bug. The software was designed to do this. I don't pretend to understand why. But the way iTunes was written, it was meant to upload all the original files to the server, delete the originals from the customer's hard drive...

The History of Music Recording The first device capable of recording sound was the phonoautograph, patented in 1857. Although this device was an incredible breakthrough in recording technology, it was never intended to make reproducible sounds; only to translate soundwaves into a visible medium for the purpose of studying audiophonics. It wasn't until Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877 that replayable sound recordings became possible, and even then, such recordings were very low-fidelity affairs. It took decades of refinement before high-quality sound recordings became possible. Regardless, it has been less than 200 years since humans devised a way to record sound in any format. For the hundreds of thousands of years prior to that, humans could only listen to music when it was being performed live. But during the last 164 years, attitudes towards music have changed drastically. Until the 1950s, musicians and songwriters were often different people. Notable exceptions to ...

Before we start examining this issue in depth, let's make sure we know what we're talking about. A roleplaying game is one in which players play a role. Most people are familiar with Dungeons and Dragons , but that's only one of many. In D&D , players take on the role of an adventurer. A warrior, a wizard, an assassin, a sneaky rogue, a priest of some fantasy religion endowed with mystical gifts of their god... these are just a few of the roles that can be played in D&D . These 'characters' encounter monsters or other enemies, whom they must defeat in combat, and are often rewarded with whatever treasure the monster was guarding. There are other types of adventures, and other types of encounters, but the trope of 'kick in the door, kill the monster, take their stuff' exists for a reason. Many roleplaying games (or RPGs for short) follow a similar format: a GM (game master) or DM (dungeon master) describes what the other players see, the players descr...

 I recently read a post on Tumblr that said that 'There are two kinds of people: those who think, "I don't want anyone to suffer like I did," and those who think "I suffered, why shouldn't they?"' I found myself really struck by that sentiment. I'd never thought of it that way. But it explains a lot. I'm one of the 'I don't want anyone to suffer like I did' variety. I had a horrible childhood. Despite being a straight, white, able-bodied cis male, I was constantly the subject of scorn and derision. My classmates constantly bullied me, because I didn't dress the way they did. I didn't act like they did. I was smarter than they were. And it sucked. Anyone who says 'Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me' has clearly never been the subject of constant exclusion and ridicule by their peers. Humans, as social animals, need to be accepted. Words will, in fact, hurt far more than sticks or sto...